Weekend Confirmed Episode 31

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Garnett, I wanted to address the point you brought up regarding players being able to make their own decisions about whether or not it's worth it to continue with a game (or book or movie) that isn't grabbing you. It is certainly every person's right to make the decision to drop a game that he isn't enjoying after an hour, or a movie that's uninteresting after fifteen minutes, or a book that's too slow in the first chapter. Nobody owes any responsibility to an artist to complete the experience of an offered work, and the judgment about the value of our time and effort in engaging with a piece of art can only be made by ourselves.

On the other hand, by making the choice to abandon any piece of art that doesn't grab you quickly, you are almost certain to be cutting yourself off from works that you would ultimately find to be worthwhile. There are works of art in every medium that start slowly but by the end achieve something transcendent. Not every piece that starts slowly will pay off in the end, and even if I think that a particular piece's ending makes it worthwhile, you might have a different opinion if you force yourself through it. So I certainly can't say that you or anyone should always force yourself to finish every game, book, or movie you start. Especially since there are also pieces of art that end well and also start quickly. But the fact remains that you might be missing out on something that would otherwise be the best thing you ever experience.

Now, that in itself isn't such a huge deal, since in the end you're only hurting yourself, and most likely this is a trade-off that you're making consciously. The problem arises when enough of the audience shuns a slow burn that publishers become unwilling to finance or distribute such works. The reasons why that kind of mass shift in the audience's willingness to engage with a slower work are going to be complex and certainly beyond the scope of an Internet comment to fully explore, and even if I could figure it out, I don't know what would need to happen to change the audience, nor even whether changing the audience would be the right thing to do. But it still seems like it would be a tragedy if it weren't possible for a great but slow game, movie or book to get made.

A lot of people slam trophies and achievements as meaningless and while in the macro sense they are, I do get value from them. These systems provide developers a means for giving me side goals and add replay to a game. I may not have gone after the challenge rooms in Batman were it not that I was in a trophy race with my friends. Also they come out with things I may never have thought of and again add more things for me to squeeze out of my game.

So I remembered Garnett mentioned talking about Player Reward for Episode 32. Here's my little spiel:

The latest game I've played that I've enjoyed the player reward system is Halo: Reach. I don't like the fact that I am automatically thrown into an uneven playing field in Modern Warfare 2 because I don't play it as often as most COD-fanatics out there. Making it cosmetic allows for players to customise their character to their own personal taste, and at the same time communicates to opponents (along with the military or Arena rank) just how good the people they're playing with are. All in all, I think cosmetic rewards (in multiplayer) are the way to go.

I think developers could put a lot more into the Xbox 360 Avatar reward system as well. Just doesn't seem as though it has hit it's stride yet.

I usually agree with Jeff but here I have to disagree. Cut scenes suck. I skip the every single time I can. I don't play games for stories. I'm not one of the "younger generation" -- I'm getting close to 40. I also don't think I"m unsophisticated or lacking depth -- I am a phd student in the humanities so I read lots of long boring books and I've also seen lots of long and/or artsy films. When I play a game I don't want to watch a movie. I want to play a game.
I don't care about stories in games any more than I care about stories in sculptures, music, or sports. It simply isn't what I want from that. I can't think of a single game I've played with a good story. Even with games like Planescape: Torment I barely remember the story. I remember the gameplay. If I want a story I'll read a book or watch a movie.

Okay. I've gotten some sleep, and so I've calmed down. I can forgive this crouch discussion, Garnett. Just make sure to use a winky face next time.

But I DO want you guys to revisit the idea of certain game mechanics that are always and forever present.

This isn't the best one ever, but the first thing that comes to my mind is: Why does failure in games almost always relate to death? More often than not, losing means dying in games. How come?

I have to say i agree with Brian about the crouching aspect in FPS games. I use it significantly in all fps. Especially online pop shots are essential on MOH or COD. Especially when you are competitive or just dont like to die over and over again. I will agree there are some that do not need a crouch button like L4D on pc, but in those cases you have a whole keyboard so why the heck not include the button even if you do no use it. I do not want to see this feature go away, i just wish developers would actually use it more often, or make players use it more often.

I will admit sometimes in instances of FPS games i use it like maybe i would imagine a real soldier would use it, after i get hit i will crouch and slow down get my bearings together and go for another round with the enemy.

