Mini Ninjas, due to release on PC, PS3, Xbox 360, DS, and Wii this week, is a charming action game that puts you in control of a cadre of adorable ninjas as they seek to restore harmony to the world. I took advantage of the demo available on Steam to test drive the game and play through the single level that is available.


Graphically, Mini Ninjas is a game that you are going to either love or hate. If you enjoy highly stylized and cartoon-inspired graphics, then the game is a visual feast. The levels are rendered in a gorgeously playful style, and the world is brought to life with ample amounts of movement and ambient sound (swaying grass, rustling bamboo thickets, chirping birds, etc). The character models are Asian-inspired; while not quite drawn in the classic super-deformed anime style, they are not terribly far off either. On the other hand, players who prefer their games to be hyper-realistic may find it impossible to get past the first few screens - real world gritty, Mini Ninjas is not.

If the demo level is anything to go by, the game will be broken down into large semi-linear levels. While there is definitely a path that players are strongly encouraged to follow, there are enough off-shooting branches to explore and secrets to discover that it pays to stray from the obvious path.


The game play in Mini Ninjas is beat 'em up-style action. Expect to be assailed at every turn by groups of enemy ninjas hellbent on ending your adorable little life. Depending on the ninja that you choose to control (6 total choices, swappable at any time) you will fight your foes off using a selection of Japanese melee and ranged weapons as well as some potent ninja magic. Attacking consists of three main buttons: attack, shield break, and jump. At first you will be starting fights off with a jumping attack, and then spamming regular attacks until an enemy is smart enough to block, at which point a well-timed shield block should be employed. As you progress through the game you will acquire more and more items (shuriken, bombs) and magic (fireball, lightning) to add to the mix.

Layered on top of the pure combat game is a treasure hunt that should please achievement-driven players. Each level has a number of hidden items to acquire, a list of which can be obtained from the pause screen. This scavenger hunt will see the player scouring the map for plant life, scrolls, urns, and other artifacts - some of these items reward you with in game power ups, while others are merely cosmetic.


One aspect of the game that could either be a brilliant addition or a cheap gimmick is an ability that allows the player to possess any animal that they come across. In the demo this was used on two occasions. Firstly, the player had to possess a fox in order to sneak by a particularly tough group of enemies - while victory by combat was possible, stealth was a viable alternative. The second instance allowed the player to take control of a boar and attack a group of archers. The boar was not spotted nearly as quickly as the player in ninja form, and was able to dispatch the archers very quickly. It remains to be seen how well this feature is used throughout the rest of the game.

All in all I had a wonderful time with the Mini Ninjas demo. Although I died twice, I made it through the single demonstration level without too much difficulty and more importantly I was grinning from ear to ear almost the entire time that I was playing. The game has a wonderfully playful charm that reminds me why I love gaming so much - there is no substitute for pure silly fun.

Steam download: link
Demo parameters: Single level
Cost: $29.99 (PC, DS), $40 (Wii), $50 (Xbox 360, PS3)

These days a disproportionate amount of my gaming is facilitated by Valve's Steam service. Aside from providing an excellent library of games, Steam also tracks achievements, game play, and even allows you to set up communities.

If anyone else is a Steam user and would like to add me to their friend's list (and vice versa), here's a link to my account: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198005654011/

Feel free to leave your own Steam account name in the comments.

This news just breaks my heart: Beyond Good and Evil Sequel 'On Hold'.

Beyond Good and Evil is a PS2 game that was released with very little fanfare in 2003 into the midst of stiff competition. As a result of the poor timing and lack of advertising the game was a commercial failure. Those few people who bought the game, however, fell in love with the title and before long it was a cult classic.

Briefly, Beyond Good and Evil is an action adventure game that put you in the shoes of Jade, an investigative reporter trying to unearth a massive government conspiracy. Your primary weapons are a Daï-jo and a camera, both of which are equally useful in their own ways. While the game's combination of action and stealth are well-implemented, what made the game memorable was the plot. Jade's journey is both intense and emotional, and if you don't find yourself breaking up at least once during the story then you truly have no soul.

Given my adoration of the original game, I was over the moon last spring when it was announced by Michael Ancel (creative lead) and confirmed by Ubisoft that Beyond Good and Evil 2 was in production. Unfortunately, this summer doubt started to creep in as Ubisoft backpedaled on the previous year's announcement, claiming that no decision to release a sequel had ever been made.

Sadly, this week's announcement that all development work on Beyond Good and Evil 2 has been indefinitely halted and that the title is "on hold" confirms the worst fears of fans. Ubisoft has completed their reversal and now the future of the sequel game is in doubt.


I'll continue to hold out hope that this project will get back on track soon - but I must admit that I'm feeling extremely grim about the prospects right now.

Bonus Content
For those of you unfamiliar with Beyond Good and Evil, I would recommend picking up the title on Steam or Good Old Games. Failing that, at least check out a video or two here:

1. Beyond Good and Evil advertisement (2003)
2. Beyond Good and Evil 2 debut teaser (2008)
3. Beyond Good and Evil 2 leaked chase video (2009)
   

As much fun as it is to read about and discuss gaming, sometimes I need a bit more variety to spice things up. My primary fallback is science of any kind. I have maintained a subscription to Discover Magazine for over a decade, I follow numerous scientific blogs, and I listen to the Quirks & Quarks podcast on a weekly basis.

Of course, when reading up on the latest discoveries I simply cannot help but tie some of them back to my gaming hobby - I'm a geek through and through.

The Genesis of Human Violence
If some wingnuts are to be believed, video games turn otherwise good kids into murderous lunatics. While assertions like these are almost laughable in their naivety, that has not stopped them from gaining popularity with some pressure groups and politicians. There are plenty of studies on the alleged link between video games and violent/aggressive behavior and the majority conclude that there is simply no correlation.

So if video games don't turn kids into murderers, then why do good kids turn bad? Better yet, why does the history of humanity seem to be punctuated by so many acts of mass violence? Or, on a smaller scale, why does violent crime persist in our societies, even amongst people who are extremely well off?

One theory is that human evolution favored certain types of violent behavior and thus we, as a species, innately possess a tendency towards violence and aggression. In a recent episode of Quirks & Quarks the host, Bob McDonald, interviewed four scientists in an attempt to gain a better understanding of this issue. The result is a picture of a social species that is bred for brutal competition. No matter how hard we try to hide it and no matter the level of civility in modern society, most human beings have an innate fascination with violence that lies just beneath the surface.


To build up the case, McDonald's experts present four scientific arguments. A biological anthropologist from Harvard discusses the warlike behavior of chimpanzees, our close evolutionary brethren. A comparative physiologist from the University of Utah explains how some of our distinct physical traits, namely our bipedalism and the shape of our hands, suggest specialization for combat. An evolutionary psychologist from the University of California describes how our instinctive our facial expressions are, and what certain expressions (especially anger) project at the base animal level. Finally, a neuroscientist from Vanderbilt University explains how watching or performing violent actions activates our brain's reward systems, and what this means in an evolutionary context.

It seems clear that humans are hardwired for violence, and no matter how much we try to resist our bestial roots, a fascination with it lurks within us. Violent video games may serve as an outlet to scratch this primal itch, but they certainly are not the root cause of it.

