Fitter, happier, more productive…

Happy new year to everyone. How did you spend your holidays? I spent mine padding my shameful k/d ratio against Christmas noobs in Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer, and given that it’s “Game of the Year” season, arguing fervently over things like whether Flower is lame or innovative, and if MW2 has any soul.

That’s right, here in the privileged world, our sense of entitlement to various comforts (such as physical safety, clean water, floorboards, and immersive gaming experiences) dictates that we look at everything critically, instead of with, say, an iota of gratitude. Because you know, some floorboards are really ugly. Some water tastes like the bottle it came in. And we all know that some video games are a fucking insult to everything that truly matters.

But we’re not actually going to rip on any games here, no need; 2009 was a pretty exceptional game year. Case in point: this past week Gamespot announced ten finalists for Game of the Year instead of their usual five, and at least 8 of them were legitimate contenders (Chinatown Wars and Ratchet and Clank were clearly nominated just to ‘recognize.’)

Yep, gamers enjoyed a bumper crop in 2009, even with a whole pile of games slated for 2009 being delayed til 2010 (I’m starting to get kind of antsy for Bioshock 2). Why the delays? Maybe publishers, seeking a big launch, are deliberately and strategically spreading their releases around the calendar. But then, those delays were just as likely to be the result of internal turmoil at the development studios in hard economic times…

But it appears that with those delayed titles, plus a bunch of others (Final Fantasy XIII! God of War III! Super Mario Galaxy 2! I feel like the kid with his nose pressed to the store window), next year as gamers we’ll see a lot of great product as well…

Do you love video games? I mean, REALLY love them? Well, here’s a secret: you can quit worrying because there is, and never will be, any shortage of great games. There will always be more good stuff than you’ll ever have time to play. Even if you’re a shut-in who plays video games every waking hour.

Allow me to unscientifically demonstrate my point. Look at the following list from Gamespot. It’s not their GOTY candidates but rather, their top 20 “Readers Choice” picks for 2009. How many of them did you have time to play?

1. Forza Motorsport 3
2. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
3. Demon’s Souls
4. Dragon Age: Origins
5. Batman: Arkham Asylum
6. The Sims 3
7. Killzone 2
8. Assassin’s Creed II
9. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
10. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
11. inFamous
12. Halo 3: ODST
13. Left 4 Dead 2
14. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
15. New Super Mario Bros. Wii
16. Dead Space Extraction
17. DiRT 2
18. The Beatles: Rock Band
19. FIFA Soccer 10
20. Resident Evil 5

Of the Readers Choice top 20, I’ve played 8 of them. Only 8! And I play a disgusting amount of video games. I can’t imagine having played more. And next year, there’ll be a whole new top 20, and I’ll probably play about 8 of those, too. Then, there’s the world-class retro stuff I haven’t got around to yet… So I’m just not worried about running out of things to play. It’s not going to happen.

But anyway, the state of gaming, circa early 2010, as The Side Mission sees it:

Demon’s Souls as Game of the Year, and the “it” factor

It’s significant that Demon’s Souls (and NOT Uncharted 2 or Modern Warfare 2) was named 2009’s GOTY by a publication with the pull of a Gamespot. By many accounts it’s just your standard dungeon crawler, using mechanics and aesthetics that are a decade old. There’s not much “next-gen” about it, and a lot of people felt it was too hard, appealing only to gold farmers and hardcore game nerds with tape on their Buddy Holly glasses (which they aren’t wearing to be hip).

Demon’s Souls differs from other RPG/adventure games in that it’s really really difficult, and implements some experimental online functionality; players for the most part complete their quest solo, but they exist in parallel universes with other people playing Demon’s Souls. Players brush against each others’ realities, and are able to leave helpful notes for one another, and sometimes see a shadowy figure go past as somebody, someplace far away, tackles the same section of the game. Sometimes watching a shadow die can warn you of a peril around the next corner. And yes, they must even physically enter each other’s realms to assist in combat occasionally) so Demon’s Souls isn;t a multiplayer game, but it’s an interactive one. And overall, yeah, the online component seems to work well.

But to get right down to it, it’s great just because it’s great. It just has that certain… I don’t know what.

No critic can really articulate the “it factor”. It may sound like a cop-out, but sometimes a game or a movie or an actress or a singer or a brand of frozen burrito just has “it.” And that’s all there is to it. Demon’s Souls has “it” and perhaps more developers will lovingly nurture their games and trust their instincts, looking for “it” instead of engaging in framerate pose-downs or “how many guns does YOUR shooter have?” or producing movie-license shovelware (Avatar, I’m looking at you) because they saw a simple yet special game like Demon’s Souls win such high praise.

