Bioshock 2 - final thoughts

More apologies. I finished Bioshock 2 over the weekend and have been meaning to write a quick thing about it, but time has gotten away from me. But let's be honest here - the game itself isn't all that inspiring to write about.

It's not necessarily a bad game; it's just unnecessary. And yet, ironically enough, I would love to keep exploring the world of Rapture. My favorite moments in Bio2 - as they were in Bio1 - were the moments in between battles, when I could take in the architecture and explore all the nooks and crannies of such a meticulously designed world. Make no mistake - Bio2 may be uninspired as a game, but its vision of Rapture is just as sumptuous to take in as in the original.

Let's just say this - Bio2 does work better as a game. The combat mechanics are a lot more solid and satisfying, and the clunkiness of the first game's interface has been replaced by a much more efficient design. (And this must be said - it's awfully nice to not have to hear "Welcome to the Circus of Values!" constantly, unceasingly.)

But there's also a great deal of Bio2 that feels awfully contrived; the constant babysitting of Little Sisters (of which I struggled with at first and eventually got better at) is the worst offender, but pretty much all of the game's forward momentum is clearly scripted and inelegantly presented. And I am really, really tired of the game's strict adherence to plot development via tape recorder and offscreen narration; after a while I just tuned it out, and as a result I'm still not quite sure what the hell I was doing or why I was doing it. It feels lazy, and the voice acting and dialogue is too stylized to feel urgent. My own personal motivation for finishing the game at all was that in spite of all the aggravations that the game foisted upon me, I just wanted to see more of Rapture.

So let me say this, then. If there must be another Bioshock game, let it be something different. Get away from the Big Daddies and the Adam and the plasmids and the combat and all that shit. Give me more of Rapture. Give me characters that actually talk to me, face to face. I would ABSOLUTELY play a Bioshock Zero prequel if it meant seeing Rapture in its heyday, before all the badness happened. Fuck, let me play it as Andrew Ryan, SimCity style. I'll even settle for a 3D point-and-click adventure game, if it came to that. I want to walk around and see shit that I've never seen before. Rapture is one of the most atmospheric worlds ever created - let me soak it in, rather than making me run through it and kill things for no apparent reason, other than that I have to.

At the end of the day, Rapture is the star of the show, and the fiction is what gives it weight. The combat is certainly OK, and I guess you need it in order to sell millions of copies, but it's not nearly as interesting as the world itself. There are lots of stories that can be told in the city at the bottom of the sea; I would much rather see one of those, than having to go through the same motions as before.

Assassin's Creed 2: postscript

**MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD**

My previous AC2 post was cut short, but in retrospect that's probably a good thing. I was still at least a good 5-6 hours away from finishing it, and yet my original intention with that post was to try and guess where/when/what the sequel was going to be. Now that I've finished it (as well as being finished with it), I can honestly say that I have absolutely no idea - and that's also a good thing.

First things first, though - the game itself. At the end of the day, there's really only 2 things that really bothered me about the experience - the freerunning controls tend to get screwed up at the worst possible times, and the final boss is one of those bosses that refuses to die, no matter how many times you kill him. I hate that. It's absolutely my #1 pet peeve in game design. And in this particular case, it's not like the guy is a wizard, or has particularly strong armor, or superpowers - he is, in fact, a fat fuck. And the fact that the game forced me to whittle this asshole's health down to zero 5 times and he still didn't die... GAAAAHHHHHHH.

That aside, AC2 is a lock for my #3 position for Game of the Year, which is remarkable considering that as recently as a month ago I wasn't even sure I was looking forward to playing it. Everything in it is refined and polished, from the combat to the graphics to the storytelling. I was perhaps a little underwhelmed by the end result of the glyph hunt (especially since I was hoping to assemble the pieces myself), and I ended up getting the super-badass armor a bit earlier than I was expecting - I almost thought I'd done something wrong - but it's a remarkable experience through and through, and if the improvements from AC1 to AC2 are any indication of Ubisoft's dedication to getting it right, then AC3 is going to blow us all away.

And speaking of AC3, let me get back to my opening paragraph. A lot of people were pissed off about AC1's ending, which was less of a cliffhanger and more of a dull thud. (I kinda liked it, actually, since it was abstract and vague, but I understand the criticisms.) AC2's ending could technically be called a cliffhanger, since nothing is resolved, but it's a bit more satisfying in that you still feel like you accomplished something, even if it's mind-bogglingly enigmatic. It doesn't feel like a setup for the final part of a trilogy - it feels wide open, like they could go anywhere.

