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Before it was cool to sneak around in the dark with a flashlight shining on your back, the face of stealth gaming was a thief named Garrett who lurked in the shadows of a steampunk city. Looking Glass Studios released Thief: The Dark Project in 1998 and redefined the genre, leaving indelible marks on current popular stealth games such as the Splinter Cell series. But with new innovations in graphics and gameplay, does Thief still hold up or has it long been surpassed by its offspring?

Garrett is a loner. He grew up as a young petty thief on the street until he met a Keeper, a member of a secret order that takes in Garrett and trains him. Once a master in the art of thieving, Garrett returns to his solo gig, taking on high-end jobs. But it’s not long before he takes dangerous ones, and crosses the path of a few powerful factions.

The world around which the game is built is fascinating; a blend of medieval-era life with industrial age technology makes a dark and distinct aesthetic that fits the stealth gameplay wonderfully. The setting has implications for the story, as one of the main factions of the game, the Order of the Hammer, has a religious devotion with technology and worship a god called “The Builder.”

“Hey, I’m going to the bear pits tomorrow. Wanna come with?”

The story presentation is absolutely fantastic. After each mission, a fabulously-crafted story cutscene is played. Instead of taking a realistic route, the cutcenes focus more on atmosphere and darkness, giving you more of a vague sense and general mood to what you are seeing. Garrett is never seen in full light—he’s a silhouette in the night or a crouched figure in the darkness.

These story sequences highlight the core gameplay of Thief. Instead of fighting enemies head on, Thief is about sneaking and evading. To do this, one must always be keenly aware of two things: light and sound. A smart player will stick to the shadows as much as possible and when enemies are present will avoid making too much noise. A well-lit marble passage is as good as blowing a horn to announce your arrival. This core gameplay mechanic demands that the player be slow, patient and thoughtful in their actions, never rushing to an objective or using brute force to achieve their goals.

Garrett’s first foe is the deadly and powerful drunkard.

But when detected, swordplay comes in handy. The mechanic of fighting is a bit clunky, but it’s most likely a conscious design choice to dissuade you from getting into fights. After all, you’re playing a thief—not a warrior. Still, at a pinch, it works, and unlike most modern stealth games, being seen isn’t always severely punished. Lose your pursuer and stick to the shadows and there’s a chance you can slip away altogether.

This is all assuming that you aren’t up against zombies. Yes, there are zombies.

Ahh, the good old days when religious figures wielded hammers.

Each level presents something fresh. In the first half of the game, it might be a new piece of equipment or a new enemy. A majority of games rely upon repetition, but each level of Thief feels distinct and new, whether it’s because of what the level demands of you or the new item you now have at your disposal to solve problems.

A big part of Garrett’s arsenal is the trusty bow and arrow. Unlike the sword (which can only kill) and the blackjack (which can only knockout), the bow and arrow has a multitude of uses depending on the type arrow used. Water arrows can extinguish torches, providing more darkness to sneak around in, while moss arrows can dampen noisy surfaces, useful for sneaking up on guards on metal floors. Each arrow has a function that is useful in some way, you’ll find yourself employing all of them often.

Thief always finds a way to put an interesting twist on things.

Appropriately, Thief also has an interesting thieving dynamic. During every mission, the player has the secondary motive of stealing items of value along the way. There are always some modest loot that can be found along the major path of the level, but more often than not, the best stuff is out of the way. This means exploration is rewarded nicely, but can also run the risk of discovery as you search for more treasure. You aren’t simply collecting treasure for points, but for gold you can use to buy more weapons for the next mission. There’s a bit of a risk/reward dynamic to this search for treasure and it makes for yet another interesting facet of gameplay on top of what is already a compelling game.

Thief is surprisingly ambitious, adding layer upon layer of depth. Each moment of the game is revitalized with new and interesting ways to approach challenges. Looking Glass Studios crafted a fantastic game that is as fun and fresh in its opening moments as it is in its final.

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It’s marvelous when an independent game developer creates something that gets the big dogs off their high horses. This is the case for Frictional Games, who brought onto the world Penumbra, a first-person adventure-horror series. The Penumbra games showed that it didn’t take six-digit budgets to make a great game, and that sometimes, less is more. Their next game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, is looking to be a winner. I interviewed Thomas Grip, co-founder of Frictional, about Amnesia and their philosophy of design.

From the looks of it, Amnesia is an amalgamation of the elements that made the Penumbra series a great one. Aside from the narrative context, what are the features or differentiations that make Amnesia special?

Thomas: It is true that a quite a lot of things are similar in Penumbra and Amnesia. People that have played Penumbra will recognize the basic design, physical interaction and focus on atmosphere. When it comes to things that are different, I think there are four main things:

• The physics interactions have been improved. For example, it is now easier to close a door, making sequences such as fleeing from a hostile creature a lot easier (it was almost impossible to quickly close a door in Penumbra).
• The game has been more streamlined and more focus has been put on making the game an experience, instead of a challenge. This means that puzzles are not meant to stop the player but rather to increase immersion.
• There is a large focus on making the player feel like the protagonist in the story; there are no comments or such from the main character and players are forced to draw their own conclusions. We also removed any sort of cutscene.
• The story is set in a new time era and contains completely different environments. There are no connections between Penumbra and Amnesia story-wise.

Penumbra’s formula to being a successful horror game was its understanding of the environment it built; the focus is a sense of immersion as opposed to “boo” moments. Is Amnesia designed as an immersive game with the horror aspect following suit, or vice versa?

Thomas: We set out to do a horror game from the start and knew that making an immersive experience was critical to that, so I don’t think they’re separate. Once the immersive factors are in, adding the horror is much easier, and comes almost naturally. That is not really how we designed the game though, and a lot of the themes in the story are based mostly on the horror aspect of the game.

What inspired Amnesia’s (and Penumbra’s) style of horror?

Thomas: There has been many different sources of inspiration during the three years we have worked on the game, but I think a few stand out. I am an avid fan of reading about the history of science and descriptions of how different groups of scientists worked during the 17th and 18th century; this was an inspiration to the first draft of the story. Also, things like the Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments have been a base for the themes that are present in the game. These elements (and more) form the basis of the events and feelings we want to provoke. When it comes the actual design of the horror, there are many sources as well. Lovecraft and Poe are of course ever present, where the readers’ imagination is played with and used to evoke feelings of dread. There is also a lot of movies such as 70’s horror flicks like The Omen, The Exorcist, etc. that work on a more psychological level, rather than just showing gore. I could go on and on about inspirational sources, but those at least give a little taste.

The Penumbra games are games I’d classify as truly immersive. As designers, what’s in the toolbox that really makes for an immersive experience?

Thomas: I think the physical environment helps a great deal in making the surroundings feel real. When you can only interact with a limited part of the environment, it starts to feel like a prop more than an actual game world. It is also a matter of creating locations that have character through story and sounds and that works with the gameplay.

You mentioned sound. Games like Thief II: The Metal Age and Silent Hill were much more effective in their presentation because of their well-designed sound dynamics. It seems to me that sound is vastly overlooked by game developers. Do you think that’s true?

Thomas: I am not sure if it’s that overlooked, for instance many shooter games have proper and authentic firearm sounds. I think it more has to do with sound taking a backseat place, behind graphics. In our games, sound is brought up front (because of the design, as well as resource issues) and I think the same is true for the games you mention. Sound is such a powerful device, since it’s much easier to make a realistic sound than a realistic visual and can therefore have a lot of impact. Also, hearing sounds makes the player imagine visuals, but the other way around is not that common, so it is a very nice tool when trying to mess with someone’s head.

Along the same lines, what makes a good horror game?

Thomas: The one biggest thing is to stimulate the player’s imagination and hint at things rather than showing them. The horror that can be created in a player’s mind will also be able to have more impact than whatever a modeler can create in our engine. In order for this approach to work, it is important to have an immersive game and to have situations that forces to player into thinking what might have happened and what might lurk behind the next corner.

Do you feel other games that attempted that sort of approach have succeeded?

Thomas: Silent Hill does some of it quite successfully, and All Alone, a text game, is extremely powerful by messing with the player’s mind. There are other more recent games that do this successfully, but it’s almost never a larger part of the game. Most games seem to focus on having a game mechanic at the core, and then just try and fit everything else onto that. Instead, we try to adapt the mechanics to support the horror design. Unfortunately not many games do this.

Why the emphasis on physics?

Thomas: It actually started out as a way to save on doing animations. When implemented, it gave a lot of extra perks. As explained previously, it is essential to us when making an immersive experience.

How much does story factor into Amnesia? Are the plans for the game to be episodic like Penumbra?

Thomas: Story is very important and something that we start on the moment we start the game. The gameplay and story must support each other to create the kind of experience we want. Amnesia will be a self contained story and there will not be a cliffhanger ending.

Frictional has a very distinct persona and style. Do you have a desire to head in a different direction for future games? Perhaps a happy, non-nightmare-inducing 2D platformer?

Thomas: Personally, I want to try out new things and not just rehash things that have already been done, so I don’t think you’ll see us making more a “standard” type of game. This is also a business decision, as the only way we can be heard is to make sure our games stand out from the crowd. If we were to make a normal first-person-shooter, we would be drowned out by all other releases. This does not mean that we will always be making horror games though; we might try out some other themes in the near future.

I love that mentality. That sense of making something unique, which might not immediately catch on is the driving force to truly innovative games. I feel it’s no coincidence that most games that enter uncharted waters are made for PC—does Frictional plan to continue being a PC-only developer?

Thomas: We would love to make a game for consoles but so far we have not had the resources for it. Hopefully we can do something in the future. As you say, PC is a very good platform for us since it is much easier to start up a project and no special equipment or contracts are really needed. As long as you have a PC, you can create and distribute your game, especially now that the digital market has grown quite mature.

What’s in the future for Frictional?

Thomas: Right now we just want to release Amnesia and get that done. We have some other stuff planned, but nothing I can really talk about at this point.

Many thanks to Thomas for taking time out for this interview! Amnesia will be released on September 8. You can pre-order Amnesia from several of the digital distribution services, but I recommend doing it directly from the site—they definitely deserve the money!

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Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4XVW6qcuzM

Outside the towering futuristic gem of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlan, Montezuma scrambles his trump card—a monolithic spaceship taxiing for takeoff next turn. If it’s successful, Montezuma will automatically win the game by a technology victory. The Roman Empire throws up a Hail Mary in defense—a twenty kiloton nuke headed right towards the capital. The warhead decimates most of the city and the spaceship next to it, as Roman destroyers off the coast bombard what remains of the once-thriving metropolis. The turn comes to an end, and the legions of the Roman Empire celebrate their conquest victory.

For the Civilization series, anachronistic antics have always been as ubiquitous as they are paradoxical. Marketing Associate Pete Murray can hardly contain his glee towards this scene from our E3 demo. He’s the type of keen employee that makes up a company where an enthusiastic well-known modder can turn intern and then designer (in this case, that driven individual is twenty-five year old lead designer Jon Shafer). Even Firaxis’s demo room is decorated with monolithic murals of civilization leaders, with George Washington placed at an angle directly staring at all the press in the room. But Murray assures us—while the heart of the Civilization is still there, things will be different this time.

Each iteration of the series has been meticulously refined, but hasn’t evolved drastically. Civilization V intends to change this by reworking many of the series’s tactical idiosyncrasies and adding game-changing features. No longer can hasty macro-buffs amass a stack of units on one tile (the “stack of doom”, as Civ veterans call it). And, players can actually buy tiles to expand their borders. A man in the crowd cuts in asking how these changes will affect the game. Murray simply raises his hands, and says “Night, and day.”

“Combat is an area that’s seeing a big change in Civilization V, with a one-unit-per-tile combat system,” Murray prefaces right before he goes to war with the English Empire. The direction isn’t Total War or typical RTS rock-paper-scissors. This shift negates army size, and instead, encourages further tactical thinking. Limiting one unit to a tile forces players to carefully choose unit placements, as terrain can now drastically affect the outcome of a battle; during the demonstration, a unit of riflemen perched upon a hill held out against three other units. “You can take a few key forces [and] hold critical geography, like a mountain pass or hill near your city, and keep an enemy at bay.” Murray continues. This forces macro-players accustomed to winning based on their ability to output units quickly to make key micro-level decisions if attempting a military victory.

Square tiles are also being replaced with one of the main staples of many strategy games: hexagons. “Now we have this hexagonal model which is a lot more fair over long distances. Really experienced Civ war-players never move on orthogonals; they always move on diagonals. Because eventually you can cheat out distances that way,” Murray explains. “It’s the biggest change in terms of departing from what the series has done before.”

But Civilization has always given players a pacifist option—victory through diplomatic and technological means. Civilization V extends this by fleshing out a new facet to the game: culture. Your civilization’s cultural prowess is determined through what buildings and wonders you build, as well as your tech-tree research. Even for the military players, however, this isn’t an afterthought—cultural points (or currency) extends the borders of your civilization. Culturally rich civilizations can unlock the addition of social policies, such as freedom or aristocracy that can grant your empire a special ability.

“One of the very usable functions of this tech tree is that you can target a specific technology,” Murray demonstrates. “And now it will automate your technology research so that you’re working towards it. So if you want to get gunpowder as quickly as possible, you can say ‘Wisemen, go discover gunpowder.’ and they won’t come back until they do.” Firaxis builds on this with the new “citizen allocation system”, which allows cities to be fine-tuned, like the tech-tree, to auto-manage the focus of a city, whether cultural, militaristic or technological.

A.I. opponents are now programmed to adjust through the course of a single game, aiming to give the player a sense of familiarity against the computer. “Napoleon, for example, might want to build a huge ground army and conquer the world that way. But the A.I. is flexible enough, that if you keep Napoleon on the battlefield—he’ll redirect his energy into something else—and maybe try for a cultural victory instead,” says Murray. Civilization leaders are also no longer just a portrait – each leader is fully animated in a specific environment and actually speak their native language.

Based on the need for large support communities of the previous installments, Firaxis is preemptively reworking Civ V’s modding and multiplayer capabilities. “For multiplayer for Civilization V, we’re going with full Steamworks integration,” says Murray. “We wanted to make sure that modding in Civ V is supported by a really robust suite of [tools] that are more powerful than anything we’ve given out before…We have a system now where modders can upload their mod to a central depository, and then people can browse and download and install mods from within the game itself.”

Round up all these changes and additions and we might have the most accessible Civilization yet. As our demo is wrapping up, someone in the group asks “Is Sid here?” Murray tells us that he’s currently working on Civilization Network, a Facebook game. Someone else cuts in, “Is that like Civ Farmville?” Murray says “No,” smirks, and then says “Night, and day.”

Through optimization and cross-platform development, developers have adopted the tradition of designing their games for the widest gaming populace possible. This makes sense from the business perspective; the amount of customers is directly proportional to the amount of profit. Although money is made and games are developed, several problems emerge: many mediocre games which bask only in short-term success are the result, and often fail at crafting a truly great experience.

“Could we add ‘I’m a Linux’
to the debate?”

Before delving further, I’ll define the two above stated concepts with respect to PC gaming specifically. Optimization is the lowering of a game’s system requirements through the utilization of an efficient game engine. Valve’s Source engine, for example, is well-tuned and reasonably runs on systems deemed “gaming” and “non-gaming,” alike. Cross-platform development is the availability of a certain game on more than one platform. In this case, Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Optimization, though an important job, is one of the most difficult things for developers to properly execute. Building an engine from scratch takes a slew of resources—more often than not, years of development. Engine optimization is usually included in this process, but not always stressed as much as it should be. Sure—it may be impossible to make a graphically-gargantuan game like Crysis run on the average laptop, but greater attempts could be made to broaden the potential audience for the game. Polygon limits and draw-distance will always be in place, but an efficient engine can raise these limits and thus allow for both good-looking and high-performance games on low-end hardware.

Modern PC games should be able to run at a decent framerate on reasonably modern computers with ‘low’ to ‘normal’ settings. Marketing a game only towards people with high-end gaming PCs is less accessible, and thus, less profitable. It should be in the interest of developers to balance accessibility with profit and creativity for an even balance.

How’s the framerate all the way down there?

The second, and arguably most important, aspect of accessibility is cross-platform availability. Developers are losing faith in the PC as a profitable platform due to its scant game sales compared to that of consoles. Part of this may be the lesser amount of actual PC gamers, or it may be that some PC gamers are harder to coax with skin-deep, shiny graphics that hide a lack of purpose and story. These tricks along with subtle gameplay mechanics commonly seen in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 work to make games more appealing to players. However, developers should focus more on crafting a unique experience and making it physically accessible to as many people as possible. This is where optimization, cross-platform development, and multiple, convenient means of purchase come into play.

PCs dominate about 90% of the computer market. The other 10% of computers use either Mac or Linux, with the amount of users utilizing those on the rise. Macs are becoming increasingly popular with students, who make up a large portion of video game consumers; if developers made Mac development a priority, more gamers would have access to the created content, and thus, sales would rise. This has already been demonstrated to work by Valve, who recently stated that after making Steam a cross-platform game distribution service, 11% of sales went towards Mac titles.

Wolfire Games, developing the upcoming Overgrowth, recently held a sale dubbed “The Humble Indie Bundle.” For it, they sought out independent developers with cross-platform games and gave consumers the ability to pay whatever they wanted for said games. During the sale, they mentioned in daily blog posts the importance of cross-platform games and how the Mac dominates 20-25% of indie and casual game sales. This obvious rise should not be ignored, but the real question is, is it the same for commercial games?

Open-source underwater caves are the best underwater caves.

It depends. As Wolfire also stated, commercial games have more money put into advertising than development, and the advertising dies off shortly after release. This is the recipe for short-term success. On the other hand, indie games usually have no advertising and are only made known through indie news sites, forums, sales, and conversations. However, there is an untapped potential for indie and commercial developers alike to take advantage of with the Mac. To quote David Rosen, “If you can put in an extra 1% cost and get 22% more revenue — why not make a Mac version?” (Wolfire blog)

Derek Yu, maker of Spelunky, recently wrote a blog post that states some of the best advice for game developers: design for the hardcore players. Don’t dumb down a game for mass appeal because success will be temporary and the game will lack depth. On the other hand, making a deep, sophisticated game requires learning and effort from the player, and once the basic gameplay is understood, the player can succeed. In no way should casual players be ignored, but, there should still be an opportunity for hardcore players to invest dozens, if not hundreds, of hours into a game in order to fully learn and appreciate its inner workings. Hardcore players always return to games, as seen in the Quake and Doom series.

Hold LMB to win. Don’t worry, no one minds.

