In Part One, the stage was set for a look into RuneScape 3. But does a hands-on Alpha gameplay help or hinder the Jagex message?
BY HAROLD GOLDBERG
Cheshire, England
So there we were in this Game of Thrones-like locale outside of Manchester, England. In the bowels of PeckfortonCastle, I came upon a room with so many computers, I thought I was in a startup in San Francisco – except the ceilings were dauntingly higher than any loft’s.
The press had just been listening to a sometimes-hard-to-follow speech about the wonders of RuneScape 3, which will use HTML 5 to enhance its graphics. Now, it was time to see an Alpha version of the game.
First, I could see that I could adapt and change the interface to my own needs. But what struck me more? The graphics were exponentially better than what’s playable now in RuneScape 2. It’s stunning to see a level full of detailed, giant mushrooms and toadstools, and you can climb high on them to battle various creeps. The whole environment is tinged in shades of foreboding green and purple. It reminded me of the underrated (and much condemned because of a financial scandal) RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur. Whatever you thought of Amalur, the idea of getting that level of artwork in a browser-based game is impressive indeed.
But the Jagex employee who stood near to help answer questions had a bit of a language issue. So when he needed to be loquacious, he was more like, say, Don Draper after sex, a man of a few words.
I was still in need of an succinct explanation of what the story is in RuneScape 3, and how the narrative will inspire my appreciation for the game. I still hadn’t gotten a detailed explanation or an elevator pitch.
In an effort to stop what Jagex must have felt is the buzzkill of respawning, the developers gave us nearly unkillable super-characters. This was great to check out the weapons and magic power interfaces and for battling various demons with various spells and weapons. But it required little skill.
I moved around the dark room to find another worker and asked him about the issue of bots and botters in the game. And then I asked another. Both assured me that botters would be diminished with the new release. That indeed was a relief to hear, and I hope it happens.
But I was still on a quest to hear more about legend and story and characters. I proceeded further into the bowels of the castle into a round room that looked like a dungeon but actually was a private bar usable for debauchery when wedding receptions and parties occur. There, I witnessed something I didn’t expect at all.
Last week at the Essex Restaurant, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Neal Edelstein, the producer of “The Ring” (along with David Lynch’s excellent “Mulholland Dr.” TV movie). Mistakenly, I thought Edelstein had a game to show me. Instead, he brought an iTunes app called “Haunting Melissa.” Shot in Canada, it’s a carefully filmed, episodic Blair Witch-like horror story that also features some elegant outdoor shots that remind me of a Terrence Malick film.
So why constuct an iTunes app for the movie rather than something for YouTube or Machinima. “I like them, but I don’t want to deal with banners and bullshit,” said Edelstein.
And why not add gaming elements? Edelstein sat forward in the booth and said, “I love games, but I think that the element of interactivity can take you out of the story. For this one, I wanted it to be more of a movie.”
That’s completely understandable. While I always believe a very good movie can be enhanced by a very good game, the Hollywood-meets-games path can be a rocky road indeed. I spent a fair amount of time in “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” on this topic, following the arc of hopes of gamemakers to create interactive filmic content since back in the 1970s. It rarely works well (although when it works as Telltale’s The Walking Dead game, it’s wondrous). The new “Star Trek” game proves that it’s still difficult for developers who love a branching experience to work in tandem with film people who know a linear experience.
Yet there are unexpected, game-like elements in “Haunting Melissa.” On the interface in one of the clickable chapter photos, you’ll sometimes see a ghost in the window. And sometimes, the ghost won’t be there. It’s just another thing that creeps me out about “Haunting Melissa” – in a good way. The first eerie chapter full of things that go bump in the night is free. Put those Beats on!
Harold Goldberg is the founder of The Circle. He has written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair and Wired.
Cheshire, England – Walking through the greenest of forests in Tarpoley, a rural town between Liverpool and Manchester, I pass daffodils and bees and newly unfolding ferns. I muck about the ruins of what may have been a cook house, and a singing blackbird flies out of a broken window. It’s the sunniest of afternoons as I approach an overlook to see for miles, brambly heaths and wide pastures with sheep, and down below, pheasants fight manically for the affections of a female and for territory.
