Jogosity

Greetings Earthman, great things are afoot! The thoughts and interests of a Game Designer living in Interesting Times for the games industry. I'll be talking about game design, sometimes using made up words. Occasionally I'll talk about the games I'm playing, comics and books I'm reading or a movie I just saw. I might even post some of my photography if you're lucky. All opinions are my own and are in no way the responsibility of the nice people who actually pay me to make video games. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-29708649-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[jogosity]

Invitation to Vote #Remain

I'll try to behave. I'll try to be calm, rational and hopefully persuasive. I'll grant you a bit of intelligence and wit and allow for a different political view to my own.

I'll try to be better than this entire wretched, divisive, cruel and unnecessary EU referendum campaign. I certainly agree that the EU is a problematic association, perhaps overly expensive and bureaucratic. It needs to change, it needs to be more transparent, it needs to evolve. But I am convinced that, on balance, we are better off within the EU. I have already cast my postal vote for Remain in the EU. I invite you to do the same.

Soul Food My favourite reason to Remain is that I honestly believe that we are stronger together. And not just stronger, but better. The diversity of thought and culture that our close ties with Europe bring us are enriching and empowering. To understand and collaborate with our neighbours - some nearby, others more distant - is a strength that helps us politically and culturally. But even leaving the pragmatic reasons aside, this closeness is good for the soul. If your eyes and ears, and most importantly your minds, are open, you can learn and grow. You can also disagree and still grow. That's how learning and knowledge works. A rational disagreement helps clarify your true beliefs and priorities. Without diversity you can just wallow in dogma, unchallenged and static.

Opportunities Europe is full of wonderful places and opportunities. Not just for us, but for the next generation. You may want to work in Warwick, or London, or Cardiff, or Oxford or Edinburgh, or Haye-on-Wye or St Ives. But why stop there when your working world also includes Amsterdam, Helsinki, Budapest, Bruges, Paris, The Balaerics or Malta? How about your son, or your grand daughter? What about their children? This is a cross-generational decision that grants or revokes some magnificent opportunities for your whole family line. This is bigger than each of us and we need to think bigger than ourselves. True, if we leave the EU those places won't suddenly vanish, but the distance grows, the complexity spirals and the opportunity dwindles.Unknown opportunity, stunted for a whole bloodline. For a whole nation.

And it’s not just moving for work that is at stake, the employment economy is changing, there are more temp and remote contracts available each day and it’s only going to become more widespread in the future. Selling creative and administrative services can be done over the internet with the whole world. At the moment it is easy to do some with Europe because we *are* Europe. This is something to protect and nurture, not to cry foul of and try to clamp down on.

But more importantly there’s some amazing benefits from being part of the European Union, stuff from which I have directly benefitted. In my UK working life I’ve been forced to take holidays thanks to the European Working Rights directive - and been protected god knows how many times by the Human Rights Act. More pertinently I know what it’s like to be seriously injured in Europe (France) and have reconstructive surgery FOR FREE because I had a little plastic card that said I was from Europe. These are not small things. This is perks of being part of a progressive and often quite caring super-community with its heart in the right place. (Even though, yes, it is often opaque and stupid in the details. But the good stuff is really good.)

Protection Through Troubles Times The world is a troubled place, difficult, dangerous, sometimes threatening. But those challenges are ones that we are better facing together. We can use diversity and sheer strength of numbers to solve problems and find better solutions. Some of these challenges will be military, many more will be economic, the most important will be environmental. And this last will be the biggest change that ours and the next generations face. Climate change will lead to a new international landscape as energy and natural resources become more difficult and expensive to obtain. Will the smaller nations have the power to survive and thrive against the might of the biggest unions? I suspect not.

Only large unions like the EU will actually be able to effect any sort of meaningful action on Climate Change. And we must be part of this process. For the good of all humanity - and for those people in St Ives and Brighton and all those other nice coastal areas which will be under water in a hundred years if we don’t do something about the polar ice caps.

Buying and Selling And what of trade and business? The economy simply cannot have thrive outside of the EU. The experts are near unanimous that the economy would suffer. I am going to trust the advice of the Treasury, the CBI and the Bank of England on this. International economics is way beyond my ken, but from my lay perspective, being outside of those damned EU restrictions will free us from nothing at all. Even if we can get some half-decent trade deals in the next decade, to buy from Europe will mean the products are subject to EU regulation, and the sell to the vast and lucrative Europe marketplace will mean exactly the same. This means only nationally sourced and sold items will be free of anything at all. We'll be surrounded by the the rules but powerless to influence them. And from what I can tell, a lot of the regulations are genuine safety concerns that are actually perfectly reasonable.

Those People... And finally, perhaps a slightly more negative train of thought. Those Brexit leaders, Johnson, Farage, IDS and Gove. Are these the people we want to lead thought and policy in our country? The whitest, poshest, most establishment, most homogenous group of rich old men. All with a stated desire to dismantle the free NHS. The very notion of the money “saved” from the EU being spent on the NHS that they don’t want is the most absurd piece of political satire I have ever seen. These are not the people we can trust with our future. Is Duncan-Smith's deliberate assault on the poor and the disabled our ethical future. Is our national ideology really that of parochial, racist thought vacuum Nigel Farage? 

Is our economy safe in the people who mislead and lie about £350 million pounds? A fact that has been crushed by just about every knowledgable person outside the Leave headquarters. Arbitrary arguments about Good Old England and The Union Flag and God Bless ‘Er an’ All Who Sail in ‘Er are all things I can handle, but these actual lies are utterly disgraceful.

Even at their best, these people hark back to an idealised vision of England that never really existed but lurks in the national psyche somewhere between The Good Life and Dad's Army. And even if something similar did once exist, it was in a different era surrounded by a completely different environment. The world has turned, seemingly under the feet of these silly, old, white men. The rules under which the UK operated before the Common Market no longer exist. At worst, these are cruel, proto-facist dictators with sympathies for Trump and Marine Le Pen; the very worst of hate-babbling troublemakers that create discord in order to build their own power base. Boris Johnson didn’t even believe in leaving the EU until he realised it could make him Prime Minister. He really is that lacking in political ideology or moral backbone, this whole thing is just a fucking reality TV job interview to him. These are political chancers whose interests are in their own agenda, not the good of our society. They seek power and control, not improvement and liberty. Each and every one of the Brexit leaders has shown themselves to be untrustworthy, self serving and at worst utterly cruel. What the hell are doing giving them such a loud voice in our country's future?

Compare this with the legions of scientists and economists and writers and, yes, politicians that want us to Remain. A unity of Labour, half the Conservatives, all of the Lib Dems, Scottish Nationals, Plaid Cymru and the Greens is a powerful voice. Even I don’t agree with many of what those politicians say but the scientists really sway me significantly. Science doesn’t work on guesses, it’s works on testable hypotheses. The Leave hypothesis has been hammered by almost every rational scientific mind in the country. If we have to follow one group, how about the evidential thinkers and analysts - not the angry mob with no real information apart from provable lies.

The Damage The worst part of this stupid unnecessary referendum is the division it has caused. Let's forget the tea-towel image of a United Kingdom, that doesn't really exist and probably never has. But now it's worse than ever. A whole nation now riven by anger and bitterness over a question that should never have been asked! The legal and economic realities of Brexit are too unfathomably complex for us to truly comprehend, so we have been given howling hatred in place of rational debate. This is exactly the sort of decision you elect a government to take on your behalf. Cameron is being wilfully neglectful of his own responsibility by holding the referendum. (Apparently only offered as a political play to prevent more of his party defection to UKIP before the last general election.) Whichever side you lie on the question of Europe, all this bitter hatred is depressing and repellent. A whole nation just got radicalised and we all went along with it. It is everything that global community and international co-operation is trying to prevent. We've been lied to and agitated and whipped into a fury by both sides and the true hatred is actually now Brit-vs-Brit. We need to calm down, and breathe, and think for ourselves. Our country is better than these lies and this divisive power play by a bunch of untrustworthy agitators.

We are better than all of this. And we are even better when we are working with our European and Global neighbours to solve our problems. We need to think bigger than this.

This is why I can voting to #Remain, and I invite you to do the same.

[jogosity]

Star Wars The Force Awakens - Deep Dive!

Seen the film?

Are you sure?

This is the full, spoiler packed discussion of TFA, intended very much for people who have already seen the film. Don’t complain if I give anything away, you have very much been warned. Let’s have a look at that second teaser trailer or read my spoiler free review http://jogosity.tumblr.com/post/135926393391/star-wars-the-force-awakens-review and then get on with the show!

Storytelling is an obvious art and storytellers love to tell you what is going to happen long before it all comes to pass. JJ Abrams tells you exactly what the actual story behind The Force Awakens is going to be in the very first sentence of the opening title crawl.

“Luke Skywalker has vanished.” That’s your story right there. All that stuff with the Starkiller base and Kylo Ren’s relationship with Dad is just plotting around. The story is very simple, where is Luke Skywalker? The answer, of course, is up in the Orkney islands, safely out of the way of the universe. But Luke’s absence serves the twin purposes of a dramatic tension that is maintained throughout the film whilst also leaving valuable space for the new cast to shine.

Spirit of the Force Daisy Ridley is just wonderful as the fiercely independent scavenger come Force acolyte Rey. Mixing courage with vulnerability and her lifelong dream to find the parents who abandoned her on Jakku, Rey is almost too amazing. A brilliant mechanic, genius star pilot and emergent Jedi, Rey is inheriting the mantle of both Luke and Han, but somehow it all works. A carefully considered backstory grants her a lifetime delving into Imperial and Rebel spacecraft, defending herself from bandits and in all likelihood spending some time aboard the “...garbage” Millennium Falcon. Tying it all together is the spirited yet grounded performance given by Ridley, who is able to hold the screen with immense ease, even against the screen idol presence of Harrison Ford.

