A Look Ahead: “The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game marketed as poorly as The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead:_Survival_Instinct
Anyone else find this eerily similar to Call of Duty and Battlefield box art?

Activision’s new game, based on the AMC series “The Walking Dead,” is set to launch next week, and has a grand total of one trailer on its website.

This is sad to see, and it’s rather disappointing. This game doesn’t look like much, but it has a very interesting premise: Experience the very beginning of the zombie outbreak as Merle and Daryl Dixon. That’s an awesome idea, one I’d very much like to play out, but what do I have to go on?

Source: http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/26/the-walking-dead-survival-instinct-preview/
The game looks about seven years old with these graphics, and gives the impression of a movie-tie-in style game. Or in this case, a TV-tie-in game.

The trailer’s only a minute long. There’s not enough time to let me know if the game’s story will be handled well, or if the gameplay will be any good. Now of course that’s a big red flag. You don’t have an advanced screening of a movie to critics when you know it’s going to bomb, and you don’t release trailers that highlight the lack of polish in your game.

We’ve all seen bad games before, and we’ve all seen bad games with little marketing, but I have never come across a game so close to release with only one lonely trailer.

Source: http://sknr.net/2013/02/07/the-walking-dead-survival-instincts-trailer/
I’m curious as to how the gameplay will be handled for this. Can you take on hordes of zombies with a crossbow, or is it suicide? The trailer didn’t really say.

I can feel the embarrassment of the design team. It feels like they don’t want anyone to play this game or even know that it exists.

Commentary: App Game Potential

App games may play a huge role in the future of gaming. Whether or not this medium becomes a widely accepted art form may heavily depend on how app games develop.

In my previous post, I discussed how app games on a whole are not as immersive as games for consoles or computers. But what if app games changed? What could happen if an app game broke away from the norm and tapped in to the full power of this medium? Games might finally break through the judgment of the media and be accepted as a true art form.

The reason would be the accessibility. Right now, video games are expensive to play. You need a console or a powerful PC to play a lot of current games, and most classic games have become almost impossible to find, let alone play.

Source: http://gamingrockson.blogspot.com/2012/09/wii-u-games-priced-at-60.html
We all know that this hobby isn’t cheap. So unless things change in the mainstream game market, the cheapness of apps may be needed to allow this medium to grow.

I’ve talked to people who think games are a waste of time, that there is nothing they can do that a book or movie can’t, and I want so badly to sit them down to play Journey, Mass Effect 2, and The Walking Dead and say, “This is what our medium is capable of.” If only it were that simple. These people don’t have consoles or $1000 computers, and the price of the games themselves isn’t cheap.

But think about how many people have smart phones. If someone made an app game that had the power of those marvelous games, something that made you think differently, that made you live your actions and experience a story, then the accessibility of that game could very well turn all conceptions of games on their heads.

Source: http://guides.gamepressure.com/thewalkingdead/guide.asp?ID=16773
If an app game could make you think about the idea of mercy, what it means to be human, this medium would only benefit.

An easily-accessible game like that could reshape the entire world’s view on gaming.

Commentary: App Game Immersion

Can an app game immerse you?

When playing games, it’s not uncommon to experience a sort of Zen state, where you forget that you’re using a controller or a keyboard and mouse. You are the character. You are physically doing everything on screen. In games like Journey, you forget the world around you and just live the experience.

But can app games generate that same sensation?

App games keep growing in popularity. More and more people play them to kill time while waiting in line or riding the bus, but do these games offer the player any sort of immersion? Can they evoke emotion or spark critical thought?

Source: http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2013/01/21/journey-once-more-into-the-desert/
Look at the games in the app store. Can any of them draw you in like a PC or console game? Can they make you cry? Can they change the way you think about the world?

At the moment, I say no, or at least I’d say that the majority of app games can’t do this. There might be a few rhythm games that achieve Zen, but the rest don’t offer much in the way of immersion, and there could be a few reasons for that.

Freemium games make their money through micro-transactions and ads. While playing, you’re either interrupted or distracted by an ad, or reminded that you can pay for special items and power-ups. Those distractions keep you rooted in reality, disconnected from the gaming experience.

Source: http://www.iosnoops.com/2011/03/17/angry-birds-hd-advertising-screw-up-why-ads-in-paid-apps-are-a-big-no-no/
I don’t know about you, but ads take me out of an experience. If freemium games ever wanted to be more than just a time killer, ads would have to go.