Here at Peckforton Castle, it’s all about nature and a fantasy environment. Despite its high brick walls, awe-inspiring falconry shows and generally majestic nature, the castle is kind of faux, having been built just 200 years ago by the largest landowner in the county, Baron John Jervis Tollemache. Weddings are held here almost daily, and once just a few years ago, a groom had a fight with the management over a few hundred pounds difference in bar bill.
After drinking 20 double vodkas, he, according to the BBC, cried, “No one crosses Max.”
Enraged and perhaps egged on by his new wife, the drunken lout set fire to one of the wings in the castle. Many rooms burned to the ground despite the efforts of 100 firefighters, and the arsonist is now jailed.
All of this could have been made into a quest of sorts in RuneScape 3, the latest iteration of the free to play, browser-based MMO with a sword and sorcery narrative. A deep look at this summer’s RuneScape 3 release is the reason I am present here at PeckfortonCastle.
Because it was first offered without need for a physical disk, RuneScape was ahead of its time as a browser-based online role playing game. Over the years as the two brothers Andrew and Paul Gower oversaw its growth, it became a go to first MMO for teens, a kind of fairly troll-less environment one enjoys before moving to World of Warcraft. Later, it was besieged by botters, essentially, cheaters who use software to get in-game currency and upgrades, and then sell it for real-life cash. Botters have been the subject of various rants by long-time lovers of the game, and I wondered how JagEx would address this issue publicly during the course of the day-long event.
So, still jetlagged, I sat curious in a cathedral-like space, one of the rooms one can have one’s nuptials, and very memorable ones (without arson) at that. The ceiling must have been 30 feet high and there a regal nature to the room, including stained glass windows from which shards of sunlight poked.
Today, there would be no wedded bliss. Instead, there would be nerdy game developer ecstasy as evangelizing employees from JagEx mixed with journalists from the U.S. and Europe who were inquisitive and, perhaps, waiting to be thrilled. They wanted see whether an HTML 5 version of RuneScape would move the game eons forward through enriched graphics and game design.
As he sipped from a Celtic pewter (RuneScape inscribed) tankard, JagEx director of design Mark Ogilvie read a handwritten missive from a book with blank pages. He touched upon the history of RuneScape, now over 10 years old. He added facts and figures, like 450 million hours of play since 2004. He talked about the Monty Python-like humor in the dialog and quests, very British. And he became enthused when he touched up the idea of the player’s ability to control the interface to make it what he or she wanted it to look like.
For someone who’d played RuneScape for just a while in 2005, I wanted to share his enthusiasm. As far as the freemium/free to play model goes, RuneScape offered more content than most. And it’s been a great first MMO for folks who want to get their feet wet.
But there was one thing that was missing: a hook, a phrase or a video that would put the story of RuneScape 3 into perspective. Ogilvie had mentioned a deep story of gods in the new game, and perhaps ardent players already know the full deal via message boards. But there was so much content in his speech, the sentences describing the precise nature of the story and why anyone would want to play had, like an ambling puppy, somehow gone astray.
Right after the speech, we were ushered into another sprawling castle lair, complete with what looked to be 100 computer terminals. Surely I could find out all now, everything from the story to the joy of the graphics. I could do so by playing RuneScape 3.
Right?
To be continued
Harold Goldberg is the founder of The Circle. He writes for The New York Times and other publications.
The agony of defeat inspires victory, and, perhaps, lasting friendships.
by JORGE JIMENEZ
Injustice Gods Among Us is the game I always wanted. It’s a superhero fighting game that deals with a parallel universe with bad versions of Flash, Green Lantern and Superman. After proving to myself that I could save the world from an evil Superman, I figured trouncing some poor souls online should be a cakewalk right? I really should have known better.
Shazam has been my go-to or “main” as the fighting game community would call it. I held my own in local matches with buddies on the couch. I’ve heard much about Injustice’s King of the Hill (KOTH) matches, a winner-stays lobby with eight strangers. The neat thing about KOTH is that you can watch the matches as you wait. It sort of evokes the feeling of waiting around for your turn at a game of Street Fighter. This was an appealing thought, since most of my angst-ridden teenaged days were shape by the hijinx that happened in and around an arcade. My general strategy would be to spam Atlas Bolt, a move that propelled Shazam across the screen as a bolt of lighting. If you remember M. Bison’s Psycho Crusher, it is similar to that in its unpredictability — and annoyance.
