Welcome Back to Halo

Halo 4

• + Jaw-dropping visuals; can’t tell sometimes whether characters are cg or live-actors.
• + The flowing orchestra and epic rock scores do not disappoint.
• + Superb additions and revisions of the weapon roster.
• + Gameplay is fast and intense; battles are both grand and intimate.
• - The campaign’s too short.
• A fix: Use some of the content tucked-away in undisclosed Halo lore to extend the story (only if the team is confident).
• - Quick-time events; they can get in the way of game immersion.
• A fix: Allow the player to sit-back and relax during some of the climactic scenes.

Halo 4 is back!  It is under new management, has a slightly new look, but expounds on the game experience that has made the Halo franchise one-of-a-kind.

At the start of the game through the final scenes, I was down-right distracted at how good the game looked.  This isn’t a bad thing – such an amazing look is a winning demonstration to what games are capable of (on 7 year old technology no less!).  Epic vistas are well served by Halo 4’s rendering, making the game one of the best looking titles of our time.

Know what goes well with a pleasant view?  Good sound.  The orchestral rock plays well, changing with however the in-game situation evolves.  Classic Halo pieces are there alongside moving new scores.

Speaking of sound, weapon blasts rock the speakers with empowering ‘booms’ and ‘zips’.  The entire arsenal of Halo 4 brings new favorites and familiar classics back to equip the player.  An entire new category of Promethean (a race in the game) weapons is added to redefine, but keep balanced, the in-game experience.

Using Halo 4’s gear is a must; action hit me fast and brutally.  Some of the best combat scenarios call this game home.  Though, at times, the game dragged me out of the action for quick-time events – the things that seem to populate most FPS games these days.  Are quick-time events a plague or a necessity?  I’ll let you be the judge.

Despite the excellence of engagement, it all goes by too quickly; combat comes and goes, the story is told, and the adventure had in only a handful of hours.  Even on the hardest difficulty, Halo 4 flies by.  The game is packed with content, but that is a lot to take-in for such a short time.

All-in-all, Halo 4 is not just a solid FPS, but a pinnacle of great gaming.  It proudly inherits the mantle of the Halo universe, delivering a well-played experience.  Take care to give Halo 4 a try; save humanity with the Master Chief one more time.

 

Multiplayer Learning with Banjo Tooie

Banjo Tooie Multiplayer

• + Unique library of weapons to use.
• + Distinct character features to fit multiple play styles.
• - Unintuitive effects from weapons.
• A fix: Define all the effects of an attack in the first pull of the trigger.
• - Useless melee ability.
• A fix: Decrease cool-down times in attacking while increasing the effective range of the attack.
• - Clumsy controls in aiming and movement.
• A fix: Keep sensitivity of aiming at a moderate scale, while only keeping movement on one control (not both the directional pad and analog stick); don’t use inversed controls by default.
• - Level design is absent - like a cake missing something sweet.
• A fix: Make levels have high and low areas, while also placing weapons in locations that naturally draw players together.

This past weekend was another Olympic LAN party.  A few games were played, but I felt Banjo Tooie’s multiplayer needed special mention.  As you can see by the list above, it was… unimpressive.

The game provides a unique library of weapons to use.  Mines, bombs, rockets, and machinegun rounds are all in the form of eggs shot out of a bird.  Special, right?  It is, but all for the wrong reasons.  Mines explode when placed anywhere near another mine, machineguns do zilch, and the difference between higher-damage rounds can’t be told just looking at them.

Speaking of weapons, the melee would be better if it didn’t exist.  When the melee button is hit, the in-game character goes into a dreadfully long animation to do essentially nothing.  That time makes the player a sitting-duck, readying them for cheap-shots in multiplayer matches.  Attacking hand-to-hand is a death wish.

There is a fun set of familiar Banjo game characters.  Each one is either fast, average, or slow in movement.  However, the controls make every character feel like they are either antique tanks or sliding on a greased floor.  Turning to aim at an opponent is nigh futile; the prevailing strategy is to shoot like a madman in the general direction of foes.  Maybe then a hit will be landed, but it won’t make up for very touchy controls.

Finally, multiplayer levels lack a lot of what modern games take for granted.  Modern games have elevation levels, ‘safe’ and ‘prospect’ places, and flow to direct players into confrontation.  Banjo Tooie misses these things by a mile.  To summarize, encounters are random, and players can easily get lost in the cramped depths of the multiplayer arena.

In essence, Banjo Tooie is a game to learn from.  Being a spearhead of 3D gaming, there are both good things, and terrible things, in the game’s multiplayer design.  Good differences are present in character traits and weapons, but poor weapon instruction, excruciating controls, and no level design leave the game lacking.  May we all learn from Banjo Tooie’s multiplayer to help make better games in the future!

Check Mate

Chess

• + A balanced system for any player.
• + Highly developed.
• + Refined to the point that most games can only dream of.
• - Some foreknowledge needed for play.
• A fix: Encourage popular culture to enjoy and play more Chess games; having Wikipedia handy also helps.
• - Massive skill differences between the population of players.
• A fix: Warn players to know who they may be playing a game with.

Chess, ‘the game of kings’.  For many hundreds of years, this board game has been developed, refined, enjoyed, and agonized over by countless numbers of players.  Recently, I’ve picked-up the physical pieces and played a few games; a spoiler Is that I really enjoy this gameplay experience.

Chess, for one, is a game that one must know how to play; there is no ‘jump right in’ solution.  This is a rare thing, though; one of the most well-known games out there is Chess.  However, this familiarity widens a gap of skill that is – shall we humbly say – immense between a ‘casual’ player and a master.  A simple request for a game can quickly become a one-sided trounce, as player A utterly destroys player B.