Download: Quirks & Quarks, Apr 25, 2009.

The Malleability of Memory
As gamers we tend to wax nostalgic a lot. It's easy to look back on the games that we played years ago and remember how wonderful they were. Games today do so many things wrong in comparison, right? Well.... no.

Neuroscientists have been discovering, much to many people's amazement, that memories are not etched in stone. In simplified terms, scientists have found that during the act of recalling a past event, your memory briefly becomes fluid and is susceptible to modification. During this time it is possible to change the memory and replace it with a slightly different version of events. The old saying "if you repeat something enough times then it becomes true" may well be valid!


Kathleen McGowan, of Discover Magazine, explains in more detail:

While neuroscientists were skeptical of Nader’s findings, cognitive scientists were immediately fascinated that memory might be constantly revamped. It certainly seemed to explain their observations: The home run you hit in Little League? Your first kiss? As you replay these memories, you reawaken and reconsolidate them hundreds of times. Each time, you replace the original with a slightly modified version. Eventually you are not really remembering what happened; you are remembering your story about it. “Reconsolidation suggests that when you use a memory, the one you had originally is no longer valid or maybe no longer accessible,” LeDoux says. “If you take it to the extreme, your memory is only as good as your last memory. The fewer times you use it, the more pristine it is. The more you use it, the more you change it.” We’ve all had the experience of repeating a dramatic story so many times that the events seem dead, as if they came from a novel rather than real life. This might be reconsolidation at work.

Reconsolidation research has helped foster a growing sense that the flexibility of memory might be functional—an advantage rather than a bug in the brain. Reconsolidation might be how we update our store of knowledge, by making old memories malleable in response to new information. “When you encounter a familiar experience, you are remembering the original memory at the same time, and “the new experience somehow gets blended in,” says Jonathan Lee of the University of Birmingham in England, who recently found evidence for this effect in animals. “That is essentially what reconsolidation is.” The evident purpose of episodic memory, after all, is to store facts in the hope of anticipating what might happen next. From the perspective of survival, constructive memory is an asset. It allows you to pull together scraps of information to simulate the future on the fly.

“The brain knows there is a future,” says neuroscientist Yadin Dudai, head of the department of neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, who collaborates with Nader and LeDoux. Facing something new, we want to link the novel information with memories to better interpret the situation. If the side effect is a few mistakes, that is probably a small price to pay. “Having a memory that is too accurate is not always good,” he says.

While there are some very practical applications of this new found knowledge - namely treating post traumatic stress disorder - it also helps explain why so many gamers pine for the good old days. It turns out that things weren't better when we were kids - we just remember them that way after all this time.

Read: How much of your memory is true?

To the complete surprise of pretty much no one, EVE Online's troubled player-run EBANK burst into flames again today. Massively explains the latest cock-up:

Recently appointed EBANK Chairman Ray McCormack alerted customers and the game's playerbase to the situation and the reasons behind the decision to freeze accounts. McCormack didn't pull any punches when he discussed the ways EBANK had been mismanaged in the past. (It should be noted that EBANK has gone through several management changes since its inception, with McCormack one of the newest players brought aboard.) According to a statement from EBANK's board of directors: "controls were not enforced, auditing was never completed and reporting was almost non-existent."

Ricdic's (estimated) 250 billion ISK embezzlement was compounded by another 380 billion ISK in defaulted loans. What wasn't understood at the time of the embezzlement was how badly the past mismanagement of EBANK, particularly in terms of financial reporting, had impacted the entity.

After a recent management shuffle and closer scrutiny of EBANK's operations, the board of directors came to the conclusion that the deficit isn't only a matter of billions of ISK, it exceeds one trillion ISK and this shortfall increases by another 12 billion ISK each month.

The chart entitled "Where did all the ISK go?", which lists off default after default, is particularly painful to look at:


Obviously EBANK needs to modernize their operations and start employing a horde of specially trained EThugs to get out there and break the virtual knees of anyone who tries to default on a loan. Or pod them - whatever works.

Osmos, a trippy physics-based indie title, was released on Steam last week to very little fanfare. Hemisphere Games' little gem took the D2D Vision Award at this year's Independent Games Festival, and has also made The PAX 10 list at Gabe and Tycho's yearly Expo. Since I have a soft spot for indie games I simply had to download the demo.... and for the last few hours I've been fighting the urge to buy the full game.... a battle I'll probably lose.


In Osmos you control a small blue cellular organism - called a biophobe - living in a field of similar creatures. The rules of the game are simple: if you come in contact with a biophobe that is smaller than you then you absorb its mass and grow accordingly, however if you touch a larger organism then it will absorb your mass. Visual cues make it easy to tell whether or not you can slurp up your peers; if the cell has a blue outline then you are larger than it, whereas red enemies will kill you.

The real meat of the game is delivered by the movement mechanics; if you click behind your biophobe it will be propelled forward, but this movement comes at a cost - namely, your mass. Every time you accelerate you jettison cellular material out behind you, which will float around until you reabsorb it, or else it is acquired by one of the other organisms in the level. Once spurred into motion your biophobe will drift in the direction it was aimed, slowly coming to a stop over time. Thus, movement is a trade-off; it is important to travel efficiently and take advantage of your inertia whenever possible.


As you progress through the demo, the game slowly extends the complexity of the world and its denizens. Extra controls, like the ability to slow time, are introduced incrementally, as are a variety of different biophobe types, each with unique characteristics and/or motivations. By the time you reach the end you will be familiar with orbiting worlds, intelligent creatures, and a handful of tactics to grow and thrive.

Before I wrap this up, it would be remiss of me not to mention the aesthetics of Osmos. Visually, the game is both simple and stunning. The biophobes are colorful and majestic, easily gliding across spartan backdrops that have a very galactic feel. The music (described as "sublime electronic" by the designers) is ambient and pleasing, and forms a perfect soundtrack to this beautiful indie title.

Steam download: link
Demo parameters: Tutorial plus seven levels
Cost: $9.99 (10% off today)

Karen, co-host of Shut Up, We're Talking, has posted on her blog after a long hiatus. The last few episodes of SUWT have featured a lot of good-natured ribbing aimed at her in the hopes that she would start writing again.

In her first post, Karen is looking for a little help towards a good cause:

Those who might have followed my blog in the past know that I’ve helped participate in the 2,996 project, which is a blogger tribute to the victims of 9/11. Each year, bloggers sign up and are assigned the name of one of the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Flight 93. The first year of the project, in 1996, there were over 3,000 bloggers that participated. It struck me this year, when I signed up, how few bloggers were participating - only 687 so far with a couple of weeks left.

So I’m putting out a call to this amazing blogger community - if you can help, please head to the 2,996 project site and volunteer to remember a victim of 9/11. Even though it’s still summer, it’s right around the corner. No matter what your political views are, 9/11 is about the people that had their lives cut short that day - a day to celebrate what they did with the time they had.

If this interests you at all and you would like to help out, you can find the full details on Journeys With Jaye. I'm looking forward to more posts from Karen soon!

I just played through the opening tutorial mission arc in Fallen Earth, and I must say that I was mightily impressed. While the game is still working through some glitches - most noticeably some graphical annoyances - they do not hinder the tutorial's game play at all.


