A New Year, a New Toy?

I am one payment away from paying off my 42" LCD I picked up early this year. With the Christmas season in full swing, I've added a new toy to my wish list. This is something that, much like my wide-screen television, I'd never thought I'd ever want.

That's right: daddy wants a 5.1 surround sound system.

Now I am by no means a wealthy man. My means are quite modest, which has caused me to vacillate between buying a full-blown sound system or surround sound headsets for the past few months. The back and forth is over now since I've decided that most of my apartment neighbours are fairly noise tolerant. Added to that, my roommate is rarely home when I'm gaming. When he is, he's not one to complain much at all. Not surprisingly, this is the same guy who I've lived with during my short-lived DJ days and has always enjoyed the deep pounding of bass against old wood paneling.

While the choice to finally go with a medley of satellite speakers all around my living room was not the easiest, my choice of specific brand and model is turning out to be a breeze. With the downturn in our economy and the cinching of my wallet, I've had to set my sights lower and settle for getting myself a solid entry-level system. A real-life and XBL friend strongly recommended the Logitech Z-5500. I've always looked upon "theater in a box" solutions with some suspicion. Components are cheaply made and the feature-sets often exclude any possibility of incremental upgrades to your home entertainment system.

My friend has managed to allay most of these fears. He bought the Z-5500 for his first foray into 5.1 sound several years ago before "manning up" to his current custom-built set up. He's had nothing but glowing things to say about the overall make of the speakers, the ease of use and of course, the fidelity and range of the sound produced. At $335.53, it's also priced to fit my budget and I am impressed that a model that's been out for so long is still being stocked and garnering so much praise.

So will I finally take the plunge? Will I make the choice this Christmas be a self-centered bastard and buy sweet gifts for myself? Most importantly, will I make the choice to pamper my ear drums? Well, there are still a few variables I need to sort out. The Z-5500 apparently comes in a wireless flavour as well, so I need to determine pricing for that more attractive model before exposing my plastic to more holiday spending abuse. There's also the little side quest I gave myself of trying to turn my girlfriend on to games by buying her a Wii (along with a gift that I know she'll enjoy unequivocally, of course!). Turning my beloved girlfriend into a gamer, even a very casual one, would be quite an accomplishment. It would a worthy feat, easily worth its weight in gold and XP. But... my ears yearn for the joys of the directional audio, and rib-shaking bass that even a modest5.1 system can provide.

No one can argue that right now, at this very moment, is a great time to be a gamer. But damn it, sometimes being a gamer during the holidays can be the most difficult thing of all.

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Stop Talking About Trilogies

There's a trend that's been bothering me lately.

This is the trend of the early trilogy announcement. It's not that it's an early announcement. I'd describe it more as a pre-emptive, even presumptuous marketing technique that is fast becoming a tiresome bullet point of any press release or developer interview.

Publishers and developers are equally guilty of this annoying habit. It is getting a bit out of hand. Yes, it's understandable that in the franchise-driven games industry that sequels to reasonably successful games are a given. This year alone has seen the birth of many notable new IP. Injections of new blood is always an exciting prospect, sometimes more so than reinventing a reliable but dusty franchise. The game creators are likely even more excited, eager to promote their new property and generate the necessary buzz to be noticed in a crowded, competitive market.

I have no issue with the trilogy as a concept. My main beef with the trilogy is that the term itself is being overused to the point where it is losing much of its intended meaning. I also sense that the term being exploited to provide a smokescreen for imperfections or broken promises, and this sort of abuse is taking place for old and new IP alike. First, I'd like to cast a disparaging glance onto new intellectual property.

A number of new intellectual property creators have touted their new games as being the first of a planned trilogy of titles. This could be stated very plainly, as was the case with Too Human, or hinted at slyly such as it was with Mirror's Edge and Dead Space. Okay, the first sin of announcing a trilogy too early is hubris. A brand new IP is in no position to even imagine a trilogy until some sales figures have returned some two, three, or four months down the road. These games need to prove themselves first. With the games industry so fickle and sequel-driven, upstarts that have just blown onto the scene with much hype and glitz are especially vulnerable to being blown right back to whence they came.

The tepid sales for both Too Human and Mirror's Edge are testament to this grim reality. Why count your eggs before they've hatched? Focus on putting out the best game that you can, make the fans happy and maybe you'll get your chance at expanding your universe for sequels, spin-offs and merchandising. Even if your game isn't a critical darling or a champ at retail, you might still have garnered a large enough following to warrant that comeback sequel.

