“Watch what you say to me

you see me and you know I’m tooled up

you don’t want to see me cut the fool, brah.”

–T.I., Watch what you say to me

I’ve spent the last few months teaching Creative Writing for Video Games at a particular College[1]. At the beginning of every semester, I make it a point to ask students what they like and don’t like about video games so I can gauge the class’ general understanding and exposure to the medium.

Every semester, I get a fair handful of “I don’t like fetch quests and escort missions.” Other times, I get “Tutorial stages are unnecessary and long.” One time, a student said she didn’t like it when non-playable characters (NPCs) talk down to her.

“Talk down to the hero, you mean,” I said.

“Talk down to me,” she insisted. “I’m the hero. I make the decisions in the game. The character on screen is just a character I play.”

Fair point. In any game, the player is the hero. Outside of being the central character, the hero can be identified through two general criteria: if the character makes critical decisions that influence the game world, and if the character has a character journey[2].

Video games are unique as a medium because of its interactivity. Unlike other media such as TV or literature, the video game audience actively participates in the unfolding of the game story. Players don’t just watch the hero overcome obstacles. We guide the hero through those obstacles. We are the hero.

The hero. Not just the central character. Often times, the video game hero is above average, with special skills and characteristics, or he is hand-picked by destiny to save the world. This makes sense because video game players enjoy vicarious thrills. If the choice is between playing as Kratos, a warrior who can slay gods, or playing as Joe Shmoe, telephone salesman, I know who I’ll choose any day[3].

I am the game hero. The fate of the world rests on my shoulders. I alone can wield the ultimate weapon and defeat unimaginable odds. I choose who should be spared and who should be put to the blade. So why on earth are all these NPCs constantly talking shit at me?

From a game designer’s view point, this is easy enough to understand. By default, the hero starts out as the dumbest character in the game simply because the player does not know this game world yet. Before becoming the hero of destiny, the player first has to learn about the game world’s rules and mechanics. The simplest way to do this is to have NPCs explain everything to the hero.

This tactic, however, can be annoying the longer the game insists on explaining everything to the hero.

Certainly, game developers are aware of this conundrum. Players need information but if the information is readily given, this either diminishes the game’s challenge or it can hamper the gaming experience. Players want to play the game, not sit through hours of instruction and backstory.

(In this same manner, games with obligatory 30-minute opening cut scenes have fallen out of fashion. Recognizing this fact has forced game designers to rethink the way games present backstory. Instead of cut scenes and endless text scrolling, games like Bioshock have scattered audio recordings that provide bite-sized backstories that players can collect and piece together if they want. The narrative then is no longer obligatory for gamers who don’t want to be bogged down by the story, while serving as incentive for gamers who follow the story.)

Many games have tried to explore other avenues of presenting players with information.

In games where the hero is mute, NPCs simply tell the hero what to do. Sometimes, when the hero has a voice, the hero character calls out the NPCs that constantly order him around. Other times, NPCs will chastise the hero for not knowing certain things, and then proceed on explaining, whether or not the player wants to hear it.

I am currently ten hours into Ni No Kuni and I’ve run headlong into this problem. It’s a wonderful game if it were not for all this unnecessary and annoying dialogue. It’s come to a point where I have to stop playing every 20 minutes because of the amount of horseshit these NPCs are saying to my character.

In Ni No Kuni, I am destined to be this powerful wizard who can sling fireballs at a whim. Yet everyone just assumes I’m slow in the head. The NPCs literally say these things to my face. I could raze all these kingdoms to the ground if I wanted, yet NPCs insist on calling me names like “dummy” and telling me how much they hate having to explain things to me. It doesn’t help either that my character often responds with a witty “Huh?”

This annoys me because the hero character is portrayed as someone who can’t figure things out on his own. This tactic can be insulting to players too, because we’re the hero, and we’re not dumb.

An alternative way of letting the player learn about the game world without framing the hero as a dumbass is through the overused amnesia trope. See, the game hero isn’t dumb. He just… forgot things. This gambit affords the game a tutorial stage where NPCs “remind” the hero of how things work.

(Unfortunately, the amnesia trope is far overused. As with any cliché, it’s an unimaginative way of filling the players in.)

All these avenues, however, remain problematic. Whether or not the hero character is aware that NPCs are ordering him around, the hero is still severely diminished. When NPCs constantly tell the hero what to do, he is not a hero but the game world’s errand boy.
This problem with dialogue diminishing the hero’s status can lead to what my students consistently consider as the least enjoyable aspect of video games: fetch quests.

In Dead Island, players can choose between four characters– the only four people in the entire island who are somehow immune from the horrific zombie outbreak. Logic dictates that the four playable characters should be protected at all costs. They’re they only chance humanity has of ever finding a cure.

Instead, NPCs order the playable characters to roam the island searching for bottles of wine and missing teddy bears to comfort terrified tourists and young children cowering inside their hotel rooms. The NPCs do this throughout the entire game.

Eventually, I gave up on the Dead Island because I couldn’t find a compelling enough reason to finish it. These playable characters are not heroes, and their actions and choices do little to  influence the game world. Playing the game no longer felt good, it felt like a chore. I couldn’t invest in the characters’ fates, so I quit.

This, I believe, is a defining aspect of video games. If the players are the hero, then games ought to make the players care for the hero and the fate of his world. If games insist on making players feel dumb and disempowered, then why on earth would we want to play these game?

There is a need then to further rethink the way video games present information. Just by tweaking phrasing and dialogue, the central character can stop being the game world’s bitch and become the badass he was always meant to be.

There is a world of difference between the proactive and the reactive hero. For decades, the video game hero generally just reacts to whatever NPCs tell him to do. Players are reduced to simply following instructions, jumping when he needs to, and throwing fireballs when he needs to.

But the proactive hero empowers the player. This hero doesn’t get told the information he needs, he demands it– sometimes in spectacular fashion.

When Batman needs to know where Mister Freeze is in Arkham City, Oracle doesn’t just pop in on his intercom and tell him where to go. Instead, Batman swoops in from the darkness and strings mooks up from over gargoyles until they tell him where Mister Freeze is.