It is easier to design shallow games than deep ones, but they offer less to potential hardcore players. For example, Bohemia Interactive’s ARMA 2 is known for being the most realistic and sophisticated war simulator on the market. Its playerbase is comprised mostly of hardcore players who learn to overlook the many flaws and glitches of the experience, but instead focus on teamwork, camaraderie, and the mission at hand. Some players have invested hundreds of hours into the experience and are server regulars, but in no way does this mean that casual players are nonexistent.

Cross-platform games are becoming more common and less of a surprise, and will eventually turn into a game development necessity. Low system requirements should be adopted by commercial developers, who should also thrive to craft unique experiences in the line of video games. The proof is clear and the start of a new generation is upon us, so it’s time for change.

Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=laq9ua5VjTs

Play – Download
Subscribe via iTunes – Subscribe via Zune

Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgjd4i1o4UY

Climactic battles in Deus Ex weren’t always climactic. Boss fights often consisted of a hulking augmented freak lumbering towards you with the intent to talk (and, after a few words, drawing their weapon). Experienced players with upgraded skills could often dispatch them in one shot—same with regular enemies as well. But when Eidos Montreal announced a new type of design featuring third-person elements (including instant-kill moves), fans of the series started to worry that this new action-oriented dynamic would strip away the essence and soul of the original game.

There are about five of us—all games’ press—huddled on couches in a dark room in the back corner of Square Enix’s booth at E3. The previous group ran late—but we’re finally watching the 25 minute Deus Ex: Human Revolution demo. A level designer sits in the corner, playing through the demonstration for us. Across from him stands Human Revolution’s art director.

The viewing kicks off with a nod to those clunky awkward helicopter takeoff scenes from the original. A VOTL rockets forward. Inside is the protagonist, Adam Jensen, a security specialist for a Biotech corporation, and his pilot, Fariah Malik, flying towards Heng Sha, a double-decker techno-wonder of a city off the coast of Shanghai. Our mission is to go into Heng Sha, the silicon valley of the booming cybernetics industry, and trace down a hacker named Tong Se Hong. The VTOL rears up, descends, and lands on a helipad on the top of an unmarked building right above street level. Jensen descends down a fire escape and walks out into the streets of Heng Sha. Something clicks. In my head, I’m wondering why “The Synapse”—a musical track from Deus Ex used in Hong Kong—isn’t playing.

Spread out over a wide street, the amount of NPCs and props is staggering. Almost no window, road, or person is untouched by the glow of the yellow and orange neon advertisements laden across this world. Working men go to the noodle stand and sit down to order (cue Blade Runner reference # 75); others chat on a corner and notice as you walk by; cyberpunk flanuers roam down the light-polluted streets to some calculated destination. Steam rises from the ground as littered trash blows across the world. Jensen stops to look up. Above, in the foreground, are apartment windows with possible onlookers gawking at Jensen. In the far background, spotlights glitter over the upper-deck of the city. In this “living, breathing world,” as Jonathan Jacques-Bellette, art director of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, describes it, attempts are made to make every pedestrian and ancillary character unique (and not just generated as one-size-fits-all NPC’s). “They all have stuff to tell. You can talk to every NPC in the game,” Bellette says. “You can talk about the environment you’re in, the mission you’re trying to do, or just give you the time or the weather”.

For this first part of the demo, Jacues-Bellette wants to show the social and stealth aspects, or “urban exploration” of the “four pillars of Deus Ex” (combat, stealth, social, and hacking). After Jensen makes his way to The Hive, a club that literally pulsates neon discharge into the night, the bouncer tells him he needs a membership to get past the doors. This being 6 hours into the game, Jensen has enough to buy his way in, but Jacques-Bellette cuts in to tell us “as this is a Deus Ex game, there are more ways to get in. For example, you could go into the back alley or even shoot the bouncer.” Shooting the bouncer, however, would have repercussions (earlier in the demo, Jensen pulled his pistol on a man in an alley who pantomimes his obvious fear) and take you into combat.

The club is a similar scene to the streets. NPCs each interact on their own path further than the slightly bobbing dance cycle found in the original. Jacques-Bellette explains that conversations in Deus Ex: Human Revolution are like rollercoaster rides, and can take up to several minutes to complete—momentum towards persuasion going one way and then another. After many attempts to persuade the bartender, trying to glean information about the hacker Tong, Jensen “fails” the conversation. “We’ll have to try to find a different way to get access to Tong,” Jacques-Bellette explains, “but at this point I doubt it will be legal.” As in Deus Ex, it’s impossible to get stuck—failing a conversation in Human Revolution simply spurs you to find a different (and sometimes, more illicit) path.

After Jensen eavesdrops on two guards, you learn that there’s a datacube in the bathroom with a security code for the backroom. The code is 0415—an allusion to the first pass-code in Deus Ex, which in turn was an allusion to System Shock, which in turn was another allusion. And it’s the same with earlier allusions to Tracer Tong and Versalife in the demo. Not one time do any of the developers point these out; to the five or six of us in this dark room, it’s completely dependent on that individual’s knowledge of the original for whether or not they’ll understand any of them.

The second part of the demo shows off the combat and hacking pillars. After a loading screen, Jensen starts at a shipyard that has a facade eerily resembling a certain naval yard from the original. Jensen uses his strength augmentation to move a large crate blocking a hole in the wall to bypass the main gate without notice. Jacques-Bellette cuts in to remind us again of our multiple paths, “Without the strength augmentation, he wouldn’t have been able to do it. He would’ve had to have gone through the main gate which would’ve been a much more overt approach.”

After killing a guard monitoring the security system, you can hack in and turn off cameras, control the bots patrolling the area, or unlock any of the doors on this security grid—all sure-sign staples of the original. Jensen goes on: after cloaking and making his way to the roof, he drops through the ceiling where a lengthy shootout occurs that showcases the different weaponry and augmentations. Then the demonstration ends on a cliffhanger—an ensuing fight with a colossal tough-talking augmented boss that the prior E3 trailer teased.

There was an immediate wave of concern about featuring third-person elements and instant-kill moves in Human Revolution. But here, its intent isn’t an aim towards gore (such as a game like Manhunt). Jacques-Bellette also points out that there are non-lethal moves, and that you can finish the game without killing a single person. He also stresses that each finishing move is “uniquely animated” for that context and not simply a repetition of the same triggered animation. This type of design tries to follow the combat design of the original, but just puts it in a third-person context. Instead of arming the dragon’s tooth sword and swiping down NSF grunts in one blow, you simply use your energy to do something similar, but animated in a separate and sleeker fashion. A choice that—we’ll see—aims to bring the series forward while still attempting to harness the crucial essence of the original.

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Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh-La8VlfWc

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Giving glimpses into what the season could achieve, The Penal Zone started off Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse with a series of intriguing narrative puzzles. The Tomb of Sammun-Mak, however, treads familiar ground instead of forging onward through the forest of possibilities set up in the first episode.

We left The Penal Zone staring at two skeletons looking eerily similar to our beloved protagonists; which turn out to be the remains of their great-grandfathers, Sameth and Maximus. The basis of The Tomb of Sammun-Mak is thus set up, as the freelance police snoop for clues to solve the case of their ancestors’ demise; they find it in the form of four reels of film. Max employs his newly acquired “astral projection” psychic ability to transmit the duo into the past, and is the bulk of focus for the episode.

Reel games don’t steal ideas from movies.

Coming from the adventure game genre, whose foundation is in the nonsensical and illogical, The Tomb of Sammun-Mak deems no exception. Sam and Max quickly find that they can jump back and forth among the reels as they please, which creates an interesting time paradox—they delve into future events to discover how things were solved in past events. But in order to reach those future events, they’d have to solve the past events, which of course can only solved by looking into a future that they don’t even have yet. Adventure games are so confusing.

Grandfathers always think they are so hip. It’s embarrassing.

But look: in games, logic doesn’t matter, it’s the mechanics that do. And just as with logic, The Tomb of Sammun-Mak disappoints in the realm of gameplay. In this installment, all psychic powers Max had in the previous episode are replaced with uninspired and less compelling ones. The two notable ones are ventriloquism and the ability to morph into—no joke—a can of nuts. I was hoping each episode would introduce new powers while retaining the older ones and finding interesting ways to blend new and old, a la Tales of Monkey Island. This isn’t the case—instead, the game presents puzzles that are incredibly straightforward and simplistic with regards to the powers. It’s no surprise there’s not a lot of interesting things you can do as a can of nuts. In fact, there’s only two things: roll around and sit in one spot. Ventriloquism doesn’t work either—the idea is funny, as you manipulate people’s voices and make them say things they wouldn’t otherwise, but as a tool to solve puzzles, it’s a one-hat trick.

Once again, trial and error is a big element of the puzzle solving. Expect more error than anything else.

The storytelling also proves to be an uneven experience. As a large portion of The Tomb of Sammun-Mak, the manipulation of time goes a long way into making an engaging experience, despite having little to no bearing on the current narrative of the series. Humor is prevalent—there are some funny gags where you cause some things to affect the previous two seasons of Sam & Max. To say the least, it’s funny. Which is probably one of the most important things for the Sam & Max series.

It feels as though The Tomb of Sammun-Mak is holding back. After all the creative ideas at work in the previous episode, what we’re given here is best left on the cutting room floor. Unfortunately, the derivative puzzles and ancillary story aren’t glossed over with the slick presentation. The Tomb of Sammun-Mak is the least interesting Sam & Max story told thus far, and for an adventure game, that’s a drastic blow.

Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbugSrK7cIU

Societal norms generally call for recourse in an act of unfair trade compensation—in contemporary America, we sue someone—whereas in the late-19th century American West, we shot the guy and his family. Thankfully, Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West (LAG), with its $15 price tag, won’t urge the PC gamer today to do either of these things. But is the game worth your fistful of dollars? Read on, pilgrim; let’s get these weeds a-tumblin’. Western jokes.

The game is a multiplayer third-person shooter set in the Wild West. This environment is an exciting thing about LAG; very few shooters (or any game for that matter) have dared venturing to the West before. Really—it’s like seven games—so it’s refreshing to strap on some cowboy boots and spurs rather than crotch-tight space armor. From the visual side of things, it’s fairly impressive. The majestic mesas glow in beautiful colors that are commonly associated with the western persona. It’s no Crysis, but it ain’t Quake II either. For being a multi-platform game, it outshines the rest like a cow’s hide during a mid-summer’s day—and that’s good.

Be sure to finish ‘em off completely or they’ll get their revenge.

Oh, about the gameplay. Two gangs (teams) are in constant rivalry over numerous things. Primarily, lead and gold. This is where LAG gets its game modes. Aside from its namesake giving these styles a unique reason for the fighting, there’s nothing staggeringly new offered in terms of game mechanics. “Shootout” is plain ol’ team deathmatch, “Gold Fever” has you and a friend face waves of enemies, “Robbery” has an attacking gang attempting to steal the other’s gold (“Greed” is the same but with both teams attacking simultaneously), “Conquest” is point-capture, “Powderkeg” has a team transporting barrels of blackpowder kegs to destroy the other gang’s turf (with “Demolition” having both gangs doing it.)

There are four types of playable classes in LAG, each with their own strengths & weaknesses: Gunslinger, Trapper, Blaster, and Deputy (which would be an awesome off-shoot band name of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, by the way.) Their primary weapons are pistols, sniper rifle, shotgun, and rifle, respectively. As such, their usefulness in the area of killing depends on the weapons. The Trapper will be at the back of the level picking off the enemy while the Blaster is knee-deep in the action with a double-barrel. In addition to their weapon outfit, each class has their own special ability; the Gunslinger shoots extra fast, the Trapper lays bear traps, the Deputy tags targets for teammates to see, and the Blaster tosses dynamite. I wasn’t compelled to deviate that much from the Trapper or the Blaster—both can consistently one-shot kill enemies, which is pretty handy in the thick of it. Likewise, the Blaster’s dynamite and the Gunslinger’s speed shoot are both devastating in terms of damage. So it’s no surprise you’ll most likely see an abundance of the bearded miner and masked duelist. Nevertheless, each class has their place within the game, and are quite balanced.

Act fast, ’cause you don’t live long in the frantic West.

Some problems with LAG come from both mechanical and technical directions. For the mechanical side: the game employs a “synergy system” that rewards players working as a team to complete their objective. The way it works relies on the class of the player and their proximity in relation to others in the gang—it won’t work if someone’s Ramboin’ in their lonesome. Each class releases a different aura of synergy when working with others; for instance, you’ll be more accurate around a Gunslinger or take less damage around a Blaster. Most players would hop onto an opportunity to do better in their experience, but in this case—it just doesn’t help. There’s no substantial result from actually partaking in the system; it may sound fine and dandy taking less damage from shots, but it’s nothing to get worked up about—instead of taking four shots to take down, it’ll be three, for example. While the character classes are balanced themselves, I found each game to be prone to have multiple of the same class (particularly Blaster), and “spawn camping” (attacking a team’s starting point). Sure, it’s a complaint based entirely on the players and their choices, but it is a little annoying when it’s so easy to do.

The other side of revolves around technical issues. LAG suffers from something that can make or break online games. And that is lag. LAG (a rather appropriate acronym) employs a peer-to-peer connection system ala that of real-time strategy games, instead of the common dedicated server method. Because of such, there’s no escaping the potential 500ms latency and lost connection—unless you have a host with ungodly tubes for which to contain everyone. In 2010, any shooter—first- or third-person, regardless—shouldn’t use a method designed for dial-up modems in the ’90s.

Tip: Never camp in Lead and Gold.

But maybe I’m being too harsh, since this is a budget game—if one was to see it without any prior knowledge of it, they’d most likely think LAG is a full-price AAA game. While the game offers a good experience for the price of admission, some stigmata of a budget title remain. Troublesome connection issues and not fully realized gameplay plague LAG. The question is, ‘is it worth playing?’ Well, the game’s priced at a quarter of what big budget titles go for nowadays. If you combine that cost with an open-mind for issues and love for indie developers, then you will have an answer.

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Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWEl0IQm670

Deadlines and timers aren’t just critical milestones for games, they’re also decisive catalysts that mold our everyday lives. They allow us to structure our habits and focus our priorities in the most efficient manners possible. Say, for example, the VP of Technical Oversight gives you a colossal presentation due Thursday at 4pm sharp. You wince and curse, but ultimately buckle down to get it done.

Zerglings on the verge of tearing you apart.
Just one more minute!

Afterwords, you chill with the guys over a brew, feeling amazingly relieved and proud. If Mr. VP of Douchebaggery simply told you he needed a “thing” completed at some undefined point, you probably wouldn’t have even finished it. And even if you did, the quality might be somewhat dubious. Furthermore, you probably wouldn’t even care if it ever saw the light of day at all; you’d simply mosey onto the next thankless task.

Now, if we shift our gaze towards the context of video games, timers and deadlines become something else, albeit familiar to the example above. They function as something to enrich the main part of the game, whilst existing as a part of it. Time limits or deadlines make them better,  more memorable experiences. They increase your enjoyment and give your accomplishments a greater sense of weight than they otherwise would.

Of course, there are several different methods of how a time limit can be implemented within a game. A strategy game might give you 30 minutes to defend yourself, as in Starcraft’s third mission “Desperate Alliance.” The Zerg attack you lightly throughout the first 20 minutes but then they begin to earn their namesake with massive assaults that bust your bunkers, mutilate your missile turrets, and maim your marines into turgid bloody stumps.

Boom-sticks: an essential tool for the survival of any climatic defensive mission.

Time limits force you to maximize what you currently have; to simply survive with the knowledge that you only need to hold out until the designated time. They’re powerfully effective, but only truly work in mission-focused games, like strategy titles. Although it’s not uncommon for a shooter to include a challenge such as this, with Half-Life 2’s best moments erupting when you’re trapped in a prison with the Combine assaulting your position.

Gimmick or set-piece deadlines can also arise, although they largely exist in blockbuster AAA titles to drive home a sense of player urgency that would otherwise not be faced.

In Borderlands:The Armory of General Knoxx, you’re given a massive loot-fest at the end of the story missions,but a timer goes off that only gives you three minutes to pilfer what you can. The traditional method of examining  all the stuff and only grabbing the best gets derailed as you frantically grab anything and everything before your ass gets nuked into orbit. Similarly, in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare you’re tasked with halting the launch of nuclear warheads. A timer shows up, and you’d best get to the switch before it’s too late, or else it’s bye-bye U.S. of A.

Sure: I could chase them around in a car. But skydiving on top of the target is better in every possible way.

In GTA or Just Cause, the set-piece time limits appear with fleeing jackasses who decide that chase missions are a great way to show off the open-world. While immediate action is required to “capture” said donkey-butt, there’s usually no explicit timer on display. Still, you know if that guy on the motorcycle gets too far away, you’re screwed. Alternatively, a mission might just task you with shooting down a missile before it reaches orbit, tossing out a nice big 60 seconds max before you fuck it all up.

You want a gun, you get a bat boot
in the face instead. Go figure.

Batman: Arkham Asylum has strict time limits in saving individuals before a certain evil-doer decides to off Commissioner Gordon, or some other bright young police officer/candy-striper. Of course, in Batman, you also find that every time a gun locker appears you have an unknown time limit to keep guards from gaining the ability to easily kill you: an emergent urgency that inadvertently forces you step up or die and be subsequently laughed at.

Alpha Protocol utilizes time limits on all of your conversation options, productively preventing you from over-thinking your dialogue options thereby avoiding the usual dialogue mining that I so voraciously indulge myself in. Then there’s of course the good old standby. Take a deep breath: the final boss triggered the doomsday device to destroy everything and everyone you love and you have X minutes to curb-stomp him into oblivion, thereby saving said day and winning over the damsel in distress. And exhale.

Naturally, we can’t possibly forget the ultimatum where you’re given a time limit to beat the entire game, or at the very least a significant portion of it. Fallout and Pikmin immediately spring to mind. Pikmin gives you 30 days to salvage your ship before you succumb to the horrors of the Planet of Mutant Plant Things. It then gives you a limit on each day to ensure that you don’t just leisurely pick flower-people all day long, effectively forcing you to play aggressively with limited resources and not simply mass hordes of ravenous man-plants to steam roll the entire the game.

Yeah, I don’t know either. Plants eating other plants.

In Fallout, you’ve got a strict and finite set of days to save your Vault. The folks inside the underground sanctuary are going to run out of water unless you can return in the nick of time with goods in hand. Of course, something else pops up later, and the game gives you a couple of options to extend your time limit. It makes for a tense first play-through as you carefully struggle to ensure that you’re making progress towards rescue and not damning your friends and family to the dreaded wasteland.

