Episodes

• 30Jun 09

  The Conduit - First Impressions

  

  "Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come." - Anne Lamott

  I can't help but think of Lamott's insightful quote concerning hope when reflecting on The Conduit. Going into the game's release, so many of the Wii faithful were banking on The Conduit as being the 'white knight' that was needed for the console. Well, I hate to burst the hopeful bubbles, but this white knight is a dud. For the most part.

  As always, this is a first impression as there are a few key components of the game I haven't gotten around to or have not delved deep enough to offer my full thoughts in a review. However, I can't see things getting any better for The Conduit. To offer perspective, I'm into the third mission of single player and have three multiplayer matches on my record.

  You can always tell what I'm most excited about for a game based on the first steps I take. Generally, this is deciding between single player or multiplayer. With The Conduit I found myself fiddling around with my controls off the bat. The way High Voltage kept bragging about the amount of customization, I couldn't help myself.

  If first impressions mean anything in gaming, then The Conduit made a very remarkable one. This is hands down the greatest control customization I've seen in console gaming. It's not really fair to compare the game's customization to PC games, considering how many button configurations are available with the keyboard. However, nearly everything you could want to change with your Wii Remote controls is available. It's not a good sign though, when most of the fun I had was tweaking my Wii Remote's dead zone and not the game itself.

  The Conduit starts out with a muddled plot, but to be fair I'm only into the third mission so maybe the game is trying to be ambiguous on purpose. One of the first plot devices used in the game, that I can't stand in storytelling is the 'backtrack'. Where the story starts out in a certain period of time, then goes back in time just to catch up with itself again. UGH. If you don't mind, or by some divine force like backtracking in your story then you can ignore this critique.

  Once the story gets underway, and the game starts up you'll find a very mediocre FPS waiting for you. To provide context I should tell you that I'm a FPS connoisseur. And I probably judge FPS titles the hardest out of any genre. There's a couple of reasons for that. First, it's easily the most saturated genre in this current gen landscape. Secondly, it's very hard to create a unique FPS experience with all the gameplay devices that have been used in the past.

  Repetitiveness, and bland game design is what really hinders The Conduit from being more than it could have. The first two stages, I felt as though I was playing an on-rails shooter more so than a FPS. The stages played out like, go from Point A to Point B, and shoot a few bad guys on the way. Rinse and repeat. In the second level, there are sections of the game that look completely recycled from areas you just left. Felt like I was going in a loop rather than make progress.

  Along with the level and game design, the enemy A.I. is completely bonkers. Many people have been comparing this game to Goldeneye, and when it comes to stale A.I this is the case. Enemies might strafe back and forth, but there's no sense of strategy whatsoever. Sometimes you'll run right upon an enemy and he just stands there. He won't shoot, run away, or do anything. Just stand and look at you a second, giving you an unfair chance to strike first. This might make it easy, but it doesn't add any urgency to the experience.

  Another issue with A.I balance is the difficulty of enemies. There's a certain type of alien that you'll encounter in the first stage that is a breeze to get through. However, in the third stage the same enemy has the potential to two shot kill you. It happened to me twice, so it wasn't a fluke. This off-balanced enemy difficulty distribution just feels like lazy development to me.

  Besides controls, another aspect of The Conduit that High Voltage heavily touted was its graphics. There was talk that the Quantam3 Engine was pushing the Nintendo Wii to its limits. From what I saw much of the game looks similar to Onslaught, which is a download on WiiWare. The weapons, and the cutscenes look fantastic. There's a sheen, and metallic look to the weapons that have an abundant amount of detail. Your enemies will look detailed as well, just don't take too much time to look around at your settings. The textures, and colors used for the game's setting looks bland, dreary, and not even close to being as detailed as the characters. Metroid Prime 3 looks better than this game, and it's over a year old.

  
  Enemy Details - Good...Setting/Background Details - Bad

  Along with the textures, the animations suffer from a very bland execution. I think I've seen two different death animations so far. Again, another example of lazy execution that takes away from the aesthetics of the game. Explosions, from grenades and objects in the game just look like an orange ball rather than anything resembling a flame.