So what exactly does the tutorial do to earn it this high praise?

• Introduces core game mechanics during the course of a number of quests, and provides links to read extended details on these topics as they are introduced. This allows the player to learn at their own pace.
• Provides a great deal of game world history, and then provides the player with story-driven reason to set out on an adventure.
• Elevates the player to a high level for the duration of the tutorial to give a taste of power, and then takes it all away. The first hit is free.....
• Is well written and fully voice acted.
  
• Drops the player into challenging situations, and allows them to work their way out.
• Has a cliffhanger ending that is followed closely by an unexpected plot twist.
  

I cannot think of another newbie tutorial that combines all of the above elements so well. The Fallen Earth team did a truly outstanding job in crafting a compelling first experience for new players.

I have refrained from commenting on Blizzard's new World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm, until now because I was not sure if I should believe the leaks and wanted to wait for an official announcement. Well, as it turns out the leaks were true and Blizzard will be revamping Azeroth, adding new races, and adding/converting some new content for level-capped players.

As someone who was a devoted WoW junkie until May of this year, I knew that the next expansion had a chance to lure me back. Warcraft always experiences a surge in returning players when a new expansion lands, and Cataclysm will be no different. After reading the major features of the expansion I can guarantee that I will not be among the flood of ex-pats venturing back into a newly remade Azeroth.

Below are the major features announced for Cataclysm as well as my personal reaction to each:

Two New Playable Races: Adventure as one of two new races–the cursed worgen with the Alliance or the resourceful goblins with the Horde.

Racial diversity has never been very important in my eyes. While it's nice to have a variety of newbie zones, races in Warcraft are so homogenized that the differences are literally skin deep. Classes add real variety, playability, and strategic options at the raid level - races are just cosmetic niceties.

This change is probably most exciting for players who enjoy the leveling grind and have fun with alts. Personally, I don't care for either activity.

Level Cap Increased to 85: Earn new abilities, tap into new talents, and progress through the path system, a new way for players to improve characters.

The level cap itself is nothing special, but will keep players busy for at least a few days - perhaps even a few weeks if they stop to smell the flowers (or play very casually).

I will admit to being intrigued by the initial changes that have been proposed to the talent system; they are certainly ambitious. That said, I'm not sure that I trust the B Team to do a very good job. Certainly if the state of Feral Druids in WotLK means anything, both balance and flawless implementation will be tough to come by.

Classic Zones Remade: Familiar zones across the original continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms have been altered forever and updated with new content, from the devastated Badlands to the broken Barrens, which has been sundered in two.

Thematically this is an exciting and bold step - it takes a lot of moxie to consider overhauling Azeroth to the degree that Blizzard has announced.

From a playability point of view, this is another move that caters to the levelers and alt-a-holics. Great for them, but completely worthless to a player like me who only wants to focus on a single character.

New High-Level Zones: Explore newly opened parts of the world, including Uldum, Grim Batol, and the great Sunken City of Vashj’ir beneath the sea.

I enjoy exploring new zones, and the bar set by Wrath of the Lich King was high indeed; the quests were (relative to other MMOs) exciting, fresh, and varied. I am sure that I would have a blast eating up the new zones and consuming all of the quests and lore.... for two or three weeks.

More Raid Content than Ever Before: Enjoy more high-level raid content than previous expansions, with optional more challenging versions of all encounters.

Given the utter dearth of raid content available at launch in WotLK, I'm not sure that I entirely trust this promise. I am worried that Blizzard will remake the remaining vanilla WoW raids before pressing on with more modern and well-designed encounters. Naxxramas was a shadow of it's former self when it was revamped for Wrath of the Lich King.

Furthermore, this statement confirms that the raiding model that drove away so many core raiding players is here to stay: easy mode by default, and tougher "hard modes" if you can stomach running the same content over and over again.

I realize that this model works well for "casual" raiders, but cannot help but share some of Syncaine's cynicism: "Plus why bother with real challenge when you can fight Rag without fire resist gear, Nef without your Ony cloak, and C’thun after you run directly into his beam? Everyone knows the TRUE hardcore do things ass backwards for those ultra elite pets and titles!"


New Race and Class Combinations: Explore Azeroth as a gnome priest, blood elf warrior, or one of the other never-before-available race and class combinations.

Another feature aimed squarely at players who enjoy dabbling with alts.

Guild Advancement: Progress as a guild to earn guild levels and guild achievements.

Perhaps I'm just backwards, but I fail to see the point of this. Guilds can already earn achievements and prestige by completing raid content. I suppose this advancement system could be more casual-minded and perhaps encourage group-based activities? For example:

Ding! Lemmings Achievement Unlocked: At least 25 guild mates died from fall damage within five seconds of each other! +250 Guild Points!

New PvP Zone & Rated Battlegrounds: Take on PvP objectives and daily quests on Tol Barad Island, a new Wintergrasp-like zone, and wage war in all-new rated Battlegrounds.

I do not enjoy World of Warcraft PvP, and cannot comment on how good or bad the proposed changes are. Needless to say, I would not see any value to them on a personal level.

Archaeology: Master a new secondary profession to unearth valuable artifacts and earn unique rewards.

If implemented correctly, archaeology could be fascinating. I never minded picking up random glowy objects in my travels while playing Free Realms, and would even hunt extra bits out when I felt the urge to kill some time.

Flying Mounts in Azeroth: Explore Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms like never before.

It is about time that Blizzard implemented this. It's probably a huge chore to do so, and is only going to be possible because they will be remaking every zone from the ground up.

Prediction: Players will also be able to obtain a flying mount at a much lower level then currently possible.



Final thoughts
All in all, Cataclysm is set to be a very horizontal expansion. The focus, unlike Wrath of the Lich King or The Burning Crusade, will be new players and alts instead of the level-capped player base. I'm sure that this is amazing news for hundreds of thousands of players, and I am certain that the expansion will be implemented wonderfully. Even still, there is no chance that I will be pulled back into the game; there is simply not enough that caters to a player like myself, and in the end I need to choose how best to spend my money.

Don't mistake this for bitterness; I've long since come to grips with the fact that Blizzard has a vision of World of Warcraft that no longer meshes with my own. It's not a bad game - in fact WoW may well be the best MMO on the market today - but it's simply not a game that I can play the way that I want to experience it.

Like Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion will be a masterpiece, a smash hit, and a cash cow..... but like Wrath, it is simply not built for a player who fell in love with The Burning Crusade, and pines for the good old days.

Eurogamer recently scored an interview with a few members of the development team from the upcoming Guild Wars 2 MMO (lead designer Eric Flannum, art director Daniel Dociu, designer and writer Ree Soesbee). As intrigued as I was after watching the trailer, I am positively excited by the nuggets that were dropped in the article.

On payment models
Guild Wars is unique among major MMOs - you buy the game once, and then play subscription-free for as long as you'd like. Fans will be happy to know that the sequel will follow the same model:

[T]here are no plans to dispense with the "pay once, play forever" business model. Once you've paid for Guild Wars 2, you'll be able to play it for as long as you like.