In my opinion, this is the strongest and most effective use of a time limit, as it literally forces your hand and demands that you make difficult choices possibly, and ideally, with serious repercussions. Every game should ideally give us this option. Imagine the potential for nerve-wracking tension if you only had so long in Dragon Age to recruit all the various factions.

This guy? Not gonna help you find a water chip.
Time’s a wasting! Hurry!

What if you were forced to pick between getting the Dragon Age mages or the dwarves for your noble endeavor because you just spent 6 months (game time) looking for some damned ashes, only to have a dragon eat your face? Imagine if that horde of Darkspawn were actually raping and pillaging as you were busy recruiting and leveling up to fight them? What if your very inaction against them made the hated foe all the more difficult in the end?

Inserting such deadlines would likely upset a great many perfectionists, but then, I’ve never liked the idea of a perfect playthrough. Seriously: every game deserves to make you feel tension about whether or not you’ll be able to make it in time to avoid failure, let alone be strong enough to actually stop the plans of the antagonist. Deadlines, quite simply, make games better.

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As you can imagine, attending a game convention can be quite a harrowing endeavor. You know—with the whole going outside, waiting in long lines and the inherent soreness from collecting hundreds of dollars worth of free stuff. But assuredly, gaming conventions are the places where dreams come true. Cosplay heroes can pose to be forever immortalized in the hallowed halls of Digg, digitally star-crossed lovers may meet for the first time, and booth babes manifest a symbiotic relationship with the otaku fulfilling one’s ego and the other’s hormones.

If you’ve never attended a gaming convention—I highly recommend you do. Gaming conventions are not only a fun and great way to break into the industry: they’re also a clear glimpse into video game culture that may not be gleamed from everyday life, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more accepting society. Whether you’re an expo gamer greenhorn, or a seasoned press veteran, this guide will provide you with all the necessary steps to survive any game-related convention unscathed, a little wiser, and dipped from head to toe in the free disgrace of grimy swag.

Different conventions have different standards—some are solely trade-based, or entry is limited to members of the industry and press. Others are open to the general public and completely free. Usually though, you attend under one of the following four classes listed below.

This could be you!

Attendee — The basic attendee of any conference. You’ll typically pay a small entry fee, but more than make up for it in memories and free stuff alone.

Volunteer — Conventions are fueled off volunteers. While you’ll be busy working for most of the convention, you do get some exploration-freedom as well, and 99% of the time: free entry. Check on the respective website for the convention to find out how to volunteer.

Press — Journalists get in free at most conventions. Better yet: the standards to be considered a media representative might not be as high as you think. Chances are, if you’ve written several articles online or freelanced in some capacity, you can be considered a member of the press.

Exhibitor — Exhibitors are the lifeblood of conventions. Becoming an exhibitor, however, takes weeks (if not months) of preparation, early registration, and, of course—a preexisting and lucrative product to exhibit.

Registration: It’s always best to register months in advance for a convention. Though you’ll have to set aside dates ahead of time, it’s cheaper for both ticket prices and airline fares to tackle all this early. Registration info is provided on each convention’s website (typically on the homepage), so be sure to book your passes before the available slots are all sold out.

Hotels: Often, hotels are situated at the same place as the convention, but that’s not always the case. Usually the convention website will recommend the best/nearest hotel to stay at. Make sure to book your room early to ensure availability and save money, and share it with a friend if possible.  It’s amazing how fast hotels can fill up, so unless you’re fond of a sidewalk as a pillow, get crackin’.

Travel: As fun as a road trip can be, if you’re traveling out of your state, it’s probably easier to fly. Plus: parking rates at conventions are economically brutal, if you can even find parking at all. Again, in the interest of saving money, book your plane tickets as early as possible.

Other than your usual allotment of nerdery, there are a few items that can significantly improve your attendance disposition.

A decent camera — Yeah, you may not want to whip out your fancy point ‘n click every few minutes, but when else are you going to get a chance to snap a glossy with Sid Meier or Will Wright?

Comfortable shoes — While some gamers may not be accustomed to ambulatory movement farther than the distance from their PC to the closest fridge and/or fast food establishment (myself included), conventions require you to be on your feet for hours upon hours a day. Leave your flip-flops at home and wear something with lots of cushion between your heels and the pavement instead.

Gamer clothes or costumes — Demand attention and let everyone know you value acknowledgment over aesthetics. Wear a shirt notifying the unaware masses of the gaming convention that you are, actually, indeed, a gamer. Dress yourself as an advertisement. Wear that Death Note costume in your closet that you’ve just been itching for an occasion to showcase.

Energy drinks — Who knew playing games all day and attending panels can be tiring? You’ll most likely, at some point, experience a con-crash. While you don’t need to constantly carry around your favorite caffeine fix, be prepared to buy a few in case of emergency.

Schedule —You’ll most likely get a schedule once there, but it’s invaluable, so better safe than sorry. Print out that bad boy the first chance you get. Time blazes by at conventions, and you’ll need to be aware of exactly when and where your most anticipated events, sessions, and roundtables are happening.

You’re all set.

Handheld gaming device — More often than not, you’ll be waiting in line. Unless you’re waiting in line with company, you’ll need some type of portable digital diversion, whether DS, iPad, PSP or even your phone. (You did bring your phone and a charging cable, right?)

MP3 player — Again: convention DNA is constructed of 75% snaking lines and long walks. If you’re not traveling around with someone, you’ll want to be listening to something. Say, for example, the fabulous critically acclaimed Game Central Podcast!

Magic: The Gathering cards — Not only is playing Magic a great way to chip away the minutes while waiting in line, it’s also a great way to meet new friends. Slap your deck down on an unsuspecting player, give him a harsh grimace, and he’ll know what’s up.

Cash — Finding out that a vendor doesn’t take plastic after you’ve aged eight years in a glacial-paced food line sucks. Just bring extra cash or hit up an ATM and don’t let it happen to you.

Backpack — When you’re collecting a bunker’s worth of stuff in a single convention, you don’t want to have to jog back to your hotel room every twenty minutes to drop everything off. Bring a backpack or messenger bag and stuff all the free crap in there. A backpack also serves as a wonderful storage receptacle for everything listed above. Similarly, it’s a serviceable holster for your phone’s charging cable (your phone will die on you at least once).

A friend — While it won’t fit in a backpack, this is probably the most important item on the list. Attending a convention alone can be fun, but it’s a lot more enjoyable if you have someone there that you know. Plus, if you know a friend that lives in the area, it’s probably easier and a billion times cheaper just to stay with them.

Without fail, whether you want it or not, you will get an exorbitant amount of swag in the forms of clothing, books or various trinkets. If you’re really in it to win it, when packing, make sure to leave enough space in your bag to carry more back on your return trip. The easiest way to amass a small swag fortune is to travel systemically from booth to booth and collect as much as you can. Chances are they won’t recognize you, so can you always hit up your favorite area more than once (if you really want two of those wearable billboards). And as for the high-reward number matching games—recent attendees have taken to Twitter using hash-tags to find their identical digits. But make sure to get the show floor early to get the best stuff, and don’t be afraid to ask someone where they got something.

PAX

The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) has outgrown its roots of a small-time gaming convention to the largest of its kind in North America. Created in 2004 by Jerry “Tycho” Holkins and Mike “Gabe”Krahulik—authors of the popular webcomic Penny Arcade—PAX has since overtaken E3 (the prior king of conventions) in attendance. PAX is a consumer-based convention and is not limited to members of the press or industry insiders. Located at the Seattle convention center in downtown Seattle, PAX Prime’s main features (in conjunction with its massive expo floor) are guest-speaker panels, table-top games, LAN tournaments, live podcasts, and nerdcore concerts. In 2010 PAX East was added in Boston, with a respectable attendance of 52,000.

Location: Seattle, WA (Prime) or Boston, MA (East)

Attendance: 60,000 (Prime), 52,000 (East)

Dates: Sept. 3^rd – 5^th (Prime), March 26^th – 28^th (East)

Ticket Cost: $55 (3-day badge + early registration), $35 (1-day badge + early registration).

Media registration requirements: 3 of the following required: business license, company letterhead, business card, copies or links of two articles written in the last six months.

Go if: You want to attend a great, cheap all-platform video game convention.

Highlights: Omegathon (contestants battle it out for days in randomly chosen gaming events, culminating in a grand victor on the final night), popular convention for industry notables, playable demos of unreleased games.

Website: www.paxsite.com

Dragon*Con

Dragon*Con is a mecca for the old-school nerd. Created in 1987 by Ed Kramer, Dragon*Con was primarily a tabletop gaming convention but has since expanded its roots to include science fiction, comics, anime, fantasy and video games. Panels and workshops are hosted every year, making it a popular destination for those looking to break into the respective industry. Dragon*Con is notorious for its quirky culture and prevalent cosplaying. Featuring a costumed procession through downtown Atlanta and autograph sessions with notables such as Patrick Stewart and William Shatner, Dragon*Con is a must-go for any hardcore D&D or sci-fi buff.

Location: Atlanta, GA

Attendance: 35,000

Dates: September 3^rd – 6th

Ticket Cost: $80 (membership & early registration).

Media registration requirements: All of the following required: driver’s license, copy or link of an article written in the last six months, and a business card or assignment letter.

Go if: You’re a dice-rollin’ tabletop gamer.

Highlights: “Hall of fame” autograph sessions, Dragon*Con parade, great sci-fi cosplayers.

Website: www.dragoncon.org

Gamescom

Attended by almost two hundred and fifty thousand people, Gamescom is the largest gaming convention in the world. Gamescom evolved from the Leipzig Games Convention, and was first hosted in 2009 in Cologne, Germany. Though Gamescom is open to the public, Gamescom is regarded by some as “Europe’s version” of E3, and highly important to developers for reaching markets across the pond. GDC Europe takes place during the same dates at an adjacent part of the same trade center.

Location: Cologne, Germany

Attendance: 245,000(!)

Dates: August 18^th – 22^nd

Ticket Cost: $38 (season ticket).

Media registration requirements: Any/all of the following required: press ID, copy or link of an article written in the last six months, publishing masthead, student press ID.

Go if: You’ve got the raw hard cash necessary to travel abroad and want to see the largest gaming convention on the globe.

Highlights: The enormous attendance and venue, press conferences and announcements, Gamescom festival.

Website: www.gamescom-cologne.com/en/gamescom/home/index.php

GDC

The Game Developers Conference is the premier convention for any game developer. Created in 1998, GDC was originally hosted in San Jose CA, but moved venues to San Francisco’s Moscone center in 2007. While not as meretricious as other conventions, GDC’s workshops are extremely informative for anyone in the gaming business, or if you’re just trying to break in. GDC is limited to members of the industry, and tickets are much higher than other conventions, though the public is able to buy passes for the Expo floor at a non-astronomical rate. GDC hosts the Game Developers Choice Awards—an annual ceremony rewarding the best in game design—chosen by members of the industry as well as the Independent Games Festival.

Location: San Francisco, CA (main); Austin, TX; Cologne, Germany; Shanghai, China; Vancouver, Canada (sub)

Attendance: 18,000 (main)

Dates: March 9^th – 13^th

Ticket Cost: $1,400 (all-access pass), $195 (expo floor pass).

Media registration requirements: Three of the following: three published pieces written in the last year, business card, assignment letter, third-party verification of your website’s traffic.

Go if: You’re a game developer or a student trying to wiggle into the biz.

Highlights: Game industry panels and workshops, game design challenge, game developers choice awards.

Website: www.gdconf.com/

Comic-Con

Created in 1970, San Diego Comic-Con International has become the largest comics convention in North America. Though originally meant solely for the universe of comic books, Comic-Con has mutated into the more mainstream in recent years. Notable for having thousands of celebrities attend every year, Comic-Con is a popular convention for those wishing to meet their celluloid idols. The film and television industry, as well as the game industry, have both expanded to exhibiting at Comic-Con, and big-name movie and game trailers are shown off every year. With attendance reaching almost 150,000 last year, tickets sell out well in advance, so those of you planning to snag a spot need to make arrangements as much as 4 months ahead of time.

Location: San Diego, CA

Attendance: 140,000

Dates: July 22^nd – 25^th

Ticket Cost: $100 (sold out for this year).

Media registration requirements: Submit your name, title, company and address to pressreg@comic-con.org and further instructions will be sent for chosen applicants (on a case-by-case basis).

Go if: You’re a comic book enthusiast.

Highlights: Official Comic-Con guests, exclusive movie previews, artists’ alley.

Website: www.comic-con.org

CES

The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is one of the leading tech conventions in the world. Unlike its name implies, CES is paradoxically limited to members of the trade and press. Las Vegas is a fitting location for CES as the newest high-profile electronics are brandished every year. Individual video games are not necessarily shown off at CES, but rather the technology behind them.  Students can attend for a single day at the fee of a cool hundred, which is humorous, because students typically don’t have money.

Location: Las Vegas, NV

Dates: January 6^th – 9^th

Attendance: 140,000

Ticket Cost: Free to trade members / press ($100 after October 1^st ), $100 student 1-day pass.

Media registration requirements: One of the following required—link of a bylined story written in last three months, copy of publication masthead, link to bylined industry-related blog post written in last three months.

Go if: You’re in the tech industry, or trying to wedge yourself in.

Highlights: Product announcements, testable gadgets, expensive swag.

Website: www.cesweb.org

Fan Expo Canada

Fan Expo Canada is the largest convention of its kind… in Canada. Created in 1994, FEC is hosted at the Metro Toronto Convention Center every year. FEC is a multi-genre convention and includes almost all facets of geekiness. Though Fan Expo Canada has branched out from its comic-book foundation, it still hosts portfolio reviews for aspiring comic artists trying to make it big. Fan Expo Canada puts out a consistent high-profile slew of celebrity guests every year and is a great choice for anyone in Canada wanting to attend a cheap consumer convention, or for us Americans wishing to sample delicious natural maple syrups from local thrift stores.

Location: Toronto, Canada

Dates: August 28^th – 30^th

Attendance: 59,000

Ticket cost: $49 (3-day pass), $25 (1-day pass).

Media registration requirements: Contact holly@applausecommunications.com for registration inquiries.

Go if: You want to attend a big-ass convention in Canada.

Highlights: Small press, portfolio reviews, costumed masquerade.

Website: www.hobbystar.com/fanexpo

BlizzCon

BlizzCon’s thousands of attendees every year can attest to the company’s immense fandom. The first BlizzCon was in 2005 at the Anaheim Convention Center, and has been growing in attendance steadily since. While BlizzCon is rather obviously limited to Blizzard products, lucky attendees are usually able to snag beta keys for Blizzard’s upcoming sequels or expansions. Blizzard typically announces a new product each year, so attendance is highly recommended for a hardcore fan of the company.

Location: Anaheim, CA

Dates: October 22^nd – 23^rd

Attendance: 20,000

Cost: $125 (2009)

Media registration requirements: Registration requirements have not been announced at this time.

Go if: You love Blizzard and their games.

Highlights: Playable versions of unreleased games, Blizzard cosplayers, chances to meet Blizzard employees and worship them.

Website: www.blizzard.com/blizzcon

Anime Expo

Anime Expo is the enormous-iest anime convention in the United States. Created in 1992 and originally hosted in San Jose, Anime Expo moved to L.A., where it’s found now. Anime Expo is not as gaming-oriented as other conventions, but retains strong bonds to the gaming community (especially Japanese games). Anime Expo is famous for its cosplayers, and the best in the world attend every event. Cosplay award shows are hosted on an annual basis, so this might be the one convention where you’ll be in an acute minority not showing up in a cross-stitched weapon-accessorized Solid Snake outfit.

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Dates: July 1^st – 4^th

Attendance: 44,000

Ticket Cost: $75 (4-day pass).

Media registration requirements: Four of the following required by June 10^th: active employment with a print publication (or website with “significant” traffic), business card, valid picture ID, minimum age of 18 (by convention date).

Go if: You’re an anime/cosplay enthusiast wishing to behold the most grand of all anime conventions in the United States.

Highlights: Cosplay awards, guests of honor, 4^th of July BBQ.

Website: www.anime-expo.com

Tokyo Game Show

The Tokyo Game Show is, in many ways, unrivaled in its high-tech glamour. Easily the steroid-injected Godzilla of gaming conventions in size and attendance, the Tokyo Game Show is an all-inclusive show that’s open to the public. Dubbed by some as “Japan’s E3,” TGS is a force to be reckoned with. Japanese developers usually make several high-profile announcements every year due to the crazy number of attendees as well as the multitudes of salivating press covering the show.

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Dates: September 16^th – 19^th

Attendance: 185,000

Ticket Cost: $12 (2-day pass for public).

Media registration requirements: Contact tgs2010press@fullhouse.jp for registration inquiries.

Go if: If you live in Japan, or follow the Japanese game industry closely and want to travel there.

Highlights: Japanese game announcements, high-tech booths, second-largest attendance on the globe.

Website: http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/english/

MAGFest

Why spend New Years with your family when you could spend it at a game convention? MAGFest is hosted January 1^st through 4^th every year and focuses on video game music and culture. Located in Alexandria, VA, MAGFest is certainly one of the quirkier expos around. Created in 2002, MAGFest has a small but dedicated and growing following. Video game-themed concerts are hosted as well as smaller activities such as tabletop gaming rooms and a LAN party. MAGFest is one of the only gaming conventions open 24 hours a day (for certain areas of the show).

Location: Alexandria, VA

Dates: January 1^st – 4^th

Attendance: 2,200

Ticket Cost: (All passes are for all four days) $40 attendee, $80 supporter (a goodie bag with free T-Shirts, etc.), $160 super-supporter (supporter benefits, complementary food, extra badges for friends, etc.).

Media registration requirements: Email press@magfest.org for registration inquiries.

Go if: You fancy loads of video game music and want to partake of one of the most eccentric gaming conventions available.

Highlights: Video game concerts, The “Challenge Booth,” close-knit social scene.

Website: www.magfest.org

Quakecon

The self-proclaimed “Woodstock of Gaming,” (minus the gigantic amounts of marijuana) Quakecon started in 1996 as a mini-LAN attended by 100 in a Best Western’s conference center. While originally a celebration of id’s games, it has since expanded to a convention for PC gaming enthusiasts. The LAN portion of the convention has grown into one of the largest and most competitive LAN tournaments in the world as professional gamers across the world come to compete. Quakecon is hosted at the Hilton, Anatole in Dallas, Texas and has free admission for attendees and press.

Location: Dallas, TX

Dates: August 12^th – 15^th

Attendance: 7,000

Ticket Cost: Free and open to the public.

Media registration requirements: Inquire about press badges by emailing press@quakecon.org.

