One Million Monkeys

No, that wasn't intended as a charmingly witty reference to a Farrelly brothers film. Instead, do something that you're Lit professor in college would have flayed you for: take it literally. There is, indeed, something about Overlord. The game. Where you play a wicked, wicked man.

After deciding that homework was a tool of Satan and by doing it I was merely edging closer and closer to feasting from the tree of knowledge - thus condemning myself (and my entire species) to a world of sin and hell on earth - I thought it was in humanity's best interest to spend my "study break" with my 360 controller resting comfortably in my lap. Ironically, or perhaps in a clever ruse to make Satan think he had already turned me, I decided to pop in Overlord for the first time. I was playing it not for what I assumed was GTA with swords and arrows, but mainly because I've found myself addicted to the Fable/Oblivion sandbox-but-still-kinda-like-Zelda genre of RPG that has glommed on to the 360 like an ocean full of hungry leeches. My assumption about the content (being SUPER EVIL YO) was the primary reason I never touched the thing because I'm the gaming equivalent of a choir boy. The most badass I've ever been is playing a Chaotic Good character in Dungeons and Dragons and my character in Fable was so sickeningly virtuous that rainbows literally shot out of his ass. In fact, I opted not to engage in the marriage-to-the-mysterious-royal-lady quest simply because my character was already in a relationship and I felt guilty. That's right. I refused to cheat on my digital spouse.

I, ladies and gentleman, am a complete pussy.

So you can imagine why I thought Overlord would never really be my thing. I can play GTA because although you may be a "badguy" you're a hell of a lot better than all the other creeps you meet in the game. So much so that by the end of it you're still standing high atop the moral pillar of shiny righteousness, despite the fact that you've run over nearly two dozen prostitutes and old ladies. And possibly one puppy. Playing a game that put you in the role of the evil guy killing good guys just seemed... tacky.

"But wait!" I hear you say, "Overlord is not like that at all!" And 'lo you would be correct. Imagine my surprise when I readied myself to don the cloak of smelly black soullessness and found myself running around a halfling village attempting to take back another village's stolen food supply. Or when I actually had the opportunity to do something truly evil the game warned me that I might pay dearly for my actions. So again, I found myself thrust into the role of boy scout (a very creepy, well armored boy scout)and the only truly evil thing I ever did was boot that annoying ass jester character in the face once or twice. A session.

I wouldn't go so far as to call this a flaw in the design. Nor would I say that the developers neutered the content of the game in order to appease the increasingly dictatorial ESRB. Everything about being "evil" in this game is tongue in cheek and the whole thing ends up being a parody of Fable rather than its antithesis. In fact, looking back on GTA, I realized the same thing is going on here. GTA is certainly more violent and grittier but the fact is you're still a good guy. You're pushed to the limits and have to play dirty, but plot wise none of the main characters are truly bad guys. In fact, most of them spend a good chunk of narrative screen time musing about how disgusting and vile their fellow co-criminals are, and the game goes out of its way to separate you from them morally. Nothing exemplifies this more than Vice City Stories, where one of your "bosses" is an alcoholic, wife abusing redneck who is designated the antagonist the moment he steps on screen. And you loathe him for the same reasons you'd loathe any badguy: he's morally inferior to you.

For all the bitching that the media does about the morally bankrupt video game industry, it's amazing how few games (if any) have you playing a truly terrible characters. Even Overlord is so absolutely grade school evil (think NoHeart from Care Bears) that it's impossible to take the content seriously. Sure, you can massacre a few villagers whenever you want but take that route and soon simply walking into a town is going to have a hoard of very angry peasants on your well armored ass. Most of the time your running errands for them like a well trained puppy and occasionally your minions will insult them behind their backs. That's right. You're playing the high fantasy equivalent of an irate Wendy's employee.

