Pumping Irony

Undead Labs is at it again, this time with a blog post from designer James Phinney entitled There’s Just No Way To Fake It. Good stuff there, very good stuff.

Phinney’s post is just as ambitious Foge’s blog last week, arguably even more so, but without all the controversy.

Phinney runs the gamut of the attractions of MMOs and why people spend so much time with them and then, like the rest of us jaded players, complains about the static nature of the majority of so many so-called “persistent worlds” and how Undead Labs is going to buck that trend. There’s a lot of great material in the post, so go read it all, but I’ll steal this paragraph which sums up Phinney’s hopes:

We believe a persistent world should be living, dynamic, and evolving. We believe your decisions should affect the state of the world and the state of the world should matter to you. We believe you should get to be the hero; not because you were able grind your way to some artificial achievement that everyone else will eventually grind for too, but instead because you achieved something unique and heroic — something that people actually care about because it has an impact on the world.

This is immediately attractive to me because this is a big part of why I’ve been dreaming (and still am) about massively multi-player games for so long. Dynamic and meaningful virtual worlds that make true persistence worthwhile. Players can have an impact upon the world rather than everyone in a conga line along the exact same gear treadmill. For me, Phinney’s statement brings back memories of Star Wars Galaxies and wishes for what it could have been. Others may think of Ultima Online or EVE, maybe even Darkfall. Buzzwords like “dynamic,” “impact,” and “meaningful” tend to appeal to the so-called “sandbox” crowd, and I’ll admit upon my first (few) readings, that’s how I envisioned Undead Labs’ game, too, despite still expecting them to deliver a marriage between Dead Rising 2 and Red Dead Redemption.

But I no longer necessarily think Undead Labs is necessarily building a sandbox zombie survival MMO for consoles. I had an epiphany and a few minutes’ research to back it up. Follow along…

Astute readers who are into such things may know James Phinney from his Blizzard years where he worked on Diablo and Warcraft II before promoted to lead designer and producer for Starcraft. At Arenanet, Phinney was lead designer for Guild Wars and — pay attention to this part — lead designer for Guild Wars 2 until July, 2009 when Eric Flannum took over that position. He left Arenanet in August, 2010 to join Undead Labs.

Last week, Richard Foge mentioned his portfolio included Road Rash 64, Kinectica, God of War, SOCOM and — somehow I missed this last one — Guild Wars! That’s right, Foge also did some work at Arenanet along with many of the team who formed and comprise Undead Labs.

What has Arenanet been hyping about Guild Wars 2? Dynamic Events!

By building a world where you see and hear the experiences, Guild Wars 2 will evolve the MMORPG genre by making a game world that feels truly alive. The core of this evolution is our event system, which allows the world to dynamically change based on actions and decisions made by the players. A single player decision can cascade across a zone, changing the direction of a chain of events until they dramatically alter the content played by players in a map.

Sound a little similar to what Phinney is saying in his blog today? All the buzzwords, and then some, are there. Dynamic. Evolve. Change based on actions and decisions; ie. player impact on the world.

Now add to the mix current Arenanet President Mike O’Brien’s comment on August 11 when he announced Phinney’s departure:

James Phinney is a great designer and deserves a game to call his own again, so I wasn’t surprised when he told me he’d be joining Jeff Strain’s new company to lead the design effort there.
Joining him there will be Richard Foge, another friend and designer who worked with James while heading up the design of a prototyping effort here, and Scott Albaugh and Doug Williams, two of the artists on that effort. [Emphasis mine]

Now, I am likely grasping at straws, reading between the lines, or whatever else but bottom line is both Foge and Phinney were key designers on Guild Wars 2 until two months ago. They know how the Dynamic Events system works. They know how to replicate it within the context of their zombie survival MMO. Another of Guild Wars 2′s features (or at least Arenanet’s stated goal) is its responsiveness, allowing fast action, which what Foge was talking about last week. Turns out the two of them were prototyping something just before leaving, which may or may not have implications towards their departure for Undead Labs where they could bring their prototype into realization.

Until Undead Labs starts releasing actual information of how their game will work, my new expectation is still a melding of Dead Rising 2 and Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare (with certain aspects of the Left 4 Dead series thrown in for good measure) and now with its own version of Guild Wars 2′s Dynamic Events. Not entirely a “sandbox” per se, but something that is both similar to past efforts while also standing separate from the level+gear crowd.

What an acronym, eh? CODBLOPS. Sounds like something disgusting and vaguely fishy.

Anyway, it’s the “cool” (?) acronym for Treyarch’s new shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops which released yesterday for all platforms.

The PC version has been plagued with “lag” (not the latency kind) that seems to stem from a glitch (?) in Steamworks overloading multi-core CPUs. I’ve read that setting it to single core will correct the situation until it’s fixed but I don’t really play FPS on PC anymore to know if that is accurate.

On Xbox LIVE there have been a few allegations of glitches, some legitimate and some not.

Treyarch’s Community Manager weighed in on the CODBLOPS forums with a few choice words:

Some are people using old dashboards or old versions of the game. Others are claiming victory on old dev builds that don’t even connect to the version of Xbox Live that you use. Others are reproducible issues that we will hotfix or patch just like we said we would. In essence, we likely know more about it than you do from watching a video on Vimeo or YouTube. What many of these people want is to be Internet nerd famous. I’m not going to make them famous and you shouldn’t either. Internet hysteria from normal people is exactly what they want and that’s how many people reacted today. You gave them exactly what they want.

I’ve gone out of my way using my own limited, personal time to try and get to know about 8000 (and growing) as best I can. The last thing I want is for you to think that because I don’t talk about it … that we don’t know or care about it. We didn’t spend 2 years of our lives to toss it all in the trash in one day.

I thank all of you who sent in polite, constructive messages without the hysterics. So here is my one and only public statement about it.

I’m not going to talk about it publicly. We are disinterested in making mini-celebrities out of douche-bags. You better think twice before you glitch. You never know who in your game doesn’t like glitchers who reports you and saves the game in their File Share and tells us about it.

If a Community Manager for an MMORPG called glitchers “douche-bags” the community at large would be up in arms for such language. Maybe it’s “ok” since CODBLOPS is a shooter and people just expect smack-talk, even from the studio? Regardless, I think it’s great that this CM fearlessly let his feelings show, even if there ends up being some type of backlash. We have way too much “political correct-ness” these days and sometimes a little in-your-face language and emotion goes a long way towards getting the point across.

In continuing with the lyric’s to the classic Michael Jackson song (I figured it would be best to skip the line “You really turn me on.”) I will be dissecting Undead Labs‘ new developer Richard Foge’s introductory blog post, which he so aptly entitled The Way You Make Me Feel. While I’m at it, I might address a few comments thrown his way as well.

Foge came out swinging, making some comments which could be — and were — considered inflammatory to MMO gamers and PC gamers, most of whom simply do not — or refuse to — understand where Foge is coming from and what he is saying. Anyone who’s paid any attention to some of the things I blog, tweet or comment about would know that I share some of Foge’s feelings on MMOs and console gaming in general so I will try to share my own perspective on what he is trying to impart.

I don’t like MMOs. I love the idea of MMOs.

Right off the bat, Mr. Foge ignited the fanboy or girl passions of MMO gamers everywhere who read “I don’t like MMOs,” and apparently many of their synapses to the logic center of their brains were short-circuited, rendering them unable to continue reading and comprehending the rest of the post.

I don’t like MMOs either. That’s not true, I “like” them fine — for what they are — but I don’t love them anymore. I’ve been dreaming of a “true” MMO since way before the “MMO” acronym was ever created. When I actively played Air Warrior back on the GEnie service, that fired up my hopes for MMOs even more. Then games actually called MMOs came out and I was hooked — badly addicted, if I am being honest with myself — because finally games were appearing with hundreds, even thousands of players to interact with! And interact with them I did! The “problem” is that the gamer side of me quickly realizes there isn’t a whole of “game” to these “massively multiplayer games.” Mind you, there is a difference between “game” and “game-y” which is not what I want, either.

A lot — and I do mean a lot — of MMO players freely admit they like that MMOs are relaxed; that they can play with one hand while eating, reading or watching TV. I like that, too. But that also says that MMOs do not appeal to the core gamer side of us, or even necessarily to gamers in general. A good deal of MMO gamers don’t even like video games and certainly do not consider themselves gamers. That’s not a bad thing at all; in fact, when it comes to the typical MMO of today, I prefer that the community is not comprised solely of “gamers.” Just like in life, having only the same discussions that lead to the same results with the same people day in and day out gets tiring. However, I am a gamer. Always have been, always plan to be. I don’t limit myself to a single platform or single genre. When it comes to MMOs — specifically MMORPGs, which are the dominant species of the MMO food chain — there has been extremely little variation. Looking at all the single-player RPGs (or even tabletop RPGs) there were always so many RPG systems out there to choose from. MMOs don’t really have that. There’s UO/EVE/Darkfall on one end of spectrum, and everything else using the DikuMUD subsystem on the other, and nothing in between. While MMO fans (or fanatics, as they often seem) clamber over one another to try Yet Another DikuMMO for a couple weeks then move on to the next, I personally have grown weary of seeing the exact same system over and over.