Go if: You’re a PC game enthusiast and want to participate in one of the most competitive LAN tournaments in the world.

Highlights: John Carmack’s 17 hour-long keynote, the Quake Live tournament, shame tarps.

Website: www.quakecon.org

E3

While the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) has no doubt decreased in attendance after its switch to invitation-only in 2007, it still remains a monolithic convention. Hosted at the L.A. Convention Center, E3 is perhaps the most well-known gaming gathering. E3 started in 1995 as a tech trade show geared solely towards games, and quickly became one of the most popular destinations around. E3 has an incredible confluence of journalists, and many video game companies save their best presentations for the convention for this very reason. While E3 became much more exclusive in 2007 and only invited a few thousand lucky souls (with the creation of the now-defunct sister convention E4All), it has since returned to its old looser format.

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Dates: June 15th – 17^th

Attendance: 41,000

Ticket Cost: Free (trade members and press only).

Media Registration Requirements: Must work for a publication in an editorial capacity and registration is done on a case-by-case basis. Follow here to fill out and submit a media pass registration form.

Go if: You’re in the press, or you’re looking to get a taste of the gaming business from the inside.

Highlights: Developer presentations, game announcements, booth babes.

Website: www.e3expo.com

Origins Game Fair

While the Origins Game Fair might serve an even smaller niche (war-gaming) than the other conventions, it has a dedicated fanbase and sizeable attendance. Created in 1975, Origins is— surprisingly—one of the longest running gaming conventions around. Origins covers board games, LARPing, and tabletop gaming as well as the aforementioned war-gaming, but sadly—not video gaming. Recommended only for the hardcore of the old-school.

Location: Columbus, OH

Dates: June 23^rd – 25^th

Attendance: 15,000

Ticket Cost: $60 (4-day all-access), $30 (1-day all-access).

Media registration requirements: 2 of the following required: business card, publication masthead, recent bylined article, copy of online publication, assignment letter.

Go if: You hug and cherish war-gaming and board games.

Highlights: Origins Awards, game sessions, miniatures art show.

Website: www.originsgamefair.com

Gen Con

Gen Con has quite a history. Created in 1968 by Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax and once owned by D&D publisher TSR inc., Gen Con has passed over owners and changed locations a handful of times. After emerging from a bankruptcy restructure in 2008, Gen Con is now regularly hosted in good ol’ Indy. Gen Con is similar in features to Dragon*Con and Origins Game Fair and is considered one of the premier tabletop conventions. Gen Con is also notorious for its high fantasy cosplayers and attendee antics. Gen Con hosts idiosyncratic features every year such as Cardhalla (a city constructed out of cards), a true-to-scale Dungeon for LARPing, and the EN World RPG awards.

Location: Indianapolis, IN

Dates: August 5^th – 8^th

Attendance: 28,000

Ticket Cost: $68 (4-day badge early registration), $78 (late registration), $38 (1-day badge early registration), $48 (late registration).

Media registration requirements: Copy or link of bylined article or business card.

Go if: You want to witness a weekend of utter insanity.

Highlights: D&D Championship Series, true adventures, Gen Con costume contest.

Website: www.gencon.com/2010/indy/default.aspx

Anthrocon

This is all that needs to be said.

Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Dates: June 24^th – 27^th

Attendance: 3,700

Ticket Cost: Your dignity.

Press requirements: Members of the press must be escorted at all times by a senior Anthrocon staff member in the convention center. Dear God.

Go if: You have no hopes or dreams for the future.

Highlights: http://bit.ly/aTtRAt

Website: www.anthrocon.org

Check out Terry’s website at TerryBorst.com

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Aside from Modern Warfare 2, stimulus packages generally exist to support people. Today, I will bestow onto you, my people, a support package of free games to wither down to and forget about life for awhile.

Adventures are to gaming what Latin is to language. While “dead,” the genre still boasts a humongous and creative fan base who create adventure games of their own. One of those games is Nelly Cootalot. Developed by Alasdair Beckett, Nelly could be considered offspring to the venerable Monkey Island franchise. You play as female pirate Nelly Cootalot, “fearsome pirate and lover of tiny and adorable creatures,” and you have to find the whereabouts of the missing “spoonbeaks,” (a species of bird.) Yeah—the plot is very, very typical adventure game. But that’s a good thing! As Beckett’s first adventure game, it’s no doubt impressive what he achieved in it. Check out Nelly Cootalot to see indie at its finest.

Once upon a time, 2D was the thing. In fact, it was the only thing, and game developers made use of the limited nature of that graphical presentation and created some of the best games ever. Abuse has all that made the “old days” great: colorful, sprite-based graphics, killer killing, and just raw, adrenaline-like gameplay. It’s a precursor to the platforming games that we see commonplace nowadays—but don’t let that sway you; Abuse could potentially be one of the most fun experiences you’d had in awhile.

I proclaimed a law on our podcast. It’s called “Murphy’s Law.” It states that no matter the mood of the participants, the topic at hand, or the time of day, the 1987 movie masterpiece RoboCop would eventually and inevitably be brought up somehow in the flow of the discussion. Since that proclamation, the law has not been broken. And I intend to keep it that way. In fact, I’m going to transmigrate that law over to the editorial realm for this special case. So: RoboCop. Also, check out this RoboCop game. It’s called RoboCop 2D, and it’s very reminiscent to the old side-scrolling arcade games of the ’90s where you kill a whole bunch-a guys, thus “upholding the law.”

Any PC gamer worth his or her salt will agree with this axiom: within the microcosm of video gaming, a custom built, high-end PC reigns supreme. It is the most powerful weapon in a PC gamer’s arsenal, and becomes even more capable when married with high-end peripherals. So why is it that my computer rests comfortably on the bedroom carpet where the most strenuous activity it knows is to play music while running MS Word? Why is it that the only games installed are those scant few that came bundled with Windows 7?

Why is my keyboard a 10 dollar toss-away and my mouse some off-brand disgrace that lacks a middle scroll-wheel? Why is my monitor a cheap Gateway model—one that uses a VGA connection and ghosts when playing YouTube videos—and why are my speakers a 20 dollar bargain bin pair that fall behind my desk when I shuffle my feet around?

It gets worse: I have an Intel processor, but I do not remember what kind; an NVidia card, model unknown; and 8 gigs of RAM that I think is DDR2, but I’m not sure. Even Steam, where all my Half-Life goodness lives, is absent from the control panel’s programs’ list. In fact, the last PC game to appear there was Will Wright’s magnum opus Spore. And despite the fact that it received high marks from critics, I only played it for several weeks before uninstalling it.

Blasphemy, you say? Perhaps, but things were not always this bleak. There was a time when I played competitively in several FPSes, had multiple subscriptions to popular MMOs, and was able to rattle off the name, spec, and price of every component in my system—both internal and external. I knew refresh rates, and polygon counts, and overclocking tweaks, and how to properly optimize Windows.

I followed the development of software patches and quick-fix community Band-Aids with the same anxious trepidation that I normally reserved for those (all to) frequent jaunts to the outside world for more Doritos or Mountain Dew. I sunk hours upon hours into modding popular RPGs, FPSes, and RTSes. My reflexes were so well developed that I was able to simultaneously close Firefox and zip up my pants when I heard those heavy, anti-climactic footsteps hammering down the basement stairs.

So what the hell happened? What would cause such a staunch PC supporter to fall by the wayside? Did PC gaming become too expensive or complicated? No. Did consoles lure me away with their promises of exclusivity? No. Did I get hit in the head with a brick? Once when I was 12, but I recovered. The real reason for all the disarray is this: piracy destroyed PC gaming.

My rabbit now uses Spore’s “Galactic Edition” box as her chew toy.

Let me elaborate: It all started with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I’d previously pirated and played through The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and was captivated by its immersive world and free-form design. So naturally, Oblivion was on my most wanted list. I followed the development of the game with a passionate fervor, and I savored every screenshot and trailer that leaked out. The day it released I queued up a torrent and paced the basement as my bandwidth squeezed every last kilobyte of RPG brilliance onto my hard drive.

Now, when Oblivion released I’d already acquired a vast collection of pirated software, so while waiting for the torrent to throttle up I thumbed through my collection and came across a copy of Star Wars: The Knights of the Old Republic. I remembered downloading it, but could not remember playing it. In fact, 90% of the games in my collection had never been installed. The ISO images were burned to discs and then dumped in the Windows’ recycling bin. I looked at the acronym scrawled across the CD in black Sharpie marker—KOTOR—and wondered why I had never played a game that was universally well-received by critics and fans.

So once Oblivion downloaded I installed it, created a sexy female warrior and then set her loose in lands of Cryodiil. Over the course of the next week I chalked up 8 hours of playtime—rather weak considering the size of the game—before abandoning it. I never went back.

The next release I anticipated was Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. I quickly found a torrent and patiently waited for it to download. However, once it finished, I was already looking forward to the next big game: Half Life²: Episode One. I downloaded that while Rise of Nation’s image file sat unused on my hard drive. I played the opening sequence to Episode One—getting as far as being thrown back into the Citadel by Dog—before moving on to the next release. Titan Quest, Prey, Battlefield 2142, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Medieval II: Total War followed the same pattern—they were downloaded but never installed. I simply burned them to discs and placed them snugly into over-sized CD wallets.

Most of these games have never seen the inside of a CD drive.

It was then I realized something: I spent more time browsing torrent sites then I did gaming. I spent more bandwidth downloading .RAR archives then I did fragging my Counter-Strike clansmen. Something changed; PC gaming was no longer tangible, and the devotion I once reserved for it was replaced with flat indifference. Games were just worthless bits of information streaming across a CAT-5 cable, and I cared more about amassing a collection of software than I did about the actual hobby. I’d become a hoarder of executable cracks and key generators. And with that admission I managed to single-handedly destroy my favorite hobby

Someone once said, “If you give a poor man a dollar he’ll thank you because he understands the importance of money; but if you give him one million he’ll thank you because he no longer needs that understanding.” You see, I was a poor man, and my million dollars was minted in fresh, laser-etched DVD-R’s. Digital thievery blinded me, and I never allowed myself to see the importance of the culture that absorbed me.

When a commodity becomes free (and plentiful), it will often lose its appeal. Imagine that every time you turn on your computer and push the ‘escape’ button a Snickers bar pops out of the USB port. At first you’d be excited. “Boy, I love Snickers,” you’d say as you peeled back the crisp plastic wrapper. “I can’t believe I can get these for free now!” The next time you push the escape button another Snickers bars pops out. You smile and sink your teeth in. Now, after eating 20 Snickers bars you might still like the idea of free candy pouring from your computer’s ports, but your initial elation has probably subsided.

After 40, you realize that you haven’t been finishing the tasty treats and that there’s a box of half-eaten Snickers bars melting in the corner of your office. After 60 your teeth are so eroded and dotted with cavities that the idea of eating another candy bar makes your incisors hurt. Finally, after choking down 80 you swear off Snickers bars for good, and you rip the escape button from your keyboard. Now, imagine that 20 thousand other people are doing the same exact thing. Sales of Snickers would drop dramatically. The chocolate industry would crumble. Peanuts supplies would spoil. Caramel nougats would file for unemployment.

Mr. T says, “Get some nuts and stop piracy!”

That may be a bit overly-dramatic, but the fact that this is happening with PC games is still just as troubling. People on both sides tend to look at piracy in terms of dollars, either saved or lost; and while this is an important perspective, it neglects to acknowledge the underlying erosion that takes place each time a copy of The Sims 3 or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is downloaded. The very fabric of our gaming culture is threatened because of people like me—people who cheated the system for so long that any benefits obtained from said digressions became just as frivolous as the act of pirating itself. Even now people are inventing new arguments for piracy: DRM is too intrusive and restrictive, mega-corporations like Activision and EA are too greedy or manipulative, and so on. While this subterfuge may sooth troubled consciences, it will not mend broken wings.

The fact is this: both sides of this struggle need to re-examine how piracy affects the culture of video gaming, as well as its effect on how people view video games as a product. Changes need to be made, and people need to realize that the impact from software piracy not only rattles the economy, but also the fundamental raison d’être of gaming. In the end it’ll be consumers that either thrust PC gaming into the stratosphere or bury it in the dirt. This is war, and both sides are recruiting. Where will you stand?

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Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCCuxo5YDkc

On the road…again.

In a market where DLC is seldom more than a redundant download of resold/recycled content (I’m looking at you Assassin’s Creed 2), it’s quite refreshing when developers give us something substantial for our money.  After two relatively small and lackluster pieces of Borderlands DLC, Gearbox delivered their most ambitious iteration yet: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx. It boasts 11 additional levels, a plethora of new items, 44 new missions, and new expansive areas to explore.

Behold: the world’s largest bullet.

Gearbox does their best to finally address some of the issues hampering the gameplay (poor vehicle sections, no gear from the end vault, and not having worthwhile loot from the numerous bosses). And though it shows that General Knoxx is the first DLC to be developed entirely after the release of Borderlands, many vestiges of the problems that plagued Borderlands still remain.

Instead of having a single poorly controlled vehicle, you now get to choose from three different poorly controlled vehicles. And while the new transport  machines themselves are definitely a welcome change of pace, their core problems haven’t been fixed; they do too little damage, die too easily, and are controlled only with the mouse (leading to haphazard direction). The last vehicle you obtain, the Lancer, has sturdier armor and packs a harder punch, but it’s still just a little too flimsy. I found myself jumping out of my buggy on many occasions as it was faster—and often easier—to gun down enemies on foot. Ultimately, none of the changes with the vehicles address the most glaring oversight of the DLC: the glaring absence of fast travel.

Instead of finding two terrible items at a time, you can now find four!

This makes matters worse when the zones surrounding the starting area of T-Bone Junction are laid out in a straight, vertical line, with a long driving area directly to the north and south of the town. With no fast travel, the vault hunters are forced to pick their favorite sluggish vehicle and drive for as long as 5 to 10 minutes in either direction to reach the end of some of the content.

Real men drive in pink.

To placate those who complained about not being able to actually go into the Vault at the end of the first game, Gearbox now allows us to spend 3 minutes in General Knoxx’s armory at the end of the DLC. The first time I stepped inside, I literally felt like a kid in a candy store: it contains 4 floors packed full of chests of all shapes and sizes, including the new Lancer chests that are twice the size of the red chests from the original. There isn’t enough time to evaluate individual pieces; you’ve gotta scrounge as much as you can carry before the timer ends.

The last big grievance this DLC addresses is the aforementioned low-tier quality of gear dropped by biggest of the bad guys. After killing Knoxx, you’re sent out to accost an unknown entity called Crawmerax. It’s an extremely hard encounter that’s not-so-subtly shadowed by the quest’s name—”You. Will. Die.” Crawmerax is an enormous four-armed lobster perched atop a mesa equipped with acid that can incapacitate you in two hits; Crawmerax also has the ability to summon hordes of smaller creatures. Only after finding a good hiding spot could I finally kill him, but after I did, I once again felt like that kid in the candy store. Loot literally rains down from the sky for a full five seconds after he kicks the can. Since that first victory, I’ve killed Crawmerax a couple dozen more times, and the quality and quantity of the items he drops never ceases to amaze. Defeating Crawmerax even dominates over the prior raid of Knoxx’s armory.

He’s big. He’s mean. He drops loot like a pinata.

Yet while General Knoxx makes some solid improvements, it also takes some serious steps back.  Gearbox’s approach to fixing the game’s difficulty is completely ham-handed—most enemies you face are two to four levels higher than you. It ends up being too challenging, unfair, and not fun. The character levels even out later on, but are too painfully skewed in the beginning.

This DLC content is pretty standard fair for the Borderlands universe. The plot is mostly nonexistent, Scooter and Moxxi make hilariously inappropriate jokes, and Knoxx himself is a self-deprecating delight. Simply put: if you enjoyed the story and characters so far, you’ll continue to do so here. Despite some obvious missteps, General Knoxx is the best addition to the game yet and easily worth the $10 asking price.

There are plenty of PC games out there where history’s greatest humans are given the spotlight. There’s the gamut of the entire Civilization series, wherein we see the likes of Greek general Pericles, the Aztecs’ Montezuma, and India’s Mahatma Gandhi. More that come to mind are Napoleon: Total War, which stars everyone’s favorite short dude, and Europa Universalis: Rome, sporting Julius Caesar on the damn cover. The thing about these games, however, is that the people at hand are associated with the political and military side of things—there’re absolutely no games about the great philosophers of the world. Sure, several games take the philosophy of an intellectual and make it a major aspect (think Ayn Rand in BioShock), but there’re no games of them! I mean, there’s gotta be some potential masterpieces oozing from the untouched area of philosophy in gaming. To remedy this here and now, I’ll pitch a series of game concepts starring some of the world’s great thinkers.

Publishers: I expect royalty payments within two weeks of your [inevitably successful] game’s release. Thank you.

Cave Raider is Eidos Interactive’s strongest third-person action-adventure effort since Tomb Raider. You play as Plato, and you’re out to right the wrongs of Democritus, materialist and pre-scientist who wishes to take over the universe with an army of evil atoms. Armed with the forms of love, justice, courage (and many, many more), you explore over two dozen exotic caves across Ancient Greece and fight for the knowledge of the intelligible world!

Lead those slaves out of the cave and into the light!

Recruit disciples along the way and become the true philosopher king!

Features:

• Plato voiced by Razzie Award-winning actor Pauly Shore!
• Epic narrative written by… somebody. We’re not entirely sure!
• Alternatively, play as Socrates!

Alternative Titles: Socrates 2, Crito Some More

Funded by the Catholic church, Saints’ Row is a gift from god! Play as the two most famous not-Jesus Christians of all time, St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas, in this canoe simulator. A game of competition, you race your opponent to achieve transcendence and salvation first! Avoid sin and atheists!

Plato and Aristotle serve as their coaches!

Thomas has five ways to win!

Features:

• Manual authored by St. Thomas himself—over seven volumes and 13,000 pages!
• Comes with USB Priest Paddles™!
• Languages: Latin, Italian, Anglo-Saxon!

Alternative Title: Super Catholic Bros.

Play as the bad guy in Evil Genius: René Descartes! Travel the world as the French philosopher in this real-time strategy title. Invade the universities around the globe with your evil ideas and conquer the entire population. All of the globe is under your grasp!

Build wax attack units for waximum carnage!

Tactical pause mode!

Features:

• You can think!
• Dual mind support!
• Not as bad as Command & Conquer 4!

Alternative Title: Running Shoes René

Politics is nothing but flip-flopping your way to victory. Do that in VVVVVVoltaire! Control gravity as you bounce your way through the many key issues of contemporary society as French political thinker Voltaire!

