A New Leaf

Animal Crossing: New Leaf is the latest instalment in Nintendo's somewhat bizarre Animal Crossing series. It's been out in Europe since June, and even longer in Japan and the US.

 

This game has been talked about in depth by a number of bloggers, reviewers and columnists. Therefore, it is hard to carve out a new niche in speaking about this game. The strange concept - that you are the human mayor of a village populated by anthropomorphic animals - is the main focus of most the talk about this game. The biggest talking point about Animal Crossing is that it has no "point". There is no goal, no endgame. There is no way to lose or win at all. There isn't really much of a story or many of the other aspects that we expect from a "video game".

So why is it any good?

That is the question I am going to try and answer in this post. Why is Animal Crossing any good, as a video game or a concept. Naturally, this is a fairly subjective question. What is "good" to me isn't necessarily "good" to anyone else. So, take this as you will.

The first reason I think AC:NL is any good, is because it appeals to the same aspect of a gamer that makes you want to go after achievements in normal games. The same part of you that might want to complete a game to get alternate costumes, or endings. Basically, the whole game is trying to achieve trophies. These come in the form of your home, your clothes and your village. The actual amount of effort expended in getting many of these goals is quite small: most items are relatively inexpensive and the game does little to prevent you from getting very rich in just a few days. in addition, aside from a little celebratory dance or a meaningless "ceremony", there is almost no tangible reward in getting a new piece of furniture or a landmark for your town. The biggest obstacle the game throws at you is time: much of what the game requires will take a certain number of real-life days.

Thing is though, I think that is half the reason it is so addicting. You kind of expect a big pay off at the end of every self-set goal. When one fails to materialise, the game happily provides any number of alternate objectives, so you tend to set yourself a new goal. In the same vein as Minecraft, the game gives you extremely wide parameters and then pretty much says “go ahead”. It gives you just enough guidance then stops holding your hand. It is kind of like the games you played as a child, you set your own rules and therefore your own victories. You only “win” when you say you did, and no one challenges you if you say you do.

 

What AC has that a game like Minecraft doesn't, in my opinion, is the type of charm.The game is extraordinarily charming. While Minecraft is not devoid of charming moments, it primarily offers you adventure, AC flows in the Harvest Moon style and entices you to keep coming back because of how unbelievably cute the game is. The villagers, an assortment of cutesy bears, foxes and the like, all have just enough personality to keep them interesting. They don't do much, but they do just enough to make you want to see more. You feel attached, and genuinely happy when they give you a gift, and genuinely sad when you disappoint them by not keeping an appointment.

 

The game sort of tells you how to play, but doesn't really punish you if you choose to break those rules. There is nothing to stop you from living in a vulgar village, full of holes and weeds. With villagers who swear (because you taught them those words) at the start and end of every encounter. The grass can wear away, and all the flowers wilt. This is the worst AC can offer you, the closest to “game over” you can get. Even this is a valid play style, and the only person who suffers is you, since you might lock yourself out of some improvements.

I guess what I think is good about this game is pretty simple. It boils down to a single sentence: Animal Crossing New Leaf is a charming experience that has just enough rules to not be pointless. You very much set your own goals, and the only person who decides if you “won” or “lost” is you. The way you feel walking through the hedgerows of your town will tell you how you are doing.

 

 

I think that is pretty nice, personally.

Who the hell puts the Restart Game button above the save game button in the menu?!

With a name like Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso this game is one that people would either look at in curiosity or immediately dismiss. I mean… look at the name. It’s an offshoot from a web-comic but not a particularly well known one (also it was released in 2006…). I was almost immediately ready to turn it off but actually it grew on me pretty quickly, then nearly made me brain dead.

 

It’s a simple looking game, with clear cartoony visuals, which actually do have a fair bit of character. I liked the animation of the characters that move about, though why the main character, Ed, runs like a zombie walks confused me, but that isn’t really relevant. 

 

 

It’s pretty much an old school point and click adventure game, a genre that I love, but also a genre that can infuriate me pretty easily. Games like Monkey Island or Broken Sword are great games with great dialogue, and a lot of charm, which can offset the ‘what the hell am I supposed to do!’ anger. This game, however, not so much. 

 

I didn’t mind walking back and forth for a while in Monkey Island or Broken sword because there was always the idea that there’s something obvious that you’ve missed, but in Smoozles I was often wondering back and forth through the same 3 screens trying to pick up anything at all as a clue. The missions you will get will usually include ‘Get this item to get this key’, so you go to the place to get said item, but nope you’re told to go to another place, and so you do, and then you’re told to go back to yet another place. It’s one of the worst ways to extend the playtime of a game, and Smoozles is full of these moments, and the problem is that it will be so obvious but the game assumes you’ve forgotten past interactions with items. 

