Long Live Play

It occurred to me the other day that my post on the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance reveal was the first truly gaming-related blogging I'd done in almost a year.  But I'm guessing the majority of the legitimate pageviews I get are still for my old posts on gaming.

Anyway, I saw this PlayStation ad on TV the other day (it's not new, but I also don't watch as much live TV as I used to, so it was new to me):

It's pretty cool, very meticulously detailed.  But it kind of saddens me that I can't ID probably half the franchises represented in the ad.  And of those that I do recognize, I think Metal Gear is the only one I've played.  Oh well.  So it goes . . . .

Welcome to the PS3

Felt like playing LittleBigPlanet again for the first time in over a year.  On load, was informed that I needed to download and install ten (10!) updates.  PS3 useless while installing, so decided on a whim to ease the wait by playing some of Konami's arcade classic, Sunset Riders.

Before I knew it, I had beaten Sunset Riders.  Turned back to my PS3 to find that it still had not finished updating.  This is garbage.

Yeah, I know--"welcome to four years ago," right?  Still, this is garbage.

What I want out of the PlayStation Move

I've heard some Wii Call of Duty players claim that, if they could somehow magically link their online with the PS3 or 360 versions, they would totally smoke those pad players with their Wii Remotes. There has never been anything technically preventing Wii first-person shooters from including traditional control options, but, as far as I know, no Wii FPS has offered this. So the one thing I really want to see with the PlayStation Move is a shooter that will let these wand players try and prove, once and for all, that their motion controls are superior to dual-analog pad controls. Maybe the same game could even offer keyboard-and-mouse controls, since there is nothing technically preventing that on the PS3. Of course they wouldn't be playing against me in any case, but I'd still be interested in the (hopefully hilarious) results.

The Essentials #50: Shadow of the Colossus

2001's ICO was not the best-selling PlayStation 2 title, but the groundbreaking work of interactive art gradually came to define Sony's console as its most critically lauded first-party release. The system had other commercially successful and well-reviewed exclusives, but ICO was the one title that PS2 owners could always point to as a unique experience that could not be found on any past or contemporary machines. So as the PS2 approached the end of its life cycle, fans were eager to see what else Team Ico and director Fumito Ueda could give them. In 2005, the answer arrived in the form of Shadow of the Colossus (known in Japan as Wander and the Colossus), another transcendent game to redefine and essentially close the book on the story of the PS2, much as ICO had begun it.

Bearing more than a few similarities to Ueda's previous game, Shadow of the Colossus again tossed players into the middle of a foreign, seemingly post-human world with little exposition. The protagonist this time was Wander, a young warrior bearing a magical sword. His only living companion in the game's desolate setting would be his horse, Agro. This time around, the girl in the story was already dead before it began, so Wander's quest was not to protect her but to resurrect her. He would attempt this by striking a bargain with a disembodied entity, which would instruct him to slay sixteen colossi spread across the land. That was about all that the player would be told, and then it was off to hunt these behemoths.

Although it contained much more dialogue and also included a traditional heads-up display for gameplay purposes, Shadow of the Colossus was even more minimalist in its narrative than ICO. ICO told the player almost nothing about the characters or the setting, but, while the dreamlike world inspired many questions about the backstory, the action and events within the game were not too hard to follow, and the journey was largely self-contained. Ico and Yorda's partnership was one born out of immediacy. Perhaps they had lives before their meeting in the game, but the pressing concern that they shared, which the player also shared throughout the adventure, was to escape the castle that held them both prisoner.

In Shadow of the Colossus, the player and Wander were clearly not on the same page. For Wander, this was a deeply personal quest, but he would disclose little of what he knew to the player. As a result, the game would not grip the player as tightly, as instead of identifying with Ico, I began initially unable to empathize with Wander's circumstances, and consequently I felt a little lost while having to share in his arbitrarily herculean trials. Nor would there be any developments along the way within the game to really alter the narrative from those beginnings; Wander was basically just repeating the same task over and over, and although there were obviously a finite number of colossi to conquer, there was not much besides the decreasing number itself to indicate a progression. Most likely that was why the developers chose to include some tedious exposition at the beginning of the game. Like the voiceover narration in the theatrical cut of Blade Runner, this text did not feel very native to the whole of the work, which was so deliberately spare in its story, but it may have been necessary because otherwise players would never have had any idea what was happening.


Unlike ICO, which proceeded continuously along a linear path, Shadow of the Colossus was structured almost like an open-world game, although its massive environment offered no quests to undertake, no enemies to slay, other than the sixteen colossi. After every battle, Wander would restart back at the central structure, and his magical sword would emit a beam of light to direct him to his next foe. The sword drew only a straight path, however, offering no guidance as to what turns to take en route, and the crudely drawn in-game map was almost no help. The farther away and more hidden in twisted geography the destination was, the more tiring and aimless a journey could begin to feel. Frankly, this was one of my biggest complaints with the design of the game, as I wasted too many hours just trying to find the next fight. But at its most effective, the design gave the player time to pause and reflect as Agro carried Wander across the expanse.

As in ICO, the ruined yet still magnificent architecture littering the landscape would inspire questions about the world. More than that, while wandering to the next destination, the lengthy breaks between battles would provide time enough to wonder about Wander and his quest. In Gungrave, this was the sort of mandatory interlude that would give way to a revelatory flashback. In lieu of any such cut scenes in Shadow of the Colossus, it was my mind that wandered to consider theories for the backstory. What would motivate a man, armed with almost nothing, to scale these living mountains? This was not about saving the world, or protecting yourself or anyone else, or even pursuing revenge. The colossi were terrifying, but they were not terrorizing the land; it was Wander who would actively seek them out to pick a fight. Why? Of course it was to resurrect the girl, but what was she to him anyway? The game would not tell the player much, so the question eventually turned inward as I asked myself, what would I do it for?

The trial-and-error mechanics of many video games could be reduced to sequences of simple questions, but when I arrived at this one, what astonished me was the realization that I had never asked myself that question before. Other objective-based games would tell me my motivation, and even if it was silly or stupid, I would go along with it. This was clearly a game that needed a motivation but did not supply it, asking instead that the player find one by looking within. So the question became, not what the girl was to Wander, but what she might represent to me. A player who could provide an answer to justify the suicidal mission would quite likely find Wander suddenly a character easier to empathize with and more human than any of the nobler heroes in other games.


Shadow of the Colossus may have been pitched as a game composed only of boss battles, but the battles actually played out as puzzles not altogether unlike those that made up most of ICO. The challenge was never in dodging an enemy's attacks and landing your own, but in figuring out how to get on top of the towering colossus. Once you figured out the tricks, the actual sword action was usually very simple, as you would just stab their weak points until they fell. Seemingly testing your wits and resourcefulness, rather than your manual skill, the best of these were probably the most rewarding boss fights I'd ever experienced.

