- Mass Effect Interface Fail – Krystian Majewski’s thorough drubbing of Mass Effect’s user interface (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). A must-read for anyone interested in making games.
- Virtual Economic Theory: How MMOs Really Work – A look at the evolution of game-economies in MMORPGs and the pro’s and con’s of various trade systems.
- Guiding The Player’s Eye – An overview of subtle cues in Half-Life 2 (and its episodes) that serve to grab the player’s attention without subverting user-control.
For my second SMB 3 post, I took a look at worlds 2 through 8 and picked out 30 stages that exemplified clever level design. World 8 is the last standard zone in the game, but I decided to write one more article detailing SMB 3’s hubs.
Hubs are an old videogame trope, but in SMB 3 they are much more involved than in previous incarnations.
Each hub in the game has its own visual theme and unique layout, e.g., World 7 is a scrolling archipelago, while World 8 comprises multiple skull-filled maps. These areas are not only littered with standard level nodes, but also contain unique stage-icons such as quicksand pits, tanks, and piranha plants. Offsetting these challenges are shops and sporadic minigames that provide bonus rewards.
All these elements — and plenty of additional ones — turn the overworlds into individual mini-levels that are also connected to the main gameplay stages. Here are 10 examples of how that’s done:
Throughout L.A. Noire the player investigates crimes largely by questioning suspects, witnesses, and medical/forensics experts.
The advance facial animations are used to gauge a rough accuracy of the given testimonies, and, combined with the pre-existing knowledge of the crime and the player’s own intuition (often boiling down to simple prejudices, which I’m sure someone else is already writing a post about) the player chooses a response.
This is done with a half-circle of shortcut buttons: truth at the top, doubt on the middle-left, and lie at the bottom. Truth assumes the interviewee’s story is correct; lie confronts them about its validity, often requring the player to present a piece of evidence that contradicts their statement; and doubt hovers somewhere in between the two.
Mass Effect used a similar streamlined dialogue system with its spoked-wheel interface. BioWare wanted a very cinematic feel for the game, including its dialogues, so this made perfect sense.
The player didn’t need to read through a long list of possible responses, scroll down to his preferred one, then listen to his character speak it back word-for-word. Instead, the desired option could be selected instantly based on a keyword or a short blurb. The locations of these often followed a simple pattern, and a few extra choices were included to allow the player “good” and “evil” reactions.
Some people were not satisfied with this approach as they found that Commander Shepard would periodically say things they did not expect. I never had this problem, but maybe that’s because I assumed Shepard was a pre-existing template I was occasionally steering with my own preferences.
BioWare’s other game at the time was Dragon Age, and it used a more traditional dialogue-tree system. This also made perfect sense as the game placed greater emphasis on creating a player avatar and defining him/her through interactions with other characters. Such an approach required much more granularity in the dialogue options, e.g., “What heirloom?” might have been OK as a single choice in Mass Effect, but in Dragon Age it had to be split up into multiple, well-defined choices:
- How long has this heirloom been in the family?
- What is its history?
- Who was the heirloom’s last caretaker?
- Do you think it’s wise to worry about such things while we’re in the middle of a war?
- I’m sorry for your loss, but we have to move on…
- We’ll get it back even if it means going to the ends of the world!
- We’ve all lost our favourite trinkets at some point; get over it.
- If we come across it, you’ll be the first to know!
And so on.
Of course L.A. Noire stars a strictly defined character, so on the surface it seems more suited to a simplified Mass Effect system than a complex Dragon Age one. However, its dialogue scenes are not casual, open-ended conversations.
These interrogations require detailed information, observation, and a bit of luck to properly resolve. There’s no back-tracking or second guessing, and navigating the system with the vague options of truth, doubt and lie can be a bit frustrating.
For example, if Detective Cole is interviewing the wife of a murder suspect and she tells him that the murder weapon isn’t hers, that might be the absolute truth. After all, the firearm is registered to her husband, and the gun-store clerk confirmed his identity.
If I select “truth,” though, it might permanently close off that topic of conversation. Since the gun is a pivotal clue to the case, I want to get all the information about it that I can.
There’s always the “doubt” option, as in I doubt she’s telling the full story, but I have no idea how Detective Cole will react to it. He might console her with a soft tone and ask her if there’s anything else she can remember that might help the police prove her husband’s innocence. On the other hand, he might start screaming at her about obstruction of justice and how her sleaze-bag of a hubby will never survive prison.
