Living up to the Promise of Guitar Hero

When I first played Guitar Hero, I remember wondering what all the fuss was about. By the end of the song, when I realized how much better I was than at the beginning, and when I realized how awesome it felt to “play” guitar, I couldn’t stop recommending it.

It was the first game I can recall where almost all of the fun of the game just comes from becoming more skilled at the game, and actually, learning.  Obviously it’s not an educational game, and all it teaches you (honestly) is how to play Guitar Hero, but in that game I sensed the kernel of something bigger.  I’m certainly not the only or even a particularly early person to realize that educational games have huge potential, but I had forgotten how fun it is just to learn something.  Obviously it helps to learn something you want to learn, but it’s interesting (to me) that what you learn doesn’t even have to be useful.  At this point I’m thinking “holy crap, games could teach you X, Y, Z… even… even how to actually play guitar!”

At this point I sort of realized I was getting carried away, because playing guitar is FREAKING HARD (believe me, I tried to teach myself), it’s actually PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to change from one chord to another as fast as songs require ( or so I was pretty sure at the time), and guitar players are just mutants.  There’s no way you could make a fun game teaching someone how to actually play guitar.  AT this point I thought you might be able to do something with someone wanting to learn piano, or drums (both of which rock band eventually addressed), but guitar?  No way.

Fast forward several years and Harmonix , the best rhythm game studio in the world and makers of Guitar Hero, announces a HUGE upgrade to Rock Band.  PRO MODE, you ACTUALLY PLAY THE INSTRUMENT YOU’RE “PLAYING”.  INCLUDING GUITAR!  Though, with guitar, it’s one of two extremely expensive peripherals, either the 104 button “pro mode” plastic video game guitar, or the $180 six string Fender Squire Stratocaster that has MIDI output that Rock Band can use. 

At the time, I’m excited enough about the idea to pick up all the peripherals and I end up with both the 104 button plastic guitar, and the six string.  I play with the plastic one for a while, but I’m not getting sucked in. It’s fun, sort of, but it’s SUPER FREAKING HARD, and I can’t really tell what I’m doing wrong because the only feedback is a fakey guitar twang when I make a mistake.  The interface is also pretty difficult to understand.  The “real guitar” isn’t slated to come out for several months so I sort of practice with the plastic one, waiting for the real one to come.  The fateful day finally comes when  I can play rock band with a real guitar, and it’s….. disappointing.

It doesn’t function great, there is some bizarre Microsoft requirement reason that I can’t use the buttons on the guitar to control the game, and worst of all?  It doesn’t function well!  It can’t hear some of my plucks!  I am eventually able to adjust it to where it works pretty well, but the experience  isn’t that much better, and worst of all?  When the MIDI mode for rock band is enabled, the strings on the guitar are muted so I still can’t hear my mistakes.

Life intervenes and my child demands a large amount of my attention so my guitars (real and fake) get put away for about a year. 

Then this little game Rocksmith finally comes out.  Initially I’m skeptical, given that Rock band 3, and the apparently abysmal Power Gig didn’t really live up to the hype, I can’t believe some obscure Ubisoft studio could manage to put out something that bests the indomitable Harmonix Music Systems. Reviews are pretty good, however, and apparently for newbies the learning curve is amazing.  Not taking it too seriously, I throw the X box 360 version of the game on my Amazon.com wish list, thinking that maybe someone could get it for me and I could try it out.  Particularly since my birthday and Christmas were coming up.

I ended up trying to cancel the wish list wish and switch it with the PC version because I’ve heard about problems with the delay inherent in modern home theatre equipment and the game, and how it can sound really terrible and be hard to play.  Unfortunately (or actually, forunately) I update my wish list too late and the gift is already on the way.  I receive it, and take it up to my office where I have a second X box 360.  It still takes me quite some time to get around to trying it.  I don’t’ have my xbox live profile upstairs…  I don’t want to mess around with memory cards… Skyrim is out…   Finally Microsoft implements Cloud Saves into X box 360, and it’s easy to have a profile on multiple X boxes.  One night I randomly decide to fire up Rocksmith instead of Battlefield 3.

3 weeks and 4 calloused fingers later, I’m not looking back. This game completely delivers on the promise of Guitar Hero.  The track list is fantastic, the interface is extremely good (one can quibble but it’s by far the clearest interface I’ve seen of its kind).  There are tons of small little nits to pick and it’s clearly not a big budget title, but it nails what it needs to nail and more importantly, the more I play, the better I get at guitar!  The first couple of days my fingertips are on fire from pressing steel strings down, but once the callouses are in, I can’t pull myself away from the game at night, I’m mastering “High and Dry”, I’m learning the main riff from “Satisfaction”.  I’m struggling to play the main riff from “Don’t Fear The Reaper”, I’m LEARNING FREAKING GUITAR.

