Shadow of Mordor - The Nemesis System will change the RPG industry

Let me say this: the Nemesis System will change the RPG industry

You won’t find a more engrossing open-world next-gen action game than Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. I’m having as much fun with it as Dragons Dogma, which is to say, a lot of fun. It’s got all the elements to make a successful RPG—upgrades galore, loot finding, varied action, good pacing, a compelling story—but where the real world-building begins is in the Nemesis System. This is one of the smartest and nuanced mechanics I’ve ever seen in a game. Other writers have described it before, and probably better than I can, but I will say that it adds a level of realism and player investment that I’ve never seen before.

Dying by the hands of an Orc that killed you before and leveled up in the Orc ranks (because of your death)… that’s humiliating. I wanted to hunt down that rhyming, spitting butthole-eyed toad and turn his throat into a sprinkler. In time, I did. And man, it felt good.

Mastering the controls takes a little while if you aren’t familiar with other fighting games like the recent Batman series. In about 2 hours, I was grinning with every beautifully choreographed execution kill. So yeah, the developers mashed up the best of Assassin’s Creed and Batman, blended together tried-and-true RPG elements, and worked hard to make this world real. What did they get? A hit. They hit it out of the park. I’ll go as far as to say that the Nemesis System has raised the bar and will set a standard for AI and new types of storytelling.

I can’t wait to see where they take this in the inevitable sequel. Hats off to WB Games.

Ryse, Son of Rome would have benefited from this

With a melee game that is so concerned with armor and hand-to-hand combat, don't you think Ryse, Son of Rome would have benefited from this combat system? Imagine weakening woe's armor with targeted strikes instead of one boring and redundant shield thrust.

Name: The Aim Select Posture (ASP) Menu

Justin Sirois copyright 2013
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Breakdown for handheld melee weapons

Single posture handheld weapons provide a limited range of attack.

Watch any film with a sword fight and you won’t see two people holding their weapons with two hands the entire time. And you definitely won’t see them swinging the same two or three swings over and over. Watch a third person game created in the past ten years and you’ll see what I just described – a stiff and limited posture for holding handheld weapons.

Although this mechanic has worked for a while, there is room for improvement. The Aim Select Posture (ASP) Menu is the solution.

What ASP does for melee weapons.

The Aim Select Posture menu (ASP) adds a dynamic dimension to third-person games by giving the player eight additional options to hold their weapon. Depending on the scenario and environment, a player will choose the best aiming posture to gain an advantage over their enemy.

By holding down the right button the game pauses and a circular menu appears, much like Red Dead Redemption’s weapon select menu (refer to diagram). This menu lets the player select eight different postures / angles for holding a sword, dagger, axe, or mace in one hand. Depending on the posture selected, the third-person camera angle pans slightly out and over the shoulder, giving the player an advantage.

Some postures include:

• Right handed, over the head for striking the head for more damage or over shields or knocking off helmets
• Right handed, over the right shoulder for striking exposed necks for beheading
• Right handed, from the side for striking exposed arms, either damaging or dismembering
• Right handed hip height for concealment or damaging / dismembering exposed legs / chopping tentacles 
• Right handed below waist for jabbing to keep enemies at bay or striking exposed areas

 A balanced approach

Armored and non-armored enemies dictate varying game play:
Enemies with different types of armor will make ASP selecting crucial for making critical strikes. Smarter enemies will switch their own postures during battle to keep the player on his toes. Helmets, breastplates, shields, chainmail, and other armor types will make the game play infinitely variable, as players will have to study their enemy’s weaknesses.

Unarmored enemies including beasts will be vulnerable in different ways. Striking quicker, more agile enemies in the legs will be key to fending off large groups. Hacking tentacles might make an enemies bleed out making head strikes unnecessary. Jabbing certain flying enemies might be more efficient.

And of course, hacking through a horde of unarmored enemies after some tedious posture switching battles will be rewarding.

Switch it up:
Different types of enemies will engage the player at once. Knowing what type of weapon be it a quick, dagger or a slower broadsword, will make fighting more effective. Temporarily disabling certain enemies with low (leg) attacks, letting a player engage a heavier armed 2^nd enemy will add strategy to the fight.