Something to possibly discuss on the Warning:

To me, this month has been absolutely insane with regards to the sheer volume of game releases. However reading reviews and through discussion with various people, some of the games that have come out appears to really fall short from the potential shown when they were demo'd at conventions and such, with the most recent being Star Wars: The Force Unleased 2, where it appeared that the game mechanics were improved from the previous game but the story felt unfinished, Medal of Honor and Fallout New Vegas with their bug and glitch issues.

Now I don't think its new to have a mass of games appear roughly around the same time, but just this year, I get the impression that all these games have been rushed out, just to get something out there to compete. Actually when the whole 'taliban' controversy was made aware for Medal of Honor, I was surprised at how late that news came out in relation to the release date of the game, which had me wondering how finished this game really would be.

The main thing I was wondering is if there should be a mandatory period for QA after a game is 'finished', regardless of the release date. Basically if QA is not passed, then a delay should be imminent. Obviously one should not have it go as long as Duke Nukem Forever. Afterall, it does suck to have a great game that is either mired in bugs and glitches that break the experience, or a great game that ends up feeling like a beta campaign.

You guys mention in the Fallout New Vegas discussion, that there is a part where the bad guys are invisible for no reason. Wasn't there talk of something like this in Alpha Protocol? Maybe Obsidian has trouble with invisibility? Maybe it's a running gag throughout their games?

It makes me sad that people are having such a tough time with bugs in Fallout: New Vegas which is causing this great game to leave a bad taste in your mouth. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep since Tuesday and in mostly just cranking out the main storyline I finished up my first play through and I can't wait to start again, giving it the full explore everything treatment. Luckily I had very little problems with crashing (a few crashes, but not more than 4).

Hey Garnett, I think you should try dropping in some time with MAG and its new update (Move controller notwithstanding). I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially to compare and contrast with this ep's discussion on shooters and MoH.

Well Garnett, I hope you're happy. Because of you I've spent the last 2 hours of my commute yelling at my radio and I'm pretty sure anyone who was driving next to me those days thinks I'm crazy.

OH GOLLY MISS MOLLY, CROUCHING IN LEFT 4 DEAD IS NOT A COMPLEX STRATEGY.

In fact, it's pretty much common sense. Friendly fire is on by default in that game. Why? Because they want players to be aware of each other and work as a TEAM. Team work has ALWAYS been a strong point of Left 4 Dead. If you're just standing there and shooting in circles, you're going to piss off your team. Crouching allows you to shoot from whatever point you want, even if it's directly in front of someone else. Doing this not only creates a wall of fire, it keeps the team close together and makes it harder for anyone to get over run or dragged away.

In a game that slaps you in the face with the concept of team work, however loose you coordination is, I don't get why this wouldn't occur to anyone.

There are also plenty of moments where you're not only moving slow, you're at a complete stand still. A wall of bullets would be a great thing to use against a wall of zombies during any of the dozens of times you wait for a horde to show up while you hunker down in one spot.

P.S. Using your radar in Halo is NOT cheating, and crouching to sneak around without showing on the radar isn't cheating either.

If you disagree at all, I challenge you to ask any of these developers face-to-face what their opinion is on this.

Garnett, if you were blanking on a game which has essentially useless crouching, look at Bioshock. The only time you manually crouch is to get into vents or under decks. This mechanic could easily be replaced by code that says, "I'm pressing towards a vent, I want to crouch." At no other time during the game does the A.I. respond differently whether I'm standing or crouching. They locate and shoot me with the same perceived effectiveness in either case.

Crouch is a mechanic that affects the way other entities (either player or non-player) relate to you. If crouching does not affect the way those other beings relate to you, then it may be omitted.

There is a reason crouch has become a mainstay in FPS games. In many games, crouching also increases your accuracy and decreases recoil (eg: Counter Strike). These are elements of realism that are designed into a game that have a significant impact on the gameplay to create balance and strategy.

Also, Jeff, saying that it's "ridiculous" to be moving around on your knees in a FPS game parallels the ridiculousness of running around holding a gun out, ready to fire. Nobody in the armed forces walks or runs from place to place with their gun held to their shoulder while looking down their sites. You can't just bring that point up in a vacuum without acknowledging that many "ridiculous" gameplay elements exist, are prevalent and are required in order to produce an effective FPS experience.