The game has a brilliant automatic difficulty selector, wherein, the more you play the part, the harder and more like the actual song it gets.  Normally this means chords start out as notes, then two string chords, then possibly the full chord.  Solos pick out the highlights and then slowly fill the gaps.  It almost always is recognizably the song you’re playing, but usually simpler sounding.  I play this way over and over, playing through the surprisingly competent career mode, where the game selects songs to practice and then “perform” in front of a virtual crowd, earning you rankings and points.  There are a few great practice modes where you can practice part of a song to increase the difficult, or play it slowed down and then have it gradually ramp up the speed as you learn it.  Basically a fully featured rhythm game, possibly the best one I’ve ever played.

I really hope Rocksmith succeeds financially, it’s already succeeded from a creative perspective. I REALLY want more downloadable content, I want there to be a sequel that fixes all the little problems. But if not, I’m going to squeeze all the practice I can out of this one.  It’s truly an amazing game experience, and an incredibly important symbol of what video games can be.

The Verge

There is a new tech site in town.  It’s called The Verge. It’s ostensibly similar to Engadget and Gizmodo, in that it reports tech news with some editorializing.  It is actually, in practice, quite different.  I’ll say that Engadget and Gizmodo might post more stories in a day, but The Verge posts stories that are almost like magazine articles.  They’re laid out extremely well with top notch writing and if the article isn’t an editorial, an overall lack of bias in the content, something that’s pretty rare these days in tech reporting.  I tend to think the majority of the staff are apple fans, but I don’t think that comes through too badly in the news reporting.  Unlike Gawker sites, there’s also a distinct lack of sensationalism and click-baiting which I find incredibly refreshing.

Anyway I thought some people might be interested in this great new tech site, The Verge.

Uncharted and “Narrative Design”

I recently had a discussion with a friend and colleague at a party about Uncharted 3 and it’s merits and weaknesses.  My friend’s main high point was the fantastic “Narrative Design”.  I’m not trying to single him out with this post and I don’t’ want to insult anyone, but when I hear terms like “narrative design”, I want to give our industry a good shake.  Not because it’s necessarily wrong to go after a great narrative, not that narrative and design should be divorced, it’s just that it’s so freaking poorly defined!

What is narrative design anyway?  Is it writing?  Story? Connection between story and gameplay?  All of the above?  something else?  For me, the term invokes the concept of telling a story through gameplay, or at least tightly interleaving gameplay and story.  To me a great “Narrative Designer” would be someone who can tell me the story of a game even as I’m playing it, without relying heavily on dialogue or cutscenes.  Someone who can use environment cues to give backstory, who can, through gameplay, create emotional connections to characters and plot.

Not to offend anyone, but I don’t think we have a lot of these people in the business.  And, not to be a total jerk, but I don’t think any of them work at Naughty Dog.

Let me start by saying that I think Uncharted 2 is in a short list of contenders for best game of the current console generation, and maybe one of the best games of all time.  Certainly one of the best action games of all time.  Particularly in context.  It wasn’t a game that innovated, but boy did it execute on so many levels.  Great encounter design, decent shooting, fantastic graphics and great dialogue.  Really impressive tech, too, in terms of graphics, physics, what have you.  Amazing opening, incredible pacing, just a fantastic bolt from the blue as far as I’m concerned.  Uncharted 1 did not prepare me for what Naughty Dog had in store for Uncharted 2.

However.

When Naughty Dog says things like (paraphrasing) “it’s disheartening when reviewers say other games have amazing stories”, I have to take issue. The story might be good, if there was a consistent main character in Uncharted, or if the allies of the main character didn’t have a huge blindspot for the main character’s bizarre psychopathic behavior.

What am I talking about?

The main character, who presents himself as a “happy-go-lucky” everyman who is a treasure hunter, just trying to get that big score, in actuality is a mass murderer.  We’re talking about someone who will sneak up on hired guards who are paid to protect an archeological dig, or possibly some amazing ancient tomb, and silently kill as many people as he can until they realize he’s there and desperately try to defend themselves.  It doesn’t do much good though, because Nathan Drake is a superhuman marksman and soldier who basically puts any real soldier to shame.  During each uncharted game, Drake kills easily over a thousand people, many of whom had no warning, and certainly did not initiate combat. 

And why does Drake murder all these people?  Is he trying to save his country?  Maybe protect the human race?  Even something as simple as revenge? 

No, the main reason Nathan Drake sneaks in and murders hundreds of mercenaries is to try to get rich.  He’s presented as a noble protagonist and several characters are sympathetic to him due to his supposed nobility.  But all the motivations for Drake are to make a lot of money obtaining some relic. The plot does ensure that there’s someone even more murderous and money hungry (though do we ever see these so-called villains murder thousands of people?  I don’t think so), and of course the get rich quick scheme backfires, but it doesn’t change the fact that characters in the story laud drake and hate the antagonist despite the fact that the motivations are largely the same.  And worst of all, they’re not really that consistent with the motivations of the player!  The player wants to have fun murdering thugs!  Which is totally out of character for Drake!

