I got to play a PS3 today. A recent graduate in my program came into one of my classes, and she happens to be developing a downloadable game for the PS3. I was excited to hear her speak about how she started her career and even more excited to play the prototype on the PS3.

While the prototype was not complete, much of the artwork and animation was in place. My classmates and I were all very impressed when she put in the cheats so we could see the final forms for the creatures you can control.

I watched a few people play using only motion control - no buttons or analog sticks. The game is a 2D/3D hybrid that is very dynamic and captivating. It was amusing to watch some of my classmates use the motion control, over-compensating and wiggling around in an uncoordinated dance.

When it was finally my turn, I moved the controller in more moderate movements and found that it was quite intuitive. I enjoyed moving my character with only motions themselves, rather than being artificially separated with button-mashing or stick-pushing.

However, I found that the motion control was not as revolutionary as I would have hoped. At its heart, I was still just moving a controller around, but at least it was in a 3D environment (rather than the confining limits of analog sticks, triggers, and buttons). While the motion control felt natural, it was not as if I merged with the game. Even if I was playing on an enormous projection, it made no difference.

So where will games go next? How will motion control become innovative rather than boring? I am excited to play the Wii and compare. I hope developers will take advantage of the next-gen possibilities of the Wiimote and the PS3’s motion controls as they become more commonplace. We may not have the Virtual Reality we once dreamed of for the future, but at least we can create a more immersive experience through the motion control in the next-gen consoles.  

I was playing through Okami this weekend when I heard of a special treasure area called “Moley’s Treasure Trove.” My source told me to look for “a large, circular slab of rock at Taka Pass.” Sounds easy enough, right?

Apparently, you had to use the Digging Champ (advanced digging) ability to find this. I looked at the large, circular slab of hard ground by the moles (thinking the name implied that it would be close to Moley, the mole leader). I dug and dug, but the ground yielded nothing but a couple of inkpots and some food. I was disappointed, but I still held out hope that this treasure would prove easy money and be just a few footsteps away.

I ran around Taka pass, gradually exploring a wider and wider radius. I dug around every rock that was remotely circular. After finding no treasure troves, I went back to a side area of Taka Pass (accessible through a cave) where a I had bloomed a guardian sapling. I found a couple of clovers to bloom but, once again, no treasure trove.

In desperation, I looked to the internet for help. While a web search for “Moley’s Treasure Trove” yielded few results, I did find one clue. It appeared that one of the digging champ spots WAS in Taka Pass by someone/something named Bingo. I was very excited, despite the fact that I was not sure who Bingo was. I assumed that it was the little dog I fed and went back to the game.

Once I found the little dog, I ran around and around but to no avail. I was so thoroughly disappointed by what I had hoped would be a simple treasure hunt that I quit for the day. I had spent nearly an hour running around looking for something that definitely wasn’t worth the time.

As I look back, I can see how I was sucked into what was perhaps an unintentional addictive game element. While extras such as this treasure trove are meant to be somewhat elusive (if not time-consuming), I had taken on the typical addict’s view of “it’s just around the next corner” or “just one more try.” I hate that part of myself sometimes, because I lose sight of what’s really important (in terms of the game and my life in general) and become focused sometimes to the point of hindrance. On certain memory mini-games, for example, I could not try more than ten times at once because I would no longer be able to keep track of all the elements. One such games involved remembering the order in which I had to kill the five thieves, and after ten tries, I had been holding the order for fifty separate thieves in my short-term memory.

In the end, I left Moley’s Treasure Trove alone and decided to move on. Even if I had stupidly missed something, it was not worth my time anymore. I shut off the game in my frustration and took a break.  

I had the pleasure of listening to three producers from Electonic Arts (EA) talk about their daily jobs and careers, as they were guest speakers in one of my classes. Each was at a different level (associate producer, producer, and executive producer) and added their own personal flavor to their presentation. One of the most memorable pieces of advice from that evening was the importance of the first 30 minutes of a game. Basically, if you can’t captivate the player in the first 30 minutes, you lose them.

I was incredibly frustrated to experience this first-hand when I began playing the PSP game Daxter with a friend. We were both horribly bored, waiting for an event to start, and had over an hour to kill. I was excited that we had some form of entertainment in the PSP.