The problem was that many of the puzzles were highly unintuitive. ICO's puzzles also followed some peculiar logic that drew less from common sense and more from a player's video game experience--blocks are to be pushed, levers pulled, and bombs exploded--but at least both the tools' basic functions and the eventual objective would always be clear, and the fine challenge would be usually in how to properly order or assemble the pieces. At its heart, Shadow of the Colossus relied on even more arcane game logic--if it glows, whack it, or if anything seems otherwise conspicuous, it is probably the key to it all, even if you have no idea why. Thus would I find myself standing on a brown disc in the middle of a dirt field, waiting for something to happen, all the while having no idea what the actual plan was until after the result came to pass. Ueda and his team must have even realized at some point that it was just too esoteric; whereas ICO laid the pieces on the floor and left it to the player's imagination to put them together, Shadow of the Colossus would throw out clues in the form of text messages that would pop up whenever the game sensed that the player was just not getting it. These would range from enigmatic ("The armor it wears seems brittle...") to patronizing ("Grab on to the colossus's tail..."), but, much as the opening exposition seemed a concession to help ground players in a story that left them little to latch onto, these messages were basically an admission that the puzzles were not as elegantly constructed as they ideally might have been for an organic experience.

The puzzle-battles could be frustrating in that way, but the game was more downright infuriating in others. Shadow of the Colossus had many technical glitches that were forgivable because it clearly pushed the PS2 hardware harder than any other game, but it also suffered from more serious shortcomings.

As great an enemy as any of the colossi, the camera would almost always be inadequate to contain all necessary information. Because many of the colossi were so huge that, at close range, they took up most of the frame, it was very difficult to maneuver around them to an advantageous position on the ground. It was simply impossible for the camera to capture both what you were running from and where you were running to, so quite often you would be working with humongous blind spots. A pulled-back camera would have been easier to use, but Ueda and his team must have chosen the closer angle for dramatic effect. All things considered, that probably was the right decision for the sensations they wanted to excite, but sometimes the camera would also just wander for no reason during platforming sections. The recurring example would have me hanging from a ledge, needing to jump off and grab onto an opposing ledge, but, because Shadow of the Colossus employed camera-relative controls, as opposed to an absolute character-relative scheme a la Resident Evil, an unexpected change in camera angle would suddenly alter my jumping angle and cause me to miss my target.

I was also foiled often by the loose controls and physics, which were carried over almost exactly from ICO. Like Ico, Wander moved with very jerky motions, operated with delayed response to button inputs, and could only swim very slowly. But the most annoying thing was that, if he was knocked to the ground, it would take him forever to get back up. And instead of trying to make off with Yorda, the enemies in this game would hang around to target you some more. There was one colossus in particular that was not shy about exploiting this prolonged rising period, and it would repeatedly attack me just as I was getting up, leaving me no chance to do anything about it, until finally I ran out of health and had to start over. That was the sort of cheap that would break me out of the experience and leave me seriously wondering if whatever I was fighting for was worth it.

I suppose I should also discuss the horse mechanics. In Shadow of the Colossus, when you mounted Agro, you did not actually directly control the horse, but rather you continued to control Wander, who attempted to control Agro. There were buttons for acceleration and steering, but these were more like suggestions to the AI Agro, who, while never disobedient, could come to a screeching halt if, for example, you leaned too heavily on the stick to make a turn at high speed. The horse was not useful for much other than getting across the map, and its idiosyncrasies were more bothersome than endearing. It was surprisingly effective in select battles, however, where you could largely let it steer itself while you focused on aiming your bow and arrow.


Back to the game's virtues, the same camera that was so problematic when Wander was on the ground became central to the experience once you managed to get on top of the colossus. As it writhed about to shake you off, and you gripped the R1 button to hang on, just as Wander clutched for dear life to the hairs on the beast's back, the wild swings of the camera to track the violent motions of the living creature that had become the stage itself, along with music that transitioned deftly from ominous to triumphant, and even the game's use of the controller's vibration feature, combined to produce a thrill beyond any before felt in gaming. There was a rarely achieved sense of weight to the action, as the world shook and Wander dangled from one arm, and you realized that this Goliath was resisting just as hard as you had fought to get on it, and whoever survived now depended on who was more determined to defy the other. Then, in that moment when it could shake no more, and you could feel its life as though it were a tangible object in your hands, the feeling of victory was almost godlike. If a player drew nothing else from the experience, this sensation alone made it worth playing Shadow of the Colossus.

ICO was a flawed masterpiece. Shadow of the Colossus, in addition to inheriting most of its predecessor's blemishes, also introduced a large number of new and more serious problems. But there are those exemplary titles that approach perfection in their command of established mechanics, and then there are those that shatter expectations by creating entirely new experiences, and those latter are no less masterpieces despite the roughness that comes with the uncharted. It did not matter ultimately that Shadow of the Colossus did not succeed in all technical aspects, because it showed me things I'd never seen before. The case could certainly be made for it being the PS2's best game.

Why the PSPgo is trash

Yes, the $249.99 price tag is outrageous, and that alone should have rendered the PSPgo stillborn. For comparison, a PSP 3000 retails for $169.99 by itself, or in bundles, usually with a game and Memory Stick, for $199.99. What does the PSPgo offer for that $50-80 premium?

Well, to be fair, the PSPgo package does include everything needed to get a new owner going immediately. The price difference is perhaps attributable to the 16GB of internal flash memory. Weighed against the cost of 16GB worth of Memory Sticks, that's actually not bad, but only because Sony has always sold space at an inflated price by enslaving its devices to its proprietary card format.

Speaking of which, the PSPgo is not even compatible with the old, overpriced Memory Stick Duos used by all previous PSP models. No, now you need Sony's new, overpriced Memory Stick Micro. So any current PSP owners hoping to "upgrade" will have a hell of a time trying to transfer over their old data and downloadables. Never mind the fact that those Memory Stick Duos, which were pretty much only useful for the PSP, would become largely worthless.

Of course Sony made it clear that they were not targeting current owners when they decided, not only to remove the UMD drive, but also to offer consumers no program to transfer over their existing UMD libraries. So, yeah, those few loyal PSP fans who have been steadily building up their UMD collections really have no incentive whatsoever to support this new model, which is essentially a new platform with no backwards compatibility but which, unlike the DSi, also does not offer any new model-specific games.

But what about all those downloadable games, demos, and "Minis" for the PSPgo? Isn't the entire (selling) point of the PSPgo that it runs completely free of physical media? Certainly, most of the press surrounding it has highlighted its importance as the first dedicated gaming platform to operate strictly via digital distribution. I don't doubt that the future is one free of physical media, and I guess some are hoping that, if the PSPgo succeeds, it will bring that future about sooner.

But the thing is that, even if you think you're done with UMDs, you don't actually need a PSPgo to enjoy that digital future. Amid all the hype about the PSP catalog going downloadable on the PSN, what may not be so widely known is the fact that anything you can download to the PSPgo can also be downloaded to any of the old PSP models. So the PSPgo is only removing options, rather than adding any. It's actually closer to the useless Game Boy Micro than to the DSi in how it "improves" upon its predecessor.

In summary, the PSPgo does not support UMDs, does not support Memory Stick Duos, and costs $50-80 more while offering no exclusive content. It's also not compatible with any old-model cables and adapters, instead requiring brand new proprietary USB cable, TV OUT cable, etc. In other words, for current PSP owners, it would be like paying $249.99 to start from scratch. Moreover, combined with the egregious price tag, Sony's failure to offer any upgrader incentive program in the US basically amounts to a slap in the face to any PSP enthusiast who might just have been excited about trading up to the newest tech.