Fight the man!

Satirize your enemies!

Features:

• Chiptune soundtrack composed by Mozart!
• 2D graphics with 3D support!
• Comes on three DVDs!

Alternative Title: FFFFFFrançois-Marie

Immanuel Kant is “Cat,” a private investigator specializing in murder cases. A retired 27-year veteran of the force, Cat solves the mystery, no matter what the cost. One scotch-filled evening, femme fatale S.O. Crates walked into Cat’s office and changed his life forever. Synthesize the clues to solve the case in this suspense-filled adventure game!

Solve the mystery of moral duty!

“Gory Call: Imperative” is the most ambitious Cat game yet!

Features:

• A world-trekking adventure across Königsberg’s markets, forests, and underworld!
• Comes with collectible bald scalp!
• Full-motion video cutscenes, starring Joe Kucan, Christopher Walken, and the naked chick from Phantasmagoria!

Alternative Titles: Call of Duty: Universal Law, Noumena and Phenomnomnomena

Number of PC games I’ve burned through over the last year: 65. Number of console titles (including the Nintendo DS) I’ve bedded down in the same amount of time: 5. And not for the reasons you might think. Naturally, since Game Central is founded on the principles and bricks of a PC gaming stage, I’ll always gravitate towards my native platform. Goes without saying, really. Everyone has a favorite.

Difference is: my beloved favorite is also my most oppressive prison. At the risk of a hefty face-punching—I like console games. I really do. In fact, if you trace the deep and buried roots of my gaming heritage, you’ll unearth a rather surprising facet: my gaming DNA consists of about 75% console genes. Before switching teams, I owned 7 different iterations of various brand selections, from the original NES up to the PS1 (before Command & Conquer and Duke Nukem 3D showed me new heavenly heights).

You released on the wrong platform sweetheart. Otherwise? We totally coulda tied the knot.

To this day, even in comparison to my absolute PC faves, the ol’ console games of yore hold lofty statuses in my gamer heart.  Of course, back in 1997, my playtime between the consoles and my ‘puter teetered around 50/50. Somewhere between now and then, that symbiotic and rather illustrious relationship disintegrated like a stationary body at the business end of a pointblank quad-rocket.

No I will not go out with you! (But I will bang you.)

And it’s a shame. There’s no reason I can’t enjoy the best of both worlds. There’s no reason I shouldn’t. Yeah, I’ve been guilty as O.J.’s bloody gloves on perpetrating and exacerbating the war between the PC and the “other” gaming machines. I’ll recognize a touch of personal hypocrisy when I see it. Still, I bought a PS3 with every intention of actively engaging it for far more than Blu-ray movie consumption. And you can bet the family farm I’d own an X-Box 360 and Nintendo Wii if financially feasible. And yet, the $50 DualShock Sixaxis lays abandoned on my living room shelf, a homeless peripheral hooker begging for my gaming change.

But why? Why do I neglect my (rather expensive) investment? Despite critical misinterpretation and undeserved malice, there are some goddamned sexy PS3 games out there. Heavy Rain, Metal Gear Solid, Brütal Legend, Uncharted. (I don’t talk about Dante’s Inferno anymore. Hey—mistakes were made!) I want to play these games! (Not Dante’s Inferno.) Shit, out of the 7 PS3 games I own, other than Metal Gear Solid 4, I haven’t even halfway completed any of them. And it’s because of the guilt. (But not with Dante’s Inferno).

But yeah: guilt. Positive, unarguable, raw, non-filtered, serious guilt. Each time I pick up the Sixaxis—rare as it is—I wonder if my PC will suddenly walk in on me, sobbing uncontrollably, with a loaded and cocked revolver trembling in its hands.  Every time a PC game crashes, or a beta video card driver blue-screens, I imagine karmatic restitution for my loose and cheating eyes. It’s like I took a vow with my computer, sealed under the sanctity of a gaming god, and I’m willfully breaking it.

Yeah I know your twin sister lives on the PC, but I like you better baby. Honest!

Of course, this is all ludicrous. My PC doesn’t love me, much as I wish it would. We hold no tangible marital bonds, and we’ve never got hitched in a glittery Vegas tabernacle (that I know of). My gaming affairs are all strictly casual-agnostic. But the shadow of guilt remains nonetheless.  Each second that falls off the clock in Mega Man 10 is a second not spent in Deus Ex. Every minute invested in Street Fighter IV is a minute lost forever from Torchlight.

I shouldn’t view cross-sampled gaming in this rather adulterous manner, and neither should you. And luckily, from perusing the forums and gathering Google feedback, it appears I’m kind of a glitch. Very few seem to share this freakishly bizarre set of singular platform-bonded morals. I’m rather relieved to see that. But this doesn’t help me with my dilemma. As great as it for you guys to be all comfy with your flirty and promiscuous dispositions, this doesn’t suddenly switch my train tracks to a more liberal view of console gaming.

Seems like a decent lay at first, but gives you herpes after.

Perhaps the most frustrating angle stems from a failure to track my behavior to a beginning catalyst. Most of the time, undesirable habits can be better attacked and treated if the source cause is located. An alcoholic can better cope (and heal) if he or she understands that the reason they began tipping back the feisty-sauce in the first place came from a stiff and sudden employment layoff. For me, there’s no such revelation. There’s no thundering epiphany. And there’s no indication that my Amish gaming-relationship morays will metamorphose into console polygamy any time soon.

I’m not ready to throw away the PS3 condoms yet though. Maybe if I cheat on the PC long enough it’ll all just numb over; I’ll justify my actions by telling myself that if the PC won’t put out in the form of Alan Wake, well, she had it coming then. I mean I ain’t made of steel!  A guy needs his freedom! What choice do I have? I got needs! Right? Damn right. Hell yeah.

Sighhh. Never mind—I’ll be home in a minute honey; yeah… we’ll watch Quake together.  Need anything from the store while I’m out?

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Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6noNoowki-U

Entertainment mediums, by their very nature, exist solely to entertain us. But alas: like all things made by human hands, they’ve become corrupted to their cores. These days, entertainment must not only thrill us with breath-taking car chases and explosive explosions, but also connect to our very existence within the human condition.

Some guy, I think his name was Jesse, decided the best way to do this was to build narrative experiences around believable characters; characters that could plausibly exist within the world they’re inadvertently thrust into. Games now rely upon the notion that we need believable evolved characters; they must develop throughout our time spent with them. However, there is a very difficult problem with this concept in certain titles.

He’s got a crowbar, a degree from MIT,
and that’s about it.

It’s one thing to watch a TV show and see how experiences can influence a character’s actions, it’s another thing entirely to place the development of characters into the grimy hands of your average gamer. This is principally the work of the “Freeman Effect,” although there are several different types of character developments present in games.

One might wonder why games even need bother with characters that develop over the course of your adventures with them. Games are fine without such innovative narrative experiences, and in fact games should spurn the advances that have been promulgated by the vixens of Hollywood and her misbegotten ilk.

But, whether or not you like where character development originated from (as I already stated: some dude named Jesse), it adds significantly to your enjoyment of the medium if you can somehow relate—or at least believe in—what you experience regardless if it’s a movie, television show, book, radio broadcast, or video game. Bluntly: character development is important for games because it makes them better experiences, but only if it actually tries. Let’s see how games can try to make character development an integral part of the gameplay experience, and in some cases, already have.

How’s that world conquest going there, Kane?

Often, a crap load of older games (but not always) fail to produce any character development at all. Possibly this might occur because you’re playing a multiplayer / sports game. On the other hand, Valve recently decided that you can have compelling, growing multiplayer characters,  as seen in their “Meet The” video series.

Shooters are also big on this, representing such luminaries such as Doomguy, William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, Duke Nukem, and the ever-debatable Gordon Freeman. Strategy games also frequently lack character development, although they can often still have interesting characters (see Kane in Command & Conquer).

These games typically lack character advancement because the developers actively don’t  try to attack something they know they won’t be able to deliver, so they choose to focus simply on the gameplay. Take a look at Just Cause 2. The characters are wretched, but you aren’t playing it for a deep exploration into character study, you’re playing because you enjoy hijacking commercial airliners and using them to assassinate the populace of a small south-eastern Asian country.

‘Soap’ is Scottish. That’s it.

Of course, the game might  not even care about presenting characters at all, ala Doom. This, in comparison, allows for the player to build their own experiences about a game without being explicitly directed by the developers; see Total War & Civilization games for examples. This is the simplest way. You sidestep the issue by not even trying, and that’s fine. I’d rather have a game with solid gameplay and no story than a game with alright gameplay and crap characters.

I’m looking at you: Call of Duty. The key problem here is that with nothing ventured, nothing extra is gained. If no games tried to push developing characters than we’d be stuck with games like Crysis: awesomely brilliant gameplay, but oddly empty inside.

Our next stop brings us to the house that Hollywood built—your typical linear character development avenue. And by linear, I mean there’s only one way for characters to develop. As implied, this kind of growth is what we know from the television, movies and books. While you’d think this would be the simplest style for games to copy, coming up with games that successfully utilize it is a hard task.

Dwelling on the issue, it becomes clear that this is one of the problems games face. TV shows may take significant time investments like a game can, but TV shows are episodic and able to stand on their own. When their characters evolve, it’s the summation of a season (or seasons) of plot and character interactions, rather than over the course of a single episode.

Who would’ve thought this urine-soaked geek could become so much more?

Games, it seems, cannot do this. Episodic delivery has proved problematic at best thus far. In addition, games need to include gameplay into their experience, but how much is up to the individual development teams. Kojima, of Metal Gear Solid, clearly favors a clean 50/50 split between plot and gameplay. Some games intertwine the two, as Half-Life 2, whereby you never lose control of your character in a cut-scene and thus experience everything first hand.

The end result is the same. In Metal Gear Solid you see Otacon develop from an annoying pissant who literally wets himself, to an annoying pissant who literally wets himself but takes some brave first steps. And in Half-Life 2 we find the young and nubile Alyx a brash but capable potential love interest whose fate we’re concerned about by the game’s climax.

Another problem with this approach is that while there are plenty of good television and movie writers, there are far more mediocre or poor ones. Who do you think is most likely to end up writing for games? Not the good ones who have no trouble finding work, but the poor ones. Yep, games get the sloppy seconds, or the developers end up trying to write their plot themselves, which usually ends badly (not convinced? Check out Borderlands).

What do these sloppy writers usually lack? The ability to place meaningful realistic character developments within their plots. In general, hiring book writers seems a solid compromise; books are structured more parallel with games, with book length avoiding any kind of rigid network time slots as we see with television or the ideal 90-120 minute movie experience that maximizes theater revenue.

So while a simple linear character development might appear to be the simplest and easiest way to get decent character development in our games, thus far it has alluded us for the reasons mentioned. That’s not to say we should stop trying this method, look at a movie like Gran Torino and tell me with a straight face you don’t want more games to have characters with that much depth and growth as we see in Walt Kowalski throughout its 2 hour duration.

The closest I’ve seen games come in this linear style is with Max Payne 2’s title character, and in the same vein: Grand Theft Auto IV’s Niko Bellic, both of whom we see struggle throughout their respective experiences. When it works, it’s just as effective as any movie or TV show. Problem is: it barely ever does. Really, this is just video games aping Hollywood, and as such, they can never truly resonate any deeper with a player than any movie or novel can.

BIG AMERICAN TITTIES!

Last to the party in this analysis is player driven character development; as in you’re controlling the development. This is where we come to something that gaming can truly call its own. Okay, choose your own adventure books maybe, but those were all rubbish. These video games are typically the hand-me-downs of the tabletop games.

Most Bioware and Black Isle RPGs fit the bill, although System Shock 2 and Deus Ex are worthwhile additions, but not simply traditional RPGs. The essential bit is that in a tabletop game you have complete freedom. Obviously, this can’t be replicated completely in a video game, but that’s no reason not to try. Basically the idea is that no two play-throughs should be the same.

This is the most ambitious of all forms of character development possible simply because the game needs to respond to your actions and allow the game to adapt to it. Problems arise because player driven character development is extensive and requires huge amounts of time and consideration to properly work out, but it leads to without a doubt the most involving form of characters possible. Your game is literally your game.

Any notion of canon for a game’s story becomes impossible if there is only your play-through. I played through Dragon Age and became attached to certain characters in specific ways. My sister played the game principally with the same characters but came to see them each in a different light.

We could have utilized the dozen or so characters in different ways and could have dealt with each of them in several unique manners. When this works out, it really works out, but when it fails, it’s a catastrophe. Just take a look at Heavy Rain, which gives you lots of choices, but fails to tell what any choice actually means or even is before hand. Your characters will develop in Heavy Rain—quite interestingly I might add—but it’s never really under your control.

The… no, your party. Who does what depends upon your decisions.
So if they all leave you alone you might want to seek a counselor.

Obviously, the dynamic of player-controlled character advancement tends to embrace the RPG genre, due to the inherent focus on character in such games, with much of the gameplay revolving around how you interact within the game’s world. The games that choose this path make character development an actual part of the gameplay, intertwining the entire game experience around the notion of meaningful characters who evolve and develop over the course of your adventure. The good games will present you with difficult decisions, and they don’t have to be no-win scenarios; they simply have to force you to make choices, and that those choices have impacts.

Knights of the Old Republic 2 went so far as to turn this convention on its head in the character of Kreia, who scolded you regardless of your actions. What’s interesting is that the KotOR2 never forces her down your throat and you can decide you disagree and never talk to her again. Or, if you’re intrigued by her point of view, you can keep her around and learn more about her viewpoints. It’s all about the choices.

Character development truly is something worth investing in, perhaps more so in gaming than in any other entertainment medium. The ability to connect a player to their interactions has a profound effect on the overall impact the game has. Besides, if Deus Ex did it? Seems like a good idea for me. Then again, it seems that the general trend nowadays, especially in triple-A big name titles, is to avoid character development and simply give the audience what they think they want. And that folks, is really quite tragic.

Sure, you could take one of those “physiologically accurate” online quizzes to decipher your inner workings, but rational science demands better! No, we as PC gamers balk at such abstract and menial notions. We judge ourselves by the in-game actions we make, not by some random grouping of “well researched and factually articulated” questions. But how do you know where to categorize your misfiring neurons or homicidal-inspired tendencies? Easy! Buy S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, play it, and then refer to our patented and 100% authentic* quick-reference chart below for insta-catharsis! Absolutely Stupendous!
*May not be patented or 100% authentic.

In-Game Action: Rather than repairing and selling your hard-fought booty, you instead routinely collect and horde every useless rusted-out piece of spider-infested crap, even if it means crawling slower than old people screw across the entire game map to do so—over and over and over, until you no longer believe in humanity.

Diagnoses: If you’re just starting the game, you don’t have any other choice. If this is the case, you’re what we in the field call “masochistically abhorrent.” You cherish pain and agony, and you chase  peaks of ecstasy in self-applied flagellation. This is probably why you bought  S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in the first place. What’s that? We told you to the buy the game in our introduction? Okay, fine: you’re a pathetic hopeless follower and a filthy masochist. There. Happy?

In-Game Action: You find yourself emptying cheap cans of beer at staggering rates and eating powerful doses of controlled prescription drugs during the loading screens, all to  avoid smashing your face through your monitor in irritation.

Diagnoses: You have the patience of 4-year-old English princess in a Barbie depot. What—you can’t enjoy those 10 minute interludes of staunch nothingness in-between constant map changes and frequent, frequent deaths? (Frequent.) Don’t you find those little looping gameplay tips like: “eat food to avoid starvation” positively charming? Even on the 78th viewing? No? You’re probably also the type of person that expects your  Big Mac and French fries delivered in less than 2 hours, Mr. Fastie Fast. We had people like you in World War II. We called them “Delawareans.”

In-Game Action: You swear and cuss like a salty grizzled lobster-boat fisherman when your weapons and armor jam and fall apart after 5 or 6 shots, and you punt solid objects—such as the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game box—when bad guys plug your noggin from 7 miles away, and when comically small chemically- malformed antagonistic hamsters incapacitate you with one bite.

Diagnoses: You’re a textbook personality example for misplaced aggression and elevated anger through adverse stimuli. Clearly, you’ve never seen a real-life “between-the-eyes” from a low-caliber .22 pistol with 10,000 feet of distance between a shooter and his target. Actually, this perhaps makes sense, as it’s  impossible. In actuality, on a deeper level, your violent tendencies find their root cause in the prior-inspected impatience dynamic. This is because you know that if that little rat-fuck of a tiny hamster does ever so slightly nudge your steel-coated, adamantium-reinforced body armor, you get to agonize through another infernal 10 minute load screen.

In-Game Action: You find yourself slaughtering enough animals and mutants that PETA files for a multi-species class-action lawsuit as a direct result of your tasteless in-game genocide.

Diagnoses: Your personality is a twisted and evil mother earth hating middle-finger-giver-outer to Native Americans. And FYI, “Yeah, but 90% of the quests make you do it, and animals and mutants are basically all that you can kill in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, because nobody ever shoots at you except for those goddamned annoying zombies that somehow know how to aim and reload their perfectly intact bullshit dangerous shotguns,” is an unacceptable scapegoat for your tactless demeanor. That’s no excuse for your terrifying anti-bestial personal habits. Hey, know what? Instead of murdering all those poor and cuddly, uh, mutated and hideous boar-monsters? You could just avoid offing all those innocent little cuties by not playing the game. You sick bastard you.

In-Game Action: You repeatedly ask random wayward folks the same two awkwardly formulated questions to start each and every conversation piece. No matter how out of context and bizarre “Listen, I have a question for you,” may sometimes seem, you still say the words with ardent redundancy.

Diagnoses: This personality type is often found within lethargic persons of a rudimentary multi-lingual talent. You prefer ease and comfort over complexity, occasionally falling asleep mid-thought. This sometimes results in the option menu, of, say: P.U.R.S.U.E.R. : Yell of Stalin, mislabeling “low-crouch” as “always run.” The diagnosed condition is commonly classified as: “Sure, stiffly and haphazardly translating all that Russian text into direct English may result in chaotic verbal nonsense, but at least this way I’ll retain the time to make my daily coffee break, Sergei.”  Now and then, this rather longish title may also be heard in industry-slang as, “Get  back to work, Vladimir, or we’ll burn your house down.”

In-Game Action: NPCs you stumble across in the middle of the irradiated and treacherous nuclear wasteland consistently warn: “If you wanna talk, holster that smoke-wagon, comrade!” all whilst simultaneously shoving their own enormous hand-cannons directly into your trachea, even after you do put yours away.

