Bullet Points @ timlongo.com

There is nothing like a trip to Disneyland for a Game Developer. Specifically for a designer. There is just something about such a well thought out place with a huge amount of polish and attention to detail but also with the right about of smoke and mirrors. It is a great reminder of how important smoke and mirrors really are when such a tangible but fictional experience in right in front of your eyes. Something you can often even touch yet it still has to seem real and create a fantasy. We complain so much in Video Games about how hard it is to convince the player about the fictional worlds we create. How much effort we put into making them think it is real. But imagine how much work it is for the designers of Pirate’s of the Caribbean or the Indiana Jones Ride. Specifically the line leading to Indy. It has to sell to their audience face-to-face and hand to touch. We have a few feet and a TV screen between us and them. We have it easy! It is just a humbling thing to see and it is both inspirational as well as daunting. But it definitely gets you in the mood to make some great experiences for people. Even if they are a facade of a facade. It also made me appreciate how theatre and games and the rides are all so closely linked and how an education in an archaic thing like Theatre does have its payoff in the end.

And don’t forget, as seen below, it is all about the lighting.

P.S. There may actually be a limit to how many times you want to go on It’s A Small World. With a 7 year old we certainly tried to find that ceiling.

There is nothing better than being proud of something you sank your blood, sweat, and tears into for almost three years. To also be proud of a team that lead the way on something so complex under circumstances that were challenging and yet still coming out with a product we were happy to have our names associated with. That game/product was Star Wars Republic Commando. There has been a bit of a renaissance for the game within the past couple months that I think was mainly sparked by it being put up on Steam by LucasArts as a title in the first round of titles that Lucas has ever put on that service. It is an honor to have SWRC on the first short list of games up there and an honor to be on Steam at all. Even a previous game we worked on, Star Wars Starfighter, was put up in that first set as well.

Here are a few of the events that I know of which occurred around this small resurgence of the game:

• SWRC put up on Steam.
• Euro Gamer runs a retrospective on the game. (Thanks to Brett for the link from his site.)
• The Rebel FM gaming podcast plays SWRC as part of their “Game Club” (like a book club) which is a series where they cover beloved games which people may have missed. Another honor! Each Episode covers a campaign of the game.
• Episode 1 link here. (or you can get it off iTunes if you search for Rebel FM)
• Episode 2 link here.
• And finally, I was invited to come onto the third episode of the podcast to talk about the game with the guys. They have had some classic games on their podcast so to be able to come onto the show and represent the game and talk some history and war stories was great fun. Thanks Anthony, Arther, Tyler and Matt!
• Episode 3 (with me!) is here.

Making larger scale games is such a difficult and complex thing that when it works out OK in the end (despite many challenging times which were usually my own fault, sorry guys!) it is always a great feeling to know that at least some of the fans really liked the work you put into the thing. I know for the most part the team was very proud of the work that they did and to have it be remembered only adds to that pride. Especially when you are making your mark on a big fictional universe with a lot of noise around it.

Here are a couple videos in case you have never seen or played the game:

Here is a fairly randomly chosen quote from a user on a GameSpot forum (thanks for the kind words!):

“As long as you are a fan of first person shooters I say got for it.

This is a wickedly fun game. The single player campaign, although a tad short, really sucks you in mostly because of your squadmates and the different personalities.

Not to offend some, but I absolutely DESPISE the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy…and I HATE the “special” editions of the original trilogy. I don’t know what motivated me to try Republic Commando years ago when it came out, but I am so glad that I did. Even a hater like me loves this game!

My fav Star Wars games are X-Wing, TIE Fighter, X-Wing Alliance, Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, and Republic Commando.

If, like me, you happen to be into the older school of Star Wars do not let that deter you from playing this game. It is indeed fun as hell!”

Finally, some memorable quotes from the game.

Thanks for all the fun folks. It was good to relive some of those memories years later.

Gaijin Games‘ second installment of the Bit.Trip series becomes the 100th downloadable game on the WiiWare network. How cool is that!? Once again the guys at Gaijin have pounded out their next retro classic and the response is even better than the last one. Check out this review from Destructoid. A 90!