Even for new consumers looking to pick up their first PSP--and there are some good games out there and on the way--my honest recommendation would be to just get a PSP 2000 or 3000, or even consider waiting for a potential 4000, which I don't think is outside the realm of possibility. The PSPgo is smaller and sleeker, yes, and one admittedly cool addition is the Bluetooth connectivity, which allows players to play using their PS3 controllers. But I don't think the advantages come close to outweighing the lethal combination of high price and reduced feature set.

Mistakes Were Made

Previously:

"The Life Vol.2" in NBA 07, a late PS2 release, was much shorter, and the title defense story is never as exciting as the rise up. But the sequel did add an interesting twist by having players alternating between the parallel seasons of The Kid and his nemesis from the first game, "Big W." The rivalry comes to a head in a scenario that pits the two protagonists against one another in a mid-season game. The player plays the first half as The Kid, then switches to Big W to finish things off. The actual execution is kind of disastrous, since players basically end up kicking their own asses, but I know of no other game in any genre that allows players to experience consecutive phases of a single contest from opposing angles.

I have a confession to make: I was inadvertently kind of directly responsible for the disaster that was that episode of "The Life Vol. 2."

To begin with, let me describe how the scenario originally played out, before I meddled with it.

(Note: Although I have a copy of NBA 07, I don't have any save data allowing me to access these stages. After playing it through hundreds of times as a tester, I have no intention of playing it again on my own time. Therefore I am describing the following from memory alone. The details may not be exactly accurate, but the basic idea should hopefully come across fine.)

This showdown between The Kid and Big W actually spanned four consecutive stages. Each episode corresponded to one quarter of the same single NBA game, but the player could save and stop after each, just as with any other self-contained stages.

The first two quarters had you playing as The Kid's team. The first, starting from tip-off, was fairly straightforward. A player skilled enough to have made it that far into the story mode should have been able to meet all of the mission's required statistical goals with time to spare, at which point they would probably just run up the score, draining three-pointers to pass the time against the hopeless AI. The second stage was more of the same.

For the last two stages, the player would switch over to the opposite team to finish the game. The third was a one-play scenario that began players at the final seconds of the third quarter. The fourth was nearly a full quarter (Note: "The Life" ran on five-minute quarters) that required the player, as Big W's team, to win the game by at least six points, in addition to fulfilling other goals.

The issue that I originally observed was that there was no statistical continuity across stages, even though they were all the same game. In other words, even if, at the end of the first quarter, I was leading 50-2, the second stage would begin with a preset score that was closer to 21-23 (again, I don't remember the exact numbers). The minor issue did not detract from the playability, but it clearly made no sense and was therefore a bug.

I submitted a report on it, which was all I could do. Indeed, one of the more frustratingly unfounded accusations that reviewers often make is that a buggy game must not have been thoroughly tested. The reality is that testers can only find and document the bugs. It's up to the programmers how to fix them, or to the producers whether to even bother. In the case of this minor NBA 07 issue, they did address it, but the fix ended up more problematic by far than the original bug.

In the finished version of the game, the score did carry over from the first stage to the second, the second to the third, and the third to the fourth. But remember how I mentioned that the first two scenarios left the player ample time to establish a huge lead with The Kid? Well, now that huge lead carried over to the third stage, and in the fourth it became the unknowingly self-inflicted deficit that the player would have to overcome in order to win as Big W.

Theoretically, this could be a truly heinous, game-stopping defect. If the player had played their absolute best during the first two stages, then the fourth quarter would have been more than just a surprising challenge; the game would have become impossible, because stage four would have required them to be six points better than their best, in about half the time.

In practice, it was a major enough issue that the episode was specifically described in Aaron Thomas's even-handed review for GameSpot:

By far the biggest problem, and the only one likely to keep you from seeing the story all the way through, is the uneven difficulty. Some challenges are quick and a piece of cake, while others are lengthy and involve multiple challenging goals. One in particular gives you 4:51 to complete four dynamic goals, make 10 shots with Big W, and limit the opposing small forward to two field goals. You also have to win the game by at least six points, which means you'll need to outscore the other team by 18 points in that time span. Some challenges ask you if you want to temporarily drop down to easy if you fail repeatedly, but after failing over and over for 30 minutes in the case above, the game never offered any sort of mercy.

There was no scenario in NBA 07 that explicitly required the player to come back from a twelve-point deficit to then win by six. It's apparent that Thomas did not know know why he started that stage so far behind. Therein lay the true deviousness of it all. Unless the player were paying the same careful attention to statistical continuity as I had as a tester, chances were that they would never realize that they were burying themselves in those first two stages as The Kid. Because each of the four quarters was its own short scenario, because most scenarios were self-contained with predetermined scores to work from, and because most were easy enough that players hardly had to keep track of team scores, the average player would not have been conditioned to even consider that they had done this to themselves. They would have just thought, as Thomas did, that it was a particularly unreasonable mission.

Since a tester's work is ordinarily the stuff that you don't see when playing a finished title, I have to admit it was oddly gratifying to have something I was responsible for, albeit inadvertently and not proudly, mentioned so specifically in a published review. But this was probably a case where I would have done my job better by keeping quiet, where playability would have been better served by suspending logic. Of course, even if I hadn't pointed it out, I'm sure some young go-getter colleague would have noticed it eventually.

Furthermore, in my defense, there was actually one more bug contributing to the nightmare in the "fixed" game, which, had it been addressed, might have solved everything. Astute readers may already have spotted it.

Remember that the third stage actually only covers the final play of the third quarter. Yet the score at the beginning of the third stage is the exact score carried over from the end of stage two. In other words, neither team scores a single basket during the third quarter, up until the final play, which is the only part that the player plays. Even if both teams were putting up the most tenacious defense and deficient offense of all time, that's nearly a statistical impossibility. Yes, I wrote up this bug too, but, alas, there would be no fix this time.

The proper fix should have carried over the score from stage one to stage two, but then taken advantage of the elapsed "missing" time in the third quarter to balance things out in advance for the fourth stage. The programmers should have set it to automatically add twenty points to The Kid's score while boosting Big W's to, say, six points behind whatever that would be. So if the second quarter had ended with The Kid leading 86-12, the third stage would have begun at 106-100. Would it have been reasonable for Big W's team to have scored 88 points in under five minutes? No, but I don't think even I would have submitted that one as a bug.

"Happiness Is a Warm Gun"

Speaking of Beatles: Rock Band, in the Game Informer cover story a few months back, there was a short interview with Yoko Ono, wherein she promoted the game while also briefly addressing the "games as art" question:

Well, I think it is definitely an art form, but also--like all art forms now, it's going toward a very violent direction, you know? So this venture, doing it all with the Beatles, is really beautiful, because it's not that direction at all; it's to just enjoy music, and to learn about music.

I certainly didn't need Yoko Ono to alert me to the violence that pervades gaming, but it's a good time anyway to bring it up again. The depressing reality is that, if, as a budding patron of the interactive art, you wish to explore the medium beyond the casual fare, you will come up against a "core" gaming library built predominantly on violent themes. Sports/racing is a distant second, and there is little else of quality out there to scratch any other emotional itches.

Like everyone else, I have ideas for filling that void. But I'm not a game designer, so I'll start for now by just pointing to a few examples of existing good, fulfilling titles that are neither violent nor casual experiences.

Along the same music game lines as Beatles: Rock Band, the first compelling non-violent video game that comes to mind is iNiS's Ouendan series for the Nintendo DS. The stylus-based gameplay is not radically different from other rhythm game titles. What sets Ouendan apart is the story that goes on behind the timed tapping.

