In the first episode of South Park's eighth season Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman buy ninja weapons at the South Park County Fair. The boys imagine themselves as real ninjas, and what ensues is a madcap adventure drawn in a parody of Japanese and American action-oriented cartoons.
The comedy comes by way of the fact that we in the audience get to see both sides of the fantasy. We see peeks of the boys both in their own fantasy world, and we get to contrast that against the real world, which usually intrudes at the most inopportune times. (E.g. Butters gets a ninja star stuck in his eye and the kids have to deal with taking him to the hospital without their parents finding out.) Even when we're in the fantasy world, though, it's obvious that we're really watching a bunch of 9-year-olds because the fantasy is just so ridiculous. "I have the power to have all the powers I want," Cartman says at one point. Not to mention the hilarious theme song.
Now, imagine the South Park boys successfully avoided all real-world intrustions for as long as they liked, and instead of buying ninja weapons, they went to a gun show and bought assault rifles and chainsaws. I wonder what that equally ridiculous fantasy would look like.
As far as I can tell, a major reason gameplay is not often used for the denouement of a game's story is that the designers of the game haven't equipped the player with the necessary gameplay elements. Take, for example, any shooter game. They are built from the ground up to let you explore levels, shoot enemies, and nothing more. Once the final boss is defeated, what more can you do? Shoot his corpse? Wander through his empty chambers? These games never come with a "Breathe a heavy sigh of relief" button. No wonder so many games end with a cutscene: Having your character wander around still in full combat mode while everyone congratulates him on his success wouldn't make any sense.
I feel obligated at this point to mention a game that comes close to being an exception: the Half-Life series. While it's true that the Half-Life games keep the player's experiences tied completely with the main character Gordon Freeman, I still feel like the denouements of each game are not expressed with gameplay. Each and every Half-Life game ends with Gordon Freeman being physically restrained in some way, usually being put into stasis by the G-Man until the beginning of the next game. Although you are still technically "playing" while this is going on, you can't move, and you can't shoot. You've pretty much been reduced to a silent observer, so what's the difference between that and a cutscene?
For fully action-oriented games such as these, I'm in agreement with Cory Stahl's assessment that cutscenes are appropriate and maybe even necessary.
For the denouement to be incorporated organically into the gameplay, I think that playing the denouement would have to feel as natural as playing the first level of the game. Sadly, most games are designed to let you fight your way to the climax, and that's it.
A game that actually bucks this trend, and is a great example of actually getting to play the denouement, is the original Katamari Damacy for PlayStation 2. Throughout the whole game, you roll up Katamaris in order to restore stars to the night sky. After you complete the final level, what do you do? Roll an enormous katamari around the entire earth, as the newly created stars shine down on you from above. It lets you feel satisfied with a job well done, while also letting you play in the same exact way you did when you started.
My main point is that gameplay must develop as a function of the story, not the other way around. But it's only with the last couple generations of consoles that we've even been able to do this. When Super Mario Bros. was released in the US in 1985, the details of the story were contained in the instruction booklet because Nintendo lacked the technology to put it entirely into the game. These days, we no longer have to do that. If the game's story involves a hero conquering obstacles, rescuing a princess and bringing her back to her castle, make sure you get to play every part of that story, not just the first part.
Here's an example of what I mean: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a game on the Nintendo DS that puts the player into the shoes of Phoenix Wright, a defense attorney who must always find his clients declared not guilty. When the third game of the series, Trials and Tribulations, was released, the promotional materials made a big deal out of the fact that there was a second playable character. "Play as TWO different attorneys!" the ads promised, as if this was going to change the gameplay in some significant way. As I played the game, however, I discovered that it didn't change the gameplay at all. Rather, the only reason you play as a different attorney is to develop the story from another character's point of view. The game's denouement, also, would not have been possible without this second playable character.
So, to wrap up, I would like to restate my point that the reason gameplay stops at the denouement is because, oftentimes, the gameplay was not designed with the denouement in mind. Develop the story from beginning to end, then design the gameplay from the ground up to fit the entire story. Do that, and playing the denouement should become much more common.
I can still remember, way back in 2005, the day I first heard about Guitar Hero. Specifically, it was from this Penny Arcade strip. "A music game that you play with a guitar-shaped controller? Sounds... dumb," I thought. This, coming from a guy who has spent countless hours and quarters on Dance Dance Revolution. But still, the idea of pressing buttons in time to music, whether it be on a guitar-shaped controller, or a regular controller, didn't really appeal to me. Then, my roommate bought it and I actually tried it out.
I immediately fell in love. The illusion sucked me in. It was air guitar, yet somehow so much more satisfying. From that day until today, Guitar Hero and its sequels and spin-offs have probably been the biggest portion of my gaming diet. Which is why it pains me to see the soulless husk that is the Guitar Hero franchise today.