It seems that interactive narrative has a problem. Telling a story about a bad person - be it in book or movie form - is much easier because the audience are not participants. They don't HAVE to relate to a character in order to enjoy a film. Hating a protagonist can be just as rewarding as relating to one, and its that degree of separation the audience has as a VIEWER that video games can't duplicate easily, forcing even the grittiest of games with the worst of characters to have SOME kind of moral justification for their actions. Otherwise, the player is just going to be put off by it.

The question that I've been bouncing around my head for the last few days is: how do we change that? Do we want to? How powerful would interactive fiction be if it could put the player in the role of a concentration camp guard? A KKK leader? A rapist? Imagine the political messages that could be delivered - and the level of disgust that could be generated - when forcing the player to act out something he or she finds morally reprehensible?

Or maybe its not possible at all. Maybe we've accidentally uncovered a truth when creating interactive fictions that books and movies have managed to blur: that people, no matter how terrible, need to justify their actions. And perhaps, when playing as those characters and absorbing their own justifications for what they do we can understand them. Perhaps we find it difficult to model moral bankruptcy in our simulations not because we are afraid of it, but because it doesn't exist.

It's finally here. Encased in a mysterious Play-Asia box - hinting at the possibility of something erotic from the Orient - and wrapped snuggly in protective bubble wrap was the game I've been waiting almost a decade to play.

Boys and girls, I present to you. Mother 3.

There's no accurate way to relay the heroin-like nostalgic bliss that courses through your veins the moment you hear that familiar ending battle theme. The cheery three note jingle that drifts off into a soft melody informs you, not just of a battle won, but that indeed, you are playing Earthbound 2.

The story of the sequel to Earthbound is analogous to the life cycle of a phoenix. Originally scheduled as an N64 RPG, the project - due in part to the failure of the 64DD and to the team's lack of familiarity with 3D design - was killed years ago. Rumors would surface on an almost yearly basis about the game's revival (one even suggested that Gamecube would be the game's new home) but it seemed that the series had ended with us North American gamers barely getting a taste.

Then about two years ago, the news struck like lightning. Mother 3 was back in development. This time the team was getting it right and working with what they were used to, and the game was announced as a 2D Gameboy Advance RPG.

It had gone from this...



To this...



It's surprising how much of the original game has been retained. Characters, settings, style, plot, even some changes to the battle animation are left intact in the GBA version. The graphics though, have seen a huge improvement. Gone (of course) is the 3D, blurry, soft focus graphics the N64 was so good at creating to be replaced by bright, colorful 2D sprites. The whole thing just FEELS like Earthbound, and the change is actually for the better. The plot has matured as well. It's still Earthbound (read: bizarre, postmodern Japanese wackiness) but there's a sense of drama that was absent from the first (second) game. The characters are much more rounded and developed than Ness and Co. were in Mother 2 and everyone - bit parts included - grab you from the second they walk on screen. Some people actually might resent the change from the near mute cardboard cut outs of 2 to the capital-C characters in 3, but I think it's a change for the better.

Unfortunately, Nintendo has opted not to localize the game for North America. Fear not! Earthbound cult/fansite Starmen.net are hard at work on a fan translation. In the meantime, import it, use one of the many walkthrus that are available on the internets and dream of the moment you'll actually get to play this thing in English.

Labels: game, game boy advance, mother, RPG

Like a once cold corpse emerging from the earth after some heretical voodoo incantation, Yoshi's Story has reappeared to wreak havoc on unsuspecting Virtual Console owners. It's predecessor, Yoshi's Island (the "sequel" to Super Mario World and damn worthy of the moniker) was revered as one of the greatest platformers of the 16-Bit era. Infanticide inducing sound effects aside, this game's mediocre moments were spread so far apart that SETI has yet to discover a way to communicate between them. It was no miracle then that when word from on high brought news of a sequel (in glorious 64-bit, Z-Buffered madness) the world tracked its development with baited breath. When the boxed plastic found itself cradled in my loving arms I was fully prepared to experience - indeed love - the magic that was held within.

Speed ahead five minutes and I was playing Yoshi's Story which, for those not in the know, is akin to having Shigeru Miyamoto shit in your mouth. It was as if, with the precision of a surgeon, the demons responsible had excised all that was to love about the original and replaced it with a seething hatred for gamer kind.