On instancing
The major flaw in the original Guild Wars was the enormous use of instancing. City hubs allowed players to interact with each other, but once you set foot into the wild you were forced into a private instance with only your groupmates to keep you company. This gave the game a very single-player flavor to it, and made the community feel extremely insular. All that will change in the second installment of the series:

Guild Wars 2's switch from an almost entirely instanced game-world, where you would adventure with only your party members, to a persistent, fully-populated one like those in more conventional MMOs, is the driving force behind most of the changes in the gameplay.

Which isn't to say that the game won't have any instances. Story-telling in particular is enhanced through intelligent use of instancing:

"While our game is persistent, one of the things we learned from heavily instancing GW1 was how to really use instancing to our advantage," says Flannum. "The story will take place through a combination of instancing and persistent areas. We're really throwing our entire bag of tricks at the storytelling in GW2. I think we're going to be doing some things, especially with narrative, that people haven't seen before in an MMO."

On questing
Ever since Blizzard ushered in quest-driven game play, nearly every major MMO has followed their lead and aped the system that helped snag WoW millions of subscribers. Recently I have found that quest-centric MMOs feel far too similar; that method of game play has become old and stale. Thus, it was exciting to read that Guild Wars 2 has ambitious plans to revolutionize questing:

"We actually don't have a traditional RPG/MMO quest system," Flannum continues. "Instead what we've got are Events. Think of them as group-orientated activities. This is one of the many things that will encourage the player to explore the world - you can wander through and never quite know what you're going to see. You might come across a fortress that's being attacked by centaurs, or it might be that the centaurs attacked half an hour before you got there and they hold it now. You might start walking along a road you've walked a hundred times and suddenly there's a caravan traveling along that road that you may not have seen, and you can go help that caravan out."

On non-combat activities
Another knock against Guild Wars was that, unlike many MMOs, there were not many activities to pursue outside of PvE or PvP combat.

"We're definitely introducing crafting, as well as a few other things that are going to provide players with other things to do," assures Flannum, although he can't say what those other things are.

On underwater exploration
One thing that I found intriguing was that amount of emphasis that Flannum put on the underwater exploration options that will be present in Guild Wars 2. In the trailer we saw an underwater city rise up from the depths, and the main protagonist dragon was living beneath the waves, so there is no lack of story-based reasons for players to explore the seas.

There are significant new areas, of course: most excitingly, the prospect of exploring an underwater continent. Flannum claims that there will be "a lot" of underwater exploration, and it will be possible for all races and players. "It's going to be really easy and accessible for players to go underwater. In a lot of other games you see the underwater environment as this really hostile environment where you have to worry about running out of air constantly and you're always on the verge of dying, and that tends to make the area less fun. We really want to emphasise the fun, the differences, the change of pace of going underwater, to encourage that exploration."

On storytelling
The initial Guild Wars received high praise for its storytelling, and the sequel intends to follow in its footsteps:

"There's going to be a slightly different story for each race," says Soesbee. "To start off, everyone knows that there is this great threat, but at the beginning the races are operating on their own, they don't understand that the threat is so great that they simply must come together... It's going to take the player character being a hero to get these races to overcome their pasts: the humans who hate the Charr, the Asura who are naturally sceptical about every other race, who think they're better, the Sylvari who are young and new and don't understand the nature of the world, and the Norn who are just naturally independent. Someone has to bring them together, and that someone is the player character."

To be honest I worry a little bit when I read things like this. In an MMO it is difficult to tell a player-centric story without stretching the bounds of believability. How is it possible that each of the tens of thousands of players in the game can be solely responsible for bridging the gap between warring races?

On PvP
As expected, Guild Wars 2 will continue to offer a variety of competitive player versus player combat options, plus some casual options to mix it up a bit:

However, player-versus-player has always been hugely important to Guild Wars - guilds regularly compete for thousands in cash prizes - and ArenaNet is obviously keen to keep the attention of its hardcore players, offering the same jump-right-in PvP system where everyone has access to the same skills and equipment, and success is determined by strategy.

[...]

In addition, there's also a new World PvP system, which lets you use your PvE character and equipment to play against other people on a more open battlefield, the Mists.

[...]

Splitting the PvP into two modes, Flannum believes, is the best way to accommodate the broadest possible range of players. "We gained a lot of experience with a lot of different types of PvP from GW1, and we grew to recognise that there were really hardcore PvP players, but there were also people who wanted that more casual, in-world type of PvP. And so we decided to give both groups what they want."

Summary
The initial indications are that Guild Wars 2 will be an MMO to watch. The game appears set to build on the successes of its predecessor, and also bring some new innovations to the genre.

Elysium has an quirky post over on the Gamers with Jobs site that many of us can relate to: Anatomy of Dysfunction.

Games can be cruel mistresses.

Three quick items that recently caught my eye:

1. The upcoming cops & robbers MMO, All Points Bulletin, will not be forcing players to pay a monthly subscription to play their game. Hopefully they go the Guild Wars route: buy the box and you essentially own a lifetime subscription, with a minimum number of microtransactions on the side to augment cash flow.

2. The Guild Wars 2 trailer is finally available. I love the cinematic style the trailer uses - it's so much slicker that the over-hyped SW:TOR movie that came out a few months ago and put far too many bloggers in a tizzy. The actual shots of the game engine are awfully nice too - but I won't know if the game truly interests me until I hear if they're abandoning the massive instancing that ruined the original installment in the series.

3. Final Fantasy XIV Core has a number of alpha game play videos of the upcoming Square Enix MMO. While the videos themselves don't show enough action to pass judgment on the game play, the site does contain details of how combat mechanics function. Worth a look if you're a Final Fantasy geek.

Darkest of Days is an upcoming FPS that puts you in the shoes of an American soldier from the 1870's. The game opens with your character desperately trying to help fend off a horde of Native Americans on a hilltop during the conclusion of the Battle of Little Bighorn. Wounded and near helpless things look grim for you until, at the last minute, an odd bubble materializes before your eyes and oddly dressed strangers emerge and pull you into the safety of the bubble. When you awaken you find yourself in the far future, a fresh recruit in a time traveling organization that is out to save the history of the world.


As a demo, Darkest of Days does a flawless job of presenting the game to its user, and stands as a stellar example of the sort of experience that I want to have when playing trial software. The three items that I expect out of any demo are: a taste of the game's story, a solid understanding of controls/mechanics, and an opportunity to experience actual game play. Darkest of Days delivers all three of these in spades. After the introductory story (detailed above), you are walked through a tutorial, and after you have finished learning you are able to play through the game's first mission (Antietam).

Mechanically speaking, the game is a relatively standard FPS with only a couple of tweaks that I noticed. Movement, aiming, and shooting all feel right - although in this day and age I would hope that the basics would be difficult to screw up. All of this sets the stage for the premise of the game: you are required to travel to troubling hot spots in history to save certain individuals who are being mysteriously threatened, and kill others who did not historically survive.

One nice addition to the game mechanics is the reload metagame. Instead of simply mashing a key when you want to reload, you need to press 'r' once, which triggers a timed gauge to start filling - you then have the option to press 'r' again when the gauge reached a highlighted level, or else wait until it fills completely. Nailing the highlighted level allows you to reload slightly faster than normal, however missing it jams your weapon for a while. To keep things interesting, every weapon has a different highlighted area, which allows the game to simulate weapons that are more prone to jamming than others.