The trouble started after the release of the superb Guitar Hero II. Harmonix, the original game developer, was purchased by MTV Networks, while RedOctane, who made the guitar controllers, was purchased by Activision. As a result, a schism happened. Activision would continue to publish the Guitar Hero franchise (handing development duties off to Neversoft), while Harmonix and MTV would develop a new music game.
I originally didn't think much about the split. Corporate buyouts happen all the time, right? But then I played the first Activision/Neversoft title, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Oh dear Lord. The problems were apparent right away. Instead of the usual "Play through an increasingly difficult list of rock songs" paradigm that defined the series up until that point, Guitar Hero III introduced "boss battles." Essentially, it would be you, the player, against a boss character, which was either Tom Morello or Slash. You would both play a song and attempt to make each other fail by using different "attacks." You could break the opponent's string, force him to use the whammy bar before he could play again, turn every note into a power chord, and so on.
On paper, it doesn't sound like a bad idea. In actual execution, it's terrible. It goes against practically everything that Guitar Hero was about up to that point, i.e. playing songs and having fun. No one plays a Guitar Hero game for the express purpose of forcing the other guy to fail by making him jam the whammy bar or play in Lefty mode or whatever. It was a shitty idea, it should never have been implemented, and Guitar Hero has basically never recovered from that blunder since Activision and Neversoft have been in charge of it.
Harmonix, meanwhile, was working on their next game, Rock Band. It took the basic Guitar Hero concept, and added drums and vocals for a full band experience. It appealed to me, but I initially couldn't justify the investment ($169.99 for the game and instruments). That changed after E3 of this year, where I finally got to try Rock Band 2 for the first time.
The awesome feeling I had from the very first time I played Guitar Hero came flashing back to me. This was it. This was the best music game. It combined a realistic music simulator with a killer multiplayer experience. It really did feel like playing in a band.
Activision and Neversoft, who know a good thing when they see it, did the only ethical thing: They blatantly copied Harmonix and came out with "Guitar Hero: World Tour," which also added drums and vocals. GameInformer even proclaimed that Neversoft was "changing music games forever."
Keep in mind this was after Rock Band was already on the market. So how exactly was Neversoft changing music games? By introducing plagiarism, I suppose.
Lack of originality aside, I've spent ample time playing both Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour and I can honestly say that Rock Band is a better game in pretty much every way.
Even if we put aside each game's song selection (which you will like or dislike solely based on personal taste anyway), Rock Band is clearly geared towards a fun, multiplayer experience. There's a wide range in difficulty for every instrument, and a good mix of popular and obscure songs. Harmonix was even the first to introduce No Fail mode, for people who want to challenge themselves on higher difficulties without the worry of losing, or people like myself who couldn't sing to save their lives but don't want to drag down everyone else in the band.
Guitar Hero, on the other hand, is all about pushing you towards higher and higher difficulties, with less focus on a coherent, balanced song selection. Why else would GH: World Tour include songs that are sung in Spanish? It also includes Joe Satriani's "Satch Boogie", a great song, but one without vocals entirely. So the singer gets to sit out just so the guitarist can challenge himself to one of the hardest note charts in the game.
Not to mention, it's still apparent just how much Guitar Hero and Rock Band copy off each other. Both games still assign a number of stars based on your performance on each song (5 stars being the best), and both still use the "Star Power" feature, which lets you stay alive during challenging parts of the song.
The big deciding factor for me, however, was in how both franchises incorporate drums. In Guitar Hero, the drum set consists of a snare, two tom-toms, and two cymbals (arranged from left to right as snare, cymbal, tom, cymbal, tom). Rock Band drums have four pads arranged like a cymbal-less set. I originally thought the Guitar Hero set would be superior, just by virtue of the fact that it has an extra tom. After playing both sets, though, I see the genius behind Rock Band's design. Even though it looks like there's only four "drums," each pad changes from tom to cymbal as the song dictates. So if the drums call for a beat being played on the ride cymbal, you'll hit the green pad for the cymbal and the red pad for the snare, using the yellow or blue pads for crash cymbals or even toms. Then, if the same song requires a long drum fill using 3 toms, the green pad will now function as a tom. If it sounds confusing, just watch this.
Guitar Hero drums, because of the way they're designed, are stuck in their respective roles, which can be confusing when trying to read the different colored notes scrolling toward you. Quick, is that note a cymbal or a tom? Ah, too late, you already missed it.
