Next-gen consoles are supposed to be incredibly powerful, but it is hard to measure that power without a test. Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction seems to test the power of the PS3, cramming in as many explosions, sounds, AI, and activities on the screen as possible. It is a slight departure from previous Ratchet and Clank games, but this fast-paced platformer certainly performs well.

I was only able to play through the demo of this game, but I was impressed. From start to finish, the demo was a rush. It takes place in a city with incredibly tall buildings and vertical space is utilized in a unique way. Ratchet seemed to fall far enough be considered fatal, but then he would hit be some sort of trampoline device and he would fly through the air to a new destination.

The game was truly action-packed. There was a plethora of scripted events happening around Ratchet, but many did not directly affect him. It reminded me of the original Half-Life, where I could often look around and see events that could be missed if I was not vigilant. The processor on the PS3 handled all the scripted events and explosions beautifully; the console never slowed me down. The PS3 also allowed for greatly improved visuals - the animation was incredible and felt as sharp as that in a Pixar animated feature film.

Despite its intense pace, Tools of Destruction still preserved many of the best features of the series, including the humor and fun weapons. The characters were rich, as always. The weapons were creative, from a weapon that could morph enemies to a groovitron, which made all enemies in the vicinity dance.

Gameplay was similar to the rest of the series. There were some difficult parts that seemed unbalanced with the rest of the game. Fortunately, there were many checkpoints, so the game was fairly forgiving if you died. Also, most of the gameplay was very solid. There was a wonderfully creative part where I got to use the sixaxis tilting to steer Ratchet through multi-tiered air traffic. It was a fantastic moment of gameplay and an experience that felt strangely realistic.

I really enjoyed the demo for Tools of Destruction. It seems like a great use of the PS3’s power and I hope that the whole game lives up to the high standard set by the demo.  

When I tell people I’m majoring in video game design, they often ask me about Halo. The Halo series has penetrated mainstream culture in a way that most games never will. I think it is great that this franchise has made the entertainment industry take notice of the purchasing power of gamers, but I am not a fan of Halo. FPS games aren’t my favorite, since they usually lack the story, characterization, and lovely graphics that keep me glued to RPGs and adventure games.

When Halo 3 came out, I heard the co-op mode was decent. Hoping that this would mean better chances of survival for me, I grabbed a friend who hadn’t played much Halo and sat down with him to play Halo 3.

The opening sequence was decent but not terribly impressive by my standards. I soon found myself controlling an alien who had grudgingly become an ally of Master Chief. I found this somewhat amusing, as I was a taller than the human but much shorter than my co-op partner in real life. It was fun to tower above him and watch him running ahead of me.

The console FPS controls were somewhat confusing compared to the PC mouse and keyboard. This is a common issue for those used to PCs, and those used to consoles will often have the opposite problem. It seems that it’s merely a matter of preference for most people. However, I often found myself running into the ground or swinging the camera wildly in my attempts to determine whether or not the camera was inverted compared to my intuitive idea of controls.

Due to my difficulties in controlling my character, my partner would often run ahead. We established a nice system where he would jump into melee combat and I would stay behind, sniping off some enemies and providing a re-spawn point. This worked well for a while, but soon became somewhat boring.

The enemies were mostly mindless. A certain group of aliens had ridiculous voices that made me laugh at the game…because it was so stupid. I didn’t like the idea of the enemy being completely idiotic. I prefer games where war is about fighting for what you think is right, but you still realize the consequences due to the humanization of the enemy.

The biggest problem I had with this game in general was the fact that I just didn’t care. There was little cover, sporadically placed, but it didn’t seem to matter much if I died. Ammo was in good supply, so I never had to consider conserving my resources. I could just shoot everywhere if I wanted. Also, there was an A.I. controlled team that we first rescued and then joined. They provided little help; I didn’t really notice if they were around or not.

Compared to games like Half-Life, this game was incredibly dull and lacked a decent story. The story was sprinkled in small doses after completing certain objectives, but it wasn’t very interesting. Since I didn’t care about my team and those around me, I found myself lacking motivation.

Finally, I was frustrated with Halo 3 due to its unrefined design. There were enormous enemies with huge shock sticks that were ridiculously powerful. If these enemies ran at you, you would die, even if your partner was shooting them in the back. This type of imbalance is something I aim to avoid in my games. Then there was little guidance in the form of maps, making it hard to figure out where to go. Unlike the refined level design of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the level design in Halo often left me lost.

For such a popular game, I was very disappointed in my co-op Halo 3 experience. I hope that the appeal in this game comes from the multiplayer aspect, because I was sincerely disappointed in the story mode. Halo 3 seems like an unrefined, mediocre experience.  