Another deviation from the norm is that - as far as I could tell - your character has no health meter. While blood splatters appear on the screen when shot, there did not seem to be any pool of health that was being depleted, and perhaps not even any way to die. While this may be something that they added specifically for the demo, official screenshots on the game's website do not show any health meter either. Of course, failing missions - for example by allowing certain individuals to be killed - will result in what amounts to a death in any other game.


Darkest of Days is a good looking game. While not drop-dead gorgeous, the graphics are high quality, and match the gritty feel of the five time periods that you will end up traveling between. Of special note is the trees - I easily spent a few minutes just watching how the trees swayed in the breeze, and admiring the rustling leaves.... I'm not sure that I've ever seen such nicely rendered vegetation in any game prior to this one.

The voice work is serviceable, but not noteworthy in any way. Both characters that are featured in the demo fit their persona, but they aren't anything special. One minor quibble is the swearing; although the game warns you that it's there, they really go overboard with one of their characters, to the point where it detracts from the overall experience.

There are two aspects of Darkest of Days that bothered me a fair bit; not enough to ruin the experience mind you, but in both cases I was sufficiently irked, and continue to chew over the problems in my head.

The first - and gravest - problem with the game is that it has an annoying habit of taking over control of your character's movement. This is a cardinal gaming sin, in my opinion; games should never steal control of the player's avatar, especially without warning or explanation. During the demo there were two separate occasions that Darkest of Days decided that it needed to be in control. The first was during the Battle of Little Bighorn: after allowing me to walk freely around the hill for a few minutes, the game suddenly decided that I had to hunker down and not move except to crouch and stand up. The second was during Antietam: I was forced to march in a line of soldiers as we advanced on a dug-in foe. The worst part was, neither case provided any warning, nor any visual hints as to what was going on - I thought the game was glitching at first when I discovered that all I could do was shoot.


The second issue that I had with Darkest of Days was related to the plot. Simply put: no one in the game seems to question any odd events that result from our time traveling hero's presence. Although your character is plucked out of the 1870's, he has no problems accepting that he is now some sort of time soldier. Likewise, when you whip out a futuristic weapon to mow down Confederate soldiers, no one on either side of the battle blinks an eye. Time bubbles appearing in the middle of a forest get a startled reaction from one NPC - but not enough to question what the hell is going on. While I realize that time travel stories always involve huge suspension of disbelief, it is impossible to get over the fact that everyone seems so blasé about it in the game.

In summary, I have a love/hate relationship with Darkest of Days. In general I believe that the game has many of the basics nailed down to perfection, however a few of the design decisions - especially the repeated hijacking of my character - left me a little uneasy. Ultimately, the price of the game will determine whether or not I pick it up on release day - $50 will keep me away until a Steam sale, but $20-30 might just see me picking the game up immediately.

Steam download: link
Demo parameters: intro sequence, tutorial, one mission
Release date: September 8, 2009
Cost: ???

In a move that seems to have caught everyone off guard, CCP announced some details about their upcoming new title, Dust 514, at GDC Europe.

In a surprise GDC Europe announcement, CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson has debuted Dust 514, a strategic first-person console MMO that connects in to the existing EVE Online universe, allowing ground battles for planets to be fought by console teams.

[...]

The trailer, with slick in-game graphics, showcased a space station and then impressive first-person shooter gameplay. Petursson said that Dust 514 is "our take on a console MMO", and was made after the company "looked hard at what people wanted to do on consoles".

[...]

In fact, when Dust 514 launches, the map of EVE, currently divined only by player structures owned in the PC game, will also take into account infantry successes and failures within the console game. Players in the PC MMO can "fund mercenaries and give them goals" in the console title.

Pundit reactions have so far ranged anywhere from decidedly unimpressed to intrigued to over the moon.


Personally I'm parked firmly between the latter two camps:

I'm excited because, despite being utterly fascinating to read about, EVE Online is a complete snooze-fest to play; Dust 514 would allow me to get in on the EVE action while playing a game that actually has fun mechanics. Strategic FPS game play holds an awful lot of appeal to me, if done properly - but of course we have only the vaguest of details available at this time.

I'm intrigued due to the bold and innovative vision that CCP is displaying. Not only are they trying to extend their flagship franchise onto another platform, but they are also extending themselves into another genre entirely. Allowing players in two separate games to work towards combined goals would represent a monumental leap forward for MMOs. It will be extremely interesting to see how well the FPS game links up with the space-based game, and whether or not cross-game alliances form up.

[Hilmar] explained more about the interplay between EVE Online and DUST 514. Hilmar said, “You will increasingly have to fight with your fleet [in EVE Online] but you will also have to contract people who play DUST, the console MMO, which then feeds into the sovereignty control system of EVE. Then EVE feeds back into that again by funding the mercenaries, giving them goals.” In a nod to Starship Troopers, he said, “The fleet does the flying, the infantry does the dying.”

My one reservation is that Dust 514 has currently only been announced as a console game. The door has not yet been slammed on there being a PC port - in fact Hilmar Petursson was very coy when asked directly about a PC version - but so far things don't look great. I would be much more comfortable if CCP just came out with a firm yes/no answer.

Finally, I find it amusing to see how people classify Dust 514: MMO? FPS? MMOFPS? Does it matter? In my opinion, games that defy the traditional genre walls that exist to classify them often turn out to be the most important.

Growing up I collected comic books; in fact my first real job was working in a store that specialized in comics and trading cards - aptly named Books n' Stuff. Although I bought more comics than I really should have, I was mainly into Marvel and Image. DC Comics, especially long standing franchises like Superman and Batman, were things that I avoided like the plague. In light of my childhood biases and combined with the fact that superhero video games almost always disappoint, I nearly gave this demo a pass. It wasn't until I the guys on the Combobulator podcast mentioned that it was surprisingly good that I got interested.

By all accounts, Batman: Arkham Asylum has been a long time in coming. That said, if the demo is any indication then the wait has been worth every second.



From the moment the first cut scene starts up, the game absolutely oozes character. Briefly: Batman has captured the Joker without much of a fight, and has escorted him for a prolonged stay at the Arkham Asylum. After the Joker is relinquished to the asylum staff he breaks free; getting captured was all part of his plan to take over the facility and trap Batman. Other well known villains join in, and mayhem ensues.

Graphically, Arkham Asylum is outstanding. The corridors of the asylum are dark and brooding, the character models are fantastic, and the animations are slick. On top of that, the voice acting is phenomenal, although this should come as no surprise: voice overs are performed by the actors from Batman: The Animated Series.

Game play, from what is presented in the demo, is a combination of brawling action sequences and stealthy take downs. Brawling is fairly simplistic: simply pounding your attack button repeatedly is enough to dispatch the groups of enemies that you will encounter. Annoyingly, landing a killing blow causes the game to enter a slow motion sequence reminiscent of The Matrix, and after a few short battles I was already sick to death of the effect.

Stealth combat is also fairly simple, but far more enjoyable. The introductory areas of the game are ringed with gargoyles that your can grapple up to and perch on top of (which looks so cool). From your high vantage point you can then plan how best to take out the enemies below, being careful to never be spotted - Batman may be tough, but small arms fire takes him down in a hurry. From above there are a few ways to descend on your prey, but most efforts end with you choking the baddie into unconsciousness before swooping away silently. While none of the demo encounters were difficult, they hint at excellent potential.


