Elements of Game Design: Character

Elements of Game Design: Art direction for games

Elements of Game Design: Comparing Pac-man to FEAR Resident Evil 5

The assignment suggested that I compare an old, well known classic like Pacman to the modern survival horror/first person shooter/whatever FEAR. However I have never played the latter (nor do I intend to) so I decided to compare it to a game from a similar series which also happens to be a personal favourite of mine: Resident Evil.

I can say with complete reassurance that Pacman is one of the most well known and popular games to have ever been released. Everyone recognises the main protagonist's partially-eaten pizza shape and his jelly-shaped persuing antagonists. Everyone recognises the noise pacman makes as he swallows the pellets dotted around his maze-like environment. However, what I find even more interesting is how we recognise pacman and his persuers as believable characters.

Why is it that we recognise this brightly coloured object as a character; something that has consciousness. It is because the moment we control the little yellow blighter we project our motives into him, which in turn makes him become us. What motive is this? As is the motive of any competitive game: to win! However, I digress, the objective of the game is to outrun (or even eat) your stalkers and win the game by collecting all the pellets. A highly original idea! (at the time ofcourse) but is it so different from the objective in more modern games.

Resident Evil 5 at the time of its release was truely a milestone for gaming. The graphics had never been better, the gameplay was as exciting and addictive as ever and the environment was unique and imersive. Light years ahead of primitive games such as Pacman!....or was it?

We can agree that graphics, themes and play style are all different between these two games, but let just examine what similarities they share:

• Both games have a primary objective: to avoid/kill the antagonist(s)
• Both games have a main protagonist: in Pacman its the yellow cheese block himself and in Resident Evil 5 its Chris Redfield
• Game play in both games takes place in designed environment in which a pre-determined path must be taken.

So fundamentally, both games are very similar; as can probably be said if I had chosen to compare Pacman to any number of current games. The only change is presentation and production standards. These two entities have gradually expanded as gaming has become more popular and diverse. Resident Evil 5 being a good example as a high-production game with fantastic presentation. These two assets are also important features of game design itself.

Game design is an amalgamation of severel key aspects of design. These include art direction, character and environment. These three aspects of design are normally handled by a large team of skilled artists, programers and usually a single director and head concept artist. Ofcourse when devising Pacman back in the 1980's I'm sure the team was significantly smaller.

Game Review - Alice: Madness Returns

The gaming world is overun with generic shooters, indistinguishable RPGs and countless iterations of fighting games; that isn't to say that a handful of those games are not brilliant, there are just far too many of them cluttering the selection. Every now and again, however, a games publisher will release something out of the ordinary. Over a decade ago games producer, American McGee relased his take on Lewis Carol's Alice in Wonderland: American McGee's Alice. A twisted retelling of the classic children's story boasting gothic art and macabre gameplay. It was a platformer/third-person shooter that ran on a modified version of the Quake 3 engine, suprisingly enough and showcased technically advanced graphics with detailed textures. However it was the gritty, gothic art style which I fell in love with and is perhaps the games strongest attraction. Over 10 years later arrives its direct sequel: Alice Madness Returns.

Alice is an extremely disturbed individual forced to cope with the loss of her family to an arsen attack which she believes she is responsible for. The tale begins with Alice attempting to describe her twisted, fragmented memories to Dr. Bumbey within the confines of a mental asylum. Considered terribly ill, Bumbey is attempting to delve into Alice's mind using psycho-therapy as last attempt before reverting to a lebotomy. However, when any situation proves too stressful for Alice, she finds herself plunging into her psychotic wonderland in order to escape reality. Throughout the game we follow the heroine on her quest to discover her past whilst visiting beautifully designed worlds taken straight out of the novel; with a macabre twist ofcourse.

The narrative to Alice Madness Returns is one of the strongest points. The story telling is done through stylish collage-esque cutscenes which are informative and colourful. The dialogue is also particularly strong with great performaces from the voice actors, the various authentic English accents are a nice touch. Alice herself as a character is very likeable: she's articulate, intelligent and has attitude but also gives away moments of fear and uncertainty. Unfortunately there aren't many of these cutscenes; instead the majority of the voice acting is used when Alice collects one of many personal items throughout the levels.