The premise has the player commanding a Japanese cheer squad that responds to the cries for help of citizens facing challenging life situations. For example, one mission sees a restaurateur desperate to attract business, while another has a student struggling to get ready for exams, and yet another has a young man predictably trying to win the heart of the girl he adores. In each case, the Ouendan team arrives to encourage them through their difficulties, and as the player performs successfully, the short stories likewise develop to show the characters bearing down with increasing confidence to realize their goals. Some of the episodes involve conflict, but the others are no less rewarding. Thanks to the emphatic art and well-matched song selections, it's almost always inspiring to feel your cheers motivating these people to happy endings, no matter the obstacle.

Ouendan unfortunately remains Japan-exclusive, but iNiS also developed Elite Beat Agents, a version of Ouendan localized for American audiences. I don't like it quite as much because it strips out all the "Japanese-ness" that is so much of Ouendan's charm, but it's the same basic idea.

Actually, many of the Japanese music games (e.g. PaRappa the Rapper, Space Channel 5, Gitaroo Man) have tied the rhythm gameplay to light narratives, recognizing that the music-playing need not be an end unto itself. It's a shame that, between its twelve or so Guitar Hero releases a year, Activision can't find time to even try for anything of the sort, especially considering it was the fantastic ad for Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360 that really opened my mind to these possibilities that the games themselves have failed to run with.

Moving on to something completely different now, it's about time somebody gave some props to Sony's series of NBA games featuring "The Life." Full disclosure: I worked on NBA 06 and 07 for the PS2. But I worked on them as a tester, playing them twelve hours a day for weeks straight, which should give me every reason to hate them more than the average consumer.

To be sure, these were some severely flawed basketball video games. The gameplay, fundamentally broken, made for neither a competent simulation nor a fun game besides. Seriously, my 16-bit NBA Live '96 was more playable AND more realistic. Hell, even NBA Jam adhered better to certain vital rules, such as the goaltending violation. NBA 06 didn't allow goaltending, but instead of actually programming in the call and penalty, the developers simply made it so that the game rendered intangible any hands that would try to get between the basket and the ball on its way down. That's some of the jankiest workaround BS I've ever seen. There were other blatant cheats too, like how the game would magically teleport your players back to your end after every basket you made, because it didn't know how else to keep you from stealing the brain-dead AI's inbound pass. So, yeah, it was a pretty awful basketball game. Yet it should not simply be dismissed, because it did include one mode that presented the sports video game in a whole new way.

"The Life" was a revolution that sadly nobody noticed. More critically acclaimed sports titles, such as MLB 07: The Show and NHL 09, have drawn praise recently for their "Road to the Show" and "Be a Pro" modes, which allow players to embark on personal virtual careers, starting as rookies and slowly working their way up the ranks eventually to land in the Hall of Fame. It can add a more personal level of investment to play as your own virtual self, instead of controlling an entire team as both talent and management. But these are still modes based around statistics rather than narrative, and they ultimately do not offer much different from the standard season and franchise modes. Whereas "Be a Pro" simulates the grind of a professional sports career, NBA 06's "The Life" treats players to the glamor of superstardom.

The mode is actually a scripted drama, casting players in the role of a thirsty young point guard nicknamed "The Kid." The story follows him through his first NBA season, from the life-changing draft out of junior college to the NBA Finals. Along the way, cut scenes depict his volatile relationships with his teammates, his coach, his rival, his agent, and the press. Licensing and marketing keep the plot from getting into the really dirty stuff that everybody knows exists in pro sports, but it's not entirely a fluff story for kids either. It's a mostly sober tale of a young star nearly overwhelmed by the too sudden transition from the streets to the show. There's even some enlightening discussion of the "Q score" that is so much the concern of agents.

On the gameplay side, "The Life" gives players a series of objectives besides just winning, but, instead of being randomly generated like in "Road to the Show," these too follow a script. Rather than play season after season, the player progresses through a linear series of episodes not unlike the traditional single-player modes of other genres. Instead of full regulation games, most stages are mid-game scenarios that require fulfilling certain conditions to pass (e.g. "Score the game-winning basket with your point guard"). These are usually tied to the story and meaningfully integrated with the narrative. For example, when The Kid wants to establish himself early on as the franchise player, the goals involve hogging the ball to score tons of baskets. Then, after he realizes that he cannot win by himself and must repair relations with his teammates, the objective becomes to dish more assists.

"The Life Vol.2" in NBA 07, a late PS2 release, was much shorter, and the title defense story is never as exciting as the rise up. But the sequel did add an interesting twist by having players alternating between the parallel seasons of The Kid and his nemesis from the first game, "Big W." The rivalry comes to a head in a scenario that pits the two protagonists against one another in a mid-season game. The player plays the first half as The Kid, then switches to Big W to finish things off. The actual execution is kind of disastrous, since players basically end up kicking their own asses, but I know of no other game in any genre that allows players to experience consecutive phases of a single contest from opposing angles.

The biggest problem with "The Life" was that it didn't really play to NBA 06's audience. The divide between those who play sports games and those who do not grows increasingly pronounced. The idea of a cut scene-heavy story mode centering around fictional characters would probably sound preposterous to a sports maniac in search of a simulation with solid mechanics and stat-tracking, while those not interested in sports games would likely still not care. To be honest, even I haven't personally pursued the series beyond the two installments that I got paid to play.

For those who did pick up a copy of 06 or 07, the frustratingly flawed basic gameplay and severe lack of polish probably kept "The Life" from being an altogether enjoyable experience, but the concept was good and fresh. It not only provided a new way to experience sports in gaming, but it featured a story that was roughly equal in length and depth to most action games. Admittedly, that isn't saying much, and, no, it definitely wasn't brilliant writing, but, at the very least, it showed the potential for interactive narratives to be fulfilling without relying on violence.

We as human beings are so much more than just destructive beasts. It shouldn't be that hard to construct a thoughtful and engaging interactive experience that appeals to any of those other aspects of who we are. In fact, in the cases of Ouendan and "The Life," these are both games that basically just add goals and context to existing genres and mechanics. Yet these are badly outnumbered by the Guitar Hero and Madden releases that, while perhaps fun, are decidedly not art. Truthfully, the problem, as I see it, is not so much that the violent games should be less violent, but that the non-violent games are usually even less ambitious.

* * * * *

But the issue becomes further complicated when you consider the recent story of the Karmapa Lama playing violent video games as a way to satiate aggressive feelings. It has often been the not altogether convincing defense of game violence that, by satisfying their violent impulses virtually, players are able to forgo having to express them in real life.

That's all well and good, but I think it indirectly raises concerns about what we get out of our non-violent gaming pursuits. Does playing Rock Band lessen one's ambition to play a real instrument? Does playing sports video games dampen our drive to become real athletes? The number of NFL players who grew up playing Madden would seem to indicate otherwise, but then where does that leave the Karmapa Lama's argument? Realistically, I'm sure that music, sports, and war are probably all different enough to preclude a universal answer.

But I wonder how a video game might capture the concept of "love." Then my mind turns to dating sims. Although prevalent in Japan, serious gamers in the West generally look down upon the genre as one of the lowest forms of gaming. Often nearly devoid of gameplay, these are basically interactive novels of wish fulfillment fantasy, and many veer into erotic territory. If people are playing these as a substitute for real love, then maybe it would be better for us all if gaming were to avoid trying to tackle certain aspects of life.

