What I've Been Playing

Summer is one of the toughest times in the childhood of a video gamer. Even back when I was in elementary school, I remember lamenting the cutting irony of the fact that summer vacation arrived (a) well after I had thoroughly exhausted all interest in whatever game I'd gotten for Christmas, (b) well before my autumn birthday (at which time I would inevitably recieve gifts of clothes and school supplies anyway), and (c) at a time of year when hardly any new games were released. In the end, I suppose all these barriers to gaming were likely of little real consequence; even if I'd had a stack of unplayed cartridges at my disposal, my fascist parental overlords probably still would have forced me to play outside.

As an adult, I find summers to be much more palatable. Sure, I don't get two months of contiguous vacation, but instead I have disposable income, free will, and air conditioning. And even though there aren't many triple-A game releases this time of year, there's a nearly endless supply of cheap downloadable fun to be consumed via Steam's Summer Sale (which just ended) and Xbox LIVE's "Summer of Arcade". Here's what I've been playing...

Diablo III (PC / Mac)

Released this May following a 12-year hiatus in the franchise, Diablo III has been the preeminent time-sink for something like 10 million people this summer. Despite its success on paper, the game itself has traveled kind of a bumpy road, one rife with server issues, bizarre gameplay limits, and game hacks and exploits. In a typical video game, these issues would be less of a problem; however, Diablo III incorporates a "Real Money Auction House", which (for those of you who don't know) is a virtual marketplace that allows players to buy and sell in-game equipment and commodities using real-world currency. Apparently, the lesson to learn here is that if you create a virtual economy that is already incredibly unstable because of its implicitly artificial nature, piling a bunch of additional problems on top of it yields results that are somewhat of a total clusterfuck.

Is there someone out there willing to drop $200 on a "Focused Beating"? Only time will tell.

Being one of those crazy people who doesn't play games so I can farm loot to sell on the Internet, I tended to approach Diablo III as... well, a "game". While Diablo III is undoubtedly highly-tuned, expertly polished, and addictive as hell, even after my first 30 hours of gameplay I'm still not sure if it's actually "fun". It's entirely possible Blizzard has simply figured out an algorithm for directly triggering the pleasure centers in my brain via randomized loot drops.

Resonance (PC)

Eventually I took a break from Diablo III and returned to my traditional summer practice of snapping up old titles and indie games in bulk off of Steam. One of my first purchases was Resonance, an indie point-n-click adventure game in the old-school pixel art style.

Resonance: why wrestle with Diablo III server issues when instead you could be riding the subway as a particle physicist?

Compared to staring at Battle.net error codes, I much preferred Resonance as a way to pass the time. Although the puzzles aren't terribly mind-blowing and the voice acting has the kind of stilted, canned quality that is hard to avoid in adventure games, Resonance is still well-executed in many ways. Not only does it build on the traditional adventure-game formula with a few interesting gameplay innovations, but its plot and character development were more than enough to make Resonance worth a few hours of my time.

Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 (PC)

I really enjoy the webcomic/blog/Internet institution Penny Arcade. I think one of the reasons I like Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik's commentary so much is that it spans the full dynamic range of the human experience from the existential to the profane, in much the same effortless manner of comedians like Jon Stewart or Louis C.K.

It's because I enjoy the eccentricities of the Penny Arcade world view so thoroughly that I've continued to play their "Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness" series, despite the fact each installment thus far has been decidedly middling. Granted, this newest offering is a departure from the two previous Hothead-produced titles, rendered instead in the style of a 16-bit console RPG by the qualified retro enthusiasts at Zeboyd Games. However, the end result is still a mediocre role-playing game that could (and should) be ignored by anyone who isn't a Penny Arcade fan.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations (Xbox 360)

As I've mentioned before, seeing the Assassin's Creed III gameplay trailer at PAX earlier this year really got me getting back on the AC bandwagon. After playing Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, I decided to ride the sequel train right on through Assassin's Creed: Revelations, the third part of the "Ezio Trilogy". This (hopefully) final chapter follows Ezio's exploits in 16th-century Constantinople, where despite being well into his fifties, he somehow manages to keep free solo climbing, base jumping, and serial murdering as though he was still a teenage assassin.

Apparently three decades of jumping off rooftops and stabbing dudes in the face really ages a guy.

Unless you are deeply fascinated by the lore of the Assassin's Creed universe, AC: Revelations is a sequel that could easily be skipped. While it is certainly as expertly crafted as other entries in the series, its more-of-the-same gameplay and its insistence on extending the already overdrawn Ezio plot line offers more exploitation than revelation.

