A Game Changer

Recently I finished and talked about Braid. The ending got me thinking about how we view games, and what we come to expect from them. A fresh player, having no prior knowledge of Braid would go in to the game thinking "Yes, of course I'm going to save the princess at the end, because that's what the story is setting up for me". That feeling would be reinforced at the end of the first (or rather second) world, where they are told that "The Princess is in another castle". "Ah ha, just a little homage to the Mario games, frustrating me a little, only to make the reward greater when I actually find her later - a little clichéd, but I'll allow it".

The entire perception of the game shatters right at the last instant though, due to a seemingly simple, yet world-changing plot point. You're not trying to save the Princess, in fact she needs saving from you. It's not very often that we don't get a "happily ever after" ending, which makes sense, that sort of climax is tried and tested, but it's nice when we get something a little different from the norm. That's not to say I want more unexpected endings either, the industry would eventually just become a big parody of itself to the point where a plot meeting would result in someone saying "Hey, why not this time, have the good guy win at the end for a change?" That's not what anyone wants, but it's not just endings that could benefit from a little variety.

Take Spec Ops: The Line for instance. It's a standard third person cover based shooter game with squad control mechanics. It received average reviews, but there was one thing that the critics all pointed out as a highlight - the unexpected story twists. "The white phosphorous mission" became almost instantly infamous and controversial. The scene sees the player equipped with a mortar and is shown small white dots which are the targets to be blown up. Yeah, you've seen this before right? In the AC-130 sections of the Call of Duty Games. Perhaps that's the point. In those games you blow everyone up, they might be trying to escape, but they're still terrorists and they've still got guns which they're probably going to use to slaughter innocent people. So in Spec Ops, that's what you do, you blast those white dots to hell. But what if those white dots were innocent people? That's what Spec Ops: The Line explores, and it's not until later that you find out that you've accidentally murdered defenceless men, women and children. It's not a moral choice you're given in the game, it's just something you did, and it's up to you whether you can live with that or not. CoD explored a controversial moment with the airport massacre, although it lacked subtlety. "Hey guys your character is going to go in and shoot up this airport full of civilians - isn't that extreme and controversial?!"

So those are examples of unexpected plot twists and game moments, but what about a game that utterly changes in what it's asking you to do? Fez starts out as yet another indie platforming game with a twist. You are the only person in the cute little world that can perceive a third dimension, which opens up interesting puzzles involving multiple planes. It's not especially difficult, and you can reach the end of the game without much difficulty. But the end of the game is where the real game begins. It almost becomes a cryptanalysis game, needing you to solve an entirely made up language along with dealing with other entirely new puzzle mechanics. No mention was made of this before the game's release, and it's possible to 'complete' the game without ever encountering any of the new stuff. When people did find out this unbelievable amount of hidden depth, there was a certain amount of shock.

There are games out there trying to be different and add a little something to the industry, they just need to be praised more for what they are doing. Do this enough and hopefully developers will sit up and take notice - "People actually care about games and aren't just buying them to give us bucketloads of money? I suppose we'd better give something back to them, then."

E3 2012 Part 3: Sony and Nintendo

Sony Press Conference
Well, Jack Tretton has been the best and least awkward host so far, and definitely got the best crowd reaction - most people actually laughed at his jokes.

First up was Quantic Dream, the developer behind critically acclaimed Heavy Rain. They were showing their new IP: Beyond: Two Souls. The main character, Jodie, has some kind of link to supernatural beings, ghosts or otherwise, and is being portrayed by Ellen Page, with her likeness looking rather eerie with no hair. It seems as though Jodie will be on the run from law enforcement as we see a SWAT team, helicopter and all being utterly destroyed by Jodie's supernatural powers. It doesn't seem as though she's wholly malevolent though, perhaps she's just misunderstood...

Playstation All Stars was next, Sony's take on the much loved Smash Bros style of gameplay. It will be featuring a whole range of character's from the company's past and present, although some of them are less recognisable than the ones Nintendo have in its game. The main difference between the two games seems to be that in this one, the characters can level up super attacks by fighting. It certainly seems like fun, however I can't see it being as popular as Smash Bros itself.