Harping on trilogies makes my hairs bristle because it also provides an advance firewall against criticisms of any new IP. Whether it's stories that trail off with unsatisfying conclusions or eagerly awaited features that get cut before ship date, just the mere utterance of "trilogy" implies rewards, withheld and reserved for the future, even if the present product leaves so much to be desired. Too Human drew gamers' ire when they downsized their co-op offerings from 4 players to 2 in addition to telling a mess of a story that possessed neither a beginning or an end, leaving much of the narrative heavy-lifting to be done in later installments. In that sense, it's a real boon for publisher and developers to turn "trilogy" into such a meaningless buzzword. Far from meaningless, it serves as a rather versatile marketing tool. How many times have we heard unrepentant drivel like this:

"Well, we've always envisioned this game to be the first in a grand trilogy. Even if we left out features X, Y and Z, we're committed to developing this world and growing our franchise. This is just a small taste of the great things still to come!"

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To be fair, it's not just the developers of new IP who are jumping the gun with their trilogy hype. Established franchises are getting in on the action and they're not just content to stoke the fires of their loyal fan base. In the case of Blizzard and Starcraft 2, they seem hell bent on incinerating wholesale the hard-earned goodwill they've accumulated over the years.

Back in October, they made the unfortunate announcement that they would be releasing the Starcraft 2 as a trilogy. Instead of a single boxed product containing the traditional full single-player campaign and mutliplayer modes, the single player campaigns would be released in a piecemeal fashion -- three in total, one for each race -- with full multiplayer support beginning with the first installment. Clearly, there were no sane minds present in the Activision/Blizzard boardroom to point out how preposterous this all sounds. Leave it to a billion-dollar company to redefine the very meaning of what a trilogy is.

Is a bloated, episodic sequel -- a sequel that is also a trilogy unto itself -- really what the Starcraft series needs right now? Now I don't doubt for a second Blizzard's ability to deliver a first-rate product of any magnitude. I only question the company's wisdom of sullying all the positive hype for one of their most beloved properties with a bizarre and unappealing marketing scheme. As one might expect, the fallout from this announcement has been rather lukewarm, with even staunch Blizzard supporters adopting a conservative "wait and see" stance on the matter. Meanwhile everyone else is grumbling, with accusations of "franchise milking" flying fast and furious over message boards and blogs. And I don't blame them their grievances one bit.

Blizzard has really put a gigantic foot inside their collective mouths. Instead of building positive hype for their hotly anticipated sequel, they've carelessly mired themselves in PR back peddling and a battle of semantics. Blizzard has earned itself the luxury to take however long they need to release not only Starcraft 2, but anything at all. Very few game companies have that luxury. It beggars comprehension to think that Starcraft 2 is such an epic undertaking that, even for Blizzard's generous development timetable, the game will have to be released in measured, protracted spurts if the game is to come out in a timely manner at all.

It's this unhealthy obsession with trilogies that is increasingly getting game companies into trouble. Maybe there was a time when a trilogy was cause for excitement and anticipation. Now, in this sober climate of company closures and layoffs, I'm not so sure gamers are so easily titillated. Now, in an era when there's still heated contention (and confusion) on what constitutes a sequel, a standalone, an expansion, a DLC, a micro-transaction and an episodic content, the last thing any company wants to do is to use the word "trilogy" lightly.

Let's simmer down on trilogies for a while, shall we? Let's continue putting out good games, pushing out the new IP and let's wait for the fans, your consumers, to vote with their wallets before you go hastily announcing two sequels, plush animal toys and five movie tie-ins. Oh wait, we're not talking trilogies in this situation any more.

No, my dear: that's synergy.

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And the Zombies Came to Town

I really brought out the pom-poms in my last post about Dead Space. Here is a wholly unoriginal piece of entertainment, crafted with such precision and buffed to a blindingly polished sheen, that it is really impossible dismiss it as anything but a fantastic entry into the survival horror genre.

Left 4 Dead has recently stepped into the ring of scares and made its presence known. The shock wave has hit the Xbox and PC communities with equal force and if one thing is certain, there are a lot of dollar signs headed towards Gabe Newell and Valve. But what's the big deal?

L4D stands in stark contrast to so many qualities that define Dead Space as a superlative horror experience that I'm tempted to pull out a running tally sheet of all the differences that separate them. I'll spare you the drudgery of course. After all, the superficial differences are apparent enough from the get-go: zombies versus space mutants, 4-player co-op versus single-player, action versus suspense.

Now that I think of it, it's that last dichotomy that really encapsulates the unique strengths of these two games. For all its refined controls and high-tech gadgetry, the success of Dead Space is founded on the same principles as a ride through a haunted house at the amusement park: it is tightly scripted, extremely orchestrated and often times, very predictable. That I still hold my breath or fuddle around with my controller when the scares manifest is a testament to the skill of the game's designers.