Diagnoses: “Hostilus What-the-Fuckus” defines this particular behavioral nuance. While even a kindergartner with a corked pop-gun can ace your ass lightning quick in the Pripyat zone, your frail and timid personality and meak mannerisms nevertheless elicit (apparently) distinct fear and trepidation in your fellow man. This also explains why every other lowlife scum-crusted character in the bars and shops are allowed to openly pack some monster heat, but if you even so much as drop a cracked fingernail on the compass of your  combat knife, your chest cavity turns into a lead-injected slab of reddish Swiss cheese.

Diagnoses: Still beats the ass out of Halo 3.

Show Notes

• Jason Rohrer’s games
• MekTek’s MechWarrior 4
• Speed Demos Archive
• ARMACast, the ARMA 2 podcast
• STALKER Complete mods
  • Shadow of Chernobyl
  • Clear Sky
  • Call of Pripyat

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Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxMiZILvXLE

Recently, Dawn of War II’s dressed me up in a lavender tutu, slapped me around, and called me Beatrice. In the best ways possible. And I keep going back for more. Unlike Daikatana, I simply can’t get enough of it making me its bitch. This makes little sense, considering my genre track record. I should hate this game. I’m supposed to be a self-described “FPS” guy, with little regard, interest, or talent for “RTS” titles. But hang on a sec—is DoW II really just an RTS? No sir. Hardly.

I’m not even sure you can classify DoW II given existing genre monikers. And brethren (and sisteren?)—this is a fabulous revelation. See, we live in a marketing and sales-driven gaming world where we’re herded into artificial genre-based chicken coops. “Bad Company 2? Get on over there in the FPS barn! Just Cause 2? You’re hayed up in the action/adventure pen. Get a move on to that RPG corral you Fallout cattle! We got us some quotas to make!”

Allegedly, games that dare to challenge the gameplay status quo typically don’t sell well, and therefore, get butchered for hotdog meat in the bargain bins. This is a sad course of events. If the PC has but a single one overpowering strength compared to the seemingly invincible armada of the consoles, it’s user-interaction flexibility. Consoles, by their very nature, are handicapped. They get a steering wheel, a flight stick, and a standard controller (I hate saying “gamepad.” It’s called a goddamned controller. Deal with it).

1) Think of genre titles in that explosion. 2) Fuck yeah!

This creates a need for distinct and rigid genres, because when you try and mix and match and throw gameplay elements into a console-powered blender, the control mechanisms end up as the bottleneck, limiting appeal and enjoyment. Brutal Legend’s a solid example of a great game design crippled by its platform and default device of manipulation. Real time strategy gameplay inspirations, even in the smallest of doses, simply don’t work on the WiiPlayBoxes due to the clumsiness of the slow-response analog sticks and directional pads.

The PC, however, revels in its bottomless swelling ocean of possible controlling options and peripherals. Hell, our basic PC “controller” is actually two devices—and one of them has over 105 buttons! If a PC developer wants to cross-blend 2 or 3 (or more) genres into a single game, it’s wholly feasible to do so because of input elasticity. And yet, only a paltry few titles take the risk of breaking out from the yucky console-flavored genre molds.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat pistol-whips its simplistic FPS branding.

This is an unfortunate dynamic, because in my rather annoyed and biased opinion, the best PC games are the ones that aren’t easily categorized into neat little labeled shoeboxes, ready to be stacked away in the attic for ease of storage. The best games are those that take the FPS, RPG, RTS, and adventure monikers out back behind the wood shed and beat ‘em with their own studded leather belts.

Worse yet, we in the “yammering on about and/or reviewing games” industry tend to unfairly label the games that do shoot for genre distinctness. Of course, this is because most folks, when hearing about a newly released ditty, immediately tend to ask (and judge): “What kind of game is it?” when they should be asking: “Is the game fun to play?” This exact behavior almost resulted in me not playing DoW II because an enormous multitude of fellow reviewers and kindred commentators called it a basic RTS.

What a literary travesty to do so. DoW II is so much more than an RTS, it’s foolhardy to name it otherwise. A far more accurate DoW II description: it’s a real-time squad-based RPG open-mission co-op-friendly atmosphere-driven loot-collecting tactics and strategy game. But of course, you can’t print that on the game box, because God forbid the consumers not be able to instantly classify it under a falsely-applied preconceived genre notion. But know what? That’s unjust incarceration! And DoW II ain’t the only oppressed class minority here. How about Crysis? S.T.A.L.K.E.R.? Fallout 3? Batman? None of these gaming greats should be considered as a generic square peg to a square hole.

Behold: the insidious benefactor of rigid and formulaic gameplay elements.

Yes: games do need to be accurately explained and interpreted. Otherwise, we’ll have no idea what we’re getting into, and dropping money on a warm pile of shit tends to frustrate buyers. But games deserve more than a stumpy 3 letter acronym to sum up their parts as a whole. As an admission of loathing self-guilt, I’ve known myself to far too frequently skip articles on games that list the genres as “RTS,” or “Adventure.” Well, thank cherries and ice cream that I didn’t with Machinarium.

The more we foster and encourage our talented developers to Hulk-out of their tight blue jean restricted genre confines, and the more we avoid needless and lazy labeling of complicated but tough to classify gameplay titles—the better off we’ll be, and the more we’ll set ourselves apart from the linear tyrants of Consoleopolis.

I hope you’re nothing like me. I have no money to spend on PC gaming and over 100 unplayed games. Yeah—it’s bad. Or… is it good? Maybe it means I can abandon the newest releases for the next five years and hunker down to play them all.

…Nah. Bring on Deus Ex 3! There is a time for free games, and that time is always! Here’s a list of fabulous games for all you cheap-o’s.

No, not the 1984 classic that kick-started the graphical adventure game tirade of the subsequent decades—this is a fan-made remake. “But wait, Keenan!” you may exclaim, “I haven’t played the original game! I can’t play the remake first!” To which I’d reply, “Who cares?” This remake turns King’s Quest relevant again. In an era of the metamorphosis for the adventure game genre, a re-do of a classic game is wholly appropriate; especially when the game’s assets are formed with a craftsman’s delicate fingers. There’s professional voice acting, beautiful artistic rendering, and a brand new score. In general, I’m not too fond of remakes, but AGD Interactive’s King’s Quest I is one I heartily approve. If you’re new to King’s Quest, go ahead and try it out!

Let’s continue the remake spree, shall we? While not technically a “remake” of a game, Digital: A Love Story reconfigures the classic Amiga platform and tells a story along the way. The game isn’t a game in the traditional understanding—it’s primarily an adventure of reading. Using the old skin of the ’80s computer, Digital tells a story of “mystery/romance set five minutes into the future of 1988.” There’s no real obviously laid goals in the game; you’ll mainly read messages and enter in phone numbers to dial places. Regardless, Digital’s presentation is superb and will most likely keep you enthralled from your first sit-down and until you finish it.

Crime Fighter is one of my favorite games of all time. I first played the game back in 1996 on my Windows 95 computer, and it was the first game where I’d consider myself  “addicted.” At that point, I hadn’t played a “just-one-more-turn” style PC game before—after all, I was just eight years old. In complete honesty, it’s hard to classify what sort of game Crime Fighter is; it feels very much like a board game and implements turn-based elements into the gameplay. Starting with a series of petty crimes such as holding up convenience stores and banks, you play as a criminal looking to forge a path to becoming top dog in the underworld. Along the way, you level up skills in intelligence, power, and recruit other people to help you in your dirty work. The game is designed with more than one player in mind, so to achieve maximum fun-ness, play with a buddy. This version is a recent re-doing of the original DOS game into DirectX graphics and modern controls. I must warn you: this game is very addicting. Imagine Civilization’s up-until-3AM propensity combined with that of Grand Theft Auto’s motif. This game has a nicotine that’s so chronic you’ll never want to stop. See you in three weeks!

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Smashing things together is one key to expanding our understanding of our place in the cosmos.  Banging rocks together gave Humankind the secret of fire.  Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider busy themselves with electrons, protons, and baguettes, all hyper-accelerated to explode in a shower of subatomic secrets and breadcrumbs. In a similar vein, the indie developers at Hanako Games have applied their own genre-warping supercollider to lifestyle titles like The Sims and classic RPGs like Bard’s Tale.

The result is Cute Knight Deluxe, and not—as many once feared—the accidental creation of a charming, casual, anime-themed black hole that threatened to gobble up the planet.

Fortunately for all life on Earth, Cute Knight Deluxe instead offers an enjoyable game of life choices in a small, friendly fantasy world. A full game only takes about an hour, but it’s an hour filled with challenges, secrets, and reflections to walk away with. As such, this deceptively fun and simple game ranges into the contentious territory of being a “serious game.”

Okay, you perverted freaks: check your hentai and tentacle jokes at the door.

By “serious,” I mean that the game inspires thought and introspection on my part, and it is designed to train skills for use in my real life. Now, be assured that Cute Knight Deluxe is a lighthearted experience that I really enjoy playing. Even so, Cute Knight Deluxe is built on an insistent philosophical underpinning: choices matter. The training here is in how to live a fulfilling, self-directed life. The genius of this serious game lies in my enjoyment of exploiting a system of checks and balances, while underneath the cute surface lies a subtle engine roiling with transformative power.

RPG gamers will find very familiar ground to cover as Cute Knight Deluxe begins. I fill the dainty slippers of a teenage orphan girl about to enter the big city in search of my destiny. I have statistics like strength and stamina, skills like fighting and magic. I can fight monsters, cast spells, and charm NPCs. Straightforward role playing fare to be sure, right? The difference is that my skills are tied up in the service of a statistic I have never seen before: Dreams.

Dreams are a measure of my sense of aspiration, my confidence, and my satisfaction with my situation. They are also the axis around which the “serious” part of this game revolves. Dreams go up and down based on my successes and failures. Since failures are unavoidable and the relative benefits of my successes depend on mastery of my skills, the management of my economy of dreams is very important if I want to reach a satisfying destiny. If I run out of dreams, I pre-emptively give up my quest for a destiny and settle for whatever under-developed job I appear most suited for at the time.

This statistic delights and intrigues me to no end. Once I realized how dreams worked, I started applying ideas from the game to my own life. As it were, I suddenly felt the rocks and gravel through the silk soles of my dainty little real life slippers. It achieved the goal of the serious game genre: to affect real world behaviors by carrying over the results of experimentation in a virtual world. The game had inspired me to take my own personal choices more seriously.

Cute Knight Deluxe is as much about attitude as aspiration. If I can bolster my dreams in the face of other realities that challenge me, I can achieve wonderful things. On the other hand, if I let my dreams go, I will reach a disheartened end.

The spirit is willing, but the skills are weak.

My destiny is decided on my 21st birthday. I start at 18, so I have three years to pursue my interests and develop my skills. Sounds like plenty of time, right? Wrong. Years blow past on a head-long rush toward a fate that won’t wait. The fast pace helps me understand how my choices magnify over timescales that I don’t usually consider: another effective technique for a serious game.

There are over 100 destinies to reach; each is accompanied by an illustration and a brief summation. In my many trips through life, I’ve been everything from a modest stable hand to a beautiful ballerina. Which is weird to admit, in retrospect.

It is not just enough to adhere exclusively to my dreams, though. A few rounds of play demonstrate quickly that dreams must be carefully traded away for short-term progress. Walking around with a head full of clouds and fairy dust without challenging oneself to perform is a sure way to fail. Dreams transform over time, though: from initially vague, juvenile notions of contentment, more mature dreams ultimately find their vigor in real successes toward tangible goals.

Since this is a game about social choices and personal ramifications, I must also pay attention to another statistic called Sin: a convenient measure of my conscience. If I take moral shortcuts like lying or killing, I accrue Sin and the people of the town begin closing off their services from me. Sin can be washed away by performing good acts such as volunteering at the doctor’s clinic, working in the temple, and meditating. These penances take valuable time and generally do not provide any other significant benefit, and so I am once again faced with a choice of moral economies. Even under time pressure, is the quick solution really the effective one?

Kill the ooze, earn some XP, maybe some Sin. Is it worth it?

There are clues that hint at some grander Destiny that a clever player can uncover through unorthodox means.  This is the closest the game comes to having a pre-determined plot line.  The fantasy of discovering that I am a long lost princess, for example, rears its head repeatedly.  (And honestly, I’ve never wanted to be a princess so much in my life until the game dared me to try.)  However, I must decide if that is a likely destiny.  Is it worth pursuing at the expense of successes I gained elsewhere under my own initiative?  Cute Knight Deluxe coyly tempts players with grandeur, but it never stages the limp RPG convention of casting the player as the prophesied Chosen One.  If anything, I’m the one doing all the choosing.

The town is a typical array of fantasy tropes: a shop to buy gear, a college to train up at, an inn to rest, a temple to heal.  There’s even a little dungeon to explore.  However, I also have the opportunity to take jobs and perform services everywhere.  These are the arenas in which my choices are made.  Jobs provide money and a place to exercise skills, but they also cost me dreams and hit points in the process.  It’s possible to work myself into unconsciousness, which costs me recovery time that I just can’t spare.  The game encourages good judgment by keeping costs high and rewards hard-won.

At first, I am unskilled at anything, and so I face an inevitable period of dissatisfaction and failure. Every new game opens with hard work, occasional rest, and a testing of convictions to stick to the task without losing heart. Over time, however, things get better, skills improve, money starts to flow in, and opportunities open up. I am very much in control at all times, and I immediately feel the outcomes of success or failure. Around mid-game, I get over the development hump and start really being able to set a course for myself. That’s a good feeling. It also reinforces the lesson of the game: long-term goals are worth chasing.

I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and kick your ass out into the street if you give me any grief.

To a Cute Knight, young adulthood gleams with a wide-eyed sense of bewilderment.  Every choice seems to carry a dread significance coupled with boundless opportunity, all swirling around a semi-selfish, inwardly facing perspective.  The game is perfectly suited for 8-14 year olds, who are in exactly that emotional space.

True to its name, the game is Cute in its presentation.   The game revels in the character’s feelings, capitalizing on a flighty fantasy style geared toward young minds.  Anime portraits convey light, cartoonish emotions that are easy to interpret.  Cheery animations show the passage of time as I learn, work, and rest.

I’m so glad I found a blacksmith with a Summer palette. This armor totally brings out my eyes!

This young, feminine aesthetic may attract girls to play Cute Knight Deluxe, thereby growing a new generation of gaming girls, but I frankly think this sabotages the seriousness of the game across genders.  Let me clarify that Cute Knight Deluxe, while feminist, is not overtly biased toward aggressive struggles against baked-in patriarchy.  The feminism of the game is instead couched in a sense of gender-neutral opportunity, positive humanism, and self-development through social influences.  I love this approach and applaud it.

I’m concerned with the limitation of feminine-only portrayals, though. It’s clear that the game designers want to exploit a phenomenon of “like enacting like”: players identifying with and emulating the actions they see on the screen. If this is truly designed as a serious game, then the designer wants to encourage players to take a long-term perspective on their choices and dreams.

So far so good, but I think boys as well as girls should have that perspective. It benefits every young person who takes it to heart.  Young boys need the opportunity to see characters like themselves as responsible, social creatures capable of making choices and experiencing the long-term consequences.  However, no boy character exists for a young boy to play, identify with, and emulate. The option to play a young boy would have strengthened the transformational power of the game without pandering to a fantasy of a male-biased world.

I alone have delved the dungeons of madness to bring you this delicious lobster tail! Enjoy.

As I played Cute Knight Deluxe, I found myself thinking about choices I’ve made in my own life.  I’ve been a teacher, a student, a film producer, a performer, and much more.  I’ve developed many skills, and I want to use them toward my happiness and success.  My mantle bears the trophied heads of my enemies.  Yet, what destiny awaits me?  What choices will I face?  What shape will my dreams yet take?

Maybe it sounds corny coming from a 37-year old male, writing about a seemingly fluffy wide-eyed life sim geared toward adolescent girls.  Perhaps, though, the mark of an effective serious game is that it inspires improvement in the players through expected and unexpected ways despite its aesthetic presentation.  Cute Knight Deluxe is unexpectedly engaging, as tame and harmless as it first appears, refreshingly empty of heavy-handedness or moralistic stumping.  Whether played for fun or philosophy, the game engages in a way that aspires to be meaningful and transformational.  It’s a charming example of a high-minded serious game.

When he’s not getting his ass pinched while serving ales at the local tavern in between blood-soaked dungeon crawls, Cameron Goble reviews classic PC games at LongTailGamer.com. Follow his tweets from @longtailgamer while you’re at it.

Telltale Games launches their third season of Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse: The Penal Zone. Once again hearkening back to the old days of LucasArts adventure gaming, Telltale blends wacky narrative with crazy puzzles, and arguably they’ve upped the wackiness and craziness with this installment. Yet they’ve also increased the number of platforms they’re launching on. Does this leave the hardcore PC adventure gamer in the dust, or does Telltale find a good way to cater to both parties?

The game starts with Sam, the anthropomorphic dog, and Max, the psychotic bunny, imprisoned aboard an alien vessel commanded by General Skun’ka’pe (or, as Sam and Max call him, “Skunk Ape”), a gorilla-like alien creature who’s ravaging Earth. In the opening sequence the two break out of jail, face General Skunk’ap’e, and blast him into The Penal Zone.

Helpful friend? Nefarious mastermind? Or ’50s sci-fi reference?

And just as you’re about to storm out of the game, nostrils flaring, demanding a refund for paying $9 for a thirty minute title, a narrator struts onscreen and tells you that you just experienced a vision of the future. Now equipped with this knowledge, Sam and Max return to the present, where General Skun’ka’pe has just landed on their street, to face him once again.

Telltale had fun playing with space and time in Sam & Max: The Chariot of the Dogs from last season and they’ve decided to introduce some of those mechanics, and many more, into this season. Endowed by the toys of power, Max has gained supernatural abilities such as teleportation, precognition, and mind reading. By selecting Max, the player goes into first-person mode and can use these abilities.

Even the distortion of future vision doesn’t make this street look any better.

The one power you’ll rely on the most is precognition because it allows you to see what you should be doing in a given area. However, the device presents a problem: put simply, it gives away some of the puzzles by giving you too many hints. So it’s simply a glorified hint system, right? Wrong. Without it, you’ll have no idea that you can even access certain areas or do certain things. You have to use it to play the game (unless you’re an adventure gaming god among men), but it turns a couple of the puzzles into cakewalks.

To even further complicate the whole mess, the precognition, surprisingly, is implemented  in a brilliant fashion in some puzzles. The way it only gives you vague hints or leads you to believe something will happen often creates moments that allow you to think you know what to do, but still leave enough space so that you’ll have to figure out how you’re going to do it. In this way, the game never loses its direction, and you almost always know where you need to focus your attention, even if you aren’t sure what to do.

