How We Experience Games

GameSetWatch has an interesting post on the concept of game design. On one hand, you have the camp who believes that games should be story/character driven and create scripted experiences that we each interpret in our own way. On the other side are designers who believe that games should allow the player to create their own experiences and their own story. In case you didn't notice, this is one of the fundamental differences between most current singleplayer and multiplayer games. The author is definitely biased towards the former, but at least he admits it. From the article:

I've never been a fan of multiplayer games, because really, I want to interact with a guided vision, not my pals from the internet. ... Say what you will about the BioShock "choice," for example, but we're all learning from the differences in one another's experiences of the same event. Meanwhile, the story of your WoW raid is solely personal, and interesting only to you and your guild.

I tend to disagree with this opinion. Not so much that multiplayer games like WoW and L4D are better than singleplayer fare like Bioshock, but more that each has it's own place. I enjoy playing titles such as the Final Fantasy and God of War series. Yet I wouldn't be able to stand it if I had to play a 40+ hour scripted game with someone else because I would want to experience it in my own way and at my own pace. By the same token, the thought of joining an empty TF2 server by myself and running around on my own just depresses me.

This is almost heading into the 'games as art' realm, but I think game designers would do well to remember that most people still buy their products because they desire a game to be entertaining. And for many people, the social interaction of multipayer games is what makes them entertaining.

Not that I think we're in danger of losing either subset, but it's important to remember that both are necessary as each one fills a role that the other cannot. A well-written and properly executed singleplayer game, like a good book or movie, can create an emotional investment with the characters or may even give a new insight into something that had never been considered before. However, there are few things more entertaining than getting together with friends and splattering the heads of a horde of zombies.

I hate people

No joke. Some miserable cretin decided to make an iPhone app with this premise: the player attempts to stop babies from crying by shaking the handset.

Say what you will about the fact that video games depict nearly all levels of violence, from harsh language to wholesale slaughter. There's ample room for reasoned disagreement along most of the spectrum, and the issue of video game violence in general is not one that's susceptible to consensus.

There is a line, however. There may be no objective view on just where it should be drawn, but there is a space - well beyond the crossing - where depravity becomes the only available judgment. Shaking virtual infants to death, for fun, is one occupant of that space. It isn't hard to imagine others, but doing so will probably make you want to think about something else.

This will sound obvious to many. Why it wasn't obvious to Apple is beyond my imagination.

L4D update

In case there was any question whatsoever about whether Valve reads their forums...

From Steam News:

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Survival Mode Changes

■ Darkened the Lighthouse background movie and increased the contrast with the user interface elements
■ Chapter selection is now available when creating a Survival lobby
■ Single player coop now works correctly after playing Survival online
■ The correct game mode will be set when playing back a demo
■ Changed holdout server spew to be development only
■ Stats are no longer updated while viewing a demo
■ Correctly update the leaderboard based on the player's personal time, not the team best time
■ Show the player's best time in the scoreboard
■ Removed Survival exploits from The Terminal, Last Stand, The Crane, The Boathouse and The Warehouse
■ Fixed tanks sometimes not spawning after 15-20 minutes

Terminator: Salvation gameplay

The release date is May 19. I'll wait for some reviews, but if the cover system works reasonably well, I think I'm getting this:

One irredeemable jackass

From the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Police: Dad beat son over video game

EAST PRICE HILL – An East Price Hill father beat his 6-year-old son for playing a video game poorly, Cincinnati police say.

Terry Taulbee, 50, was held Tuesday on a domestic violence charge at the Hamilton County jail.

Taulbee is accused of hitting the boy on his lower back and buttocks, leaving a large red hand mark, court records state. The area swelled and caused pain for the child.

The victim’s mother told police Taulbee became upset when the boy didn’t play a video game well.

The boy is with his mother, while Taulbee has been put under a safety plan which forbids him from having contact, said Brian Gregg, a spokesman for the Hamilton County Job and Family Services.

“We are investigating these allegations and looking into it, whether everyone is safe and healthy,” he said.

The safety plan will continue until Family Services makes sure everything is OK in the home, Gregg said.

“It is going to take some time to investigate and see what kinds of services are needed for the family,” he said.

Getting head in TF2

If you haven't visited the "character info and setup" screen on TF2 lately, you'll have missed the grid of tantalizing emptiness that hints at a massive pile of new content:



This is the new "backpack" feature, which is accessed by way of a briefcase icon on the main loadout screen. The pairing might seem a bit odd until you recall that there are no flags to be found anywhere in the Capture the Flag gametype. In that light, the contradiction is, of course, entirely logical. It makes sense if you think about it. But I don't recommend doing that. The Valve universe is often a figment of its own imagination.

As you can see, there are 50 item slots available. With nine classes, and three unlockable items per class (eventually), that leaves 23 slots for stuff we haven't anticipated. That will surely mean even more toys for existing classes, and perhaps toys for one or more (as yet) non-existent classes.

And there's more. On the character-specific screens, there's a "head slot" off to the right. The meaning of that should be obvious, shouldn't it? We'll see.

The full changelog for the most recent (April 20) patch follows:

Game Changes

■ Reworked the character loadout screens to support future features
■ Added the ability for players to permanently delete items from their inventory using the new Backpack menu. This does not reset achievements. Once an item has been deleted it can never be re-earned
■ Added the ability for players to reset their player stats using the Reset Stats button on the Stats menu. This does not reset achievements
■ Added a "player_teleported" game event that is sent when a player is teleported
■ Updated cp_junction_final to score per-capture instead of per-round. This fixes the map not working correctly with Tournament mode and the stopwatch
■ Scouts now drop the flag if they're carrying it when they start phasing

Fixes

■ Fixed instances where Steam connection problems would cause some unlocked items to be unusable
■ Fixed the custom crosshair menu not clearing itself when "None" is selected for non-English clients
■ Fixed warning about not being able to execute skill1.cfg when starting the dedicated server

Tomorrow...

You'll be tempted to skip ahead. Don't.