I’ve been dreaming about what an MMO could be since I was a n00b designer. In my mind I always pictured piling into a car with my friends and tearing off into a massive world. They would lean out of the car, shooting and swinging bats. Why aren’t MMOs really like that?

Back in Air Warrior we could have multiple players in the same bomber aircraft. One person was piloting while another took the bomb scope and others took gun turrets to shoot at approaching enemy fighters. At the same time, our own fighters would escort the bomber just like they did in WWII.

In APB — not an MMO, by the way — one of the things fans, and even players who ended up not liking the game, constantly said they loved was the ability to climb into the same car, drive around and shoot at players of opposing gangs.

In many shooters, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a good recent example, up to four players can be in a tank or helicopter together, each player manning his own individual station and able to shoot either one of the vehicle’s weapons or his own gun.

Yet in over a decade, we still don’t have this level of interaction in the majority of MMOs. We have our own mounts, and despite all the fantasy or western movies and literature depicting the hero gallantly riding off into the sunset with his lady love, we still cannot share a ride on our mounts. In Star Trek Online, near as I have been able to tell so far, I can have other players visit my ship but they cannot man any stations in battle; only my NPC crew can do that. In Vanguard, at least multiple players could ride on a boat while one player drove it. Foge sounds like he is merely dissatisfied with the current state of player interaction, as am I.

MMOs are not living up to my own hopes and wishes yet, and not even coming close to their true potential, which is far greater than the hopes of a single player.

MMOs get breaks because of their social nature, but if you really look at them closely they’re barely even games. Mario 64 (nearly 15 years old at this point) feels better than any MMO I’ve ever played. MMOs aren’t even close to keeping up with cutting edge videogames from a gameplay or presentation perspective.

Oh boy, here we go! As if “I don’t like MMOs” didn’t fan the fires, “they’re barely even games” surely got the MMO townsfolk to light their torches and storm Foge’s castle! Syp went off the deep end of fury a bit with this (and Foge’s entire blog post) saying “Here is the crux of his flimsy argument: MMOs suck because they aren’t as good as Mario 64,” which is not at all what Foge is saying. In fact, to get perspective of what he’s trying to say, we need to continue reading.

I’m a console guy. I always have been. I cut my teeth on the NES, playing Mario 3 and Contra. I got completely sucked into A Link to the Past and Super Metroid. The FEELING of interacting with the world has always been stronger for me on consoles; it’s what they’re made for.

Notice a common theme in both sentences, and in his blog post as a whole, starting with its title? He’s talking about the “feel” of games. MMOs don’t have a very good “feel” to them; they just don’t. World of Warcraft is the single exception that I’ve played so far. It controls and “feels” like an action game, or dare I say it: a console game. Blizzard has even explained over the years the behind-the-scenes voodoo they used to get that feel in WoW and yet out of the many things other developers have allegedly copied or “cloned,” the immediacy and responsiveness of the controls is not one of them. Foge isn’t saying Mario 64 is a better game than MMOs, simply that it feels better, and he’s right. You did something in Mario 64 or any of the other games he mentioned and you get an immediate response onscreen in the game. In MMOs, not so much. They’re getting better but there is still a noticeable delay most times, and don’t even get me started on all the arbitrary restrictions such as having to come to a complete stop before being able to use abilities. Or in LOTRO’s case, coming to a complete stop then still having to wait for another split-second after the animation has stopped before I can use any abilities. It might be a brief delay, but it’s a delay nonetheless and over time gets more and more noticeable.

What about MMOs? What if we replaced all the math with action? What if an MMO could feel like a kickass console game?

Here again, Foge is talking about the “feel” of the game. “What if we replaced all the math with action?” It seemed very obvious to me what Foge is saying here but, as I mentioned above, many MMO fan(atics) synapses had already short-circuited long before reaching this part of the blog. Commenters go on and on that all video games require math; that’s how computers and processors work, after all. Duuuuuuuh! Again, the MMORPG is the dominant type of “MMO” game out there; Foge is simply saying “how about we remove the RPG combat?” If you bother to notice, at no point in time have Undead Labs (so far) said they are making an RPG.

Hellgate: London and Tabula Rasa, for example, may have “looked” like shooters or even action games, but they weren’t; they were RPGs. I may have had to aim my reticule in Hellgate (totally optional in Tabula Rasa; tab-lock worked perfectly fine) but the combat itself was determined by RPG systems — random “die rolls” modified by character, NPC and weapon attributes. In other words: MATH.

Foge himself clarifies his meaning with:

How about we give you a bat, and when you press a button to swing that bat, it hits things. Not just range tests to the target, but your bat has collision and the path it moves through defines what you hit. Not numbers and spreadsheets behind the scenes, but you actually hit that thing with your weapon.

How about if you could actually dodge out of the way of enemy attacks? Not a skill that gives you an increased percentage to do some counter-math against the opponent’s formula, but an actual dodge-out-of-the-way that lets you duck just underneath the rotting grasp of an attacking zombie.

In the games Foge mentioned earlier, the combat is the results of his actions. If Mario successfully jumps on an enemy it’s because Foge timed the jump properly, not that Mario’s Jump ability, modified by his Dexterity skill and a +15% to hit bonus from his Super Overalls beat the Toadstool’s Dodge ability. If I swing a torch at zombies and knock them over or set them aflame in Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare or successfully perform an aerial assassination, knocking guards off their feet and stabbing them in the throat in Assassin’s Creed 2 it’s because I managed to get my character in the proper position and time the attack correctly, and that has a very satisfying “feel” to it when it happens. If more than one zombie is in the path of John Marston’s torch swing, all of them will be hit. If Ezio jumps between two guards in a dark alley, guess what? He has a dagger in each hand and can take them down in a single attack.

On the MMO side of things, I press the tab key to lock onto a target, then press 1,2,3 a few times, occasionally clicking some other icon on one of several toolbars. Little to no player skill is involved but that’s ok, I am fully aware at all times that I am playing an RPG which is all about the skills and abilities of the character I am playing, not those of the player. Area Effect abilities have a defined radius rather than allowing me to influence them. Think of the Fable games where I get to choose  how strong any given magical attack will be and whether it will be a single strike or an area attack, for example. In MMOs, the “problem” arises with the gamer side of myself when the combat is repeated as often as MMOs require. MMO combat just doesn’t “feel” good, nor is it particularly satisfying, which is why developers add fancier animations and effects to mask it. An exception might be when I’m in a close battle and I somehow manage to defeat my opponent when I was certain I was going to lose, but those are few and far between. When I group, on the other hand, that can often be a very satisfying experience when my guild or friends finally figure out a strategy to defeat a boss or to progress further into a dungeon or raid, or what have you. But I also know that feeling is more of a social, synergistic one resulting from working with my friends or guild to accomplish that goal rather than being one of the game or the combat on its own term. In life, a co-worker may simply smile at you and it lifts your own mood as well. You might see a movie or a comedy show and even if you wouldn’t have laughed at a particular joke if you were alone in the club or theater, the other people around you laughing makes the joke feel funnier and you laugh, too. It’s the same with MMOs. Whether you’re in a VOIP session with your group or simply reading and typing in the chat channel, everyone else’s excitement and mood can affect your own, and that is where (in my opinion) the best “feel” in MMOs come from, and that is separate from the actual game play itself.

I’d like to take a slight detour at this point and address a common theme with MMO fanatics. You people take every slight, no matter how minor, as some kind of personal attack and you embark on a holy crusade to destroy all nay-saying heathens. You people are “all or nothing” when it comes to this. Read carefully when Foge says “What if an MMO could feel like…” Not “what if all MMOs could feel like…” Every time anyone dares to say “I wish there was an MMO that…” you explode in self-righteous fury because you perceive that as “all MMOs should be changed to this.” Try using some basic comprehension and contextual skills for a change. There is no Eleventh Commandment that says Thou Shalt Love Every MMO. It’s ok that some people want something different than you; it’s the reason EVE continues to thrive. Diversity makes the world go ’round, and no one is on any crusade to convert every MMORPG into a [insert genre here] instead of what it is. In this case, Undead Labs set out with the mission statement to make a console-only MMO. They said from the start they wanted an action feel that would appeal to console gamers. As Mr. Foge states a few times, he fits that bill, and that’s why he was hired. He was not hired by Blizzard to turn WoW into a God of War clone, so chill out and just realize that you are not Undead Labs’ target demographic. And that’s ok — you don’t need to be the target demographic of every MMO.