But if you ever needed rock solid proof of who puts more tender loving care into their games, the latest games from each franchise are it: The Beatles: Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero 5. As Dennis Farrell of Something Awful put it, Guitar Hero 5 "[f]eatures just as many playable dead dudes as the newest Rock Band, but manages to do so in a much creepier fashion." He's referring, of course, to Johnny Cash and Kurt Cobain. So why is it creepy that Kurt Cobain is in Guitar Hero, other than the fact that it's the sort of thing he would have resented with every fiber of his being? Well...
Yeah, that's why. One can only guess that Kurt Cobain did something so monstrously vile to Neversoft when he was alive that they wanted to smear his image in the worst way possible. Seeing Kurt say "Yeeeeeeaaah, boooooiiii!!!" with Flavor Flav's voice is about the most fucked up thing I've seen in a videogame. And I've seen a little pink fluffy animal get crucified alongside a bunch of giant robots.
The Beatles: Rock Band, however, is the ultimate love letter to the Beatles and their legacy. It'd be hard to imagine George Harrison and John Lennon getting offended by such a loving tribute:
The presentation, the music, everything about The Beatles: Rock Band is stellar. I'm tempted to call it the best music rhythm game of all time.
If I haven't convinced you by now that Rock Band is superior, consider what the future holds: Rock Band Network. In a nutshell, this means that record labels will be able to produce their own Rock Band tracks. This also means that you (yes, you) will be able to make your own Rock Band tracks. And sell them. For money.
To me, preferring Rock Band over Guitar Hero is a much more meaningful decision than, say, choosing Coke over Pepsi. I see it the difference between The Day the Earth Stood Still and "The Day the Earth Stopped". One is an original, classic work with something meaningful to contribute to the artform. The other is a quick cash-in with no originality to speak of. I've made my choice. I'm hoping you'll make the right choice as well. (Note: I will issue a full retraction of this blog post and pledge my undying love to Guitar Hero forever if Activision ever makes "Guitar Hero: Frank Zappa.")
I know, it's been a long time since I've updated. It's been so long, in fact, that the last post of substance that I wrote, "Is every game frustrating?" has been rendered obsolete. I was checking out the AV Club's review of Shadow Complex, when I noticed that the little blurbs at the end of the reviews, including the bemoaned "Frustration sets in when" are now gone from all their recent game reviews. Kudos to you, AV Club, for giving games the same credibility as other types of media.
That magical time known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo is at the Los Angeles Convention Center this week. I'm on assignment for GamersInfo.net, so check out that site in the coming days for my coverage of the random goings-on. I'll be looking at the latest games from Konami, Capcom, Atlus and many others. Go check it out.
Anyone who knows me knows how much I love The Onion, America's finest news source. However, if you twist my arm, I'll admit that I love its sister publication The A.V. Club even more. Essentially The Onion's Arts & Entertainment section, The A.V. Club has reviews, features and articles about film, music and TV with the same witty, sardonic sense of humor of The Onion.
A few years ago, The A.V. Club started running videogame reviews. When this happened, I was elated. Who gives a fuck if Roger Ebert doesn't recognize that games are art? The A.V. Club is writing about games with the same insight as film, music and books. For all I knew, the Louvre could have added a videogame wing.
But it recently occurred to me that there's something odd with the way the A.V. Club does its game reviews. Each review is broken down into sections. First there's the review proper, and then short one- or two-sentence blurbs with the headers Beyond the game, Worth playing for, Final judgment, and finally, the one I take umbrage with: Frustration sets in when.
Now far be it from me to say I've never played a game that frustrated the hell out of me. But that phrase, "Frustration sets in when," appears in every game review that The A.V. Club runs, from mainstream blockbuster titles to under-the-radar indie games. For the recently-released Punch-Out!! it's when "Trainer Doc spits out another rote motivational entreaty instead of offering a hint you can actually use." For the intuitive browser game Today I Die, Gus Mastrapa explains, "Those who think too long about the financial limitations that prevent this kind of experimentation from sneaking into larger, longer, and more expensive games may be inspired to go looking for a rock, a rope, and a deep lake."
By incorporating the phrase into every game, regardless of genre, platform or overall quality, it's like the A.V. Club is assuming a priori that each and every game must have something frustrating about it, and the writer's obligation is to point it out. I humbly disagree.
I could point out games I've played that never frustrated me, but really, the whole experience is entirely subjective. But then again, that's the entire point. Everyone experiences games differently. One person might find a game to be entirely frustrating, while another person could breeze through it. By having that phrase form part of their review format, The A.V. Club is enforcing an unfair, and quite frankly false, standard.
Overall, The A.V. Club's game reviews are among the best out there. And having them alongside reviews of current movies, music and books just reinforces the point that games are on the same playing field as mainstream entertainment. But no other reviews on The A.V. Club suffer from this unfair standard. You won't see every film review pointing out the boring parts, and not every CD review mentions tracks that are worth skipping. So why the unfair treatment for games?
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