An important feature might be a regular strike button, one that just slashes. This button would not only deliver a medium "generic" attack, it would return the posture to a regular stance. When the play wants to select a specific poster, they will access the ASP menu. 

Level design will be infinitely variable as different waves of enemies (armor classes) engage the player. 

Critical strikes:
Powerful, over-the-head strikes will be harder and harder to accomplish throughout the game. Whittling down an enemies armor and health will expose their appendages for critical strikes. The harder the enemy, the more whittling, but that final head shot (decapitated, split in two, or crushed) will be the most rewarding points during game play.

Focus Mechanic:
A simple push of a button would slow down time and zoom in on an enemy, much like Fallout 3's "select fire" mechanic. This would give the player time to evaluate the enemy's armor and understand where to strike. The player can re-evaluate the damage the enemy has taken at any time during the fight. 

Weak vs. powerful strikes:
Like other games, there could be a weak strike and a more powerful (slow) strike button (A and X button). Coupled with the 8 varieties of ASP posturing, the variables double. Maybe an over-the-head powerful strike is slower than a weak over-the-head strike, but if you nail it, the power is devastating. Heads explode, not sever. Similarly, if a player is in a low posture for leg slashing and uses a weak strike, maybe it is much faster than a powerful leg strike. The possibilities are nearly limitless when applying these strikes to enemy armor classes and types of skins, scales, or fur.

Fun with armor:
Think about the possibilities with knocking off an enemy's armor. A critical strike to the head might knock off a helmet. It rolls away, but another enemy picks it up and wears it as he attacks you. Imagine knocking  a large weapon or shield out of a large enemy's hand only to have a smaller enemy try to use the same weapon or shield. It slows them down and makes them almost easier to kill. 

A free hand:
When using the ASP, the character’s free hand will be useful. When surrounded, a free hand can shove (using the B button) one enemy when the player turns to strike another. Picking up and throwing severed limbs or decapitated heads (that you’ve just cut off) could distract enemies and beasts. Knowing that a certain beasts prefers human flesh, you can lob a human arm into a group of beasts and attack them from behind. Lobbing a severed head of a human at an unsuspecting human enemy might scare them, making them drop a weapon or shield.

Agility:
ASP will give player added agility and speed when a one-handed weapon is selected.

Concealment:
The ASP will allow players to conceal a dagger or small weapon by their side to stealthy close encounters.  Posturing from the hip will make the character turn slightly to conceal the weapon. This might be handy for around-town encounters or when trying to trick an enemy. 

Incentives and rewards

Throughout the game, players will gain experience that will help steady one-handed striking. Players will choose a weapon class they want to develop first, making them more proficient in small, medium, or large weapons. Switching between weapon classes within battle will be key which will make the game play varied and ever-changing.

Players will adapt

The benefits of different postures will quickly become obvious to the player. Players will adapt their own style according to their favorite weapons.

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easy fixes to Gears of War, Judgement

It’s easy to critique a game once it’s finished. Sometimes I feel bad for developers and game writers who are at the whim of fickle critics. Often times, a great game is bashed by a few notable websites and blogs, resulting in massive sales losses. That’s the way the current reviewing system works. I’d love to see a blog that reviews games weeks after they are out, after playing the campaign through twice, and once all the hype is over.

Playing through Gears of War, Judgment, I’m pretty happy with the gameplay and story. Tom Bissell did a great job bringing a fresh perspective(s) to the franchise  It’s not the most unique plot, reminiscent of Halo Reach with its “let’s find a big bomb and take out the big bad guy”. What sets it apart is the four perspective shifts of the Kilo team as they recall their mission. I love the narration of the characters as your play each role. It gives the campaign variety and depth. What I’m asking myself as I blast through the very tough and often times blood soaked levels is, is the variety enough? Rather, what opportunities were missed?

One easy one is Kilo squad, as they are in court and recalling their mission and defending their acts, look as fresh and polished as when I started the game. It’s a big detail when you consider Max Paine’s (3) transition and Jason Brody’s transformation in Far Cry 3. These were grizzly battles they just suffered through. At the very least, make the four members of Kilo squad look more and more battle-worn through the brutal campaign. Finally, when you see them in court right after the sick battles, they should look rough. Dented armor, blood on their uniforms, anything.