It’s impossible to tell what the player character will do, but that could be remedied with more detailed conversation options (and perhaps more conversation options in general). As things stand, I’ve repeatedly found myself taking the wrong conversational turn not because my assumptions about the case were incorrect, but because I failed to properly convey them to the game.
Now this might seem like a major complaint, and although it’s significant, it doesn’t ruin the experience. The interrogations don’t always have to be successfully resolved, and a few sparse hints aid their traversal.
I also commend the developers for sticking to their guns. There are no extra HUD meters that break the suspension of disbelief, and the dialogue sequences largely rely on the script, the actors’ performances, and the technology behind them. The results are quite immersive, and actually much more intense than the checkpoint-rich action sequences.
I just think the game would’ve benefit from more information to accompany the delicate and often volatile interrogations.
Stranger’s Wrath is 1st person/3rd person hybrid that’s something of a cult classic.
The game takes place in a Western-themed Oddworld filled with crass chickens and weird monstrosities that skew closer to the cute than the Lovecraftian. The protagonist’s goal is to travel from one hub to another capturing bad guys and collecting the bounty on their heads. The money is used to upgrade Stranger’s arsenal and eventually treat his mysterious ailment.
Now the parts that make it stand out:
— Stranger’s only weapon is a double-crossbow that uses live ammo. This is the game’s definining feature, with each live ammo-critter behaving in an amusing and distinct fashion. The variety of the ammo requires Stranger to frequently change his load-out, but unfortunately there are no shortcut keys to do this.
— The Chippunk ammo is loud and obnoxious, making enemies abandon their posts just to shut it up. This is a major gameplay element as it allows the player to lure enemies into various ambush scenarios: tall grasses where Stranger is hiding, underneath heavy machinery that can be used to squash them, back-alleys littered with the ravenous Fuzzles, or even deep waters where drowning is all too easy.
All these elements are quite satisfying and make Stranger feel like a real hunter stalking his prey.
— Bolamites and various other ammo types allow Stranger to stun his enemies and bring them in alive. This results in larger bounty prizes, but it’s often much more difficult than simply killing everything in sight.
— The Zappflies are the only unlimited-ammo critter in the game, and they can used to activate machinery and stun other critters or enemies.
The interesting thing about Zappflies is that they can be charged up for a more powerful attack à la Mega Man’s Mega Buster. Unlike Mega Man, though, Stranger’s Wrath doesn’t require the player to hold down a button to perform the charge. Instead, the critters automatically charge up in Stranger’s crossbow as long as he is not actively firing them.
— Boss battles can get a little repetitive, but they contain a few neat mechanics such as picking away enemies while hiding underneath a roof from their mortar attacks, or using Zappflies to short-circuit a power generator in order to climb a previously electrified cable and reach the boss.
— Stranger is quite agile and can climb ropes and shimmy across ropeways. An extra “grab” button exists that allows Stranger to snap to these props, making it much easier to use them (especially while in mid-air).
— If Stranger starts running in 3rd person mode, he’ll eventually lean forward and begin using all four of his limbs. The animation for this is quite good the speed increase allows the player to quickly cover large distances.
While in this sprinting mode Stranger can also smash through enemies and obstacles, but the bumpy terrain makes it all too easy to lose steam and be forced back into a walk.
— Sliding down chutes is great fun, and it builds up speed that’s retained when Stranger exists the slide. This allows him to travel down the chute, jump off of its end point, soar through the air, and finally hit the ground running on all fours. Very satisfying.
— Optional sidequests appear while travelling from hub to hub, giving the player a chance to earn some extra “moolah.” These are presented in a typically humourous Oddworld fashion, e.g., scurrying natives scream about how they hope “the demon” (Stranger) doesn’t climb their roofs and steal their idol, and when he does, they complain that it’s no fair and he should leave now that he took their stuff.
— Speaking to townspeople is required to initiate some missions, but this does not always result in a cutscene. Instead, the NPCs simply begin talking but control is not fully taken from the player; it’s still possible to move the camera around and sometimes even walk away.
— If Stranger tries to talk with no one around, he ends up doing a quick monologue that gives clues to the current mission.
