Stalker: COP, Fallout 4 and Philosophical Divergences in Design

I've been able to get back into playing computer games after a fairly lengthy absence where I only had Terraria, Starcraft & Brood War (which were/are free), and a great little game called Dungeon Warfare to distract me from professional and other pressures. Of course the first thing I did after a 3+ year absence is get a cheap computer together to play fairly modern games. Of course I started with Fallout 4, because I had only played a few hours on a friend's PS4 and enjoyed it enough to want to give it a full go. Then the Stalker series went on sale, and since I'd been meaning to play a Stalker game since the original was released, I grabbed Call of Pripyat.

Playing both more or less side by side when time allowed has been interesting. There is a real divide in development philosophies between each that is kind of useful for examining the differences in Western and Post-Bloc thought. The differences in narrative style and game mechanics tell a wider story that's kind of interesting to me, and since I almost never blog anymore, and nobody reads this blog anyway, I thought I'd put my thoughts into the internet right now. Plus both games are post apocalyptic in a sense: Fallout in the global sense, and Stalker in the more local sense (already food for thought). There are significant differences between these two 'shoot a gun at a mutant'-type games.

The Borderlands Series in Retrospect: Actually Mostly Bullshit

Borderlands is a computer game series that is in many ways symptomatic of the 'malaise of modern gaming' (which is not 100% true and therefore a theory) especially considering how style has trumped substance (which is a problem modern gaming shares with many other modern things). The gist of a Borderlands game is:

It is a first person shooter set on a richy detailed, busted cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic wasteland/junkyard alien planet with cool monsters and villainous humans and it's also a bit of an RPG (because those are hot right now) in that you have experience points, skills, and criticals (and also a vast, grim, and forboding numerical grind). All weapons and equipment are randomly generated with varying stats, there are multiple protagonists with different powers, persistent account wide bonuses, and a variety of challenges and accomplishments. Also the series likes to use hit songs in advertising as well as in-game!

All of this, and it's arguably less fun than even Doom 1 or 2, which are a million times less complex or intricate. To my mind the Borderlands series is a perfect example of the pretty, lifeless, grindy, downright boring and chore-like video games proliferating in 'serious' gaming. I finished the first game a couple of times (to my eternal discredit) and only played around 8 hours of Borderlands 2 (so far I haven't gotten a single interesting weapon and the fights haven't been fun). So the most important things in FPS games, the guns, are randomized. Generally the randomized guns are excessively useless. The inventory system is yet another terrible console/PC crossover abortion, so good luck selling the random loot guns the game is stingy about dropping.

Sim City 5 and The Future of Video Games

The following rule is one you will never be taught in business school, but it stands: franchises should sometimes be allowed to die. Krispy Kreme, American Idol, Star Wars, and now Sim City. Say what you want about any of these IPs/businesses, they've fallen on hard times and their only relevance seems to come from apathy. Krispy Kreme for example built a highly profitable business empire on sweet and fatty doughnuts, but even the ignorant serfs who regularly eat such things as doughnuts are beginning to understand that healthy food can help improve quality of life as well as exercise little-known taste buds which are not related to grease or sugar. Unhealthy industries, eh? Well I've got one of the best under my microscope right now...

In the often boring, sexist, shallow world of video games and video game culture –"a fantasy realm where nerds rule!"– franchises are the only safe bets. Who wouldn't bankroll a new Mario game? Which executive wouldn't give the go-ahead to a new multiplayer FPS? Everyone can see the dollar signs when World of Warcraft comes up - so lets make everything an MMO from now on. Many franchises stem from much-beloved games from the comparative stone age of video gaming. No, not the 70s - my bad. To be clear: the copper age of video gaming, the 1990s. It is an era which is reviled by the current generation of gamers, and old gamers who enjoy modern games (AKA: stunted adults), as the era of 'rose-tinted glasses'.

Age of Empires, Call of Duty, Sim City, Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft, Command & Conquer, Doom, Quake, Half-Life, Mario 64, TLoZ: Ocarina of Time, System Shock, Civilization, Aliens vs. Marines, Gran Turismo, Need for Speed, Mortal Kombat... the list goes on, but the point stands: the 90s produced an overwhelming amount of remarkable computer games which were part of or formed the basis for highly profitable franchises. Eventually all of these were bought up by a couple now-monolithic publishers and developers. To put this in perspective, imagine all the mortgages that were packaged into junk bonds in the Financial Crisis of 2008 were sound before they were bought, gutted, and packaged into toxic assets by the monolithic banks and sold to incredibly loyal and gullible customers. This is essentially what happened to most beloved video game franchises in the last ten or fifteen years.