There’s always the “MMOs don’t belong on consoles” argument that is getting tiresome. I especially love the “MMOs are meant to be played for hours, months, years. Console games are over with in 20 hours and traded for the next game.” Guess what? Before MMOs came along, PC games were over in 20 hours too. Matter of fact, some developers still bother to make games for the PC that *gasp!* are not MMOs, and they are also completed in 20 hours. Moot Point +1.

Finally, Foge ends with:

How about some actual guild goals? Not, “We’re doing this raid to get our healer caught up on gear,” but instead, “We’re going to raid the power plant because if we clear it out we can get power to our community and get our communications network online.”

I think this is one thing pretty much every MMO player can agree with Foge on: meaningful guild activities. Guilds have been little more than a chat channel for over a decade now, and the raids most associated with guild activities have no real meaning other than gearing everyone for the next raid in the progression. Even the most die-hard “leave MMOs alone, I like them the way they are” types have been asking for this change. If Undead Labs can provide a fun example within the zombie context of their game, more power to them and hopefully bigger MMO developers will take notice.

I’ve been meaning to say this for awhile now, since Undead Labs have very slowly been poking their heads out of the dark, dusty, zombie-filled corridors of their studio to introduce members of the team or show a few bits of concept art.

Assuming Undead Labs manages to ship their unnamed console “MMO” (in quotes because… bah I’ll just write a separate article for that) — and there may be hope! — my hope is that the MMO news sites (including Massively, which is a blog but presents itself as journalism more often than not) bring in journalists or columnists who actually have a clue.

If you have an “I’m a PC Gamer!” chip on your shoulder, you are unqualified to “report” on console “MMOs.”

If you haven’t touched a console since the (S)NES days and you think things are the same now, you are unqualified.

If you have “heard” that the PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE are nothing but cesspools of foul-mouthed, screeching, racist children but you have no personal, first-hand experiences on those services with various types of games and genres, you are unqualified.

To give the game, the developers, your articles, your audience, and yourself any credit, you need to be knowledgeable of today’s consoles and the various demographics who use them. A fan, but not a fanboy. Have your finger on the pulse of the communities to have some knowledge of who is really out there.

I finished the story in Mafia II last night – in Hard Mode, no less! – and it was truly a wonderful ride. Initially when I made my little post about the demo I had planned to wait until the game had naturally lowered in price after 4-6 months. But launch day arrived and I failed my saving throw versus impulse purchases. I initially justified it by guessing it was probably similar to The Saboteur, another excellent single-player open world game that I fell in love with last year. For my personal comfort I chose the 360 version. The PC version looks incredible, especially with PhysX enabled, but I would be in excruciating RSI pain right now if I had played the PC version as much as I did the 360. So, no screenshots for this article, obviously.

What is Mafia II? Despite obvious comparisons, it is not a GTA clone, per se. To gamers and reviewers who were expecting (or more probably, assumed) it would be, they may be disappointed at the lack of pointless and clunky mini-games … annoying hoodlum friends who call at inopportune times … side-missions compared to Rockstar’s offerings. I compared it to The Saboteur above, and that is probably the most accurate comparison. While the game exists in the open world city of Empire Bay, it is a single-player game with a highly focused linear narrative. I wouldn’t have it any other way; Mafia II has kept me entertained solidly since it released a few days ago, which is more than I could say for GTA 4 which took me over 18 months of occasional play before I could be bothered to finish Niko’s storyline. Mafia II and GTA are two very different types of games, despite sharing the open world, driving and shooting.

Mafia II is comprised of 15 chapters, each focusing on specific parts of protagonist Vito Scaletta’s rise and fall (and rise?) within the mafia families in Empire Bay. Each chapter is set in its own timeline. Chapter 1 starts us off with Vito assigned to the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment in 1943 Italy. Chapter 2 moves forward to February, 1945 when Vito comes home to Empire Bay after being wounded in battle. Vito meets up with his childhood friend Joe Barbaro who brings Vito into the gangster scene. The next few chapters take place at later points in February until Chapter 7 where the timeline moves forward to April, 1951. This is the final year of the story, though time progresses as Chapter 7 starts us in April and Chapter 15 concludes in September. Additionally, many chapters are broken into parts which occur at various times during whatever day that chapter is set. Because of this narrative design decision, there is no day/night cycle nor random weather but rather each time frame is set in its own time of day or has specific weather assigned to it. This especially works well when the game starts off in winter with the city and cars covered in snow and roads with patches of ice then shifting to spring and summer. It’s a nice touch that we don’t see often, probably because of the extra expense of re-texturing the entire world per season. Some parts of the game occur at night, sometimes it’s raining, sometimes it’s foggy but the weather always seems to be appropriate for that segment of Vito’s story. Rather than being random like you’d see in GTA (or even an MMO) the weather, the time and other factors all contribute to the big picture of setting the mood as we progress through the narrative.

Controls

In my article about the demo I complained about the default controls on the 360 because I’d spent so much time with GTA 4 and Red Dead Redemption lately. There are two control settings, one of which is nearly identical to Rockstar’s control layout so I was very happy with that. Responsiveness is spot-on and generally I was happy with the controls for both shooting and driving. The vehicles in the demo seemed heavier or less controllable than their retail counterparts as well. Vito can store up to ten cars in his garage, and there we can see the stats of each car from brake horsepower to top speed and the car’s weight, which is important in terms of high-speed controllability. All the cars are rear-wheel drive (probably era-appropriate?) which combined with the overall weight of these older cars can result in excessive fishtailing if you don’t slow down. Unfortunately, I don’t slow down. Once it starts fishtailing, I try to correct to the other direction, probably end up over-controlling and the fishtailing gets progressively worse. I’m not the greatest driver in the world with analog thumbsticks (note: I can drive FPS vehicles perfectly fine with WASD but I am beyond useless with WASD in racing games and these open world action games. Go figure.) but I got the hang of many of the vehicles in Mafia II far better than I ever did in GTA 4, possibly better than I did in The Saboteur as well.

The shooting aspect is pretty standard fare for an open world action game. It has the same snap-to cover system we see in GTA 4, RDR and others and works great for the most part. Just like in Rockstar’s games, it knows if you’re running towards an object when you try to go into cover so Vito will run then duck and slide behind the object and so forth. The only problem is when there are multiple surfaces in a small area, Vito may take cover behind the wrong one or on the wrong side, but that is a common problem with every snap-to cover mechanic I’ve played, so I won’t single out Mafia II for it. There is no automated targeting option like GTA 4 has so you have to aim your shots. The 360 and PS3 versions do have the obligatory target assist option but it’s fairly tight — you have to aim within a few pixels of the target before it will attempt to assist. My only real gripe with the shooting is that the target reticule is located higher on the screen than I am accustomed to. I’ve had over a decade of the reticule being in the center of the screen. In Mafia II the reticule is level with Vito’s eyes. That makes perfect sense when I think about it but during hectic shootouts I would revert to aiming the center of the screen (the reticule is not displayed unless you have a weapon drawn and aimed) and firing a shot several feet over the head of the enemy. The moral of the story is when you’re hiding behind something bring your target even with Vito’s eyes (roughly halfway between the top and middle of the screen) and you should nail your target.

Mafia II also features brawling in addition to gunplay. In GTA 4, Niko could punch and block, but that was about it. Here, Vito can block, punch, counter-punch, jab and grab, with two combo’s and some finishing moves which shift to slow motion for the knockout blow (which may be a kick to the jaw rather than a punch). It’s fairly basic, no deep fighting game mechanics here, but it’s more than we’ve seen in other open world games. Just like the guns all have a good feel, so does the melee. When Vito takes a hard punch, from the animations to sounds to graphical effects, it all comes together and it’s like “damn, that hurt!” When you manage to defeat your opponent with a finishing move, it’s a satisfying thing indeed. Some reviewers are whining about the brawling, saying it’s tacked on and limited. Really? But GTA’s isn’t? Keep a straight face while you answer that. Take your tongue out of Rockstar’s sphincter first though so I can hear you…

AI

The AI in Mafia II is probably its weakest aspect, though not a game-breaker. I’ll break it down into categories for posterity.