It's impossible, given the limited space of the internet, to list everything that is wrong with this game. Selected highlights include the most redundant and wandering levels and collect quests ever conceived, truly hideous graphics that attempt to be "unique" by assaulting your retinas until you don't know any better, and a collection of sounds that make the crying baby in Yoshi's Island positively iPod worthy. If you've managed to endure a full level you'll understand what I mean. The music that serves as the bridge to the next is so horrific that you'll wonder if Nintendo executives bit the heads of actual Yoshi's and simply recorded the result.

Thankfully, the pain is short lived as Yoshi's Story doesn't even succeed at being long enough to be truly scarring. Avoid at all costs.

Labels: tv

Playing the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is a bit of an odd experience for me. Most of the design elements connect perfectly. Individual pieces lock into each other like a simple math formula. You've got your giant multidimensional puzzles slash dungeons, each one sporting a new gadget that subtly alters the game experience. You've got your wacky characters; each one - right down to individual townies - interesting to listen to and look at. And, most importantly, you've got your world threatening evil just waiting to take all that immaculate design and wipe it off the face of the earth.

The question remains though, after roughly 30 hours of game so far, why? Zelda, like most games emerging from the dream factory that is Nintendo HQ, all fall into the same trap. In an effort to keep a franchise (be it Zelda, Mario or Metroid) as "gamey" as possible, Nintendo seems to intentionally neglect each one's narrative. Now, I'm not saying that something like Mario Galaxy should have a sweeping trilogy of a storyline complete with betrayal, lost loves, and the inevitable political allegory but one would think that an action-RPG like Zelda would have grown up enough to, at least, dare the main character to speak.

The reasoning is not lost on me. I get that Link has been around forever. I get that each gamer whose summer's were spent wailing away at Ganon in each new iteration has their own idea of who Link is. Nintendo is trying to maintain that level of player input in a art form, and more particularly a genre, that has a habit of completely rejecting imagination. The problem is, with each successive Zelda title the plots, with their gloriously crafted ambiguity, are beginning to run together. Since the release of Zelda's first 3D foray I feel like I've run through Ocarina of Time four times now. Some would say that problem has existed as far back as a Link to the Past. Both Nintendo and Miyamoto have confirmed that the new Zelda will be unrecognizable from the previous iterations and, even though I find that to be a little hard to believe, I think that the big N is making a huge mistake. Zelda is iconic because of its game design. It's formula is near perfect and needs only subtle tweaking with each new game. The reason Zelda is beginning to feel tired is because you can only retell the same damn story (albeit with a little twist here and there) so many times before players ignore it all together. What Nintendo needs to do to keep Zelda fresh is not to fiddle with the game play mechanics but to give us an honest to god plot.

Gamers want this. There sheer number of timeline theories that exist for the Zelda franchise resembles the conspiracy culture that surrounded the Kennedy assassination. People want all this to make sense, and just imagine how amazing it would be if Nintendo took our beloved characters and dropped them into an enormous story arc spanning the life of the Wii. Not only would not knowing what was happening blow the dust of the series but the commercial opportunity that exists in a product like that is enormous. Even at the end of the Wii's life cycle a good chunk of systems could be sold on the promise of an explosive ending to a five year long epic. It's worked amazingly well for Bandai and their .hack series - a game so poorly designed that its only draw is its plot. Imagine that kind of massive multimedia (or hell, even multigame) phenomenon on the Wii.

Think about it. Why did people love Mario RPG? Was it a good role playing game? Not really. It was far too easy, the combat system (even with its action commands) left a lot to be desired, and in comparison to other Square games like Chrono Trigger it certainly was on the weaker end of the spectrum. Then why the fond memories? People loved Mario RPG and the subsequent games in the series because it took a world that we grew up with and fleshed it out. It made it breathe in front of us. If Mario deserves that kind of treatment then why not Zelda?

Labels: design, game, games, narrative, zelda