It would have been nice for one of the new characters to take real damage during one of the fights. Maybe a character would have been inadvertently responsible for the injury, sending the teammate into a hot zone only to be pinned down, hurt, and rescued later. This would have been an easy way to add an emotional layer to a pretty unemotional plot. Paduk’s burns scar could have come from the very mission they were just on. It would have been an easy “ah ha” moment when the player finally finds out… “oh, that’s how Paduk was injured. I was there for that.” Or, more powerfully… “shit, I was responsible for that.”

What I found boring about the gameplay was that there was no distinct difference between the characters. What if Baird’s aimed assault weapons more accurately. What is Cole could swing two grenades at a time and lob a devastating explosion. Maybe the missions that Cole narrates are particularly hard so there are more opportunities for grenade throwing. What if Paduk’s sniper accuracy was doubled with more ammo allowed. What is Sofia could slide into cover and run faster as well as melee with more effect. There’s so many possibilities to hurts.

Overall, I liked playing the campaign, but there wasn’t enough to set it apart from the original three games. It’s a tough balance, I know. Developers can’t change the game too much because fans of the series would rebel. People Can Fly and Epic did takes some risks with Gears of War, Judgment, but did they take enough? 

the compelling character development of Jason Brody in Far Cry 3 and how it could be a little better

I finished Far Cry 3 yesterday and was surprised at how much I enjoyed the game. Firstly, it did all the basics right. The story is compelling. You believe in the main character's motivation to get his kidnapped friends (girlfriend and brother included) back from the pirates that took them. The voice acting is top notch along with the graphics and believability of the characters, in particular the weed toking psychopath Vaas. You love to hate that bastard.

It was well paced like all good open-world games. Side missions and hunting (like red Dead) mix up the gameplay and main story. It’s challenging and always different—a lot of the time there’s hundreds of ways to solve a certain problem. And doing so is a hell of a lot of fun. Stealth takedown are just as satisfying as mowing down a group of attackers. The variety in weapons and incentive to upgrade them and yourself pushes the player to liberate every outpost and activate each radio tower. You feel invested in the liberation of the island in which you’ve been marooned. It works well on an emotional level, which is what makes for good storytelling.

There’s even a shift in tension as you move from the first island to the second. That was smart for pacing and variety. It also echoed Read Dead’s America/Mexico shift, but hell, if it works in fiction, it should work in games.

The power of Far Cry 3 lies in the transformation of Jason Brody, the main character. You feel him developing into a vigilante—a savage person who he never thought he would be. In parts of the game, you go through physical transformations like the addition of a slowly developing tattoo sleeve on your left arm as you upgrade. Every new tattoo represents a new ability. One of your fingers gets cut off at the end and you see it over and over in the last 40 or so minutes of the game. That type of physical change is compelling. As a player, it helps you feel the psychological changes Jason is going through.

What I would have loved to see, and this would have really drove it home for players, is mirrors in the game. This would have been a very small detail, but a powerful one. As Jason was changing, I was always wondering what he looked like from day to day. Dude goes through some horrifying shit. Imagine if there were mirrors in the game placed randomly in shacks and huts, maybe a few that are large enough to really check yourself out in. As the game progresses, you get more haggard and tired looking. Maybe a slash on your forehead from a previous cut screen develops into a prominent scar. Say your beard grows and you have the option to shave, but the shave in ever as close as when you first got to the island. Face tattoo? Let’s not go there.

In a crazy game developing world, I’d see the ability to lean into the mirror (click X to interact with mirror) to check out the bags under your eyes, to pull your lower lip down and see if your teeth are a little yellow after living in the jungle for weeks. That’s high talk, I know, but with all the psychedelia embedded in the narrative, it would be a fitting detail. Any person who has taken mushrooms or acid can relate to being transfixed by a mirror.  