If you want to talk about gameplay elements that are used simply because it's the norm, what about RPG elements? Cliff Blezinsky even admitted in an interview that the Gears 2 leveling/ranking system added absolutely nothing, NOTHING, to the gameplay. Why did they put it in? Because other games did it and they wanted to superficially give players a reason to hold onto the game longer. That's it.

I think this topic had the potential to expand into a broader and deeper discussion, but you guys got too focused on the crouching (Garnett included).

Garnett was particularly full of shit with the whole rant on crouch. I applaud the original idea of examining things we take for granted in games, but the simple fact is that 'crouch' is not one single thing, but rather it serves a range of purposes depending on the design of the game. As Brian pointed out, it's put to very good, but vastly different uses in Halo and L4D. Borderlands offers yet another use for it, trading speed for accuracy.

Pretty much any movement modification in a games controls come down to a trade-off. Crouch sacrifices speed for something, whether that's stealth (Halo), less chance of getting hit (Arma), better accuracy (Borderlands), or improved team dynamics (L4D). We should be appluading developers that offer greater tactical depth in games, and what is a trade-off but an option to make tactical decisions? Should I be running in guns blazing, or crouching behind cover to snipe from a distance? Should my team hold this defensible ground, or push forward?

Risk/reward decisions are the bread and butter of an satisfying game, and, up to a point, the more tactical options a player has, the more satisfying exploring that possibility space becomes.

If Garnett wants to run a lean stripped down OS for playing games, he should probably just install linux. Pretty sure the library sizes between that and whatever a possible 'Valve' OS would have wouldn't be much different.

Ya know, I don't know why you guys even bother asking each other what system someone's playing a game when it's almost always 360. Look, I get it, you guys prefer 360 for multiplatform gaming. That's fine. But it kinda bites that for big multiplatform games I never hear how they run on the PS3 on this show. Garnett seems to be the only guy that's impartial when it comes to consoles. Can we once in awhile mix things up for the PS3 only owners out there? I haven't one non-PS3 focused podcast talk about how New Vegas runs on the PS3 because it seems like all you guys prefer 360.
And since I'm hating, enough with the Del Rio rhymes. He raps like Justin Timberlake.

Regarding Acheivments/Trophies in games, I think they are actualy kinda useless. I actualy like certain thing about both of them though. I like the number syestem that acheivments use, but I also like the Leveling syestem that Trophies have. Although I think SONY needs to rebalance that stuff because right now in order to even make a dent on my Level progression I need to get like Gold trophies and silvers, bronzies do nothing anymore. and even 5 pt acheivments effect my overal accumulated number. Also, I think i get more satisfication out of getting a paltinum trophy for getting all of the trophies rather then just getting my number for the game to equal 1000 for 360 games.

I mostly disagree that story and game are disconnected in most games. For me, it is a matter that there is difference between story and game play. They are not, and mostly will not ever be the same thing.

Therefore, I can enjoy a game where I hate the story due to game play. Conversely, I can enoy a game where I hate the game play if the story is amazing (this works less for me, but some people say this happens for them e.g. Dragon Age).

It's also true what Jeff said that the games that integrate game play and story the most, are games like:

Dwarf Fortress
The Sims series
Armegeddon Empires
Ultima Online

These are pure sandbox games, where you DO write your own story via game play. They are also among my favorite games for this very reason.

If the game makers get too heavy handed and "force" the story to impact your game play too much, this can be annoying to some players: including me.

The cut scene issue is connected to this in a pretty obvious manner.

I was listening to Jeff and sort of laughing at him playing fifa on beginner mode. I play football or soccer at a low level and always play games of the sport on the hardest difficulty. I wasn't laughing when I lifted nba2k11. Now I am playing at a lower level because I have no base knowledge of the sport. I think base knowledge of something is now transferable between games and reality as I recently went paintballing and found online multiplayer tactics work a treat. This trend is continuing with skills in rockband transferring to a real guitar. Is this the virtual reality we were promised when we were younger?

On the skipping cut scenes, I tend to skip them if they are lengthy. Jeff will initially call me lazy, but hear me out. I love movies and games, when I watch a movie it is because I want passive entertainment. When I play a game I want interactive entertainment. By and large I don't need that much out of my game's narrative, but please don't take me away from interacting for so long I wonder if I should have just popped a movie in. I wish game makers would find more ways to tell the story while I am interacting, I understand there will be exceptions, but please minimize the amount of time I spend with the controller set down. Otherwise games are just movies where you need to work for them to reward you with the next scene.