Similarly, police investigator Cole Phelps doesn’t take orders from just anyone in L.A. Noire. He tracks down leads and badgers suspects until they break, just to get that critical information he needs.

This small difference can have uncanny implications. It is fun to play as Batman or Cole Phelps, because those guys are hardcore. They’re alpha dudes– they know what they want and they can get it. But it is not as much fun to play as CJ in GTA: San Andreas who, despite his street cred, still gets ordered to deliver burgers to corner store thugs[4].

This isn’t just nitpicking on video game dialogue– this is about letting the hero be a hero. It shouldn’t be too much to ask for modern video games to keep their characters in character.

A mob boss wouldn’t take orders from a common bartender. The hero who is fated to save the world shouldn’t have to keep getting shit on by hapless NPCs who couldn’t even rid their town of wandering monsters.

If game designers can pour years into making sure the graphics and environments are up to par with players’ expectations, it shouldn’t be too much to ask for better dialogue. Especially if a bit of dialogue tweaking can spell the difference between a game hero and a chump.

Lethal League

by Reptile Games

There’s no more palpable indicator of gamer age than the degenerative slump of your twitch reflexes. Oops, I missed that parry! Must be the old arthritis twerking up again. Hand me my pills, young whippersnapper. It’s in the inner pouch of my Power Glove.

[Every Tuesday, we... tues a free browser game that you can play in five minutes.]

How can one determine gamer age–a real, true thing that I didn’t just totally make up–with the technology that we have today? Is there some kind of indirect way we can remind ourselves of our own mortality and our increasing alienation and discomfiture to what is essentially a children’s pastime?

Lethal League is a realization of that dream. Two boys on a battlefield. Dueling fates. Clouds roll by as a spaghetti Western tune chimes in the imagination. Cue the disembodied urbanite chorus. An ensorcelled baseball floats to a hover right in the boys’ lines of sight.

This is their signal. Now they must play ball.

Lethal League pits you against a computer opponent. He is your COD-generation representative. Treat him well because he won’t show you the same courtesy. He is faster than you, better than you, stronger than you. He is a machine programmed with a symphonic mashup of every Daft Punk song known to man.

Your objectives:

1. Hit the ball with your bat.
2. Hit the opponent with said ball.

You can move, jump, and redirect the ball’s trajectory with the arrow keys. The ball speeds up with every successful swing. Jump and hit Shift + Down with your swing and you can expedite the acceleration. Do it enough times and the ball ignites into flames. A few more hits, and the world begins to end. Enjoy your murderous volley as the apocalypse transpires in the background.

You can never win. I didn’t. I’m too old. My joints are used to writing check balances and cupping the cheeks of children, trying desperately to siphon their youth.

I’m an adult now.

How did I get here so soon?

You can play Lethal League here (alternatively, click any of the screenshots). You can do Speed Challenges, but Versus is where it’s at. Play with a computer. Or on the same keyboard with a friend or a loved one. You have committed so many mistakes in your life, but they are not one of them. Hold them dear, while your arms still have the strength.

KAMBYERO PROTIPZ:

1. Turn off sticky keys.
2. Try not to run away from the ball.
3. Try not to run away from your responsibilities.
4. Everything has no meaning.

Penny Arcade’s actions baffle me to no end. Here they are, with one of the most popular gaming-related websites around, in charge of several games conventions, and run a successful charity. And yet here they are, on Kickstarter again, asking for money to fund… a podcast.

Sure, some podcasts cost money to produce — many of the best podcasts are live-recorded, with professional equipment. Kickstarting a podcast isn’t unheard of either. But this is Penny Arcade we’re talking about. They don’t need the money.

To further drive the point home, all they’re asking for is a measly ten dollars, proving that this Kickstarter means… absolutely nothing. They say on the page that they’re using the Kickstarter to “gauge interest”, but that could just as easily be done, I don’t know, on their own site?

As I write this, the project’s been funded to the tune of USD 84,515. That’s nearly three and a half million pesos. To fund a podcast. And the thing about Kickstarter is, they can’t just funnel that money towards charity– it’s against the rules. I have no idea what they’re going to do with the money (the reward tiers are asinine, completely going against the ten-dollar goal; the stretch goals are absurd as well), but this whole affair just plain stinks.

Tycho and Gabe say it best themselves: 

-

Penny Arcade’s the real deal. Back in the early 2000s, they were pretty much the little gaming webcomic that could. Tycho and Gabe, through hard work and wry antics, became the posterboys of a burgeoning Internet-based gaming scene. Through the years, they’ve scribbled and lampooned their way into the hearts of the gaming-conscious masses and what do they have to show for it? A decade’s worth of comic strips, two annual conventions, three licensed video games, a charity, a reality TV show, etc. etc.

They are stand up guys.

Their latest stunt though. Man. Dodgy at first glance. But if you really think about it: it may seem dickish… but it’s not. They didn’t lie to their backers. It’s all on paper. They didn’t shoot a video of their kid playing video games and tell the world that said kid needs money to make video games. The parameters of their project are all up to Kickstarter snuff. What they did was just use this incredibly popular crowdfunding site and transmogrified it into a pay-what-you-want platform. They kept the goal at $10, with the assurance that even if only one dude backed them, the podcast will be made.

Basically, they never needed your money. They just wanted it.

But that’s totally up to you if you want to donate, isn’t it?

The problem here doesn’t lie with Penny Arcade. They are not at fault–they may be self-contradicting oppressed nerd stereotypes who’ve grown up to be asshole bullies themselves, but they didn’t do anything wrong here. They worked well within the regulations of Kickstarter. They submitted all of the necessary paperwork, sacrificed all the necessary virgins. They stated their intentions clearly with very little cackling. So stay your dung pies, young Undead (I have been playing Dark Souls extensively these past few days).