And the very platform itself does little to allow immersion. Smart phone games keep you very much aware of how you’re interacting with the world. Your fingers touch the screen to perform actions. It’s like watching a puppet show with the puppeteer’s hands in plain sight.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5971263/finger-tied-is-like-a-game-of-naked-twister-you-play-with-your-hands
Even with an iPad, your fingers interfere with the action, keeping you at a distance.

You can’t get lost in a world or a story this way. You can’t truly immerse yourself and experience the full power of this art form with the way app games are now.

Commentary: Selling Segments

In an episode of Extra Credits, the idea for reducing the price of games took an interesting approach: selling the singleplayer campaign of a game for $35 with the option of buying multiplayer for $20. It’s a unique thought, but why not go one step further?

Instead of making multiplayer an add-on to a singleplayer game, why not give players the option to buy each separately? What if you could buy the multiplayer of Call of Duty or Battlefield for $30 – $40 and then be able to pay for singleplayer?

Source: http://www.giantbomb.com/halo-4/3030-35533/
If someone wants to play as Master Chief, let them do it for $30 or less. If they want a good old Red vs. Blue battle, sell it to them for the same price. Letting people choose what they want might lead to more business.

I know a lot of people who play Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Halo solely for the multiplayer. The singleplayer campaign often doesn’t matter to them, so why should they have to pay for it? And on the flip side, some people enjoy Halo’s story but have no interest in multiplayer. Why can’t they pay less for content they don’t want?

Now of course this idea could lead to lost revenue for a game. Developers would put in millions of dollars into creating both experiences, but then a lot of people would only pay for one.

Source: http://www.skbbgaming.6f.sk/?page_id=15
And it’s not like pure multiplayer doesn’t sell. Team Fortress 2 is one of the most successful pure multiplayer games in video game history, even before it became free-to-play.

But I’d imagine that segmented games would sell more than a full package would. I could see more people buying lower priced halves of a game, leading to a wider audience and increased profit.

There might be better ways to decrease the price of games, and this wouldn’t apply to genres that rarely/never have multiplayer, but it’s something to consider.

Missed Opportunities: Freemium Subtlety

When creating a freemium app game, where you need to encourage players to spend money, it’s important not to beat them over the head. The Simpsons Tapped Out doesn’t seem to get this, and constantly badgers the player to cough up some dough.

Source: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=64374

If you haven’t played, Tapped Out is an app similar to Farmville and Dragonvale, where you manage Simpsons characters in performing chores to earn you money, constantly checking back in with them to upgrade Springfield and reassign work.

Some tasks can take twenty-four hours, others longer. There’s even one that takes 90 days to complete.

Source: http://matthewfulton.tumblr.com/page/5
Without 100 donuts, it takes 90 days to grow corn on Cletus’ farm.

And like in Dragonvale, you can use donuts to speed up the game and earn money faster, but donuts cost real money. You can find a few throughout the game, but it won’t be long before you need more, and Tapped Out is quick to remind you of this.

Throughout the game, you’ll constantly see the donut icons indicating that you can speed up the construction of a building or the speed of a chore. This alone would be fine, a perfect way of encouraging players without getting in their way or making them feel guilty.

Source: http://www.mobygames.com/game/iphone/simpsons-tapped-out/screenshots/gameShotId,576944/
The prices for donuts can be a little much, too, with 132 donuts costing almost $11. You can use all of those in a single day of playing, easily.

But when the developers want to promote something, Gil will show up and a pop-up screen will tell players about the hot item. He’ll spend the next day or two groveling on the street if you ignore him.

And after spending a few weeks with the game, you’ll encounter golden lottery tickets. Unlike the normal Scratch-R tickets, which give cash, the golden tickets reward you with donuts. Again, this would be fine on its own, but if you use a normal ticket, a message will appear along the bottom of the screen telling you, “You could have won 20 donuts with a Golden Scratch-R.”

Source: http://tstotips.com/2013/03/01/whats-the-golden-scratch-r/
For $1.05, and only a slim chance of getting a decent amount of donuts, it’s hard to feel compelled to buy a golden Scratch-R.

These are all clear attempts at making players feel guilty for not paying, and while I understand that developers should be paid for their products, this feels like the wrong approach. The pestering has actually made me less inclined to spend money. Perhaps if they had been a little subtler with their methods, it would have been different.