Rey is a very modern screen heroine, and she is joined by John Boyega’s funny, likeable ex-Stormtrooper Finn. His encounter with the very darkest side of the First Order establishes both that organisation’s brutality and his own emerging morality. But perhaps the defining moment in Finn’s story is seeing ace pilot Poe Dameron finally in action. This is the point where Finn’s story really takes flight and the later encounters between the two are all the more touching for their brevity.

If Finn seems to be on a trajectory to Resistance heroism, Rey’s absent surname gives us a clue to her own likely destiny. It seems all but impossible that she is just a random foundling. Indeed the voice over of that original teaser seems to almost give it away. Rey is most likely one of the Skywalkers, either a secret second child borne by Leia or, perhaps more likely, the daughter of Luke himself.

Such a move would be entirely consistent with the series continual use of family relationships, indeed The Force Awakens hinges on such a scenario with Kylo Ren and Han Solo. Whilst initially this feels like another slightly forced dose of Hollywood-mythitis, the compellingly real characterisation created by Adam Driver makes Ren a more believable and textured character. Losing the helmet felt like a bad move, but after his brutal slaying of Solo the return of the mask confirms that Ren has chosen his side. What we have here is a genuinely interesting character in Kylo Ren, powerful and aggressive but lacking in discipline and perhaps even in conviction. There is still a potential glimmer of good and doubt in him, and as the tale unfolds we may see that glimmer grow into something important or wither on the vine. Bets can now be placed on whether that narrative will see a grizzled Luke Skywalker finally succumb to the darkness within him whilst Kylo Ren abandons his own evil? Such a scenario would certainly make life easier for awakening Jedi Rey, since facing off against possible cousin-Kylo and probable-parent Luke would be a pretty tall order! But this is where The Force Awakens does shine. The ocean of possibilities is not just fun to engage with after the fact but central to the tension and excitement of being there in the theatre, experiencing the movie.

Oddly, amongst such a strong cast, perhaps the most charming and heart warming turn comes not from the human characters but from the spherical Astromech droid BB-8. Star Wars has a long history of fun and emotional robots, but whilst R2-D2 and C3-PO were played as a sort of squabbling auntie and uncle (one the nervous worrier the other sarcastic and brave) BB-8 comes across as much younger, and not merely in terms of stature. There’s a delightful, childlike vulnerability to the way in which BB-8 tries to rouse the dormant R2-D2, not by a data link, but by a head butt; and the sight of BB returning a thumbs up is one of the highlights of the film.

Really Bad Security Structurally, we are very close to the flow of A New Hope, perhaps a trifle too close for comfort. And  although the familiar beats allow your focus to stay with the growing characters, there is some sense of disappointment that the First Order haven’t really learned anything from their predecessors lamentable vuln-protection and shoddy network security. If any character suffers for the economies of pacing then it is Captain Phasma who gets relatively little screen time and then ends up looking weak. We can only hope that she is being built up for a much bigger role in the later films cos so far she’s not lived up to the character’s own promise. It’s a shame because in many respects the First Order look a damn sight more fearsome and well organised than the Empire, so these vulnerabilities deflate their credibility somewhat. On the bright side, the middle act gives our characters plenty of opportunity to shine, in particular we get to see Han Solo in action and perhaps at his roguish peak. It’s a genuine thrill to see the actual life of the old smuggler, especially the utter trainwreck that his fairytale romance with Leia actually became. A chilling and prescient though struck me halfway though my first viewing of The Force Awakens, “Wow, Han Solo is so good in this movie, I hope he doesn’t die!”

Well, at least we can take solace that it was a meaningful death, the pivotal point in the life of his son, will it seal his journey to the dark side or provide the key that leads back to redemption we won’t know for at least four years, but till then I’ll still feel a bit weepy every time I see Chewbacca.

Keeping Your Friends Close Thematically, the movie is true to its position as a generational crossover, the adventures of Solo and the search for Skywalker offer the skeleton upon which Rey and Finn’s journey is built. Indeed this notion is echoed in the number of parental and mentor-pupil relationships we see; Leia and Rey, Finn and Poe, Han and Kylo and indeed Kylo and Lord Snoke. Guiding hands are everywhere, not so much the steering hand of destiny that shaped A New Hope, this is a more human intervention in the next generation of heroes and villains. Most importantly, this is a movie where characters genuinely care for one another and whose actions are mostly driven by those personal connections.

But this conceptual solidity extends to the action itself. A weighty physicality fills every scene, from a blood spattered Finn, to the way the Millennium Falcon lurches and ploughs through sand dunes and pine forests. Everything feels real, everything has the solidity that was so absent from the prequels. Suddenly the action has drama and consequence, no more so than in the lightsabre fights that are slow, measured and sometimes ponderous but become deadly and dramatic as a result. Our combatants are not lightning-fast Jedi at the magical height of their powers but an injured warrior and a rookie opponent. In Rey’s case a rookie with the force helping to guide her hand but a rookie nevertheless.

Action, Excitement, Really Wild Things! The expectations of a space action film are not very high. Excitement, they say, is what the people want. Widescreen dynamics, bright lights, running about and a few big explosions. Which makes it all the more satisfying that it’s the characters of The Force Awakens that live on in the mind. That bit when the thing randomly exploded is far less important than that moment when Poe offers Finn a supportive pat on the shoulder. Most exciting is the glowing screen chemistry between Rey and Finn, offset with great dramatic effect by the frighteningly unpredictable Kylo Ren. Every story is given room to breathe as characters show their true colours, and we leave with as many answers as we do new questions.

It’s been so long since had so much to reflect upon in a Star Wars movie. The Force Awakens is thrilling, warm hearted and often laugh-out-loud funny. Everything we could have hoped for and so much more. There is so much to look forward to in episodes VIII and IX, not least is seeing what has truly become of Luke. An ageing, damaged Skywalker may well be the part that Mark Hamill was born to play. His conflicted, slightly cold turn in Return of the Jedi finally given scope to evolve into its natural form. Luke Skywalker has been found, the story has begun.

[jogosity]

Star Wars The Force Awakens - Review

This is a spoiler free review. There'll be a very, very spoileriffic discussion piece up later, but for now, you're completely safe reading this before seeing the movie.

You know that wild ex-girlfriend or boyfriend whose thrilling promise turned into a trainwreck of a relationship, but for whom you still have moments of yearning. That's Star Wars. The daring, dramatic, life enhancing magic of a love that was greater than it had any right to be, but which, at its worst was little more than a monstrous tangle of disappointment and frustration. The reconciliation is on, the naysayers are shaking their head and tutting about going back, but the ex is promising much. They've changed, they've grown, learned from their mistakes and left the childish, capricious adolescence behind them. Filling that gap, they say, lies more emotional depth and a much-needed wider vocabulary.

But like a wild ex-lover who has found new friends that offer them nurturing, positive companionship, Star Wars has both grown up and recovered its magical, joy-filled youth thanks to the careful guiding hands of Kathleen Kennedy and JJ Abrams. The Force Awakens is a terrific, impassioned adventure flanked on one side by engaging characters and on the other by a sense of humour that consistently hits the mark.

Big Characters And it's in the new characters that the greatest joy lives. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are both magnificent, screen holding, scene stealing revelations as courageous scavenger Rey and her unexpected companion, Finn. Rey in particular shoulders much of the emotional core of the film, shifting from vulnerable loner to true action heroine. Finn mixes Solo-esque wisecracking with a streak of self doubt, but always convinces and never lets his delivery slip into eye-rolling, B-movie schtick. It's no easy task to hold the screen as strongly as Ridley and Boyega manage to do, especially with two of the most charming, witty and charismatic screen presences constantly threatening to steal the limelight. Harrison Ford returns as Han Solo, bringing all his screen idol mastery, but now with a dishevelled world weariness that suits his laconic delivery and constant sarcastic asides. But at times all of our leads are overshadowed by the smallest new addition. BB-8 is the heroic droid that brings all of our characters together and leads us through the film. And what an addition, adorable, courageous and surprisingly emotive, BB-8 is fully deserving of his place at the heart of the movie and of the promotional supernova surrounding it.

Gravitas BB-8 is also the recipient of unwanted attention from the First Order, the neo-nazi organisation that have risen from the debris of the Empire. It's a far more brutal and effective force that the Empire became, capable of a much more hands-on variety of cruelty than we ever really saw from their predecessors. More pertinently one feels that this lot will not be so easily dispatched by cute teddy bears. This extra gravitas is focussed to a deadly point by arch-villain Kylo Ren, played with stylish, nerve-shredding obsession by Adam Driver.

Bold Adventure The story itself is beautifully balanced between exposition and action and is always perfectly paced.  Most importantly, the whole movie is steeped in purest Star Wars. Full of constant nods to the series patchy heritage but infused with that magic and mystery that is almost impossible to define but instantly recognised. Laugh out loud moments come amidst points of utmost desperation, and just about every character gets their moment to shine. Naturally it's not all perfect, there are one or two characters who feel a trifle wasted, and the occasional plot point that makes you wonder if some slightly better security systems could save an awful lot of bother. But nit-picking aside, Star Wars is back to its glorious best. A thrilling, enthralling and witty adventure that packs in so much that is new whilst making wonderful use of its rich heritage. That awkward middle era can now be truly forgotten. Apology accepted, Captain Abrams.