Left 4 Dead aspires to these same goals but it goes about it from a very different place, both technologically and stylistically. The game's "script" is governed by an AI-driven Director who plays a role equivalent to what a Dungeon Master would be for old pen and paper RPGs. The Director's job in L4D is to spawn zombie hordes into the level for players to fight. The pace and intensity at which it spawns in the nasties is determined by a complex formula that takes into account the players' performance, their overall health, the speed they are moving through the map, their weapons and myriad other factors. The Director's ultimate goal is to craft a challenging and different experience for the players each time they play, even if they are replaying the same map numerous times.

Qualitatively, the fluid work of the Director, combined with the constant company of your companions, AI-controlled or otherwise, makes for a game that is less about horror and more about survival. After a few play sessions, the user becomes intimately familiar with the threat, which renders them dangerous but hardly mysterious or terrifying. The familiarity of each map, designed to be played multiple times, also becomes a matter of rote memory. Additionally, winking references to pop culture and gaming as a whole are embedded as graffiti and other artifacts throughout the game's various "safe room" checkpoints. It's these sort of touches that ground the game in a very defined, self-referential space that precludes it from taking itself too seriously. If Dead Space could be compared to Ridley Scott's Alien, then Left 4 Dead can be said to share more DNA with James Cameron's Aliens and maybe with an extra strand of pre-Spiderman Sam Raimi for good measure.

And lest you forget the horror of humanity itself, Left 4 Dead goes to great length as showing us that the enemy is often not the "other" but rather the man standing watch behind your back. The scares don't come so much from the presence of ravenous zombies but from the ease with which a well-armed but uncooperative party of survivors can quickly turn into zombie gruel. "United we stand, divided we fall" is a mantra that rings all too true if you expect to have any success in Left 4 Dead.

If you've put any amount of time into Dead Space or Left 4 Dead you will not be hard-pressed to recount situations where you have felt alone in the dark. Both games use such different techniques to capture isolation, dread and horror. And both games are essential plays for horror fans of all stripes, doubly so if you are also a shooter aficionado.

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Acrobats are the New Zombies

What's the hottest look in gaming this season? No, it's not the undead, contrary to the current onslaught of a nasty flu bug (Left 4 Dead), nasty reanimating aliens (Dead Space), irradiated ghouls (Fallout 3) or Nazi zombies (CoD: World at War). Gore and necrotized flesh is sinfully unattractive any way, not to mention awful-smelling.

No, the new hotness this fall is beholding the lithe grace and beauty of an acrobat. Leading the charge is Faith, of Mirror's Edge. The EA/Dice production turns the FPS genre on its head, giving players all the free-running prowess they possessed in last year's Assassin's Creed, but restricting them to a first-person perspective. This entails all the nausea-inducing moments you might expect as Faith jumps, tumbles and rolls her way through a dystopic amalgamation of near-future Hong Kong and Singapore. The critical reception has been mixed so far but there has been near universal praise of EA's courage to even attempt such a unique take on the creaky FPS genre. Arguments abound on the Internet message boards about whether ME should be given special merit for its daring design or suitably docked points for committing some predictable gaming sins. Specifically, halfway through the short 6-hour campaign, the level design rebels against its original mandate and dials down the parkour, forcing players through restrictive jumping puzzles and mandatory combat engagements.

Crystal Dynamics is also out to prove that what is old is new again. Tomb Raider: Underworld has landed on shelves in all it's dual pistol-wielding glory. Laura Croft, quite possibly gaming's version of Madonna, attempts to reinvent herself once again by, ironically, returning to her roots. The style of play is much like it was in Legends, with less emphasis on the automated gunplay and more focus put on the exploration of ancient, exotic environments. Staunchly old school, Laura is strictly a climber and flipper. Sure, she may have a couple new moves in her toolset but her acrobatics exist solely to scale her up another cliff face or get her around the various anti-tomb raiding security measures. The reviews so far have been generally solid, but one can't help but shake the feeling that Laura, while seemingly ageless in her game world bubble, is actually that fading, wrinkling starlet hanging over your shoulder, pining away for the "good ol' days".

Our final gymnast is also another entry into another long-running franchise. The new Prince of Persia is a reboot of the classic series, intent on erasing some bad taste left over by the moody, emo-centric stylings of the previous two Prince games on the PS2. This latest efforst takes all the death-defying leaps of Mirror's Edge into the third-person view, replete with a desolate fantasy world, sword play and a life-saving female companion. Of all the acrobatic games mentioned thus far, I'm most intrigued by this one. The reviews have pegged it as an all too short adventure and balanced a touch too far towards the "easy n' accessible" end of the difficulty scale. A longer experience awaits those who choose to fully explore the linear environments for collectibles. The tug of war between playing a simply beautiful, enchanting game and my need to receive a stiff challenge has me torn about purchasing PoP. Perhaps the best I can do is to wait until the holiday dust settles off and I have completed more of those new releases I have piled on top of my 360.

Ditto for Mirror's Edge and Tomb Raider...

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