A Look Ahead: “God of War: Ascension”

There’s very little to say about the upcoming God of War: Ascension’s singleplayer story. The trailers have shown that the game will stay true to the series’ roots with hardcore, gory combat, jaw-dropping set pieces, gigantic boss battles, and of course one pissed off Kratos.

Source: http://www.gamersyde.com/pop_images_god_of_war_ascension-18963-1.html

But that’s really all I can do to describe the story. The trailers don’t detail much about singleplayer. They’re a little ambiguous. And those few that do talk about singleplayer mainly show off the combat. It seems that Santa Monica is more interested in showing off the multiplayer, which looks intense and exciting.

The Multiplayer Like a Boss trailer gives a good impression of what the multiplayer will be like. It seems less like the tacked-on feature that some people viewed it originally, and more like the game’s main selling point.

And for a game centered on challenging, violent combat, the multiplayer looks willing and able to provide, while at the same time not being one-note. If the trailers are to be believed, Ascension’s multiplayer will focus players around teamwork, rather than pure fighting skill.

Source: http://gamerant.com/god-of-war-ascension-multiplayer-video-details-benk-146091/
One of the many ways you’ll be able to brutally kill your opponents.

Your team will have to work together and complete objectives to gain favor with your team’s god – Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, or Ares – and ultimately win the match. You’ll be racking up points through killing other players, opening chests around the map, battling neutral monsters such as Polyphemus, and more.

Source: http://godofwar.wikia.com/wiki/Multiplayer
While earning points through exploration and combat, you’ll have to deal with titans or other monsters. And killing them rewards you with a massive amount of points.

This is great to see. Multiplayer should always be open to players of all skill levels and various play styles. If they keep it balanced and continue to add on depth and original ideas, then I can see Ascension’s multiplayer being the greatest innovation to the franchise in years.

Missed Opportunities: Teach Through Gameplay

I would imagine that a free-to-play MMO would want to be accessible to a wide range of players. It would strive to encourage as many people to play as possible. And to do this, they would want to have a detailed, welcoming tutorial for new players.

But without such a tutorial, SOE‘s PlanetSide 2 might be doomed for failure.

Source: http://shooter-szene.4players.de/content/ego-shooter/planetside-2-serverzusammenlegung-und-ps4-version.html

PlanetSide 2, although it has solid shooter controls and a vast amount of depth, fails to teach players properly through gameplay. There is no tutorial anywhere in the game, minus a few on-screen prompts on what keys to press to interact with vehicles and terminals. Everything else must be learned through experimentation.

And that would be fine if the gameplay was simple, but PlanetSide 2 has a lot of depth. You can capture control points, destroy generators, take out terminals, attack two different factions of enemies, and much more all at once. Dozens of icons can appear on your HUD at any given time, and they can confuse new players.

Source: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/hud-feedback.55422/

The game’s official website has video tutorials to explain some of this, but that’s not enough. Experiential learning is the best way to teach gamers how to play. Watching videos outside of the game only does so much.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that PlanetSide 2 is a difficult game to get in to, and it’s probably all because of the lack of a tutorial.

Source: http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1207888&page=51
This is only half as cluttered as the screen usually gets, and very few of the markings are ever explained by the game.

And if SOE made an in-depth tutorial, it wouldn’t need to be human vs. AI. That kind of tutorial would cost a lot of money, especially for a purely multiplayer game. So instead they could make one similar to Modern Warfare 2’s tutorial, where you’re fighting dummies on a course to learn the controls.

Source: http://www.gamesradar.com/modern-warfare-2-spec-ops-guide/

PlanetSide 2 is a solid game, but I don’t think that it’s meeting its full potential. If SOE creates an in-depth tutorial, I could see a lot more people playing and filling the dry patches of this massive game.

Commentary: PS4 Reactions

It’s great to see a company that listens to its fans and knows its weaknesses. With their official announcement of the PS4, Sony – at least to me – proved itself to be one such company.

I’m very happy to see that Sony is addressing the issues of loading and downloading times. I said in a previous post that the new consoles should focus on faster loading times, but Sony took it several steps further.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2013/02/20/ps4-allows-playing-games-as-theyre-downloading/

If you haven’t heard about it, the PS4 will have a second processing chip entirely devoted to downloading updates for games without interrupting gameplay. You won’t have to spend hours installing updates after taking a month-long break from a game. That sounds like a great solution to many problems of the PS3.