E3 '09 Announcements

Quite an exciting E3 this year, and it's just in time, because, with no new Metal Gear or Resident Evil to look forward to, my "anticipated games" list was looking pretty lean. There were still big titles like Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, and God of War III on the schedule, but, for me, the only must-play was Bayonetta.

The biggest actual news may have been on the hardware side. With Microsoft and Sony both taking up the motion control gauntlet, we may be on the cusp of that major shift in gaming first heralded by the Wii. At the very least, it would seem to signify a new phase for this hardware generation.

At the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Activision's insane peripheral-filled future, Microsoft's controller-free 3-D motion camera technology sounds extremely ambitious, but I'll need to see some real games before I get too excited. The "sleek" video reel looked like any old EyeToy commercial, and the less said about Peter Molyneaux's creepy boy version of a Nintendog, the better.

Nowhere near as sci-fi as Microsoft's promises, Sony's wand looks like a cheap toy by comparison. It's basically EyeToy crossed with Wii MotionPlus. Sony's live demonstration was at least more convincing than Microsoft's pre-recorded video, but they were still basically showing off lame EyeToy demos for the casual crowd.

New 2-D Mario! On console! Four players! To be honest, I think I've played more Mario Party titles than straight Mario platformers in the last ten years, but I'll definitely be getting this. It first of all reminds me of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, one of my favorite cooperative games of all time. Not only that, but the deeper I got into multiplayer LittleBigPlanet, the more I wondered how much better a four-player Mario game would have been. Now if only they'd gone ahead and called it "Super Mario Bros. 4"...

Nearly as cool is a brand new Metroid developed by the post-Itagaki Team Ninja. As may be expected from the Ninja Gaiden Sigma team, the trailer is full of frenetic action, but there is some concern that it might lose the traditional adventure elements. Still, it's a fresh take on a series that has shown remarkable flexibility in recent years. Between this, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, this is the most excited I've been about the Wii since it launched.

Final Fantasy XIV! Aaaaaand it's a MMORPG. Worst. Megaton. Ever.

Team ICO finally unveils its next project, The Last Guardian, although the reveal was ruined by the recently leaked "Project Trico" video. Though the leaked footage was supposed to be old and outdated, the debut trailer is just a cleaned up version of the same material. It looks a lot like ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. Not altogether surprising right now, but it'll probably still end up becoming the PS3's greatest game.

Speaking of which, given how well Guns of the Patriots wrapped things up, I had kind of been hoping that the next Metal Gear might wipe the slate clean, and, as much as I personally reveled in Kojima's peculiarities, there was unquestionably a lot of room for cleaning up. I had pictured a reboot a la the new Star Trek movie--something that would adapt the rough characters and concepts without being chained to Kojima's polarizing style. But then I considered that a reboot would be too easy. In Solid Snake, Kojima gave us a hero that actually aged, and, even if that character is done, it may be worth keeping that universe alive to continue pushing both its creators and its audience in new directions. Thus, although Solid Snake's story may be over, Raiden will be taking over on console, while Big Boss is back on the PSP.

Sadly, no show-stealing trailer this time for Metal Gear Solid: Rising. The only notable news right now is that it's going to be cross-platform. Funny, however, that it was announced during Microsoft's press conference, but was a no-show at Sony's, even though it's supposed to be coming out on both 360 and PS3. It's crazy that, in this age of such catalog parity, Microsoft and Sony must compete for exclusive presentations of non-exclusive titles.

Surely the more imminent release, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was the one shown off this E3. As always with Kojima Productions, it's a spectacularly produced trailer, but the game itself is obviously not as exciting as a full-fledged console Metal Gear. I also wonder how consequential this "missing link" story will feel, after Guns of the Patriots gave us a pretty complete picture of Big Boss's entire character arc. On the other hand, I would really like to hear another side of that story...

For me, the most exciting reveal of the show by far was Konami's Lords of Shadow. Based just on the snippets from the trailer, which I've watched about a dozen times, it already looks like a top-tier Devil May Cry clone. Add in the Castlevania name and Hideo Kojima's involvement, however, and this instantly shoots ahead of Bayonetta as my most anticipated title.

Coming from Madrid-based MercurySteam, in association with Kojima Productions, this should be the game to finally restore the series to relevance and establish it alongside Metal Gear as a premier property for Konami. The budget is clearly far beyond any previous installment, and, while it's still early, the production looks to be up there with the best in the genre, including Bayonetta and God of War III. This is hardly Patrick Stewart's first video game work, but his narration nonetheless lends the trailer a level of class well above the admittedly juvenile tones of Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, and Bayonetta. The video exhibits a dramatic maturity beyond those games or any previous Castlevania titles.

This may be the biggest Castlevania since Symphony of the Night. But is it really Castlevania? Metroid: Other M looks to be treading unfamiliar territory for that series, but this is even further removed from everything we know about Castlevania. Indeed, Lords of Shadow was actually already shown last year as a new IP for Konami, and it feels like the Castlevania branding was a very recent addition to the project. I mean, literally, it's as if they already had the trailer done, and, then, at the last minute, they went back and simply slapped the Castlevania name on the logo. Aside from the broadly similar Gothic milieu, the only thing linking Lords of Shadow to past games is the whip, granted that's a significant detail. There are no sub-weapons to be seen, no platforming, no Ayami Kojima art or Michiru Yamane music. The trailer makes no mention even of Dracula or other vampires. I'm willing to accept a break from most of those things, because, honestly, I don't think the old Castlevania universe had any potential left for an A-list production.

The big question raised, of course, is where this leaves Koji Igarashi and the new Alucard game teased less than a year ago. On IGA's watch, Castlevania was one of Konami's more prolific and reliable franchises, but it seemed to have plateaued as a 2-D game relegated to handhelds, while the series struggled any time it tried to extend onto console, Castlevania Judgment being a particular low point. Still, everybody loves IGA, and I personally own copies of all his Castlevania titles, including Judgment. Though eccentric in appearance, he's always struck me as the most affable of the Japanese industry personalities. I would hate to see him go the way of Team Silent, unceremoniously replaced by an outside studio. If Square-Enix can have five different teams developing Final Fantasy, I don't see why there can't be two Castlevania series running at the same time, and that's what I'm hoping is going on. Maybe IGA will continue old Castlevania as the "Dracula" series.

Getting my money's worth (or "Free PSN stuff!")

First up is Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic, a downloadable title normally $9.99, now free for a week courtesy of Sprint. Playing this dreck, I think I have a better idea now of the dilemma that reviewers must go through when they receive free goods from publishers. Knowing that I'm giving the developers nothing back for this free game, I feel bad now for calling it wretchedly awful, which it is. Just imagine an extremely limited Smash Bros. knockoff with none of the characters nor any of the other appealing qualities of Nintendo's game. My amusement with it didn't last even as long as the load times, let alone the seven minutes spent downloading it.