I could see AC3 taking place all over the place, actually. My knowledge of history certainly has quite a few holes, but considering that the game ends in the very late 1600s, and the codex map that you eventually unlock in AC2 is ultimately a map of the world, with certain locations marked on each continent, it's entirely possible that you could go all over the globe. I think the most logical place to go would be the colonial US in the 1770s - lots of political intrigue, Freemasons, and different cities to visit. Plus, one gets the feeling that the events of the near-future are taking place in the US, so since Desmond is already on the run, you could see him following the literal footsteps of his ancestor. But I could also see the game taking place in WW2 Europe, too. The glyphs talked a lot about Rasputin, too, so I could foresee some time in Russia. And if the game requires some globetrotting, there's lots of Mayan ruins to run around in. Considering how strange AC2's ending is, I could even see Atlantis showing up.

Anyway: Bravo, Ubisoft.

U2 Rock Band Setlist Guesses

Cheap traffic-generating stunt, or legitimate blog post? You decide. In any event, it looks like Bono reads SFTC because I fucking called this 2 weeks ago. Via Kotaku:

With the music business falling apart, musicians are hoping to get their cut of the music game pie — even The Beatles have their own Rock Band title! Now, it looks like Irish rockers U2 want in, too.

U2 hasn't lent their likeness to games, and from what bassist Adam Clayton tells USA Today, it sounds like the group has turned down offers. Here's Clayton on the odds of U2 in a music game:

We definitely would like to be in there, but we felt some of the compromises weren't what we wanted. That could change. I love the idea that that's where people are getting music, and we'd love to be in that world. We'll figure something out. What The Beatles have done, where the animation is much more representative of them, is what we're interested in, rather than the one-size-fits-all animation. We didn't want to be caricatured.

So, then. A U2 Rock Band game, inspired by the Beatles mold. DELICIOUS. This is totally doable. Over a dozen solid albums, numerous hit singles, distinct sonic eras, legendary visual designs, 4 distinct personalities, and challenging instrument tracks. The only thing missing is an intimidating mythology, but even the Beatles Rock Band game didn't really delve into all the squabbling, so there's no real story that needs to be told aside from the political/social eras that U2 inserted themselves into. (Rattle and Hum wasn't necessarily a narrative masterpiece, either.)

And if we're going to follow the Beatles mold, then it stands to reason that 40 songs is a nice round number to work with, giving each album its moment in the sun and getting a bit deeper into the catalog beyond the singles. I'm going to err on the side of caution and assume that the game would concentrate on album tracks and not obscure B-sides; one notable exception could be the live version of "Bad" from the Wide Awake In America EP, which is one of my personal favorites; the version of "Sweetest Thing" that appeared on the Best Of compilation might also be up for consideration.

So, then, here's my best guess for a setlist for a game that does not yet actually exist. And let it be known that I'm intentionally omitting some of my favorites - "All I Want Is You," "Ultraviolet," "Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World," "Acrobat," "Daddy's Going to Pay For Your Crashed Car", etc. - because, well, you can't throw 'em all in. Along those lines, I'm throwing in a few songs from Pop because, well, every album's gotta be represented. (Can I also admit that I haven't listened to the new album, even though I've owned it for months?)

Boy

1. I Will Follow
2. Out of Control
3. Electric Co.

October

1. Gloria
2. I Fall Down

War

1. Sunday Bloody Sunday
2. Seconds
   
3. New Year's Day
4. Two Hearts Beat As One
5. 40

Under A Blood Red Sky

1. Party Girl
2. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
   

Unforgettable Fire

1. A Sort of Homecoming
   
2. Pride (In the Name of Love)
3. Bad

Joshua Tree

1. Where the Streets Have No Name
2. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
3. With Or Without You
4. In God's Country

Rattle And Hum

1. Desire
2. Angel of Harlem
3. Bullet the Blue Sky (live)

Achtung Baby

1. One
2. Until The End of the World
3. The Fly
4. Mysterious Ways

Zooropa

1. Zooropa
2. Numb
3. Lemon

Pop

1. Discothèque
2. Staring At The Sun

All That You Can't Leave Behind

1. Beautiful Day
2. Elevation
3. Walk On

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

1. Vertigo
2. City of Blinding Lights
3. All Because of You

No Line on the Horizon

1. No Line on the Horizon
2. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
3. Get On Your Boots
   

Disappointing Sequels, and a Rock Band Wishlist

I've done just about everything I can do in Beatles: Rock Band without losing my friggin' mind, which is good, because there's other stuff out there that needs to be played.