• Actor AI: Quite often after a cutscene or conversation, the actors are supposed to walk out of the room but never open the door so they get stuck walking face-first into the door. If I walk over and open the door for them they will continue on their merry way. Possibly a minor and patchable glitch but it’s right there in your face so it’s noticeable. Otherwise the actor AI serves its purpose.
• Driver AI: On the surface the driver NPC’s seem to have the same basic AI we’d expect based on what we’ve seen with other open world games but the more I played the more it seemed like the AI drivers had a very limited focal point of awareness. Rather than having, say, a cone of vision, the drivers in Mafia II appear to only notice things directly in front of them, and even then only within a certain distance of the AI vehicle. If, say, I am driving alongside a vehicle in GTA 4, the AI might beep its horn at me and get over slightly so I don’t hit the car. If I am at a corner and begin making a turn in GTA 4, AI drivers appear to at least be aware of me. Not so in Mafia II; the AI doesn’t appear to have any awareness of me whatsoever until I am directly in front of it. If I beep my horn at AI drivers, they do not react at all whereas in GTA 4 they might get over to one side or another.
• Pedestrian AI: Very limited in scope. There aren’t as many pedestrians walking the streets as we’d see in GTA 4 or Crackdown and more importantly, they don’t react to our presence much. If I aim a weapon at a pedestrian in Mafia II they don’t notice whereas in GTA 4, Crackdown and others the AI will cower and run away. If I shoot a gun in public in Mafia II the AI will cower where they are but never run away and don’t say anything either, compared to the screaming panic that ensues in GTA 4, etc. Also there are very few AI conversations in Mafia II compared to the others, though the few that exist are pretty good, including the inmate reciting the Zero Wing introduction speech verbatim (pop culture Easter egg). The AI pedestrians are only aware of us driving if we happen to skid around a corner or otherwise end up not on a street surface, such as a sidewalk or parking lot. Then, and only then, will they react to the presence of our vehicles or to our horn. But if both the pedestrian and myself are on the street, the AI does not acknowledge my horn or vehicle at all.
• Police AI: Standard fare with the exception that the police also react to speeding. While driving, there is a “speed limiter” that, when enabled, will not allow you to exceed the posted speed limit (45 mph on city streets, 60 mph on the highway) to avoid police chases. Otherwise shooting in public, stealing a car or hitting a police car will get the cops’ attention and they turn into the same single-minded and obsessed homicidal maniacs we’ve come to expect. There was one time when a police car T-boned me in traffic but did not start chasing me. It could have been a fluke or perhaps the AI knew it hit me rather than me hitting it, but either way I approved. Escaping from the police is quite a bit easier in Mafia II than GTA 4 at least though once escaping, you are still “wanted” and if another patrol notices you long enough they will resume the chase. Usually they note your license plate so you’ll have to stop by a repair shop to have the plates changed. If they get a good look at Vito though, you’ll have to change his clothes to clear his “wanted” status.
• Shooting AI: Again, standard fare. The AI will usually take cover then pop out at predictable intervals to shoot at you. Sometimes the AI may switch positions, even running to different parts of the area, to make things interesting but that is the exception rather than the rule. Occasionally the AI may try basic flank maneuvers. Nothing we haven’t seen before and nothing we’re not already expecting. In my mind, one doesn’t buy an open world action game and expect advanced MilSim AI tactics, but apparently some reviewers do… I don’t understand that.

Graphics

As I mentioned above and in the demo article, the PC version has some incredible graphics, especially if you have the hardware to enable PhysX. Absolutely incredible. Even on the 360, though, Mafia II has great graphics for an open world game, which usually has to make sacrifices to pull off the seamless world. For sheer visual fidelity, I would list Mafia II, GTA 4, then The Saboteur. GTA 4 has the lowest performance of the bunch though it has the most detailed city and comprehensive AI so I’ll cut it slack for that, while The Saboteur muddied the background textures too much for my liking in order to get the foreground visuals and performance up. GTA 4 also blurs and muddies its background textures quite noticeably. The distant buildings and countryside in Mafia II look much sharper by comparison. 2K Czech broke out all the lighting, particle and post-processing effects as well. The headlights at night were very well done, starting as a single, brighter point of light then splitting into two headlights as the cars get closer. Lights at night and in mist or fog have both a glow and starburst effect applied. Weather is equally well done; the rain effects I thought were especially good-looking.

Sound

The sound in Mafia II is top-notch. From ambient sounds to vehicles to weapons, everything sounds excellent. The weapons in Mafia II all have their own unique “feel” and the high quality of the sound effects enhance that greatly. While driving, Empire Bay has three radio stations which play from the list of licensed songs from the 40’s and 50’s in addition to a few good DJ spots between songs. The game’s score was recorded by the Filmharmonic Orchestra Prague and is also of excellent quality and fits perfectly with the game’s narrative. Voice acting is more often than not a sore spot for video games but here. The voice acting in Mafia II is superb; it seemed like the actors really got into their characters and delivered quality performances every time. Finally, the audio engineers and producers for 2K Czech may have accomplished an industry first. Longtime readers may remember one of my pet peeves in games is that studios never lower the volume of background sounds and music when voiceovers are being played. So many games have voiced dialogue which is blocked out by full volume music, explosions, or whatever in the background. Meanwhile audio engineers have been doing it in radio, television and cinema for the past 50+ years. It takes a smallish European studio to finally show everyone else how it’s done. I doubt that it gets noticed, though so I won’t bother expecting any big-name American studios to suddenly begin mixing their audio in a professional manner.

Conclusion

If there has been one common theme in every paragraph I’ve written, it’s that of narrative. Mafia II is a highly focused, narrative-driven game and it is that which separates it from being the non-linear GTA clone that many assumed they were getting. There are no random strangers giving side-missions, no street races, or any of the other fluff detracting from the story. The only thing coming close would be robbing stores, selling high-end cars to Derek or crushing cars at Mike Bruski’s junkyard for extra money. [Note: Two DLC packs have been announced where you play as a different character “Jimmy” adding arcade gameplay featuring side-missions, street races, etc. and leaderboards. One of the DLC is currently a PS3 exclusive.] There are two aspects of collecting in Mafia II – Playboy magazines and Wanted posters. There are a total of 50 Playboy magazines, each featuring an actual, and uncensored, Playmate centerfold. Each Chapter has 3-5 magazines hidden, usually in one of that chapter’s featured locations. Then there are 150 Wanted posters hidden in rather hard-to-notice places all over Empire Bay for players who enjoy that sort of thing.

One thing I didn’t really mention was Empire Bay itself. It is a fictional city based on features of New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Some of the really high buildings immediately bring to mind the famous New York City skyline, with one tall pointed building reminiscent of the Empire State Building. One chapter of the game is set during heavy morning fog and you drive over one of the large arched bridges. In the city then driving up the bridge you can barely see in front of your face through the fog and looking out of the bridge is nothing but whiteness then you crest the top of the bridge and emerge from the top of the fog and can just make out the tops of some of the taller buildings as they pierce the misty veil, stretching for the overcast sky above then you drive back into the fog as the bridge descends. Simple, yet effective, and brings to mind those foggy mornings in San Francisco. Empire Bay is also smaller than Liberty City and less of a meandering jungle of streets. That may in fact, be appropriate for the era in which Mafia II is set but for a game play experience, I prefer driving five to eight minutes over GTA 4’s ten to fifteen minute drives during missions.

Mafia II takes it’s M rating to heart, more so than GTA 4. Just like every gangster movie ever made, Mafia II has a lot of strong language and violence in some cutscenes. The few instances of violence in GTA’s cutscenes don’t hold a candle to this.

Obviously I enjoyed my time with Mafia II and would heartily recommend it as long as you know you’re getting a game focused on story rather than the more non-linear meandering experiences of GTA 4. Oakstout and I were doing some multiplayer GTA 4 last week and he mentioned he always feels overwhelmed in the open world games because he never knows what to do or where to go. If you’re only playing Niko’s story then that isn’t the case (same with Red Dead Redemption) but GTA 4 has all the strangers, the friends, and other side-content that could be missed if you don’t know about it. Mafia II is all about Vito’s story, period, so I suspect Oakstout might have an easier time with Mafia II provided the game’s style and theme is suitable for him. The story itself was very enjoyable as Vito meets various characters and as time passes and he matures he begins to realize the toll of the lifestyle he has chosen. There are a few unexpected plot twists and the characters were all enjoyable to learn, even the bad guys who were usually so bad it felt good to go against or defeat them. Again, props to the voice actors for jumping feet-first into their characters.

Now excuse me, I have a few more Playmates to find…

Fun Fact: All those Playboy magazines? Mafia II is set between 1945 and 1951. Playboy was founded in 1953.

I downloaded the Mafia II demo for both Xbox 360 and PC (via Steam) yesterday and did a few playthroughs on each platform. The PC version is amazingly smooth! 2K Czech is obviously proud of the work they’ve done on their PC engine and they have every right to be. Performance didn’t scale quite as well on the 360 engine; it could definitely use more optimization (which I don’t see happening this close to release date) but it’s not bad by any means.

Graphics are quite good for an open world game; better than GTA4 on probably every point, and make no mistake: GTA4 will be what everyone compares it to. It also has PhysX (only Medium and High settings) which I had never seen fully functional until now. The environmental texture interaction with PhysX was amazing! Start moving and Vito’s jacket would “poof out” slightly from the air catching it, and the corners of his jacket sway in the breeze. With PhysX on, smoke actually reacts to your movement through it whereas with no PhysX it’s a static particle effect. I ended up leaving PhysX disabled because this PC is my first ever with an ATI video card, so PhysX calculations are offloaded to the CPU which caused a performance hit of roughly 20 to 30fps.