The problem is the people’s relationship with Kickstarter. When it was just starting out, the Internet’s collective consciousness set this precedent that Kickstarter will be the indiest of all indie things. A bohemian bazaar where the 99% can help each other reach their goals. Look at my crazy quilt made of stitched up cats! It’s going pretty well but I need more cats. Pay me so I can hunt cats and finish this quilt. You’ll get an extra-furry section if I reach 50 buuuuucks~

Bottom line: Kickstarter has always been a capitalist construct. It’s not a guerrilla faction staging precision strikes against corporate avarice. That’s a fantasy we’ve concocted for ourselves. Seeing all of our old vidya revived by their old developers wound us up and touched all of our pleasure bits. Things we wanted to see streamed across our monitors, making us view the site as some kind of startup Messiah. It’s not. It’s a buzzword. It’s a soapbox. Sure, Kickstarter has done a lot of good for indie devs, but when Terms of Services violations, baldfaced lies, and Zach Braff seep through, the cracks start to show.

-

Calm your tits, girls. It’s not that big a deal. When Kickstarter came out, it had that hip and indie vibe. It promised to cut out the middlemen, the businessmen and producers behind the capitalist machine. Through the site, you can give a leg up to whichever down-on-their-luck upstart you think has the most potential. You can be part of someone’s success story, be one with a community, and enjoy the fruits of someone else’ labor at minimal cost. Everybody wins.

Likewise, Penny Arcade has thrived on this sort of imagined community. Like Job said, it’s the gaming comic that could. It’s our comic. We made Gabe and Tycho internet celebrities, avatars for the ideal gamers. We kept checking their weekly updates. We held writer Holkins and illustrator Krahulik on our shoulders until they could give up their day jobs and dedicate the rest of their forever making us chuckle mildly. We did that.

Because if we’re completely honest, what is groundbreaking about three-paneled buddy conversations that end with a punchline? Don’t get me wrong– I love me some PA, but precisely because it is unabashedly exclusionary. They drop specific video game culture-based jargon like peanuts for you and me to gobble up, and we enjoy it. We get it. We’re in on the joke.

That’s the internet fallacy at work right there, gentlemen. Just because we can talk to each other across timezones doesn’t make us a community. Just because we were with PA from the start doesn’t meant they owe us anything. Least of all an imagined ethical code about asking and receiving money.

Kickstarter isn’t the first business that’s tried to scam people out of chump change. Middlemen or not, this is capitalism, son. It’s about taking risks and investments, the bear and the bull, the boom and the bust.

And the folks at PA are ballsy enough to admit that they’re looking for a handout for nothing. Whether or not they make any money, they’ll probably still do the podcast. Despite this, people still give them money. Penny Arcade is literally receiving the love they (or we) think they deserve.

Is it unseemly? Sure. Is it wrong? Not really.

-

We already talked about how video game websites can get their fans, the people who actually consume what these sites are producing, to keep them afloat in the previous Co-Op Ed. This whole thing with Penny Arcade’s podcast Kickstarter is just the logical extension of that. Obviously Kickstarter itself has no problem with what Holkins and Krahulik proposed seeing as how the campaign has been approved and is still up and running. Of course, the folks at Kickstarter getting a 5% cut of the total funds probably factors into it!

Frankly speaking though, I don’t see anyone being coerced into handing over their money so that “Tycho and Gabe” can shoot the shit about whatever. If the Penny Arcade loyalists find that giving $10 or $10,000 is absolutely worth it, I’ve got no problem with that. Let them do what they want with their own money. The guys at Penny Arcade were just business savvy enough to identify the hype a Kickstarter would bring plus the surplus of cash that they get to keep to fund other projects (and probably pay some bills and the 13 or so employees they have).

Kickstarter actually had a post on their blog tackling the recent issue with the Zach Braff and Veronica Mars campaigns, and it brought up some good numbers showing how these high-profile Kickstarters actually helped bring more attention and money to less popular campaigns. Stuff like this happening apparently has a trickle-down effect! I find this a better business model than relying on ads where the content dictators are faceless corporations only concerned with the bottom-line. Let the people decide.

Here at Kambyero, we love ourselves some Pokémon (except for Joseph, that hipster contrarian). We love our pulp, too. And when those two come together…

[Every Thursday, Kambyero highlights somethang fun in gaming.]

Viridian City is a comic by Ray Bruwelheide that splashes a coat of noir onto the World of Pokémon. Giovanni is as menacing as ever, and the Rocket organization (which he may or may not be leading) is more sinister than Jesse or James can even fathom.

Have me mentioned that the Pokémon designs are smashing? Check out that Voltorb! The comic has lots more– see if you can win this game of Who’s That Pokémon?

And Bill is a bear.

Meowth, that’s right.

[If you want to support more chapters of this masterpiece (we did!), there are details at the bottom of the page. You get behind-the-scenes goodies, too.]

Gods Will Be Watching

by Deconstructeam

Noble mission. Terrorist attack. Crash landing. Deserted planet. Story of survival? Shuffle towards madness?

You start with 4 crewmates to care for and 40 days until help arrives. Objective: keep everyone together and alive. Your opponents: rare but roving predators; a paralytic virus; dwindling food, ammo, and sanity.

[Every Tuesday, we... tues a free browser game that you can play in five minutes.]

True to space opera form, each crewmate has a specialty. The Soldier hunts. The Doctor cures. The Engineer repairs. Only the Psychiatrist has a task that can’t be deconstructed as a single word. She keeps everyone sane. Tries to, at least. Her psyche is more sensitive, somehow more vulnerable to fraying than the others. She pitches back and forth, her head between her knees, understanding all too much.

In The Walking Dead, choice was always a present concept. Choice was your touchstone. Even during the most tragic of campaigns, your decisions had a flicker of empowerment. You were complicit  in the significance of every candy bar, every loss, every bullet. In Gods Will Be Watching, choice is an ever-worsening cancer that starts out terminal. You land in the desolate, beautiful wilderness and the option of killing your crew for food is already present. You rebel, as most do, in the beginning.

Then the Soldier wastes your ammo during an unsuccessful hunt. Then the Doctor gets sick and you run out of vaccines. Then the Engineer threatens to crack and no amount of pep talk will pull him back from the edge.

Then you realize all you ever needed was one bad day.

Gods Will Be Watching is interesting. Not just as a game, but as a sentence. Will Be denotes a sense of arrival, that whatever metaphysical force of order and morality has recently come into being to act as jury to your actions. Watching is a passive exercise. The gods will not work the machine. They will not alter or influence. They are just there. Every oversight, liability, and calculated sacrifice? They’re all on you. They’re all your fault.