The good:

DiRT 2

The first DiRT is still one of my favorite driving games, ever. As a confessed graphics whore, it was (and still is) jaw-dropping; it's the game I was playing both before and after I bought my 40" HDTV, and for a long time was the game I put in when I wanted to show off the TV. But that aside, the game was a complete package, oozing with polish; the career mode was well designed, the driving model was fun and accessible, the course design was varied and plentiful... even the menus were interactive and fun to play around with. And the replays... wow.

DiRT 2 has some mighty big shoes to fill, then, as far as I'm concerned. And so even though I've played quite a bit of it over the last few days and I've enjoyed my time with it a great deal, I'm not entirely sure that it fills them. It's not a bad game, by any means; it's still incredibly polished, the graphics are even better, the driving model is still fun.... but the package itself feels a bit... small. I haven't done a count, but it certainly feels like there's a significantly fewer amount of tracks to race on than in the first game, which is a bit of a bummer. With a graphics engine that gorgeous, I want to see more than the same tracks over and over again. The addition of an in-game rewind - in order to correct mistakes that would otherwise cost you the race - is really the biggest change to the game, and it does come in handy although most of the time I still end up just restarting the whole race if something catastrophic happens. The game has an achievement tracker and also keeps track of other statistics that can reward you with extra XP, and that's certainly much appreciated. I'm just... I don't know. Perhaps my expectations were a bit too unreasonable.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

Speaking of sequels with high expectations, I played M:UA2 last night for about 20 minutes and got thoroughly depressed with how shitty it was. I suppose I could've soldiered on, but my gaming time is at a premium these days and I'd rather have a good time instead of slogging through something that ought to be much better. The camera is frequently pulled out way too far, making it hard to see what I'm doing (or even what character I'm playing), and there are certain glitches in the special powers that drove me crazy - there's an Iron Man/Wolverine combo move that I tried using, and each time Wolverine automatically faced the wrong way, resulting in a waste of accumulated power. Right now this is in the running - along with Puzzle Quest: Galactrix - as my biggest disappointment of 2009. Sometimes you only need a few minutes with something before you realize that you're wasting your time.

---------------------------

Was on a forum the other day and the topic du jour was guessing the next band to receive the full deluxe Rock Band treatment. It seemed pretty obvious to everybody that the answer to that question is Led Zeppelin. Having seen now how both Rock Band and Guitar Hero treat their special packages, one would hope that the surviving members of Zep would steer towards Rock Band, but I'm sure it'll ultimately come down to the franchise that pays them more up front. But it got me thinking about what other packages I'd pay money for:

• U2.
  U2 is the reason why I decided to teach myself how to play guitar in the first place. But leaving my personal preference aside, U2 is still one of the biggest bands in the world, they have a recognizable mythos, they have a vivid and memorable visual style, and they have an incredibly solid catalog of work; I'd easily be able to find 45 U2 songs worth playing.
  
  
• Pink Floyd.
  Another mythic band with beloved albums and distinct visual flair. That said, there's a few things standing in the way - for one thing, I'm not sure that David Gilmour and Roger Waters will ever agree on anything ever again, and for another, a lot of their music is on the mellow side; it might be hard to stand up and play Pink Floyd songs for a few hours, even if you're on the right drugs.

• The Smiths / The Cure.
  Johnny Marr is one of the most criminally overlooked guitarists of the 20th century, and I would kill to be able to pretend to play his guitar parts, mostly because they're so difficult to play on a real guitar. Morrissey sings out of tune all the time, though, so I'm guessing it might be difficult to score. But whatever - they're the Smiths, they fucking rule. And as long as the 30+ crowd is looking to get nostalgic and depressed via plastic instruments, they might as well go all the way and throw in a bunch of Cure songs as well, to keep both sides of the Atlantic satisfied. I suppose I could be satisfied with a gigantic 20-song DLC package with all the great late 80's / early 90's "college" music, though, so let's just leave it at that.
  

The Beatles: Rock Band - set list guess, reconsidered

Here's my original guess at the Beatles: Rock Band set list, from February.