Ready for more? Read my spoiler filled Deep Dive if you’ve seen the film...

http://jogosity.tumblr.com/post/135926836006/star-wars-the-force-awakens-deep-dive

[jogosity]

Book Review: Star Wars Aftermath, Chuck Wendig

Aftermath! It’s is not just a clever name, within these pages Chuck Wendig tackles head-on the immediate wake of the destruction of the second Death Star and the death of Emperor Palpatine. The post-Jedi universe has offered rich pickings to novels and comics for many years, but with the recent mind-wipe of the Extended Universe, this is the beginning of a brand new continuity that will lead seamlessly into The Force Awakens. So, we ask, what actually did happen next?

The Empire itself is now a scattered force, riven as much by its own infighting as by the Rebellion’s military victory. But perhaps more interestingly, we find a galactic organisation struggling to find a new sense of identity in the post-palpating era.

Sympathy for the Rebel

Told from multiple points of view, Aftermath shows us the tense, angry politicking behind the scenes of a small Imperial group, as well as a mixed bag of Rebels and Rebel sympathisers as one side lays plans and the other tries to foil them. We also get treated to a large number of interlude chapters that step outside the main narrative and cast an eye on the wider galactic movements - including some well known (and some legendary) names from the Star Wars canon. Where things work best is perhaps in Imperial Admiral Rae Sloane's story of trying to piece together a small corner of the Empire into a force of some value and cohesion. Sloane gives us an insight into Imperial philosophy and manages to offer some sympathy and intrigue beyond the expected boo-hiss pantomime villains. Meanwhile we have wisecracking ex-Imperial Sinjir Rath Velus and desperately earnest Rebel mum, Norra Wexley partnering with a cash-obsessed Bounty Hunter named Jas Emari, the latter of whom appears to be along for the ride rather than a functioning agent of the plot. The principal cast is rounded out by Norra's slightly free-range child Temmin who varies between spirited and just downright annoying.

1. Bald and Horny  2. Hammerhead

It's a lot of characters, particularly when seen alongside all of the interstitial chapters which usually add even more points of view and more short stories. And perhaps this is where Aftermath suffers the most. There are so many characters and so many cold starts and so many back stories and motivations to get over that the narrative gets slightly left behind and the suffusion of side plots and subsidiary players just becomes some sort of mad, excited mess. In one paragraph you're trying to remember who this subplot relates to and in the next you're checking your phone to figure out what a Zabrak or an Ithorian looks like. But the plot bounds along with big changes and dramatic turns every few pages and everyone speaks with the economic zeal of a comic book, indeed Wendig’s present-tense prose itself always opts for efficiency over elaboration. In general this is no bad thing but there are moments you are left hoping for a wee bit more substance in the dialogue, or perhaps more consequence to the actions.

You are reckless!

It's all a bit dizzying in a way that the Star Wars movies rarely were. And the downside is that we get to spend less time with the core characters as a result, leaving them developed only to a relatively superficial level.

More positively we are left with an interesting set-up for the successive parts of the series, and a new team that may well prove to be a vibrant and dynamic addition to the Star Wars universe. Meanwhile, the plot resolution is satisfying, if some of the action that gets us there is not entirely convincing. Like many modern series starters, Aftermath ends up feeling like a first chapter rather than a complete text. However the entertainment on offer does compensate for the shortcomings and it certainly does feel that the remainder of the series will worth sticking around for.

[jogosity]

Book Review: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

The awkward middle. That's what I'm expecting Ancillary Sword to eventually prove itself to be.

[Spoilers to book one of the series, Ancillary Justice will follow, and minor spoiler for Ancillary Sword so approach with caution if you’ve not finished it yet...]

In the first book of the series, Ancillary Justice, we watched a superhero origin story run backwards, taking an incredibly powerful starship AI and her hundreds of hive-minded ancillary warriors on a story of destruction and degradation, leaving just One Esk Nineteen, the sole Ancillary survivor. Her ship obliterated, her warrior siblings all dead.

Now known by her new full name of Breq Mianaai, she is promoted to the rank of Fleet Captain and given command of a new spaceship by the Emperor herself, Anaander Mianaai, who is engaged with a civial war wth herself thanks to also being a hive-mind intelligence shared across thousands of bodies. Breq's task is now to secure the strategically valuable Athoek system, to which she is duly dispatched aboard her vessel, Mercy of Kalr.

Macro to Micro

If Ancillary Justice focuses on the grand sweep of the Empire, looking at the power and politics of planetary annexation, then Ancillary Sword looks very much closer at the other end of the scale - the people at the very bottom of the society. The individual humans being annexed, enslaved and ultimately abused by the rich land and business owners that populate the comfortable, middle strata of the Radch Empire.

Here, Leckie spends a lot of attention on the mechanics of empire, the endless customs and rituals that dominate that polite, middle tier of society. Gloves and tea feature heavily and every conversation is stifled by propriety and social order. Perhaps Leckie's point here is that seemingly endless ritual is not just a result of a religious empire, but perhaps necessary to any empire? Allow too much mental freedom and the cracks will all too soon appear. Perhaps this will become clearer in the forcoming conclusion of the trilogy. The deconstruction of empire is where the book shines brightest. Less interesting are the constant, stilted conversations over tea and the main plot threads of a private dispute between a tea plantation owner and her daughter. In and of itself, this family plot carries some intrigue and leads us into the heart of the slavery issue, but it raises many more problems by evidently not being related to the mission objective of securing the system. What we do see is former AI, Breq, increasingly finding her humanity and developing a far greater understanding of, and empathy for, humans of all races and social standing.

And Finally...

Whilst a distance from the familiar trappings of galactic civil war is very welcome, and the far more personal focus of the book offer it much value and distinction, things do suffer for that end. The pacing is slow, almost all of the plot carried by those stilted conversations whilst characters partake in the the ritualistic drinking of tea. Very little actually changes from one chapter to the next and that mission to secure the system seems to be quite forgotten until coincidence brings it back into focus in the final few chapters. At the end we are left with a much more rounded group of characters who seem well poised to take part in a perhaps more fraught final act. And it's a final act that we should all be looking forward to. It's a fascinating universe that Ann Leckie has created, and this awkward middle is certainly a vital part of that universe, if not always a great read in itself.

[jogosity]

Final Fantasy VII - The Cutting Room Floor

Okay, so as much as I love FFVII, some of it is completely batshit! Some of it is not going to make it into the Remake. So here's a game design challange. When the remake finally ships and we learn what is in and what is out, we take all the classic moments from the cutting room floor and have to make a new game out of those components. Any game you want, doesn't need to be an RPG, shouldn't have swords, fighting or Materia in it cos those'll be in the Remake!

(If you are into Final Fantasy VII, check out my other post on the Original and what made it so special.)

So here's my guess as to which classic FFVII moments won't make the final cut in the Remake.

Donning a shimmering dress to creep into Don Corneo’s brothel.

The old sleeping man who tells you how many battles you've fought.

Breeding thirty seven thousand chocobos. (God, please...)

The giant fluffy Moogle ridden by a tiny cat whose special Limit Break attack can come up with triple DEATH, instantly killing your entire party.

Throwing a Mop at Ruby Weapon.

Terrific slap fight between Tifa and Scarlett whilst standing on top of a giant gun.

Weird men in black sacks hopping around - moaning...

2 hours of psychotherapy with Tifa.

Nuts.

And with great regret, taking Barrett on an insanely awkward date at the Gold Saucer.

Whatever is left over, this could be something AWESOME!

Meanwhile, where’s my favourite original FFVII trailer... Oddly, not featuring music from the actual soundtrack, but some bought in music.

And here’s my favourite Final Fantasy VII t-shirt, and old Megan Lara design from the Yetee (I think).

[jogosity]

Final Fantasy VII - Remade Memories

In Final Fantasy VII, you can't look up. Not really. You can tilt the camera down to near enough ground level, affording a view of around 45˚ above the horizon.

It's not great. But it is enough.

At around a third of the way through the game, when the story is flowing and your connection with the world and its characters is growing, your party experience a monumental failure as Sephiroth succeeds in using the Meteor Materia, bringing an apocalyptic terror to the remainder of the game. You can't look up, but you can tilt the camera just far enough to see IT, hanging in the air, an enormous glowing ball. Red and baleful, simultaneously beautiful and foul.

This is the point where Final Fantasy VII becomes one of the greatest games ever made. Aeris is just the side plot. This is the story of a very real, very tangible doom. We are not fighting some ill-visualised magical apocalypse or jackboot enforced reign of totalitarian brutality. This is real doom, the end all life in the world. The presumed ascent of a new god, not that anyone will be around to see it because everyone will be dead. It is death that fuels Final Fantasy VII.

At E3 2015 we finally saw the trailer we had all been waiting for.

All those glimpses of sort of familiar city streets, and vast industrial pipes that are etched into our collective memories. Was that a gunarm? That was definitely a suspiciously wide sword...

REMAKE!

So, we're getting it back, after all those years of rumour and hope, we're getting the Final Fantasy VII Remake we always wanted.

I am defintely going to think very carefully about buying it!

I'm actually a huge FFVII fan. I've played it beginning to end several times and still have a ridiculously large amount of my brain devoted to Materia and Midgar and Junon, the poor people of Corel and the opulence of the Gold Saucer. But I'm still not a bolted-on player for the game, I don't know where I'd find the 100 hours to play it through. I stuggle to find the 30 hours to clear out a Mass Effect game these days, in fact finding 10 hours to play a Halo is sometimes enough of a stretch!

But I'm still thrilled to see that story and those characters back in the world. For all the percieved faults of the game it remains amongst my favourite gaming memories. The soundtrack plays in my head more often than I care to admit. In the years since it first launched, many of the tropes of the game itself have fallen our of favour, random battles are now sneered at and vilified on Twitter. On this one I still cry foul, the random battles are a vital part of the game, they teach you how to play and give you scope to experiment with tactics and to actually play with the characters. (To say nothing of the levelling up that all those battles facilitate.) Perhaps less tolerable are the often long stretches of gameplay between save points. And, as much as I enjoyed it the first time round, I doubt I'd have the mettle to grind for THAT long to work up my Materia and level up to the required, Weapon Fighting standard.