I got to play first. There were limited opening cinematics. After a brief introduction, I was set to go on my way. I had never played a PSP before, so I had to get accustomed to the controls. They were fairly intuitive, but I still found myself running in the wrong direction for five minutes before my friend encouraged me to turn back. Why would I do such a thing? The man who gave me my assignment did not help point me in the right direction. I was supposed to go to a hotel, but I did not know that the building I was in was not the hotel. No one told me this.

Aside from the unclear layout of the level (which seemed to get worse, including a very important elevator in the hotel that was placed in a location far to the left), the movement had additional problems. Daxter himself is quite small, and I found myself feeling limited by his narrow view. He seemed to take up a relatively small amount of screen and I found it hard to control him and get the camera in the right spot. While his body movements were animated gracefully, I grew frustrated because I wanted a character that could manipulate the environment more – like Jak.

When my friend took over, he mentioned how ordinary many of the levels felt. He was exactly right. Excluding an unglorified laundry chute (in which you could collect items as you slid down), the platformer seemed conventional to the point of boredom. After finishing this game, what would I have gained? The plot was weak (if not non-existent) and the gameplay wasn’t very engaging. My friend and I both groaned when, ten minutes into the game, we found out that we had to collect power orbs just like in every other Jak game. Daxter’s in-game explanation of this was “Collect the power orbs. It can’t hurt!” That’s really a way to motivate us.

After playing Daxter for a mere 20 minutes or so, my friend and I grew so frustrated that we turned it off. Between running around trying to figure out where to go next and the cookie-cutter conventionality, it simply was not worth our time, not matter how bored we may have been. I would never even complete the first 30 minutes because the first 20 felt like another tired sequel.  

“I’m so psyched about it – just seeing that chain saw gun makes me want to play it right now.” This is a shining example of the highly academic talk I encounter before my game design classes begin. This particular conversation was before the release of Gears of War. At the time, I shook my head, thinking, “Boys will be boys.” I knew little about the game and shrugged it off as another hack-and-slash testosterone indulgence.

While the idea of massacring large numbers of monstrous enemies often appeals to me (especially in an RPG environment), the whole idea of using a chain saw seemed a bit graphic at the time. My imagination began to wander…were people actually going to use such chain saw guns to hack up other humans in war? If so, I thought it was a bit extreme on the gore factor. Why couldn’t it just be a chain saw? Then it could be more or a melee weapon. The idea of combining a chain saw and a gun seemed ridiculous to me, but I guess I can’t be too critical. After all, one of my favorite games (perhaps because it was also one of my first) was Final Fantasy VIII, and that had a gunblade (which didn’t even fire bullets).

I guess video game weapons were made to be ridiculous, so maybe it was unfair of me to judge a game so quickly by its weapons. Fortunately, I was surprised a couple weeks later to find that Gears of War had been getting rave reviews.

I happened to watch some co-workers playing it at the end of the day. I was offered the chance to play myself, but, after watching one of my friends (with little more FPS shooting experience than myself) fail miserably, I politely declined. However, I was happy to discover that the game was not about killing other humans.

I watched the guy who brought in Gears of War as he played it. He went through part of a level, explaining how he liked the fact that it had depth, great graphics, and a viable plot. He loved the multiplayer (four on four). He was also explaining what he didn’t like: your partner’s A.I. had a tendency to run him into the line of fire and get him killed.

Then one particularly even co-worker began to play it. At first he was his calm, normal self. I admired the graphics and mechanics of the game, but decided to play Okami next to him after getting the feel of the game. Soon, however, he grew more and more agitated. He began to swear and became more aggressive. Our other co-worker chuckled and remarked on the difficulty of the game.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against violence in video games, but it was pretty funny to see my even co-worker get all upset over a shooting game. I left that day, glad to have seen the game, but not filled with regret for declining to play. I am more easily agitated than my co-worker and definitely could do without the frustration and stress of a shooter.

The next week, when I walked into class, I heard my classmates talking once again about Gears of War. I was proud that I had seen it and had a little more knowledge than before. However, one of my peers did mention how "it's one of those games that becomes beautiful when you master the mechanics.” Even if I do not think I would enjoy playing Gears of War, I do think I should respect it for the beauty others have found in it.  