With my plan set, I randomly joined a public KOTH match. I was second in line so I wasn’t able to properly assess the talent in the room. It didn’t matter; this was a Netherrealm game after all. I should be able stick to a handful of cheap specials and I should net a couple of wins under my belt. My match immediately started against a Catwoman player. I didn’t know what to expect from Catwoman aside from lots of jumping and quick attacks. It did not matter. My plan was set. Easy peasy, right.
I don’t recall ever seeing a 20-plus hit combo in any of my previous matches in Injustice. I just sat there bewildered as Catwoman tossed around poor Shazam. The chat exploded with laughter and insults as a 20-hit combo lead to a 17-hit combo which lead back another 20-plus hit combo. Catwoman had kicked Shazam through the icy walls of the Fortress of Solitude to end the round.
I didn’t land one hit.
Hell, my only plan was to hit this maniac with one, just ONE Atlas Bolt. This fiend managed to dodge it every time. The second round didn’t go as well for me either. I remained helpless. I tried blocking, then I would get thrown, which would lead to another barrage of seemingly unending combos. One of the players in the room had asked if I was even had a controller in my hand. Another suggested that I stop playing videogames entirely. By the end of the match, I was able to sneak in a couple of jabs. I was out-classed by a superior player but, I’ll be damned if I let that son of a bitch get away without a scratch.
I decided to stick around the lobby to see how the other faceless smartasses fared against this player of inhuman skill. One by one, each person fell to Catwoman. The ass-kickings were varied. This beast took advantage of every piece of interactive background by leaping off cars and tearing into these poor bastards. The voices that once hurled insults at me became unintelligible grunts of frustration when their turn came to face the Catwoman. This player went through the seven of us with ease without uttering a word into his or her microphone.
The player didn’t brag or call us names. I think that was the thing that annoyed us the most. No insults, no reaction to being insulted. Silent defeat, over and over again.
One voice shouted that this player was only good with Catwoman. This time around, it was Solomon Grundy that beat us, then Harley Quinn, then Batman. The voices that were once against each other were now united against this monster. We all would shout possible strategies and grimace at each defeat. We were determined the slay the Beast no matter the cost.
This intended casual 20-minute session turned into 90 minutes of bitter warfare between seven brothers united by defeat and shame against one true evil. The loudest voice in the group who had come close once or twice to a victory was facing off against this villain once again. The strangest thing happened; he was winning. This had happened before: someone would get a good start, but ultimately fall in battle.
We cheered him on, telling him not to waste meter on super moves and being smart about when to block. Soon the Beast’s health, who was playing Catwoman once again, was down at 50%, 25%, then 0%. The round was ours. Our champion, who was playing Harley Quinn, seemed confident yet cautious. We assured him that he had this. Our hero took the same approach as before, some well timed blocks and some pure dumb luck and … he won. We erupted in joyous glee, congratulating our champion for doing the impossible. We couldn’t believe what we had been through. We started as bitter rivals then allies with a common foe.
At that moment we knew what it was like to be superheroes.
A few minutes later as the next cycle of matches continued, our foe left still without saying a word. Perhaps our torturer got bored with constantly winning or was simply worn down after having played over two dozen fights in a row. I like to think that he or she showed us a kindness by leaving. This person saw how happy we were and didn’t have the heart to break us down again into whimpering losers. The remaining members of our party took part in a couple of fun matches. Hell, I even became King few times. We discussed the silliness of parallel universes. We even exchanged playful insults and gamertags.
We were friends now. We faced the silent Beast and lived to tell the tale.
Later that day I saw a friend request waiting for me. It was the Beast. I promptly declined. Screw that guy, I know where my loyalties lie.
Writer Jorge Jimenez is a long-time member of the New York Videogame Critics Circle.
We’re big fans of Penny Arcade’s PAX conventions–they’re known for being friendly, open and inclusive, with panels on diverse topics, everything from sexuality to tabletop games to games journalism. This year, the games journalism panels themselves covered a range of topics, from freelancing to breaking into IGN. Here’s a rundown of the journalism talks at PAX East 2013, and the advice they had for aspiring writers. (more…)
The criticism-oriented game enthusiast who keeps a very active game-centric blog called Shouts from the Couch is both enthused with and bemused by Nintendo’s latest offering. He penned this essay just prior to becoming a new father.
Around 10 hours into my playthrough of Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon – even though I’ve had a very pleasant experience for most of that time – I’m just about ready to break my 3DS in half.