Controls were a mixed bag on both platforms. On the 360 the default controls (I did not check to see if controls are changeable) use the Halo “press RB to reload” which I intensely dislike, and the Gears of War “press A to enter/exit cover” which is fine except I’ve been spending so much time in Red Dead Redemption and GTA4 lately that Rockstar’s controls are far more intuitive for me at the moment. On the PC, it may just be that I do the majority of my gaming on the 360 now but it took me awhile to get used to controlling Vito with mouse and keyboard. I have no problems with MMO’s and FPS’ so I am inclined to stand by my opinion that PC developers just don’t “get” third person shooter-style control. Driving was atrocious for me on the PC. I thought I was a poor driver with analog thumbsticks but driving with WASD? No wonder racing games have all but died on the PC, it’s atrocious! I’m sure PC gamers who spend more time with action games that use vehicles would get comfortable with it faster than I did, and a few key re-binds would probably serve me better than the default controls.

Audio is great as well. The story takes place from in the early 1950′s so era-appropriate music plays on the radio stations — Buddy Holly, Elvis, and many more — as well as commentary from the fictional radio stations. On the playthrough I just completed, for example, the DJ was talking about the new invention of the “computer” (quoted because of how the DJ annunciates every time he says the word) as big as a house and eventually scientists hope to make them small enough to fit in a garage. Voice acting is also well-done, and features liberal use of F-bombs as we would expect from an M-rated game focused on the Mafia. My only complaint was the audio engineering. There was a little too much bass on Vito’s voiceovers and the mixing made his voice seem too all-encompassing rather than coming from his location onscreen. As usual, the audio engineer (Do game studios even have audio engineers? Maybe that’s the problem!) didn’t think to adjust the music and other sounds during dialogue, but I can’t think of a single game ever that did this properly off the top of my head so I can’t really fault the guys at 2K Czech for being industry-consistent.

A recent trend in practically every video game genre is collectibles and Mafia II jumps on the bandwagon as well with a number of Playboy magazines (featuring actual centerfolds from the era) all over the city of Empire Bay for Vito to find. The demo includes five magazines, which I have included locations to in my slideshow. Considering how innocent of an era we consider the 50′s to be, it’s almost amusingly disturbing to think that these shop owners leave Playboy magazines on their countertops in plain view of everyone though.

I just may end up buying Mafia II, though probably not for awhile because I’ve already spent quite a bit of time with GTA4 lately, finishing both Niko’s story and The Lost and Damned DLC and my current obsession has been Red Dead Redemption (92.2% completion of all tasks at the time of this writing!) and Crackdown 2 is waiting on me as well, so my plate is a bit full on open world games. Despite the better performance on the PC, I will be getting the 360 version of the game for comfort (RSI on my mouse-using wrist, remember?) and the achievements. Yes, I’m an Achievement Whore, what of it?

A couple weeks ago, one of the popular topics recirculating the blogosphere was immersion. “Immersion” ranks right up there with “hardcore” or “casual” where if you ask ten gamers what immersion means to them, you’ll get twenty answers. Two of my favorite articles on the subject were The Psychology of Immersion in Video Games and What is Immersion? From my own experiences observing and participating in discussions of immersion, it seems those two articles collectively hit the nail on the head: as gamers, we tend to use the term “immersion” to mean alternatively “spatial presence” (read the first link, or Wikipedia) — which is how I normally define immersion as well — or “flow” depending on the circumstances (and the player’s understanding of the terms).

Despite my love for video games, when I stack them up against books and movies, I find games to be the least immersing of the three. Books would be top of the list because the various descriptors used in writing can pull me into the story’s world (spatial presence) to various degrees, though I may only achieve a state of flow where I am really engaged or engrossed in the story but circumstances around me such as the fact I am reading on a plane, possibly elbow-to-elbow with other passengers, snoring fat guys in front of me and screaming demon-children behind me prevent me from reaching a state of immersion. Similarly, movies can be so engaging and entertaining that they pull the viewer into that world — James Cameron’s Avatar was a cinematic experiment in forcing a suspension of disbelief; remember the hoopla over “Post-Avatar Depression?” — or they may be very enjoyable, the 2 or 3 hours may seem to pass quickly, but we are still aware we’re in a theater, that there are other people around us (possibly talking or making other noises) and we still had to get up to visit the restroom. Athletes can enter a state of flow while playing (being “in the zone”) or I could get into a state of flow if I am successfully playing Tetris but Tetris is not immersing (spatial presence) because there is no “there” to Tetris, there is only the gameplay itself and the level of my focus upon it, which is flow. (Yes, I am calling upon my trademark ability to split hairs (/wave to SmakenDahead) and refute Elena Gorfinkel’s Tetris example quoted in the second article I linked.)

The above paragraph can sound like it is external stimuli that is “immersion breaking” or perhaps even “flow breaking,” but I believe there are three factors at work, that being only one. A second is, for lack of a better term, the media presentation. If I’m reading a book from a new author, that may show in her writing and if I deem the writing style amateurish it may have the effect of reducing my interest and therefore reducing flow and immersion. Also if the writing is either too complex, vague, or overly prosaic yet underdeveloped (Tolkien’s The Silmarillion comes to mind) and I find myself repeatedly re-reading paragraphs just to try to understand what the author is trying to convey, all levels of flow and immersion are nullified. Studies (and opinions) show that sometimes using a well-known actor in a movie can contribute to the audience’s engagement with the story. Other times, not so much. For instance, I tend to be skeptical of movies starring Jim Carrey and Robin Williams because all too often they don’t act. They may be playing a character with a different name, but they are being themselves and replaying their same old shtick again. But the few times they step outside themselves and into the role, I find myself able to get into the movie much easier. Another example is Inception, which I have not seen yet. I keep hearing how excellent the movie is, and what a fantastic job all the actors did, yet I watch the trailers and can’t help but think Joseph Gordon-Levitt was horribly miscast because all I think is “That kid from 3rd Rock From the Sun? Are you kidding me?” My suspension of disbelief is already broken before I’ve even arrived at the theater, and it will be left up to his acting and the overall story to bring them back up for a fully enjoyable, immersing, and hopefully thought-provoking experience.

That last sentence serves as a segue to what I see as the third factor: suspension of disbelief. More to the point, a willing suspension of disbelief, meaning the participant must bring that to the table themselves. I have to be willing to give John Papsidera the benefit of the doubt for casting Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Inception. World of Warcraft players have to be willing to believe in the cartoonish world of Azeroth. Immersion is not something left entirely unto the creators to supply, though they certainly have the bulk of that task. We, the audience and participants, must be willing to suspend our disbelief in order for the spatial presence immersion to work.

But is immersion required? Looking at our favorite genre, MMORPG’s, I am inclined to say no. Sure, some players take things all the way into full role-playing. Even then, there are different degrees and types of role-play. I have my own style and typically limit it to myself, since it my enjoyment of directing my characters development through the world that matters to me, and I do it my own way. However, when I do happen to include others in my little personal role-play sphere (usually in chat) some readers can be thrown off because I can often switch in and out of character within the same sentence and leave it for the reader to discern which is which. To put it more technically, I am readily able to switch from the Player form to the Character form at will, and sometimes to the Person form, as Gary Allen Fine would say in his Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds. Whether that is a result of so many years of tabletop RPG’s where I had to switch from myself to GM to various NPC’s, writing, and now various video games and MMORPG’s or simply my (lack of) attention span, I will leave you to decide. Other players don’t seem inclined to immerse themselves in the game or its world but are perfectly content to play for the entertainment and social value. I always remember an Age of Conan player who said in Global chat “I know that I am sitting at my computer pushing a cartoon character through a cartoon world, and I don’t care to take it any further than that.”

How can media creators, or specifically game designers, work to improve our suspension of disbelief and therefore our sense of spatial presence? Small details and consistency. In order for us to believe in this virtual world, it needs to be true to itself to pull us in. I said above that the WoW player must be willing to accept the cartoony world, but from there the task in on Blizzard’s shoulders to ensure the various aspects of that world appear or behave in a consistent manner. Turbine has all sorts of little Tolkien references hidden away in LOTRO awaiting players to discover, assuming they are recognized for what they are.

Yet, for myself, I find that it is often the act of playing the game itself that detracts from spatial presence. Our Diku-influenced MMORPG’s require so many hotbars, inventory slots and other UI frames that keep me in the Player form paying attention to the keyboard, mouse, and on-screen cursor or watching UI elements such as debuff icons or health bars. Those UI elements take up entirely too much real estate on my monitor as well and get in the way of putting myself fully in the role of directing my character or believing in that virtual world. I always appreciated WoW and LOTRO for including the ability to bind name text to a key, and I get highly agitated at all the games that make me go into the options and turn names off one by one. Unless I have a need for names to be displayed, I typically press the ‘N’ key to turn off all names over NPC’s, objects and other players, because the more I have to pay attention and mentally engage myself in my virtual surroundings the better my sense of flow and immersion will be as opposed to simply being told in large, brightly-colored text that there is an annoying Mirkwood Crow up ahead in the darkness or that the player ThunderN00b is hiding behind that bush hoping to gank me but his big name sticking out of the bush gave away his position.