If there is a feature that is going to make or break Batman: Arkham Asylum it is "Detective Mode", pictured above. You can - any time you please and for as long as you would like - enter into detective mode. While is this mode you can see all enemies in the area (even if hidden out of sight) as well as any interesting environmental objects (levers, switches, grates, etc.). Players in detective mode can move freely and fight without penalty. This is both awesome and potentially game breaking - once you figure out that you can spy on enemies that are pathing out of sight, the question quickly becomes: why would I ever leave detective mode? The answer, at least for the demo, is "there is no reason to leave detective mode, ever" - and that's not a very good thing. Hopefully as the game unfolds there is some sort of practical limit put on the skill - it seems like something that should be used scarcely, but to great effect.

All in all I had a blast with Batman: Arkham Asylum; the game met all of my expectations, and then proceeded to blow them away. Although combat is simple (at least during the demo level), the game more than makes up for that by making you feel like you are a comic book hero. And that's all we ask for, isn't it?

Steam download: link
Demo parameters: one level
Release date: September, 2009
Cost: $50
Extra: Controversy is already swirling: here and here.

Fuel is a racing game set in a desolate "alternate present" wracked by global warming and pollution. Firing up the demo the first thing that you will notice is that the loading times are atrocious. After flashing the title screen, the game displayed the message "Please wait while the shaders are being processed" and then proceeded to slowly creep a progress bar across my screen for five full minutes - it was so bad that I got up, went downstairs, grabbed a drink, and returned to my computer long before it was even halfway through the brutal load.

Not content to constrain torturing the player only to load times, Fuel also has some of the most obtuse menu systems that I've had to work with on a PC, ever. It literally took me a couple of minutes to figure out the menus; the key to the whole mess only came once I clued in that the game was a console port, and that the port team must have gotten lazy or ran out of time when the time came to adapt the menus.


The demo allows you to try out a dirt bike in a race, and a buggy in challenge mode - there are plenty of other options in the full game, from classic cars, to slightly more futuristic vehicles, and even some odd snowmobile hybrids. Controls are intuitive, even on a keyboard, and have a crisp feel to them. Mechanically, the bike and buggy drive completely differently - the bike rips through all manner of terrain, never really slowing down, whereas the buggy reaches higher speeds but has a genuinely difficult time when you get it into rough patches. This discrepancy is important: when racing you are not constrained to the track, and have the freedom to cut across any and all terrain if you think that it will help you arrive at your goal faster; smart navigational choices seem key to winning.

Graphically, Fuel nails the wasteland look that they are aiming for - the world feels dirty, barren, and hostile. That's not to say that it's ugly - quite the opposite, in fact - everything is rendered extremely well, and the terrain slides smoothly by as you tear up the track. One quibble is that someone thought that it would be a good idea to splatter mud and dirt on the GUI as you drive... I can't for the life of me figure out why - all driving is done in third person, so it can't possibly be simulating mud on your visor, or anything like that.



While normal driving feel good enough, the game has some serious problems with its crash detection mechanics. Most of the time you can drive through a fairly substantial bush or bounce off a tree that you flew into at top speed - unrealistic, but not uncommon in the racing genre. However every so often you hit a small rock, a bush (or a small rock under a bush?) and completely wipe out. There's nothing more annoying than slamming into a tree branch ten feet off the ground without harm only to wipe out when grazing a metal barrel.... games should either strive to have realistic crashing, or none at all - randomly realistic crashing is annoying.

All in all I tired of Fuel fairly quickly - the games flaws far outweigh the things it does right, and for $40 I'm sure that you can buy a much better racing game.

Steam download: link
Demo parameters: one race, one challenge
Cost: $40

I was originally interested in Bookworm Adventures 2 mainly because Tycho mentioned it in one of his rambling posts, and I have an almost freakish obsession with all things Penny Arcade. Happily, it turns out that Popcap's cutesy word game is a heck of a lot of fun (assuming that you enjoy games like Scrabble).



Bookwork Adventures 2 is essentially Boggle on steroids. Your annelidian avatar must make his way through a series of progressively difficult fairy tales, each of which is populated by all manner of fictional characters wanting to do him harm.

To fight back, your little worm spells out words by selecting letters from a four by four grid with longer words inflicting more damage. Spelling longer words causes bonus tiles to appear which, when included in a new word, either buff you or debuff your enemy. Further complicating things, some enemies are able to launch special attacks that can render some of your letters feeble or useless for a few rounds. Also, as you advance through the game you gain items that further vary your strategy; for example, an early acquisition allows you to inflict bonus damage for spelling adjectives.


Bookworm Adventures 2 is a great way to fill a fifteen minute void, but isn't the sort of game that I can get sucked into to the point where I lose a few hours at a time. Still, after a few hours of not playing I invariably got the itch to fire the demo up again, and was truly disappointed when my hour of free time expired. I don't think the game is worth its base cost of $20, but I'll certainly keep my eyes open for a Steam sale.

Steam download: link
Demo parameters: 1 hour time limit
Cost: $20 full game

Over the past few years Steam has garnered a fair bit of renown for offering a robust digital download service punctuated by amazing weekend deals. While this might be enough for some, Valve also has a habit of making high quality demos for many of the games available. I've always been a huge fan of game demos; to me they form an integral part of my product evaluation checklist, and I'm much more likely to consider buying a game that puts out a top notch demo that I am a game that is hyped by word of mouth only.

This past week I dipped my toes into five recently released Steam demos. Over the course of the day I will be writing a small article on each with my impressions.

One game that I tried to demo but felt did not deserve a proper review was All Aspect Warfare. Simply put, the game was terrible. It started out badly by bombarding me with about a million key bindings (and no tutorial!), continued on by rendering itself in graphics that look ten years out of date, and then cemented itself as a waste of bits by throwing me into a mission, giving me zero guidance, and leaving me to flounder about without having a clue what I should be doing. Rarely does a demo get everything so completely wrong.

Anyways - lots more to come!

All Half Life games are 66% off on Steam this weekend. If you haven't played any of the games yet, but were intrigued by my recent series of Half Life play through articles (see links, below), now may be the perfect time to catch up.

Here are the prices, just in case you're waffling:

Half Life - $3.39
Half Life 2 - $6.79
HL2 Episode 1 - $3.39
HL2 Episode 2 - $5.09

The games are full of great action, amazing story, and beautiful graphics.

I've been suffering from a two week bout of MMO ennui, with no end currently in sight - my last log-on was to the DDO beta during the final week of July. Although the fact that summer has finally arrived plays a strong role, it's not like I'm avoiding gaming - in fact I've been playing a tonne of single player games.

Maybe the problem has something to do with what Darren so aptly wrote: "MMOs are starting to get a bit samey". It's not like I am no longer interested in the concept of progression-based game play in an online persistent world.... it's just that the formula that the majority of games are following right now is far too templated and cliche. I have yet to discover a game off the beaten path that grabs me, however the next stock of MMOs contains a number of interesting specimens that may well pull me back in.

Anyhow, enough about me.