I suppose I should admit that I never actually planned on playing Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon. It was not on my radar, nor was it in my rental queue, and I never owned a GameCube and so I don’t have any nostalgic remembrances of the first game. (As it happens, as far as my 3DS usage is concerned, I was already pretty heavily invested in Etrian Odyssey IV anyway.) I suppose I might have felt compelled to pick it up if the gaming press gave it good reviews, but here I’m in the unique position of being on the other side of the fence for the first time, as a contributor of opinion rather than a receiver.
On my blog, I don’t actually write reviews. I do more of a progress report with every few hours of gameplay, so that I can better explain where a game might have gone wrong for me. Don’t get me wrong – I always intend to finish every game I start. But as a dude with a day job and a bunch of extra-curricular activities – one of which is about to include taking care of a newborn baby – I don’t generally stick around with a game once it starts to go bad on me.
And so while the first eight hours of LM:DM were pretty goddamned terrific, it is here in these later stages of the game where I’m starting to lose my mind a little bit. I’m not sure I want to keep pushing through. I have other things I need to get done before this weekend is over. My dogs are feeling sad that I’m ignoring them. This is where my sense of professional obligation ought to be kicking in, and instead I’m here on my computer trying to coyly dance away from the thing I’m supposed to be doing.
Let’s at least start with those aforementioned first eight hours, where everything is quite wonderful.
It is clear from the moment the game launches that a tremendous amount of care and effort have gone into the game’s development; the overall production values are among the best I’ve yet seen on the platform. The game looks absolutely gorgeous. Every nook and cranny is filled with playful charm and a goofy sense of humor, even as the subtle lighting and physics imbue the world with a spooky reality. And I don’t believe I’m overstating it when I say that the quality of Luigi’s animations are on par with Pixar. Every move he makes is believable and relatable and nuanced – even while the game’s sense of humor is relatively broad. And all the while, his movements are actually relaying valuable information to the player in terms of what’s in the room with him. It is further proof, for better or worse, that nobody develops for Nintendo hardware quite like Nintendo.
There is a story of sorts. The Dark Moon, which keeps the local valley’s ghosts at bay, has been broken into 5 pieces, etc. and the ghosts are on the loose. But it’s largely a superficial excuse to send Luigi into various haunted locations and perform specific objectives for Professor E. Gadd. There are five locations, and each location has five levels, even though you’re largely in the same environments each time. It’s sort of like a Metroidvania-type design, except that you’re whisked out of the environment once you’ve accomplished a certain goal, and when you go back for your next mission, it’s possible that the environment has changed significantly in your absence – largely because of things you’ve already done. Levels can be replayed in their original state, however, even with your extra-high-powered gear, and each has a three-star scoring system and a hidden Boo ghost encounter.
The core gameplay loops involve exploration, environmental puzzle solving, and ghost wrangling. And as you get deeper into the game, those ghosts become more devious and plentiful. The controls are largely easy to understand, and even though they can be somewhat unwieldy at times, they generally respond quite well. You almost always find yourself doing the thing you’re trying to do. And since there’s a lot of activity going on at any given moment, that’s very much appreciated.
And yet.
For all the obvious and appreciated care and hard work that went into development, there are some glaring design flaws that can cause an inordinate amount of frustration.
While each level can be completed in 10 to 20 minutes, there are no checkpoints. This means that if you die at the very end of a level – and you will – you go back to the very beginning. You will lose all the gold and hidden jewels you may have found; you will have to solve every puzzle again. And you must finish every combat scenario again, of which there are many. And unless you find the hidden Ghost Dog Bone in each level, which grants you an instant revive with full health, you will get sent back to the beginning if you snuff it. The boss at the end of World 3, the clockworks level, is a 12-stage gauntlet. When you die at the 12th stage, and you find yourself returned to the beginning, you will want to murder things.
LM:DM also frustratingly adheres to an apparent fundamental “if/then” principle of gameplay design that dictates that if a game console has tilt controls, then a game is required by law to implement some sort of balance beam section. Has there ever been a fun and not-at-all annoying balance beam section in any game, ever? Even Uncharted figured it out eventually. But I’m in the beginning of World 4, which features tons of ice and a mine, and the balance beam section (the third such section in the game) that I just finished (after literally a dozen stupid deaths) nearly drove me insane.