  Coupled with the graphics, the audio of The Conduit feels passable. The voice acting gets the job done, but with the talent that High Voltage signed on for the game I was expecting more. None of the voice inflections ever really drew me into the experience, and it really felt as though I was just listening for the sake of progressing to the next stage. The sound effects feel right, and it's gratifying to unleash a clip of ammunition on to some unsuspecting terrorists and aliens.

  After being done with single-player, I took to multiplayer. Here, I was met with a much better game experience that left me with a few gripes that just didn't seem necessary. First, was the time it actually took to find a Regional match. I can understand it taking awhile to find a game in a lobby or what have you. But when it found a match, I was greeted with a timer and it looked as though the game was trying to search for players. When you see something like this in a game, it generally takes 5-15 seconds. I was waiting upwards of 2-3 minutes. That just isn't acceptable for online play.

  Two out of my three matches ended with network trouble, which led to me testing out another game to see if it was my connection. That game worked fine, so I tried The Conduit out one more time. I played the third game without a hitch. Unfortunately, 33% isn't a good number for successful connections with a game. Hopefully the servers were just maxed out and I won't have the problem again.

  For the one game that I was actually able to finish, I had a blast. The twelve person free-for-all is everything you would want it to be. Here is where I was whisked away to the old feelings of Perfect Dark multiplayer, only I was able to play online. There's always an intangible force attached to FPS games that makes it unique from others in the genre. Whatever spirit The Conduit is harnessing, it feels remarkably familiar to the Rare FPS's on the Nintendo 64. Which is a compliment.

  Before a match you get to vote on weapon sets, rules, and maps. I would have liked to seen more detail put into what can actually be included in a game. For instance, only choosing one weapon or a completely wacky rule set if it's wanted by the majority of the group. I was also disappointed at there only being three match types to choose from. I think that 5 is the standard in multiplayer FPS's these days. Again, so much of multiplayer feels like it could have been more.

  I alluded to an Anne Lamott quote based on hope in the beginning of my first impression. That's because many times, hope can be a blinding and dangerous trait. We become so wrapped up in what we want The Conduit to be, that we lose sight of what it really is...a bland, and contrived FPS. If you're just getting started in the FPS genre, then The Conduit is a good start actually. With the simple level design, and toning down the difficulty there is some fun to be had for beginners. If you're a jaded veteran like myself then you'll see that so many games before it have done better, and looked better doing it. Even with the amazing console controls.

  • Posted Jun 30, 2009 6:29 am PT
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• 29Jun 09

  Video Games and the Female Demographic

  It's quite weird that a few days after my thoughts on Megan Fox, and her views towards female gaming that a video about females in the video game world arises.

  Coincidence? Well, yea probably.

  After watching the video I have a few thoughts and disagreements about the subject matter presented by Daniel Floyd and Leigh Alexander.

  Daniel Floyd/Leign Alexander Video

  The overall spirit of the video is based on a question that has alluded many for a long time - Why aren't women interested in video games? While that's a general, and widely speculative question, I'll play along.

  The video starts out saying that some women play games, but that they're a minority in the overall gaming population. Leigh Alexander, a widely known video game journalist is used as a guest expert and I'm guessing most of the video is based on her research as it sounds similar to articles I've read by her.

  The two main points that I took away from the vid is that women mostly stay away from games because they see a lot of titles objectifying women, and that most ladies are playing casual games. Well, I disagree with both points. The second being a contradiction to the argument the video is presenting anyway - isn't a "casual" game, still a game?

  The video uses 'Halo' quite a bit as a barometer of where "hardcore" gamers fall into. This is silly to me, because to be quite honest I consider Halo a very casual game. This is of course coming from someone who grew up with FPS's on the PC. And once you've beaten the final stage of the original Unreal Tournament on Godlike!, everything else just seems casual. Which is exactly my point. You can't judge how many 'true' female gamers there are based on the muddy dichotomy of hardcore/casual. The farther you tweak the slider for judging someone as 'hardcore', the more people you're going to alienate, women and all.

  The second main point of the video is something else I disagree with, and I might actually step on some toes with this. Floyd, and Alexander are of the mind that games are alienating to women because of objectification. Well, I have a reality check for both. In this modern advertising world, we're all objectified. Men, women, boys, girls; the content that is present in all our main media outlets objectifies someone in certain ways. Read an issue of Seventeen, and tell me that teens, both male and female aren't objectified in some way. It's quite astounding actually. Yet, the majority of its readers are female.