Desperate Times

But to reduce Final Fantasy VII to its mechanics is to miss the point. As great as the gameplay was, the most important part of the game was its heart. Final Fantasy VII had soul. It had a sense of desperate urgency that I have rarely felt in games. I shall never forget the breathless first five minutes of the game as I sat in front of my brand new Playstation, wondering what all the fuss about Japanese RPG's was all about, not expecting a menu-driven game, not expecting anything really. And then I was leaping off a train and slicing some hapless soldiers into mince with a rediculously big sword before breaking into a reactor and setting in motion a chain of events that would stay with me for life. That opening mission captured my heart and my thumbs. I was doing something amazing, terrifying and possibly illegal. Terrorist or freedom fighter - at the point it wasn't really clear.

And then, when the Meteor arrives in the sky, it does become clear. This is what you are fighting for; with desperate, furious urgency. The politics and power balance of the world melt into the often confusing background. Completing the game was not just a checklist operation of seeing the end screen before rolling on to the next game. This was personal. This was important.

Maybe I will go back...

If you are into Final Fantasy VII, check out my other post on the Remake, looking at what will make the cut in the new version of the game. I also launch the FFVII Design Leftover Challenge!

[jogosity]

Boarding Pass to Mars

[jogosity]

How Free-to-Play Saved Gaming

Game over.

That how it always used to end.

One stray missile or ill-judged jump and the blue ninja would get you or your base would explode into a hundred little dots. Death was etched into the DNA of video games from its very inception. Death is the sharp pair of incisors of the artform, brutal weapons designed for a single way of life, but like all those Game Over screens, we don’t necessarily need all that flesh rending mouth-machinery in the modern world.

This is not a blog moaning about death in video games. Death is fine, it is a dramatic coda to desperate struggle, the sharp pain that makes the victory all that much sweeter.

This is a blog about the other way, the nasty way; the evil, insidious way. The way in which you don’t actually kill or punish the player at all.

It’s really, really weird, isn’t it?

Free-to-play - A different design ideology

So for the purposes of this paragraph I’m going to assume most of you know what free-to-play really means and that much of the energy in a free game is actually to get you to pay. And it is worse than AIDS.

At least that’s what the boys in the comments tell you.

But free-to-play games had to do some really clever things. First off they had to realise that something very different happens in a players head when they haven’t given you any money, especially in the opening, getting to know you phase of the game.

If the game is free to try, there is no commitment of any kind by the player - no financial commitment and only a small amount of time.

Smashing the player’s face into a wall of missiles quickly leaves a bad taste in the mouth and the player soon buggers off to try the next game in the hope that it won’t be quite so unfair and badly designed.

Swap in even 69p’s worth of financial commitment and the player’s brain doesn’t want to feel like it’s been zapped, so offers a bit more time to the game until it learns to press the JUMP button at the right moment to get past that wall of missiles.

This crudely illustrated pattern can be seen in everything from 10p arcade games to £40 AAA belters. Paying money means commitment and that gives the game a big advantage in securing your time and loyalty over a completely free, and therefore instantly disposable experience.

Zoom out a little bit and a look at f-t-p game design illustrates that free games need to give a lot and be very, very careful about taking anything away.

This led to free games settling into some rather interesting new grooves. Instead of being about the acquisition of enough skill and knowledge to overcome challenge (a la typical core games) free games asked for repeated, small amounts of disposable time to overcome a different type of challenge. Skill-based blockers evaporated, and suddenly killing the player by such a mechanism and stopping them progressing became unnecessary and even damaging to the game.

Free games became ongoing tasks that were satisfying to see completed but that, perhaps, were not fun in the same, more visceral way, that traditional games were. (This is something that still baffles a lot of older game designers - “How can people possibly enjoy a different kind of fun to MEEEEE???”)

Where did it all go wrong?

Now, I’m not claiming that free-to-play games invented death-free or punishment-free gaming. But I think they did do a tremendous amount to turn them into the all-consuming forces of nature that we see today.

And yes, those Facebook games of which we daren’t speak lest they spam our timelines with a million spammy updates can take a fair amount of credit for this.

But things did go wrongs with free-to-play. A whole gameplay ideology somehow became subsumed by a single business model. Freemium became a dirty word and was only associate with the cynical Timeshare Salesman feel of those Facebook games. Everything was a drive to screw money out of the player at every turn or force a insane amount of grinding. The games ceased being an interesting diversion and became an exercise in handing over your cash or trying to find ever cleverer ways to min-max without handing over your hard earned.

But all this furore about whale-gouging and ARPU and Lifetime Values, completely obfuscated the Important Game Design stuff that was going on. People in their millions were playing games that DIDN’T EVER PUNISH THEM.

No death.

No fail.

No start again.

No repetition.

The old fashioned game designers started to quiver as their brains all but snapped in two. Without death there was no drama, without drama there could be no excitement. No excitement, no gameplay.

The answer was obvious.

Those millions of people were simply wrong. They weren’t actually enjoying the games. not properly. Not like us. They were simply the victims of cruel, exploitative psychological tricks.

PHEW, EH LADS?

Where can it all go right?

As Facebook gaming passed its peak, mobile gaming went through its own roof and become the Most Important Thing In Gaming. With iOS and later Android as a major game platform, came lots of different types of game creators, many of whom understood that free-to-play was a massive variety of business models and commercial approaches.

Suddenly, you could find free-to-play games that invited you to pay, but did so in a calm, rational manner. The games got a bit more rounded too. Instead of identikit gardening sims, you could find lovely arcade experiences like we all used to play.

And these games they did let you play for free, but they also set new, longer term goals that existed beyond that single session. Where classic arcade games would kill you, keep your 10p and forget you were ever there, Temple Run and PunchQuest saved your achievements, they gave you long term goals spread across all the gaming nibbles you cared to take.

When you die in Temple Run, all those tokens you’ve collected are still collected. Same with PunchQuest, same with NimbleQuest; heck even Clash of Clans lets you keep you whole settlement no mater how many times it’s razed to the ground. The game is over, but you’ve still managed to do something permanent. Even the most calamitous game session, interrupted by your mum who wants to talk about the washing up, will leave you further along than when you started.

An the better you are, the greater the progress.

Success stopped being a binary state - got to next level - didn’t get to next level, start this level again. Success became analogue. A tiered reward structure that brought skill back into the mix.

Those old fashioned game designers, they’d like these sort of games; but they’re too busy squeaking and hissing on the forums and comments threads to really notice. And nobody gets any followers by saying nice things about free-to-play, and right now that’s the only High Score table that really matters.

Meanwhile, on the consoles, even the very best AAA games are still killing you, stopping you dead and refusing to give up their treasure until you are jolly well good enough to earn the right, and press the right buttons IN EXACTLY THE RIGHT FUCKING ORDER!

Here’s where I really piss you all off.

The Last of Us. Those goddamn stealth sections where you still have to knock off every clicker and find the exit before you can proceed. Taking down eleven is not enough, you have to do all twelve (or however many… you take my meaning).

The Last of Us is, frankly, astonishingly good. Those quiet, patient, conversational sections where you wander through the ruins of the city and simply experience the game world are magnificently evocative. It really is breathtaking stuff.

But it still wants to kill you, and if you can’t press the right buttons in the right order not even Naughty Dog’s legendary adaptable-difficulty is going to let you get past. This is the very best that traditional gaming has to offer us and it is still happy to simply block your progress and turn you away.

Our challenge…

There must be some way we can bridge this gap. That we can take the low-friction analogue victory of the best free-to-play games and use them in cleverer, smarter ways even in traditional linear narrative adventures.

Do you really need to kill the player? Well, if you’re going to write something as good as The Last of Us then okay, I’ll allow that. But perhaps you don’t need to default to killing or blocking the player; don’t need to punish them by making them do the same thing over and over again until they press all the right buttons in the right fucking order.

Or perhaps you don’t need to design a game full of guns. That’s also a thought.

Free-to-play is better than most people think. There are good designers who understand how new ideas and classic gaming can co-exist. These are people focussing on creating great gameplay, not new and excruciating ways to gouge your wallet dry. More importantly there are creative lessons and opportunities.

Our challenge as designers is to become better and to move the art form forward, not leave it rooted in the past. We need to bring these ideas together and create something new.

Videogames aren’t fundamentally about physical dexterity and brilliant reflexes and memorising sequences and patterns. They just became that way because that was all we could do in the early days. Now we can do so much more. Failure can now be a design decision, not a pre-loaded fundamental.

Free-to-play figured out some amazing ways to create some really cool new types of games without that punishment. Maybe it’s time to listen so some of those lessons.

[jogosity]

Book review: "vN" by Madeline Ashby

Robots and artificial intelligence are a continuing, rich mine of stories and ideas for science fiction novels. vN seems to be the first in a new series of novels examining the ethics of how humans will treat artificial lifeforms. The story starts with a domestic scene mixing blissful love with mild tension between a natural human, Jack, and his artificial partner, Charlotte.

Their daughter, Amy is actually Charlotte's daughter alone, produced through a process called iteration that allows all artificial von Neumann machines to produce clones asexually.

Obviously things soon move from stasis to chaos and the narrative focusses on the rapidly growing  Amy as she ends up on the wrong side of the law, hounded by both the police and her own grandmother, Portia.