Point being, the player would be compelled to see how they are changing. It would have been easy character development that the player interacts with, not just through cut scenes. This would have made the emotional connection to Brody more powerful. The more the player cares, the more they'd check themselves out in the mirrors throughout the world. Playing to the player's egos creates a new layer of emotional attachment. In a game that is stressing character development so hard, this functionality would be completely worth it. 

But I shouldn’t be complaining. The game is fantastic on so many levels. I can’t wait to reset all the rebel pirate outposts and replay them again. Brave, Ubisoft!

L.A. Noire and literature

I started playing L.A. Noire last night and literally, for the first (extended) time, I forgot I was playing a video game. Extended meaning for as long as a typical movie experience plays. This happened to me occasionally during Read Dead Redemption, but not for longer than 10-20 minutes. L.A. Noire is that convincing; the voice acting is movie-grade and the new face rendering technique gives the characters nearly naturalistic in-game expressions and features. Cut scenes blend into action scenes with almost no interruption. That lag or blackout between cut scenes and action has always been a huge drawback to narrative within games. Only after 3 hours of playing, I felt emotionally invested in the main character and that says a lot for the power of the plot.

And now Rockstar (Games) has published a collection of short stories tied in with the game's theme. The writers include Joyce Carol Oates and Francine Prose. Weird, right? I'm sure it's appropriately pulpy and fun, but will L.A. Noire be the game that finally draws more literary writers to the medium? I sure hope so.

Kindle download here

Kane and Lynch 2, Dog Days - ugh - put off this review for days

Really? That’s it? Am I missing something here? How do you take two of my favorite videogame characters and massively screw them up… again? Where the shit is the story? What did you do to my buds?

I’m not going to talk about the amazing art direction of Kane and Lynch 2, Dog Days. Everyone else already covered that. I love the handheld, almost voyeuristic feel of the game. It’s fresh and immersive and it works. But it’s not nearly enough. After a year of waiting for the sequel to one of my favorite games (and you can make fun of me for that all you want), after a whole year, I’m pissed. Is there even a story mode in here? I feel like I played an extended arcade more with sensational and shallow cut scenes. Did Eidos dig up an early, unproduced Guy Richie screenplay and just hit the green light. Jesus.

The plot of Kane and Lynch 2, Dog Days can be summed up pretty easily; Kane flies to Shanghai for an arms deal job with Lynch, Lynch accidently kills the daughter of a mob boss, mob kidnaps Lynch’s GF, offs her, Kane and Lynch fight off about 5,000 something gangsters and cops through a string a cliché action sequences that are downright boring. There’s no ending, which I’m normally ok with. But literally, it’s like you escape Shanghai and the console turns off. Was there just a power outage?

Yeah, the play control and cover system in the first K&L (Dead Men) was clunky. The AI was crap. I even had weird glitches when playing it through for the third time, but I still loved it. The plot was compelling and each level surprised me in a “where is this going next?” way that was genuinely exciting. The bank heist gone so very bad; escorting a kidnapped woman through a manic nightclub; repelling down a skyscraper and detonating a bomb; mowing down mercenaries in Cuba. The game felt huge and insane.

Not to mention the volatile conflict between the more professional, ex-Blackwater type Kane and pill popping, murdering Lynch. And Lynch’s hair. Brilliant. Gross. Players, if they accepted K&L Dead Men as a playable game, wanted to be these two desperately insane felons. Who wouldn’t?

Eidos blew all that capital with the new game. The conflict between Kane and Lynch is dry. There are absolutely no surprise moments or twists. The naked scene was unexpected, but didn’t affect the play control in ways that is should have. And though Shanghai felt dirty and violent, it also felt compact – more like a little Tokyo in some anywhere city. I do have to give credit to the sound. It's expertly crafted and compliments the feel of the game perfectly. Again, I want to stress that the aesthetic of Dog Days is exceptional.

Functionally, the cover system is Gears of War 1 quality with minimal environmental damage thrown in. In a game where flanking is so important, why couldn’t the cover system be more intuitive? Would it be impossible to make a character jump and pull themselves over an obstacle to quickly fire from above? An option for one-handed but less accurate, around a column fire would have been great. Duck under a car? Climb through a car to get a better advantage, but have to escape the car before it blows? It can’t be that hard to engineer in order to make the game that much better.

