Ninja Gaiden: No Concessions, No Mercy

Whenever I bemoan the mollifying effects of mainstream popularity on video games, I like to remember the Ninja Gaiden series as one of the last remaining bastions of the so-called "hardcore" gamer.

From its humble beginnings as a coin-op to its rise to fame on the original Nintendo 8-bit console, Ninja Gaiden has always stood out in my mind as the prototypical gamer's game: unforgiving, with a steep learning curve and very little hand-holding for the uninitiated.

The series has moved gracefully into the current generation of console, namely the Xbox 360 and the latest addition is set for release in only a week. Ninja Gaiden 2 will continue the adventures of Ryu Hayabusa, the last of his ninja clan, on his quest to... do something or other. The plots behind these games never did make a lick of sense, either due to cultural differences in storytelling, poor localization, confused writers or more likely, a little bit of everything.

In preparation for the new game, I've popped the Xbox original back into the tray to mentally prepare myself for what is sure to be many frustrating sessions of bloody death... my own death, that is. In a grudging bid to perhaps gain a larger slice of the gaming audience, the sequel will feature 4 difficulty levels, the latter 2 will be unlocked only after you've completed the game on one of the default levels. This time around, the lowest difficult setting will indeed be a bonfide "easy" mode in stark contrast to the first Gaiden's "Normal" and "Hard". (And in case you haven't played it, Normal difficulty was a devilish challenge: certainly no cake walk)

Still a gamer with some sense of pride, I won't be planning to begin my Ninja Gaiden 2 adventures on the lowest setting. No, I would rather cut my teeth on the original and get myself properly warmed up. I will jump into the new game on the Normal setting, with every intention of getting my rear end served to me on a plate. But wouldn't any self-respecting gamer do the same?

And here is the rest of it.

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A Downside to the Story-Based Sandbox?

Grand Theft Auto 4 solidifies Rockstar North as the reigning champion of the story-based sandbox action game. No other title in this genre can boast a more impressive story (in content and execution) or present players with more ways to screw around aimlessly if they so please. With that said, I wonder sometimes if the two halves of their formula - this flexible open world combined with engrossing, story-based missions - can be at odds with itself.

More on this after the jump...


There's an embarrasment of activities to engage in outside of the central story missions. Your in-game cellphone typically rings off the hook as Niko is deluged with requests from friends and contacts to go "hang out". Spending quality time can mean anything from going out for a beer with a cohort you helped rob a bank with the day before or taking a date out to see a cabaret show, followed by a suitably PG-rated night cap sequence.

Your Niko may be more of a loner, so simply wandering the city searching for those trademark easter eggs provides enough respite from the grind of pursuing the main storyline. From shooting "flying rodents" to sniffing out stunt ramps or browsing through the hundreds of fictitious websites, you're rarely in need of company if all you're aiming to do is kiill some time unproductivtely. For a more productive time sink, more justice-minded Nikos may commandeer a cop car and go on a solo crusade against Liberty City's most unsavory, wanted fugitives.

These distractions contribute to the creation of a much richer, varied world in GTA4. They also make for a fantastic "failure cushion". That is, when I find myself stuck on a particular story mission, I don't feel compelled to quit the game in frustration. There's so much to do in Liberty City, I simply cleanse my palate (and cool my jets) with a taxi ride or a round of ten-pin before taking another crack at that crucial mission. It's also to the game's credit that there is rarely only one story mission marker pinned to your map. Find yourself tiring of running errands for the Italian mob, well, try your hand at doing some dirty jobs for the Irish gangster down the block. The game rewards persistence but it also encourages players to go at their own pace and to explore the world as thoroughly as possible.

Of course the downside to this rather freeform structure is that the story missions themselves can lose a lot of momentum. When attacked head-on, one after another, these missions really do connect well with each other and form a cohesive, logical story arc that is quite engaging. I've sunk in about 35 hours into the game now and started out just playing the story missions. As these missions became more difficult, I started to branch out into the optional activities some more, which has really helped me to keep my sanity but has also removed my involvement in the plot. It's ironic then that the more I play, the more I have to make a concerted effort to get myself engaged in the story again.

What will eventually happen is my need to complete every drug run or street race will dry up and the siren's call of wrapping up the story will bring me back in line with the story. I almost wish the Rockstar North developers had implemented a clever way of keeping you locked in the story, yet also allowing you to do a lot of exploration and optional side quests.

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Putting Too Much Movie Into The Game

I tried out the demo of The Bourne Conspiracy last week and it made me ponder the wisdom of game designers to slavishly emulate the feel of movies in their games.