Although much of the set up is pretty conventional, the book does have a few nice ideas up its sleeve and Madeline Ashby has a tremendous feel for her vN creations that keeps everything interesting. However, there are times when the pacing sinks a little as plot points telegraph themselves with bright, obvious beacons and escapes and resolutions vary between the uncomfortably convenient to the totally unbelievable.

Even more problematic are the secondary characters - particularly some late introductions whose motivations don't seem to hold any water at all.

Judged by the yardstick of contemporary hard sci-fi, vN starts out with promise but swiftly lapses into unsophisticated adventure. However, perhaps that is the wrong judgement to use, vN actually feels more of a YA novel with its determined but confused female lead, coming to terms with adulthood and with baffling decisions ahead of her. Put through this prism, vN fares a lot better at achieving its own goals.

Amy, the conflicted female lead, works well without breaking any pre-existing molds. Most importantly, the books biggest idea, and I'll not spoil anything here, really works well, effectively giving the book its spine. This, coupled with an audacious climax leaves you feeling satisfied, if not massively impressed.

Would I go back for the sequels? Yes, actually I think I would. There's an interesting world, here, and a light, easy writing style that makes the book an easy read, even if Ashby's technique lets her down at some of the more demanding action sequences. I think there's a better story to be told and a better book waiting just around the corner of this one.

vN is published by Angry Robot

[jogosity]

Freedom and Filters - behind the quest for the Nation's Soul.

Over the past week, we have seen the launch and debate of what may be one of the most important pieces of legislation of this parliament. Possible this decade. Very few people realise the significance and true meaning of the bill, which is weird because just about everyone has heard of it and has got a very strong opinion about it.

Introducing: The UK Porn Filter!

It will save the children from their parents, from themselves but most of all from the marauding, predatory paedophiles. It is a stand for safety, for decency, for moral values and for our children!

No sane person would stand against such a wonderful thing.

Except for those, like me, who simply don’t believe a word of it. That the porn filter is nothing of the kind. It is a content filtering system that will apply to the whole world-wide-web and will achieve very little of what it claims to be for. The country has been fooled and David Cameron has played what is quite possibly the best piece of parliamentary sleight-of-hand many of us will ever see.

The sly old fox…

Here is my belief: The “porn” filter is a general web filtration mechanism that sits at the primary distribution nodes for this country - the ISPs. It will install a framework that can be used to block whatever information - or web-site - the government deems unsuitable for us, legal or otherwise. And although operated by ISPs, the government will retain a controlling power over its use.

This is a stage one of a union flag draped Golden Shield and somewhere down the line, this becomes an off-switch for whatever the government doesn’t want us to know.

Sounds crazy? Go ahead, label me as a crazy, I’ve got a jaw-drop argument for you in a few paragraphs time.

Trainers and Televisions

I think that the UK content filter started in 2011 with the English riots. It was noted at that time that the rioters used technology and social media to help co-ordinate their movements. The government moaned and said that the whole thing could have been avoided if they’d been able to switch off Blackberry Messenger.

Now, do we believe that this lovely silver bullet would have worked? Personally I don’t. Mass hysteria takes more than a minor inconvenience to overcome. But the idea stuck, and I would imagine the government started asking questions - and then came up with new questions along the line of “What the bloody hell do you mean we can’t block the buggers from planning riots on the internet!?!”

Now, take a seed like that and bury under a right-wing government for a few years and suddenly a national solution for information network control becomes less a paranoid delusion and more a realistic proposition.

Enter the Porn filter.

Smokescreen

Focussing the argument on porn is a perfect way to distract the country because so few few people want to come out and defend it. Moreover, many, many people would also wholeheartedly agree with everything he is saying.

This is Cameron’s masterstroke, if you’ll forgive the idiom.

If you introduce a mechanism for blocking any content that you don’t want you country to see - be it information about a riot location, police movements, confidential data perhaps leaked from a well meaning but soon to disappear government employee who wants people to know just how much the-powers-that-be abuse power and spy on people without a warrant - if you do that, you kick up a MASSIVE FUCKING SHITSTORM.

If you itemise a few of the categories that the general filter could be used for, then you can control the story and help steer people away from the darker plans you might have in mind.

If you distract the entire population with a complete wild goose chase about legal porn, and then conflate it with a devious serving of utterly repellant, and completely illegal child porn - then by the time the country stops arguing about the sexualisation of society and how to keep our kiddies safe, the bill has vanished over the horizon and one very sneaky government has got its way.

But… The children!

Yes the children. My belief is that they will be no safer after this legislation than they are now. One interesting fact that has emerged from in the debate about technology and child porn is that much of this content is not distributed over the World Wide Web, but sent via grey networks and peer-to-peer clients.

(Tough to backup beyond a few references in The Guardian but frankly I don’t want to enter anything about locating that type of material into my web browser.)

The government probably know this, and that therefore a web content block will not affect those channels. But this is still a great piece of propaganda because the overwhelming majority of people in this country have no idea of the distinction between the Internet as a whole and the World Wide Web as a specific technology.

As far as youngsters access to pornography go, I have heard some interesting information about how rife it is and that it can be damaging when misunderstood and misused. This is obviously not what we want, but I can’t help but believe that there is a better way to educate a population about personal content filters than installing a national system to block legal content.

Easier content controls will only apply to parents already minded to care about that sort of thing - thus missing millions of the most vulnerable children whose parents don’t actually give a crap.

I think the government probably know this too, but the propaganda power is far more useful to their actual plans.

What’s my motivation in this scene?

So David Cameron and the Conservative government have framed this as a two-pronged attack, one against illegal material that is already illegal; the other against legal material that is damaging the country’s moral fibre.

Cameron has openly taken this line himself. He wants to halt the demon of porn. Yet the attack is a general one, instead of concentrating on hateful and abusive sexual imagery - (rape and violence, stuff that is probably already illegal and should be hounded from every server with extreme prejudice) the focus is on everything that could be described as porn, no matter how consenting and adult it may be.

So this is definitely being positioned as a moral high ground. Ban the naughty pictures and the soul of the nation will be improved. The question is why?

Why this? Why now?

And this is the stone cold jaw-dropper for you to think about. Let’s look closely at that assertion that Cameron really is on a crusade to improve the soul of the nation.

REALLY???

Do you really believe that is what is going on here?

Think about it. Think about our Government. David Cameron, George Osborne, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt. These are the people who have practically sold off the NHS, who are taking significant steps to shut down peaceful legal protest, who are making sure that the rich keep getting the tax breaks. This is our Government, this is the one we have now. Where does moral crusading suddenly fit into their modus operandi?

All this money and time at this point in the country’s recovery from a recession. How the hell does a moral crusade become THE priority in social justice? Look at what is going on in the country? Look at the jobs market, the housing market and swingeing cuts in welfare and health provision.

Does this government really look like the moral crusading type to you?

If the answer is “YES!" then I really have to question what planet you are really from.

If you have even the slightest doubt about our government’s motivation, then you need to look past the public story and look for some other potential reasons, uses and intnt for the content filter. (And we need to leave concerns about just how technically feasible this all is till later - let's not allow complacency to compromise our freedom.)

Think about this. If the government gets their way, will they retain the power to force the ISP’s hand on implementation of content bans?

No, you might think, absolutely not because that would be an unthinkable infringement of our civil liberties.

(Look at the government again. See them? See those smiles? Good. Now back to me.)

What happens next time we have a wikileaks?

What happens next time we have an Edward Snowden?

What happens next time MP’s expenses get leaked?

What happens when something really important about our military and security agencies gets classified as “aiding terrorists”.

What happens next time the US NSA pokes a metaphorical gun into the side of our government’s head?

Do they use the filter?

Do they take the real moral high ground and protect our right to know how our country is being operated; how our world is actually governed?

What do you think?

Did you even think at all?

As long as you’re thinking and questioning now, that’s all that matters.

I don’t even need you to agree with me, just stop, think, and ask more questions next time the government does something so inexplicably out of keeping with their whole ideology.

[jogosity]

Book Review: "Alif the Unseen" by G. Willow Wilson

These days, we see a lot of cyber fiction and tales of brave hackers showing their morals, just as we see many, many tales of ordinary boys discovering a world of magic and demons whilst overcoming their own failings. Alif the Unseen gives us both of these things, and thankfully, it is ends up as a fascinating combination of cultures and genres that successfully delivers a fast moving and very involving story. There is a rich texture to the novel that is both intriguing and unusual whilst quickly becoming familiar and understandable. We don’t see a lot of Islamic or Arabic culture and mythology in mainstream sci-fi/fantasy and this is where the strongest aspects of the book lie. Not one, but two new worlds - one an imaginative fantasy rooted in myth and religious belief, the other a far realer world of oppressive politics and state observation in an unnamed middle-east nation where freedom is a pre-Arab Spring pipe dream.

The central characters provide a strong foundation to the plot and everyone behaves with the right combination of believability and unpredictability to keep things interesting without compromising our own credulity. The political backdrop of an oppressive state meshes well with the religious side of a society where sometimes total freedom (as we may see it in the west) is not wholly desired. The result is a very balanced exploration of cultural and personal freedom and the convictions each person has in their own set of beliefs. The plot builds well and spirals to a truly dramatic climax where there are so many major and minor plot threads to be tied up that the tension survives well beyond any expectation of a happy (or otherwise) ending you may have.

Less successful is some of the technical writing at those points of chaos and confusion. Key events occur without you really knowing. This leaves you scanning back and forth through a few paragraphs wondering if “That just happened… Has he done that? Is he there now? What?” It all resolves clearly enough and it is a minor gripe but I found it took some of the sting out of the more desperate moments. Elsewhere, the pace drops in a few places and there is a slight sense of deus-ex-machina to get our heroes out of one particularly tight spot.