Sometimes, the future isn’t what it seems.

The other major power in the game is teleportation, which serves the dual function of navigating quickly to and from points of interest and creating some mind-bending puzzles. Both the teleportation and the future vision allow for creative puzzles, but they’re still on the easy side. Anyone who has moderate skill in the adventure game genre will not be challenged. Telltale, however, could simply be easing the audience into thinking about how these powers work and play off each other so that they can set up some mind blowing and complex puzzles later in the season.

Since the season has launched for both players on the PC and a whole new audience across three additional platforms, the first episode is mostly geared towards newcomers, who may not be up to speed on the gameplay style or the story. The game aids them with some handholding, a bit of heavy narration, and a notebook that contains everything they need to know about the characters. While fans might find these elements tedious, there are also enough subtle nods and in-jokes to keep them satisfied alongside the newcomers. But for the most part, if you haven’t played a Sam & Max game before, The Penal Zone is a great entry point.

“Hello, my name is max, and I have a gun problem.”

Adding to the way it brings players up to speed, the controls have been refined since Telltale’s last adventure game, Tales of Monkey Island. Telltale throws out Tales’s wonky, console-ized circular control movement where you moved by either clicking and draging the mouse in a particular direction or using the WASD keys.

The Devil’s Playhouse now lets you click anywhere on the screen and a virtual analog stick appears so that you can move around how you please. This makes the controls feel a lot tighter as there’s less dragging of the mouse across the entire screen. Yes, a good ol’ point-and-click option would’ve been fantastic, but after a couple of minutes you’ll get the hang of things.

There is one hiccup from Tales, however, that Telltale still hasn’t solved. When the game switches  angles, sometimes you’ll find that your desired and manipulated direction leads you right back out of that camera angle. The Penal Zone only has one instance of it, but it’s such a tricky and frustrating angle that it’s worth noting.

No GameCube controllers were harmed in the making of this game.

The Penal Zone is a solid start to the season. It sets up what looks to be a deep set of systems that will hopefully appear throughout the rest of the episodes. The easy point of entry will attract a larger audience for the series, but will pose little challenge to veterans of Adventure gaming. And for us PC gamers, this means having to adapt a control scheme most of us despise, but if you can get past that obstacle, you’ll be treated to a clever, witty adventure game that hearkens back to one of the golden ages of PC gaming.

Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAYZm2IGGuQ

You’ve heard his tracks, whether you realize it or not. He’s the man behind the orchestral curtain on such titles like Icewind Dale II, Fallout 3, Crysis, and Dragon Age (to name a minuscule thimble’s full). His music steals your ears away with regret and sadness when you’re fragged, and it pumps battery acid through your veins when you’re seeking cover from mortar rounds.

A nominee for dozens of awards and an all around citizen of awesome, it’s with unabashed pride that Game Central presents Mr. Zur’s sharpened ponderings and wisdom-sprinkled nuggets on the golden field of gaming music. And a special thanks to EA’s Jenny Jobring for making it all happen!

GC: So when you’re composing music, how much do you take into account that your music will be heard in a video game?

Inon: Pretty much 100%. And basically with video games, the whole media is what determines exactly how the music is going to be heard, how the music is going to be played, and how the music is going to be received. You have got to understand that when you compose music for video games there are way more components to it than just the pure music.

Of course, we would like the music to be as good as it can get, basically. But this has to do a lot with what the video game needs. And if the video game needs just one hit of the drum every ten minutes, that’s what I’m going to give it. Basically, I will first tend to the need of the video game before I think exactly about the music.

GC: So you write it specifically towards the game’s atmosphere, like what the game requires to be a better experience?

Inon: Exactly. You know, of course at any point I will try to create something that is not in the game in order to create what we call the dramatic or the emotional level or dimension of the game. This way the music is not only in the background, but it is also really creating, you know, way more depth—emotional depth—to the game. So this is definitely what I’m thinking about when I’m trying to compose.

GC: When you hear your music in game for the first time, are complete musical rewrites common? In other words do you write a song, and then actually hear it in game, and go: “Oh no! I need to go ahead and redesign the entire song.” Does that happen often?

Inon: Well, it happens, usually in the beginning of games. I’m going a lot of backwards and forwards and sideways with the developers and the director to find what will best fit and match the game, and this is a process. Once we’ve honed in on what the game needs, and defined the signature sound of the game, then we’re on our way. Sometimes it gets easy, sometimes it gets really hard, but most of the time it’s sorta like in-between.

GC: So we at Game Central think that music is probably the most overlooked aspect when it comes to game design. Do you think that it’s absolutely crucial to have music in games? Is it a huge factor that makes or breaks a game?

Inon: Well, I could answer to you with a question: do you think that music is totally essential in movies? Do you think that music is totally essential in TV? I don’t know. I don’t know the answer. One thing I do know—there is no one movie today that doesn’t have music, there is no one TV show without music, and there is no one game without music.

I don’t know if that does answer the question; it’s actually a very interesting and philosophic question, but it seems like people tend to think “yes.”

GC: Do you personally feel that a game could be successful without it, without music at all?

Inon: I think (if so) it’s going to be very interesting. I think that we shouldn’t take it that radical, I mean, I don’t know if you remember that Tom Hanks movie when he crashes with his plane on a deserted island. I forgot the name of this movie.

GC: Cast Away.

Inon: Cast Away! Exactly. There is no music there until about an hour into the movie, and the point the music starts is when he actually understands that he is really in bad shape. So basically, I wouldn’t go all the way of not having any music, but I would definitely try sometimes to keep places in a game without music at all, and not play wall to wall music.

I think it could be really effective, and something that people could really experiment with that. This is one thing. Yeah I think if you have a movie, or a game, that you really want the experience to be truly realistic, totally realistic, then you might not score any music to it, and it would be like real life. I don’t know how that’d go, but it is certainly interesting to experiment.

GC: When you’re hired by a gaming studio to write their music, are you 100% free to create the tracks as you see fit? Or are you typically bound within a strict confine of a developer’s creative direction?

Inon: Again—it’s moving from one end to the other. Some games totally give me a free hand. Some games are very, very restricting. As usual, it’s somewhere in the middle. Meaning they have something in mind and I’m creating something that is my own, and then we’re sort of meeting in the middle.

And it’s not about arguing what’s better for the game. It’s more about collaboration, and meaning. I’m bringing to the table something, you’re bringing to the table something, and then we’re sort of putting it together, and from what we’ve put together this is what the game’s eventually gonna sound like.

GC: So it sounds like it’s more of a compromise than one side dictating to the other.

Inon: I wouldn’t call it “compromise.” Again, this is not something that’s “Oh, I want my music the way I want it, and I’ll be more willing if it’s gonna be more the way I want it.” No, this is definitely not the case. It is, “I think that this could work great. What do you think?” And it’s like, “I think that this will work great.”

And I will usually tend to try to cater to what the developer has to say rather than try to pitch in with my own. First, anyway, anything that I’m going to do will be mine in a way because this is my style. So, I’ll try to go as much as I can to what he’s looking for in order to match the game.

GC: So when it comes to actually recording the music, is it kind of a traditional way of recording? I mean, to our knowledge, video game music has lots of parts recorded, and aren’t really like full songs. Compared to more traditional recording, an album or anything like that, is it at all different to the process in video games?

Inon: Well, you know, it really depends on the budget that we have for production. You got to understand that most of the music is created—like for example, for TV or movies it’s the same thing—the music is being created first in the studio with synthesizers and samplers to do a mockup. Now, sometimes the mockup is so good that there is no additional recording needed.

Many times when we talk about orchestral music then we do like to bring a real orchestra to either overdub or replace the mockup score. And in this way, yes, it feels pretty much like recording an album. After you’re done, basically, with all of the preparation then you go two, three days into the studio and record the orchestra, go back to the studio, open all the tracks and start mixing everything, and there you go.

GC: Do other video game music composers such as Jeremy Soule or Frank Klepacki influence your work in any way?

Inon: I’m sure they do. I mean, we’re listening to each other quite extensively. We like to see what we’re doing. I mean the community of game composers is quite small when we’re talking about the people that are doing most of the work. So, we know each other. Sometimes we even collaborate. And so I definitely think that’s a “yes.”

GC: Is there a project you can talk about that you have collaborated on with some of these guys?

Inon: Well this needs to be decided by the studio. I cannot just decide that I’ll collaborate with somebody. I could offer that maybe the score needs some sort of collaboration. Or the studio could offer or suggest that this score needs collaboration. So, that definitely has to be decided (by them).

GC: Are you pretty big into the game music scene, like have you ever been to a Video Games Live concert?

Inon: Oh sure! You know, and they also played my music from Crysis. So I’m involved in concerts; there was a big concert in Australia, they played my music from Prince of Persia and Dragon Age a few months ago. So I think that computer gaming music to the world as a standalone product or art is very important.

GC: Do you have any plans to attend a PAX or a GDC in a future?

Inon: I don’t think I’ve missed a GDC for the last ten years.

GC: So you’ve been to every one? That’s pretty cool.

Inon: Yeah.

GC: Are there any particular video game soundtracks you’re fond of—that you’re a fan of?

Inon: Let me think. You know it’s not so much about the actual soundtrack, it’s about the game and how the music works in the game. Games like BioShock, Dead Space, or, you know, a few games—Uncharted for example—the music does a really good job. I tend not to set apart the music from the game, it’s sort of misleading.

GC: Was it by mere happenstance that you fell into video game music composing, or was it a calculated, drawn-out career plan for you?

Inon: Totally drawn out. Not calculated, not planned. In 1995 or ‘96, (my agent) called me and asked me if I wanted to do music for computer games. At this point, I had already composed a lot of music for TV. And that was about, 13 years ago. And I said “no!” Lucky enough, he was really persistent and, you know, changed me and convinced me to do stuff and evangelize that. Once I started, it was a done deal.

GC: Why the initial hesitation? Why didn’t you want to compose for the PC?

Inon: I didn’t know anything about computer games! Nothing! And definitely not about music for computer games. When I heard “computer games,” I heard: “computer,” which I wasn’t into, and “games,” which I wasn’t into. So, you know, it sounds quite electronic to me. I was like, “Ehhhh… I don’t think so.”

GC: So do you at all consider yourself a gamer now?

Inon: Oh, no! No! By any means, I am not a gamer! I wish I could! I respect the gamers, but I have never found the time. I mean, I’m a decent player, but I’m not a gamer, per se. Meaning, I’m not spending time every day playing computer games. I wish I had the time, because I’d love to do that. But am I a gamer? No. You know, a gamer would be ashamed to hear that I’m a gamer.

GC: Are there any casual games like Peggle that you find yourself playing to pass the time?

Inon: I don’t have any time to pass, that’s the thing. I wish they could create some more hours a day, so I could use that. I’m currently working on five projects at the same time; each one of them is really big! I have a family with three kids, one of them is a baby. So—believe me—I could use more hours in the day!

GC: So you’re playing the game of life.

Inon: Exactly, yeah.

GC: It’s a tough game.

Inon: Well, I do play (some) games, for example, like I’m working on a certain game right now not announced yet, and I have an Xbox with the Xbox game, so I will play the game and see how they’re incorporating the music in, yes. But that part is work.

GC: Game music has evolved substantially over the years. In the beginning, there was a limitation of hardware capabilities, each composer had to write with absolute guidelines in mind. For example, the old Nintendo Entertainment System had songs that required one minute or so in length, and the tracks had to flow smoothly.

Now, in a far more advanced time, obviously, is taking into account the myriad potential hardware strengths and weaknesses a critical issue?In other words: when you’re creating music, there are all sorts of ways that music can be played back, whether it’s through speakers our through headphones. Does this matter?

Inon: Well, we the music people and audio people in the game industry are following very closely the developments in the computer world, and we will tend to maximize every little inch of power to bring what we call the true experience of music to life in gaming. And having said that, basically I’m talking about implementation. You know in the first few games that I did, we always just played audio in a loop, over and over.

Today we’re in a much, much better situation, having engines like Unreal and other implementation engines that can just do miracles with music, bringing the music in and out seamlessly, responding in real time when the player makes (certain) moves on one hand, but in the other hand we’re really not creating any train wreck moving between cue to cue.

Of course, (the action) determines the way I compose the music, and there are techniques that seldom even I myself developed in order to make the transitions of the music seamless. Our everlasting aspiration is to create a soundtrack that will follow the gamer consistently, wherever they go, and one that supports whatever he or she is doing without interfering but still creating the prefect emotional rapport to what he or she is doing.

In order to do that, we have to use many means of technicalities, audio engines, tricks, anything we could in order to create that. And that’s a lot of work, that has nothing to do with the actual composing of the game. So, in summary, we are using all the latest developments and capabilities of the engines to do a better job making music in a game.

GC: Thanks Inon!

Inon: Thank you very much for having me!

As I cower in a blown-out crater, I grip my rocket launcher with anticipation. Just over the hill sits a Russian T-90 Main Battle Tank, ready to blow me to smithereens as soon as my head pokes over the top.

How do I survive this situation? Do I sprint, gunning for a piece of sturdier cover that might prove a more stable firing position? Do I instead switch to my dart gun, allowing me to tag the tank as easy prey for my squad mates, but sacrificing myself in the process? Or should I do like any madman would do, and run directly towards the tank at full speed, firing rockets wildly?

The Battlefield series of multiplayer first-person shooters has always been a fan-favorite for PC gamers.

While it’s never had the tightest deathmatch-like shooting controls or the most advanced user interface, Battlefield has focused on filling a huge arena with an army of player-controlled soldiers, arming them to the teeth with a myriad of weapons and deadly vehicles, and watching as we create the little gaming moments that we remember for years.

The character models are gorgeous!

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is DICE/EA’s latest entry in the prestigious franchise. The original Bad Company was a console-only spin-off that lacked many of the features than made Battlefield 2 so memorable.

Things like a lack of airplanes or proper iron sights on most of the weapons made DICE’s prior iteration feel like a completely different game. Although jet-fighters are still missing in action, this game recaptures so many of the little things that make the series so much fun.

While PC gamers will undoubtedly be a bit apprehensive diving into a Battlefield game that was co-developed for consoles, they will find that Bad Company 2 does its damnedest to live up to its predecessors.

The first thing that’ll feel initially foreign for Battlefield veterans is the addition of a story-based single-player campaign. The game paints you as a member of B Company, a squad of soldiers who, through alternative methods, are good at getting the job done. Your buddies in B Company steal the show, and their personalities give Bad Company 2 a unique flavor.

While most first-person shooters tell tales of stone-cold commandos who are frighteningly detached, your AI-controlled squad-mates act like regular guys who just so happen to be very good at what they do. The narrative, which tells the story of a fictional war between the United States and Russia, serves little more purpose then to set the stage for multiplayer, and help justify the breadth of settings, from Alaska to Chile, that you will encounter.

Helicopters are the bane of an action hero’s existence.

The greatest sin of the single-player portion of Bad Company 2’s lies in its strict linearity. Missions usually involve going from point-A to point-B through a series of corridors that occasionally open up to give you some options as to how you wish to tackle a particular situation, but never to the extent that you can go at something from a different angle.

Rarely do any AI-controlled soldiers aid B Company in their exploits, leading to firefights small in scope. Considering the scale of the battles found in the game’s multiplayer component, it’s obvious that DICE’s proprietary Frostbite Engine is capable of rendering all-out warfare.

It’s a shame that Bad Company 2’s single-player experience is such a corridor crawl with little replayability.Clearly, they designed the missions to prepare you for multiplayer, as they reward you for trying as many weapons as possible. Simply being able to run around in the multiplayer arenas with a team of AI-controlled bots would have proven much more useful.

OH MY GOD WHAT IS IT DOING IN THE TUNNEL?!

Multiplayer is a different situation altogether. Conquest mode, which has been a staple of the Battlefield series since its first incarnation, returns in addition to several new modes that help spice-up the formula.

Rush mode is a new favorite, as it focuses the action on attacking / defending a single area. While the defenders have infinite respawns, they’re tasked with preventing the attacking team from destroying a pair of computer terminals.

Playing this mode leads to many tense, Counter-Strike-esque scenarios where defusing a bomb takes time, and mere seconds can mean the difference between winning and losing. On the flipside, Squad Deathmatch mode—which involves four small teams fighting in free-for-all scenarios—is the smallest in scope, and as such, doesn’t really feel like it belongs in a Battlefield game.

One of the benefits of the Frostbite Engine is the inclusion of destructible environments. In Bad Company 2, buildings and other cover objects can be completely destroyed. Surprisingly, this feature completely changes the way that tactical decisions are made.

For instance, heavy weapons like tank cannons can flatten pretty much any object you can take cover behind. As a result, armored vehicles feel appropriately powerful. Fighting a tank feels less like a traditional multiplayer encounter, and more like a boss battle from a single-player game.

It’s for this reason that I spent most of my online time in Bad Company 2 playing as the Engineer, as his rocket launcher and sub-machine gun allows him to survive the greatest variety of situations.

The other three classes, Assault, Medic, and Recon, all feel somewhat streamlined, and capable of surviving in a variety of situations. For instance, one of the Recon soldier’s later unlocks allows him to fit his sniper rifle with a red-dot scope, transforming it into a personal rail-gun for close encounters.

Multiplayer environments begin pristine, but are quickly reduced to rubble.

Speaking of unlocks, the system through which you acquire them has been completely re-worked. While leveling-up your character still produces a variety of generic weapons and upgrades that work with every class, earning experience with a specific class will earn you specialized gear for that class.

These include rare weapons, upgraded equipment, and weapon attachments like scopes. I like swapping out my pistol for a gun that shoots tracer darts, allowing my teammates’ rocket launchers to auto-target tagged vehicles.

Also, the Commo-Rose, which allowed players to easily communicate battlefield information in previous games, has been completely removed. Players can still call out enemy positions to their teammates, but now secondary information is announced automatically.

Get killed by a sniper, and one of your teammates immediately alerts the rest of your squad about the sharpshooter’s presence. The system works quite elegantly, and helps create the “army chatter” that adds nice military ambiance.

Team-driven mechanics like these are one reason why Bad Company 2 succeeds at recreating the magical Battlefield formula. If your team doesn’t work together, you will lose, which is part of the reason this game is so much fun.

While jacking up your FOV can give advantages, the game switches from FPS to first-sturgeon shooter.

Almost all of the criticisms to be laid against Bad Company 2’s multiplayer are technical issues. In its current state, the included server browser has serious bugs, and will cause headaches for anyone trying to get in a match.