Double Fine Happy Action Theater (Xbox LIVE Arcade)

Recently my kids and I had a playdate with a friend of mine and his two children. After a three-hour maelstrom of toys, tears, and bathroom mishaps, we were starting to run out of hope, as well as beer. Enter Double Fine Happy Action Theater, an Xbox LIVE downloadable arcade game for the Kinect that also seemed to be a safe and legal toddler narcotic. Although it's little more than a tech demo of 20 or so minigames, Happy Action Theater includes some of the most innovative uses of the Kinect sensor I've seen thus far, and each is delivered with trademark Double Fine flair. If you have young children I highly recommend it... at $10, it's one of the cheapest and most effortless ways you'll find for wearing out your offspring.

Terraria (PC)

The first time anyone hears about Terraria, it's always the same description: "It's 2-D Minecraft." To be fair, it's an accurate description; Terraria not only borrows Minecraft's core gameplay concepts (i.e. "mining" and "crafting"), it also borrows almost everything else. However, it's a testament to how genuinely well designed and innovative Terraria is that it can plagiarize so heavily while ultimately delivering an experience that is quite different from that of Minecraft. While life in Minecraft is an exercise in solitary exploration that occasionally borders on survival horror, Terraria is like Legend of Zelda would be if after conquering a dungeon you could lug it up to the surface and use pieces of it to build yourself a kick-ass fortress.

Now if only I would put this much effort into my real house.

My only gripe about Terraria is that the difficulty curve is steep. Even with heavy coaching from online walkthroughs and FAQs, after 20 hours I still couldn't beat the first boss. In the end, I decided just to be happy with the fact that I had built another sweet residence to my long list of virtual properties.

Well, that pretty much wraps up July's gaming exploits. God and Amazon Prime willing, this time next month I should be writing about one of my most-anticipated games of 2012: Darksiders II.

Aftermath

Originally this post was going to be about something else—perhaps a discussion of the screen in video games as a boundary object in the realm of imagination, or some other equally urgent topic. However, as I'm sure was the case for a lot of people, the horrific events that occurred in Colorado on Friday got me thinking about other, more somber things.

Police tape blocks off a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, where a gunman attacked movie goers on July 20, 2012.
(Credit: Thomas Cooper/Getty Images)

First of all, whenever a tragedy like this happens, I'm always struck by how completely it dominates the media. During the days and weeks afterward, torrents of analysis wash over us as talking heads rehash every moment of the event in excruciating detail. As each incremental bit of new information is uncovered, the reporters and pundits absorb it immediately into their continuously-streaming narrative of the tragedy, doing so with a zealotry that can't help but come across as macabre. (Don't worry, the irony of me contributing to the avalanche of press by complaining about it is not lost on me.)

A generous person might say that the media frenzy isn't about ratings and morbid curiosity, but rather that it's about getting people the information they need to process this tragedy and perhaps find some closure. I understand that a lot of people need someone or something to blame, because answers like "there are insane and dangerous people in the world" and "shitty things just happen sometimes" don't really cut it. However, the problem I have with this approach is that everything I see or hear or read about an event like this makes the whole thing seem more surreal and detached from the human experience, not less. I'm not sure if this is true for the family, friends, and community of the victims, or if they're to busy grieving to watch Fox News. Regardless, I can't imagine that all of this coverage really helps them or anyone else all that much.

Perhaps part of the problem is that like most of the people I know—and like most of the people talking at me from the television—there is very little in my life experience that allows me to understand this kind of reality in any tangible way. I don't know anyone who has ever been murdered, or anyone who has murdered someone else. I've never killed anyone myself, at least not that I know about. I've never fought in a war or engaged in mortal combat with another person. In fact, I've been in very few life-or-death situations of any sort, and most of these were pretty firmly under my control. Pretty much every experience I could potentially use to begin to comprehend something like this has been absorbed through a screen in the form of television, movies, and video games, and nearly all of it has been fiction.

Of course, I'm not complaining about this state of affairs; ultimately it's a good thing that I don't have a more intuitive understanding of how to cope with the fallout from a mass murder. However, a barrage of media analysis coming from people who probably don't have much more perspective on these matters than I do doesn't provide much insight either.

Eventually, once the dust settles a bit, people will really start to dig for the "cause" of this tragedy. Discussions will ensue regarding family values, mental illness, gun control, the perils of life in a free society, and a host of other issues. Video games and other violent media will enter the conversation, as they always do. Perhaps some reactionary legislation will be passed regarding sequels for movie franchises based on comic books—stranger things certainly have happened.