I have precious little leisure time and when what I intend to do with that time gets mucked up by a developer's vision I tend to check out. I feel bad saying that because I agree with Jeff that people do not look deep enough at what they consume in media, but if I want to watch a documentary I will do so, when I want to play a game please let me play. Civ does a great job of giving you a sense of a fictional world history, without making you sit and watch it passively.

Have you ever gone back to a game you loved or hated and felt the total opposite?

I recently picked up my old copy Dragon Age, a game that I loved when it first came out, and was completely bored to tears. It was so strange because I was excited to see the different viewpoint of playing one of the origin stories I had not chosen my first time, but the combat seemed terribly slow and I was horrible annoyed by the dialog and situational redundancies that I ran into.

Conversely, while trying Killzone 2 again after being underwhelmed my first time playing it I found that the slightly sluggish control, the over-the-top cussing, and the barely-there story bothered me much less than it had the first time through. I actually found myself getting pumped for Killzone 3, which was just barely on my radar before.

Just last night I tried Heavenly Sword again after being obsessed with Enslaved for the last few weeks, and found that game to be just as weak as I had when I first played it. Sure, it looks great and the story is extremely entertaining, but the weak exploration elements and slight depth made the experience just as murky as it was when I first played.

Have any of you ever gone back to a game and felt radically different than you did when you played it the first time?

Excerpt from a recent Gamespot article:

"More specifically, something that bothered Blizzard about Diablo II was the introductory conversation that set the scene for the story. At a little over a minute, it was simply too long and prevented players from getting into the game itself. Ultimately, this went against Blizzard's policy of action-based story-telling. They want the player to be able to experience aspects of the story without drawn out expository sequences that interrupt the flow of the game."

One minute is too much? Now the question becomes: does this mean Blizzard is wanting to dumb down games for the stupid masses, or does it mean that they actually know something about design?

My own take is that this whole issue of "longer exposition = better" is bullshit... they are just different styles for different tastes. Nothing wrong with either approach, and thinking so would only deprive many of their flavor of choice.

I'm sorry, Mr. Cannata, your argument might have been a little more balanced this week, but I do feel like this point needs to be harped on at least a bit more.

I completely understand and sympathize with your frustration regarding people who's sense of entitlement is overdeveloped to the point of feeling like they deserve to be entertained by the world all the time, but I still feel that the connection a person exhibiting this behaviour and a person skipping a cutscene they don't want to watch is a bit tenuous. The latter might often be a symptom of the former, but I can't stress enough that it's not exclusively so. There could be any number of reasons why someone might choose to only skim the story in a game... after all, not everyone necessarily plays games the same way or for the same reasons.

I've mentioned this before, but perhaps it warrants repeating, I don't play for immersion. Strange as that might sound to anyone who does, it's just how it is. I don't need a sense of purpose, I don't need consistency or even coherence in my narratives, and I don't feel at all bothered at all when gamey things like HUDs or collectible doodads break the realism of the moment... all I need in order to enjoy a game are fun mechanics, and a world that allows me to make use of them. I have no trouble acknowledging that people worked hard on those cutscenes and story segments that I'm not investing in, even the bad ones, I tip my hat to those people, but those cutscenes weren't put there for me, they're for the people who do want that extra layer of involvement in the game, and I have no desire to see that part of the experience denied to anyone who wants it.

Getting to the point, no, I don't feel entitled to being entertained all the time. No, I don't just want to shoot (I don't even like first person shooters), and I certainly don't complain about not understanding a story if I wasn't paying attention... and yes, I do read. Sometimes, I get frustrated when the gameplay portions of a game are taken away too often or for too long at a time, but that in and of itself doesn't necessarily signify much more than simple disinterest.

If you still take issue with people who skip cutscenes in and of themselves, that's fine, we'll just agree to disagree, but it sounds like your beef is actually with actually with a certain attitude as taken up by a certain subset of the culture, and if so, then the act of skipping cutscenes in itself is entirely neutral. Sometimes it's because the player is a meat-headed fratboy, but sometimes not. If entitlement is what's really bothering you, then please, complain about that and leave cutscene skipping alone, because the more these two issues conflate, the more one is inferred onto the other.