Gods Will Be Watching is a Ludum Dare 26 entry. Play it here.

This thing of ours

Welcome to Monaco. Heaven to some– God’s blind spot to others. It’s a place of endless opportunity and perpetual danger, where survival is a gamble and the stakes raised with every hitch of breath. In the land of milk and money, fortune favors those who don’t just take risks, but breaks them into tiny little pieces, into minute shards of calculation and laser guided instinct.

Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine is Pocketwatch Games’ top-down heist-em-up. The story: four convicts escape the walls of a minimum security prison. After the prologue, the plot fractures into several overlapping, self-contradicting storylines. Taking cues from The Usual Suspects, Monaco sketches out a post-mod Rashomon of  thieves and liars. The Locksmith’s is a cautionary tale of greed and obsession. The Pickpocket’s confession reveals a truth masquerading as a lie masquerading as the truth.

Try to pay attention to the story. It’s quite good. Don’t get distracted by the neon visuals, by the impeccably designed aesthetic. Try not to be charmed by the clever use of architectural blueprints in place of the fog of war. Monaco is your stylish and sharp interior design school friend who never quite went for the neo-bohemian hipster Kool-Aid. Monaco‘s world features polygons in the classical definition–clean lines forming perfect shapes. The characters are oversized pixels that scuttle and skitter with ripe tension and devil-may-care confidence. This is why pixel art direction exists–because of games like Monaco that use it as a means, not as an excuse.

Sound plays a huge part in games where stealth is key. Monaco‘s contextually tuned audio bytes are so spare and distinguished that hearing them becomes a Pavlovian exercise. Plug in earphones and let its perfectly formed soundwaves wrap around you. Pick a lock and be rewarded by genuinely satisfying clicks and rattles. Tamper with a generator to hear the appreciative metal groan heralding a temporary blackout. French expletives ring through hallways as the gendarme give chase. Learn to love and fear these sounds. When  you’re running blind for a good chunk of the game, hearing footsteps as you scrabble at a keyhole becomes more frightening than crack of gunshots.

Made men

Each character exercises a hold on their own patch of pixels. The Cleaner leaves a trail of sleeping bodies, the scent of formaldehyde wafting in the air. The Pickpocket and his monkey are smooth operators, able to rob the place blind. For the Locksmith, a locked door is nothing but a half-second wasted. In the safety of the dark, the Lookout sees all. Additionally, each character can equip one usable item. Grab anything from guns and wrenches to EMP grenades and cartoon dynamite. Ammo is limited, dictated by how much cash you’ve collected. You’re forced to think smart. But if you keep your cool and pay attention, the city is yours for the taking.

But the city is not an easy mark. It kicks and suspects and screams. Enemy guards see you skulking for a few seconds and they turn from unassuming to unrelenting. Trip a perimeter laser and double locks trap you inside an arena with few avenues for escape. Open the wrong door and prepare to dance to the tune of alarm klaxons. You do have a choice. You can choose not to step into the laser-festooned room. The guards in that post are sporting machine guns. You’d be insane to test their patience! But… damn. They’re guarding a safe.  You want that safe. You feel the need in your crime bones. As a debonair thief, you’re directed by this Pac-man obsession to leave no coin unpilfered and no threat disregarded.

Hit the mattresses

When things go right, your heist becomes a thing of art and beauty. Move behind corners and pillars to evade roving guards and marvel at the gambit’s thrill and ridiculous simplicity. Surrounded? Pop a smoke bomb and swandive into nearby topiary. Needlessly helpful civilian about to call the cops? Pacify him with a tranq dart. Hack into several outlets and computer terminals in one go, blackouts and surveillance malfunctions syncing with your steps.

But this is a heist after all. Like in any good crime flick, things rarely go right. In Monaco, expect them to turn sour. A lot. But keep your heart, three stacks. In fact, I advise that you enjoy it. After a long campaign of darting in and out of night guards’ cone of sight, hitting that “oh shi–” moment becomes oddly cathartic. You’re rewarded, in a way, by the ensuing chase. In the fever pitch of Austin Wintory’s rowdy piano chords, Monaco’s penalty for discovery is an almost completely different game. From Metal Gear to Hotline Miami. It’s still fun. Still engaging. Sprint out of your would-be captors’ line of sight. But before you do that, steal everything that isn’t nailed down. Dodge the law while tickling purses and cash registers. Shoot from the hip and improvise. When the music turns from meditative to madcap, that’s your signal to start living out your Lupin III dreams.

When things get lonely, take your talents at home invasion over on the Internet. Stay true to the heist movie trope and conspire with people of varying talents and ethnicities. Thing is, several extra people running around increase the liability of getting caught and bludgeoned with nightsticks. But man is it fun. Get used to teammates booking past you with a horde of security guards in tow, to almost flawless jobs botched at the last second. In this game, good plans rarely come together but you’ll love the mayhem all the same.

Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine is the best kind of thief–the one that steals narrative conventions and game mechanics from the finest sources. Nick a bit of Metal Gear here. Purloin a smidge of Oceans 11 there. The Coen Brothers’ Crimewave? Don’t mind if I do. Like a greased conman, it twists your arm to make you believe  everything works well together.  And it does. For some bizarre reason, it manages to run a scam that keeps you on the tips of your toes, at the edge of your seat. So get in on this action, friendo. You can’t pass this up. For the measly buy-in of $15, Monaco promises you the world.

Jowy-seph: After Final Fantasy Tactics, Suikoden II would be my favorite RPG of all time. As all JRPGs are, you play the role of a scrawny boy next door who happens to have been fated to become its world’s hero, unifying its warring peoples to fight a greater evil with your charismatic personality despite barely uttering a word and your unexplainable physical and strategic prowess.

Well, I guess having possession of one of that world’s powerful true runes helps! Although technically, the Bright Shield rune is just one half of the true Rune of the Beginning, and the other half, the Black Sword rune, being in the possession of the hero’s best friend Jowy, makes for one of the strongest conflicts in all of video game history. A sentiment I’m sure the better half that completes me will certainly agree on!

