GISMOS_04 - G FRIENDS

Welcome back you lovely people. We have a few new faces...er, voices added to the EG roster as of late. Kevin McKenzie and Pete Krouzelka. Both of which are old friends of ours who have always had a whole lot to say about video games; the state of the industry, innovation and gaming from a consumers perspective. But lets be clear, we simply play a lot of games, if 10,000 hours makes someone an expert then, well...were experts but certainly not professional Journalists. This allows us to drop a few C-Bombs here and there but that should not reflect the mostly insightful and informative conversation. Man your horse friends we've got a lot to talk about...apparently.

THE MEANING OF LIFE (AND LEVELS)

I was watching Tristan play the new Bloodborne DLC last night and was reminded of something that really impressed me about Dark Souls when I played it a year or so ago. His character is at full-swing by this point; I'm not sure of his hourly commitment but his toon had a wicked raven-feathered cloak and a man-sized runic claymore strapped to his back. Lots of levels and equipment. He wanted to show me this epic boss, the gigantic, gangly, smoldering First Vicar, Laurence. But on the way up the stairs to the bossroom, he had to scrap with this fat demon guarding the door. Tristan was explaining something to me as he played, got distracted for a moment, and this minor enemy promptly killed him in two or three blows. Tristan's character is like, raidboss level, and he still drops dead after one slipup. That's because Bloodborne and Dark Souls have this refreshingly sadistic take on how Hit Points ought to work in an action RPG -- no matter your equipment and levels, your health is still a rare and precious resource. No amount of grinding or farming will immortalize you against a few hits from a Level 1 Wandering Bald Man. This is a rare feature, but I think it's much, much better than what we're used to in RPGs.

Even a pig can defeat a Wandering Bald Man. Gif via Tumblr. From Adventure Time.

Brace yourself. There’s a bit of a build-up to my point, here.

No matter what task a game sets you, a lot of the time, you’re also set with the task of trying not to die while you do it. The complexity of puzzles and battles wouldn’t be a problem in a lot of cases if death was not a potential outcome. Without death, there's no tension: You could just stand there and take gunshot after gunshot in the back of the brain as you calmly picked the lock or whatever. Dying in the game translates to kind of player-death too; the player's flow of experience and permission to play is briefly interrupted.  So game designers’ve gotta measure out that incentive -- by giving you life. Life is this resource that comes between getting to play, and not getting to play anymore, not getting to maintain continuity. That is the main motivator to play well in many (most?) videogames -- to not be sitting idly between lives.

In primal forms of gaming, life is binary -- either you have it, or you don't. In Mario, one hit will kill you, unless you’re big. Being big equates +1 life in a way - just not one you hold in reserve, like a proper 1Up. But as gaming history has progressed, the life force concept has extrapolated. As a quantity, Life itself has been dragged out. Usually it’s a two- to four-digit number now, somewhere in the code, getting incrementally chipped away at by various hazards. The play experience doesn’t change as life total fluctuates - it’s like an awkward, irregular timer, counting down your remaining permission to live. You’re still fully alive, even at 1/100 life points. Most of the time the only difference between that and being at 99/100 life is a red wash over your perspective, or a hobbled walk animation. Tension is artificially created as the player approaches one slip-up from dying, kind of a slow-wave tension that accumulates as your healthbar declines.

A primer on slowly dying. From Doom.

This is like… this shit is your soul. You can suffer dragonbreath and liquid nitrogen and suppressive fire as long as this meter is non-empty. it’s the ghost in the machine, the umbilical cord between the tangible game-experience and the heavy-breathing gamer. For you the player, Life represents the arcade era's final precious quarter, the license to game.

So how do you get more of it? I mean, yeah, a game moves along and your character amasses life experience, they’re gonna get better at stuff. The only path to mastery in reality is through gaining new experiences and learning from mistakes. Swinging a +2 Bastard Bloodsword once might not make you any better at swinging it; but swinging at 100 times at different body parts of various creatures will probably qualify you to use the weapon more effectively (kudos to Skyrim for using a level-up system that actually depends on using the relevant skill). Or if you accumulate 200km mileage of jogging back and forth across a low-gravity space station, you’ll probably be able to run more steadily and quickly.