Plus, some of the ghosts can be jerks. And while that may be largely the point of the challenge, it’s not necessarily endearing.
I hate to close this thing by dwelling in such detail on the frustration I’m feeling with LM:DM, especially when there is so much to love about it, but I can’t help it. I was charmed for a long time and now I’m just angry and frustrated, and if I weren’t feeling professionally obligated to see all there is to see, I’d probably give up at this point. I mean, I’d like to think it’ll get better in the later levels of Worlds 4 and 5, the Treacherous Mansion which boasts a kind of castle environment. But it seems rather unlikely that the game will suddenly get more forgiving. And hey, maybe the multiplayer experience is something extraordinary – but, unfortunately, I can’t test it out yet, and to be quite honest I’m not sure I’d be inclined to try it even if I weren’t reviewing it. (I’m not really a multiplayer kind of guy, is the thing.)
But let’s get to the heart of the matter: is it worth your hard-earned money? Despite my current agitation with it, the good stuff here is truly special and does a terrific job of showing off the 3DS’s hardware capabilities. Perhaps your hand-eye coordination will get you through those challenging ghost combat scenarios with greater ease than what I had to go through, and maybe you’ll take a glass-half-full approach when you get cheaply killed at the very end of a level and have to do the whole thing over again. Or, perhaps, you’ll end up like me, utterly annoyed that all this inventive level design and endearing animation simply ended in yet another dozen balance-beam deaths.
EPILOGUE: SECOND THOUGHTS?
After I’d written what you just read, I’d more or less given up on LM:DM. I was stuck and banging my head against the wall, and no amount of self-imposed “professional obligation” was going to make me finish a game that I’d ceased to enjoy playing.
Well, I suppose a little bit of obligation managed to hang around despite my best efforts, because after a few days I did ultimately feel compelled to go back to it and see if, at the very least, I could get past the level I was stuck on. And so I did some grinding on the first few levels in an attempt to get the last upgrade to the Poltergust 5000, just to see if that would do the trick. Lo and behold, it did! I was able to get past that one fight that was killing me over and over again, and so I kept at it. I was able to finish World 4, and then I started plowing through World 5, and I guess I figured that that last upgrade was really all I needed to keep things moving along. And for a time, I was glad I kept with it – World 5 has some neat level design, and some clever puzzles, and the obligatory balance beam section took place at the very beginning and somehow I managed to get past it with only two falls into the abyss. I figured the rest of the game would be a little challenging, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
Nope. I’m now in the last mission of World 5, and it’s (once again) a gauntlet of ghosts, but now with the added absurdity of a countdown timer. I made it pretty much right up to the penultimate battle but got killed – rather cheaply, I might add – and now I can either restart the whole thing over again, or get on with the rest of my life.
I still stand by what I wrote. There’s a lot of great elements to this game, and for the most part it’s a lot of fun. But the lack of a checkpoint system makes some of these later ghost battles feel like a punishment to be endured, rather than a challenge to be overcome. I’m willing to concede that I might lack the patience of a younger gamer to help conquer this problem. But I’m also certain what I see as fundamental design flaws will drive a lot of people crazy, not just me.
Paris, France: Cold. Rainy. Windy. And utterly beautiful.
Far away from the Eieffel Tower at the Quantic Dream studios, a group of journalists is watching a 45-minute demo of live gaming from Beyond: Two Souls. The homeless Jodie Holmes, played by Ellen Page, wanders snowy streets in a blizzard – until she comes upon another homeless person, who sits on the ground with an acoustic guitar next to him.
She’s starving and she needs money. For food. And, as it turns out later, for self esteem, for she has none in this supernatural thriller made by David Cage and Quantic Dream.
Down next to the homeless musician she sits, and she sings. And man, her voice. Not only is it good (and it raised five dollars for food), it reminded me of the Lower East Side back in the day, and of Brenda Kahn, in particular. Brenda eventually got a sweet record deal with Columbia and opened for Bob Dylan.
But before that there were hard times. I remember walking with her and watching her play her acoustic guitar as she sang plaintive, powerful, story-filled songs in the Village and on Rivington Street. She, or someone, would pass the hat at the end of a set. And that money would help.