1. She Loves You
2. I Wanna Hold Your Hand
3. Love Me Do
4. Help!
5. I Saw Her Standing There
6. Please Please Me
7. A Hard Day's Night
8. Can't Buy Me Love
9. Eight Days a Week
10. Ticket To Ride
11. Yesterday
12. I Feel Fine
13. Paperback Writer
14. Rain
15. We Can Work It Out
16. Revolution
17. Get Back
18. Drive My Car
19. The Word
20. In My Life
21. Taxman
22. She Said, She Said
23. And Your Bird Can Sing
24. Doctor Robert
25. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
26. Getting Better
27. Good Morning Good Morning
28. A Day In the Life
    
29. Hello Goodbye
30. Strawberry Fields Forever
31. All You Need Is Love
32. Back in the U.S.S.R.
33. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
34. Birthday
35. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey
36. Helter Skelter
37. Come Together
38. Something
39. Octopus's Garden
40. Here Comes The Sun
41. Mean Mr. Mustard -> Polythene Pam -> She Came In Through The Bathroom Window -> Golden Slumbers -> Carry That Weight -> The End
42. Get Back
43. Dig a Pony
44. I've Got A Feeling
45. The Ballad of John and Yoko

It was noted in the comments to that post that I'd included "Get Back" twice, so that was dumb. And I knew, at the time, that "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey" was never going to get in - I don't even necessarily like that song. But I had my iPod with me when I was making this list, and I was scrolling through my Beatles albums, and it occurred to me that the instrumental tracks for that song would be pretty fun to play - each instrument is doing something interesting.

Anyway, I bring this up because 25 of the game's 45 songs have been confirmed by EA. As Kotaku reported this morning, those songs (with appropriate "nailed it" / "missed it" commentary) are:

1. "Back in the U.S.S.R." [yes]
   
2. "Can't Buy Me Love" [yes]
   
3. "Day Tripper" [how did I miss this?]
   
4. "Eight Days a Week" [yes]
   
5. "Get Back" [yes, twice]
   
6. "Here Comes the Sun" yes
7. "I Am the Walrus" [I left this out on purpose, b/c I had no idea how they'd do it. this is one of my favorite Beatles songs!]
8. "I Feel Fine" [yes]
   
9. "I Saw Her Standing There" [yes]
   
10. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" [yes]
    
11. "Octopus's Garden" [yes]
    
12. "Paperback Writer" [yes]
    
13. "Revolution" [yes]
    
14. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" [yes]
    
15. "Taxman" [yes]
    
16. "Twist and Shout" [didn't guess this, for some reason - but I'm not crazy about their early, pre-Rubber Soul stuff]
    
17. "Within You Without You" [didn't think this would make it since it's so unconventional, but they are using the drumbeat from Tomorrow Never Knows, which is awesome
    
18. "Yellow Submarine" i'd guessed there'd only be one Ringo song]
    
19. "With A Little Help From My Friends" [so i definitely didn't think there'd be 3 Ringo songs]
    
20. "Birthday" [yes]
    
21. "I Got a Feeling" [yes]
22. "Dig a Pony" [yes]
    
23. "Do You Want To Know A Secret" [not even sure I've heard this song before]
24. "I Wanna Be Your Man" [see #23]
25. "And Your Bird Can Sing" [yes]

I'm already off by 6, but I'll take it. If they can include "I Am The Walrus", they can do anything. In any event, this is moot - at E3, Harmonix revealed that the entire catalog would eventually be available to download, starting with all of "Abbey Road."

Can't. Fucking. Wait.

The Beatles Rock Band Set List: a considered guess

Joystiq published a story today confirming (from Paul McCartney, no less) that there will be 45 songs in the upcoming Beatles Rock Band game out later this year, spanning "early days, Liverpool, then psychedelic, and on from there." As a huge fan of both Rock Band and the Beatles, I have a pretty vested interest in how this game turns out.