The specifics are open to debate, the pillaging of each franchise is also arguable, but in the contemporary scene all you really get is cutting-edge graphics, a semblance of a story, and shallow treadmill mechanics that dare you to find a reason to play for more than a month. You get quality without substance. Games with the addictive potential of crack cocaine and with exactly the same intoxication profile, creating users and addicts that are indistinguishable from the real thing in their disgusting, annoying race to the bottom. World of Warcraft, it's your move.

All of this is old news, however. I want to focus on one game which was recently released to great fanfare after building up a considerable amount of hype. It is the newest entry in a venerable franchise which was begun in 1989 - Sim City 5. If you haven't heard of it you pay no attention to video games at all because it is the biggest story of the year. Unfortunately, it is a story that has become far too common. But enough words, allow a picture to do the talking:

Metacritic never lies, but as an aggregate it can blur the truth. Video game journalism is instrumental in the downfall of gaming. Even nixing all the outliers (too positive or  negative), critical response is completely away in fantasy land compared to user reviews (people who have paid to play the game and were not paid to review a potentially free copy). If you ever want to see what happened, simply compare a modern video game magazine (like PC Gamer for instance) to an issue from ten or more years ago. Not only is there less content than ever, but there are more ads, weaker reviews, and a typical lack of insight. All journalism falls down from time to time, but in a less critical market like Video Game Culture Magazines you can see how far it can fall.

Nintendo Power is over, though. This is the era of  Sim City 5000, by EA Interactive. The game that arrived amidst thunderous applause and then faced an immediate backlash over: always-online gameplay, resulting server overload, dumb simulation design, and bugs. Lots of bugs. The game looks really pretty and that's the nicest thing you can honestly say about it. I feel bad for the people who made this game. It seems like they didn't have enough time to finish making it. But it looks really good, and the marketing was top notch.

Sim City 5 lacks many features people took for granted in earlier games in the series, and the features it has substituted for them don't work well or don't work at all. Sim City 4 was doing the same thing but managed to work as a game that people liked. Sim City 3 even ditched some of Sim City 2000's best concepts - the series peaked in the mid 90's and almost twenty years later: here we are. Well, I don't know why games are getting worse and dumber every year, and I don't think it matters, so I'll leave that to the experts. Games were never smart, but god damn remember how Duke Nukem used to be fun? Remember the wide variety of games that used to exist? Remember how they took a long time to master? I don't hate casual gaming and I don't hate modern gaming (per-se) I just want to point out some other, more successful, notorious sequels:

Heroes 4: it was a great design decision to drop everything that made a Heroes game a Heroes game and borrow heavily from other turn based strategy games. It looks and plays like a shitty version of Age of Wonders 2, except it doesn't even have hexes, which makes it so unbearable that even longtime defenders of the series say 'It's an interesting take on the genre.' The series (5 and 6!) is now a graphical powerhouse with dumbed down everything and it holds your hand while you play, making cooing noises to sooth your mind.

Call of Duty 4?5?/Modern Warfare/Black Ops: It's always cool to play games online where you shoot other players while the world goes to shit around you. Single player games in this era should be expected to complete themselves and introduce core concepts so that gamers can move into multiplayer.

Battlefield: The good ol' days of 1942 are gone, and in its place are dozens of futuristic mechanics lifted from the Call of Duty series! It's really cool to play with 12 year olds and shoot guns, guys! It's still cool! Adults do it, so don't feel bad about yourself! Graphics are really good. Sound is good. Talk about smoking weed while shooting people on the internet!

Diablo 3: The mother of all hack 'n slash gets overdeveloped. Plays smooth, looks really good, professional and it works. Gameplay and story that hold your hand and never let you go, like helicopter parents, except worse. Story literally gets in the way of gameplay. Takes away player agency and control with 'fear' mobs - multi-million dollar design at work. Revolutionary skill system is boring, advantageous skills are patched into the ground, play for 30 hours to get to the endgame, which is doing the same thing over and over. Campy, dumb bosses from hell. Always online. Play with friends (but no more than three at a time with no significant interaction). Good equipment has to be bought and sold for maximum profit on an auction house that should but doesn't form a community. Drop rates are worse than Vegas. Items are boring: required level 52 for a ring that has a socket in it and nothing else. Stats and crits and nothing else. There is nothing else. Soulless, hackneyed, cliched cash-in that manages to make its hackneyed cash-in older brothers look like cool adults. People who defend this game are the same people who have ruined gaming - they are responsible for Sim City 5. Real Money Auction House! Brilliant! 'Blizzard, O Blizzard, what has become of ye? I remember ye best in 2001, after nearly a decade of fun.'