I don’t even want to mention the boring aiming system that made all the weapons feel identical and how the sniper rifle didn’t have a traditional scope. Tares my heart with a box cutter, it does.

Why wasn't Lynch's pill dependency exploded more? That would have made the game play and perspective shift exciting. Different pills and combinations of could make for an alteration in speed, dexterity, and aiming. It wouldn't have to be over-the-top; it could just function as a unique asset to make the title (and Lynch) stand out. And what happened to his paranoia? I liked Lynch without the girlfriend.

I’ve been putting off this review because I’ve been so bummed for the past four days. After running through the co-op story mode with a friend, I might have some new insights to the experience. For now, I’m just going to sit alone in my bedroom, pop a few pills, and reload my Mossberg.

K&L cliché’ highlight:
“We’re getting too old for this.”
Really? How many times have we heard that line? C’mon Eidos. Hire ME next time.

Limbo - a game Gordon Lish could get behind

Doing more with less. Pare it down. The hand that erases writes the true thing. All of this has been applied to literature, painting, and film long before Hitchcock poured Hershey syrup down a shower drain. One of my rules in writing is “always use what’s in the room”, meaning never add anything to a scene or situation – be it an object or new character – unless it is absolutely necessary. Always use what is already there. This principle seems to work well.

 Limbo, a new puzzle/adventure game for the xBox 360 by Play Dead Games, does something similar. There’s no color. There’s no exposition. You’re just a little boy in a very dark forest overcoming rather creepy obstacles.

 Set up as a traditional side-scroller, your character walks from left to right. Silhouettes of trees and rocks obscure your already hazy vision. And the effect is powerful. It’s close to the eeriness of Fallout 3 when you’re inching through pitch-black train tunnels with the mutated population of DC desperate to suck out your eye sockets.

 The play controls are simple. You can jump and grab, slide and hang. Of course, the physics are sophisticated enough to make well-timed jumping part of the strategy as you narrowly escape a giant spider. And when this spider captures you, some people in the room will definitely turn their heads. Limbo relies on finely crafted sound effects to achieve a subtle naturalism. When boulders roll at you, they sound the way they should. Fire and water sound realistic enough, transcending the cartoon graphics into something much more.

 Best of all, Limbo keeps you guessing. Things are not what they seem. It slowly becomes evident that someone or someone(s) are playing with you and their version of play is a wicked one. The developers understand that if the game is alluring enough, the less story you give the audience, the more they will crave it. It’s what you can’t see and what you don’t understand that makes this game so haunting and evil. The hand that erases…

 I ultimately got stuck on a puzzle after two hours of playing. That’s normal. But what isn’t, for me at least, is that I’ve wanted to go back to that dark forest all day and figure out how to go deeper into it. There’s something I can’t see in that creepy space and I need to know what it is. Now that’s a compelling experience.

Question: Blood Meridian as a Rockstar game?

Coram McCarthy adaptations are inevitable. Some will be great (see the Coen Brothers). Some will be alright (The Road). And some will be total crap (poor Billy Bob). With the recent artistic and commercial success of Rockstar Game's Red Dead Redemption, should they attempt adapting Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian?

Anyone who has read the novel laughs at the notion that someone might be foolish enough to write a screenplay for the book. It's epic, biblical, poetic, and brutal. The pacing, landscape, and lush descriptions become just as beautiful as the language. This is where films fail. They're divorced from language and lyricism. They don't let you travel through the environment at your own speed. And the medium of film does not treat the viewer as an individual.

[from The New York Times]
In an interview last month, Dan Houser, one of Rockstar’s founders and the company’s creative leader, described the challenge and opportunity [of creating Red Dead] quite aptly. “Westerns are about place,” he said. “They’re not called outlaw films. They’re not even called cowboys-and-Indians films. They’re called westerns. They’re about geography.”
[end]
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Red Dead Redemption is much like a film, too. It shines when its characters converse like normal people. The plot is surprisingly emotional without relying on cliché. The environments are stunning. A very talented and published friend of mine admitted to watching a thunderstorm in the game for five minutes before shutting it off to go to bed. All that said, the game, with its gorgeous moments of storytelling and grit, transcends when in its remarkable silence. You’re alone. There’s sparse music and animal scratching in the distant brush. Nothingness. You feel there because you are there, inside it, part of it. Silence and nothingness in film… even when it’s done well its kinda boring. And I love Terrence Malick.