Love the podcast.
However, regarding crouching in game, Garnett, have you ever even played L4D? The whole over/under crouching thing isn't some advanced strategy, it was easy to figure out and is something that was born organically by just playing the game. I think the first time I ever played it we were all using it. It adds a lot to the game, not to mention other games.
Like Brian mentioned in Halo, crouching can be used as a strategy that has it's pros and cons. Of course it makes you slower, that's the downside of not being able to be seen on the radar, etc. If you don't like crouching, maybe just don't crouch. I don't see how removing it would add anything to the game, especially in L4D where it's a pretty integral to the experience.

Im Happy with my console for the moment.

Firstly, love the podcast, great to listen to people chatting about the details of the gaming world.

Following dicussions on whether we are ready for the next generation of consoles, I am happy with my PS3. I would probably have a 360 too if I could afford and justify to keep both. The PS3 in my house is used for gaming, media streaming and my mother gets a lot of use from displaying pictures and music when she hold events around our house. I also like to commit to a product, I have a Playstation Plus membership, aswell as a FirstPlay membership (paid weekly episodes, on PSN done by the same team as OPM UK) . I recently bought Move too, as the Wii simply being a SD console has me struggling to get one.

The PS3 fills my needs for the time being. If Sony were to release a PS4 in the next 2 years I would struggle to convince myself to get one. The current console are still pushing more out and with innovations such as Kinect and Move, there is easily enough to keep us going another 4 years.

Finally to cover the PC spectrum. I stopped playing PC games because the time and cost of keeping a machine up to date is exhausting. I have though committed myself to build a super machine if and when Half Life (EP) 3 is released. Until then im happy with what I have.

Hey - long-time listener, first-time commenter. I really enjoy the show, and I figure the perfect way to start commenting is with a bit of hate:

If you're going to postulate about a possible sequel to Alan Wake, maybe you really should take the time to play the DLC? I mean, it only takes you an afternoon, and it not so much hints at the coming of a sequel as it beats you on the head with it.

Oh, and I did enjoy the crouching discussing, but I feel Garnett was ill-equipped for it. But that's ok because it's fun when Garnett fails.

On a different note, I loved the remix of the Portuguese music, but I'm biased because I'm from Portugal.

Keep it up! :)

Listening to your discussion about MoH got me thinking. You pointed out the fact that it's derivative as one of the game's problems. In hollywood, some of the great summer blockbusters are very derivative. Why is it that game's always seem to be pushed to innovate? Is there room in the game industry for games that are derivative and may bring nothing new to the table, but do it really well? Can a game like that ever see good review scores?

Garnett, I completely understand the point you were going for, but I think you chose one of the worst possible examples in "crouching". I agree that all conventions should be examined, and that developers should include features that truly make sense within their game, but the way you dismissed crouching in shooters just came off sounding like you have no clue what you are talking about. I do play a lot of shooters, and I'm aware that not everyone is as familiar with them as I am, but if you play a single match of Halo or Bad Company 2 online, you'll see people crouching constantly and for good reason.

Of all the features shooters tend to incorperate, crouching is far from the most easely expendable.

....aaand Brian Other Guy thoroughly loses the crouch argument. I mean, this was podcast horsecrap to listen to.

Hey guys,

My wife just showed me this video on youtube.... she used to watch it as a child. It's a Russian cartoon from 1975.

It instantly reminded me of Limbo... the visual style, the dream like journey.... check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRsXU4Q6a0Q

On the topic of crouching (having now listened to that discussion)...I think the point Garnett was trying to make was getting lost, perhaps because the examples that he used weren't the best. I think some games DO benefit by having crouch...but some really don't. Quake 2 had crouch...and it felt out of place...they had to come up with places in maps where you'd use it tha seemed forced and in multiplayer you always wanted to be moving and moving quickly. It didn't really add depth there...it was really a sort of useless thing that was kind of tossed in because, hey, people can crouch and Duke Nukem did it. Quake 3 had the same issue, it didn't hurt anything being in there...it just wasn't really a useful thing to have. Quake 1 didn't have it and that game wasn't hurt for its absense. For those sorts of games (fast-paced deathmatch games) I'm not sure if there's a compelling reason to have it. As an aside, Brian mentioned CS being a fast paced game...but thats a relative thing...I always felt that CS was fairly slow paced when it came out coming from a DOOM and Quake background.