To illustrate the “it” factor as it manifests itself:

The Nintendo DS has “it” but the PSP doesn’t.

Uncharted 2 has “it” but Modern Warfare 2 doesn’t.

The NES had it, but the Sega Master System didn’t.

Admit it, you can’t argue with the above statements, but you’re hard-pressed to explain why. Don’t worry, the “it” factor will do that to you.

Calling out Game “previews”

Around here, we’re tired of previews. Every preview or “hands-on” or “first-look” in recent memory gave the distinct impression that the game was shaping up to be a winner. But then the same journalist often wrote a “review” of the game a few weeks later, which panned the finished product.

Come on. Are we expected to believe that the writer, who played an “80% done” version of the game, had no idea the completed product was going to suck?

Previews consist essentially of a bunch of qualitative descriptors, promotional words and phrases, and worst of all, quotes from studio PR people. Game previews are game ads. Which is, in itself, not a terrible thing, but when they’re ads in disguise, delivered by the same people who supposedly help us separate the good and bad stuff, well, where does the editorial start and the advertising begin? With game previews and ‘first looks’, that line is blurry as hell. “This is one you won’t want to miss!” isn’t news.

Game previews are pretend journalism.

And at the risk of ruffling some feathers… much of the content in game reviews is kind of pointless, too. We’ve tried writing some, trust me, I know. All top games have “great graphics and a good story” and I, like most gamers who aren’t kids anymore, play a handful of games, and just don’t play bad games. Once it’s established that a game isn’t bad, the checklist/report card run-down becomes moot. I’d much rather be told what the ‘vibe’ is, what a game feels like.

Articles about games (or movies or TV shows for that matter), should get the brain working, stimulate discussion, and provide information about whether it works, or it doesn’t. The scorecard model of game review is kind of obsolete, isn’t it?

I just want to know which games have “it”, which ones are merely “pretty good” and which ones suck, and I want to look at some screenshots or videos. Beyond that, reviews are often kind of bloated.

Sidebar: With TV and Movies, what constitutes “good” and even what is “entertaining” is highly subjective, a point of debate, and a matter of experience and taste. But it seems that good games are good games. When a game is good, everyone agrees, with very few exceptions. Likewise, when a game is a broken mess, or just lazily shoveled out the door (devs porting stuff to the Wii, i’m talking to you), everyone agrees on that, too. If journalists can warn us to stay away from these ones, that’s fine, but it doesn’t require a comprehensive “review.”

Most game journalism really could be pared back (including, probably, this article). I like nerdy games discussions, and these days I particularly like the G4TV’s video podcasts; it feels genuine, and the hosts have good chemistry. And maybe I just have a mini-crush on Abbie Heppe, I dunno. But I honestly only care about half of what they talk about. Only industry people, not gamers, care which studio has hired or fired which programmer, and I don’t care that there’s going to be a Medal of Honor Modern Warfare ripoff some day in the distant future, and probably won’t start to care until you can show me some screenshots. Even if I did care, those kinds of things wouldn’t warrant 15 minutes of air time.

Technology and imagination have converged to make setting up an online gaming session pretty fluid… PSN and XBL aren’t perfect but they don’t break every 2 minutes anymore. A few years ago it required tech-savvy and heavy nerd patience to get an online match set up properly. These days you pretty much just click and go, and more people are playing games online than ever.

I’ll say this: even though I don’t think Modern Warfare 2 is a particularly special game (it stands up to a checklist assessment, but I just don’t think it has much character), I’m playing a lot of hours it, simply because my friends and relatives have been playing it, and for me, the draw of playing a game WITH people I know, is huge. There are big laughs and smiles, every time. I can’t think of many games that aren’t more fun, or at least more funny, in 2-player mode.

Anyway, that’s just how The Side Mission sees it.

Speaking of us, it’s also the end of The Side Mission’s first year! Our long term goal is still to get people playing games together (I still want to have a regular games night, where we play, then use the internet to congratulate and/or mock each other afterwards), to sped time talking about gamers as well as just games, and hopefully generate some discussion about games and their place in our culture… and to just feel a bit different from other publications. Thanks to everyone who has contributed comments and given encouragement and support in the form of links and write-ups, despite the frequent long gaps between new articles and videos. Encouragement and support and of course, feedback help us find our voice.

P.s. I also spent a chunk of the holidays learning to use new video production equipment; look forward to more videos in the near future! Have a good one. -Chris