Though such an event can occur, it is skill that is at work, not an unbalancing of the game; the rules are clear, they are concisely the same for all players, and they are simple.  This game is a supreme example as to why ‘perfection is simplicity’; the basic mechanics governing the game and its units lead to more strategy than any current video game.  Heck, the number of outcomes of any game will crash even the most powerful computer when the machine thinks about it!

There’s not much new to say about Chess; it’s been played since before you or I were born, hundreds of years before even the creation of many countries.  It’s not just survived that time, but flourished, and I, for one, have a marvelous time when I play a match.  Though not for the most casual player, Chess is definitely a game of ‘kingly’ value.  Check that, mate.

Hark - It's Hawken

From the Beta:

• + Adrenaline-pumping action of explosions, dust, and smoke.
• + Full customization of armaments to fit every play-style.
• + Combat takes place in 3-D space; levels above and below the player are planes of fighting.
• + Feel like piloting a mech when moving.
• + Great aesthetics of a dreary sci-fi world.
• + Free to play!
• - Some better upgrades that affect play can be bought.
• A fix: Use Valve’s game model of making anything that can be bought an aesthetic feature only.
• - No instruction is given as to what elements are in the HUD.
• A fix: Include, in the Options menu, a simple screenshot of the HUD with all features tagged.
• - Some game modes are not intuitive for what is supposed to be done.
• A fix:  At the start of joining a match, display a quick-but-detailed set of what to do in a game mode.

Hawken can’t go Gold soon enough.  It’s free-to-play, looks great, gives superb action, and – possibly the most important note – it’s a mech game!  But what’s the meat of the game?

Jumping in, the first thing I noticed was the HUD system.  Dials, gadgets, and meters are built into the mech canopy; however, only through experimentation could I figure-out exactly what everything does.  There is not a starter-guide to what everything represents.  The saving grace is that 5 minutes of gameplay stressed every point of the system, showing-off the full limitations of my mech.

In every match, firing and getting fired upon was enjoyable.  The rattle of machineguns, the pop of rockets, and the clink of grenades were full of life.  Flashes, smoke, and explosions lent themselves to visually, acoustically, to an aesthetic of the dystopian world of Hawken.  Activating jump-jets gave me an excellent view of the entire playing field through my mech’s cracking canopy.

Cracking canopy?  Smoking engine?  Just taking too much damage?  Hawken gave me the ability to repair that damage.  Shutting-down my mech, a little drone pops-out to buff my combat machine.  However, the ability was balanced, as I couldn’t move when being repaired, and I couldn’t act right away if a rocket was aimed at my face.  The only issue seemed to be that it took me out of the action for too long, breaking the flow of gameplay.

Damage could come from above or below, left, right, forward, or backward.  Hawken delivers play in 3 dimensions; jump-jets give a quick traversal option for handling the many tiered arenas of the game.  I never knew when the next unseen baddy would take a potshot at me; such a setup made me think of strategy and tactics in a whole new way.

To cut my gushing short, Hawken is a fantastic game, not even getting out of Beta.  Despite no exposer to, let’s say, a story while in-game, the mechanics are solid, the visual quality is on a professional level, the sound is vibrant, and the gameplay is quite satisfying.  I had a great time playing this game; I hope you get a chance to jump into this mech-genre reviving title sooner rather than later!

IGDA Nanocon Notes - The Lens of Truth

The Lens of Truth: Real World Adaptive Level Design

Speakers: Chris Totten (Art Director E4 Software) and Josh Lynsen (Creator of StreetPass Network)

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How did we get here?

                How Chris got here:

Architecture Masters -> self education in Blender -> Teaching on game development -> writing on game development -> doing game development

Be self-motivated.  Put the time in.  It will work for you if you keep your head down and hit the grind-stone.

                How Josh got here:

                                Take the skill in your day job and apply it to what you want to do in game making.

                                Do things that apply to a part of game making.

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Use virtual clues for real-life treasure.

How to deal with structures that already exist

                Use Urbanism

                                - Large spaces can keep people away from each-other

                                - Paths, districts, nodes, landmarks allow for meeting

                Connectivity

                                - Cell phones/internet create a damaging interaction issue

Adaptive Game Reuse - take a game and re-center it around a place

                1) Games that enhance

                                - Simple mechanics to real-world situation

                                - Ex: item finding to explore locations

                                - Ex: virtual art/characters in real locations

                2) Games that pervade

                                - Events can only be executed in specific locations

                                - Going from point A to B affects the virtual world

                                - Ex: passing someone in life gives virtual goods/action

                3) Games that rehabilitate

                                - Jane Megonigle

                                                - Works on games that makes the world better

                                                - Gamify basic actions in a positive way

                                                - Ex: Tombstone Hold'em, Cruel to be Kind

                                - Gamifying a common feature/location

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Chris and Josh: Creating a ‘Hometown social game’

            1)      Goals

                                Revisit hometown and bring welcome visitors

                                Support local business and institutions

                                Inject new life into smaller/shrinking cities

                                Maintain links to - and value - your past

            2)      Platform

                                Facebook, Google Plus or other social network

                                Any communal posting area that supports photos/discussion/moderation

            3)      Guiding principles

                                Large amount of local control

                                Encourage tourism as much as revisiting

                                Especially support volunteerism

                                Especially support local festivals and city events

            4)      Example point system for pictures taken:

                                2 - you in town

                                5 - you and local landmark

                                10 - you supporting local business

                                50 - you volunteering at local charity

                                50 - you at local festival

            5)      Rewards

                                Game enjoyment and community support

                                Gold, Silver, Bronze involvement rankings

                                No specific leader-boards

                                Less about competition, more about involvement

            6)      Notes

                                No specific hometown?  You are a nomad player.

                                National chains ineligible for business photos.

                                Chambers of Commerce could be local bases.