 

One of the worst for me is when my character was tasked with getting an item called the ‘Heffletimpleburpler’ from one of the characters from earlier in the game. I was told to go and talk to him about it, and the game just didn’t let me talk to him, nothing was said. So after wandering around for about half an hour, I went into his room and examined the safe in his room, then prompting me to go and talk to him. Point is, I’d checked this safe many times before this mission, why would the game assume that Ed the Cat would forget about the safe?  

 

Best thing about this game is the music, which sounds a lot like PSone era Final Fantasies, and it was the awesome music that actually kept me playing. For a while. When you’re walking back and forth with the same areas for a long time and the music has looped for the hundredth time, it really starts to lose its charm. It isn’t backtracking I hate, but when you have to go back through only about 3 screens and that seems like it’s taking too long, you know that there’s something too slow and aimless about the game.

 

Even with all the complaints I still kept playing, so there is something about this game. It has some charm, even if it’s pretty hard to find a lot of the time, and for a free game it’s pretty good. My favourite thing about it was the old war veterans, Cyril and Cedric, who’ve lived together for 25 years and are just sitting complaining about each other for the most mundane reasons, until you mention the war and then it goes quiet. Maybe it’s all a metaphor about how people try to cover up their problems with mundane arguments? Probably not. 

 

Click the image below to downlaod the game.

 

In defense of adult content?

 

So, in the last blog post, Philbo quite rightly pointed out two things:

 

1: Sex in games is not “new”

2: So far, it has been handled with all the subtlety of a stick of dynamite.

 

Thing is, I don’t find that very surprising. Sex has always been a bit of a difficult subject to portray, and if video games had managed to “get it right” in their short lifetime THAT would be the major story. The existence of the Guardian’s “Bad sex award” for books demonstrates that even people working in a more controlled, mature medium are struggling to approach this topic.

 

However, I think that like movies and books and every other facet of the human experience, sex is too large a subject to just exclude or ignore. There must be a balance, if games are meant to inspire emotions, then you can’t just ignore the most basic of desires.

 

Before I can give examples of sex “well” handled in games, I want to briefly discuss sex scenes as an idea. What is the point of a sex scene? In a film, or a book or a story, describing or discussing the physical act of sex is one of the best ways to inspire a wide range of emotion quickly. It can build relationships between characters, it can shock, and it can cause anger or feelings of disgust. It is on par, if not better than death in this regard. Sex scenes are usually confronting and difficult to ignore. Done well, they force an audience to react. This type of plot device is too powerful to simply throw away in gaming.

 

So, who does it “well”? Who are our Casanovas or Don Juan’s of gaming? Well, truth is there aren’t many. Maybe it speaks to the difficulty of the topic, or the immaturity (in the sense of timescale, not maturity of content) of gaming but there aren’t many sex scenes in games that come off as more than cheesy, appealing to young horny men or embarrassing. There are a myriad of factors as to “why” this might be the case, most of which have already been discussed by Philbo.

What games have increasingly done well, however, is deal with “sexual themes”. While the actual scenes themselves are often crude, creepy or dull, the idea of characters having sex is no longer so taboo. Games now have characters who talk about sex, or have it, without it simply being a “wink wink nudge nudge” Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball moment. 

 

Persona  4, a Japanese game for the Playstation 2, explored the theme of homosexuality without being condescending (compare with EA and Bioware’s ham-fisted but well-meaning attempts) . In the “Witcher” series by Projekt CD Red, the protagonist comes off as a very convincing womaniser and is as “active” as the player desires. While the actual graphics of sex are still awkward, the inclusion of it as a natural part of the human experience is gaining ground.

 

 I think this is important. If games are going to be a respectable medium for storytelling, then they need to be able to cover all aspects of life, including sex. So, bang on you dead-eyed uncanny valley dwellers. As long as the character development is there, I can stomach Mass Effect’s “attempts” at being sensual.

 

Though, I am never upset to learn I can skip those cutscenes.

 

What the hell am I watching? Oh god. No.

Sorry for the delay guys. In the last two blog posts Moif and I discussed what can make or break a game’s story. This time we’re talking about what everyone really wants to hear.

SEX IN VIDEO GAMES!

I suppose the earliest games that had sex (if you can call it that) that I can remember are Custer’s Revenge and Beat ‘Em and Eat ‘Em. Fair play to the creators of the latter, fantastic name. These games were made and became notorious, but mainly because of how ridiculous they are. And I suppose at the time the graphics were much too close to reality for people to handle. And the rape aspect of Custer’s Revenge I suppose, that ain’t great either.
Nowadays though? You gotta work for this shit. Because now this is meaningful stuff.