Another complaint is the gameplay seems to be a seporate entity to the story-telling segments. Instead of a cohesive experience the player is offered large chunks of gameplay and a cutscene between levels.

The graphics in AMR are simply beautfiul. Everything in Wonderland is lavishly detailed, from the lush wonderland woods to the queens castle. The art style is the games strongest asset being a cross between gothic and fantasy. The characters have an almost deformed look; fitting to the games context. Alice herself is nicely detailed and the fact her outfit changes with her location is really nice touch. Particularly strong is Alice's hair, which looks vibrant and flowing and possibly the best example of realistic hair I've seen in a video game.The underwater seaworld looks like something out of Disney's Little Mermaid with vibrant characters and scenery dripping with imagination.

Every level has its own distinctive flavour; the Mad Hatter's domain mixes machinery with gothic architecture. Chimnies are dotted around the level allowing Alice to use the steam they emit to float from platform to platform. Whilst the scenery is possibly the most beautiful I have seen in a game unfortunately it isn't as interactive as I would have liked. It behaves more like wallpaper and damages the emersive experience. Objects that look as if they can be terrained block Alice with invisible walls. Texture pop-in is also fairly common throughout the experience, sometimes failing to load certain textures at all. Whilst Alice moves fluidly she lacks certain animations which stop her from behaving lifelike.

The best way I could possibly describe the music in AMR is like an array of nursery rhymes on crack. There is a child-like lullaby appeal to the tunes mixed in with some twisted noises and accompanied an edgy orchestra. Most importantly, the music perfectly compliments the scenery helping to aid the imersion in to the twisted wonderland. An example of a piece of music I found particularly compelling is the piese which plays when Alice stumbles upon the goblin tribe in the village consisting of large teacups and saucers.



The sound effects are also top-quality. Every slash of Alice's vorpal blade, every maimed grunt of a dismembered enemy is clear and highly adequete. Again, much praise to the voice actors and their top-notch performances.

The gameplay is a mixed bag and probably the weakest element of the game. The game is at heart a platformer but doesnt quite tick the boxes in all the areas it should. sometimes it isnt obvious where one is meant to traverse as there isnt great distinction between areas which Alice can terrain and which she cannot. This can prove problematic on levels with numerous death-traps.

The programmers must also have had a love for invisible walls as the game is packed with them. They can become increasingly annoying when attempting to locate the various collectibles hidden around throughout various levels. Levels also have a tendancy to drag on (level 5 taking in excess of an hour to complete) which is helped by the regular checkpoints dotted throughout the levels.

Combat is tighter than the platforming segments and incorporates an array of weapons at Alice's disposal including a hobby horse axe, teapot-cannon and her trademark vorpal blade. The fighting is intuitive and enemies will adapt to the way Alice fights which will require the player to change their tactics. however as enjoyable as combat is it doesn't help break up the repetition of the level structures.

However there are various mini-games between levels which help break up the monotomy. These can be seen in the form of simple 2D side-scrollers, word puzzles and pinball-esque mazes. They make a nice addition to the game but at the same time seem out of place with the rest of the game. The japanese-art inspired side-scrolling platformer in the Asian-themed world is particularly eye-catching.

Once the game is completed one may wish to begin a new game on a harder difficulty, increase the level of their weapons or try and collect the rest of the relics they may have missed the first time round. This provides decent incentive for replaying AMR a second time. Unfortunately the majority of gamers may not want to repeat the lengthy experience as not much is different on the second playthrough.

In conclusion I believe everyone who has ever played a platformer, appreciates imaginative artwork or even loved the original Lewis Carol novel should give Madness Returns a try. There is plenty of visual stimulation, ambience and a challenging campaign to to play through. If you can look can overlook the numerous technical short-comings and the lack of variety in gameplay then this game is worth the time. For fans of gothic fantasy art this is a must have!