But what may be one of the most interesting features of the PS4 may also be one that developers will hate. When you want to demo a game, you will be able to use the Gaikai cloud gaming service to stream the game and play from the very beginning for 30-60+ minutes.

Source: http://www.ps3trophies.org/news/news-7128-Sony-Buys-Cloud-Gaming-Service-Gaikai-for-$380m.html

That’s awesome. If I understand correctly, this will allow players to test every game on the PlayStation Store before making a $60 commitment. But I don’t see developers caring much for this feature.

The web show Extra Credits discussed here how demos haven’t been helpful with game sales. If anything, demos have hurt sales. If the Gaikai service allows players to play the first hour or more of a game, players might decide that one free hour is enough, and not buy the game if they thought it was only okay.

Some games might suffer from the Gaikai service, but as I said before, Sony seems to know its weaknesses, or at least it seems to have learned from some of its past mistakes. The PS4’s release is still many months away. Hopefully they will find ways to keep developers and gamers happy.

Commentary: Why Do We Play Minecraft?

Just as the title asks: Why do we play Minecraft?

The answer usually depends on the person. Some play purely to create, others to survive and explore, to socialize and connect, or to simply relax and tune-out. These are all valid reasons, but I think that there is an underlying, psychological reason why we play Minecraft: because of its near-constant rewards.

Source: http://www.esourceengine.com/downloads/minecraft/

Minecraft has the highest effort-to-reward ratio of any game I’ve played. The game grants instant gratification for nearly every action of the player, which creates a feeling of accomplishment. A player may not think about it consciously, but I believe that subconsciously, we feel accomplished with every block we break or place.

In a sense, when you break or place a block in Minecraft, you are forever changing the world. It’s not something that immediately comes to mind, especially since you can always break and replace a block, but somewhere in your mind, you feel empowered by this knowledge, this feeling of absolute control over a world.

Source: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/07/minecraft-exploit-lets-some-users-impersonate-other-players/
For those who have never played Minecraft, almost every block in the game can be manipulated. There is more freedom and control in Minecraft than any other game I know.

So even though you might not finish a project for days or weeks, the very fact that you’re making progress and modifying the world keeps you going.

I’m sure games such as Dwarf Fortress or Terraria offer this same effort-to-reward ratio. They grant the player a feeling of mastery over a world in a way that no other game can, and provide near-constant rewards that keep people playing for hundreds of hours.

A Look Ahead: PlayStation 4

There are only a few days left before Feb. 20, when the secret behind Sony’s teaser video will be revealed. Given the time of release, and the video itself, it’s almost certain to be a press conference on the PlayStation 4. So if this truly is the reveal of the PS4, then there’s one question on my mind: What will it do?

Source: http://www.gametrailers.com/ps3

The PS3 has been marketed for years as the console that, “only does everything.” So what features will its successor have? Given the tech demo that Square Enix revealed at last year’s E3, better graphical capabilities are assured.

But considering how good graphics already are, I’m hoping they focus more on loading time. As our entertainment technology has gotten better, loading has become worse. Think about how long it takes to turn on or change the channel of an HD TV. If the PS4 can break that mold, and deliver incredible detail at high speeds, I’ll be happy.

Source: http://www.videogamer.com/news/this_is_what_a_next_generation_final_fantasy_could_look_like.html
The Agni’s Philosophy tech demo was all done in real-time.

Of course that wouldn’t be the only thing we should expect out of the PS4. Every function of the PS3 should be transferred over and refined: The PlayStation Store; the Blu-ray player (or the next best thing); backwards compatibility (at least for PS3 games); etc. There have been plenty of concepts and news articles hinting at possible features (or lack there of), but nothing set in stone that I can find.

But what will happen with the Move? Will the Move be part of the main system? Will it be sold separately on launch or shortly after? Will it change to be more like the Kinect? Will Sony do away with it entirely?

Source: http://kotaku.com/5490632/playstation-move-everything-you-need-to-know

I have no experience with the Move, so I don’t know if it should belong with the new console or not, but if I were to venture a guess, I would say that Sony will either sell the Move in its current state separately, or find a way to merge it with the standard controller. It already has Sixaxis, so why not Move, too?

We’ll hopefully find out Sony’s master plan on the 20^th, so let’s keep our fingers crossed that our favorite features stick around, and hope that there are a few surprises in store.