And as Ellen Page sang, that was the moment for me. I kind of got choked up because it all felt real to me – Ellen as Jodie as Brenda. The moment was subtler than what we saw at E3 regarding Beyond. Rather than being action-filled, it was dramatic, painful, touching.
I hope the rest of “Beyond: Two Souls” rings true as well.
More from Paris, and an announcement about Beyond soon. Stay tuned.
This is a week of and for women. On the cover of Time is Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg. The cover line: Don’t hate her because she’s successful. Sandberg’s new book, already number 2 on Amazon, is called Lean In. It’s a new feminist manifesto by the company’s chief operating officer, one for the social media age. Her tome comes on the heels of The Atlantic’s very popular article by Anne-Marie Slaughter, Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.
So, in a time of feminist resurgence, we also were honored by a re-jiggered, re-imagined Lara Croft in the latest Tomb Raider game. The Crystal Dynamics game was released by Square Enix on March 5th.
Last year when Tomb Raider was shown at E3, a lot of the online press went wild. They complained that the Lara Croft portrayed in a demo which took place on a vicious island wasn’t just a wimp. At every turn early in the game, she cried, moaned, screamed, whimpered. There were so many different kinds of sounds of distress, it stopped me from thinking about moving forward, about what was next, about her future on this mysterious island where the waters crash against the rocks like dynamite. Lara was made to groan and whine to such an extent, it was as if she weren’t scared so much as she was mugging for the gamers who would play the game. “Save me! Care about me!” she was imploring with each moan. It was too much.
Last year, writers said that this new Lara was perhaps the product of sexism on the part of game designers. The game designers simply said they wanted the player to want to protect Lara. And there was this thoughtful story from Circle member Jason Schreier.
When the game was reviewed this week and last, few complained about those opening sequences. How did they forget their harsh words? Why did they forget them? Was it perhaps all just a pre-release plot by marketing-oriented writers to get hits on websites?
Because the opening of the game plays the same. Early on, Lara doesn’t seem to be able to take pressure of any sort. She still cries, moans, screams, whimpers, shivers. And when she does finally make her way to find a kind of cell phone/walkie talkie that works, on the other end is some guy who has to guide her to give her directions.
My guess is that critics loved the game design, the long, action-filled hours of play, and beautiful artwork so much, that they forgave the introduction. But the introductory hour or so is poorly written melodrama that’s without nuance. It’s all action and full of black and white, full of cliches, with no grays.
And it doesn’t have to be. It’s not like you couldn’t process a deeper story early on because of the incessantly wild gameplay with which you’re presented. There’s enough breathing room between action sequences for some tight dialog – story-telling with depth.
But there isn’t any such depth.
I’m the kind of person who needs a fairly believable story and/or compelling dialog fully enjoy a game. It could be like any of the chapters in L.A. Noire, or the overarching homages to Steven King and Ayn Rand in BioShock. Heck, it could be no words at all, like the emotional tale-telling in Journey. But I do need story, one that doesn’t screw up the plot points it sets up.
Others don’t care. A blogger at Forbes says that “the true evolution of Croft doesn’t involve her bust size. It’s about whether or not her games have been getting better or worse.” But he doesn’t say anything much about the story. Then another Forbes writer talks about how wonderful it is to see Lara Croft go from being weak to strong. I’d be happier if she didn’t need men to help her along during the weak moments at the game’s start. But after happily discovering a cell phone and having a man on the other end have to calm her down and have to give her directions on what to do really took me out of the story and the game. And while the game has some really compelling twists and turns even as you reach the 20 hour point, I still kept thinking about clichés that occur at the very beginning.
But again, writers didn’t seem to care. After writing about how the new Lara is not so different from the old and that “few reviewers have mentioned that the new Lara’s tank top is cut lower than the combat vests she wore before,” The Guardian makes this weird leap to end a Tomb Raider feature by saying that Lara Croft is a feminist icon. What? How?
If you don’t care about story, just game design, you’re not going to care about how the game makers treat their action hero. Generally, it’s a very nicely balanced gaming experience. But I still care about story. I care about every moment in a game. If you’re going to make a good game, make all of the game good. Elegance. Simplicity. Nuance. Story. Lara Croft doesn’t have to be Emma Goldman. Heck, she doesn’t even have to be Joan Holloway. But if you’re creating a dramatic arc through back story, don’t fail from moment one. Because you can’t get that failure back. Again: if you’re going to make a good game, make all of the game good.