Moving on, Sony is giving away "Chamber" apartments (a $4.99 value) in the PlayStation Home beta. I had had zero interest in Home before this, but the enticement of limited-time free stuff finally encouraged me to check it out. What I found was a stripped-down and charmless version of Animal Crossing that involves spending real money. While the graphics are impressive for a project that Sony itself seemingly lost all faith in midway through development, there's nothing to do in this virtual world but dance in place, rearrange my default furniture, and admire my Chris Redfield ornament. Why can't I at least display my trophy collection? I wish it had been better integrated--more like the Nintendo Miis or Xbox 360 Avatars--as a part of the PS3 front-end. As it is, I don't see myself spending a lot of time in here.

Finally, Capcom has temporarily slashed the price of Bionic Commando Rearmed to $4.99 to coincide with the release of the new retail PS3/360 game. While the demo had seemed a little beyond my abilities, this is just the right price to finally get me on board.

All these deals are supposed to be active until tomorrow (May 21), so get them now if you're interested.

The Essentials #29: Syphon Filter

Syphon Filter was one of the few games I ever purchased based on having played the demo. I do believe that demo was my first exposure to non-platforming third-person action in the 3-D era, and the experience was pretty startling.

Developed by Eidetic and published by Sony Computer Entertainment America's 989 Studios division as a first-party title for the Sony PlayStation in 1999, Syphon Filter was probably the premier third-person shooter of its generation. Releasing a few months after Konami's Metal Gear Solid for the same platform, comparisons to Hideo Kojima's seminal stealth action game were unavoidable, but, in practice, the two differed significantly in design and interface. Syphon Filter, more inspired by GoldenEye 007's varied mission-based action gameplay, crossed with Tomb Raider's behind-the-back perspective, may itself have been the more direct precursor to such later titles as Hitman and Splinter Cell, albeit its emphasis was much more on the shooting.

Like GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64, Syphon Filter was predominantly a shooter that also integrated secondary stealth elements within a mission-based structure. More moderately paced than older shooters, it placed players in realistic environments, also giving them mostly real-world firearms to take on such varied objectives as rescuing hostages or locating and disarming bombs. Enemies would often start out unaware of the player character's position, and weapons like the silenced handgun or the sniper rifle allowed you to proceed strategically while avoiding direct firefights. Some stages even required a more cautious approach.

One memorable mission asked the player to shadow someone without alerting him or any of his guards to your presence. While tailing him, you could not avoid having to kill every guard that would pop out suddenly on the trail between you and him, and it would have to be all headshots as well, since you couldn't allow their screams to alert those ahead of them. Looking back, that was some pretty laborious trial-and-error design with a viciously slim margin for error, but, at the time, I just figured that was what it really took to be an elite agent.

In an age before dual-analog controls, aiming in the 3-D environment relied on an auto-target button to lock onto enemy bodies. Injecting an element of realism, players could, as mentioned, take out enemies in one shot by going for the head, and, to pull off these precision shots, you needed to switch to a first-person manual aim mode that traded character movement for accurate aiming. Helpfully, the text "Head Shot" would pop up to let you know when you had the shot lined up. And you would need to learn to manually aim too, because, midway through the operation, flak jackets would become standard issue on enemies. On the bright side, unlike bosses in other games, even most "name" enemies in Syphon Filter could be taken out with a single shot to the head.

The game was overall perhaps not as accomplished or influential as Rare's game, but it may have been the closest thing on the PS1, and the third-person perspective likely gave it an advantage over GoldenEye 007 in one area, namely character.

The Hollywood-level script cast players in the role of government super-agent Gabe Logan, a veritable one-man army assigned to take down an international terrorist organization developing a deadly new biological weapon called "Syphon Filter." Not exactly high art, but it was fairly riveting action thriller material that, in all honestly, would adapt far more easily to the big screen than something like Metal Gear Solid. Gabe himself was not as vulnerably human as a Solid Snake, but he was a practical and effective agent, who was cool yet believable in an action hero kind of way.


One of the best things about Syphon Filter was Gabe's massive arsenal, which included handguns, submachine guns, assault rifles, shotgun, nightvision sniper rifle, and stealth-kill gas grenades. The most awesome weapon by far, however, was actually the ammo-conserving option. Instead of the standard knife, Gabe packed a taser. To use it, you would hold down the fire button to continuously shock the enemy. After a few jolts, they would be stunned and disabled, but if you chose to continue tasing them, they would eventually start to scream as they burst into flames, only dropping dead when you finally let up. During the early missions, enemies were such horrible shots that you could stand still while auto-targeting and igniting one foe after another. Looking back, I can't believe this was a T-rated game, but I suppose standards were different.

In many ways, it was a game ahead of its time. Although it came out after the debut of Sony's DualShock pad, it was still too early for titles to be requiring the new controller, so Syphon Filter just used the left analog as an alternative to the directional pad. The notion of controlling a shooter using just the left stick, much less the D-pad, would today sound ridiculous. It would have benefited greatly from dual-stick controls, analog walk/run, and a cover system, but what was there still made for the most realistic action game I'd yet played.

But, really, the only reason Syphon Filter makes my list now is because of one unforgettable mission midway through the game.

As the mission begins, Gabe's superior officer, Director Markinson, orders him to infiltrate an enemy stronghold where scientists are experimenting on test subjects with the Syphon Filter virus. Included among Gabe's objectives is the order to execute all of the scientists.

Now, anyone who had been paying attention to the crude pre-rendered cut scenes should have realized by now that Markinson was clearly a bad guy, his orders evil. If his clandestine conversations with mysterious shadow figures hadn't already tipped you off, this mission should have at least prompted some questions.

The player's first encounter with a scientist would make clear that they were not dangerous enemy combatants like all the other guys Gabe had no choice but to take out. A few of the scientists would actually be armed, but most would just attempt to flee, and if you chased them down, they would get on their knees, hands behind their heads, and literally beg for your mercy. This awe-inspiring sensation of godlike power over whether these miserable humans lived or died was something new. Always playing the hero, I had never perceived any sort of moral ambiguity in my slaughter of thousands of enemies across all the video games I'd played up to that point. But, whatever was supposedly at stake, I didn't feel right killing unarmed men offering no resistance, especially since Markinson had already given me reason to question his wholly unsatisfactory explanations. It didn't help that the normally sharp personality of Gabe Logan would take a holiday during these sections, offering neither justification nor objection, as he left the dirty business entirely in my hands.


Ultimately, faced with that sort of overwhelming power and responsibility, I chose, naturally, to tase them all to death. Moreover, I figured I might as well make the best of their lack of resistance. I would pull back just before they ignited, listen to them beg a little more, repeat the process a couple more times, and then finally grant them peace by letting their bodies combust in blood-curdling screams once and for all.

Okay, so maybe I didn't feel all that badly about it. But it was a required mission objective, and, no matter how I felt about it, it was not possible to finish the stage without eliminating every last one of them. Perhaps I could have offed them in less spectacular fashion, but, once it was established that my feelings made no difference, my gamer instincts kicked back in, and I resolved to proceed in the most entertaining way while expending the least ammo.

Looking back, a lot of critics might justifiably question the effectiveness of those moments. What was the point, after all, of making the player feel bad about actions that the game forced them to take? Without choice, one might argue, there could be neither blame nor consequence. Then again, is it so unrealistic to agonize over a decision, even knowing full well that, in the end, there is only one path that must be taken? In the case of Syphon Filter, it was not how one acted that mattered, but that the player was made to understand the gravity of those actions. In making me consider those questions for the first time in a video game, it earned its place as an important chapter in my gaming history.