While we hear the word “immersion” being used most within the MMORPG genre, and MMORPG’s are for the most part consistent with their world design and behavior within it, MMORPG designers are woefully behind the times and behind the power curve compared to other studios. Specifically I will give Rockstar the award for Best Virtual World Design, and that is mostly due to all the little details they put into their worlds, and also physics, which is something MMO’s haven’t adopted yet.

I recently finished the story mode to Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption, which also provoked me to get back playing their Grand Theft Auto 4, where I finally finished the story mode, and one of its expansions, The Lost and Damned, which I also completed. Without getting into the gameplay of any of those and just sticking to the topic of the virtual worlds they have created, they are hands-down the most immersing I have experienced. The environments are a huge part of it, from the massive, winding Liberty City to the open ranges of the Old West, it is always fun to explore. The citizens of those worlds are another huge factor. All the people walking or driving through Liberty City or riding their horses or coaches in Red Dead Redemption. Having conversations among themselves, reacting to your presence if you walk near (or into) them, skid your car around a corner, or shoot a gun. Sometimes I like to just stop and observe what they do because you never get the same thing twice. I might drive down a street and find an accident in the intersection. An NPC may have been mugged and the thief is running away. An NPC thief might be carjacking another driver — or me. The police might chase down and arrest the NPC. Helicopters and planes fly overhead. Boats and ships are in the river. If I get out of my car, it’s still there when I come back. In RDR, Rockstar ramped things up even more. My horse is not merely a “speed buff with graphics” like our MMORPG mounts. Like the car in GTA4, it is its own entity and if I get off the horse it still exists in the world. But the horse is also an animal, so has its own AI. Horses are skittish around noises like gunfire, and this is reflected in-game. My horse also knows if there’s a rattlesnake nearby even if I don’t see it. It also has a sense of self-preservation and will do everything in its power to prevent me from riding off a cliff. These are consistent behaviors I would expect and the AI interactions and behaviors contribute to my suspension of disbelief, even when it’s silly. At times it can be aggravating if I hop off the horse to gather a plant or skin an animal and it walks off to graze, but it is the behavior I would expect if I let a real horse go alone unhitched. Compare all that to our MMORPG worlds where most town citizens are mannequins or at best have a brief patrol pattern. There is never any sense that the NPC’s actually live in MMO villages or that they truly exist at all other than as static Pez dispensers for quests. Another example in RDR is when I gather a plant or skin an animal, I am shown a brief cinematic where Marston bends down and picks the plant or takes out his hunting knife and skins the animal. This is a brief perspective shift, which may potentially bother certain players (as discussed in my recent Dragon Age vs. Mass Effect article) but it does serve to keep me squarely planted in the virtual world. What are not immersing are progress bars. I don’t know what happened in recent years that caused developers to decide that nearly every possible action in an RPG needs to be accompanied by a progress bar, but it is an annoying practice. Being annoyed in both Person and Player forms is a sure-fire way to eliminate my spatial presence.

There are no names floating above NPC’s or objects in Rockstar’s worlds, I have to mentally engage myself, pay attention and *gasp* learn. This is especially apparent in RDR where, if my count is correct, there are 31 different animals (counting both domestic and wild) and I may have to hunt and skin various types. Not only do I have to learn what each type looks like (Is that a deer, an elk or a bighorn ram? Is that little critter a raccoon or an armadillo?) but also learn where they may be located, not only from a “zone” point of view but also what terrain do they prefer and sometimes take into account whether they are predominantly diurnal or nocturnal animals. The animals in RDR behave like the animals they mimic. Wolves are pack animals and hunt together, but with more realistic patterns than the hard-coded patrols we’d see in an MMORPG. Deer are easily spooked and will bolt in erratic patterns, which can be fun to watch if there is a herd of them. Buffalo and cattle can also be spooked if chased, will work themselves into a lemming-like frenzy and run themselves off a cliff to their deaths. All this leads to a more pure sense of “hunting” than what we have in an MMORPG where we know not only which zone a particular mob is located, but also where it has been placed and will always respawn. The crème de la crème of hunting in RDR is the grizzly bear. While it is only found in the North, specifically in the area around Tall Trees, it can often be an elusive beast depending how vigilant I am scanning the entire environment and the time of day. Unlike MMORPG’s where “night” is simply stars in the sky and the lighting turned down a couple notches, Rockstar’s nights are very dark and difficult to see in. In LOTRO or other MMORPG’s if we get into aggro range of a bear, it will stand up, make its bear roar sound then charge us. There is no aggro range in RDR. If a grizzly happens to see me, I can pretty much bet that it’s pissed off and will charge. I rarely see them ahead of time and when I do it’s too late. They don’t make a roar sound at all ahead of time, I have to rely on hearing it breath as it charges. In fact, there are already so many ambient sounds in RDR from other animals to other NPC people, to gunfire, to my horse making horse noises, to the sound of its hooves on the ground that I ended up turning off the music every time I enter Tall Trees just to give myself one avenue of advantage to attempt to hear a grizzly breathing. Grizzlies are also the most dangerous predator in the game. Two swipes from a bear and you’re dead. We can carry medicine in our pack which will heal us from one hit but depending on how the physics system reacted to the bear’s mauling, it’s possible the bear may be back for its death blow before we manage to stand and use the medicine. You’ve heard adrenaline-pumping stories of trying to avoid and evade enemies on a PvP server in an MMO? The grizzly in RDR is the closest I’ve ever come to that feeling in a PvE setting. I may be hunting, but I am also being hunted.

[Note to MMO developers: The previous paragraph is precisely what we speak of when we ask for better AI. We are not asking for impossibly difficult AI like you continue to believe. We are not asking for human-level deviousness, ingenuity and tactics. We are simply asking that things behave as we would expect them to, including cover or survival tactics for intelligent enemies (eg. humans or humanoids). The "Hulk Smash!" AI found in MMORPG's was perfectly acceptable in 1980's-era arcade games but it's time to join us in the 21st century.]

Rockstar also uses physics in GTA4 and RDR, specifically the Euphoria physics engine, which is specially crafted to provide realistic movement and behavior to models rather than having each animation sequence hard-coded like we see in MMORPG’s. If I jump off my horse while it’s still moving, I will lean back on my heels while I realistically skid to a stop. If I jump in the air, I see a normal jump animation but if I’m near a fence I climb or vault over it. I may even stumble over an object or a small ledge and fall to the ground then pick myself up and dust myself off. Running too fast down stairs may lead to stumbling or running into someone. Reactions to an explosion takes into account the distance from the center of the blast. Maybe I am simply knocked down or maybe I am blown off my feet and into a wall. By contrast, all “knockbacks” in an MMORPG have hard-coded arcs instead of actual physics modeling. Rockstar also gives more benign physics behavior such as walking or driving uphill tends to slow us down, and moving downhill speeds up. Age of Conan is the only MMORPG I have seen include that behavior. Horses in RDR ride faster on paths or roads than in wild terrain. If it rains in Liberty City your tires have less traction.

Speaking of weather, Rockstar even delivers in that department. Not content with simply “rain” their worlds might have anything from light showers to torrential downpours to raging thunderstorms. Sometimes the rains will be accompanied by mists. Wet surfaces actually appear wet and puddles form. Mornings may be foggy in Liberty City. Mountains in RDR may have mists or fog in the evenings. Dry dust blows through the weeds in the parched plains. I’ll give LOTRO the award for Best Weather in an MMORPG but Rockstar still takes the award home for Most Comprehensive Weather in a Video Game. Not to say it’s perfect; it isn’t but it’s the best out there at the moment.

I will leave you with this time-lapse of Red Dead Redemption created by Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry.

This is the YouTube version, fine for the embed here but I recommend viewing the one on the RDR: World in Motion article which describes how they made it. The best version is their 720p H.264 MP4 they link for download though.

For those interested, Digital Foundry also has time-lapse videos of GTA4, Assassin’s Creed 2, and others. Links should be found at the end of each time-lapse video article.

Caught the blurb on Massively so I popped over to Twisted Pixel’s site, and sure enough, they’ve posted that they’ve completed a contract to help build Turbine’s upcoming unannounced console MMO.

It’s still hush hush, but we just finished a contract with Turbine to help them build an awesome new MMO intended for consoles.

If you want more than that, you’ll have to take it up with Turbine, because we can’t spill the beans on their top-secret game.

It was a fun project, and we’re proud of our work. We can’t wait to play it ourselves when it’s released.