  Sex sales. That isn't going to change ever, and to be quite honest I don't think it should. I could be in the minority but there's nothing wrong with engaging our carnal side. There's nothing inherently wrong with buxom female characters. Christie Monteiro is my favorite fighter in Tekken and could arguably be the most scantily clad of the roster. I don't want to see that change. And in doing so, probably isn't going to draw any more female gamers into the mix. I think if we try and take sex out, or try to tone the objectification down we're just going to create this weird state of censorship. I can just see developers sitting around a table asking - "are her breasts too big?", "should we make her shorts longer?", "maybe she should be wearing pants instead of shorts?". Well, if Lara Croft is in the snow I'd say she probably should be wearing pants..

  I think the video's two strongest points are its' least talked about. First, we need more ladies represented in the industry. Here's an interesting article on CNN about the rising number of females in the development industry. Reports like this make me incredibly happy; because we need our industry diversified. The gaming industry can only grow, and become a stronger medium if we reach out and tap into creative minds previously unused. Having the female mind represented can not only further women's involvement in games, but will assist the health of the industry altogether.

  Something else the video makes note of, in just one sentence I believe, is that we need to start our girls out playing games at a younger age. It's odd that it isn't expanded upon more, because it's the strongest argument in my mind.

  I can use my sister as an example. I don't think my parents ever bought her a video game system until the pink Nintendo DS was released. She became of video game age around the time the Nintendo 64 had just released, yet she's never received a console. I did let her keep my old Nintendo 64, when I had my Gamecube and PS2. She played it like crazy. In fact I think she probably has more time logged into Harvest Moon 64 than I do, and I consider that one of my favorite games ever. I can only imagine how much more of a gamer she would have been, if she was more exposed to consoles than I was. If her lone (and lucky ) victory in Punch-Out! on the Wii is evidence, she probably could have turned out a better gamer than I am.

  In conclusion, I believe there's no true answer to the question presented by the video. All we can really do is try and expand the market, and do everything necessary to execute. Having a more diversified industry is definitely a good start. From there, the sky is the limit. Who knows, maybe there's a video game idea out there that can break down all the walls between men, women, hardcore, and casual. If it is out there, I'd sure as hell like to see it.

  • Posted Jun 29, 2009 10:26 am PT
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• 15Jun 09

  My Interview With Eduardo the Samurai Toaster Developer

  This week marks the release of Eduardo the Samurai Toaster on Nintendo WiiWare. For my Wii site, I was able to score an interview with one of the developers. Thought you all might be interested.

  The Eduardo: The Samurai Toaster trailer was released just a couple of days ago, and I've been enthralled since. I'm not quite sure what it is that has me so intrigued. Perhaps it's that my favorite foods in the world (Pop-Tarts, and Eggo's Waffles) are made in a toaster. Or if it's the idea of using a toaster to pull off samurai moves that has me anxious. Whatever the reason, color me excited.

  I then began to do some research for the game, visiting Semnat Studio's site. Which lead to me contacting Semnat's co-founder, and artist Daniel Coleman to try and learn some more about the game. He was kind enough to take some time and answer questions about the game, and give us a look behind the creation of it.

  First, the name of your development company is Semnat Studios. How did you come up with that name? I've googled it, and wikipedia'd it and so far I've come up with nothing.

  Semnat is just an old nonsense word I used to use. Apparently a lot of stuff I thought up around the time I invented Eduardo was pretty random. A friend suggested the Studios part, which is funny since there's only three of us. I guess each person is a studio.

  Ha, well I guess it's always good to sound professional. If anything you can make people like me look up Semnat in Wikipedia. Back to the game, the trailer has been out for a couple of days now, have you received a lot of feedback from anxious gamers? If so, what are they saying?

  I try to avoid reading comments about the game. Keyword being try. I get a bit nervous. I mean we've been working on this thing for so long and the whole time it's been a private project with little exposure to the outside world. You get used to living in a vacuum! But from what I've read people seem to dig it. I honestly expected more hate. I mean it's the internet, right? The only comments that have bugged me a bit are the ones accusing us of making shovelware. I knew that when we started making a Wii game that some people would assume we were making crap for a quick buck, but it's still kind of annoying to read. I can't stress how important the quality of Eduardo is for us. This is very much a passion project. We've worked insane hours since the start of development because we care so much about making a good game.