LittleBigPlanet

I picked up LittleBigPlanet shortly after its release, and, prior to that, I had been highly anticipating it, despite the fact that I hadn't really bothered with a platformer since the 16-bit days. But platformers with simultaneous play for even two players are exceedingly rare, and the idea of a four-player 2-D platformer was irresistible. The user-generated content aspect also appealed to me, although I probably already knew that I wouldn't be motivated enough to build levels of my own, unless the system was extremely easy to use. Unfortunately, playing the game, I've found that it has some serious intrinsic flaws that have made it a real slog to get through, and now, months later, I still have yet to finish the story mode, let alone find time to explore the level creation process.

To start with, as a platformer, it's honestly not that great. It has great moments, such as an early puzzle where my fellow Sackboys and I had to load up a box with weights in order to tip it over to operate a pulley, or a sequence where we had to frantically run Indiana Jones-style from a rolling object demolishing everything in its path, but those moments have become increasingly few and far between as I've progressed. The game also becomes surprisingly difficult in its later stages, usually due to an overabundance of high-speed kill mechanisms. Even when they work, the many "snake wheels" randomly strewn about everywhere are merely mildly thrilling, rather than legitimately inspired. The sheer maddening nature of some of the level design can produce occasional unintended laughs when playing with other people, after everybody has been utterly shattered to the point that the frustration simply exhausts itself and it all becomes just a joke, but I'd frankly rather have a game that is fun to play.

Much of the difficulty arises from the game just not feeling as a good platformer should. Despite surface appearances, it's not a 2-D game. Nor is it 3-D. It's an extremely janky 2.5-D, using a Fatal Fury-style multi-plane system, but without any dedicated button to transition between the three planes. Instead, shifting is handled manually by pressing up and down on the analog stick, or, more often, occurs when an obstacle or just the stage structure automatically pushes the player character into a different plane. The system is unintuitive, with characters often shifting unintentionally and even unnoticed, and, more importantly, it does nothing to enhance the platforming experience, rather making basic movement awkward and clumsy when you find yourself unexpectedly on the wrong plane. It's just a needless complication that seems implemented to distinguish the game from Super Mario Bros., to its own detriment. The physics and collision are also touchy and overdone, introducing too many minute holes in the environment. I constantly find myself getting stuck inside walls and objects, where, after minutes of struggling to no avail, the only solution seems to be to resort to the suicide function, allowing my stuck Sackboy to reset to the last checkpoint, assuming my team hasn't already spent all my limited respawns. Such a lazily implemented "fix" might be acceptable in the untameably massive 3-D environment of a fast-moving downhill snowboarding game like SSX, but, in LittleBigPlanet, it's far too often a cheap way for the developers to turn the other way from what would otherwise be obvious progression-halting bugs.

As for the user-generated content, the level editor quickly overwhelmed me, but the stages uploaded by others provided some amusement early on. Unfortunately, it doesn't take all that long to check out all the worthwhile creations, and the influx of new good material has slowed considerably since the early days. I recently checked out the "LittleBigContra" project that is currently getting so much buzz around the community. The obvious effort and ingenuity merits the acclaim, and I was immediately astonished by the incomprehensibly faithful reproduction of even the title screen of Contra. But I ended up admiring the work far more than I enjoyed playing the stages, which felt like playing the actual Contra, already a very difficult game, but without any of the sharp controls of that game. A common theme, in fact, among the user-created levels seems to be a determination to punish players with the most sadistic setups possible, as if the ability to play or design a ruthlessly difficult stage were some proof of one's manhood. I wouldn't classify LittleBigContra in that category, as it's merely bound by its commitment to faithfulness, but, all the same, the user-generated levels are not a good place to turn for an escape from the already frustrating story mode.

On the bright side, I may not be a fan of the game's British charm, but Sackboy himself is exactly the cute mascot character to give the Sony PlayStation brand a face. And while multiple players can sometimes make the platforming more complicated and deadly, it's still great to be able to play a platformer with other people. Despite my complaints, I like the idea of LittleBigPlanet. I just wish it were paired with a better platforming engine.

The Essentials #10: ICO

Released in 2001, Sony Computer Entertainment's ICO may have been the PlayStation 2's first must-play title. Designed by Fumito Ueda, who emerged seemingly out of nowhere to become one of the PlayStation brand's greatest assets, the game was ostensibly a 3-D platformer with puzzle elements, but its brilliant artistic direction and groundbreaking design transcended any genre designation.

Players took control of Ico, the titular young boy with horns, who, at the tale's beginning, finds himself escorted, a prisoner, to an isolated fortress, where faceless horsemen seal him in a crypt, apparently as a sacrifice. Through a mixture of sheer will and panic, Ico manages to break out of the crypt, only to find himself completely alone in the abandoned and alien structure. The game hands control to the player at this point, and, lost and confused as Ico himself is, the player wanders directionless before happening upon the sight of a beautiful girl trapped in a cage.

The girl's name is Yorda, and, though herself a prisoner, the ethereal maiden shines like a beacon of hope to the young boy, who does not hesitate in freeing her from her cage. He attempts to communicate with her, but finds that she speaks a language completely foreign to him. Her mournful expression, however, conveys a longing for the life that they have both been heretofore denied. And so he takes her hand in a gesture that transcends any dialogue, ultimately defining both the characters' bond and the title itself. Thus begins the pair's unlikely quest for freedom.


That was the premise for ICO, and that singular objective would drive the game from beginning to end. Taking command of Ico, and leading Yorda by the hand, the player would navigate the labyrinthine fortress, one room at a time, improvising paths as necessary on the journey to escape for the both of them, while fending off the ominous shadow creatures that would periodically emerge to try and abduct Yorda.

There was actually far more plot in the instruction manual than in the game itself, which would tell the player almost nothing through its roughly five hours of play. But ICO was a minimalist experience by design, and the less-is-more approach served to make it one of the most immersive video games ever. The limited dialogue invited players to construct their own narratives out of the bits and pieces of story suggested by the ancient and extravagant architecture. Featuring little in the way of actual music, the ambient soundtrack captured all the subtleties of the breeze and the birds. There was no heads-up display, but the game was not hiding any information, because Ico had no health meter and could only die by falling from a great height.

ICO's single greatest achievement may have been Yorda herself. She was not the first AI companion in a video game. She certainly wasn't the most helpful; some of the puzzles required her assistance, but it was more often the case that the puzzle itself would lie in trying to transport her past an obstacle that she could not physically surmount as easily as the more athletic Ico. She perhaps did not have as much in the way of personality as other characters; she didn't say or do much, after all. But no video game character before her ever seemed so convincingly alive. As with the narrative, precisely because Yorda was such a mystery, it was very easy to project a backstory and personality onto her. That is not to say that Yorda was devoid of character. In one of gaming's most nearly perfect moments, Yorda, eying a peaceful courtyard, races ahead of Ico with surprising energy. As she then wanders by herself, marveling at her surroundings, one might pause to observe her subtle hand gestures, the tilt of her head as she takes in the scenery, and her tendency to follow stray birds.