New Games Journalism

An ideal review of a video game would strive to be completely objective in nature, analyising the graphics, gameplay, narrative and qualities of said game. In short - delivering the hard facts. However, the end-result would likely be a long list of statistics and credentials that upon reading through them would push us in to such a state of boredom that chewing off our own feet would seem an attractive deviation. Furthermore it probably wouldn't make us want to buy the game. Thus, we've established that boring reviews are a no no. We are human-beings after all; we have short attention spans and need to be entertained! Enter New Games Jounalism (or NGJ).

NGJ adapts a subjective, opinion-based view-point when reviewing a game. The reviewer aproaches the subject with more flair, and offers their own, individualised criticism on what they believe makes the game good or bad. This already begins to sound more appealing, however, certain issues affect the judgement of said reviewers. They too are human, and are prone to laziness or being biased.The issue is no longer whether the review is more appealing to read but whether it is reliable or effectively, of any use as a review.

If you're after a good, non-biased, honest review you might as well ask this to write you one

Despite popular belief game reviewers don't chill out with a select few games, their favourite beverage in hand and a casual couple of reviews to submit by the end of the week. In a realistic scenario a game reviewer is saddled with numerous articles to turn in on time for a monthly deadline in which they have very little time to truely explore the subject matter. Instead they write based on what they have heard or their initial impressions. This causes reviewers to churn out reviews that are half-baked and not as informative as one would like, or worse, written in a way that is purely biased. An example of said biasism is when a writer is hired by a magazine owned by a console in which the review is expected to reflect positively on the game in order to generate sales.

       

"Getting to grips with the demands of any professional role is a gruelling task but there are techniques that you can learn to manage their workload effectively."

However, other important factors affect the calibur of a games review, such as how engaged a reviewer is with a game. It is unlikely that most reviewers even play most of the games they review, and when they do they only tend to play a few hours worth for a general impression; this is either down to a lack of adequete time or more importantly, whether they were even sent a copy of the game to play in the first place. In order for a reviewer to properly devote themselves to playing a game there needs to be a buzz; a spark of interest for the game. This is often supplied by what people are saying about the game or where the interests of the reviewer themselves lie. And in a lot of cases these interests are shared on a national scale. 

An example of a magazine that tends to score games with a biased mentality is the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu. Their methods of scoring particular games have been questionable. A game that continues to score well with Famitsu with every iteration spawned is the Dynasty Warriors series. The series is currently at its 7th game and western reviewers have evidently had enough with the repetitive gameplay, sub-par graphics and lack variation between releases over all. IGN's Colin Moriarty cited the gameplay as being "simply too much of the same thing over and over again to have any sort of broad appeal" and awarded the game 5/10. Gaming Bus awarded the game a C+ and overall stated that "there was no real challenge to be had". A few big magazines and websites didn't even bother to review the game. Thus it can be established the game was relatively unpopular in the western hemisphere. Famitsu awarded DW7 a score of 36/40.

A similar game, which I personally enjoyed, but again failed to gain much appeal in the west was N3: Ninety-Nine Nights. The game had similar gameplay elements to the Dynasty Warriors games but boasted a grander scale and a more innovative combo branching system. However, reviewers gave the game similar treatment as the DW games and instantly started linking comparisons. This further demonstrates how reviewers are influenced by other games they have played and often compares them to the games they currently review. In conclusion reviews were generally poor and on par with reviews for the DW games. Famitsu scores N3 a 37/40.

Now it may seem the magazine simply favours the style of gameplay offered by both games, however I have derived a different conclusion...

                             

If you added both their ages together they'd stll probably be considered jailbait...

Both games feature several iterations of the school-girl archetype; a popular theme in Japanese media. I believe it is this recurring theme that lends itself to overall scores awarded to these games. To further concrete my theory I present exhibit B:

   Obviously highly regarded for its realistic physics engine.

Famitsu awarded Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2 35/40, despite it being a mentally stagnating game in which the only objective was to dress your chosen girl in increasingly smaller swimsuits. The game reviewed poorly in the west and the sales reflected this. However, this does note denote the fact that sex sells; western reviewers just need action along with their sex in order for it to be a winner though.