But how - HOW?? - does taking a bullet in the stomach make you better at doing that? To generalize, how does a video-game character “gain health”? Does their hide thicken? They have more blood somehow? Or like… weird tumours all over the place which absorb damage? I mean, sure, characters get better at dodging and blunting attacks, but that usually translates into a dodge skill or armour stat. We’ve been over why a healthpool certainly isn’t mere pain tolerance, because when it runs out, you die. No amount of experience-won pain tolerance is going to make a twin-kidney katana Delta-strike cause any less... death. It is something I’ve wondered about since I first played Dungeons & Dragons in the eighth grade. You can make up a story about how literally every other element of leveling up works out in an RPG; XP represents hard won respect from the elder wizards in town, who bestow you with new arcane spell knowledge, or with time, your bond with your steed improves and it is willing to push itself harder for you, or your hard work in the forge has caused your wrought-iron goods to come out sturdier and more valuable. But your life pool increasing? More arrows in the eyeball before dropping dead…? My DM told me once he’d dreamt the answer to the riddle of HP growth, but completely forgot upon waking up.

see Super Bunnyhop for atrocious exceptions to this “leveling up sorta makes sense” argument in video-games.

Maybe none of it is worth making a stink about. RPGs are all about numerics, and if the numbers didn’t get bigger and bigger over time, there’d be no rising stakes, no sense of growth nor accomplishment. But, as I belaboured above, the healthpool represents something fundamentally distinct from other stats. It is the line (sometimes a very thick sharpie-markered line, but still a boundary) between game and not-game. Maybe that should be respected and designed around more often. Even legendary heroes can die, historically, to a poisoned dart in the heel. What expertise really grants is the ability to outplay the threats to our life totals; experienced combatants move faster and more efficiently than amateurs. They extend their lifespan by evading and countering attacks, not by swallowing them. Most commonly, one extends the healthpool by straight up killing anyone who threatens it before they can deal their damage. I think adapting level-up systems around a static, monolithic health total could make the sense of achievement that accumulates in an RPG much more rewarding and holistic. Most leveling up should be forwarded to the player’s ability -- level ups should give you new tools that you must apply skilfully, in a way that effectively gives you an extra heart, rather than literally. Otherwise you have this giant meat mannequin that blunders its way through obstacles less and less delicately, disregarding painful mistakes because of the forgivenesses of a deepened healthpool. That’s hardly the symbol of mastery I think most RPGs really want to convey with their lategame. Life ought to remain precious throughout.

SCREEN DUMPSTER

Wolfenstein: The New Order. I played the first 20 min of this a year ago and put it down. Mistake. The intro does this story no justice at all. Its  really well done and it looks and plays really well. If you happened to miss this one give it another shot. 

This very well could be the cleanest and most comprehensive dumpster you may ever lay your eyes on. As i deleted video after video of what seemed like pertinent gameplay at the time from the infinitesimal PS4 hard drive the other day i stumbled onto some real gems. I idly wondered what a digital dumpster could look like and who you might find rooting through old porn videos, embarrassing selfies or other boring not embarrassing things (which is what most internet trash probably is.) Suppose after you empty the recycling bin, little suspender wearing file clerk gremlins are sharing a laugh at our expense and creating their own personal little folders of our digital garbage with our name on it to blackmail us with later...I stare at the controller in my hands and reminisce.

Dear PS4 controller,

'Your curves fit perfectly in my sweaty hands baby. Your so responsive, sometimes i'll give you a little squeeze, which i guess is like a controller hug, just to let you know how much i care. We have a symbiotic relationship you and i,  which doesn't necessarily mean we're a benefit to one another. But we need each other don't we? Since the summer of 1995 i've watched you've grow, evolve and yet you've managed to keep your figure. But what happened to your 'start' button!? Who took that away from you? And 'select' that's gone too, i'm sure you personally had nothing to do with that. But whats this? Two more buttons added in some very awkward places that sit flush with the frame so i can't...ever feel for them. 'Options?' I didn't even know i had any, sure it leaves more to the imagination than 'Start' and whats this? 'Share' Why thank you i'd love to share more with you. Wait, no. I don't want to share that now....fuck, my figity digits have betrayed me. Your a bit more confusing than you use to be but that's not your fault is it? Now i accidentally have like, 200 screen shots that mostly stank. Now i sit here, rooting through the trash. The very clean garbage searching for the pay dirt.'

Here lies screenshots. 

MGS:V. This game disappointed me greatly. I think i deleted it from the hard drive after the credits rolled. But i ended up with some interesting shots. Meet the child version of 'Psycho Mantis.' I can only assume this is who he was suppose to be. It was never explained or even hinted at who this character was exactly. The only information i got out of the game was that the mantis character and the fire dude were apparitions that latch onto individuals with a great desire for revenge and seemed to like hanging out with Metal Gears as well. 

Another shot from MGS. Atmosphere is so important with adventure type games, its half the reason im still playing them. Im all 'Fuck this game, but look at how good it looks.' Look at how far we've come in only maybe 15 or so years. We use to use fog as a smokescreen for limited graphics processing. Now we put it there just cuz it looks cool. But fuck this game, read more about that here

The dynamic weather in fallout 4 adds so much life to the game. I don't know what else to call this but a Radiation storm or a green out. It just rolled in and scared the dookie outta me. There was lightning and shit everywhere, i went inside the shed for a while. Some bitch was living there so i slept in her bed for 2 hours to ride out the storm; left her an old fan and a fire extinguisher as thanks then left. 10/10

Believe this was a PS3 port? Ever notice how many Churches are in videogames? Whats up? Typically they are safe havens to load up on supplies, usually abandoned and always a beautiful interlude. 