This is exciting news! Twisted Pixel has produced two of the most highly-acclaimed XBLA titles out there – The Maw and Splosion Man – and gives me hope that whatever the game may be, it won’t use the Turbine Engine. I enjoy Turbine’s games, but that engine is coming up on a decade old and it seems like they keep piling features on top of the ancient crap instead of cleaning it up and keeping it updated under the hood. Epic and id update their engines and design entirely new ones; it’s time Turbine stepped up to the plate as well.

Of course now the speculation goes into overdrive of what the game will be. I could have swore Turbine said (or implied) it would be a new IP but players won’t seem to drop the idea of a DDO port. The concept of DDO – a co-op group completing adventures – would work perfectly on consoles; after all co-op is the Big Thing this year, but would require a massive overhaul of the UI and inventory mechanics. We are also accustomed to buying DLC Adventure Packs already on consoles, though I have my doubts that a full in-game store would go over well in the console world. The instanced adventures would work well given that consoles have much more limited RAM and resources than higher-end PC’s. I could see a console DDO going over quite well if it were given a better engine and the fluid controls and graphics/animations we’ve come to expect on modern AAA console titles – something Turbine struggles with on the PC with limited success.

A console version of LOTRO? Nah, DIKU and consoles just don’t get along. An “arcadey” version of LOTRO with a playable evil side? Why would Turbine bother when Snowblind is already finishing up that exact idea (non-massively multiplayer) with Lord of the Rings: War in the North?

The much-speculated Harry Potter MMO? Now we’re at least talking with not only a new IP but one that belongs to Turbine’s new Dark Lord owner, Warner Brothers. It’s been talked about for a long time, and WB has stated they would like to see the IP given the MMO treatment. My own hope is that if it happens, it’s not too kiddy-fied. Not everyone who enjoys Harry Potter is a kid, nor are a good deal of console players, and I would hate to feel flatly excluded from a title.

How about a console MMO set on Dereth, the world of the Asheron’s Call games? That would bring some attention back to that IP and perhaps to the original MMO that is still running (and I’m certain Asheron’s Call will end up going the hybrid freemium route eventually) and possibly lead into an Asheron’s Call 3 MMO on the PC as well.

How about moving on from fantasy (Turbine has 3 fantasy IP’s already) altogether? Done correctly, we console players certainly still love our fantasy, but also seem much more willing to accept other settings than are our PC compatriots.

Sorry, still no screenshots. Too busy installing and playing all these games to remember to take screenshots then upload them anywhere. I’ll do it next time! (That’s probably what I said last time, right?)

In the MMO Department, I’ve installed the obvious: LOTRO because I’m a Lifetime member and it’s “home” then Age of Conan because I kept my subscription active the past few months and *gasp* the game has come a long way since beta; it’s quite a blast now, and a shame more bloggers aren’t coming back to it.

I took Longasc’s advice and turned DX10 back on in LOTRO but disabled the dynamic shadows. Honestly, I can’t tell it from DX9 like that, but I’m sure there must be some differences somewhere that I’m missing.

Otherwise, despite being either on break or having a broken PC for the majority of last year, LOTRO was almost like I’d never left. I’m still busy grinding daily quests in Lothlorien for reputation so I can get into Caras Galadhon. I also never got to kindred with the Iron Miners so I’ll have to go back and work on that too so I can get the Friend of Nature combat pet. Then of course, I need the last few pieces of Radiance gear to complete the set then continue to the new set for Mirkwood which everyone is saying has crappy stats but the Radiance is required. So other than learning Skirmishes and grinding up my little Soldier — how the hell do I change classes or make it female? All I can do so far is trait him for Warrior (dps) or Protector (tank) — and the fact I’m getting XP again, it’s almost like nothing’s changed for me since I’m essentially still playing the early Moria game where I left off.

Age of Conan, as I mentioned, is a lot of fun! I’ve been plugging along quite nicely, just putting an hour or two per day in running quests. The XP is a bit over the top, though. My Bear Shaman reached level 28 and is already 80% to 29 just from turning in quests and only a few combat encounters. Maybe I’m just spoiled from having a mount in LOTRO but I’m really resenting being locked out of my mounts (I have two War Mammoths) until level 40. I’m assuming (hoping?) that the Bear Shaman will be a desired class for grouping and raiding, though. My primary goal in AoC is participating in end-game, so I want a class that I enjoy playing and is also in demand and can get groups easily. Really looking forward to the expansion!

Guild Wars is installed and up-to-date but I did not install using the -image switch so all I really have is the login screen. I’ll have to fully load each and every zone one by one once I decide to actually jump in and play the game, unless the -image switch also works after the fact?

I was planning on installing DDO but the little installer program doesn’t seem interested in running at all in Win7, even under compatibility settings. I’ll come back to that one, it’s rather low on the priority list, although I’m extremely curious to see how it’s changed since the business model shift.

In F2P Land, I installed that Allods Online game, and not sure I’ll be sticking with it. I do like that they totally ripped off Mythic’s font from Warhammer, though. That font was probably my favorite part of WAR’s UI. Otherwise, yeah, the art style in Allods is very WoW-ish so far. Due to that, framerate is excellent although the engine seems to falter a bit when it comes to loading in players.

I also installed Runes of Magic and spent a few hours today trying to remember how to play my character and how some of that game works. Despite being quite “standard” there’s something I rather like about Runes of Magic. I kinda wouldn’t mind having a regular F2P title as a secondary MMO; something that I like enough to be willing to support the developers by actually spending a little money here and there. It’s been well over a year since I last played, and my character is only level 11 now, but I never understood why Darren raised such a stink over the price of mounts. Compared to other F2P mount prices, RoM’s are right about in the middle; I’ve seen cheaper but I’ve also seen much more expensive in other games. I figure if he liked the game that much (and he seemed to until he saw the price of the mounts and then changed his opinion of the entire game) what’s $10 or whatever towards supporting a game you like that you never had to pay a dime for the box or a subscription? Darren has never struck me as an end-game kinda guy but the prices to play end-game at the same time he was complaining about the horse was the real crime. I think it was something like twice the cost of a full year in a subscription MMO in order to play RoM’s end-game. And he was complaining about a horse? That’s missing the forest for the trees, right there.

Finally, I saw Steam had Champions Online which is now setup as a permanent trial. So I logged into my Cryptic account and got a trial key and put a few minutes into it last night. Graphics are nice and I love the art style but the controls were a bit wonky and unresponsive. I was into comics and superheroes in high school, and I love the superhero movies of today, but I just don’t know that I’m into superhero games, MMO or otherwise. I bought City of Heroes at launch, and I think my character is perhaps level 9? Maybe slightly higher. I sub for a month every couple years, and CoH never manages to hold my interest the full month and after a few minutes in Champions I can tell it would probably be a similar story. But I’ll keep it installed since it’s a never-ending trial so I can pop in at my leisure.

In non-MMO territory, I started things off with my favorite PC shooter, Battlefield 2142. Installed it, patched it to 1.40 then installed the expansion then patched to 1.50. It runs fine but I keep getting PunkBuster errors and kicked off every server I’ve tried playing on. I have the manual PunkBuster updater but it’s not helping. So, no luck with shooters so far. It crossed my mind to pick up Bad Company 2 for PC but I only know two people who have it on PC. I run a Friends of Friends list on XBL that currently has 70 members of the 21+ adult gaming group I’m a member of so it’s not hard to do the math and figure out where I’d get the most bang for my buck. Bad Company 2 is arguably the best shooter I’ve ever played, but playing with the general public rather than squadding up with friends gives a much weaker experience and I’d most likely be stuck with the public if I got it on PC. Plus I get achievements on 360!

Speaking of that, Oakstout talked me into buying Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 2 yesterday. I know the hardcore PC-only guys bitch about the whole Games for Windows LIVE thing but I love it! Not only can I chat (both text and voice) with my friends on XBL but I get achievements too! So far the game is pretty fun. It’s more of an RTT than an RTS, which is more my style, and the bosses are much more active and scripted, similar to a console game boss or an MMO raid boss, which makes for an interesting experience. Apparently DoW2 has a co-op mode too, so Oakstout is looking forward to getting me into a match. JayeDub saw me playing yesterday and said the same thing, and I think both Hudson and SmakenDahead have the game so maybe Oak can get a whole blogger or Casualties of War group for DoW2.

I also installed World in Conflict, another RTT. I bought it launch day because a buddy and I were interested then we ended up only able to play once. That was, what, two years ago? Turns out Oakstout and Aaron both have WiC too, and have expressed an interest in making some rounds there.

Finally, Aaron has spent the past year or so trying to convince me to get Battle for Middle Earth 2, so I bit the bullet and ordered that yesterday as well. He says it has an excellent co-op campaign and I’ve heard good things about the game overall, despite being 3 years old or whatever now.

So, now I’ll be back to bouncing back and forth between the PC and 360 again; between MMO’s and real games again. The challenge I face is whether I can flit from game to game as much as Stargrace or not! Watching her status on Raptr can be entertaining all on its own and makes me wonder if I’m not the only blogger out there with an extremely short attention span!