At times, servers showed numerous slots available, but when I tried to join them, I’d be told the game was full. Other times, joining a server would send me to a loading screen, and then boot me back into the menu before I was even in-game.

Finally, and perhaps most frustratingly, clicking the button to join a particular match would simply do nothing, requiring me to re-launch the game before it began working again.

For some reason, everyone has really high pings.

If you’re looking for a multiplayer first-person shooter with plenty of variety in the weapons, vehicles, and maps, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will definitely suffice. However, some may be swayed with its lackluster single-player mode and multiplayer connection issues.

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Matt Chat is an ongoing video series hosted by Matt Barton. He looks at a game’s “masterpiece, inspiration, and legacy” in each episode. We publish all PC gaming coverage that Matt Chat features. The rest of the episodes are located on Matt’s YouTube channel. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_LPxMVpsYc

Play – Download
Subscribe via iTunes – Subscribe via Zune

We touched on the issue of finishing games before, if not briefly. During Captain Sir Mr. Logan Decker’s appearance on the longest (and arguably, bestest) Game Central podcast ever, I countered his seemingly bold assertions that a PC game must be fully completed to be 100% authentically enjoyed.

I debated that a level of personal gaming delight and contentment is not equivocal to a potential gameplay-related conclusion. Some players, it seems, are perfectly happy to interact with a small segment of a title, if only to disregard it soon after.

You gotta be psycho not to finish it. And yet…

Who am I to deem this behavior inappropriate or lacking? Surely, one cannot verifiably measure another’s gaming spirits without significant error in judgment. Or so I thought.

Ever since that podcast, something inside stirred and swirled in a storm of discontent. Whether through stark argumentative brilliance or insidious Stygian black-magic, Mr. Decker’s words haunted me.

The more I pondered the non-completion dynamic, the more I started to question my rather hasty prior-stated conclusions.

I started to put the topic into other contexts as a means of comparative experimentation. Do I typically read only half a novel and feel satisfied? Nope. Do I consistently appreciate half-finished daily workouts? No way. Do I routinely turn off one of my cherished TV shows in favor of half-watching another?

Negative. Hell, do I only partially drink a delicious glass of frosty iced-tea and feel altogether satiated? No! Of course not.

Un-commanded, non-conquered.

And why? Because if such events or actions are left unconcluded, no matter how seemingly minute or trivial, something noticeable is undeniably lost. Tasks, hobbies, jobs, events: these things have a natural beginning, middle and end. A built-in life-cycle inherent to the mediums intended for fulfillment. Doesn’t matter if it’s a cigar or a football game, it’s meant to be finished.

Know what? PC gaming is no different. By leaving enjoyable games incomplete, I broke the natural life-cycle, and by doing that, I sacrificed gratification and maximized delight.

There used to be a time where I  finished every damn game I owned. And folks, lemme tell ya: it felt good. It presented a sense of peace. Beating a game resulted in a noted and worthy accomplishment; a respectable filled and rounded belly, so to speak.

Back in the days of yore, when Duke Nukem 3D and Command & Conquer ruled the hard drive platters,  months elapsed in-between my gaming purchases. Months! All that time in the middle invested in the achievement of total victory per each respective title.

But now, it seems that a puny week or two without a new installation or Steam download is an eternity. I’ve got about 10 to 14 days to beat a game. And if those days expire? The executioner’s ax falls swiftly and mercilessly into the exposed neck of the falsely imprisoned.

Extinguished before completion.

I used to look forward to the next day of gaming, each sun’s setting a resurrected gateway for dedicated and ecstatic continuation of a singular engagement. But now, each and every elapsed stroke of the clock’s hands results in my nervousness of gaming abandonment by replacement of the temporary newest fad. Tick tick. Tick tick. Tick tick…

In a last-stand attempt to defend myself from my own inner conflict, I tallied up the games I failed to finish, comparing them to those that I actually have.

Surely, I’d only regret a few never seen to the end. The rather frightening results did little to calm my already waning spirits.

Half Life, Torchlight, Plants vs. Zombies, Tomb Raider: Anniversary, Deus Ex, Red Alert 3, World in Conflict, Dawn of Discovery, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Psychonauts, Shadowgrounds, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Brothers in Arms, Company of Heroes, Dungeon Siege, Earth 2150 – all of them but a paltry sampling of the total casualties from an unnamed invisible battle. And make no mistake friends, this is indeed a conflict. And I’m losing it. Bad.

The heart-sinking revelation really slammed me in the solar plexuses I when I read through that seemingly endless list of bereft games. Worse, upon further honest analysis, the only titles I seem to finish at all anymore are the ones I review. The ones I have to. So that’s gotta be the cause, right? It’s not my fault. These things are beyond my control.

Non-Perfectus

We all have deadlines in this business, and sacrifices must be made. But that’s too easy a scapegoat to claim as the undeniable root factor, and in my heart, I know it’s a misfire. My gut says there’s more to it than this. I can’t just pawn it all off on some “unavoidable exterior influences” piss-ass excuse.  It’s too important for that.

So here it is, for right or wrong: there are too many PC games being released at once. Yeah. I said it. Odd, I know, especially since we’re in a dark time where the PC’s platform is consistently questioned as a legitimate contender to the monopoly of Console-vania.

Surely, the more games we have at once, the better the chances of species survival, yes? A fully loaded clip? Power in numbers? Something like that?

I’m starting to doubt it. I’m beginning to wonder if the wave after proverbial crushing wave of newly released PC games is actually—and ironically—destroying us.

Search yourself deep here. Tally and examine your own tabulation of games that fell beneath the bullets of the “New Big Title.” Go ahead – do it. Do what most of us won’t. I bet the results will scare you. The corrosive dynamic of the PC gamer “latest and greatest” culture grows like a gasoline fire over dusty hay.

We’re creating an ideology that finishing an ongoing yet somewhat older game is far less important than actively participating in the most recently released title. We’re playing the newest games simply so we can jaw it up with our like-minded friends at the watercoolers of Vent, Skype, forums, and podcasts.

This behavior loops back onto itself, multiplying exponentially, until, at some point, you begin to realize that completing a game in its entirety becomes the exception, not the rule.

Half-played.

Tell me this sits well with you. Tell me that you’d feel wholly complete if you routinely turned off Lost 10 minutes in to watch Fringe for a little bit only to quit out and behold Caprica just because it’s the most recent iteration of broadcast television.

Bet you wouldn’t. Bet you’d rather absorb Lost to its natural conclusion before flipping the channel permanently to the next show.

Well, I’m tired of leaving my comrades behind, their mangled bodies bleeding and forgotten on a deserted pock-marked battlefield.

From today onward, if I love a game I’m currently playing? I’m taking part of it until it’s done. And if a new game I simply must play rolls out of the factory assembly lines? It’ll wait its turn in the garage.

Will I lapse back into the seemingly inevitable mode of gratification-desertion in favor of the hottest, freshest popular title instead?  Maybe. But, for me, it’s an uphill endeavor well worth the “out-of-touch” sweat and blisters.

The recent rise of the DotA community is an interesting example of how a mod can become more popular than the game from which it mutated. Think of DotA as the next Counter-Strike. DotA never erupted into popularity, but rather  infected vast swathes of the gamer populace in something like a zombie attack, without anyone really noticing, until their family members dined on their bodily fluids. But the numerous gamers who haven’t played Warcraft III (and subsequently haven’t heard of DotA) are probably wondering, “What’s the big deal, and why should I care?”

Even artistic painters enjoy DotA. Clearly, DotA is enjoyed by people from all walks of life.

Well, Defense of the Ancients (you need a copy of Warcraft III and its expansion: The Frozen Throne to play it) and its newly emerged spawn reveal a compelling and unique style of gameplay that lies somewhere between a team-oriented FPS and a strategy game, both jumbled up with some of those oh-so-wonderful RPG elements served as a sumptuous side-dish. Some, desperate for a name, have dubbed the gameplay MOBA, for Massive Online Battle Arena, which is something of a misnomer. Massive is hyperbole, and while DotA may have online battles in arenas, what online competitive game doesn’t? I prefer to utilize the term DotA to associate the games that are DotA-esque.

So where did this style of game come from? Is it a gift from omniscient aliens who feel the best way to disrupt the planets’ productivity is to turn us all into cursing idiots who can’t go a single sentence without calling someone a noob? If so, they’re brilliant, and I eagerly await my servitude with my new xenomorph overlords.

It started here, sorta.

On the other hand, if we thought DotA up ourselves (which is more likely), than we should probably look at its history, and exactly what it does so right, and where its filthy dirty offspring are going to differentiate themselves from dear ol’ pop. When something new appears and grabs a sizable portion of the gaming community (DotA estimates several million players with its competitive scene, outstripping Warcraft III’s), it’s in our best interests to give it a healthy and proper once-over.

DotA, when it sprouted wings, wasn’t a new style of gameplay. Rather, it was simply a variation on a theme that Warcraft III churned out for quite some time. The original gameplay type is loosely derived from a custom map in StarCraft, specifically: Aeon of Strife. AoS featured something pretty radical for StarCraft’s day— it gave you the choice of a few select units, told you an army was coming, and that you had to kill them all, with all the other players on your side. 3 to 5 humans against an unrelenting horde of Starcraft units.

You’d get cash for killing the hordes, and use it to power up your units. Pretty simple, but the thing is, it was brutally tough; you’d be lucky to last 5 minutes your first try. Push too fast and stronger units would spawn and kill you, go too slow and you’d be overwhelmed by little weak guys. But it was addictive getting your guy beefier (I favored the Zergling myself) only to have the poor sod dashed over and over again.

Then something happened; a precedent. Rather than fighting a faceless horde, you now fought other player’s special units, and both sides had armies that clashed. When Warcraft III came out, most of the StarCraft mapmakers shifted over to the new engine and its new possibilities. Warcraft III offered a substantially different opportunity, because Warcraft III had Heroes, units with attributes and skills that would increase as they gained experience.

Getting warmer…

Further, it had a rudimentary skill and unit editor so more variety was theoretically possible, although much of this was locked until the expansion came out, and removed most limits on custom maps/units/skins. As such before the launch of The Frozen Throne, we simply saw lots of recycled default heroes and skills in the competitive AoS template.

One of my early favorites was Rival Nations, which made 3 rival sides rather than merely 2. However, it only used Warcraft III’s basic hero units. There was another that let you choose a deity to play, where you began as a little peasant guy who transformed into a bigger more dangerous entity every 10 levels (with more skills and better stats), eventually turning into the God you originally chose.

As time progressed, some young gun who went by the name of Eul (real name unknown), released a map called Defense of the Ancients.  There wasn’t too much customization in it: pre-expansion custom map editing was quite limited. The original form bears little semblance to its current incarnation, beyond the basic map layout and objective. The heroes have all been replaced or extensively redesigned. The original game was best described as a clone, and there isn’t any good reason why it gained stature while other AoS clones didn’t. As luck often dictates, it just caught on with the right people who later changed everything about it.

We’re technically very cold. I blame Arthas for that.

Then came Frozen Throne, and sometime in 2003, following approximately 3000 crap-tastic tower defense maps released, Defense of the Ancients: Allstars emerged. Various other versions of DotA also surfaced around that time period, but Allstars, with its emphasis on overpowering heroes to counter other overpowered heroes, came out the victor. Perhaps the game that came closest to usurping Allstars was a totally separate map called Tides of Blood. It had awesome custom character skins, custom skills, unique items and no recipe system. But DotA eventually felled it like any other tree in the forest.

DotA: Allstars was developed by Steve “Guinsoo” Feak (remember that name), who promoted the idea that the Heroes should be all-powerful ethereal figures capable of crushing everything and everyone around them. At least the first versions took this stance. Roughly 2 years later, around the launch  of World of Warcraft, the same Allstars advanced to roughly the 6.xx era, with the appearance of Icefrog, the map’s current “developer” who took a stance that the game was good, but clearly lacked balance. And, in his mind, that balance meant the need to weaken heroes rather than just buffing up opponents.

Icefrog is an interesting figure. He’s never publicly revealed anything about himself, or how he was granted control of the map’s development. The best thing that can be said about him is that he listened to criticisms from all sides. Mostly,  he did this by following threads in the official forums at dota-allstars.com and currently at playdota.com. Through the ancillary advice of others, he patched the game accordingly by slowly updating the code for efficiencies, adding stabilities, and somehow bringing balance to a game that was widely considered to have far too many possible heroes.

These are the objectives, lose yours and you lose the game.
Sounds so simple.

In truth, the balance issue was a widely known fault against Allstars. The game was hilariously fun, but certain heroes were vastly more useful then others. Through Icefrog the map slowly transformed into a finely-tweaked and ever-evolving beast that began to play more to the strengths of teamwork and skill above simply using the best heroes in the game at that moment in time.

Fast-forward to today. The map is currently at version 6.67c, although it’s been patched literally 6 times since I started writing this. Icefrog still manages it, with numerous retail “clones” that copy the style to varying degrees.

In DotA, the objective is destroying “The Ancient” in the opposing teams’ base. Barring this are 3 groups of barracks that produce new units every 30 seconds, called creeps. Over time, more and more units spawn, and their strength increases chronologically as matches progress. Every 2 ½ minutes a siege unit is spawned. Each group of creeps follows a path that leads to an opposing team’s barracks. Along the path there are 3 friendly towers and 3 enemy towers to push through.

The map of DotA. Green = Ancients, Black = Barracks, Blue Lines are the 3 lanes, white are main tributaries through the neutral creeps and yellow and red lines are for hiding/“juking”

The map is roughly symmetrical, although each route has differing nooks and crannies. Think of it like your limbs: they’re basically the same, but you can pick out dozens of differences if you really examine them. The game is typically played in matches of 5v5, although smaller matches can occur (but much less frequently). DotA has many different modes, from “all pick” (anyone can pick any hero, sans duplicate choices), or “all random” (everyone gets a random hero). There’s also random draft, small draft, captain’s draft, mirror match, and short mode. Switching between the different modes, in concert with the 90+ heroes available, keeps everything from growing stale.

DotA:Allstars‘ heroes are largely divided into roughly 3 categories: strength, agility, and intelligence. These are the primary attributes of your hero. Strength heroes are usually tanks, since strength boosts health points. Agility typically goes to the hero killers since agility boosts attack speed and armor. Intelligence mongers are usually casters, since intelligence increases mana points. Of course, you can even further categorize all that into many more divisions, such as stealth, nuke, disabler, support, pusher, ganker etc. Heroes may have melee or ranged attacks (possibly both), and may learn 4 skills or invest in stat points as they level up.

Early game is a lot of jockeying for position. You’ll want to keep moving, and choose your attacks carefully, and go for those denies (Find the exclamation point in screenshot).

One of the most unique parts of DotA is that actively pushing forward in the early game is discouraged. Not following this tactic leaves you open to ganks – when enemy heroes surprise you, killing your own hero off for some valuable money and experience. This is where “denying” comes into play. “Denying” entails killing your own units to slow your advance, and thus “denying” the enemy heroes experience and gold.

A solid mid-game gank, bolstered by a little luck. Yeah the screen gets cluttered pretty easily.

Successfully denying is tricky, but really just comes down to understanding how to land the killing blow, because you only get gold when you make the lethal strike on a creep. On heroes, any damage dealt before their death will net you some coin for an assist.

But what does all that “DotA-talk” actually mean? It’s not complicated: you really just have to pay attention and be proactive about your clashes with the opposing team.

This is bad. You should not let your barracks be attacked. Ever.

Perhaps the greatest indicator of DotA’s success is that it’s actually spawning retail clones developed by professional studios. The first retail carbon-copy of DotA to land upon our fertile hard drives was Demigod, developed by Chris Taylor’s Gas Powered Games. The next clone to step up was League of Legends – the brain child of Allstars’ creator Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, developed at Riot Games. It’s free to play, with the option to purchase the ability to play a hero whenever you want. Perhaps the largest of the bunch is Heroes of Newerth, created by S2 games, best known for their Savage series. Last to the party is Icefrog’s unannounced game in development at Valve.

Demigod kept the idea of teams facing each other, but focused intensely on balance and highly strategic team play. With only 8 demigods available at launch, it’s added a few more as well as a veritable plethora of maps to choose from. It didn’t leave the docks well: at launch, Demigod was unplayable in anything past 3v3 due to networking issues and a general failure of the player base to actually play the game online.

“Abstract floating battlefields and godly figures battling over… something? Well its gotta be important, why else would they have built floating battlefields?”

The general lack of acumen required to play Demigod, in comparison to DotA, likely hurt the game’s re-playability (there’s no denying, most of Demigod’s skills don’t require predictive movements, and the maps are at best simplistic). It nevertheless had surprisingly decent consumption numbers. It broke 100,000 sales, and landed at #3 in NPD’s figures for April 12-18^th in 2009. Demigod revealed that the DotA audience was out there, waiting to throw their precious cash at DotA titles whenever the games materialized from the mists of the developer’s mountains.

While initial impressions might give the illusion that League of Legends is merely a straight DotA xerox, the game plays more like a logical branching point from the roots of DotA, with every hero—or champion, as they’re dubbed here—serving a few vital roles. League of Legends‘ careful, strategic, and skilled use of champions has produced a game that, while obvious in its connection to DotA, truly is a unique entry. A large number of the skills require good timing and precision to have an impact on battles, and teamwork is paramount to success. They also added matchmaking, increasing frustration among much of the player-base due the system often building lopsided teams. Riot also greatly simplified the item purchasing system to make it far easier to understand for new players.

I don’t even know what’s going on here, and I was playing the game at the time. League of Legends is just like DotA in that regard.

Heroes of Newerth is DotA. You can’t get around it – it’s a direct rip-off. The items are identical (barring name changes), the heroes are mostly exact copies (again barring name changes and the occasional slight skill alteration), and the map is a perfect replica of DotA’s. That said, the game adds a much-needed back-end that DotA lacks. Built-in stat tracking, reconnecting if you lose your data line, built in voice chat, and updated graphics (with true wide-screen support). If all you want is a contemporary DotA, then Heroes of Newerth is perfect, because it’s just that. Not surprisingly, because of this, Newerth appears the current heir-apparent to the original DotA, with at least 45,000 players online at anytime in its existing beta status.

And Icefrog’s project? All we know is that he’s got a dev team at Valve and he’s working on something that DotA fans will “allegedly” enjoy. That’s all, and given that it’s Valve, I doubt we’ll be hearing anything else until they’ve got something to show us.

So that’s it, everything you never wanted to know about DotA and its ilk. Now get it there and try it; you’ll only get insulted out of every match and berated for your every action in those you don’t.