A game that constantly seems to review well in the west, with the sales reflecting this, is the Call of Duty series. Every iteration follows similar gameplay mechanics, themes and a focus on war. The gameplay is tight and the graphics are solid, however the formula changes very little with each iteration. I wonder if the popularity of the franchise lies with current affairs and consumers underlying patriotism and desire to fight for their country. Perhaps the publishers pick up on this notion as the armies in the current game: Modern Warfare 3 seems to mirror current sides of the ongoing war. This begs the question as to whether this game sells because of the scores provided by gaming magazines or simply because consumers and reviewers already have similar tastes.  

  They appear to follow the middle-eastern system for car-parking

There is evidence to suggest that consumers' ideals differ from reviewers however. Okami was highly praised by reviewers and had brilliant gameplay and very stylish graphics. Unfortunately it sold terribly. It seemed the reviews and exposure the game received didn't help sales, which brings up the question of whether game reviews directly affect sales and how much do they influence consumers' decisions.

It seems the unique graphical art-style couldn't save this dog

Personally I tend to use game reviews only as a guideline on what to expect out of the game. I often find the reviews rely too heavily on comparisons to other games to make a point, many of which I haven't played before rendering the review useless to me in that respects. I also find certain parts of the reviews contradict earlier statements, making composition slightly confusing on a whole. Games that often get insanely high scores turn out to be disapointing to me; am I the only one not star-struck by Skyrim? I don't tend to read game reviews as much anymore since alot of sites have started to use video reviews to get their opinions across; a far more appealing scheme, especially since the average person would prefer not to read through a wall of text.

I believe when it comes to my own writing I would like to say I review the game without bias, however I am highly influenced by things I like and will often search for qualities in a game just for an excuse to rate it highly. Therefore I am biased and highly opinionated, which is a fault but common amongst human beings. I would however like to achieve a marriage between objective and subjective in my review.

Informative - 4/10
Bias - 7/10
Corrupt - 8/10
Lazy - 5/10

Overall - 6/10

My personal gaming history

From a very young age I always had a love for bright visuals and colourful imagery. I had only ever been able to experience this through cartoons I had watched or books I had read. This changed at the age of 4 when I had played my first video game. The concept of being able to control the moving pictures on the television screen was new and exciting to me. The first game I ever played was Super Mario Bros. on the NES; and from that moment on I began my obsession with video games.

The first console I owned was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and with it I had all the major Super Mario games and various other titles. Super Mario World and its Sequel, Yoshi's Island remain to be two of my most memorable experiences. I love the charming 2D sprites and the colourful worlds Nintendo's artists had created and the innovative and addicting gameplay. Fundamentally, I associate Super Mario with excellent platforming and also with my childhood. I don't think any game has sparked such a tremendous amount of nostalgia for me.

Getting older I began to play a wider variety of games. I began to play fighters, my first being Street Fighter 2 which I imedietly fell in love with and continue to play to this day. I also discovered RPG's which became a new addiction to me; The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy series being 2 of my all-time favourites. I loved the idea of having complex, interesting characters work along side eachother in a team which was fully customisable. Another aspect I particularly enjoyed was the deeper, more engaging storylines.

A game I played recently that really captivated me was Silent Hill 2. The characters were complex, original and completly messed up. The fact that non of them followed the stereotype of being pristine looking and highly-polished, instead opting for faulted and in some ways, unattractive is what made them so appealing and memorable.The world of SH2 is also very intriguing; the pepetual fog and the concept of hearing what you cannot see is particularly terrifying. I also loved how psychologically distressing some of the levels were; when the main character, James comes face to face with the monstrous Pyramid Head from behind bars, only after prolonged consideration do you realise that the creature is infact the protagonist's own reflection.

Silent Hill 2 tapped into something that I believe is still new territory in gaming; it created a psychologically invasive experience, filled with subliminal messages and genious artistic execution. I believe that with the constant tidal wave of first-person shooters and action adventure games dominating the market that games like SH2 have little chance of reapearing in the industry. Even the Silent Hill series on a whole seem to have strayed away from their roots and opted for more action-orientated games. Now games striving for such unique premises at times fall short or just fail to sell as well.