Next up were some Vita games, with Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified and Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation. AC3L will feature the first female assassin of the series, and will be able to link with the full AC3 PS3 game to unlock items that each character can use. CoD has similar functionality, but just looks like another CoD game to be honst.

Sony had some exclusive content about already announced games next. In Assassin's Creed 3 you'll be able to control a big old war ship, where you'll be handling navigation and cannons to fight off other ships. The water and changing weather effects look really nice too.

The Far Cry 3 exclusive announcement was that the game will feature a fully fledged four player co op campaign. There was a live demo of this, and it looks fairly interesting, although the graphics looked strangely lacking compared to the solo campaign demo we saw earlier. Perhaps this was due to the image being blown up for a big screen, but we'll see.

Then came Wonderbook, the new piece of hardware which looks like a physical book, which is recognised by the PlayStation Eye and functions as a piece of augmented reality kit. They showed Pottermore- which acts as an interactive spellbook from the Harry Potter universe. After a few failed attempts they eventually got the thing working and showed how to use the Move controller to act as a wand, and how you can interact with the Wonderbook to alter what's happening on screen. It'll certainly be popular with kids if the bugs are ironed out.

God of War Ascension is the new God of War game, basically. There doesn't seem to be much to it other than that. There are new moves and new enemy types, but that's what everyone would've already expected - a little disappointing.

Finally, Sony showed a gameplay demo of The Last of Us, which received the biggest cheer of the conference on account of its seemingly fluid and dynamic gameplay set in a post apocalyptic world inhabited by thieves and scavengers. It looks really interesting and if it can keep up the varied gameplay throughout the entire game it could become an instant hit.

Nintendo Press Conference
"The Wii U will change your life" apparently, so it seems like Nintendo are expecting big things from it. They showed a black console! It's black, not white! Also there's the much anticipated Pikmin 3, so that's cool for fans of that franchise, especially since it's been eight years since the last one.

Nintendo are introducing something called Asymmetric Gameplay, with many possibilities. Perhaps a player with a Wii U gamepad has a different gameplay experience to those using regular Wiimotes. The console will only support two gamepads though, which seems a shame.

The new home screen for the new console will be called the Miiverse - a screen populated by your friends, and further populated to represent what's trending on Wii U by the miniature Miis gathering around particular titles. You'll be able to send simple text messages which appear on your friend's consoles or create notes using the stylus.

It wouldn't be a new Nintendo console without a Mario game, and they haven't disappointed. New Super Mario Brothers U, the first in the line of many games with an unnecessary U added to the title was announced. The asymmetric gameplay was shown here, where a player with a gamepad can place blocks around the screen to help those with Wiimotes. Other than that though, it looks pretty similar to most other Mario games, funny that.

Third party software came next, and Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition, will be using the gamepad to scan things, and the touch screen will be used to interact with environment. The motion controls will be useful for controlling batarangs, and much more. It's a shame that interesting technology like this is being used on a year old game however.

Scribblenauts Unlimited made an appearance, and will be building upon the popular franchise by opening up the creation tools to create endless exciting objects. You'll be able to create any object, and then share your creations with your friends.

Everyone loves a fitness game these days, so they then showed a bit of Wii Fit U with multiple cleavage shots of an attractive woman and many angles showing off the muscles of an attractive man. Yay, fitness! Another type of game everyone needs these days is a karaoke game, so here was the unimaginatively named Sing to be a part of that.

Then there was what looked like a tech demo of something called Nintendo Land which is an almagamtion of their famous franchises in a theme park setting, with more antisymmetric gameplay being demoed.

Then that was kind of it, there was no big reveal like many of the other press conferences had, so that was a little underwhelming.

So that's it for the press conferences of E3 2012! Check back later in the week when I'll be writing about anything that catches my eye from the show floor, but until then, thanks for reading and have a good one.