But, more than anything, what gave Yorda life was the relationship that the game silently forced the player to develop with her. Gaming is perhaps at its best when the game manipulates the player, rather than the other way around, and, in that regard, ICO was a masterwork. While most games before and after featured gameplay based around engaging our violent tendencies as human beings, ICO tapped into a different instinct: the instinct to protect. When the shadow creatures attacked, just as Ico did not hesitate in freeing Yorda, neither would the player hesitate to rush to the defense of this mysterious girl, about whom the player knew virtually nothing. There was no visceral thrill to be derived from the fighting itself. Combat was clumsy and limited. Rather, each encounter with the enemy was a desperate struggle to defend Yorda against those who would seek to abduct her. And, each time you managed to stave them off, it was a tremendous relief, and you hoped that they would not trouble her again--a far cry from other games, where combat would be the entire point.

While ICO was surely a title worthy of being described as a work of art, that did not make it any less a game, and the puzzle and platforming mechanics deserved high praise. The solution to every puzzle was readily visible in the form of a nearby lever, bomb, or movable cube. It would then be just a matter of managing the somewhat awkward physics to achieve the goal. For players who preferred to be challenged, ICO may have been on the easy side, but the game was designed to push ordinary players without ever frustrating them to the point of giving up and resorting to outside assistance. While it would have been impossible to balance the game for players of all levels, I found it to be just right. Many of the puzzles were also multi-part affairs, but could be approached one step at a time, allowing them to be complex without being convoluted. Even if it wasn't extraordinarily challenging, I still managed to derive great satisfaction each time from seeing it all come together, knowing that I did it on my own.

ICO was released in North America first, and it may have been rushed to market to beat heavy hitters like Devil May Cry, Grand Theft Auto III, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Final Fantasy X, as well as the launches of the GameCube and Xbox, all of which came out later that same year. The North American edition was not only afflicted with godawful cover art, as opposed to the Japanese and European editions' quaintly surreal art drawn by Ueda himself, it also lacked all of the unlockable features that were added into those releases. Among these additions were an alternate gag ending, a hidden lightsaber weapon, translated subtitles for Yorda, and the option for a second player to control Yorda. Some nifty bonuses there, but none of them essential, and I actually have mixed feelings about those last two.

While I'll admit to being curious about what Yorda was actually saying throughout the game, it was obviously a very deliberate design choice to not translate her dialogue in the first place, and I would say that that decision was correct and highly successful, as it kept the relationship centered around the hand-holding, rather than any speech that the player would be unable to engage in.

As for the multiplayer mode, first of all, I can't imagine the game would be much fun for the second player, who would have basically no abilities and be extremely reliant upon the player controlling Ico. Also, the game would still have to focus first on Ico, and there would be many occasions where Yorda wouldn't even be able to follow him into the immediate area. More importantly, the bond that the player forms with the AI Yorda was one of the most fundamental aspects of the experience. Having a second player take control of Yorda would completely alter that dynamic, and, while having a human partner without the constant need for direction would likely make things proceed more quickly, it would also make for a far less remarkable experience, hence why I insist that two players is not always better than one.

ICO was not a perfect game. The controls were jerky, the AI-controlled camera not always helpful, and the game's heavy use of bloom lighting, though striking, could be tiring on the eyes after extended sessions. But it was one of the first great games of its generation, and it remains one of the greatest testaments to the emotional power of video games. There have been few films or novels that have managed to make me value so deeply the life of a fictional character, and the interactive dimension of the medium was an essential component in forming that relationship.

Recent PS3 demos

Fracture
The terrain manipulation mechanic is actually a pretty cool gimmick. While it's mainly used for creating pathways where instructed, some more interesting applications during combat include raising terrain to create cover or, better yet, sending an unsuspecting enemy soldier flying when the ground beneath them pops up suddenly. By all accounts, however, the game's use of the mechanic doesn't get much more varied or imaginative, leaving just the generic shooting action to fill out the experience. The game would have been better off focusing entirely around the terrain guns. As it stands, this game is already mostly forgotten.

Valkyria Chronicles
The visual style is stunning, of course, and composer Hitoshi Sakimoto is in classic form with the score. As for the gameplay, despite ditching grid-based movement, combat ultimately doesn't play out too differently from previous turn-based strategy RPGs. You're still moving one unit at a time and then selecting a command from a menu. That doesn't make it any less significant as an evolution of the genre. It almost feels like the jump from 2-D to 3-D platforming.

Mirror's Edge
The idea of a first-person platformer is plain enough, but, aside from maybe Metroid Prime, no project has really had the nerve nor vision to realize it until now. The convoluted controls somewhat undermine the visceral appeal and fluidity of the experience, and I feel certain that the gameplay would work better (and probably has) in third person. But I'm equally certain that the game would not be nearly so exhilarating were that the case. EA has already planned out a series, but I can't see it becoming the basis for a new genre. While improvements could be made, it strikes me as the sort of novelty that only really needs to be experienced once. Ugly character designs notwithstanding, the game has a very cool look, somewhat like a cross between The Matrix and an Esurance commercial.

Alone in the Dark: Inferno
Some ambitious ideas are wasted on a mediocre experience. The best feature is the DVD-style chapter selection. It's basically a stage select that doesn't require unlocking, but each chapter is preceded by a "previously" segment to recap parts that the player may have missed. I can think of a couple past games, where, given the choice, I might have opted to skip a frustrating or boring section of gameplay. The game also attempts a lot with the first-person perspective to try and better immerse the player in the adventure. For example, instead of a traditional menu, the inventory is accessed by pressing a button to make the character look down at the items stored in his jacket. Combat, however, is unwieldy, albeit it's hugely satisfying to toss a Molotov cocktail at an enemy and then ignite it in slow motion by shooting it mid-arc. In the demo at least, this is the only way to kill the zombies, and it gets cumbersome having to first knock them down with a melee weapon in clunky third person, then go into the first-person menu and put together the Molotov cocktail, equip it and the pistol, and then use them in turn on the rising enemy. And the driving stage, where you must outrun the apocalypse, is trial-and-error gameplay at its worst.

LittleBigPlanet
Not actually a demo, I purchased this on release day, but haven't had much time to do more than sample it. So far, the multiplayer is pretty awesome, but the platforming has major issues. The physics and collision are a tad overdone, but the real problem is the Fatal Fury-style multi-plane system, which has frustrated every player I've talked to. Also, the "story" mode is badly in need of some context--not necessarily a full-blown narrative, mind you, but some sense of purpose at least to motivate progression. As for the user-generated content, I'm pleased to find that, despite Sony's best efforts, a large portion of the material is blatantly copyright-infringing. I played through a Metal Gear stage that did a great job of capturing the first Metal Gear Solid's mix of pattern observation and hiding spots. But I also played a Resident Evil-inspired stage that was so broken that I almost wanted to report it. More on this as I get further into it.

Rated "S" for "Sacrilegious"

The release of the highly-anticipated PS3 title, LittleBigPlanet, has been delayed a week in light of the discovery that a licensed song used in the game contains lyrics referencing the Qur'an.

I can well imagine that there are no members of the LittleBigPlanet team familiar enough with the Qur'an to have caught this during development. I suppose the lesson is that, if at any point the lyrics in a song become incomprehensible, it might be a good idea to look them up, on the off chance that the words actually mean something. While one week is inconsequential to me, I have to believe that a delay this close to release is an expensive hassle for Sony.

(After looking at the lyrics in question, frankly, I think I'm offended. Granted, my interpretation of Islam is woefully uninformed, so "Every soul shall have the taste of death" might not mean what it sounds like to me.)

(Seriously, I mean no disrespect, so please don't kill me.)