The cooperative mode is even cooler in this title, though I’ll admit it is damn hard and I don’t know if I will ever beat it. Even with a partner. I hate you Alex!

Can’t wait to see what the guys come up with next. The series seems to follow (as they have said themselves) the evolution of the video game controller with the first game covering the pong paddle and this one the D-Pad. What next!?

Look how insane this game is. WTH…

Check it out for only 600 points. Now being an iPhone owner myself I hope they port it someday. Seems like a perfect fit.

Ok, yeah, it is six months late but hey, I’ve been busy. I wanted to stay committed to doing my own version of Games of the Year (or rather Games I Played Last Year – GIPLY) and call out not the best games that came out in 08 but the best games I actually played in 08, no matter their release date. So to stick with my promise I’m going to still post about that for 2008 even though it is almost June. I deserve any crap anyone gives me for being this late. Remember that (if you read the post for 2007) these games are the games that impacted me the most and I am taking the tact of choosing games that I played but may have come out at any ol’ time as to not just talk about all the other top picks that everyone else did in January. So to Jump right in…

METAL GEAR SOLID PORTABLE OPS
3BR (Three Bullet Review)

• HIT: All the things I loved about the Metal Gear Series but with a tactical army building element as well.
• HIT: Higher polish and production values than I’ve seen on some 360 games.
• MISS: Slightly over complicated controls for a PSP which by-in-large were not needed.

I would never in a million years think I would be putting a PSP game on the top of this list. I didn’t even think I’d own a PSP during 2008 let alone become a huge fan of the MGS series. For those who have been following “Operation Shadow Moses” where I played all the current MGS games to date within a month (1 and 2 in two days) when I finished the PS2 games I really wanted more. So I went out, bought a PSP and got Portable Ops to continue where MGS3 left off story-wise. I went in with low expectations being on the PSP but the army building elements reminded me of some weird Japanese version of Jagged Alliance. I was playing the same good old Solid Snake but also building my own army and deplyoing them all over South America. It was a devilishly interesting way to shift the franchise and the production values were typical Kojima in that they put some current gen games to shame, even on the handheld. They tried to do a bit too many things with the “controller” on the PSP seeing that complicated mechanics are hard to execute on that damn thing, (cramped hands and fingers) but other than that it was the surprise of the year for me.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
3BR (Three Bullet Review)

• HIT:One of the more immersive shooters with a stark sense of place I’ve played in a long time.
• HIT:A great open world structure pushed into areas that some western big budget competitors boasted but never could execute on.
• MISS: Potentially too hard-core for its own good with certain very unforgiving and punishing design choices.

This one was an honorable mention last year but at that time I had just played a bit of it and wasn’t yet sure. I played STALKER throughout 08 and as I thought it was just going to be a distraction while I wait for Fallout 3 it turned out to be an amazingly well done and at times terrifying game. For a small Eastern European developer (see my post about “The Other East” for related commentary) GSC Games does a wonderful job on a small budget and staff in giving me a new take on a genre that I was growing fatigued of. The alien feel of a wholly Eastern European esthetic combined with well done and tension building underground “horror” elements kept me playing way more than I had anticipated. The open world structure added to the sense of a grounded and naturalistic flow to things. Repetition in missions and too many unforgiving “old school” design choices which seemed to want to be forgiven just because they were for a hard core crowd just can’t be ignored anymore. Plus, after the fact, reading the original book it was based on as well as the famous movie gave me even more appreciation for the full experience they accomplished. I feel like even on release this game was overlooked and it is unfortunate that it didn’t get the support it needed. They did do a sequel and more are coming I think, so over time maybe it will become a strong series.

LEGO STAR WARS SAGA
3BR (Three Bullet Review)

• HIT:Boiled down pick-up and play fun with an E-rated familiar shell.
• HIT:Cooperative (semi-asymmetrical) same-screen play designed into the experience.
• MISS:Ridiculous and difficult puzzles which sometimes feel totally out of place from the rest of the action-based game.