I should point out, though, that my intense love of the Beatles is really only focused on their post-Rubber Soul material. Paul, however, says that the setlist will run the gamut. I'm gonna say 15 of the 45 songs will be pre-Rubber Soul:

1. She Loves You
2. I Wanna Hold Your Hand
3. Love Me Do
4. Help!
5. I Saw Her Standing There
6. Please Please Me
7. A Hard Day's Night
8. Can't Buy Me Love
9. Eight Days a Week
10. Ticket To Ride
11. Yesterday
12. I Feel Fine
13. Paperback Writer
14. Rain
15. We Can Work It Out

Those last few songs aren't exactly pre-Rubber Soul, but I was having trouble being generous with the early stuff. In any event, that selection seems reasonable, and as far as I can tell there's no need for keyboards. Which makes the remaining 30 songs a bit trickier to parse out; once they stopped touring and stayed in the studio, they started writing and recording songs that probably could not be performed by only the four of them - "Eleanor Rigby", for example, is done entirely with strings, and "Tomorrow Never Knows" was recorded in outer space, in the future. And unless this game introduces a keyboard peripheral, there's going to be quite a few classic songs that are going to be very difficult to play without one. ("Hey Jude" and "Let it Be" spring to mind.) But they can't outright ignore those songs, either; they have as much to do with the Beatles' enduring influence and legacy on popular music as their earlier, more conventional stuff. So they're gonna have to split the difference somehow.

Here's my best guesses as to the remaining 30 songs, which I'm picking based on a combination of historical importance, instrumental arrangement (with an emphasis on keyboard-less tracks and songs with riffs as opposed to chord strumming), Paul's being alive and John's being dead, and personal taste. I'm leaving out a lot of favorites (how can I possibly leave off "I Am The Walrus"?), but here goes:

1. Revolution
2. Get Back
3. Drive My Car
4. The Word
5. In My Life
6. Taxman
7. She Said, She Said
8. And Your Bird Can Sing
9. Doctor Robert
10. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
11. Getting Better
12. Good Morning Good Morning
13. A Day In the Life (I have no idea how, but it has to be in there)
    
14. Hello Goodbye
15. Strawberry Fields Forever
16. All You Need Is Love (guitar plays the string parts?)
17. Back in the U.S.S.R.
18. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
19. Birthday
20. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey (not an obvious choice, but every instrument is doing something interesting, and there's gotta be at least one unexpected song)
21. Helter Skelter
22. Come Together
23. Something
24. Octopus's Garden
25. Here Comes The Sun
26. Mean Mr. Mustard -> Polythene Pam -> She Came In Through The Bathroom Window -> Golden Slumbers -> Carry That Weight -> The End
27. Get Back
28. Dig a Pony
29. I've Got A Feeling
30. The Ballad of John and Yoko

Obviously there are some major omissions; I opted to cut out anything piano-based, and I generally chose upbeat songs as opposed to softer acoustic songs, which leaves out quite a lot (including quite a few of my favorite Beatles songs). And my entry at #26 is assuming that Harmonix will be lumping the famous medley that closes out Abbey Road as one track; none of those songs really stand out on their own (except maybe "Bathroom Window") but they would make for an epic "final boss", with a long drum solo and those 3 rotating guitar solos.

That's my guess. What's yours?

Zombies ZOMG

Zombies are the new Nazis.

Think about it. Nazis have been the de facto bad guys in popular culture for the last 50 years. They are a perfect enemy; nobody gets offended when you have to kill them. Castle Wolfenstein illustrated this in interactive 3D, and the videogame boom as we know it was born.

I think, however, that we've reached a point in our society where the evilness of Nazis has lost a bit of its power. The videogaming generation did not grow up in WW2, and neither did its parents. When you kill Nazis in videogames, you're not avenging the horrors of the Holocaust anymore, or freeing Europe from the tyrannical grips of a monster; you are killing bad guys in order to make it to the next checkpoint, and Nazis have always been an easy target for game designers because (a) you don't have to worry about cultural sensitivity issues, and (b) who doesn't enjoy killing Nazis? It's just that most WW2 games these days don't really focus on the why; they focus on the experience of the soldier in the middle of the battle, rather than the reason why the soldier is over there in the first place, and as a result, the enemy Nazi soldier is no longer as capital-E Evil because they all look the same and there's so damn many of them.

Enter the zombie.

Zombies have been around forever, but I would point to the 2002 film 28 Days Later as the source of the current zombie revival. (My own personal interest in the coming zombie apocalypse was not borne from movies but from Max Brooks, whose Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z made for highly engrossing and informative reading.) Danny Boyle's film reimagined zombies as less of a slow-moving, brainless dread and more of a HOLY SHIT IT'S COMING RIGHT AT ME AAAAAAAAAA horrorshow, and it seems to have struck quite a nerve; now there's zombie films and games all over the place. In fact, one need look no further than a bonus mode in Call of Duty: World At War to see the ultimate crossover - zombie Nazis.