Zombies!
Gordon floated an excellent idea for an MMO yesterday that feels like it has potential: a Zombie-based survival MMO. Here are the key concepts that he proposes:

[I]n this MMO the object wouldn’t be raiding or roleplaying (well that might fit in at a player’s discretion), the object of the game would be survival. And there would be permadeath.

[...]

There would be no levels in this zombie MMO, instead players would earn experience simply by surviving. You’d be able to tell how much of a veteran someone is by how many days they’d survived. There would also be no classes, instead everything is skilled based and learnt from studying books, videos etc found in the world or passed on by another player.

[...]

There would be no resurrection spells or spawn points, instead if you die, you die. I think this is absolutely necessary in order to create a real feel of survival and fear. Being killed by a zombie has real impact. Being killed by another person maliciously, even more so.

I love the roguelike flavour that Gordon's Zombie MMO idea is steeped in, but offer the following additional design details:

• When a human player dies he is resurrected as a zombie. When a zombie player is destroyed, he has to create a new human character. (This sets up an oscillating player base that should make for an intriguing and varied experience.)
  
• The power of the zombie that comes back is directly related to the power of the dead human. The better a player does while alive, the more havoc he will be able to reap while undead. (This is designed to prevent players from suiciding immediately just to become a zombie. It should also ensure that most people actively work towards survival to a certain degree.)
  
• Zombies cannot heal but are inherently tougher than humans.
• There should be leaderboards that track stats like survival time and kills on a monthly / lifetime / career basis.
• There should be a way to earn immunity from turning into a zombie on death, and some sort of equivalent mechanic for zombie players. While moderately difficult to earn, this would be there as a carrot for people who only wanted to be a zombie/human.

I'm not normally a zombie type of guy, but I absolutely love the idea of a game that has both a persistent world and the roguelike notion of permadeath.

Love
I listened to episode 148 of the Gamers with Jobs Conference Call this morning, and have to recommend it as required listening; even people who don't normally tune in to gaming podcasts would be cheating themselves if they didn't download this one. The guys had Eskil Steenberg - the developer behind Love, an ambitious upcoming game - on the show and he did a phenomenal job. Eskil brought his deep insights into the games industry along with him, and wasn't afraid to be controversial in sharing his views. While I may not have agreed with everything said on the show, it certainly made me think.

Topics covered include: the technology behind Microsoft's Project Natal, game ratings versus longevity/fun, slick graphics, why you shouldn't spend more than $150 on a video card, platform diversification, and - of course - the current status of Love.

Check it out.

Like most bloggers, I periodically receive emails from sites asking to use my content, advertise their services on my blog, or collaborate on some project or another. Most of the time I send a polite "no thank you" back, unless the email is a pure form letter, in which case I chuck it in my spam folder.

Last week I received an invitation from BloggersBase to join their site and submit my articles there as well as on my personal blog. On a whim I actually took the time to check them out and was impressed by both the polish of their offering and the concept behind their site.

BloggersBase explain themselves as follows:

BloggersBase is an online magazine and also a community, giving everyone an equal and fair chance to be a contributing and influencing member.

You can immediately become a blogger, contribute as a photographer, or publish your videos. On the other hand, if you are an avid reader, you can make your opinion known and influence the content of our magazine, effectively becoming an editor.

BloggersBase aims to help its users to become professionals! BloggersBase also tries to the best of its capabilities to award highly talented members special prizes for their efforts and contribution.

Basically, when you sign up for BloggersBase you can post articles to one or more topical blogs. In my case I joined the Gaming Blog, but there are a plethora of other option available for bloggers interested in diverse subject matter.

At first all you can do is submit a single "Nugget" into the "Goldmine" section of the blog, where it will be reviewed and rated by readers. Once the current competition time expires, the author of the highest rated Goldmine article will gain access to the main blog (replacing the lowest scoring member of the main blog). You can then post in the main blog until you end a competition period as the lowest-rated author.

The hope is that by building competition into the core design of the project, high quality articles will be surfaced on a more frequent basis, and the entire site will benefit as a result. This really scratches the competitive itch that I seem to always have in any activity that I engage in, and I can't wait to see how things turn out.

Have MMOs introduced too many "quality of life" improvement over the past four or five years? Are developers kowtowing too much to player demands, and making game play too fast and too easy? Are major MMO titles too similar to be worth playing?

Darren, at The Common Sense Gamer, explores these issues in his most recent article, and the discussion is joined by his readership. A sample:

I don’t think it’s a lack of choice, because there are plenty of MMOs out there to choose from, and more to come. I think we need a shake up on both sides of the MMO aisle and start taking some risks here. Gamers need to suck it up when, say, travel time is long and designer need to say “fuck you” when we ask them for instant travel. Gamers, essentially need to grow a pair and designers need to grow a spine. We also need to stop pinning all our hopes for this current MMO trend to change with the introduction of the mythical “savior game”.

I'm not sure entirely where I stand on this whole debate. As I aptly proved on episode 52 of Shut Up, We're Talking, whether or not I approve of a given quality of life enhancement is entirely dependent on the specific enhancement. Wishy washy, I know. I will admit that I share Darren's ennui when it comes to playing multiple fantasy MMOs - I'm having a tough time spotting differences in the major titles that are available.

Tangentially to Darren's article, over on the Elder Game Eric takes a look at the history of player reinforcement, current popular methods of rewarding players, and advice on how to move forward. A teaser:

[P]unishments have mostly disappeared from games. Why? Because all other things being equal, players tend to go to the less-punitive game. From a designer standpoint this is actually a little frustrating. One of our most potent psychological tools — punishment — is slowly dwindling away! This actually makes it harder to train players to find the fun in our games. But we are never going back to the time when mainstream MMO’s punish you heavily for making mistakes. That time is over. As a designer, this is a tiny bit saddening. But as a player, this is a much happier time to be playing MMOs.

However, there’s one major kind of punishment still in the toolbox. Tedium is the last type of punishment in MMO games. It’s survived because it’s so insidious that players don’t really think of it as a punishment. Nevertheless, tedium was actually on its way out when WoW came along. WoW revived tedium for its travel system (and, to a lesser extent, for its food/drink system), and it got away with it because the rest of the game was so damned good. (In comparison to the other games available.)

Both articles, and their attached comments, are well worth your time to read through.

If there is one thing that I have learned during my time writing about gaming, it is that people play games for different reasons and in different ways. While the Bartle Test - particularly the expanded version - does an adequate job of categorizing the types of activities that different players like to engage in, it doesn't ever really attempt to explain why.

Last month, while contemplating another round of World of Warcraft raid content nerfs, I posed a question: "Why do players feel entitled to see all raid content?" As a hardcore raider I played the game to be challenged, and I couldn't understand why others didn't yearn the same thing - it was an honest question, not a put-down of those who hadn't raided as deeply into the content as I had. The response to my article was phenomenal; all manner of player chimed into the discussion, and a lot of good natured debate took place.

One of my main take-aways of that article was that, not only do people engage in different activities while playing games, but the manner in which people consume games can vary to a vast degree.

I came away from the debate with a better understanding of my fellow gamers, and a question that I feel can help to explain a lot of the gulf between our differing points of view:

Are video games a form of entertainment like television, Hollywood movies, and paperback novels, or are they a hobby like tabletop gaming, your favorite sport, or scrap booking?