Before I sign off, non-gaming question: Rather than making backups of important files, settings, and media I bought a new hard drive for this PC. I have the other hard drive installed as secondary, and eventually after I’m satisfied I’ve pulled all the files I need off of it, I’m considering formatting that drive and making the entire drive into the My Documents partition. I could do that easily under XP but does Win7 support that type of thing? And would you recommend doing it or should I leave well enough alone?

As in the previous article, beware traveler! Beyond this point be spoilers!

I completed Mass Effect 2 last week, and it was glorious! I wanted to check a single part of the UI in Mass Effect to compare to Mass Effect 2 and ended up getting so engrossed in the game that I completed an entire second play-through of Mass Effect in 3 days! My first ME (and ME2) play-throughs were as a male Soldier class who took the Paragon path. So this time I played the exact opposite: a female Adept (biotic) Renegade. Boy, was that some devilish fun being no-nonsense, shooting important NPC’s in the head and slinging biotic powers all over the place. It was almost like playing a Sith, sans the red lightsaber. I’m looking forward to taking her through ME2 doing all the Renegade actions and seeing her glowing facial scars from the Lazarus Project become more pronounced. (See? Spoiler!)

On a positive note, playing both games back-to-back has brought the stark contrast between the two games into clearer light.

Every technical aspect has been dramatically improved upon for Mass Effect 2. Character models, animations, world design and architecture, textures, lighting and particle effects, controls, UI… you name it, it’s better in ME2 and with much better performance!

From an overall story perspective, I would without hesitation recommend playing ME before going into ME2. There are too many mentions of events that occurred in ME and several brief appearances of characters that Shepard interacted with in the first game that wouldn’t make sense or have meaning to players who skipped ME. Do yourself a favor and play them both for the full effect.

In addition to the other positive aspects I’ve already mentioned both here and in the previous article, I’ll add the new cover mechanic as well. There was a cover mechanic to ME as well, but it only worked by running into a large object like a wall. Anything smaller than Shepard would not work. ME2 improves by not only making Shepard crouch behind smaller objects but also adds more direct interaction to enter/leave cover by pressing the A button. Also, once covered behind a smaller barrier, moving forward and pressing A tells Shepard to jump over the barrier, and the game uses this new mechanic to move from cover point to cover point as well as for climbing. As I said in the first article, ME2 is very derivative of the Gears of War series in several areas, cover mechanic being just one.

ME2 has an improved auto-save as well, should you choose to use it (it’s on by default). There are frequent auto-save points, and all saves are completely seamless whereas in ME the game would freeze during the save process. First, the save points are a tremendous boon, and I became so accustomed to this that it cost me over an hour of playtime I had to repeat during my replay of ME a few days ago when I hit a snag and wanted to reload. I also noticed that ME does not allow you to manually reload an auto-save; you have to exit the game then resume to do that. ME2 lets us re-load an auto-save from the Load menu, which is a huge convenience.

Another positive in ME2 is that each mission has its own cinematic, in contrast to ME which re-used the same scene constantly. For example, in ME every time you land on a planet, it’s the exact same scene of the Normandy sweeping down and dropping off the Mako rover, the only change being the sky and terrain graphics are unique for each planet. ME2 has extremely well-rendered cinematics for every single mission which are not only enjoyable to watch on their own but also serve to improve the overall sense of immersion in the game’s universe.

To avoid being a drooling Mass Effect fanboy, I’ll give some negatives and things that I am still undecided how I feel about in ME2. Nothing’s perfect, after all.

The Mission Complete screen. This is a minor — indeed, a shallow — thing, and on the one hand I suppose it’s convenient to have one screen that shows all the XP, credits, etc. I gained during that mission. On a negative side, it makes an already streamlined RPG feel more like “merely” a game, like Peggle or something where you see the “Level Complete!” screen.

The XP Table. Mass Effect 2 does not use a gradually increasing XP curve, like we’ve become accustomed to over the years in every single RPG. Each level in Mass Effect 2 requires 1,000 XP and never changes from that. Unlike ME, no XP is earned for kills, hacking, resource recovery, etc. Completing a Story Mission rewards 1,000 XP so automatically completing a Story Mission means you gain a level. Completing a Loyalty Quest for your crew members rewards 750 XP each. Anomaly Detected missions discovered while scanning a planet for resources reward 125 XP upon completion and then side missions acquired from dialogue with NPC award 40 XP. I am undecided how I feel about this change. It is convenient knowing exactly what is required to level up, and many (not all) RPG’s, including MMORPG’s, have a leveling curve where it requires exponentially more XP to gain each new level, but kills also reward more XP so it works out that the curve is barely noticeable in practice.

Some story elements were questionable. One that stands out is during the mission to recruit Mordin, you encounter people looting the dead bodies. This apparently offends Shepard, for there is a dialogue scene to dissuade them (or probably threaten them if you’re playing renegade) from looting the corpses and offices. Meanwhile what is Shepard doing the entire game? Looting corpses and offices. The few areas of “exploration” in ME2 is solely for the purpose of looting. Practice what you preach, Shepard.

I was not a fan of ME2′s particular method of content gating. Similar to ME, each NPC crew member has a particular area of the Normandy they can be found. It’s the same in ME2 but now the door to the NPC’s area is locked until you recruit them. Uh, sorry, but Shepard is the commanding officer and there is no reason he would be locked out of part of his ship. Maybe it’s just close to home since I’m a captain at work and there is no part of the jet I’m “locked out” of for any reason. Regardless, next time I’d prefer a more logical and story-based means of content gating.

The audio mixing was poor during dialogue scenes. BioWare is hardly the only game developer guilty of this, but it just amazes me that audio engineering and production has been around for how long now? And games still don’t lower the volume of the background music and ambient sounds during dialogue so that we can, you know, hear what is being said? Bargain basement radio shows know how to do this; there is no excuse for development studios with multi-million dollar budgets to be this clueless.

Finally, I did encounter two glitches during the game that required re-loading. At the Normandy crash site, I walked too close to a cliff while exploring and triggered a z-axis glitch which elevated Shepard a few pixels in the air. Suddenly he could walk on air out over the cliff but couldn’t get back down onto the actual terrain. Also on Tuchanka during Grunt’s loyalty quest, at one point we’re fighting waves of klixen and one large flying klixen. Once we’d killed all the smaller klixen, the big flying one disappeared. My AI squadmates continued shooting into the air where the klixen was supposed to be, but it never reappeared so we could kill it and continue the mission.

I’ve read a few reviews that complained about the mission structure, saying they were all similar. Um, duh? Every mission will have some exploration, some dialogue, some story, and some combat. It was the same in ME, and it’s the same in every single RPG I’ve ever heard of. I’m a little confused why ME2 is being singled out for the same act all RPG’s (or any game with a story) are guilty of? The one thing during missions that became somewhat predictable was that if you ran into an area and suddenly notice low walls or other short barriers, you know you’re about to enter combat because those low barriers are to take cover behind or jump over. If you’re paying attention to that, you have a heads-up that combat is coming but there are also other clues. But the actual maps for each mission is unique each time, unlike ME with its horrid planet design and only a handful of building layouts which were repeated ad nauseum.

I will agree, to an extent, with the complaints over the length of the actual story arc itself compared to the number of recruitment missions. ME2 is a much more focused and tighter experience, and while the actual story arc defeating the Collectors is condensed to a few missions, what the game did from an overall perspective was to drastically improve the lore to Mass Effect in an immersive and visual manner. In ME we learned about the Quarion flotilla in dialogue and from reading the Codex (You did read the Codex right? No? Me either.) but in ME2 we actually get to see that migrant fleet and board two of its ships. So much of what we only heard of in the first game we actually experience, to varied degrees, in the second. ME2 spends a lot of time letting us expand our experience and knowledge within the Mass Effect universe. Instead of just reading the Codex for lore (and there’s plenty of that, too, unfortunately) ME2 also gives us the chance to live out little bits of it. Mass Effect 2 had record-setting sales of over two million units its first week, and the most January sales to date, no small feat considering ME2 launched on January 26th. Mass Effect is becoming a big-name IP, right up there with the Star Trek’s and Star Wars of yesteryear, and you can officially count me among those who firmly believe without a doubt that BioWare fully intends on expanding the Mass Effect IP into the massively multiplayer realm within the next decade. ME2 serves to further that goal by showing us more of that universe and letting us play in it, in addition to merely reading about it, which not only improves the “immersion” of ME2 but also draws us into the concept of the IP as a whole so we yearn for more. The lore already has everything we’d possibly need for an awesome space adventure MMORPG: multiple races, multiple opposing factions to support PvP, governing bodies, galactic threats, law enforcement, criminals, mercenary groups, etc. The potential is there for either the greatest sandbox-with-a-story MMO or the greatest sci-fi themepark MMO. I’m hoping for the former, myself…