Ok, so this one may not really be fair because I’m playing with my daughter and that probably has a barring on how much fun I’m having, but this game is really well done at its core regardless. Though it is a game that people have talked a lot about over the years, I missed the boat and only picked it up last year to play it with Lia as a first entry point to the SW Universe. Turns out I like the game in general for its simple and accessible controls and loads of things to look for and collect and destroy. I think everyone and their mother has played this, so no need to go into detail, but there is just something intriguing about how they discovered a somewhat unlikely mixture of things to make a game out of and how in hindsight it is actually a perfect combo. As I’ve been reporting on playing with Lia, there is nothing like watching your 6 year old child take down an AT-AT for the first time by herself.

Well, there are my picks for the top GIPLY. Maybe it isn’t the best concept for a GOTY list, but I just don’t tend to play at the same pace as the rest of the industry these days so I just play what I want to play in any given year. So who knows what the pool to draw from will be in 09. I will say that one of the BIG games I did play during 2008 and was actually chosen by many as their real GOTY was Fallout 3. Hands down, as far as big titles that came out that I played in a timely fashion, Fallout lived up to all my expectations and more. It really does deserve all the praise and I look forward to playing the DLC. As a huge fan of the series, a big thanks to Bethesda for not fucking it up.

I’m not one to spout off opinions on things like our national prison system. The truth is I have had thoughts about what is wrong with the very little I know about them, but seeing that I know so little I don’t think it would be fair for me to judge. The problems with the system is the last subject I would think of that would spark me to write this post, actually. In fact, the post isn’t about prisons in the end, but it is about one of my favorite documentary shows, a radio show to be exact, called This American Life. I’d been wanting to post about it for some time but wasn’t compelled to until I listened to an older episode recently that had a big affect of me. Every episode is great for its own reasons. They also have a TV show now on Showtime which is quite good as well. So basically this post is a big plug for Ira Glass and both of his shows and that if you like the thoughtful “slice of life” documentary style then you shouldn’t miss this stuff. The episode in question is no different.

The title of the episode is “Act V” and it is referring to the last act of the play Hamlet which I personally know all too well having both acted and directed the play and seen it more times than I’d like to say. Anyway, most everyone knows a little something about the plot, but needless to say there is a lot of talk about murder and in the final act a lot of real murder happening as well. Basically all the main characters kill each other at the end. Blood bath. The radio show episode is about a theatre director who goes into real prisons and does this last act of the play with actual prisoners over 6 months time. She auditions them, trains them, rehearses them and finally they perform. The wonderful thing about the show is that you can see over the course of the process how much they change in some profound ways. They make a great point that as many people as there have been who have played Hamlet over the years there is almost never an actor who has actually been a murderer. No one can really relate to this character at all. Except prison inmates. They are in many ways the perfect actors for this play. To hear them talk about their own analysis of the play and the characters and how it relates to their own life and wrong doings is quite profound (at least to me). Most of these guys have never been on stage let alone read Shakespeare. All levels of education and upbringing, etc. You can almost hear them being rehabilitated as the hour long radio show goes on. It just can’t be the case that our only solution for justice is to put someone in a cell for their entire life. I’m not saying I’m against the death penalty, but when you hear how these guys were affected by doing a simple thing like this play and how far they come over just 6 sporadic months of rehearsal, you begin to think that there must be many different forms of rehabilitation out there if we only thought more creatively. Yes, I’ll go ahead and say that it could be the “power of theatre” or some such nonsense, but you know, it kind of is.

Prisons, Shakespeare and Radio. Who knew. If you don’t listen to the radio show and you think it is up your alley, then check it out. If you get Showtime look for the TV show. It is only a half hour. If you subscribe to the weekly podcast you get the show for free each week for 7 days. I think it is often the most downloaded podcast in the country. The episode, “Act V”, can be found here. I think you may be able to stream the show for free from the web site too. There are going to be few times in life where these three unlikely things come together to present such a cohesive vision of possibilities. I dare say that this happens in almost every episode of the show. Thanks Ira.

Ghost
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET
Murder!

Ghost
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

HAMLET
Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.