I bring this up because I spent a highly entertaining hour yesterday with 2 close friends killing hundreds upon hundreds of zombies in Left 4 Dead, and it occured to me in the crazy dreams that ensued later that night that a zombie horde is, in 2008, a far more frightening prospect than a Nazi ambush. And it's also a much more fertile idea for game developers. Nazis can only exist in Europe in the 1940s; zombies can exist anywhere, at any time, and they don't need guns to kill you. They have no political agenda or ideology, they have no apologists, and they never run out of numbers. They can be fast or slow; they can be subhuman and superhuman. ALSO: they can be hilarious (Shaun of the Dead, FIDO).

I'm not saying that Nazis aren't evil; of course they're evil. I'm Jewish, fercrissakes, I'm not suggesting any such thing. I'm simply positing that there will eventually be more zombies than Nazis, and we should all prepare accordingly.

Guessing At Future Games: Valve

I can't help but feel that Valve is up to something big.

I'm going to come right out and argue that Portal and Left 4 Dead are experiments and tech demos for something bigger, as much as they are self-contained gaming experiences. The technology that makes the Portal gun work and the "Director" AI program that governs the L4D pacing and spawning are both somewhat radical and yet also totally seamless; you're never "aware" of the complicated math that makes it possible, you're simply swept up in the experience.

More to that last point - the storytelling method and the notion of narrative in both Portal and L4D is incredibly unique for modern FPSs... it's never explicit, but rather subtle and environmental. Rather than throwing in a long opening cutscene full of exposition that means nothing to you and giving your player character a backstory, they simply drop you into a strange world and you learn about the world (and yourself) as you progress, and they manage to do this without succumbing to the worn-out "amnesia" cliche. The gameplay is incredibly tight and the pacing is perfect, so even if you're not paying attention to the story you're still having a good time; but if you take the time to explore, you are rewarded with all these clever little details that fill out the world without beating you over the head. Seeing "The cake is a lie" scrawled on the walls of a hidden room reveals far more about the Apeture Testing Facility than any voice recording or cutscene could ever accomplish.

I would expect to see some of this stuff used in HL2 Episode 3 - the last level of Portal certainly posits a link between the Portal universe and the Half-Life universe, so it seems pretty likely that Gordon Freeman will get his hands on a Portal gun at some point - but it wouldn't surprise me AT ALL to see Valve working on a totally new IP that uses all these technologies and methods (as well as other stuff we don't know about, and I'm sure they're going to beef up the rapidly-aging Source engine) to some other, grander purpose. Let's face it - Half-Life 1 had an unconventional narrative method but as the sequels have borne themselves out, the overall story arc isn't terribly absorbing, and they certainly couldn't start using these new techniques in a sequel without messing up Half-Life's DNA.

It also needs to be said that having Erik Wolpaw on Valve's payroll ensures that future Valve games will have, at the very least, a very twisted sense of humor.

I couldn't possibly begin to guess where Valve is going, but Valve keeps very close tabs on what people do in (and with) their games, and I suspect that they'll be very curious indeed to see how the public responds.

Giant Bomb GTA5 thoughts; Boom Blox; Metroid Prime 3

1. The latest Giant Bombcast is probably the best one they've come out with thus far; it's funny without being "wacky", focused, and informative. They also have a rather nice discussion about GTA4 that I soooooo wish I could have been a part of; namely, what to expect in the next iteration.

Ryan and Jeff talk about how Vice City and San Andreas were not totally unexpected choices when the franchise moved to 3D - those were cities where GTA had apparently already taken place in earlier games. I'm not entirely sure I agree with their implied assertion that the city came first in those games, and then the story (Jeff mentions something quickly about Vice City seemed like a great place for boating, which was a new mechanic in that game); it seems to me that it wasn't the city but the films they decided to embody. Both Vice City and San Andreas don't even really bother hiding their cinematic inspirations, as it seems pretty obvious that the developers basically picked Scarface and Boyz in the Hood as jumping-off points, respectively.

More to the point, Jeff says that his expectations for a new GTA game have definitely changed since playing GTA4 - it's not the city that's the most important thing as much as it is the story, and I absolutely agree - although it should be said that this new Liberty City is a staggering achievement, on a multitude of levels (technological, artistic, geographic, architectural, the city just feels right), and the city goes farther than any before it towards making the story feel real and emotionally involving.

