Game Design 2 Journal #2: Don't fix what isn't broken

Bioshock 2. 2k Marin had a chance to take a ball and run with it.

Some say they didn't.

Some say they did.

Why the disparity? Bioshock 2 looks great, plays great. What's the problem?

Some would quote it lacks the twisty plot of the first game, some would argue the underpowered main character. We're playing as a Big Daddy so..ergo...shouldn't we be BADASSES? I agree. The depiction of every other Big Daddy is, despite their lack of plasmids, terrifyingly violent and destructive. Not even the end of the first game conveyed the true presence of these behemoths and Bioshock 2 fails as well. Louder footsteps. Sure. The drill? Perfect. But my health is impossibly low, I don't have a sense of weight...there's some inconsistencies. It feels like they got close enough.

Those criticisms were the cake. The icing is this argument: It was bad that the game play was too much like the first game.

I call mega bullshit on this. Let's look at a VERY recent example of an excellent sequel. Mass Effect 2.

Mass Effect 2 had a glaring flaw. The world and story was excellent, perfect even. But the battle system had some major hiccups in it, as well as the elevators, inventory and the powers you could rank up in. These problems had a souring effect on an otherwise perfect game. The sequel addressed those issues expertly, and left the rest of the game alone. It played out like a Bioware symphony. The stories, the lore and the world was consistent and beautiful once again, and the issues were smoothed. Bioshock 2 did the exact same thing. There was nothing to really "fix" with most of the combat. It was fluid, adapting, challenging and fun in the first game, despite the lack of dual-wielding plasmids and weapons. They fixed the hacking, the harvesting, the...aha...they messed with the story.

Bioshock 2 has a far more linear feeling than Bioshock 1. The story is less about twists and turns, or shadows. You see the plot glaring at you like a bright light and you wonder why they're telling you this now. Why aren't they hiding this for later? But the world of Rapture is so rich with lore (the audio logs, the locations themselves and their inhabitants) that the main story starts to fade away. I found myself not really caring what new Rapture dictator Sophia Lamb had to say. I could predict it, see it coming. It didn't feel like the story of Andrew Ryan's Rapture. And that was a little saddening. I felt like I was playing a game that wasn't Bioshock: System Shock 2 in the Sea anymore.

Did that afford Bioshock 2 a sneer? A little bit. But no less a stellar score. The game delivered what I wanted, exactly what I wanted in most cases. When a good sequel comes out, the good changes are visible right away. They're big. However, the most important thing to remember is consistency of experience. If the player launches into a sequel and the experience feels...off...it's going to hurt the stride of the franchise big time. Mass Effect 2 did just that half step better than Bioshock 2. Mass Effect 2 COMMANDED my attention. Bioshock 2 I have a desire to play.

Sequels. Fuckin' tough.

Episodic Content or The Game That Never Ended

• Half-Life 2
• Mass Effect
• GTAIV
• Penny Arcade presents: On the Rainslick Presipice of Darkness
• Sam and Max

These games and a few I'm sure I've missed have something in common.
They're episodic.

Episodic games have taken on the upswing, as developers can create content that will be downloaded to people's machines (PC and console alike, thanks to the advent of consoles with hard drives) that will add content directly and seamlessly to the game experience. This is the new "expansion pack". EverQuest has a goodness GRACIOUS gosh darn ton of expansion packs, that add realms and items and classes and more to the game. Previously reserved for the PC crowd, console gamers (See: Joe Locastro) are now able to enjoy some of that tasty content.

Looking at that list of games though...there is one very important distinction I need to make before going on. Sam and Max and Half-Life 2 are episodic games, but require purchasing of entirely new discs/files seperate to those you already use to play the game's expanded content. Mass Effect and GTAIV will add the content to the game world itself, ala World of Warcraft. It helps that those two games are sand-box worlds, where the player can choose their path through the world, while Half-Life 2 and Sam and Max are linear adventures. A linear game can't really add content to the world, they have to add more world to gain content and even then, it typically has to be handled separately to keep the integrity of the game nice and high.