So I’ve been trying to play more and more web games lately. I find that we pass them around at work fairly often and it turns out that while we have been spending all this time making these damn multi-year long games on these ridiculous consoles that all these amazingly talented web developers are using the one platform that outnumbers all the consoles sold combined, Flash, to make games just as compelling as anything we could make (if not more). Playing from a browser. That is it. Well, whether you can say it is part of the indy revolution or not, truth is it has sort of snuck up on all of us and proven that in the end the power of the hardware and the big budgets have little to do with the art form.

Some may have seen this already, but a recent game that crossed my path via a friend, Jason Botta, is called Questionaut. It seems that the design company Amanita Design created it as an educational game for the BBC for 11 year old kids. But trust me it is great for all ages. I had forgotten that these folks also won Best Web-Based Game from the IGF (Independent Game Festival) last year in 2007 for Samorost 2. I knew I had seen the Questionaut art style somewhere.

Questionaut is a wonderful blend of what games can do with integrating learning and interactivity but with style and originality as well. We get so caught up in all the crap of making huge games, we sometimes forget about the fundamentals. Well that is all these folks have to work with…and frankly I’m envious. We could all learn a thing or 200 from these devs.

Well enough of this crap, go play Questionaut. Everyone.

There isn’t anything more I can say about No Country For Old Men that hasn’t been said before now. Watching the Oscars last night, I was happy to see that it was recognized as I consider it to be one of the most perfect films I’ve ever seen. And though, at the end of the day, awards like those really can’t mean that much in the grand scheme of things (judging art, all that crap) there was one other award given last night that I was extremely happy to see. The award for best song went to “Falling Slowly” from the film Once which was an independent movie from last year that I completely forgot I saw until they performed the song on the show. I saw it alone in Eugene, Oregon while I was up there on a business trip in a small art house called The BiJou. The theme song for the movie stuck with me while I was walking back to the hotel and I remember thinking that it was such a great song (matched with a great movie) that it must have been from someone’s album that they bought the rights for to use in the film. The heart behind the performances of the song in the movie during the opening scene (as I recall) and beyond and the backdrop for the whole circumstance for the story had an honesty that is rare in film these days.

Well, I pretty much forgot about it all after that but when they performed again last night it all came rushing back. I figured they wouldn’t win anyway, some stupid Disney movie had three nominations for best song from the same damn movie, so as always…no justice. But then it happened. They won, I find out they made the movie with 100k in three weeks and it was mainly the two of them making it happen. I was so happy for them. Glen Hansard gave a genuine speech and all was well until Marketa Irglova got cut off an didn’t get to give her own speech. Then, for the first time in the 80 years of the Oscars, they paused the show to allow her to come back on to give her speech after all. Justice served twice. Marketa’s speech was even better. Awards shows like these are pretty ridiculous, but they can sometimes have a big impact on the right people and I can’t deny that. The tune will stick with me now for sure.

Please go out to see or rent this movie. It is the real deal, to be sure.

Here are their speeches if you missed them.

This is a link to the performance of the song in the movie with both of them for the first time and here is the Wiki for the amazing history behind the making of the movie itself.

By now everyone has shared their “Games of the Year” (GOTY, of course) blog post and news articles. So, why should Bullet Points be any different? Except I’ll be doing things a bit differently because I don’t see why these sort of proclamations have to only fall within the one previous year. No one other than extreme hard cores and journos (thanks for the term Garnett) can play all the right games for the year to even make that kind of judgment. Even then they often don’t get to finish everything so how can we really know for sure. So for Bullet Points I’m talking about the top “Games I Played This Year” (GIPTY) instead. These are my personal games of the year because they had the biggest effect on me during 2007 but I won’t be taking into account their release dates. Forget about these arbitrary annual devisions. Go with the biggest games for you personally. Don’t let the tide of the larger group sway your decisions.

So, I won’t be talking about the same damn games that everyone else is. How can you argue with some of those top tens for 07 and why re-hash. In fact, in some cases, the games I’ll throw out there were not even top games in the year they did come out in. Could it be that another title for this post is “My Favorite 80% games of the Year?” So here we go…

HITMAN BLOOD MONEY
3BR (Three Bullet Review)

• HIT: Near perfect execution of Hitman fantasy fulfillment. (Yes, for some reason I have always wanted to be one.)