The best modern examples of this are Bioware’s games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and its Hot Coffee mod is a classic too, but more in the style of Beat ‘Em and Eat ‘Em. It’s just… hilarious. Bioware are into making story driven games that also give players choices on how they want the story to go. Character interaction is especially important in these games, and fair play to them, they can do it well. But guys, chill out.

There was a hell of a lot of controversy surrounding the sex scenes in Mass Effect. Did the people who were complaining about it actually take a peek at these scenes. Talk about a disappointment! As the camera fades to black and comes back again, zooming on the characters’ dead eyes, typical of Bioware games, as the awkwardly animated characters jerk… around, it ends up becoming a farce. At least the Mortal Kombat creators Netherealm studios are ridiculous but they don’t try to make it meaningful! Is that a good thing? I don’t even know. No it’s not. They need to wise up, too.

Still, these games teach you so much about life and relationships. No matter how much of an evil prick you are, if you occasionally agree with someone they will sleep with you or, in the case of Dragon Age: Origins, give them one or two wee presents and you’re in there.

Anyway, point is, when a sex scene in a game comes on, put on some porn instead.

Philbo

What makes a "good" story?

In the last blog post, Philbo looked at what makes a bad story in a game. I’m going to try and look at what makes a good story.  I guess I'm more positive than him. My beard's less impressive though.

 

Games are a pretty unique platform, and the best stories in games are usually built around the game's mechanics. This makes sense, because the ability for the player to actually  take direct action is what sets games apart as a medium. Multiple endings, variable paths to success and the real potential of failure are common elements in the best storylines in video games.

 

To help illustrate my point, I am going to look at two games. The Mass Effect series (technically three games but shut up it is only one story) by Bioware and Ghost Trick by Capcom (of all people). Both of these games make use of gaming-specific actions to further the story.

 Mass Effect in an interesting mix of game and film. The story is primarily relayed in cutscenes and dialogue, like in a traditional medium. What sets it apart is the player's capacity to affect changes in the progression. Did you ever shout "do it! It'll be Awesome!" to Luke when Vader asks him to join the dark side? Well, even if you aren't as mildly evil as I am, you can appreciate Mass Effect giving you the player the choice to either be either the "good cop" or the "bad cop". 

 

While Mass Effect is not totally unique in giving a player a choice, it combines this choice with a compelling enough story that making those choices are often hard. Unlike in Fable by Lionhead, where the choices often boil down to "Help orphan" or "Kick puppy", Mass Effect's decisions are often less black and white. The mix of decent storytelling in a traditional sense, coupled with the control that games can give a player makes for "good storytelling".

 

 While you have most likely heard of Mass Effect if you follow gaming, Ghost Trick is a relatively unknown Nintendo DS game by Capcom. It tells the story of a man, killed under suspicious circumstances, who in death gains the ability to investigate his own demise. I won't ruin the end for you, but if you get the chance to play it, I would reccomend it wholeheartedly. 

 

 While Ghost trick does offer choices, it is not like mass effect in that you can't progress until you figure out the "right" choice. There isn't a moral element to the game. However, what it does give you is another game-only mechanic: the Game Over.

 Game Over, or failure, is a perfect example of game play and story telling intertwining. In a film, you don't really get to see what happens if the protagonist fails. If Jeff Bridges had killed Robert Downey Jr., we still don't get to see a evil army in iron man suits. In books, we don't get to know what happens if heroes had lost hope at any given moment, if Frodo had just given the ring back to Bilbo.

 In Ghost Trick, the game over is used extremely creatively. If you fail to accomplish a task in time or in the right order, you see the immediate results of your mistakes. A thug might catch a little girl, or a loose branch might fall on the hero's helper, preventing her from saving you. This is used to show the player how they should advance (gameplay), but also builds urgency by showing the consequences of each action. The "game over" mechanic  serve to evoke an emotional response from the player.

 

This mixture of gameplay with good writing is vital. It helps to explain why, for video games a traditionally "good story" can seem silly or overwrought. Games like the newer installements of the Final Fantasy series, or the Metal Gear series have fairly decent plots by all accounts. However, the relative inability to influence the story in a meaningful way means it is hard to feel invested in the medium. Unlike a movie, or a book where delivery or verbage can create this investment, a lack of integration into player action in a game causes what should be serious and emotion scenes to seem silly or boring.

 

In short, to have a good story, a game must allow the player to feel involved. It is not enough to have good dialogue and stunning cutscenes, if the story isn't interwoven into the game play. If the story and the game seem to be two distinct elements, then you have failed to create an engaging plot.