[In this special edition of Sundate, Joseph and his REAL-LIFE SO Racine kick back in their loveseat and wax reminiscent.]

Riou-acine: This game is definitely in my top 5 as well! What makes Suikoden II stand out from other JRPGs, and even from the other games in the series, is the aforementioned conflict between best friends that is the focus of the story. There is an invasion on-going, but that isn’t even top of mind to the main character, and thus to the player — it’s how this war has pushed these two childhood friends apart, and how each of them tries to bring the war to an end from opposite sides. And when you do get to the end, it’s one that could go either way, depending on your actions in the game. But how can you not try your hardest to get the best ending after seeing this video in the very beginning?

Jowy-seph:  Beautiful, just like you. With just a handful of charming scenes in sepia, you’d know immediately how close the bond the hero and Jowy (and Nanami, the little sister) had. Above all the politicking, the town-burning, and the demon-summoning, it was a story of TRUE FRIENDSHIP. Of course, the desire to reunite the two that didn’t lead to SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT Jowy’s death SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT just had to be a huge challenge. Recruit all 108 stars of destiny? And you have to do it before getting to a pivotal point in the game? And you have to make a split-second decision later on?

[This is the second part of a two-piece essay. Click here for Part One. This post contains spoilers for Spec Ops: The Line]

In Spec Ops: The Line, the player takes control of Delta Force Captain Martin Walker on a reconnaissance mission to desolate Dubai. Under Walker’s command are heavy weapons and explosives specialist Lieutenant Alphonse Adams and Staff Sergeant John Lugo, sniper, engineer, and polyglot.

The sparkling postmodern oasis that is the city of Dubai has been ravaged by freak sandstorms, turning the metropolis into a wasteland. Its leaders abandoned their people before the cataclysmic natural disaster hit. As luck would have it, the 33rd Infantry Battalion of the US Army led by distinguished Lieutenant Colonel John Konrad had just finished their tour in Afghanistan and came across Dubai. Their decision to join the relief effort was curtailed by orders to abandon the city, but they defiantly chose to stay to help the civilian populace.

Soon enough, the sandstorms got worse, stranding the 33rd with the rest of the citizens of Dubai. After failed attempts to keep the peace in the dire conditions, the 33rd tried evacuating the people only to fail at that mission as well. With all communications lost, the UAE declared the city as a no man’s land and the 33rd was disavowed by the US government for treason.

With one ominous radio message by Lt. Col. John Konrad managing to breach the sandstorm wall after the tragic events, Capt. Walker and his men are sent to investigate.

In the beginning, the game doesn’t do anything to set itself apart from the average modern shooter. The premise sounds much like your garden variety VG war thriller plot, and the mechanics follow the formula of your generic realistic third-person cover shooter.

You fight native “insurgents” in the beginning. You try to rescue your fellow soldiers. You dash from wall to wall to get closer to your objective while avoiding gunfire. You pop in and out of hiding to carefully aim and shoot at your enemies. You issue a command to your squad every now and then to throw a grenade or snipe a turret operator. You move from action-packed set piece to set piece. Your health slowly regenerates. You even get little notifications for performing particular actions like blasting an Arab’s head off with a pistol or blowing up a group with one grenade.

If you were to stop playing an hour or so into the game, I wouldn’t fault you for dismissing it as “just another shooter”.

In terms of gameplay, it doesn’t really rise above that statement. Where it makes its mark as one of the more important games of this generation is in its self-destructive narrative tied to player agency.

The game presents you a number of moral dilemmas. In the first one, you have to choose between rescuing a CIA agent being tortured right in front you or civilians getting lined up to be executed. In another, you have to decide the fate of a civilian who stole precious water and a soldier who apprehended the thief not before killing his family.

None of it comes easy.

But what turns out to be the some of the most powerful choices are the ones made for you by Capt. Walker.

Late in Chapter 4, you turn your crosshairs from the insurgents to your fellow Americans, the Damned 33rd. All because of an established internal conflict with the CIA sowing dissension, you and your subordinates are shot at by Col. Konrad’s loyal men. You shoot back, wiping the squad out with your impressive shooting, by now refined to calculating effectiveness.

In self defense, Walker says to the dissatisfied Lugo and Adams. Plus, they’re traitors as deemed by the powers-that-be. They’ve also imposed their own form of dictatorship, rounding up rowdy civilians in the name of the law.

From here on out, the 33rd Battalion is the opposition. Those treasonous power-hungry mad men deserve to be put down.

Then Chapter 8 “The Gate” happens. Walker, Adams, and Lugo come across a heavily fortified encampment of the 33rd, none of the soldiers there aware of Walker’s squad’s presence. Though their position offers them a good vantage point, they still have a whole platoon armed to the teeth with trucks, turret-mounted jeeps and APCs to deal with.

Engaging in direct combat leaves them little to no chance to survive. In a bit of twisted fortune, a barely guarded loaded artillery unit sits on that very place. Its payload: white phosphorus. Having already seen its effects on humans in a barren target site just before they got to the encampment, Lugo and Adams hesitate. So does Walker, but he knows what has to be done. Lugo implores him to stop. There’s always a choice.

You press on. For the mission.

Load up the grayscaled top down screen, point to the scurrying figures on the ground, and rain white hot death with a click of a button.

it’s like a minigame

You rappel down the battlements, and just like in Hotline Miami you walk through the horrors of your own doing. Soldiers with their legs blown off. Americans half-dead stumbling through the charred rubble. And finally, a container full of innocent civilians huddled up with their faces completely burned away from their skulls. What was once a woman clings to what was once a child in the middle, the woman’s one empty eye socket staring straight at Lugo, at Adams, at Walker, at me.

Their saviors.

I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know they were there. This is all my Konrad’s fault.

He made me do it.

I move forward. He needs to pay for this.

From this point on, Walker slowly starts to grow unhinged. He starts cursing out his squadmates whenever he gets hit for not providing cover. He growls his kill confirmations with an expletive thrown in unlike the measured tone in the first parts of the game. Instead of the mercy shots Walker does to execute downed opponents, he gets vicious by making enemies plead first before blowing their heads off, beating them to death with his fists, or crushing their necks with his boot. Later on, the hints in the loading screens change to mocking questions and fatalist statements.