People will continue to talk about this terrible event for years to come, while still thinking about the ones like it that happened in the past, and dreading the next one like it which will inevitably happen at some point in the future. My point is that whether we're the man on the street, a television personality, or just some jackass posting his ramblings on the Internet, those of us who have so little perspective on these matters would do well to remember that.

Distilled Reality

I don't like to brag, but I own a lot of video game houses. I'm the owner of five residences in the province of Skyrim alone, and in Albion anything bigger than an anthill has my name on the deed. Some of my many electronic properties were even built with my own two thumbs, like the mansion I designed for my Sims or the low-res countryside villa I constructed in Minecraft (from cobblestone I mined myself).

I still own my 300,000-gil mansion in Costa del Sol, one of the first video game properties I ever bought.

Given my depth of experience in the arena of virtual home ownership, I wasn't terribly concerned when (back in the real world) my wife and I recently bought a single-family house for ourselves and our two children. Moving into our new home, however, I quickly realized two things:

1. We own a lot of crap, and most of it is very heavy to lift.
2. The countless hours I've spent playing games like The Sims and Minecraft have led me to very seriously misjudge the amount of time, expense, and effort required to establish a suitable residence for oneself and one's family.

In other words, it appears that owning all these video game houses has done fairly little to prepare me for buying an owning a house in the real world. Upon reflection, I've realized part of the problem is that certain key parts of the homeowner experience have not been adequately represented in gameplay.

Hey, if it can hold up a Honda Civic, then it should be able to keep my cabinets from falling off the wall, right?
(Yes, this is really how I fixed my kitchen cabinets.)

For example, despite the province of Skyrim's incredibly low real estate inventory (which apparently consists only of five houses), I didn't have to engage in any multiplayer battles against other prospective buyers who were all competing for the same property. When playing Fable III, buying a property in Albion never involved filing a mountain of paperwork in order to get a mortgage, whose underwriting inevitably would have unlocked entire new dungeons full of paperwork for me to navigate. And don't even get me started on the lack of a plaster repair game mechanic in Minecraft.

I suppose what we're really talking about here is a question of immersion. Video games often talk about being more "immersive", but to be honest I'm not always sure what that means. In a truly immersive version of Skyrim, for instance, upgrading the blacksmithing perk would have required the Dragonborn first to complete a five-year apprenticeship, and exploring the frozen mountains of Winterhold would probably have involved less enchanted loot and epic battles with dragons, and more crushing loneliness and frostbite. With these changes, I'm not exactly sure what kind of game Bethesda would have ended up with, but somehow I doubt it would have sold 10 million copies.

Here's an MLS photo of "Breezehome", a little place I own in Whiterun. It's an historic Scandinavian-style cottage in a great school district, provided you don't mind your children occasionally being eaten by dragons.

My point is that people like video games not because they provide some sort of alternative "virtual" version of reality, but because they provide something far better than any virtual reality: distilled reality. Like the corresponding physical process, the distillation of reality that video game designers perform removes the impurities of the real world (like taxes and wallpaper removal), leaving us with an invigorating aqua vitae chock full of action, mass murder, puzzles, instant gratification, and bizarrely athletic plumbers.

Regrettably, like any libation, distilled reality must be consumed in moderation, lest its side effects lead to unfortunate consequences. In my case, getting drunk on booze or reality both result in similar kinds of behaviors, including (but not limited to) unpredictable fits of anger, horniness, and the firm belief that I would probably be able fight a dragon. Nevertheless, there's nothing like a bourbon Manhattan and some Gears of War deathmatch to take the edge off at the end of a tough day... and like my distilled spirits, I don't expect I'll be giving up my distilled reality anytime soon.

What I've Been Playing

As I've mentioned in the past (and as known by anyone who has had the misfortune of meeting me personally), I love criticizing things. Unfortunately, the writing of game reviews brings with it a host of other problems, and since I started blogging I've noticed that my gaming habits have changed significantly. These days I almost exclusively play new releases, rushing through each game as quickly as possible in the hopes that I can pen some sort of semi-informed review while anyone still cares. (In fact, in the 10 days it took me to finish Mass Effect 3, everyone had already become sick of debating its "controversial ending".)

So, for a change of pace I decided for the month of April to play whatever I felt like playing whenever I felt like playing it. (At least, as long as "whenever" happened after the kids went to bed.) Rather than write exhaustive reviews for each game, I figured I would instead attempt to condense my standard several pages of witty commentary and dick jokes into just a paragraph or two about each game.

Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)

After spending an uninspiring winter term studying at the University of Final Fantasy XIII-2 (The "Safety School" of J-RPGs), I was anxious for a role-playing game that would really spike my cocoa. Enter Xenoblade Chronicles, (nominally) spiritual successor to the other "Xeno games" (i.e. Xenogears on the PS1 and Xenosaga on the PS2). Xenoblade Chronicles was originally released in 2010 for the Wii, and like most Wii games, it wasn't released in North America. However, unlike most Wii games, it was supposedly quite good... in fact, it was apparently so good that a fan campaign led to it being released here nearly two years later.

You'll enjoy exploring Xenoblade Chronicles' lush and expansive world, especially since there won't be any pesky high-definition graphics getting in your way.

Right now I'm about 20 hours in, and so far the game's primary effect has been to remind me that the Wii's graphics are on par with a PS2 that's been left out in the rain, and that its controls handle like an old Atari joystick made out of a live weasel. That said, it's impressive that such an underpowered system can support a game of this scope. The stereotypically inane J-RPG dialogue--while still present--is softened by the choice to make everyone have a British accent, and the initially simple battle system continues to become increasingly more layered. So, I suppose for now I'll forge ahead with the hope that all that hype was founded in some sort of reality I have yet to experience.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (Xbox 360)

Seeing the extended-gameplay trailer for Assassin's Creed III at PAX East rekindled my interest in this series, or at least nudged it enough that I was willing to drop $21.99 on Amazon and about 20 hours of my life on Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (which I passed on when it came out back in 2010). I have to admit, I'd forgotten how much I love these games. Although largely unchanged from the formula of Assassin's Creed II, there are a few subtle changes that go a long way towards enhancing the AC gameplay experience.

I had heard that the real contribution of ACB was its innovative multiplayer, but unfortunately I didn't explore this aspect very much... in part because I didn't want to tarry before moving on to Assassin's Creed: Revelations, but mostly because I didn't feel like getting the ol' hidden-blade-to-the-brain-stem treatment by the few die-hard assassinos still lurking on the servers after 18 months.

Gears of War 3 (Xbox 360)

For about half a year now, Gears of War 3 has reigned as the official game of TNGN (Thursday Night Game Night), my weekly multiplayer gaming session with my friends from high school (or as my wife calls it, my "standing Thursday play-date"). As much fun as it is to frag complete strangers, there's a lot to be said for engaging in multiplayer with folks who respect a request of "don't kill me for a few minutes; I need to go change a diaper".

"RAAM's Shadow" introduces the new character Michael Barrick. He can be easily distinguished from other characters in the Gears canon by his gravelly voice, terse demeanor, and impossibly large musculature.

Actually, I think there must have been quite a few diapers that needed changing during the month of April, because more than once our TNGN crew seemed a little thin. In fact, one week I was a party of one, but instead of sobbing into my Manhattan and cursing children everywhere, I instead took the opportunity to wrap up the GoW3 RAAM's Shadow DLC. It turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable and well-executed addition to the campaign, especially the parts where you get to play as General RAAM (the final boss from the first Gears of War).

Dragon Quest IX (Nintendo DS)

They say the birth of a child is a happy event. I'm inclined to agree, because the birth of my daughter in January resulted in my three-year-old son getting an Xbox Kinect and myself getting a Nintendo 3DS. After playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D for about an hour, I opted instead to go back and dive into some of the old Nintendo DS games I missed, such as Dragon Quest IX.

Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies is an RPG in the classic Dragon Quest (a.k.a. Dragon Warrior) style, meaning that you can't blow your nose in the game without it being accompanied by several pages of text narration. While this results in a gameplay experience that is doubtlessly padded, it also has a certain laid-back charm that is well suited to a portable gaming experience. In the past few months, somehow I've managed to sink 50 hours into this game (mostly in 15-minute chunks), and I still haven't beaten it.

Fez (Xbox LIVE Arcade)

Last month's indie darling Fez looks on the surface to be simply a perspective-based puzzle-platformer, reminiscent of Crush or Echochrome. Though its pixel-art graphics and chiptune soundtrack are not without their charm, most folks are unlikely to be blown away during the three hours it takes to collect "32 Cubes" and beat the game.

What does it mean??

However, once you beat the game and unlock New Game +... that's when things begin to get weird. As you start over on your quest for the "32 Anti-Cubes", you begin to realize that the pixel-art world of Fez is rife with cube-based iconography, and that the environments you've been carelessly hopping through are littered with snippets of language, numbers, history, astrology, and religion, much of which is integral to solving the puzzles in this second half of the game. The culture of this strange little universe is so deep and interwoven that at one point (around 2:00 AM) I started to believe an entire race of 2-D people actually lived inside my Xbox. It's been a long time since a puzzle game forced me to write actual notes on actual pieces of paper.