That said, the city is usually the first thing that Rockstar reveals whenever they're getting ready to release a new GTA game. Jeff talks about London (yay!) as something he'd like to see, but also raises a very interesting question, and one that I hadn't considered - would American audiences be alienated by the switch to an unfamiliar locale, considering how the GTA franchise is famous for its satire of American pop culture? I think it could work if the lead character was an American; certainly that would help the American audience see the city through a foreigner's eyes. London isn't that strange a place, anyway, and certainly there's enough of it that would be recognizable. I also think that Rockstar could do a lot with London, and not just in terms of "Austin Powers and ugly teeth" jokes. They're from Scotland, anyway - I feel like this would be right in their wheelhouse.

Anyway. It's kinda ridiculous for me to be theorizing about GTA5 when I'm still working on GTA4. I haven't had much opportunity to play this week; I'll maybe do a mission in the morning, before I go to work, and then I'll play for an hour or so before going to bed. Last night, for example, I decided to ignore the story and go over to the airport to get the 4-star and 500-foot wheelie Achievements, which I succeeded in doing. I died a few times after that, though, and in the process I lost a ton of money and weapons, and I didn't save my game. The Achievements aren't going away, though...

2. Brought home BOOM BLOX for the Wii last night, and my wife and I played through a bunch of the multiplayer; we had a great time, but both of our right arms are absolutely killing us today. Towards the end of our time we figured out that it's not so much in the arm motion as it is in the wrist, and we only figured that out because we couldn't really move our arms anymore.
The game is loosely similar to Jenga, but more destructive and more responsive. The physics are absolutely spot-on and you really feel connected to the action on the screen; the controls are very intuitive and responsive, too (although not totally 100% accurate). I'm not sure it's a game we'll be playing forever and ever, but certainly it's something we can pick up and play.

3. Had a rental copy of Metroid Prime 3 laying around for a while, and I decided to pop that in just to see if it was worth holding on to. Short answer - not really. The storytelling is sophomoric at best and the controls are irksome. I'm not a huge fan of the series so maybe that's why I was so quick to dismiss it; in any event, I played up until the first boss and then sent it back to Gamefly.

What to look out for in GTA5, if EA successfully acquires Take Two

*shudder*

For starters, the radio stations would be replaced by the all-seeing, all-knowing DJ Atomica, the music would be considerably less eclectic, and the ZiT in-game feature that lets you know what song you're listening to would simply be replaced with actual text pop-ins, the way every other EA game does.

After all, your cellphone would actually be an iPhone, or a Verizon LG8600, or a RAZR.

The GTA games are known for, among other things, their incredible attention to detail when it comes to satire, and this goes all the way down to the fake commercials on their radio stations, not to mention the tons of signage and branding for their fictional properties - BurgerShot, Sprunk, Cluckin' Bell, etc. EA, on the other hand, is known for their incredible devotion for gratuitous in-game advertising; it would surprise absolutely no-one to see an EA-published GTA take place in a world with real commercials and real billboards for real products, which you could then buy in-game. Imagine getting a health power-up from eating a Big Mac!

Let's see... we've got the EA Trax soundtrack, we've got the gratuitous in-game advertising... well, I suppose we can extend that to Branded Achievements. Drive for 1000 miles and get the GoodYear Tires Achievement; crash into 200 cars for the AllState Insurance Achievement; snipe 100 headshots and get the Johnson & Johnson "No More Tears" Achievement.

Of course, it would be hard to imagine any wholesome product that wouldn't be attacked from the Jack Thompson side of the fence if it allowed itself to be placed in a game this subversive, notorious and controversial. (It hasn't stopped UbiSoft from putting car commercials in Rainbow Six games or Nextel devices in Splinter Cell games - or car commercials in Crackdown, for that matter, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) This is a long way of saying that GTA5 can't feature any more killing of hookers for points. (Which doesn't happen in the actual GTA, but I digress, again.)

So the storyline and cast of characters would have to be switched up. Which would mean that instead of featuring a compelling and epic narrative about the troubles of a European immigrant fresh from the horrors of war, we'd get a 10-15 hour story about Bobby Flash, a streetwise white kid from the suburbs who hopes to be a skateboard champion but who runs into a gang from the other side of the tracks, probably featuring tons of ridiculously over-the-top FMV cutscenes that likewise fill up the Need For Speed franchise - hey, maybe they can throw in a Need For Speed billboard or two, while they're at it!