Soon afterwards, he and his squad see dead soldiers tied up to chairs – more victims of the infamous incendiary weapon. At least their deaths don’t entirely hang on Walker’s conscience, as they were executed upon Col. Konrad’s orders for disobeying him. Walker grabs the radio nearby, and speak of the devil, it’s Konrad on the other side. Walker brings it with him, and Konrad never fails to question Walker for his actions every step of the way, serving to both burden Walker’s fragile mental state and drive him to press on.

A side mission with grizzled CIA veteran Riggs to supposedly bring the Damned 33rd to its knees by taking control of the city’s remaining water supply goes badly through betrayal, and only compounds the psychological stress Walker is experiencing. I doomed the city Riggs tricked him into euthanizing the city, and he’s forced to make one last ditch effort at evacuating the citizens, some of whom were witnesses to Walker’s complicity in crashing the water tanks.

A hallucinatory trip to the satellite tower to broadcast the evacuation message ends in the entire structure collapsing thanks to Walker’s need to see the helicopter’s mounted gatling gun’s power.

Then all of a sudden, I’m transported back to the very beginning of the game. I’m reliving the chopper shoot-out sequence, and even Walker remembers that we did this already. And just how that section ended earlier, we crash.

Only this time, I awaken to a Dubai blanketed by a red mist, with the iconic Burj Khalifa turned into a symbolic Barad-dûr in the background. A complete 180 from the tempered entrance of the Delta squad to Dubai filled with light-hearted banter and just a handful of questions.

Konrad starts berating Walker once more for stamping out any hope Dubai had left with his actions while turning against his fellow Americans. Walker sees some of the people he’s killed, shambling towards him while making him damn sure it was all his fault. The short scene was also rather eerily reminiscent of Naked Snake’s walk through the river of Sorrow in Metal Gear Solid 3, but it packs more punch into the seconds that felt like eternity. It doesn’t make a full listing of the nameless soldiers you killed unlike in MGS3, focusing on just the three men that directly affected your mission.

Finally, he sees Lugo being swallowed by the sand as he cries for help. And as Walker would find out soon enough, it was foreboding of the Staff Sergeant’s death by the hands of the civilians. One more hard decision comes, as Lugo’s lifeless body is cut down from the noose and the Arabs surround the two remaining soldiers.

Faced with a literal angry lynch mob who just killed a squadmate, a friend, I still somehow managed to keep myself from mowing them all down. Despite the shoving and the pelting of rocks, I shot at the ground to scare them all off. Despite all that, Walker swears vengeance on the Damned 33rd and on Konrad.

The climactic battle between Capt. Martin Walker, Lt. Alphonse Adams and the Damned 33rd kicks off with Walker being reminded of the horrors of white phosphorus. The artillery is fired into the air, exploding in a flash that envelops the screen. Konrad welcomes Walker to hell, and he too is burned alive.

He snaps out of it thanks to Adams, and the two overcome the odds once again. On the last road to crush the remnants of the 33rd, a heavy obstructs their path. But Walker sees Lugo instead, screaming in anger for being left behind to die, and having to be dragged through this suicide mission just so Walker can feel like a hero.

If you die in this segment, the game instantly reboots to the start of the section as if nothing had happened. The heavy looks just like a heavy now.

In the last stand, Adams and Walker are finally overwhelmed. Walker wants to surrender, thinking it’s the only way they can still finish their mission of evacuating the civilians from the city. Adams has none of it, asking the enemy to just kill him already because he knows it’s over. Out of frustration, he pushes Walker to safety so that he can “finish the mission”.

Walker makes it to the tower with no opposition, only to be greeted by a squad of soldiers – the last of the 33rd. They stay in file except for one who greets Walker, telling him that they surrender, that Dubai is his, and Konrad is waiting upstairs. They salute him. Not what Walker was expecting, but what he probably wanted all along.

It’s worth noting that throughout the rest of the game, Walker and his squad move from one big area to another mostly by going down. They rappel down cliffs, zipline down through empty buildings, Walker slips down across the face of a skyscraper, and they crash land from a helicopter ride. The mission is both a figurative descent into madness and a literal descent into the bowels of Dubai.

Until Walker takes the elevator ride up to Konrad’s suite to finish his mission. Suffice to say, the “encounter” with Konrad is a revelation. Walker wasn’t just hallucinating turning Adams’ face into mush or Lugo firing bullets at him. He was hallucinating the entire situation where he “had to choose” between the water thief and the cruel soldier. He was hallucinating when he was hearing Konrad’s voice “over the radio” which was busted up the entire time. He needed someone to blame. A dead man.

His original assignment was simple reconnaissance, but he just had to play the hero. He had to fire the white phosphorous. He had to keep going.

He was just trying to save everyone.

Faced with the unsettling truth, “Konrad” gives Walker one more choice. Owe up to his transgressions that left nothing but a trail of dead bodies in his wake by shooting himself, or stick to the script that none of it would have happened in the first place if it wasn’t for Konrad. He has five seconds, or Konrad chooses for him.

It takes a strong man to deny what’s right in front of him, but it takes me the full five seconds to make that decision.

At the very least, Walker gets to go home. He’s a broken man, but at least he’s home.

But then Walt Williams, the game’s lead writer, shares his personal take on the story saying that Walker and his crew died in the helicopter crash after destroying the satellite tower. Everything after that is him stuck in a hellish purgatory. Williams also points out the fade transitions also play into the story, as every time the screen fades to white instead of black, Walker hallucinates.

In the ending where you choose to surrender your weapon, sure enough, the screen fades to white. The other two endings where Walker refuses to hand over his AA12 and either dies in a hail of bullets or overcomes rescue team Falcon-1, the screen fades to black.

In the end, there is no saving Captain Martin Walker.

It’s a sobering statement that goes against the typical glorification of war in your average shooter. In taking this route, the act of committing violence regains the weight it lost from being trivialized in most games.

But for as powerful as the acts of violence are, the game doesn’t quite hit all the right notes to keep its execution of its themes pitch perfect.