The esteemed Circle member and writer for G4TV, Digital Trends and other websites looks deep into the face of Crytek and EA’s Crysis 3. Upon completion, he notes that he didn’t always like what he heard and saw.
by Adam Rosenberg
It’s really hard to fear the threat of total global annihilation when news of its coming is dipped in a big, ‘ol pool of melodrama and delivered with overtly dramatic pauses for effect between each word. It’s a small complaint in Crysis 3‘s larger tableau to zero in on, but it captures the Crytek shooter’s fundamental disconnect between narrative and play.
When you’ve got your bow out and your cloak up, Crysis 3 is serious business. The overgrown, domed-in remains of New York City turns out to be an excellent sandbox for hunting C.E.L.L. forces and Ceph survivors. Slight tweaks to your supercharged Nanosuit result in a faster pace, and a varied assortment of weapons and tools — your bow in particular — allows for a multitude of approaches to any challenge.
It’s just too bad that the story is delivered in such an utterly ridiculous manner. The A-to-B progression is a bit too steeped in series lore for newcomers to make much sense of it, but the biggest grievance by far is the actual presentation. Voice acting ranges from wooden to downright unconvincing, and the music layered behind each cutscene is so generically Blockbuster that it starts to take on the character of white noise.
Play is what’s important, sure, but narrative is an undeniable focus in Crysis 3. If a game is going to emphasize story, then said game should also be held accountable for its narrative sins. Melodramatic script. Laughable performances. Forgettable music. The sins here are legion.
Things get a lot better once Crysis 3 lets go of the leash. The sandbox environments are massive, providing a multitude of approaches to most of the challenges that the game puts in front of you. Your Nanosuit and field-procured arsenal offer similar flexibility; whether you go for stealth, action, or some mix of the two, the game allows it in nearly every scenario.
Choke points become a bit of an issue as you move from one sandbox to the next. Each open space is typically connected to the next one by a single, sometimes hard-to-find access point. They’re too obviously Video Game, creating the impression that you’re wandering through a series of interconnected play spaces, and not a seamless, living world.
Inconsistently intelligent enemies don’t help much either, at least in the console version of the game. You might one-shot an enemy out in the open and watch as none of his mates respond to the potential threat. Or you might uncloak behind an enemy who has his back to you, only to watch as he suddenly goes into alert mode with no discernible justification.
It’s frustrating. Great swaths of Crysis 3 offer lots and lots of fun, memorable moments, but that momentum comes to a crashing halt every time you hear some ridiculous line delivery or spend too much time looking for the one doorway that leads into the game’s next wide, open space. Crytek’s overgrown New York City looks beautiful, even on consoles, but the uneven presentation renders it a shallow beauty.
The multiplayer portion of Crysis 3 is serviceable. There’s a crowded market for online first-person shooters, which means there’s a need to bring something different to the mix if you’re not called Battlefield or Call of Duty. In the case of Crysis, it’s your Nanosuit abilities. A handful of modes switch the rules up, but most of the time you’ve got full access to the Nanosuit.
The flow of the online matches is pretty similar to the fast pacing of small-team, rapid respawn shooters like Call of Duty. Maps are fairly elaborate, but considerably more vertical in design than most games of this type. That’s because of the Nanosuit’s capabilities, of course, and it happens to work well in the context of adversarial multiplayer.
Crysis 3 slots in somewhere between the forward-thinking excellence of the first game and the deeply flawed reining in of the second. It’s not the definitive Crysis experience, and it stumbles consistently on the more frustrating aspects of its design and presentation, but it’s mostly fun to play while effectively evolving some of the more undercooked ideas of its predecessor.
Was Sony’s PlayStation 4 presentation last week in Manhattan a boom or a bust?
Jill Scharr, the Circle’s senior associate editor, and Victor Kaliogiannis, our videographer, have put together this excellent, nearly 25-minute video program.
Here’s you’ll find deep, immediate post-presentation insight from Kotaku’s Evan Narcisse, Newsarama’s Lucas Siegel, Engadget’s Ben Gilbert and author/Circle founder Harold Goldberg (who is about to get the flu from a hacking Euronerd who coughed on him, which is why he’s a bit curt at times).
All are member of the New York Videogame Critics Circle.
Our guest for this program is Yahoo! Games’ very knowledgeable Ben Silverman.