Designing games can be a very time-consuming process – especially if you take the time to play other games to keep an eye on the market. While working on a paper design project for class, I decided to share a couple games I really enjoy with my group to help inspire us.
One of my partners enjoys games, but not the same types of games that I play. He is more into the action, stealth, and FPS games. As our project was fairly free-form, we had a lot of room for innovation. However, it’s not easy to come up with an innovative idea that would be fun and engaging. This is where I decided to turn to two games I find very innovative: Katamari Damacy and Okami.

Again and again, I have found myself showing Katamari to people who only casually play games or rarely play at all. I even got my sister to buy it, and it became the first PS2 game she ever bought (the other title she owned being the RPG Legends of Legaia, which she never finished). She has been showing it to her friends, especially those who do not game. So why do we both want to show it to everyone?

There is something pleasantly surprising about rolling a ball and finding everything stick to it. The simple controls (mainly the two PS2 analog sticks) are fairly intuitive, making it easy for beginners to pick it up. An inherent beauty can be found in the ability to manipulate your environment in this new way – everything becomes a manipulative, as long as you are big enough. The sound effects are very amusing – especially when the annoying kid who blocked your way moments ago screams in terror as you roll him up along with a couple penguins. Then there’s the ridiculously Japanese music that ranges from perky J-Pop to jazzy swing. It’s quite satisfying to pick up everything around you while listening to such lyrics as “I want to wad you up into my life.” Aside from the mechanics and music, the visuals are highly stylized and full of colors so bright that they are almost hard on the eyes at first. The towering King of All Cosmos is terrifying with his huge head and tights that leave nothing to the imagination. Yet the little prince you control is so tiny and seemingly helpless, it’s hard not to love him.

With all these unique qualities, it’s no surprise that Katamari has spawned fiercely loyal fans. I am among them, even though I have not gotten around to finishing the game. However, this does not stop me from expressing my love of the game to others. I showed my partners the multiplayer mode of the game, in an effort to get them used to the unique world and innovative mechanics. I wanted to show them an experience that was very different from anything they had experiences, and Katamari is one of those games that truly has to be played to be understood.

After my partners had gotten a taste of Katamari, I played a quick demo of Okami. After all, I had heard little about the game until I saw someone else playing it. After watching the fluid movements of the wolf and staring transfixed at the screen for half an hour, I decided I had to play it. The art style is so unique in how it combined brush art with a 3-D environment that I was captivated simply as a viewer. My partners were similarly impressed with the art and flow of the movements. In the short time I played for them, they could see why I loved it.

This leads me to wonder, why do we love to share games with other people? In the one semester time that I have had the privilege of studying games in school, I have found a community of people who love games. They love talking about games and sharing their personal experiences. It could be about the desire to know the latest news, but I like to think that it could be more than that. Perhaps it’s more about sharing what we love with others and hoping that the market will someday adapt. I know that I dream of the day when innovation outsells the sequels, but it hardly seems commercially viable. Perhaps I love to share simply because I love games; I want understand the pleasure I find in video games and why I need to play them.  

Due to a much-needed break in my workload this weekend, I was able to play a lot of games. After DotA, I played another Warcraft III mod, Tower Defense. I also spent six or eight hours playing Okami.

Tower Defense is a game where you build towers to shoot down wave after wave of monsters. These monsters progress in strength, grow in numbers, and therefore become increasingly more difficult to defeat. When you begin the game, you are given virtually no help – no tutorial, no time to read the descriptions, and little warning before the first wave arrives. You can only let 100 monsters through the gate at the end, which only seems like a good number until one monster from the second or third wave counts for more than one monster. As the game gets harder, you can let fewer monsters through.

Due to the difficult nature of the Tower Defense from the speed, strength, and sheer number of monsters, I had little patience for it. The sounds effects, such as a sing-song “Job’s Done” in the voice of a pea-brained construction worker, get increasingly annoying due to the frenzied pace at which you have to execute such commands. You are also given very few resources in the beginning and receive more mostly by surviving waves, so it becomes very hard to get catch up if you ever fall behind.

I simply hate feeling rushed and played this game only a handful of times before giving up. I found the tasks repetitive and frenzied, making for a game that quickly became frustrating and only seemed like something you’d play for hours just to say you had beaten a really hard game. I am not that type of player, which may explain why I happily moved on to Okami later that day.