Having to face wave upon wave upon wave of nameless soldiers didn’t quite help me empathize with any of them. Besides the white phosphorus scene, I never once felt sorry for a single soldier that I killed.

I understand that Williams intended for the countless battles to wear on the player. However, having no real emotional connection to the Damned 33rd besides them being “fellow Americans” (which doesn’t even have that going for it since I’m not American and I’m totally against America’s modern military interventions) won’t make me care. Popping off their heads and blowing them up with a sticky grenade just don”t have the same emotional punch to the gut as dealing with a CIA agent who tries to earn your trust and gives you a way out then backstabs you later.

I also see it as a concession to a third person shooter requiring such gameplay. You have to fight through hordes of enemies, or it wouldn’t be much of a military third person shooter. The achievements popping up on screen whenever you perform well with a certain weapon or make one of the decisions also don’t help, breaking the immersion by reminding players that it’s still just a game that pats your back for killing people in a specific way.

On one hand, sticking to the conventions keeps the experience as close as possible to the genre it’s criticizing, making that action much more apparent. On the other hand, being trapped by those conventions detracts from its goal of giving more weight to the act of killing.

Nevertheless, the rest of Spec Ops still manages to squeeze out real drama from both its gameplay and narrative. Walker should be the poster boy for every war game with stories that rest entirely on one man’s shoulders – suffering from a severe case of PTSD.

Although some have argued that removing choice from its most powerful moment – the white phosphorus scene – makes it seem hollow, Williams defends it by saying soldiers are thrust into such situations where there are no good choices and not all pertinent information is readily available.

The circumstances are quite similar in Hotline Miami, and yet we gamers just have to keep killing despite not fully knowing why. Of course, having paid good money to be able to play these games in the first place is one important factor. However, it can also be argued that buyers enter any transaction with any product without the guarantee that they will enjoy it. People can walk out of a movie theater, put down a book, turn off the DVD player, or delete an album from their music library if they don’t enjoy it.

We’ve been desensitized to video game violence from all our past experiences where killing (and killing plenty) is a given, and that our enemies’ deaths really have no effect on us. Because of this, we accept “missions” that involve a whole lot of violence without question. Besides, we’d probably be given a good enough excuse later on anyway.

So when that expectation is subverted by a reason such as a selfish act of intended heroism gone absolutely wrong or by having no good reason at all, it either makes us feel sick enough for playing through the whole thing anyway or has us question why we seem to revel in the violence.

Whichever the case, it’s a good thing that there are games such as these that cast this deeply-rooted aspect of video games in such a light. This form of media can be more powerful than traditional ones such as books, film and theater for its inherent interactivity driven by the consumers themselves. By approaching the visceral and relational act of committing violence as something that means something to the players, video games can bring about more emotionally-engaging and thought-provoking experiences.

It can also help diversify the already saturated market that has relied too long on violence-centric gameplay mechanics (as Williams himself mentioned in his talk at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference), leading to more creative avenues that explore conflicts which successes don’t hinge upon inflicting pain or outright killing another party.

Yeti Yeti Yeti Yeti

by Dustin Covan

In the beginning, you are a yeti sleeping on the forest floor. You dream of nothing except voices and melting faces in a bush. Around you are caterpillars, gigantic and crumpled.

You go right, as you do in these kinds of situations. Your gait betrays your ponderous majesty. You don’t walk. You saunter, not minding objective or destination. The forest is your stomping ground. Above, the infinite sky. A tense of the thigh and an eye on the prize, and you can claim the clouds.

The voices guide you all the way. Whenever you wake up, they are behind you. An antagonistic sort, they tell you of rewards you never receive. But they are surly without being hostile. And those stars do look enticing. Theoretically. The voices teach you how to reach higher places, to help those in need. You develop as… well, whatever paragon of decorum a yeti aims to become. A gentlesquatch.

The voices tell you to explore the game on your own. Seize your own agency. They berate you one last time, and then they are gone. You are no longer beholden to the cantankerous bush of faces. You are free to choose your path. Empathy or evil, you carve your way through existence by deliberate lumbering or nimble acrobatics. Either way, you don’t quite understand what “empathy” or “evil” are anyway. You’re a yeti. What are you doing wrestling with metaphysical concepts?

You begin to realize that you don’t understand anything at all. The voices were right. This isn’t your forest and you are not all powerful. Yeti Yeti Yeti Yeti is a game that holds your hand for a few minutes before slapping it away. The voices leave you as you initially are:  a creature lost in the woods, with nothing but idle thoughts prompting you to go places, to do things.

Manage to get far enough and you will encounter an ending. An ending you probably didn’t even expect. Or maybe didn’t even like. Try again. There are multiple endings governed by major decisions. As a yeti, those are the only ones you are allowed to make.

Hi. My name is Juabe, and today I want to talk about something that is slowly embedding itself into the Philippine culture: the gaming community. From mobile to console to PC, it has become a part of our lives, whether we notice it or not. What I will talk about in particular for this article, is a specific game genre that has taken over almost the whole of the Filipino gaming community. I’m talking about Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas, or MOBAs.

[Tag In features Kambyero Kontributors dropping some all-new insight bombs on all your ignorant asses. Change the status quo and write with us!]

Damn kids and their acronyms.

That didn’t sound familiar to you? Hmm. How about the words DoTA, LoL, and HoN? Now those acronyms you do know, I’m sure, even if you don’t play these games (well, probably not HoN).

For almost a decade this game format has slowly inched its way into the Philippine scene, pushing away games such as Counter-Strike and Ragnarok, which were at the time a pretty big deal. Now, FPS and MMORPGS have become more of a niche, which is surprising to think considering that one Warcraft 3 mod did all that.

Personally, I have played MOBAs from its humble, buggy, very imbalanced beginnings, to its current popular, slightly less buggy, still sort-of-imbalanced state. Currently I play League of Legends (LoL), a game with an easier learning curve than Defense of the Ancients (DoTA), the granddaddy of the genre.

…and the pointless argument continues.

Now, I won’t debate which one is better, for it is really a waste of time and I believe these two games have evolved into their own thing. What I can say though, is that with years of experience under my belt, I have my thoughts on why they are so damn popular in the Philippines.