• HIT: Delivering a world with the right choices are given to the player and are always fun to discover and execute.
• MISS: The few mechanics conflicting with core goals (Such as rewarding the player with more guns when guns are not what the game is about at all.) keep the game from being an award winner for most.

Any game that lets you smuggle a live pistol into an opera rehearsal via the coat check and then go and take out one of the actors back stage to impersonate them by wearing their costume and then actually taking the stage during the rehearsal to use that same live gun on your target while he is singing on stage as the “fake” gun sound effect goes off in an opera about an execution is brilliant. Then you just walk away like nothing happened. And that is only one way to do it. There were too many unforgettable moments to be shared. Now why the hell is Agent 47 a clone again?

DEAD RISING
3BR

• HIT: Non-linear Survival Horror in a mall with unlimited Zombies to kill with nearly unlimited weapons. I mean, for anyone who was a fan of Dawn of the Dead, it is pretty much a done deal.



• HIT: Extremely compelling tension set up by the survivor mechanic (which also had its fair share of frustration, I’ll admit) which gave you a great sense of what it actually might be like to live through a Zombie apocalypse.
• MISS: Baffling design choices (only one save, promoting restarting the game multiple times, mutually exclusive events happening at the same time, and more) which either were lost in translation from being a Japanese developer trying to deliver a more Western game structure or someone was playing a joke on their audience.

I wrote a post awhile back about embracing bad design and used this game as one of the examples. I’ve been wanting to play this “type of game” for years and this one got the closest. Once you gave in to the choices they made then the game took on a whole new meaning and was extremely hard to put down.

LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE
3BR

• HIT: A fully realized Middle Earth (for as much as they have of it so far) where I, for the first time, actually felt like I was playing the books. Not the movies.



• HIT: If you can’t beat them, join them. WoW may hold the crown but LotRO cloned enough of WoW to seem familiar to new WoW players while still maintaining enough of its own identity (new class structures) so that it still feels like a new MMO experience in many ways.
• MISS: Suffers from some of the same things as WoW such as terribly boring quest activities and too much repetition.

I can’t say enough about this game if you are an MMO player and more specifically a WoW player. I guess it does help to be a Lord of the Rings fan as well, I’ll admit. It is stunningly beautiful for an MMO (takes a beefy machine) and has cracked the whole mismatched armor looking like crap issue that WoW still has in spades. You look good no matter what you wear (It’s important!). Also, the “single-player” aspect of the Epic quests complete with cutscenes and voice lines all along the way (from Gandalf!) makes you feel like you are right behind Frodo on his quest. I hope they stick around long enough to make it to Mordor. Even if I have to take the damn ring their myself! (Yes I’m playing a Hobbit.)

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Mainly because I started these in 2007 and have not yet finished them. So they seem to be promising but I don’t want to say for sure yet.

• Beyond Good and Evil: As a full package it rivals Zelda for that “complete adventure” feel. Unlike Zelda though I actually care about the characters and what I’m doing. May be a hit for me.
• STALKER: This game might just hold me over while I wait for Fallout 3. It is also way too early to tell, but combining open-world with factions with a post-apocalyptic shooter is pushing all my buttons.
• Armageddon Empires: Developed by one fellow, this turn-based tactical card game with a hex board is a throw back to the good old days. I’m not too deep into this one yet but if I get the hang of it I can see some addiction happening.

So there you have it. I didn’t even mention any of the usual suspects for this year. You know the ones I mean. So let’s all cheer for the games that left their mark on us when we least expected it. I can’t argue with the amazing successes that 2007 brought us all. But I also can’t ignore the fact that some of my favorite games are the ones that are easily missed. Don’t let the good ones (for you) get away. And don’t let people give you crap for liking them.

P.S. Though it got some good press this year as well, I think it needs a bit more. Crackdown warmed my heart in a few ways (not being a GTA fan but wanting something like it) and I hope we get to see more iterations of that series because the sequel could really hit the target.