More bloodborne. How could i not. This game is so delicious looking. Can't quite recall if this was before or after the fight with the enormous Spider Rom or Rhom. Fuck that spider...fuck this game ( adult swear tantrum and a drink later) now how about that spider.

This is probably my favorite game moment in my recent memory. Towards the end, after you have rescued Elle and are making your way into Salt Lake City you climb some stairs and end up here. There were hint of this earlier in town at all the bus stop stations; advertising for the Zoo. It was such a beautiful and magical moment and im saying this with no sarcasm at all. Your character walks up to it slowwly and coxed Elle to do the same. It was a real honest moment that squeezed out a few tears that i'm not ashamed to say. 

The moment was so profound for me that when the characters leaned on the ledge and took in the view and so did i. Until the Giraffes left. I dunno what came over me, i just sat there reflecting i guess. Natures amazing and resilient and there are some beautiful things in this world worth protecting.  

Batman: Again. The atmosphere in this one is astonishing. I'm sure ill hear about this later but i didn't really care for the payoff at the end. In fact i didn't really think we needed another Batman game. I still don't but man this game looks rad! Scarecrow is a badass; so imagine my suprise when the little scarecrow trip-outs from the first game weren't in this one!? Anyways; the rain....the constant rain. The night...the everlasting night and the glow of the city were entertainment enough. Good for you Rocksteady. 

Joker stole the show again...and the game is called Arkham Knight! This was my favorite Joker story and he wasn't even alive in this one. Everywhere you turned he would be there hanging out commentating the story, adding in his own two cents on the matters at hand. I was impressed to see how the Devs used this device so effectively to build tension.

So much of bloodborne is so incredibly intense that i find myself, in the quieter moments of respite, taking selfies with the moon.

It must infuriate developers watching kids run through their game not paying any mind to the details of their meticulously constructed worlds. I love to stop and smell the napalm if you will. Looks here like the bombs fell in October just before Halloween. I've found old trickr treat pumpkin buckets lying around the wasteland too. These details is the reason why 12 million people bought the game in its first 24 hours. Yes...12 million.

This was either the worst wedding ever or the best wedding ever. Maybe she was really hungry and dug into the meat or or maybe eaten her husband after the ceremony like a praying mantis. I killed her moments after this was taken, in bloodborne i leaned to always kill everything and double tap when they're down just to make sure. Brides be damned.

Oh Man! Working on a growler there little nerdy teddy bear? What's that the Washington post?! I like to think that i do my best thinking when im taking a dookie. Sometimes ill stay in there reading and completely loose track of time. When my legs go numb its time to get on with my life. Also  there was nothing of note in the toilet bowl,

K, it use to look way more like the gun from Blade Runner but then i modded the urine out of it and it became an unrecognizable abomination. Works great though.

Good old Poppa. Trusty, reliable. He takes care of me. This bad boy is my go to weapon in Fallout 4. We've been through so much together. I'm just so glad that the Fallout 3 weapons breakdown mechanic is gone. I dunno if i could have handled the management of it all or the loss of a beloved companion. 

I had to.

Lastly here is a video i posted the other day, the 'Bloodborne' DLC: The Old Hunters. Its challenging as fuck, even for 'From Software' standards. I attempted this boss maybe 12 times before i called for aid. Even then i think i fought him 6 more times with help before we beat him. Its a New Game+ so your character carries over but the enemies do as well. Of course they do, thanks assholes. You can hear me at the beginning panicking in the form of blatant profanity. Then, strangely, my beckoning bell rang another player in during the Boss Battle. Which i don't even think is possible. I freak out again about 3/4 through; mashing triangle to heal. It was a bitch and i don't even feel like i cheated. He was that hard. 

The Art of Saving

People kept telling me to play Dragon Age: Inquisition so I did the obvious thing and got the first game in the series, Dragon Age: Origins. It came out in 2009 so it wasn't too hard to get a handle on the interface.  But with the last two games I've played through being Deus Ex: Revolution and Hitman: Absolution (wait a second, what's with every single game title being 'SERIES': ... -ion !? Many sequels trying desperately to bring back fans while standing apart from the series... OLD GAME: NEW GAME. Good games though.), I was lulled into mental dependence on the modern luxury of the autosave.

