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Sunday 18 September 2011

Day 3 of the Experiment.

I managed to resist the urge to get drunk while playing last night, I did I admit down a couple of 'Corona's' over the two hour slot. The thing is, when you are staring at a screen of character with a rifle in your hand facing down zombies - there's an urge to drink... I guess it stems from a mis-spent young-adulthood where I'd spend nights sitting up late watching horror films...

Funny really, but in some respects, if I ever DID have to survive a zombie infestation on the one hand I'd probably fare well because of my hours of 'Training' on the Left 4 Dead games... The urge to have a beer before going zombie killing could be a bad thing. Given my fairly lack-lustre performance with a shotgun while sober - failing to hit more or less all of the clay pidgeons - I suspect trying to wield a shotgun while drunk would be plain dangerous...

Anyway - DID have a more satisfying night of gaming all in all. I started the night by warming up with an epic fail attempt at getting through realism expert mode... The more I play realism expert, the more convinced I am that actually to succeed at this mode you need a team of four good players and 4 way mic communication, or 4 amazing players... I've gotten through most of Dark Carnival before without mic but really it's so much easier if you are able to communicate what you are doing and what you want the others to do... Unfortunately I've misplaced my mic at the moment.

Playing Expert realism does hone your basic skills though, after a couple of false starts we were storming ahead and go to the stage where we were preventing the opposing team even getting one canister. It struck me as well, that as the infected a key strategy is to not spawn until you are close - you move so much faster before spawning and obviously can't be hurt... The number of times when you can't find a spot to spawn are very infrequent. Using this tactic you can home in on a straggler - or a survivor rushing to help a straggler who has been trapped by one of your team.

In some ways, it's very satisfying to focus on one game. Perhaps one of the reasons I've been a bit disillusioned with games lately is the lack of getting deep, deep into a game. Duke Nukem Forever was just annoying to play... The final battle wasn't bad and the first bit in the Casino was sort of okay - but overall it seemed clunky shallow, ill thought out and generally seemed to rely too much on low rent humor - so low rent at times it was cringeworthy...

My favourite, most memorable gaming experiences have when I've gotten deep, deep into a game - examples being Final Fantasy 7, Badurs Gate Grand Theft Auto 3, games where I've ended up with a long term emotional stake in the plot and story.

Left 4 Dead really doesn't quite fit into these categories, but there's another deep, deep gaming experience that equates better. The deep mechanics of a game, whereby playing it wouldn't be a blind experience, playing it with a clear idea of the strategies and the way game actually works, and being able to play it well because of that. Street Fighter 2 is a good example, I was in this state playing Unreal Tournement online actually...

I suppose in some respects Left 4 Dead has elements of both of these themes, the story is great for a survival horror lover like me. Anyone who has enjoyed the George Romero Living Dead series will understand... But then you have these really interesting and well developed game mechanics that govern the multi-player versus modes...

I ought to try to play some more LA Noire really at some point, it's a different experience, it's a cup of coffee and a biscuit game, less hectic, less skill driven, it's more of a puzzly thinker... I think part of the problem is I'm a bit rubbish at it - I can never spot the lies consistently and I always pick the wrong evidence to support the fact that they are lying...

I like the concept - but I think it's flawed, I hate how if you have any doubt - your man starts having a heroic go at people - and putting them off.

I think games are an interesting blend of two media - on the one hand they can be a bit like films, there's a plot, characters, special effects... But there's also that interraction, the challenge, the magic circle and so on... Games can NEVER be like sports - because they will always be superseded by new technology and the film-like element of games means there'll always be interest in playing new games.

Like films as well, we have big budget flops and little independent gems like minecraft and Limbo... Of course Left 4 Dead is game by the giant Valve, but the difference I think is that Valve started with a solid concept and built a game around it within the context of a story. With Duke Nukem, they started with a character, and built a game around that character - and that is probably partly why it failed. The concept was based around 'fun' the game was at the heart of it - the story and characters were chosen to fit.

My conclusions, fun should be at the heart of every game concept. Certainly not a character, would Duke have turned out differently if the core concept had been, 'It's fun to play a comedically invicible, hot headed cheese loaded hero' In some respects the old Duke 3D probably was built around this concept - that's probably why it worked.

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