However, games promoting originality and character seem to strive more on the downloadable market place. Games like Limbo took a simple concept and married it with unique visuals and challenging gameplay. I would like to see more games released in a similar vein, whether it be over xbox live or through retail. My dream would be to play a game that could transport you to a living, breathing dystopia which would allow you to interact with computer-controlled characters as if they were people and change things in the digital world around you. An ideal way of playing this sort of game would be through a virtual-reality interface like VR goggles and wired gloves that recognise motion. This sort of technology has been explored before but not to great depths. Either way it will be very interesting to see what the industry produces next.

A history of computer games, part 3: 2000's

In the year 2000 Sony released the Playstation 2 which sold incredibly well upon release due to an already established consumer base, strong support from 3rd party developers and the backwards compatability option allowing gamers to play their original Playstation games on the new system. It was this option that gave the PS2 its edge over the competition. The PS2 overtook its competitors and remains to be the best selling video games console of all time.

A year later in 2001 Nintendo released the Gamecube. It was the first Nintendo console not to utilise a cartridge-based game medium and instead used 80mm mini-CDs. The console suffered from a lack of third party support and its launch titles were not as well received as on previous consoles. The Gamecube went onto to receive a stigmatism and became labelled as a "child-friendly console" and ill-suited to hardcore gamers. Nintendo tried to battle this notion with games suited to an older audience like Resident Evil 4 but ultimately couldn't compete with the the PS2.

Around the same time the Dreamcasts life came to an abrupt end. This was due to Sega being unable to compete with the PS2 and releasing games lacking in quality. The Dreamcast even released a number of Playstation 1 ports during its cycle which looked rediculous running on the technically superior Dreamcast. When the Dreamcast sunk, Sega pulled out of the console wars and re-appeared as a 3rd part developer. Suprisingly enough, Sega went onto produce a majority of its titles for Nintendo's console, even allowing its mascot, Sonic to appear in games for the system. This formed an alliance between the once warring companies.

In 2002 Microsoft, known for its personal computers and Windows opperating software joined the console wars by producing the Xbox. The console was technically more powerful than the competing consolesand also focused on an area which had not been extensively explored yet: online gameplay. The xbox sold at a lost towards the end of its cycle but the sales of games were high in profit. Halo: Combat Evolved was the Xbox's flagship title and sold in its millions, going on to become one of the best-selling shooters of all time. Towards the end of the sixth-generation of consoles the Xbox and the Gamecube were neck and neck; however the PS2 ended the era miles ahead of the competition.

At the end of 2005 Microsoft released the Xbox360 and began the seventh-generation of consoles. The console was technically superior to its predecessor and offered an enhanced and refined online gaming experience. It had a strong selection of launch titles and sold well. A year later Sony released the highly-anticipated Playstation 3 but ran into an array of unanticipated, potentially lethal problems. The first mistake Sony made was to retail the PS3 at a shocking price of $600, and the second mistake was to release the PS3 without a strong selection of launch titles. In order to maintain resonable profits, Sony decided to retail the PS3 in the UK at a staggering £425. The seemingly unreasonable stunted sales of the PS3 in North America and the UK causing the PS3 to fall behind in the console wars. Sony justified their pricing by referencing the built-in blu-ray player. Ironically, the PS2 continues to outsell the PS3.

Meanwhile Nintendo released the Wii, and instead of deciding to focus on the consoles technical capabilities it focused on gameplay innovation and marketing. Nintendo's previous console, the Gamecube, appealed to younger gamers and a more family-orientated market. Nintendo took this cue and decided to focus their marketing strategies on families with children. This proved successful and Nintendo sold more consoles than the competition and contiues to be the best selling console.

Throughout the past few years a number of gaming franchises have developed and escaladed into big sellers. An example of this is the Call of Duty series which contiues to sell exceedingly well with each iteration and has accumliated a large fan base. However, statistics tell us that game developers are losing more and more money every year. An ex-Sony representitive claims that as much as 70% of all games released lose money. Could this be due to the increased budgets for video games and sales being unable to match them, or maybe that consumers just arent interested enough in certain games anymore? Either way the future of the video games industry is an uncertain one.