I have already raved about the first hour of Okami and how engaging it was for me. I purchased the strategy guide so I wouldn’t miss out on important points or get lost. Without the stress of wasting time running on a wild goose chase for an item or task, I was able to relax into the game. The music is often very relaxing, and the natural environments provide a serene isolation. Even if you are accompanied by your tiny friend Issun, he provides no annoying commentary, just a helping hand to push the story and you, as the player, in the right direction. I never found myself feeling alone. I just felt peaceful, even in the fights. I often choose to fight with paintbrush strokes, which is a nice break from the button-mashing common in most games. Instead, you become the artist, unleashing the most powerful attacks through artistry. I have always found art to be relaxing, and maybe that is another reason why I find Okami to be a nice break from my life.

As much as I enjoy Okami, I never played for more than two or three hours at a time. I wondered if it was just me or the nature of the game. While I knew that Tower Defense would not entertain me for even one session of Okami, I grew tired of Okami for one of the biggest reasons why I tired of Tower Defense: repetition. Tower Defense seemed to provide little in the way of variation for gameplay throughout all the waves, but even Okami can feel trivial after a few hours. Running around to get something as trivial as a fishing pole for someone can take a while, and, even if you can accomplish some greater goal in the process, it can be tiring. I recently fell off a cliff and had to take the long way back up, drawing vines over and over. I also tend to get tired of drawing lily pads in the water so the wolf doesn’t drown (why she can’t breathe while doggie paddling is beyond me). Even so, I am sad to leave the world of Okami and find it addictive again after a short break. Perhaps I just find it easier to break up the monotony of gameplay with the monotony of my real life. I feel a little more grounded, and, if anything, it keeps the console from overheating.  

One of my good friends has been pestering me to learn how to play the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients for a long time now. As a fellow RPG fan, he doesn’t care much for the regular Warcraft III RTS game – now he only play the mods. This weekend, I had some free time so I could finally sit down and learn Defense of the Ancients.

I own a Mac and only recently acquired a wireless mouse with a right-click button. I had previously been avoiding playing Warcraft III because of this physical barrier. However, there was also a mental barrier in that I have never really been attracted to war games or anything involving commanding units (unless you count Battleship). I had barely played the tutorial for Warcraft III when I finally decided to play the mods, hoping that they would have a greater appeal for me.

Defense of the Ancients (aka DotA) turned out to be more fun than I expected. In the beginning, you get to command one hero who can help turn the tides of an otherwise equal battlefield. While each of the games lasted around half an hour, I found that I could gain some sort of attachment to this hero, who essentially became my main focus. I played different heroes each time, and each had their own set of abilities and vocal responses. Some characters were more annoying than others, such as a perky dryad with a voice reminiscent of a ditzy ninth-grader. My friend played a group of goblins that I dubbed the “Band of Muppets” after their silly voices and weak attacks.

There is little customization in the characters, but I found myself going for only female characters. Like an avatar, I wanted to create a character that represented an idealized version of myself. I really enjoyed playing the beautiful, powerful women. I tried to go against my typical hack-and-slash combat mode to play the pretty, agile mages. These characters required some adjustments to my battle tactics, so I tried to learn how to attack from a distance and retreat at the first sign of a weakening defense. After struggling with this new technique for a couple games, I tried to switch to a powerful, combat-based Dragon Warrior. Unfortunately, I died faster than before.

I quickly discovered that I have a long way to go before I can really contribute to a team effort in DotA. I played DotA only against my friend or the computer. I played against my friend once (only after getting the hang of it by playing a few games cooperatively on easy mode against the computer). However, he happened to be very good at killing me – he killed me about seven times for the one kill I managed to get on him, and only by a happy accident. I am a sore loser from my past when I often lost board games to my older, wiser sister. I didn’t want to ruin my fragile self-esteem at the beginner stage so I insisted that he help me win by mentoring me instead of defeating me and leaving me out of the game. I wanted to be able to enjoy the game in the future.

My friend mentioned how DotA is basically an RTS modified to be more like an RPG. As he and I are both big RPG fans, it would make a lot of sense that I feel more attachment to a single hero that I control in this mod as opposed to a band of warriors in the normal game. With a name and a story, these characters jump out. Their vocal responses and special abilities are customized to where you would want to put different types of heroes on opposing teams. It could be a lot of fun to play in a group, where many different people choose characters that fit their player types and personalities. I hope to be able to play with a real team in the future, so maybe their personalities can shine through the heroes they command.