The term "cinematic" is bandied around a lot in the gaming press and it's been used as a much as a crutch as well as a real descriptor for talking about certain games. Yes, I agree that games like BioShock, Mass Effect and GTA4 are all very cinemetic experiences. With the exception of Mass Effect, I would go on to argue that these games give the impression of watching a movie not out of any sort of outward intention toi emulate the conventions of film. Their cinematic qualities are more of a natural side effect of the many design choices that were made to create a better game experience.

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In contrast, my time spent with The Bourne Conspiracy demo has given me the impression that developer High Noon Studios has created a game whose mechanics are in service to creating a cinematic experience, much to its detriment. What's curious about this design choice is that the game itself is not based on any of the Matt Damon movies but rather on the Bourne franchise as a whole as established in Robert Ludlum's series of novels. That didn't stop the developers from taking many stylistic cues from the 3 Doug Liman/Paul Greengrass movies, from the settings and scenarios and the choreography, right on down to the shaky cam technique so effectively used by Greengrass in the latter two movies.

And I can't really hold that against them, can I? After all, the books are old news and gamers are most likely to identify the Bourne mythology to the Matt Damon movies. And with both games and movies being such visually-oriented mediums, it really was a no-brainer for any developer to crib some style notes from the movies. My real beef coming away from the demo is that the developers went too far in that direction and are at a serious risk of releasing a final game that wants very badly to be a movie but ultimately fails at being successful at either.

Play the demo yourself and you'll find that all the ingredients for a good game are in place. The graphics and other production values are top notch and there's a palpable sense of urgency much like the one you feel when watching the Bourne movies. The level design and control mechanics, however, literally railroad you down a scripted path of events. Oh, not just any events, mind you, but the ever-popular quick time events are used quite liberally at key moments during a level. I"ve never been a fan of quick-time button press sequences for many different reasons, but as "gamey" mechanics go, sometimes having it is better than nothing at all. The quick-time sequences in the Bourne demo rely on you pressing a random button at precisely the right time. Failure to do so results in the game ending and a reload to the last checkpoint. Really? Video games have come a long way in the last 20 years and I'd like to think we've long left behind game design principles first introduced by the likes of Dragon's Lair. Apparently, some people think that so long as it contributes to the cinematic pacing of their level, an unforgiving, timed button press is an adequate play mechanic to use over and over again.

Movies and games are very different mediums that share some overlap in how they're consumed and appreciated, but they are still fundamentally different forms that require very specific skills and expertise to do them properly. As games become more sophisticated, I hope developers continue to exploit all the strengths that make games what they are and make that their prime directive. Games, by their particular design, story or genre WILL evoke cinematic qualities. Just look at GTA4 and all the memorable, movie-like moments that sprout from its masterful, open-world play environment. The game may make nods to movies, in the way it renders cutscenes or the option to switch to a dynamic, "movie camera" when driving a vehicle but it never feels like it's going out of its way to BE a movie.

I wish I could say the same for The Bourne Conspiracy, a game that feels indebted to movies so much that it loses its true identity.

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Blogging About Town

Last week I joined the blogging team at Adult Gaming Enthusiasts, or AGE. I jumped at the chance to start writing for the site, having been a member for the better part of the past year and also having enjoyed the civilized camaraderie of the mostly "mature" community there.

Now that I've essentially divided up my blogging potential, I hope to use this blog to explore game design with more in-depth articles. I realize PMB has been a blog searching desperately for a clear mandate for a very long time now and writing longer posts that are more focused on analysis and discussion makes more sense for me. "Hard facts" and news bites are more the domain of the AGE blog, so we you won't necessarily find me waxing poetic on my love for GTA 4 over there. Maybe on the forums, but the blog will largely be free of editorializing.

I still hesitate to make any promises about the future of this blog, however miniscule. I don't know what it's been lately, but I've had a hard time sitting myself down to write even the laziest piece on a news item or even about my own play time on the Xbox. The days do seem shorter than ever and I have no doubt my job as an IT administrator has played a role in causing me to shy away from the monitor and keyboard when it's not entirely necessary for me to be there.

I also feel like I want to write about something else. Games blogging has been a convenient platform for me to practice my writing as well as go on at length about my favourite pastime. I could be reaching that saturation point, however, where my life just seems too occupied by games in that I play games during my spare time, listen to a half dozen video game blogs, read gaming sites and forums and then find enough time to blog about the games industry... it can get a bit much. Or rather, I want to keep up with my blogging but when it comes down to actually writing something right there in the moment, I suddenly find my will has been sapped by some invisible force.

I'm still not ready to concede defeat yet so stay tuned for some new material on th blog. I promise! I think...

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