At the conclusion of the book, the overwhelming feeling one is left with is of enjoyment and fascination. Alif the Unseen is a memorable, exciting and wonderfully textured book and blends two massively contrasting worlds with immense skill and creates a new third realm that is wholly convincing and enthralling.

Alif the Unseen is published in the UK by Corvus

[jogosity]

E3 2013: Sony vs Microsoft

Soooo, we’re all seen the results of the Big Fight between Microsoft and Sony at E3 the other night. The results are absolutely clear. Sony won.

Apart from the fact that they didn’t,  in some ways...

But in a third, potentially very important set of ways, they may actually have won after all.

This is complicated.

Comparing bananas to shoes

Basically, we still know relatively little about the actual use and experience of these new consoles, so everything we’re all saying is to some extent speculation, mixed in with a little opinion. But I’ve tried to back it up with a bit of analysis based on what I know about how these two giant corporations function.

The first point I want to make is that Sony obviously did win a battle last night, but it was one that Microsoft wasn’t actually fighting. The battle for the old core gamer is one that Microsoft really appears to be backing away from. Yes, they are keeping the big marquee names, and making a big deal of that fact, but the broad sweep of the game-fan gamer (people like us) is not a market they are particularly interested in any more.

This explains much of the upset at the sports ‘n’ TV dominated Xbox One reveal. Millions of old school gamers were hurt by the realisation that Daddy didn’t love them no more.

Sony’s presentation at E3 was a love letter to the traditional games buyer. A wide range of game types, convenience of lending and trading, plus their campaign to open up the system to all sorts of developers. This massively appeals to me (and my entire Twittersphere it would seem) but whether it’s where the big money lies is another question.

MS have targeted lucrative corporate partnerships for marquee games and traditional media provision. They’re not really focussed on the consumer, just their friends in the Old Publisher’s Society. And if there is a consumer that are after, then it is a very narrow, focus-group-honed flavour of Demographic Man. (And when I say “man” I actually do mean “man”.)

Microsoft are targeting a new breed of mid-core gamer, they love their shooters and love their movies and love their sports. They probably don’t know about those marvellous, bonkers games us old skool gamers grew up with, and it’s really not important to them. This, folks, is what the mainstream really looks like. Remember all those conversations we had about taking gaming to the mass market? Well it’s happened, and if you are surprised that it lacks our sophisticated appreciation of the aesthetics of play and of personal interactive experience – well, you need your head testing. This is the mainstream. This is what it looks like.

We shouldn’t be upset when a massive, capitalist monolith makes a profit oriented strategic decision. This is how business works. It doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but I think that this may well prove the more profitable business model.

Sony, meanwhile are still after the core gamers – including us old skool and arthouse gamers. They’ve looked at the iOS/Android model of an open platform and are starting to bring some of that experience to PlayStation. Indies and wierdos – it all looks fabulous! Will it work? Will it be as profitable as iOS? I very much hope so, it’ll be great news for the game players and game creators if the new vision of the PlayStation game marketplace a big success.

  Bums on Seats

But Sony won a critical point this week – hearts and minds. Their show of humility and humour was a stark contrast to the unflinching corporate hubris of the Xbox One show. Millions of players have shifted their loyalty, or settled it wholly with the PS4. If Sony can maintain this momentum of goodwill, that could turn into a big win on the early adoption.

We may want to think that the wide range success of a console comes from sustained high quality games and the excellence of the platform itself, but that’s not really true. It’s mainly about messaging and PR. And at the start of this generation, Sony have taken a dramatic victory with their clear, simple message that places games front and centre and supplies media as a valuable extra. By contrast, Microsoft have left a lot of people confused or angry. Their message is complicated and has arrived in a muddy way. Frankly, they should have know better that to go out with such a broken message.

A console generation is a marathon, not a sprint, but getting a good headstart could lead to a large swathe of the gaming community adopting the PS4 as their gaming machine, not only sticking to the exclusives, but also favouring it for any cross-platform titles too.

  The Long game...

If the initial victory for the gamer looks like being Sony’s, it is still way too early to write off Microsoft. The Xbox360 was a far more usable and friendly piece of kit than the PS3. Depending on what lessons have been learned, that could be an important part of the unfolding console war.

XboxLIVE is a streamlined, integrated and marvellously efficient network service, something that still cannot really be said of PSN. I’m not sure quite how big a factor this sort of usability will be in the long term but it could be an important factor if the simple act of buying a game or renting a movie is significantly easier on one or other machine.

I also suspect that the Xbox One’s controversial connection requirements, privacy issues and used game policies will actually end up very low-friction to the end user in day-to-day use.  If that is the case, then the “problems” caused by these policies cease to be actual usability issues and end up as user  perception.

Do the players resent this stuff? Lots of us core gamers and technology sophisticates will find this stuff impossible to swallow. But the majority of mainstream consumers out there probably won’t mind. And those that do baulk at the privacy and ownership rights are probably the sector of gamers that MS have stopped focussing on anyway so it’s no real loss to their bottom line.

Meanwhile, will the PS4 be a pleasant machine to use?  The PS3 wasn’t particularly. The firmware updates were onerous and the store completely divorced from the general user experience. The social side of PS3 usage was so much weaker than on the 360 and Trophies were a confusing mess in contrast to the clarity of Xbox’s Achievements. Sony need to up their game here, the day-to-day experience of using the machine must be excellent.

The Games

Yeah. Games. Remember them?

Look, they’ve got shooters. Both of them. One has more Halo, the other doesn’t. I’m not convinced the line up of games on each console will play that much of a role in their  long term success relative to one another. Both will have the marquee titles, or effective equivalents to the exclusives. The PS4 is a more diverse games machine – which will appeal to the core market (but, like I said, I don’t believe that this is the more valuable segment of the market any more).

The PS4 seems to have the edge in sheer power, but in terms of end user experience, that extra few percent of shiny polygons probably won’t amount to a great deal. As usual it’ll be something of a one-all draw on the games front, each market will get the games they want and value.

  The Five Way Game of Risk

The biggest mistake to make is to look at the games industry as a two way fight. We still have Nintendo to take into account, as well as those increasingly disruptive and powerful mobile platforms (and micro consoles). And then right at the end is the old warhorse – the PC with it’s staggering array of games, sub-platforms and developers.

All this talk of Sony and Microsoft could totally overlook the actual big winner of this generation.

[jogosity]

Xbox One: Why Microsoft are right (Or at least, not entirely wrong)

It's a few days since Microsoft debuted the Xbox One, and the web remains tingling with delight, interest, doubt, sarcasm and plain old bitter disappointment. I'd like to say that it was equal quantities of all of these, but as you've probably noticed, everything is heavily skewed towards the negative end of the scale.

The people have spoken.

And most of them used rude words.

So why am I about to write a post hailing the new console? Why am I going to fly in the face so so much opinion?

Well, actually I'm not. In reality I was a little bit disappointed in the Xbox One presentation myself. But I think that a lot of commentators have been too quick to stick the knife in, and may have not considered the intent of the presentation or the overall strategy of Microsoft. I actually think that the reveal show will have played brilliantly to corporate partners and share holders, but it clearly wasn't aimed at the traditional, hardcore game fan. And that is something that a lot of people don't seem to have understood.

Where were the games?

This is the big question that has been ringing in our ears. Well the first point I would make in MS's defence is that they actually explained that the reveal event would focus on the platform itself and largely avoid games - leaving E3 to perform that function.

I was aware of this from my twitter stream, probably from Major Nelson, so I didn't suffer the same degree of disappointment or, in some cases, shocked outrage as many observers.

Of course, this information was a relatively obscure fact that the majority of observers either didn't know or simply disagreed with. So this could be regarded as a failure in communication, or a strategic mistake to overlook games and gamers for the majority of the show.

I think there's much more to this, so it's time open the next can of worms.

Why so much TV?

It is my belief that the lack of games and the presence of so much TV, particularly sport TV, can both be answered by the same statement. It's a very contentious point that will probably make most of you hate me, but stick with me for a moment, I'll try and explain myself.

Core games aren't really that valuable any more...

It sounds insane, particularly when considered against the dazzling financial figures of the overall game industry and the gargantuan revenues of the uber hits. And yes, Call of Duty and GTA and their brethren do incredibly well. But, the problem lies not with the mega-hits, but with the crushed and battered middle ground. 

We all know what's happened to dev budgets, marketing spends and publishers basically running scared from anything that didn't look like a sure-fire hit. Developers stopped getting paid, studios went under and the biggest casualty came in the collapse of THQ - the very essence of the mid-market game publisher. The whole business model became increasingly untenable.

As much as we true game lovers want to believe that we can support a multi-billion dollar industry, the reality is that there are simply not enough of us and we're not spending enough on games.

Meanwhile, at the mega-budget end of the market, the Call of Duty phenomenon has turned millions of Xboxes and PS3's into Call of Duty machines. Utterly monogomous, the disc and machine part only to watch a movie or to slot in the next entry in the series.

And this is all fine. These are people who love to play a game, they might not be particularly adventurous, but the new midcore is becoming the biggest sectors in the game market.

So the hardcore end of the console market collapsed and if you're a hardware platform holder, your business model relies on licensing revenue from every game. So when that revenue dries up because the majority of your players are only buying one or two games a year, you need to look somewhere else to make that money.

We all have analytics

If you are a giant software mega-corp, you probably know what your software is mostly being used for. MS obviously know what people are using the Xbox360 for. Actually, it's not too hard to do a quick analysis yourself thanks to your Friends List and rich presence. Some of you will only see people playing games, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of you will repeatedly see the caption "Watching a movie."

It's almost as it the Xbox360 is already a big media machine... (On a personal note, I'll tell you right now that the only thing my PS3 gets switched on for these days is to play a BluRay - although that may change as Sony look to fill in their revenue hole with smaller indie games.)