THAT being said, let's first focus on Mass Effect, Oblivion and GTAIV, games where adding content means micro-transactions and not trips to GameStop. By creating episodic content for that kind of game, the bridge between sequels can be gapped. Such is the idea behind Mass Effect's added missions. Give the gamers something to whet their appetites for the true sequel. This stretches the experience out. Maybe it's only two-three hours of game play total but it's there, it's something. It means that games like GTA and Mass Effect will still be heavy sellers, and the title will continue to generate revenue for the company despite its long shelf life. This is a big money maker, and a great way to give people a reason to keep spinning the disc, so to speak. I for one would have gotten my jollies on my two play throughs of Mass Effect and called it a great game, but now that I can DL more content, I'm on more and more playthroughs, just to access it and enjoy it as much as I can. The same will be said for GTAIV. Companies are utilizing hard drives to their fullest, and their best potential, as a storyteller's archive.

Next, we go to games like Penny Arcade's new RPG, and Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 took some flak for their episodic content being too long between episodes. Some would argue the nature of episodic content is in regularity and stability of a release date. The term episode itself denotes short length, fast development. Half-Life 2 Episode: 1 and 2 were only about 3-5 hours long each, but they were fun and fast diversions. Episode 2 came packed in that shiny Orange Box with Ep. 1 and Portal and TF2 and HL2, so that was a great deal. Sam and Max is brought via Steam for fair prices, and the story of Sam and Max spans a few downloadable segments. This method means one decently sized team of people can put out games in a few fast months, for gamers to enjoy, while a larger team at the same company works on some big releases for the sweep seasons.

Episodic content of both varieties means the gamer wins, as well as the companies. We get our characters in situations faster (even if it's shorter) and the companies get our 20-30 bucks to breathe in while they make their plans. The ONLY way episodic content would fail is if they charge us full prices ($30-$40) for episodic content, or if they take too long to develop the episodic content itself (See: VALVE...). So consider getting some of that Mass Effect goodness, and look out for the GTAIV content that'll hit Q1 of 09. It's a ways off, but I'm already excited.

Reporting on Games? DO THE RESEARCH!

First, the Kotaku Post that Leigh Alexander wrote that is really well done.

Then, the Feministing article in review.

It happens about three times a year. Someone who doesn't play games at all (and doesn't read the news) hears about something in a new game. I like to use Mass Effect as an example. They hear that there's a sex scene in the game.

I said there's an explicit sex scene.

I said there's basically alien-human porn in the game.

I said players can choose the size of their partner's breasts, and what positions to do.

...get my point?

The case above, from Feministing.com, proves yet again that not just non-gamers, but people who don't research their stories gain notoriety as their opinions of events in-game get covered by the news. We've seen it before. Gamers fought back. The critics backed off. Still, Mass Effect is a critically acclaimed game, and I am in-fact about to start my 2nd play-through if it tomorrow. Journalism took a hit with that, and credibility fell sharply for critics of games. Left and right people are called out for their glaringly inaccurate representations of a "childish" medium. If the reporting for the war overseas was this inaccurate, we'd have headlines reading "About 5 to 20 soldiers died in Baghdad...we heard, we weren't actually there" or even "Historical text contains underage sex, attempted and assisted suicide and worse, more on 'Romeo and Juliet' at 11".

If you're going to do news, do research. It's simple. People who get degrees have done research papers, they've found and completed thesis on varieties of subjects. When you're told to report or detail ANYTHING do the damned research! If I was told to go do a report the CMT Awards you bet your ass I'd be listening to Kenny Chesney, Big and Rich and Faith Hill all the way up to it, in order to at least have a BASIC understanding of the styles and sounds and names I was hearing. It's a simple thing to do.

Admittedly, I do not know Cooper Lawrence's stance. Maybe she wasn't primed on the interview, but it's likely she was told she'd be talking about an electronic game called "Mass Effect", and she just asked a friend what it had in it that was so bad, without looking up the game or at least the scene herself. If you're reporting on games, talk to game developers. If you're reporting on The CMT awards, don't listen to Ayumi Hamasaki or The Pillows. Elementary, my dear Cooper.

I hope that as the journalistic generation grows up, and my generation takes to the papers and television, at least SOME people have the steady mind to do proper research and investigation on the topics they're made to talk about. If not, games and gamers may never move from behind this negative stigma of being sex-crazed man-children with an insatiable lust for tits and violence.

...not to say I'm NOT but...you get my drift.