— The player can attack NPC’s and get some extra money from them, but doing this too often makes the townspeople rush indoors while the guards start shooting at Stranger. This only lasts a little while, though, and eventually the NPC’s reemerge declaring something humourous like “It’s boring sitting inside all day, so we’re gonna come out now. You just behave yourself, you hear!”
I have a soft spot for titles from before the dawn of well defined videogame genres. I also love games with lots of environmental interaction, and Rampage World Tour delivers on both accounts.
Originally an arcade hit in the 80’s, Rampage World Tour is an updated sequel that stars a cast of giant, B-horror type monsters as they go on their titular rampage. The monsters are actually human, mutated while working for Scumlabs, and they exact vengeance by completely obliterating numerous cities that house the naughty conglomerate.
The levels are presented in a side view, and loop around at the edges. The maps are pretty small, but there’s a boatload of them — some with unique landmarks — and they don’t take long to complete. The goal of each stage is to destroy as many buildings as possible before the whole area succumbs to a massive bomb strike (presumably to keep the arcade players from loitering around).
The controls are very stiff, but each monster has the ability to jump, punch and kick. Combined with directional input, this allows the player to strike in numerous directions, pick up and eat people, kick at various objects on the ground, perform leaping attacks, and quickly hover by tapping the jump button.
Climbing buildings is done by pressing up while standing next to one of their sides. Once attached, the player can scale walls and attack with punches and kicks. Punches break windows, grab and eat humans, and interact with various objects that are randomly revealed once the windows are broken. Kicking gradually damages the entire floor, bouncing it in and out of the building itself. Unlike punching, it can also destroy walls and leave only a couple of girders holding up the structure. Finally, if the players scales up to the rooftops, he can punch or jump on them repeatedly to destroy the buildings one story at a time.
Revealing and using what’s behind the windows is a major gameplay element, but it’s hard to be too deliberate with it as the player is constantly assaulted by policemen, helicopters, tanks, robots, jetpack soliders, tanks, etc. Combined with the floaty movement and stiff controls, it takes a lot of fun out of the game.
Still, all the various little interactions breathe a lot of magic into the experience, so I’ll focus on enumerating those:
- People scream and fall out of buildings as you attack them.
- Squat structures possess bouncy domes, allowing the player to use them as trampolines and hit floating objects for extra points.
- Broken windows can reveal electronic appliances that shock the monster if touched. The same goes for electric signs that hang on the sides of buildings and prevent the player from freely scaling the wall.
- If bathrooms are attacked, they often spray the monster with water, knocking it off of the building and damaging it as it falls.
- Unveiled candles can be used to light the whole building on fire, quickly destroying it without any extra input from the player.
- The “More Power” collectible drastically increases the monster’s strength, allowing it to smash entire floors with a single attack and take down buildings in just two or three hits. Extremely satisfying.
- “Tourist Traps” are background locations that contain hordes of humans. These can be smashed and their crowds eaten repeatedly to replenish health.
- The wreckages of buildings often contain loose wiring, fiery debris, or dusty clouds. If touched, these elements can electrocute the monster, light it on fire, or make it cough incessantly.
- The monsters can eat all sorts of humourous objects, including graveyard skeletons and old boots. Most of these make the monster throw up, damaging it in the process, but it’s actually kind of fun to experiment with what should and shouldn’t be consumed.
- It’s possible to jump onto and ride some of the larger enemy vehicles.
- Toxic waste transforms the monster into a flying behemoth for the duration of the level. This upgraded creature can spit fire, and although it can’t climb buildings, it can quickly smash them when it hovers in front of the structures.
- Each monster has a unique allergy that’s triggered when a specific animal is eaten: dogs for George, birds for Lizzy, and cats for Ralph. Triggering an allergy causes the monster to sneeze and take down an entire building in one go.
- Window-flags can be hit to cycle through various countries, each one changing the next queued level. A similar mechanic is implemented with billboards that auto-cycle through ads — the next level changes based on which ad was on when the billboard was destroyed.
- When a monster’s health reaches zero, it turns into a naked human that slowly creeps off-screen. When multiple players are in the game, not only can they fight each other, but they can also pick up and eat the killed comrade (this would definitely be an achievement in a current-day version of the game)!
All these loving touches don’t make Rampage World Tour a great game, but they’re definitely enough to make it a quick and fun distraction.