Skyrim/Oblivion: Super-duper graphics, uninspiring story that holds you by the hand, bland gameplay. Hack, slash, loot for unexciting items. Monsters level with you. No learning curve. Typos, bad writing. Less skills, less uncertainty, less quests, less fun - more scripted events, more voice actors, more polygons, more limits. Doing less with more. Inventory systems so terrible that playing is never not a chore. No reason to follow series after Morrowind: which was a chore to play but somehow a worthy chore. Rest in boring, complacent success The Elder Scrolls.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: A game that is relentless about never letting the player think or reason a solution. Holds your hands to the Nth degree. Emblematic of modern video games: no player agency, nothing is open: products for children that assume a level of stupidity that manages even to annoy children. Hold my hand, railroad design, pop up messages every minute.

Duke Nukem Forever: Boring, plastic, lifeless... there's a joke in there somewhere - and that's just the game! Emblematic of what happens to every franchise in this brave new world.

There are many more senile series out there. I don't know if developers are getting lazy, or if they actually think they're doing anything more than sober, diligent, professional work. Probably they don't care: get your paycheque, do your work, keep your head down, follow the money. Creativity is being starved out of the industry, and indie games are not going to save the day. Well, whatever, I suppose it was time for me to grow up anyway, and put away such childish, M-rated things.

Hype Level Critical: Age of Wonders 3

Age of Wonders is the holy grail of fantasy turn based strategy/RPG mashups. Age of Wonders I is a highpoint beyond even the Heroes of Might and Magic series, the Disciples series, or arguably even the slightly unrelated Civilization series. However, the (for a long time) final game in the series was released in 2003, which left possibly the longest shadow in gaming. Age of Wonders is a non-AAA series, in part because it never developed Warcraft's following and also because originated in (the final years of) an era when there were more publishers and less-AAA series. Multi-million dollar advertising budgets were also extremely rare in those days, but notable exceptions exist (PS1 and other consoles, Daikatana).

When the first game was released in 1999, it already looked outdated. In the modern era it would hardly pass (graphically, among the subnormals, children, and hacks who review games) for a half-assed indie title - even in 1999 (a time when, arguably, nearly all graphics were primitive and 'ugly') it was often remarked upon negatively for its graphical shortcomings. Nevertheless, since the game was a product of pure craft, what graphics it did possess were A) infinitely presentable, and B) charmingly executed. Honest reviewers acknowledged that if the presentation wasn't cutting-edge, it was passable, and in any case it was paired with deep, engaging and challenging gameplay. It also had a magic system that was deliciously broken, and crafty players could discover all sorts of hi-jinks to turn themselves into demigods.

The series might not have ever developed Warcraft's following, but among the hardcore Age of Wonders I is generally acknowledged as a masterpiece. I hate using the word 'hardcore', but that's what it comes down to: the game is unforgiving and if you cannot handle strategy, tactics or adversary, it is best to avoid it. It is one of those games which requires tact and some trial-and-error. There is no hand-holding, and losses are inevitable. The sequel (and its standalone expansion) carried on the tradition with varying degrees of success. The first missions alone can prove, on easy, more difficult than entire campaigns in other games, levels can take long and get brutally difficult even against basic AI. I would not go so far as to call the game masochistic, myself, but others might – odds are they're softies, though, with no real appreciation for challenge and glory.

With the modern explosion of game sequels, it is ultimately unsurprising to see the return of a great series backed with significant nostalgia. Yet the story is probably the best of the year (which is already a good one), even better than the Age of Empires II HD release. One of the best parts is that the success of Minecraft is partially responsible, which means that, whatever you think about Minecraft, it finally gave back to the community. I say all this before Age of Wonders III is even released: good news is good news, and I am happy about this.