I didn’t think I’d want to see Bioshock. I’m way too jumpy for scary games and I prefer to play games in fantasy worlds that I’d actually want to visit. I downloaded the Bioshock demo for a friend so I could watch the game without actually playing it. That way, if it got too scary, I could always run away.

I was about to leave my friend alone to play the game but I hesitated before leaving the room. I had heard so many great things about this game from fans and critics alike; I figured it wouldn’t hurt me to watch the opening cutscene.

I was immediately drawn in by the sharp visuals, particularly the stunning water effects. This was one of the first games I saw with the HDMI plug on my HDTV, making it stand out among so many games I’d seen. From the plane crash in the beginning to the neon lights in the dimly-lit city of Rapture, the visual design was simply stunning.

I was surprised that the demo didn’t explore the scare factor that I was dreading. I was able to watch a good 30 minutes of gameplay in the creepy atmosphere without once experiencing something jumping out of the dark. This meant that I didn’t scream, but I did see something shocking.

As my friend was going through the game, he came upon a scene with a girl repeatedly jabbing a corpse’s butt. After venturing closer, a scene plays where a guy gets vividly drilled by a Big Daddy. I was impressed by the game’s ability to smoothly transition from gameplay to interactive cutscene. I’ve heard that Half-Life 2 employed a similar technique, but with the visuals in Bioshock, it was impressive. Blood never really bothers me, but I was certainly shocked by the fact that the player could bring their character so close to the scene and still remain undetected.

After watching my friend play through the entire Bioshock demo, I am convinced that perfection is very subjective. Critics have rated this game incredibly high, but I have a hard time believing that everyone would rate it a similar score, at least for its appeal. I have never been drawn to survival horror games like this. Near perfect gaming experiences for me must include lovely worlds like those in Okami and Eternal Sonata. Although I may appreciate the lightning powers, the perfectly rendered water effects, the seamless cutscenes and the atmosphere, I don’t think that I would ever enjoy playing this game. I have seen enough to know what a splicer is and to know that this game is probably very good for its genre, but certainly not a good fit for me.  

Last Thursday, we talked about Salen and Zimmerman’s Rules of Play. We read the section concerning games and narratives. I have recently had to confront this issue directly, as I am attempting to create my own narrative through games.

One of my other classes has a final project that consists of creating a movie using game footage (machinima). Whether it includes gameplay or cinematic sequences is up to us, but we must use games to construct a cohesive short film. While it would be amusing to create a movie using a engines and mods such as the plethora available for Half-Life, I wanted to go for a less complicated structure. Since I have not even played Half-Life and would not dream of creating a movie using a mod, I needed to create something that could build upon my previous movie-making experiences. I have made many silly movies for class and for fun. My favorite type of movies would probably be educational movies, so I decided to build from there. I abandoned the idea of creating my own fictional story.

After discussions with the professor, I decided to make an educational movie for recovering Video Game Addicts. It will poke fun at the ridiculous laws and rules of games and also has recent political implications due to the fact that video games are often blamed for causing people to become more violent. I made a script for it with my partner, and found that we would need about 10-15 games to demonstrate important physical and legal principles of everyday life.

In order to find the games for our movie, we brainstormed. Just as in Rules of Play, we had to think about all the important elements of many of these games’ narratives, such as situation, character, conflict, uncertainty, and story events. While thinking back through games we had played and their stories, we revised our lists of physical and legal rules that govern our lives. Games such as Final Fantasy X are completely fantastic, largely dependent on imaginary summons and magic. There are even levels that can only be completed underwater with a human who supposedly has trained himself hold his breath so that he can be underwater for long periods of time. More conventional movie narratives, such as that in Indigo Prophecy, provided an inspiration for the reminder on who can and can’t be killed.

A short while later, I was able to turn in my other game rentals (such as LEGO Star Wars II) for the games I needed for the project. I recently captured the first five minutes of Indigo Prophecy, in which the character you play suddenly discovers a bloody knife in his hand and a stabbed corpse on the floor in front of him. While this will help humorously illustrate how it is not appropriate to kill average people, the game takes itself quite seriously. The menu screen refers to games as movies (i.e. “Begin Movie” for a new game), and it certainly feels like a cinematic experience as the narrator’s voice drawls over the soaring cinematic sequence that follows a crow to the scene of the crime. I can see now how much of the narrative is embedded in the beginning, and the choice to call the game a “movie” certainly implies that the narrative has already been laid out for the player to discover it.

Unfortunately, I did not have time to play through more of the game, since I had to move on to complete my first cut in the next couple of weeks. I would like to continue playing Indigo Prohphecy, if only to see how much control I have as the player (and to see whether there is the possibility of creating an emergent narrative). While my movie will not be a fictional narrative, the narratives in other games will help to reflect the narratives that people create in their everyday lives and (hopefully) create an effective humorous teaching tool for Video Game Addicts.