Hell, I'd argue that footsteps were maybe a mistake in Q2 and Q3...it actually took depth away, because it reduced the importance of using item pickup cues to know where someone was on the map...and as those games and Q1/QW are played now...there's an emergent choice that arises from movement tricks that IMHO already allows for that depth...if you want to move silently in Q1 you just run...if you want to move faster (with the trade-off being that you make noise) you bunny-hop (or strafe-jump in Q2 and Q3...though they have footsteps). I've been toying around with making a free FPS game based on the XReal source port of the GPL'd Quake3 engine that would basically be an oldschool DM game in the vein of DOOM or Quake...and I actually have given thought to removing crouching...as it would add nothing to the game that I would be making (and probably won't be making, as I don't have nearly enough free time and right now I'm focused on helping out a Q3 mod team who's stuff I dearly love).

I think part of where Brian's argument was coming from was for specific kinds of games (and L4D was a bad bad example from Garnett and I think the discussion got hung up on those examples). I also think that Brian tends to come from a very Halo oriented view on competitive multiplayer FPS games because thats what he likes...so that was going to make his stance more rigid. I think that in Halo given its design crouch makes sense for what the developers wanted to do there (though if they'd wanted to remove crouching and radar that would be an equally valid approach and its perfectly fine to take issue with those things in general...otherwise Brian couldn't take issue with things in Ruse or prefer SC2 to it or DoW). Holy shit I got off-topic there.

What I'm trying to get at is that crouching should be put in or left out on a game by game basis...its a design decision. In some games you won't be taking cover...because moving is your cover...you should never be not moving...and you should never be crouching behind something...in some FPS games you really should be moving toward or away from something...its all about that sort of dynamic and I think the ability to do that, to adjust to fluid circumstances, and to think quickly adds a lot of depth to those old school games that I think we've lost to this fallacy that a slower pace means more time to think so there's more strategy if things are slower. Thats not necessarily true and there's a skill to being able to do a lot of thinking in a little bit of time. I'm not saying that slower paced games are lacking, just that they are different rather than better or worse. And pacing might be one of many factors to consider (as well as what sort of game it is) in determining if a feature (like crouch) is needed.

Finally, I'll note (and end my rambling) that this discussion of crouching actually got me noticing how much and when I crouched when I was playing BF:BC2 today...and got me wondering if they finally added in toggle crouch...I discovered that they did and I checked it and rejoiced. I like having the option of either holding or toggling the crouch (and the aim down the sights feature if a game has it)...I don't find it comfortable at all to have a button mashed down and a finger made useless in a game...I have a hard time moving my mouse around with the right button held...and I really hate contorting my fingers to get to my movement keys (ESDF) with crouch held down. I really think all games on the PC should offer the option to do it either way...its a preference thing just like mouse sensitivity and different people are going to want different things (I get the impression that archvile is going to want to hold and let go of those buttons and if thats whats comfortable to him, he should have that option).

Since Garnett brought up GOTY again this week (and it is getting to be that time of year) here's my update.

It seems that gaming, like academy awards for movies, have grown to the place where it needs special awards, so here's mine:

-Innovation Award
Heavy Rain: this game is the first where I truly feel that it let me tell my own story with my own choices. This feature has been promised for many years, and never delivered before, at least to my standards.

-Immersion Award
Mass Effect 2: the new rapid positioning of my team mates allowed me to have the immersive and chaotic fire-fights of similar titles, without breaking my suspension of disbelief by fiddling with telling each team member what to do through some hokey interface. It also provided a well realized world, with a brisk but not too-brisk pacing that didn't have me dropping into "feeling bored mode" nearly at all, which is another big immersion killer for me.

-Value Award
Fallout: New Vegas PC: I've heard horror stories about the Xbox version of the game, but my PC experience has be excellent, so only the PC version gets this award. I'm 45 hours in and feel like the game might be half over done (level 14 of 30 and still a ton to see). Note that this award doesn't count for games that are fantastic for replay, but are repetitive my nature (like Starcraft 2). Rather, this is for games that provide OODLES of fresh content, such that there are easily 50+ hours of unique experience of a high quality.

-Technical Award:
Red Dead Redemption: This is like cinematography and other such awards that are for games who have technical production values that are of the highest quality. The animation, voice acting, and overall quality of Red Dead Redemption seemed like a real milestone to me: it is a great game on top of it.