So when you consider all these factors: the shrinking core games market, the massive surge in media consumption and the shift to much cheaper indie and mobile games for the people who want something interesting to play - the Xbox One starts making a lot more sense.

The final factor, is that Microsoft's traditional Xbox strategy has always been publisher-centric. We may not like or agree with that model, but it's how they work. Big deals, big volumes, low noise.

A few exceptions notwithstanding, they don't have an ear for the smaller devs and indies, they never have done. And with big corporate deals as such a big part of the company DNA, of course they have comfortably moved into the media and sport space alongside ESPN and the NFL.

Xbox is a business, operated at staggering cost by a gargantuan organisation. You shouldn't be surpised or offended that they want to guarantee a big return on that investment. When you gnash your teeth and wail that the Xbox One isn't for you any more, are you simply acknowledging the changing face of the digital entertainment landscape, or are you being a stroppy, over entitled, first world moaner?

The Battle for E3

So, right now we are just a few weeks away from E3 and the big push for the traditional Xboxers. The hardcore gamers are still casting massive doubts on the Xbox One's credentials as a games machine. This is rather foolish given the scant information we have to date. I'm expecting a few surprises in the Xbox One lineup and a lot of "yeah but..." when the hostile core audience starting seeing things they like. They stakes are high for the machine, but in the current negative environment, they've just lowered a lot of expectations. It's a good way to come back with a surprise victory.

The Battle for the Living Room

This is Microsoft's big strategy for the Xbox One. To be the one box you need in the living room for all your media and entertainment needs. The reveal show was just one tiny fragment of that overall campaign. It was a very US-centric beginning, and I expect there is going to be a massive amount of games and services launched around the world in the next few years. Broadening the appeal, picking up new markets and perhaps luring some old ones back into the fold. This thing is going to grow, and grow and grow.

Maybe that is the problem?

Are the detractors still thinking "fixed proposition hardware" as opposed to "expanding service"?

Difficult to say really, but I will be fascinated to see what the Xbox One grows into. And when I have seen and experienced a bit more of that vision, that is when I'll make my decision whether or not the device is for me.

[jogosity]

10 Things We Need from the New Consoles

It's an exciting time. As I write this, the Xbox 720 reveal event is just a few hours away. And no, I don't expect it to be called 720 either. But with that and the PS4 on the horizon, I thought I'd blog a wee bit what I think we need from these new consoles. I'll probably get into trouble by not including the WiiU in this list. I sort of apologise, but not much because that console is already out so doesn't qualify for a speculative post such as this.

To set this up a bit, I love console gaming, most of my most cherished gaming experiences live on consoles. And as much as I love mobile gaming, I expect more of my favourite experiences to only be possible on a console, on a whacking big telly, with a perfectly designed controller in my hands. But consoles need to change, and it's not going to be poly counts or shader support that will make the difference.

Let’s start with some hardware bits to get that out of the way.

Graphics : Some – We’ve learned over the past few years that totes-amaze-balls pictures aren’t really necessary for a great game experience. But I concede that you probably will need “some” graphics so I won’t complain too much. You’ll probably want terribly shiny cars, I’d like human faces that don’t weird out on me when they are talking.

Sound: Yes Please – And if you could put an optical output somewhere sensible that would be nice. Thanks.

Console Hardware Configuration: Properly tested this time... Yes. You know what I mean. No more of that!

Right, now let’s talk about games. Frankly, I don’t care very much about all the big showcase, $100 Million productions that you’re all going to show us at E3. I want interesting, unusual and innovative games that will come from all over the game community, not just from your 6 bezzie mates in the dwindling Old Publishers Society. Most importantly, I want to be one of the people creating those interesting, unusual and innovative games. So my “games” section looks like this.

Game Marketplace: Open – Look, you can’t compete with the mobile experience by trying to curate every single fucking pixel that goes on your machine. The world is heaving to the gunnels with genius game creators who aren’t allowed anywhere near a console. Let the small, medium and indie devs create games for you. Sony appear to be learning this lesson and are making very positive steps to opening up. Microsoft would do really well to follow this lead.

This is even more important in a world where the $50-$100 million dev budgets may well be either a dead business model, or one that is so restricted that it chokes the whole console business to death. Release games from the grip of the Old Publishers Society. They can still be there, but along side us, not instead of us.

Secondly, let the vendors set the prices, don’t police this yourself. Apple have got a better system here. Loads of tiers for all sorts of price points and the capacity to change tier with ease. Give US the power, you can just relax and make more money for doing less.

Oh, and one more thing. I will be paying in real money. That thing will cost me £4.99. CLICK.

Do you understand this?

Development: Seamless – This I write from the point of view of a game dev. Traditionally, getting your game to work on an Xbox has been easy. It just worked, it really did! Conversely, getting it to run on a PS2 or PS3 was... difficult. If both of you could just give us great SDKs and dev environments that would be great and we wouldn’t have to think twice, thrice or eighteen times about the infrastructure cost or extra programming overhead when deciding whether to develop smaller titles for your platform.

A corollary to this request is less nobby, and less-nobby TCRS. Sometimes using a console is like being walked to school by panicking grandmother. I won’t turn my console off and expect it to still work. I get it. Stop talking to me like I’m some sort of experimental chimp.

Game updates: Free – This is another game dev point. For heaven’s sake, STOP FORCING US TO PAY TO UPDATE OUR GAMES! Devs should be able to freely, seamlessly update their games, adding new stuff and improving the experience. Pass the responsibility on to us to make sure it has been adequately tested, don’t worry if some people screw it up, it won’t be your fault, it’ll be ours. This is fine. We are grown-ups, making games is our business and our livelihoods, we’ll do EVEYTHING to ensure they work for everyone.

Once again, look at how mobiles games and apps have coped with the anarchic wild frontier of updating games without daddy overseeing every step.

Now I want to make a few points about the wider experience of using the console.

User Interface: Clear, and Customisable – But consoles are supposed to be baked experiences, perfectly optimised for our pleasure and not needing any of that complicated faffing with icons and menus that you need to do on a PC!!!

Utter, utter, poppycock.

Even my phone lets me put the most important things TO ME in the most accessible place FOR ME. Let’s assume for the second that I don’t want 75% of my screen taken up with movie and TV entertainment content that I WON’T BUY, but would be happy to see game content for which MY WALLET IS OPEN AND BEGGING. You might, y’know, sell me more shit?

This relates to business in some way but I can’t quite figure out how.

Online Services: Excellent – This is an area in which Microsoft have a clear advantage. Despite the improvements in the PlayStation Network in recent years, XboxLIVE remains a better experience. It is more usable and its personal and social features are far more visible and accessible. Friend lists, online play set-up, all of this stuff is really important.

Having little funny men and women computer-people representing each of my friends is sort of silly and arguably pointless, but it is still fun and I like it. The ease of seeing what my friends are playing and how far they have got via their achievements is a nice experience.

Admittedly it is one that has become harder to reach in recent, movie/music oriented firmware updates, but putting my friends back at the heart of the platform is something that will leave me feeling a bit more connected after each game session. It’s not a tangible thing, but it is important.

Mobile Integration: Perfect – MS are making some useful steps with Smart Glass and their XboxLIVE apps, but this could go further. The XboxLIVE app in particular I have found a bit awkward to use, but the idea of having a “social screen” by your side when playing a game is really nice. How about letting me do any menu and options config for my console system on my tablet or phone. The interface is probably more suited to that sort of thing than a game controller or, god-forbid, physical gestures and voice control. (About that  - Kinect is brilliant and a huge part of the future, but keep it in the games and don’t massively compromise the core UI to support it.)

How about giving me a notification about new firmware updates and letting me remotely power-up and install the update when I’m on the bus, not when I get home and want to play? Sony in particular need to make massive improvements in this area.

I am expecting flip-to-screen gaming between Xbox and Windows Phone and vice versa. Can we get this on other platforms too? How about the Xbox running the game and streaming the video feed to my iPad over wi-fi? Sounds unlikely but that is the holy grail. (Some games probably wouldn’t work because of controls but that’s no reason to support the ones that would translate perfectly.)

And if you do do this, let devs decide if they want to support the feature, don’t enforce it – remember what I said about less nobby TCRs?

Finally

Stereoscopic 3D: Don’t bother – You really don’t need to me to explain this one, do you?

[jogosity]

First Impressions – Nimble Quest

 I’ve done a few First Impressions posts about high budget console games, but in many respects, the notion of a first impression is more appropriate to a mobile or web game that can actually evolve and change after launch.

And this week, Nimblebit (Tiny Tower, Pocket Planes) release their latest title, Nimble Quest – iOS/Android. Like lots of popular iOS titles, it is a hybrid game. It is a collision between the very smallest game design (Snake) and the very biggest (the RPG).

The Gameplay

 So what we have is a very cute auto-walker seen from a top down perspective in classic Zelda style. Your character moves at a constant speed, and you simply swipe across the screen in the direction you wish them to walk. You start every game with a single character but are soon adding to your party by collecting characters and suddenly the Snake reference becomes clear. Each character has a specific attack mechanism, be it projectile, explosive or sword based and they all attack automatically. You just tell the conga line where to go!

Each level is a small, arena, a few smooth scrolling screens across and as well as encountering single enemies, you’ll soon be engaged is fun jousting battles against short conga’s of enemy warriors!

 The whole thing is wrapped in a cute, pixelly artstyle reminiscent of Tiny Tower and packing loads of medieval fantasy charm. Control is responsive and easy to learn. The pick-ups are well thought out and occur at pleasingly regular intervals, thankfully never threatening to overwhelm the game or make you feel weak or boring in your default state.