I was joking that we were going to Ireland to raid some tombs, but it turns out that is almost exactly what we did. My wife’s blog will no doubt cover every minute of the trip in some form so I won’t duplicate it all in that way here. Some of the highlights of the trip for me seemed to somehow relate back to my day job though. It was an astounding trip to be sure, every single day, but each time we were able to visit an actual ancient monument of some kind it obviously left an impression on me. We look for inspiration in so many ways, often seeking that inspiration in logical places such as works found in our own medium of games as well as similar mediums such as film and books. But until we actually get our asses out into the real world and are standing at the real thing I don’t think we really realize how valuable that can be. Sure, in the end we are really creating fantasy which by definition means it can’t really be found in reality, but it all really comes from someplace found on Earth first. Mainly this is because that is all we have to draw from for now. Almost every planet found in a science-fiction story is based on a location found on Earth, right? So, instead of merely looking to the reference why not get a heavy dose of the real thing, even if it out your back door. I, for one, forget the impact that it can have on me. Maybe the old haunts grow a little stale, but someplace like Ireland, with such a rich history…well, I really just wasn’t prepared.

The first high point I’ll mention is a boat trip we took out to a place called Skellig Michael. About an hour off the southern coast of Ireland is a desolate rock island where catholic monks built a small monastery by constructing beehive huts from the slate rock on the island and 580 steps to get to the small village. Its age and the amount of work that the monks had to endure to voluntarily create this village was truly humbling. Standing there inside a still waterproof stone hut that is made from merely stacking rocks on top of each other with no mortar and is still a livable structure could no be fathomed. Their underground fresh water collection system still works today and the rangers on the island use it for their own water. Just the idea of creating the steps alone made me tired. Though they did it over many many years, of course, that sort of discipline just doesn’t seem to be present in this day and age. To be able to see this and stand where the monks stood for even a short time gives you an amount of respect that I personally don’t feel too often anymore. It could be said that that sort of commitment and work just isn’t done anymore as well. In some ways, maybe we lost it as we progressed and evolved with technology and industry. We just don’t need to do things that way now. In that sort of progress I can’t help but think we lost something along the way. It helps me think about how much weight we need to give to the locations we choose to try to deliver to our audiences. This goes beyond a high poly-count and complicated photo-realistic materials. It is not something a screen shot can really tell you. We need to go deeper in some way.

The second highlight is maybe an obvious one once you hear what it is. Newgrange is a 5000 year old mound tomb built by Neolithic age people without the invention of the wheel and before the introduction of the horse to Ireland. No engineering or true astronomy was around at the time, yet they built this structure in line with the Winter Solstice so that during those shortest days of the year the Sun’s light would shine through a small hole into the tomb and illuminate a normally pitch black chamber. This thing is 500 years older than the Egyptian Pyramids of Giza. They allow 20 people to go in at a time and it is quite cramped. Also a stone stacking technique with no mortar involved it was even more baffling to experience than Skellig. Without wheels and horses it would take them something like 12 hours to move some of the large stones 3 miles with about 8 people, they predict. The petroglyphs found there are still a mystery to us and even the purpose of the tomb itself isn’t clear. What was clear was that this was a place of tremendous importance to them and was among the most difficult things those people could undertake and it is still standing today. The interaction with the sun still works as it did then. There is a 27,000 person waiting list chosen by lottery of people who want to be able to go into the tomb on the actual Solstice to see the real deal the ancients saw it. And even if you get chosen it may rain and you lose your chance anyway. They did a simulation with a light bulb and turned all the lights off inside the tomb to show us that and I have to admit I got a bit teary. I just couldn’t believe I was actually standing there where these people stood. It was beyond words at the time and still is and of course photos can’t do the experience justice. To be able to try to take that moment I experienced and bring it back into the work that I do to try to simulate something even remotely similar has pushed me into a new level of inspiration. It had to, there was no question. These people, the ones who created this place, they believed in magic and spirits and myths and the unexplained and ultimately in fantasy. Now we use their sacred places as a foundation for stories that spark the imagination to believe things like Atlantis being a real place and what it meant from a science-fiction standpoint. But when it comes down to it, no matter how much sci-fi we add to our work to make it more compelling to our audience, our imagination can’t hold a candle to the real thing. That is what will resonate with our players the most.