Now, I haven’t played Uncharted 2 in a long time, so I can’t pull examples from that as easily, though the beginning of the game, where you inexplicably start with a tranquilizer gun comes to mind (why bother?  Drake clearly has no compunctions taking down hundreds of people who get in his way), or at the end when in a bizarre desire (one assumes) for Naughty Dog to show the world how ridiculous its plot actually is, they have the antagonist say to Drake “How many men have you killed, just today”.

Uncharted 3, has some pretty amazing moments in this regard, however.  At the beginning of the game, when Drake’s British compatriot hands him a gun and Nathan gives the man a look as if to say he wasn’t comfortable handling a gun.  Really Nathan?  Who are you trying to fool?  I personally watched you gun down hundreds of people during the previous two games, and don’t act like you’re trying to look good in front of your friends.  I’ve seen them shoot a fair few mercenaries themselves.  But the amazing part is towards the end of the game, no spoilers, so don’t’ worry, but there is a part where Sully separates from Nathan so Nathan can open a door, and on the other side of the door there are 20 or so mercenaries, just trying to guard the place.  After murdering all the mercenaries, you open the door, to have Sully ask:  “What took you so long?”  Your response?  Delivered in a lighthearted, devil-may-care tone: “The usual”.  Indeed, murdering tens of people is “the usual” for this madman, but not for any normal person!

Now longtime gamers might, at this point, begin to question my motives behind this blog post, and even question the validity of my concerns.  I mean aren’t most games about killing enemies?  What about Halo or Call of Duty?  What about Grand Theft Auto?  Well it’s pretty simple, in Halo and Call of Duty, you’re a soldier, and a soldier’s job is to kill enemies!  It’s perfectly reasonable that you’d mow down tons of enemy troops.  In Halo, you’re even meant to be a genetically enhanced cyborg, so it’s sort of plausible that you could face down armies on your own.  Call of Duty basically ensures that you’re the greatest soldier who ever lived, but at least it makes sense that a soldier would shoot enemies.  As far as Grand Theft Auto, I could write a whole separate blog post on why the gameplay and story don’t match up, but at LEAST the main character is meant to be a NOTORIOUS CRIMINAL.  In Grand Theft Auto Vice City, several characters are trepidatious about the protagonist’s imminent return due to his ability to destroy a town!  This isn’t exactly solving the problem but at least it sort of addresses it.

“Well, that’s all well and good,” you might say, “ but can you show me an action game where the main character isn’t killing hundreds of enemies?” 

Indeed, the Batman games from Rocksteady do, in fact, have a protagonist who doesn’t kill criminals.  All of the combat is stealth and fistfighting.  One might note this is how most of the action in films that are similar to the Uncharted series takes place also.  Films like the Indiana Jones movies, and Romancing the Stone.

I can laud the uncharted games (particularly 2) as a fantastic action game series, but I can’t take them seriously as advancing the industry in terms of narrative design.  I will admit they have a reasonably good plot and, for video games, really good dialogue, as well as fantastically realized cutscenes.  I won’t give them a pass on the absolute and complete disconnection between the action of the game, and the plot of the game, however.  It doesn’t make the game bad, but it certainly reflects poorly on the games as paragons of “narrative design”.

So is this rant just a hate filled spew?  Can ANY GAME Live up to my seemingly high expectations?  Indeed, my friend’s question was “what game does it better?”  Which, in some ways is a fair question.  I shall attempt to answer with a few games that I do find to be incredible examples of what I think of as great narrative design.

Ico is the only game that I’ve ever witnessed that can truly be said to have a love story in it.  You may not fall in love with Yorda, but if that’s the case, I’d advise you to go to the hospital, because I think there’s a reasonable chance you don’t have a heart.  Through simple mechanics and IK, a bond is forged between the protagonist and Yorda that ends up creating incredibly strong emotional connections, and the ending exploits this to tremendous (and frequently tearful) effect.

But that’s old and somewhat esoteric.  One could even complain that it’s too artsy fartsy, and not that popular.  Besides, there’s not even any good dialogue!

For my second case, I present: Portal 2.

The entire game, your motivations are perfectly in sync with the protagonist.  There is amazingly hilarious dialogue with genius comic timing.  The story is told through mechanics, dialogue, and told very well through the environment. I’m not going to talk about whether Portal 2 is overall a better game than Uncharted 2, but from a narrative design perspective, it beats the ever living crap out of uncharted 2 (in my opinion,  of course).

How about Half Life 2?  The beginning of the game is a master class in video game storytelling.  This storytelling doesn’t work in any other medium, you have to play it, you have to experience it firsthand.  I don’t’ think the rest of the game holds up quite as well to the beginning, but oh what a beginning.

Other games that I tend to think have great narrative design include Bioshock, Shadow of the Colossus, Mass Effect, and the God of War series.

I think that’s enough ranting, and I hope I made it clear that I think the Uncharted games are perfectly good games, but I hate that as an industry we can’t define “narrative design” as distinct from writing a story well enough to discern good dialogue and cutscenes from good design.