After the Nerd Bubble article it may seem that I am a cynical outsider to nerd culture or even an elitist myself, but I am simply a lapsed gamer who used to care too much. I continue to play AoW1 because it is that good, and GOG.com sells it at a fair price (and sometimes a steal price), so anyone can play it even on the most modern hardware. This is truly the best era of gaming: even the ghosts of yesteryear are coming back to life. However, I would like to caution myself and others who are getting hyped already. Let's keep our expectations realistic.

The more I read about the AoWIII project, the more I like it. Michiel can den Bos, who composed music for AoW1 (not to mention Deus Ex and Unreal, two other dear favorites of mine) is apparently on board. Truly good news, because he never did a bad job of scoring a game. Evidently the old crew is, for a large part, assembled on the project. Triumph Studios are no loafers and I don't expect they will release a garbage bag, but it's been a decade since they've tangled with the AoW series. The main question, quite possibly the most pertinent and exciting question, is whether or not Age of Wonders III will recapture the magic of the first game. To do so will be a challenge - the first game had something like 12 races and unit exposition for each and every of the 48+ units. Just to execute this small part (which had much to do with the 'sense of magic' in the wondrous debut) can be difficult, and to ignore it would annoy at least some fans.

Diablo 3? Let's get drunk and play Diablo 2.

While I am somewhat interested in Diablo 3, it's just easier to find an old copy of D2, with the expansion pack if possible, and just drink and play that. Considering: D3 is a 12 gigabyte download and will murder anyone with a bandwidth cap; D2 installs in under 2 GB with the expansion, offers similarly limitless possibilities for time wasting and compulsive gameplay.

Probably the best part is that 60 dollars can buy a decent amount of liquor, which makes getting drunk and playing Diablo 2 cost-effective compared to drinking and playing Diablo 3. Analysts have offered the ludicrous explanation that although the game will sell very well, it will not outlive its predecessor.

Personally I don't know what I'm going to do. Nothing even seems real anymore in this brave new world.

Diablo 3 + 18 hours. Servers are down, the title screen and introduction cinematic were nice, there were plenty of graphics options and I can't play but I can fiddle around for optimum (imaginary) performance. My attempts at a screencapture were  failures, and since Diablo 3 does not run in the Steam framework, pressing F12 did nothing.

The second login attempt was successful, I had to accept a terms of use contract. Then another one, and then a third one, at which point I thought the game was bugging out. Then I got to the character creation screen. The options, it seemed, were tenfold. Five classes, four of which I am unfamiliar with, and two gender options... long gone are the days when an assassin was a woman and there was nothing to do about it.

Ongoing coverage may follow, especially if the game ceases to function normally or servers go down again.

Diablo 3 + 20 hours. The game alt-tabs very smoothly, perhaps more smoothly than any modern game I've recently played. This is extremely surprising and I post immediately about it. More exciting discoveries remain to be found, and the idea of drinking and playing Diablo 2, in which you can't even break the scenery to pieces, seems laughable.

Diablo 3. 24 hours later. Battle.net has been killed and will return whenever. 

Portal Two

Well here's a new game that looks like it won't be a huge disappointment and an actual bonafide step forward for computer gaming. It doesn't matter if it's all hype, and the first game made the step forward, and this is just a polished, well-presented expansion pack building on it. We know it'll be decent. Episode Two of Half Life was worth the wait, after all. Portal 2 is going to make each and every gamer shit George Romero's pants. I was going to post an exciting YouTube comment I saw on an "Aperture Investment Opportunity #4", but YouTube Assassins have seen its worth and 'disappeared' it under more-liked comments than mean less.

The YouTube comment was noteworthy and to the tune of: "Who torrents a Valve game? They publish the only games worth playing anymore." That is not exaggeration via paraphrasing. It's true you should technically, if you are not lacking money for food or rent, pay for a Valve game. That is an unspoken rule of gaming. To break that rule is to become a troll, and risk the peculiar diseases of trolls.

But let's not lose sight of reality. We want this to happen properly, but in order to avoid heartbreak we should not get excessive. I'm going to let Valve tell you why Portal 2 is going to be worthwhile:

"Leave it to Valve to add a stock cartoon duo to a game that does not need them. And leave it to IGN to hype a game based on talking robots."

All I'll say is this: the robots, quoted out of context like this, give me a major Star Wars Prequel Trilogy vibe. Furthermore, who the hell is writing MSNBC's copy? It's funny to see Valve outplay two news sources with boilerplate, and that is why they are at the top of the establishment pile.