  Yes, once you're exposed you can expect people coming from under their rocks to criticize. Going back to the trailer, one thing I was really curious about is what weapon is Eduardo using? Is it toast? Or what kind of projectile is Eduardo packing?

  Eduardo and the other toasters shoot out the same pastry enemies that are attacking you.

  What are the names of the other toasters that can be used in multiplayer, if you can divulge that information?

  We never officially named them, but we refer to them by which movie characters they're based on. I don't know if I'd be copyright infring..ing if I said who they're supposed to be. But maybe that can be a fun guessing game for players.

  That's probably a good call, I think for it to be infringement it has to be more than 20% comparable to the original. But I'm not a lawyer so don't go by that. Anyhow, just a couple of more questions. I was reading on your website/blog about how you decided on how to stylize the grass in your game. Without having to spill too many beans or having to speak tech jargon, can you maybe take us from how art that you create goes from the canvas or paper, into the actual game?

  Yeah it's pretty simple, really. For the assets which I used traditional media for, I would create them on gessoed paper or mylar, etc., and either took a picture of them or, as in most cases, scanned them in. Then I'd use something like photoshop to cut them up however I needed to. Some of the textures, like the grass for level one which I detailed in my blog, was a mix between old textures I created in dog waffle and two different textures done with acrylic inks. I would cut them up on the computer, blend them until I was satisfied with the right combination, and then get them to repeat well. The repeating textures are the most difficult assets to create. They have to look appealing but subtle enough where you don't easily notice that they're repeating all over the place. I won't bore you with further details, but for those that are interesting in hearing more about these processes I'll detail everything in my blog.

  One aspect of indie games I find intriguing is the music, and sound. It's so much of a separate skill set than the art, and graphics. How many different tracks are in the game, and how was the experience of creating the music, and sound?

  Yeah that's a good point. None of us at Semnat have any music skills, or rather, we couldn't have music comprised entirely of humming and my rad kazoo ballads, so we had to seek help from elsewhere. Luckily we found someone at the University of Advancing Technology in Arizona. Ian graduated from that school and asked around to see if any students there would be interested in providing music for us. Raymond Gramke got in contact with us and was able to get school credit for it as well. We've been working with him for quite a while now. So we have about nine tracks in the final game, all that we could fit. For sound effects we went to places like gamecues and sound rangers. If any game designers out there are looking for a musician, I highly recommend getting in touch with Ray.

  Well, glad to see someone is getting some school credit out of this. My final question; I've been reading on your site and through other interviews about the development process, and the time it took to create this game. Its been five years from beginning of the idea to the end, if I'm not mistaken. What have been the hardest parts of seeing a game through for that long period of time? And what would your advice be to other aspiring game developers just getting into it?

  Yeah a few years working on prototypes of Eduardo, just over one year for the Wii game. It's been a real learning experience this whole time, every little detail about game design. We made many prototypes because we learned so much and would realize that we could do something much better if we started over with a new engine and revised gameplay mechanics. We went through that process a number of times. The challenge keeps it from being boring, and that time gave me a chance to learn how create better art. The hardest part has definitely been issues with resources. Not being able to work on the game as our only job but still having to put full-time hours into it. It's a difficult thing to sustain for such a long period of time.

  We won't find out until Eduardo is released if this method worked out for us so I don't know if my advice will be of any help to aspiring designers. But perhaps I could say learn from your mistakes, let people outside of your development team take a look at your work and encourage honest feedback. Be critical of your work and make sure you're doing something you're passionate about. I can't imagine working on this if we didn't love the game we were making, or earlier on, the game we were trying to make. And Learn to embrace criticism, that's very important. If someone takes the time out to play your game and offers criticism, appreciate that and don't allow your ego to get bruised. Unless you're a game design genius you're going to make mistakes and plenty of them, but you can always learn from them and improve your skills.

  Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions about the game. I'm really anticipating its release, and can't wait to review Eduardo when it comes out. Good luck with its release.

  Thanks man, I appreciate the support.

  • Posted Jun 15, 2009 10:29 am PT
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