It is a great form of escapism.

The Philippines is a place where a lot of shit goes down. It is where politics is a variety show, televised breakups are hard hitting news, and the economy is hiding behind the masks of OFWs and call centers, pretending that everything’s okay.

HARD-HITTING JOURNALISM

On top of that, people just have too many problems of their own to deal with. So what do we do? We escape. We disconnect ourselves through dimly lit videoke bars, television shows with predictable yet still entertaining stories, and for the kids (and some adults), video games.

Here, you are not a student struggling to get a degree, or a brother desperately trying to find ways to earn money to help your siblings. In a virtual world, you are a warrior, a mage, a ghastly being ripping out souls of those unlucky enough to encounter you.

We have been figuring out how to temporarily lose ourselves in the moment for centuries, and games are just a modern version of that. What makes MOBAs a bit different than your Candy Crush or Temple Run 2 however, is,

It is actively competitive.

We are a people who have to prove themselves to others. Constantly. We see it on the news every night, one person winning an award on or being recognized. We lap it up and sometimes take it as our own. Of course, we want something to show off to others, right? To increase our street cred, or something.

You’re 3/17th Filipino? We’re so proud of you!

MOBAs are usually a 5v5 affair, with the simple goal of eliminating the big structure in the middle of your enemy’s base. That means that there are always winners and losers, and no one wants to be a loser. Because you can see their characters running around the map, you get this drive to crush them, similar to when you are playing basketball. You slowly level up, gaining access to stronger skills and gold for more powerful items.

You want to be the best, like no one ever was. Or at least be competent enough to win. Then again, Counter-Strike is competitive, Starcraft is competitive, hell, even Tetris can be serious business, so why aren’t they more popular? Well, more than just competition,

It is a social event.

To put it simply, you need your allies to win. Sure, there would be situations where one man could curbstomp the whole team, screaming at the top of their lungs, “I AM A SEXY, SHOELESS, GOD OF WAR!!!” But most of the time diving headfirst into the whole team alone is not the greatest of strategies. MOBAs require you to work together to achieve your goal. It is a great way to foster new friendships and reinforce old ones.

You do not need to be athletic to play; all you need are basic keyboard and mouse movements. That means that almost everyone can play it, and no one would get left behind, standing idly in the corner while they play street games because you can’t run fast enough. Post game, my friends and I usually do a discussion, whether they end up in victory or defeat, and it becomes another common topic amongst barkadas.

“Awesome. We’re winning, guys. Told you inviting that nerd would be good.”

When playing with strangers (a usual case), you are forced into a situation to communicate and become a band of brothers, even just for an hour. It can help improve social skills, which you could use outside the gaming world.

Of course, this is all just idealist talk. It’s not always happytime when to comes to playing these games. On the contrary, each point I’ve discussed has another, darker side. Remember when I said that disconnecting from reality is sometimes good? Well,

Too much escapism is bad.

This is the part where the words “video game addiction” comes to mind. Because gaming is such as easy thing to get into, it becomes pretty damn difficult to get away from it sometimes. Self-control is not a growing child’s strong suit, and without good guidance from an adult, things get out of hand very quickly. Too many times do I see kids in their uniforms playing beside us in the computer shop (we didn’t have classes then, promise). Not just high school, mind you, but college kids as well.

And beyond.

Often I hear conversations about how that class is dull, and thus it’s okay to skip it when the semester starts. In the end, however, I get to listen to these same people panicking about how the hell they are going to pass when they didn’t learn jack shit.

A worse case is when one drowns all their problems, be it personal, financial, or whatever, on gaming. Again, I have witnessed people, some of them my friends, simply burying whatever it is that is causing harm in their life by pretending to be in another world. Hell, even I was a victim of that.

But hey, games are fun, right? The point of playing isn’t to get stressed out, but to relax. Supposedly, cause well, other than the “addiction” aspect,

It can be more frustrating than fun.

And boy, does the game design help you with that. MOBAs skillcap, meaning the culmination of knowledge, experience, execution, and effort required for you to be considered competent, is so damn high. A total newbie in my opinion is required to play at least a hundred games before they could understand what is going on.

That is following the assumption that you are only playing one character. You are required to understand what its skills do, how to use them correctly, and what should be leveled up first to maximize its potential. On top of that, you need to know what the items in the game do, even those that you do not use. For those you do use, a certain order in acquiring them is memorized so that it complements your characters abilities. ON TOP OF THAT, you need at least basic knowledge of what the other hundred characters do, so that you’ll know how to both counter and synergize with them. That’s a lot of shit to learn.

A new character also gets released every month. So yeah, it never ends.

Oh, did I mention that this is still a TEAM GAME? That means if you are not playing with your friends, you are going to put blind faith in your allies and hope that they do well. This implies that even at your peak performance, a team of five mediocre players could still beat you if your companions aren’t good. Frustrating, isn’t it? Then again, veterans of the game could help you out and guide you on your journey to be a master. “Could” is the big word here, cause frankly,

The community isn’t that friendly sometimes.

Okay… most of the time. MOBAs are infamous for the having the most toxic, unruly, trashtalking community in gaming. As I said before, a lot of effort is needed for you to get even slightly good at it. So, if you encounter an ally whose skill level is lower than yours, you are gonna start to get really annoyed at that person. You would feel that all your efforts are for nothing just because some random guy kept getting killed.

The fact that it is online doesn’t help, either. Most of the time, you do not know who is controlling the other character. Add that to the fact that you are playing at a computer, and it gives you a barrier. This wall, to some people, allows them to be rude and hateful towards other players, for they know nothing bad would happen to them.

Poetry

Of course, things are a bit different when it is played locally. This is why I recommended playing first with friends, preferably those who are strong enough to stay good-natured despite all the negativity this game could bring.

So there we go: the pros and cons on the fascinating and infuriating world of MOBAs. Even with all the bad press it receives, as well as the actions of some players, I still believe that this genre has the potential to become something good. Not world-changing, but at least a positive factor to the community.

If only those fucking noobs could stop feeding. Those scrubs.