-Thinking Man's Game Award
Dwarf Fortress v31.12: this game is very much not for everyone, but that can be said about most games in this category. It will probably never be released (it will probalby be evolving for many years), so unlike most games, I won't wait for release to give it an award. It requires installing a better tile set and a tool like Dwarf Therapist to be playable at all for my taste, and has an abysmal interface, but a game with more depth, detail, and freedom is difficult to concieve of. If you enjoy needing to learn the exact differences between igneous and sedimentary rock strata as a requirement to playing a game, and don't mind keeping a 1,000 page wiki open in the background at all times, and taking weeks of play to grasp the basics, this game is an amazing experience.

-Best Game
Just as the Best Picture award has often bothered me with movies, since it is so subjective in most cases, I will not give this award unless I feel one game is obviously best by a long shot, such that it as least someone overcomes my own subjective tastes. For 2010, there is no such game, so the tie goes to the above 5 games.


Runners up:

Starcraft 2: best esport game in existence at this point, maybe esport games could become a special award category, if they ever get out of only being played that way in South Korea!

Monster Hunter Tri: great teamwork game, even with the lousy graphics, and boss monster combat is nearly without equal in the history of gaming.

Great show again this week guys. I wanted to address the topic of player choices in games and the content that is triggered or locked out because of those choices. The problem with games that lock out content due to player choice is that they essentially create a right way to play the game and a wrong way to play the game. If you want all the characters/ side missions/ achievements/ etc., you have to play a certain way.

In order for player choice to have true meaning for the game, developers need to add or lock out content regardless of choice. If I choose to blow up Megaton or not recruit Wrex, I need an opportunity for an equivalent experience somewhere down the line that opens up specifically because of those choices.

One series that handles this situation pretty elegantly is Persona. In Persona 3 and 4, all of your social link content is laid out in front of you. With the time constraints that the game has in place, it is almost impossible to see all of the content. You have to choose what you want to see and what you want to ignore. If you want to hang out with the basketball team over working at day care, that's up to you. Sure, you can go to day care another day, but you might have to pass up another social link opportunity to do so.

Ultimately, it comes down to freedom vs. restriction. If players are free to do as they choose and given the tools to open up all content, they inevitably restrict themselves to the path that offers the greatest returns. If players are restricted to systems that limit their content regardless of choice, they are free to do whatever they please.

Here is my weekly plea for a Cannataford game suggestion: Shantae Risky's Revenge. DSiWare. Platformer. Great animation. Music. Charm. Whimsy. $12. 6 hours. Fun. Awesome. If any of you like these things, then you would probably like this game! It's the highest rated DS game of the year! If this game was on one of the consoles, you guys would probably have already talked about it by now. It's such a hidden gem. Give it a chance!

About Costume Quest!

They walk you through getting back your robot costume as a tutorial; the rest range from slightly harder to get to "I had to check a FAQ" for a couple (specifically the second part of the unicorn). It's not a difficult game to complete, but there are a couple quests that'll get you hunting for costumes/acheivements.

Garnett's favorite anime is RahXephon?

I mean, it's pretty much an Evangelion rip-off that actually turned out to be better than the original in a few ways, but I couldn't understand anything happened that show. Not terrible by any means, but there is certainly better sci-fi anime out there.

One of the best dubs ever though.

Having watched people who don't play games very often play through ME2 I don't think the story triggers are very obvious to them. Everyone doesn't figure out that you always get renegade points by picking the lowest option on the wheel, not because they're stupid but because they're not picking games apart that way. They enjoy the game even though they don't try to peek under the hood.

That said, I don't think that would necessarily work for 'us'. To use ME2 as an example again, a lot of people got really annoyed at the end of the game (spoilers) because Miranda's advice and comments can end up getting people killed if you follow them. If you get to know her character throughout the game however, you'll learn that she's not as infallible as she likes to think. Her advice being wrong in that situation makes sense for her character, but if you're used to how games work you might have the expectation that whatever she says is the right thing to do, when in fact it's not.

The game is a bit inconsitent with itself in that regard, but in a positive way I think.

For a perfect example of why crouching is important in Halo, watch this:

http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/FileDetails.aspx?fid=4235304&player=CruelLEGACEY

:p


ps I know I already posted this in a reply... that was an accident.