Nowadays it seems like every 10-15 minutes of play in most games is broken up by checkpoints to fall back on when you screw up and your throat gets shredded by a rusty chainsaw, or when you fail to intimidate some highwaymen and they rob you, or when your cat jumps on the keyboard and your newly erected civic monument is permanently demolished.

In the recent revival of indie roguelike games, the absence of checkpoint fail safes is a reaction against their ubiquity in mainstream game design. They reject the convention of a linear, piecemeal experience in order to give you a die hard, unique, unrepeatable experience each time you play. The idea of saving at all, is abhorred - there is never anything to come back to. Yet when playing Dragon Age I found myself in an awkward place between the two - the autosave and the antisave. Dragon Age seems to save at certain checkpoints, like entering a completely new region for the first time, but nowhere in between. Sometimes I'd spend forty minutes combing every square inch of a dungeon level, only to blunder a little too deep into the aggro radius of a camp around the corner and get TPK'd (if there's a way to retreat from fights I ain't found it yet) -- only to realize none of my giving wine to Alistair and rearranging my dog named Kyle's decorative furpaint and chest-looting was remembered by the game. There's something miserable about retracing your steps in an RPG, it becomes a ghost of your previous play. Anyway I kept "ghosting" dungeons and struggling -- so I had to develop the habit of intentionally saving again.

The little lamp goalies are a nice touch. I did not forsee myself being completely absorbed by Bloodborne. The most pleasent suprise of the year.  

Unless the mechanic of the gameplay itself involves save points. Any 'From Software' game utilizes a similar save mechanic. Get to the lamp or fire without dying and as a reward you will be afforded the privilege of saving your progress and celebrating your tenacity (for like 5 seconds anyway.) 

Bloodborne disguises its save points as lanterns littered throughout the sprawling  multi-level nightmare labyrinths. Nixing any pausing or save menus. Which, psychologically, seems to alleviate any anxiety a player might have about how and where to save. Disguised as an effigy or a shrine, the cold blue glow of the lanterns never felt so warm or inviting. Auto saving in this game would totally ruin the experience, the game itself hinders on the sheer will of the player to complete the area and light the lantern - where your allowed, finally, to travel back to the hunters dream and level up your character, buy items and take some deep breaths. Bloodborne is the antithesis of autosaving. In a strange way this anti save type scenario works out very well for all those forgetful stoned gamers that wiff on saving their progress and direct frustrated heads up towards the spackled ceiling asking 'Why?'.  

'Would you like to save your progress?'  

The modern day AAA titles have totally scrapped the idea of 'lives' for their characters. Replaced with one perma-life if you will. You play, you get shot, stabbed, eviscerated then you get another chance. This can be in the form of a recharging health bar or hiding behind something until you somehow recover from the 18 bullets you've just taken. Yeah its just a game, but those lives use to mean something. An ominous but unsaid contract between the game and the player. If you use up all the lives your dead and you had your chance. GAME OVER BRO. I love the idea of that. Nintendo understands this as well. They could simply replace the lives system with a perma-life system for their platformers but there is no cost to the player. They are left to simply continue playing until they succeed. With no consequence at all.

The genius of the itemized save system is that your constantly searching for the 'ink ribbon,' or 'tent.' In Resident Evil finding a type writer save point is just part of the act of saving. You also need an ink ribbon to use the typewriter which is brilliant. So, instinctively, the player learns to not rely on any kind of computerized auto-save but rely solely on the items in there inventory and there own good sense. Few games have utilized this method of discovering a save point and requiring a specific item to activate it. It creates a deeper immersion for the player during gameplay. Problem is every game is different so we have developed specific habits for specific games and it fucks us up big time. 

What really needs to happen here is some kind of disclaimer before each game clearly stating how and when the game saves by itself or that the player is responsible for said saving points. Nobody wants to redo the same area 30 times over. Old habits don't die as easily as our digital heroes do. Fallout 4 has caused me many hours of pain so far.  Amazingly I have not learned my lesson to 'quick save' fucking everywhere, all the God damn time. Turning any old corner in the wasteland can be extremely punishing. So you die. Then re-spawn a la Dragon Age. Waaaay the hell back where you really didn't want to be. 'Are you fucking serious,' or 'godamnsonofabitch' have been heard to be remarked. Finally, after many hours I've re learned the art of saving all over again. It tends to take me out of the moment and causes mild anxiety. Maybe that's a new kind of game mechanic done on purpose?

The take away here kids is to what?.....save as often as humanly possible, unless the game does not allow it or your in the very middle of a melee battle with a mutated bear. I feel with every game  i'm attempting the classic 'trust test.' I'm standing on a chair with my arms crossed over my chest and my eyes closed, ready to fall back into the open arms of whatever copy of game i happened to be struggling with. Usually i imagine the literal game packaging with gangly arms and legs attached to it ready to catch my sorry ass. I fall, hoping for the best.