Your answer need not be one or the other, it could fall somewhere along the spectrum between hobby and entertainment. And of course, with a question like this one, there are no wrong answers.

Video games as a hobby
A hobby is an activity that we engage in that involves some form of personal investment. Hobbies can be physical (e.g. team sports, jogging, table tennis), mental (e.g. writing, puzzles, board games), artistic (e.g. scrap booking, painting, playing an instrument), or a combination of the three (e.g. miniature war gaming, golf, dance).

Although hobbies involve some form of exertion or challenge, they are activities that we derive pleasure from, and are often used as a form of relaxation. I may be sweating like a pig when I'm finished a two hour game of ultimate frisbee, but I'm a heck of a lot more content than when I started. Time and effort is invested in a hobby; it is not an activity that can be engaged in while completely detached.

Players who consider video games to be a hobby often enjoy extremely challenging games, games with complex mechanics, and games that require many hours of practice to perfect. Many hobby gamers grew up playing games, and have an appreciation for the fine balance between impossibly hard and wickedly difficult. This is the category of gamer that I find myself most comfortable relating to, and it colors all of my opinions.

Video games as entertainment
Entertainment is best defined as a leisure activity of which the consumer is a passive observer, not an active participant. Watching a Hollywood movie or a television show, listening to music, or reading a novel or magazine are all solid examples of modern forms of entertainment.

While some forms of entertainment may be stimulating or challenging - like a mystery novel or a made-for-TV scientific documentary - they are not activities whose outcome can be affected by the consumer in any manner. So long as I'm willing to sit down and continue turning pages, my book is going to come to an end eventually and I will have the opportunity to enjoy every scrap of story contained within it. Entertainment is a passive activity that involves very little effort on the part of the consumer.

Players who consider video games to be pure entertainment often expect that they will be able to play through the title without any major obstacles, and consume all of the content in a reasonable amount of time. Since games have a beginning, middle, and end - like a book - these gamers want to experience each section in turn. Players who fit this mold may be members of the younger generations, or else people who discovered the gaming scene later in their lives.

Shades of Gray
Of course, a pure hobby gamer is just as rare as a pure entertainment gamer. That being said, these generalized concepts of what video games should be seem to underpin the expectations that players have towards challenge and content.

If the fact that different gamers fall at different points along the hobby/entertainment spectrum wasn't troublesome enough, motivation can vary on a case by case basis for individuals. For example, the majority of games that I play I want to be challenged by, however there is a small subset that I play primarily for the experience and storytelling.

So what are video games to you? Where do you fit in?

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride was originally released on the Super Famicom in Japan in 1992, then ported to the PS2 for the Japanese audience in 2004, and finally remade for the Nintendo DS and released worldwide last summer.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Dragon Quest line of games, it is one of the longest running and most popular JRPG series in Japan, easily standing up against the Final Fantasy games which have become far more accepted amongst western gamers. In fact, back in the days of the NES, the Dragon Quest franchise (then called Dragon Warrior) churned out RPG after RPG to eager fans. Sadly none ever came out for the SNES outside of Japan, while Final Fantasy caused a huge splash with its second and third installments.

Given its history, it should come as no surprise that Dragon Quest V represents a throwback to the RPGs that I grew up playing. Game play takes the form of a story-driven quest that takes place across a vast world, and along the way you must fight hundreds of turn-based battles that earn you gold and experience.

The strongest element of Dragon Quest V, in my opinion, is its story. While many JRPGs can be summed up as "angsty youth with big hair learns about his mysterious past and eventually saves the world", the game manages to mix things up in an interesting and unique manner. DQV is split into three logical chapters. During the first chapter you travel with your father as a young boy, riding his coattails from adventure to adventure, and getting into trouble along the way. The second chapter of the game brings your hero through his teenage years as he struggles to become a man, avenge a travesty, and eventually marry one of three women. The final chapter contains an epic quest in which your hero must rescue key characters, and then finally take the battle to the villain that has been plaguing him since his youth. There are enough twists along the way, and enough deviations from the typical JRPG storyline that even veterans of the genre will appreciate the wonderful break from the formulaic scripting that plagues the genre.


Graphically, Dragon Quest V makes good use of the DS hardware. The game is colourfully drawn and (aside from the battle screens) never feels templated or repetitive. Character models are the extremely playful anime-style that you would expect from a Japanese game, as are the portraits, which are also very well done. Most destinations (towns, caves, etc.) have a unique feel to them, and while the NPCs tend to all blend together, the game world manages to feel quite cohesive.

(I cannot comment on the sound because I played the game primarily before bed, and my wife would murder me if she had to listen to a DS game while reading.)

The dungeons in Dragon Quest V are fairly straight forward, and if you've played years of JRPGs then you will be well versed in how to traverse each dungeon and come out with every nook and cranny explored. There are no annoying fake walls in the dungeons - which is great - I hate feeling like I have to walk around bumping up against every inch of every corridor. A few of the caverns contained environmental puzzles, but only one was not straight-forward; there was a 9-tile slide puzzle in the final dungeon that took me an hour (spread over three play sessions) to finally navigate.


One of the major let downs of Dragon Quest V was the combat system - true to the original Dragon Quest games, combat in DQV is a very simplistic turn-based system. Each round all characters choose from one of "attack", "defend", "magic", or "item" and then select a target if applicable; actions are then executed in initiative order (with a small degree of randomness) . Unfortunately, during random encounters, 99% of the time the only sensible option to choose is "attack" - this means that as a player you mash the A button eight times each round, and then watch your party attack. Boss battles are a little better - however every single fight calls for the same tactic: a couple characters exclusively attack, and a couple characters debuff/buff/heal every round.

The largest factor that leads to this dry combat is that magic is beyond useless in Dragon Quest V. Against trash using magic is overkill and costly - every cast you make means less spells against whatever boss lies in wait. Conversely, against bosses offensive magic and debuffs are generally ineffectual, while buffs and healing are vitally important to spam. This is all compounded by the fact that you best healer is your hero, and he is also you best physical damage dealer most of the time.

Another minor let down was that, although the game lets you recruit all manner of monsters into your party after defeating them, there is almost no good reason to train any of them up and make them regular members of your party. The core NPCs that you encounter throughout DQV are far better choices to fill your four party slots with. The only monster I ended up using on a regular basis was a Slime Knight, and only then as an out-of-combat healer.

Negativity aside, long time fans of the Dragon Quest franchise will feel quite comfortable doing battle with their foes - we've seen this all before, and know how to get by.

In addition to the main storyline there are a number of optional dungeons and minigames to play. The optional dungeons - especially one north of the town of Roundbeck - are challenging if you haven't spent time grinding out experience, and should take you a few tries to complete. The minigames are mostly forgettable, although T&T - which is sort of like full contact Monopoly with a weird fantasy twist - can be fun when the dice cooperates. (When it doesn't, you want to throw your DS through a window.)

To sum things up, Dragon Quest V is one of the most solid JRPG games that I have played in a good many years. While it certainly has its fair share of flaws, they are eclipsed by the overall journey that the game allows you to experience. A solid story wrapped in great graphics and told using classic JRPG game play is always going to be fun and worth twenty or thirty hours of my time.