This is where game developers can capitalize on the immersive strength of gaming and mimic what novels do to the reader. Would Cormac work closely enough with Rockstar to create Blood Meridian as a story-mode only work of art? Little dialogue. Traversing great, lonely distances with Pulitzer-worthy narration? Professional voice acting. And, of course, The Judge: the perfectly haunting and existential  anti-Christ. Thinking about Rockstar’s spot-on Western and its dedication to making real art, I say static film just ain't the way to go. A game adaptation of Blood Meridian could shatter the industries.

Red Dead Reverence

After a marathon of playing, I finally finished Red Dead Redemption. Or rather, I finished the initial story mode. I have to say, this is some of the most emotional writing I've ever seen in a game. The story itself isn't terrible original, some minor characters can be cliché, but Rockstar – to many critics surprise – has created a gripping morality tale where a father’s struggle for independence and redemption is met with unfettered strife.

I’ll admit. I got teary when John Marston, the main character, finally rides through a snowy forest to meet his family after a month and a half of fighting. The game developers waited until that scene to play the first of only two original songs in the game with lyrics. The ambiance is perfect. You actually feel like you’re meeting real people that you really care about… that you actually love. And Rockstar was smart enough not to show you the players the family in any exposition scenes; they are only talked about. Clever. No… brilliant.

There’s obviously turns in the story that I can’t spoil. The story twists a little and perspectives shift, but that is typical for “endings” in good games and good novels. At the end of Red Dead’s story mode – the first end anyway – you have a hard time wrapping your head around what your character must be thinking and what will happen next.

Because there will be more. Downloadable side-stories and additional plot. Multiplayer skirmishes and online mythmaking.

There's really no "finishing" sandbox style games anymore. After the initial story mode arc is complete, the climax and resolution is told (if there is one), and the credits role, players often find themselves standing where you left off. Literally. You're standing over the vacant body of an enemy, a person you had a long vendetta with, and your life just keep going on. Or the game does.

Sometimes you play as other characters. Perspectives change. Motivations shift. In a way, this new organic way of storytelling is more like real life than the static novel.

I’m not sure which I prefer anymore when it comes to game vs. novels, which is kinda okay with me.

Red Dead Addicted

With environments so expansive and unbelievably natural, Hollywood quality writing and voice acting, and some of the best mechanics/physics I've seen in a first person shooter, Red Dead Redemption is easily the best game I've played since Fallout 3. In some ways, they are very similar games. You roam desolate land, you build alliances with somewhat morally questionable characters, you try not to get your face shattered by flying lead..
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But Rockstar Games gives you more than highly rendered graphics and gritty gun fights. As with their previous franchise (Grand Theft Auto), they comment on current issues of racism, entrepreneurialism, revenge, Federal intervention, and everything else that makes America one of the most backwards nations in the world. This game is as sophisticated as a novel, but far more immersive. I sat for an hour or two and completely forgot I was playing a game.

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Ethical choices abound. Players are compelled, or at least goody two-shoes me was, to help strangers in need when you come upon them in the desert. And I felt genuinely awful for mistakenly gunning down a Deputy to be later pursued by the Sheriff he worked under. Characters like the golem inspired, grave robbing Seth will make you hate yourself for helping him while laughing your way to each mission. The guy is just that fucking weird.

There's nothing groundbreaking in this game. Rockstar didn't rewrite the rules. They did however make a massively beautiful and believable world that mirrors the complicated political and social issues of today. And like all good art, you can't shift your eyes away. Just don't let the power get to that dizzy head of yours. Moral and ethical choices sculpt your experience in Red Dead Redemption, as the title suggests. How fully you redeem yourself is completely up to you.

Fallout 3 - review copy

Bethesda Softworks sent me a free review copy -- Mamapop.com will post the review at noon.