On Interactive Storytelling

Having recently played Metroid: Other M (and being rather disappointed with it), I felt a yearning to return to the brilliance of the Prime trilogy. So I dusted off my Echoes disc and started a new game. The differences between Other M and Prime are numerous, but one major thing I picked up on right away was how the two games go about telling their respective stories.

Other M tells its story with long, elaborate cutscenes, which serve for Samus to narrate all of the exposition and to describe the finer nuances of the plot. We watch and listen as the game tells us its story. Prime tells its story mostly by having the player scan things in the environment and read the subsequent scan results. Prime asks us to be more involved in its storytelling.

Naturally, I prefer the style used in Prime. That's not to say that cutscenes are inherently bad, but relying too heavily on them ruins the interactivity that you're supposed to get from video games. I could use this as a platform solely to bash Other M, but I want to make a broader point about how games can tell better stories. In the full article, I also use examples from The Elder Scrolls and Portal, and how they use NPCs and the environment to tell their stories, respectively.

How Low Can You Go: Limbo

So let's talk about Limbo. It's an award-winning indie platformer about a boy in limbo. He encounters all kinds of dark horrors on his quest, solving puzzles and avoiding the many, many death traps that lay in wait. Or, in my case, hitting every single death trap. Multiple times. And having to buy a new keyboard because it got smashed to bits in an unrelated incident involving the wall and projectile force.

Limbo is a difficult game that has you dying constantly. Some people praise its difficulty as being uniquely challenging in a world of games that hold your hand too much. It's definitely true that mainstream games are a little on the easy side, but that doesn't make Limbo's difficulty necessarily good. It borders on the gray area between satisfying and tedious, leaving the game a mixed bag of fun and frustration. Which, coupled with other major problems, leaves me disgruntled with this art game.

Video Games in TV: Law & Order Criminal Intent

"Some TV shows just don't get it." Part of a periodical series: Video Games in TV.

Do I really have to sit through another one of these? This episode was especially unbearable. It doesn't get a whole lot overtly wrong, but the whole thing is just so boring.

Season 3 of Law & Order: Criminal Intent had an episode called "F.P.S." that, surprisingly, wasn't about first-person shooters (or should that be "unsurprisingly," considering how little these shows understand about gaming?). A bunch of money goes missing and a young woman gets thrown off of her balcony. Somehow it all gets traced back to a team of video game developers; apparently one of them was jealous about how the other guy spent his time and concocted a convoluted conspiracy to eliminate a third party. Detectives Goren and Bishop rush to the scene of the awkward, yawn-inducing love triangle.

As usual, a run-down of the episode with pictures, video, and commentary awaits in the full article.

Great Games You Never Played: STALKER

"Fine, obscure gems." Part of a periodical series: Great Games You Never Played.

The STALKER games (in order: Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat) are somewhat unique in the realm of first-person shooters. Whereas most shooters are content to be linear corridor-crawlers with heavily scripted action sequences, STALKER goes for a non-linear open-world formula based on quests, inventory management, and exploration. This alone makes the STALKER games a rare gem, but they also feature some of the best atmosphere you'll ever experience in any game.

Set in the irradiated "zone" surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the radiation and fallout from its fictitious second melt-down have caused biological mutations in the local wildlife. All kinds of hazardous, supernatural anomalies litter the environment. The zone is a dark, hostile place that only scientists, scavengers, and mercenaries dare to brave. You play an amnesiac adventurer who has to venture into this twisted, mutated wasteland with one simple objective: kill a man named Strelok.

STALKER has it all: tight, sophisticated shooting mechanics; conventional RPG elements like quests, inventory management, exploration, and NPC interaction; and a rich, thick atmosphere that sucks you into its dynamic world that simply breathes with life (and chokes in decay). STALKER is an effort of ambition that's unmatched by any other game; it tried to be something different, and succeeded at being something more. If you've never experienced the glory of STALKER, then perhaps it's time you did. More after the jump.

The Top 10 From 2011: Best Reviews

In which I highlight some of my best articles from 2011. Shameless self-promotion with a chance to get some of my favorite pieces back on the front page. Huzzah.

Just to round out a solid trifecta, this time I'll be ranking ten of my best reviews. These won't be the ten best games I covered, because a lot of the games I covered sucked, quite frankly. These are the ten reviews that I had the most fun writing, and which I feel are some of the more descriptive and analytical ones. Exempt from this list are any reviews I wrote of free indie games, since I've got a separate list linking back to those articles. Click the full article for the full list.

The Top 10 From 2011: Best Editorials

In which I highlight some of my best articles from 2011. Shameless self-promotion with a chance to get some of my favorite pieces back on the front page. Huzzah.

This time around I'll be ranking ten of my favorite editorials, those opinion pieces where I rant with divine authority on the industry: what's wrong with it, what needs to change, things that are good and we need to see more of, etc. I apparently had a lot of opinions back when I started this blog; here are some of the more interesting ones that also tend to have more original ideas and analysis than what other critics come up with. Click the full article for the full list.

The Top 10 From 2011: Free Indie Games

It's that time of year when everyone reflects on the year's greatest achievements and ranks them in order of their success. Since I hardly ever play new releases, I can't compile a list of the top ten releases from 2011. Instead, I'll be highlighting some of my best articles from 2011. Shameless self-promotion with an opportunity to get some of my favorite pieces on the front page again. Huzzah.

I played a lot of free indie games in the past year. Most of them were pretty good, but some of them were a lot more memorable than others. Some of them had that extra spark of creativity to make them truly unique and original. Some of them were just a lot more fun than the rest. Not all of these games were released in 2011, but here are my top ten favorite free indie games that I covered in 2011. Click the full article for the list.