 The game is good. A lovely, simple 2 minutes that gradually becomes tougher and ultimately leads to your doom on the point of an enemy lance or in the web of a giant spider.

Many of the game design decisions play into the player’s favour. If a member of your conga is hit and killed by an enemy, only that character is lost. The only instant game over comes from having your Lead character killed. All of this feels fair and I have never come away from the game feeling cheated.

  The Meta Game

 Most short session games need a good meta game to give you some reason to keep coming back and to having some larger goals to aim for. Nimble Quest features a character unlock and upgrade system. (with a smaller Power-Up upgrade chain running in parallel.)

The game is also level based, with a number of levels (arenas) to play through. Completing a level usually rewards you with a new character. And the number of characters you have unlocked is also the max number of characters you can have in your conga. So, completing higher levels is important – but rather tough because every single game cold starts you on level 1.

  Monetisation

 The game is free to play, with the usual IAP options alongside. You can buy characters – negating the need to play to unlock them, and you can buy one of the game’s two soft currencies – Gems (also earned in relatively high numbers in-game) and Gold Coins (rare in-game).

A final cash purchase introduces high value Red Gems (each worth 10x) into the game alongside the Green (1x) and Blue (5x) values you start off with.

So, from an IAP perspective, you can pay to circumvent the level structure to get characters, or you can use gold to skip one level per coin to get back to the level you want to start on. Or you can buy a bulk of Gems to save grind time when upgrading your characters and pick-ups.

  Does it Work?

Right now, the game itself works well. It is lovely to play and offers a good few minutes of gaming per session before your inevitable demise. That is fine, it really fits the few-minutes-between-stuff slot that iOS games serve so well. The meta-game is a lot less successful and that means that the retention (and hence monetisation) may suffer.

From my perspective, too many of the IAP options are consumable – and offer little benefit when used. I don’t intend to pay to skip a level on a single game. I just won’t.

Similarly, if I pay to unlock a character, what happens when I next complete a level? Is there no reward? I don’t know, to be honest, but that lack of knowledge is not encouraging me to shell out.

The most attractive option is the 10x Red Gem unlock. However at £2.99 this “feels” expensive and the presence of 10x gems in the game is impossible to quantify. Are they going to be common? Or even rarer than the 5x gems?

I simply don’t know what my £2.99 is going to get me – and once again – that lack of confidence is stopping me from converting from a free player to a paying punter.

In fact almost every aspect of the monetisation leaves me nervous and safely insulated from making a purchase. The upgrade cost of the characters is relatively achievable for their first stage (1000 Gems for level 0 to level 1 – easily earnable in 3 to 4 good games) but the next upgrade costs 10000 gems.

So I’m looking at 30-40 games to upgrade 1 character? Even with the presence of “some” 10x gems in the game, I can’t see my earnings-per-game hitting much more than 1000 gems. I could be wrong, but my confidence is lower than needed to make an investment.

And let’s say I do buy the Red Gem unlock, what then? I might be able to reach higher levels, but that will take longer and longer to do, and perhaps I don’t want a longer and longer game session? And although I can achieve a few upgrades to one or two characters, after that I can only see the upgrades becoming bafflingly unattainable. That’s likely to deter me even further.

  Overall

 Nimble Quest is a great play experience, right now. A clever, elegant game that  But I am very unlikely to become a paying customer as the game stands. I’m already getting a lovely, enjoyable 2 minutes, and digging further into the game looks to offer a longer and potentially more difficult experience. That isn’t what I want.

I love iOS games that offer a tweaked or differently directed 2 minutes as I dig deeper into the game – whether free-to-play or paid downloads.

Jazz music gets better that more difficult it becomes, not iOS games. (Unless you set out to make an eye-melting challenge, and that simply doesn’t feel like Nimble Quest or Nimblebit.)

 However I think that there are many ways for Nimblebit to balance the numbers and the content of the game and the IAP to make it much more attractive. They’re a great outfit and I do have faith in them. Or, it might becomes the highest grossing game ever in the universe in which case I was probably wrong.

I don’t think I am though.

But you should definitely try Nimble Quest. If only to see how much you disagree with me.

[jogosity]

Tomb Raider – First Impressions

So here we are, once again leaping across chasms and picking off wildlife while discovering ancient artefacts and suffering occasional plunges to an unforgiving death on the rocks below.

But of course, it is far from business as usual in the new, rebooted, Tomb Raider. As things stand I am around a third of the way into the single player game so any spoilers can only be relatively limited in their impact and my conclusions may shift as I progress further.

What do I want from Tomb Raider?

Perhaps more than any other game, Tomb Raider comes with a vast litany of demands and expectations. The weight of history on Lara Croft’s shoulders drives a near unprecedented level of personal player investment in the game. Everybody knows who “their” Lara is and what “their” Tomb Raiding must entail.

For my part, I feel relatively comfortable with whatever Crystal Dynamics want to offer me. I don’t have many demands on either Lara or the Raiding, so we’re all safe from yet another blog post about how this Lara isn’t MY Lara and waaah waaah waah!

First First First Impressions – The intro and start of play.

Well this is pretty. A well executed cinematic  that cuts to the chase and worries about situation more than characterisation. When control does revert to me, it’s the tense, oppressive atmosphere that takes centre stage, the game activity is fairly standard and stays focused on scene setting rather than decisions or skill-based gameplay.

This is all fine and I’m enjoying myself. The first puzzle room presents a nice, simple physics puzzle that sort makes sense in a real-world setting if you grant it enough latitude (which I do).

The first problems set in as soon as the Quick Time Events have been wheeled out. QTE’s are usually a lowpoint of game design and I have failed SO MANY of them in the past 10 years that in truth I wouldn’t be upset if I never saw another one again. Tomb Raider makes the same mistake as all of its predecessors by making the time window for the button inputs way too short, and hence easy to fail. This makes the Big Dramatic Moments (the whole POINT of QTE’s) a lot less dramatic because you end up having to play all of them three or four times.

As I emerged from the first cave into the gloomy half light, the atmosphere is joined by a new mechanic in the shape of Experience points. Indeed the game swiftly reveals a fairly extensive range of old-skool RPG elements, including unlockable skills, upgradable equipment and multiple experience meters that (I think) lead to Skill Points.

This is one of the odder decisions in the game. I don’t dislike it per se, but I do find it a very odd match for the emotional adventure that seems to be the heart and soul of the game. By the end of the first hour I’ve had relatively little to do apart from thrash my way through irritating QTE’s and try to figure out what all these experience meters are for. Hmmm...

  Deeper under the surface

Over the second hour, the game lets you off the rails a lot more and starts to exhibit both its strengths and weaknesses. The discovery of a bow accompanies the first open environment to clamber around and explore, and your special vision mode “Survival Instinct” is introduced to give you better clues about where to focus your attention.

Once again we see this mix of realistic adventuring (at least within the diegetic sense - shooting animals and building a camp to survive) with very “gamey” aspects such as a special vision mode and the need to poke your nose into every corner of the world to find salvage and other hidden collectibles.

Of these, I actually rather like the Survival Instinct. It somehow explains Lara’s natural ability to cope in the awful situation in which she finds herself. Basically, the girl is built for this! It’s the game’s way of giving you her natural observational prowess without needing to put massive glowing arrows permanently in the game world.

Every Nook and Cranny

Less successful are all the hidden objects. Salvage, diaries, Geo-tags, ammo, relics and challenge items litter the landscape. Against my better judgement I find myself a willing participant in this insane easter egg hunt. Half of my brain lighting up with glee at every discovery, the other half wondering why the hell I am spending so much time poking my nose into every corner when my friends are dying and I’m freezing to death?

This is the contract the game makes with you. If you accept, or tolerate, this weird hybrid of narrative compulsion and tick-box obsession, then there is a fine game to be played.

The First Third

So I reached the second Tomb, around a third of the way through the game. And I have to say that the game gets stronger as it goes on. The notorious camp-site attack sequence would not have been notorious had it not been for some very stupid comments from a producer who should have been gagged. (Although guess what – yep – I had to do it four fucking times until I got the button timing right!)

The combat is satisfying enough. The bow being a particularly welcome mechanic. This is the most natural feeling weapon for the Lara with which we are presented both the most enjoyable to use and the most unfamiliar in the modern games scene.

Importantly, so far I have found a game with well judged balance of combat and exploration. Yes, the combat is a familiar, cover based form, but the game is not very punishing. It seems to want you to win and allows your perma-health to regenerate swiftly between attacks. (This is welcome but makes the merciless death-loop of the QTE’s even more of an incongruity.)

Overall

What we have is a finely crafted game with some unnecessary mistakes. (And in fairness, it is a very long time since I played a game without a few of those.)  Yes, it borrows heavily from Uncharted, but perhaps this is simply Naughty Dog returning the favour since Nathan Drake did borrow as much from Lara Croft as he did from Indiana Jones.

Lara herself is an interesting character. She takes as much of her character from game mechanics as she does from the narrative. There is no question why she killed that first human or why she continues to kill. However it is best not to ask where she suddenly magicked the ability to snap a human neck like it’s a breadstick or became a genius level weaponsmith.

Where the game excels is, as ever, Lara, alone against an environment. Climbing, leaping, exploring and discovering. Control is excellent, the set-pieces are thrilling and there is a strong narrative compulsion that really makes you care about the game and its cast. Where it falls down is in consistency and all those gamey conceptual non-sequiturs. Did the level designers and system designers ever talk to the writer, or to each other?

So what we have so far is something of a modern curio. So many ideas have been flung at the game that, ultimately the final product doesn’t make much sense. But it is entertaining and well crafted. With two-thirds of the game to go, I’m very much looking forward to seeing what else it has in store.