Well, that's about it for the April Game Roundup. In other news, we're closing on our new house tomorrow. Perhaps in another month I'll be writing about my new favorite games, which are likely to include such titles as Wallpaper Removal Challenge 2012, DIY Home Wiring: First Aid for Minor Electrical Burns Edition, and Moving All Our Crap to a New House.

PAX East 2012: Day Three

9:00 AM - Latest start yet. I think I must have been feeling pretty good last night, because when I got home I was self-assured enough to eat blue cheese dressing out of the jar with a fork. I do feel the tiniest bit guilty walking across Boston Common hung over and on my way to a video game convention, while folks in their Sunday best head the other direction for Easter service.

11:31 AM - Hitting the expo floor for reals today. First stop: Assassin's Creed III. Now I'm normally not one to gush, but the gameplay footage looked absolutely phenomenal. The concept of operating in a wide-open and natural environment like a colonial New England forest is a great innovation for the franchise (which had been getting fairly stale), and it seems that a lot of the movement and combat systems have been rebuilt to accommodate that change. Plus, murdering Redcoats with a tomahawk is always a crowd pleaser, at least provided you're not British.

No photography or video recording was allowed inside the theater, so here's a picture of the outside instead. 

12:02 PM - Checked out some more of the indie and XBLA offerings. There's some good stuff down here, including Guacamelee!, a luchador-themed action-adventure game, and Charlie Murder, a beat-em-up with RPG elements from Ska Studios (makers of Dishwasher: Dead Samurai).

Ska Studios art always looks like you wish the sketches in your high-school notebooks looked, if only you had been an amazing artist and super angsty.

12:46 PM - Had a great chat with the Australian creator of Antichamber, a first-person puzzle game that uses "non-Euclidean" geometry. (Basically, it's like running around in an M. C. Escher drawing.) He described the painstaking design process of user testing and game refinement as he attempted to make the game as intuitive as possible (yet still mind-bending).

Hey, it's not like Euclid is the only person who knows how to organize a three-dimensional metric space.

1:15 PM - The shout-out for Dust: An Elysian Tail at the Giant Bomb panel last night must have had an effect, because a lot of folks were interested on the game today. An upcoming XBLA action-adventure title with a beautiful fantasy-themed visual style, Dust was actually designed, illustrated, and coded by a single guy! I actually ended up in line with Ryan Davis and Jeff Gerstmann from the Giant Bomb site, and got a chance to talk with Ryan about his opinion regarding the collection of games this year.

2:16 PM - Took a break to eat a surprisingly tasty food court burrito, as well as count the number of people walking by wearing Utilikilts. Answer: five.

3:51 PM - Attended the panel, "How Young Is Too Young for Games?" Given how much we hear in the media about violence in video games and its effect on children, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of reliable research on the subject, and the little that exists is inconclusive. The panel's shocking conclusion: there's no substitute for moderation and good parental judgement.

There was a setup where you could text in which games had been most influential in your own childhood development. I sure hope the guy who said that World of Warcraft affected him the most when he was "0 to 5 years old" was either confused or kidding.

4:50 PM - Round two of the expo floor. Best experience by far was Dyad, which you maybe could call a shooter, but is really more of a psychedelic audiovisual experience. Whatever it is, it's coming to the PS3 Network this summer.

After playing this game, I actually was so mesmerized that I wordlessly stood up and then lazily wandered in an arbitrary direction for about a minute, before coming back to the booth and apologizing to the designer for my behavior.  

5:36 PM - The expo floor is closing down. I managed to hit a few more games, but nothing was better than what I've already mentioned. I think it's time to call it a day.

11:24 PM - After making my way home and relaxing for a few hours, I'm prepared to render judgement on my first PAX experience. In two words: mission fucking accomplished. Here are a few take-aways:

1. I was surprised to discover how many panels there were, by the breadth and depth of their topics, and by how informative and entertaining they were. I naively expected that I would spend most of my time on the expo floor, but I ended up much preferring the panels.
2. On the exhibition side of things, I found checking out the indie games to be the best use of my time. There's nothing like getting to play some awesome game that a few dudes created in their basement, while they stand next to you and politely answer any idiotic question that pops into your head. Also the lines are short.
3. Finally, for all those people that think there's a link between video games and violence: I just watched 70,000 people cram into about a square mile of space for three full days where they played violent games literally non-stop, and remarkably no one was murdered. That should be all the evidence anyone would ever need.