What's Next For Nintendo?

 

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

Last week, on September 30th, Nintendo discontinued its Club Nintendo customer loyalty program. A week before this date I was instantly reminded, by an official Nintendo e-mail, of all the leaflets I had collected since the dawn of the Game Boy Advance era. Enclosed with the games they came with, they held all the 'stars' that made up the currency of this loyalty program. These could then be traded online for Nintendo branded tchotchkes. A few nights later I was staying up late, scratching strips of gunk with a 50p coin till I was blue in the fingertips. I had to toss about half of my vouchers because they had expired half a decade ago! Ultimately, the net result was 2200 stars which I readily traded for 2 digital downloads: Wario Land and Metroid 2. Both were made for Game Boy and were quickly downloaded to my 3DS. The whole experience felt rather novel, liberating too. But it also felt like a sign of the times.

As you may have noticed, gaming giant Nintendo has recently entered a state of transition. The middling hardware sales, the retrospective outlook of the company, the recent passing of Satoru Iwata. Though the quality of the games it creates remains high, it seems the company can't get a break. A cynical mind would say that, after the unexpected success of the Wii, it would seem only logical that this giant would eventually stumble over it's own loamy feet. I agree that success can come from a flash in a pan and that recreating it may be next to impossible but Nintendo is too experienced to just fumble its business and perish.

So what could be next for Nintendo?

Nintendo used to innovate. They brought the analog stick, adapting it for 3D gaming; the rumble feature, introducing haptic feedback; the handheld market... and more recently, some would say infamously, the motion controller. The latter opened up an interface that required minimal button input and with it opened up gaming to a wider audience. Personally, at the time, I couldn't help but feel a little puzzled why Nintendo had made a console that was hardly more powerful than the GameCube. The only immediate advantage I felt with the Wiimote and Nunchuck was that the combo didn't make me feel as though I was cuffed to a controller. That feeling never quite changed until I played Super Mario Galaxy. A game that made me believe Nintendo still gets it. What they didn't get was what was happening with the Internet: Friend codes, paid software tied to hardware instead of player accounts... Were they too proud to ask for advice? Time and time again, the headstrong nature of the company seems to have lead to about as many negatives as it did positives.
Case in point: the WiiU. First and foremost proof that brand recognition will not guarantee sales. At least, brand recognition is how the name was intended. I like to imagine WiiToo was on the boards as wel. How the public may have perceived this brand is patently obvious: it was confused. "How is a Wii different from a WiiU? This one has a remote that one has toy version of the iPad, and we already have an iPad. What do you mean this Wii can't run WiiU games?" Queue more brand confusion with games made for the New 3DS and won't run on the 3DS. Have you ever tried explaining a parent that the new 3DS is called the New 3DS? I have yet to master the art of speaking in capital letters. I imagine it's the same with Nintendo, Iwata was the only one to pull thàt particular trick. Needless to say, Nintendo's naming convention is needlessly messy and conservative in times where Android phones and iPhone iterations are numbered, there's no danger in putting a number at the end of a name. Children won't put off because it reminds them of math class and in any case: parents do all the shopping anyway.

I don't think I'll ever fall out of love with my Game Boy Advance SP. This was another go at the 16bit era. This was a nineties gamer's second youth.

I'm of the opinion that hardware has become a liability to the big N. Don't get me wrong, I love the quirky Nintendo branded boxes in my home. Especially the handhelds are some well-designed pieces of kit, I don't think I'll ever fall out of love with my Game Boy Advance SP. The hours spent with Advance Wars 2, Metroid Fusion, Fire Emblem, Wario Land 4, the list goes on... Sterling memories! This was another go at the 16bit era. This was a nineties gamer's second youth. Yet they remain as just memories.
A point could be made that all of Nintendo's best games are in the past. Until they commit yet another classic to history. But what I mean is that we should focus on the Art of Nintendo and not on the Tech of Nintendo - because they haven't been on the cutting edge of technology since the Super Nintendo.

I'm going out on a limb here, but it seems sensible to me for Nintendo to drop out of the hardware business. At least to the extend they are trying to remain inside of it today. It even seems sensible for Microsoft, and to a lesser extend Sony, to do the same. But they are sitting a bit more comfortably in the Tech Green Zone, so for now the pressure remains solely on Nintendo. Couple this to the trend that we, us that deal in games, software, are ever shifting away from a product economy and into a service economy - just look at Steam. Nintendo hasn't been blind to this, given the strides they are (trying) to make with the e-shop. E-shop by the way, is an equally, or should I say: typically, old sounding idea when compared to e-mail or e-music. In times were everything is electronic anyway. The added 'e' is a meaningless additive that only seems meaningful to a company that thinks there's a difference when in reality it has become the norm. That 'e' is superfluous. A bit like the WiiU, but at least they have got the right idea.

This right idea may very well be the Nintendo NX. Widely considered, by the wider gaming press (not this blog) to be yet another Nintendo Console. Queue some e-hand-wringing: will this be another failed collection of taped-together GameCubes with an attached gimmick? Just look at the WiiU, Lolz! People seem to take to these newfangled tablets, so let's stick one in a controller, instantly voiding the appeal and flexibility of a tables (which does away with buttons). Then void their portability by tethering them to a console with a connection so finicky you need to stay withing a 6 meter radius or the controller becomes little more than a dinner tray. Finally we'll demand game developers use this innovative technology into their unique concepts to realize their full potential in times where The Sequel is both the best idea ánd what gamers expect!
Fruit juicers may well become the next technological fad, so expect the Nintendo OrangeBox with innovative, juicy juicing gameplay. Out with the wiggle, in with the wrangle! I can already see Wario wringing coins out of poor old Syrup. Attach the Wiimote on top of it so it becomes a steering wheel! silly old Nintendo, can't you see that all you have left to innovate in gaming hardware are badly ported mainstream gimmicks? Everybody else is innovating for you, because that's all they do: they specialize. The irony here is that Oculus is putting two and two together, they are using 2 technologies Nintendo pioneered with varying success. Namely, the VR headset (the virtual boy) and the motion controls (the Wiimote). Nintendo simply cannot compete with tech specialists. And even Oculus are coming up with new software because of their gimmick. They are outgimmicking Nintendo's gimmicks with Nintendo's old gimmicks!

Games have always been Nintendo's saving grace. The fox may lose its hair, but not his cunning. That is why I think the NX is not a console but an idea. More concretely: all of Nintendo's games presented on a unified platform free from hardware restrictions. Run NX on the WiiU, 3DS or PC.

Nintendo's wealth lies in ideas and intellectual property rather than its material and tech. So they should focus on games and their gameplay ideas without the required USP. Without constant innovation, tech becomes old fast, even more so as time goes by. So why bother? Nintendo realized this when they made the Wii. But today even the gimmick has become old hat. Both their unique console (best when it was the SNES) and unique interface (best when it was the N64) method have become yesterday's news. Everyone has caught up and surpassed the tired giant.
However, they are still on point when it comes to games. Games are, and have always been Nintendo's saving grace. The fox may lose its hair, but not his cunning. That is why I think the NX is not a console but an idea. Or put more concretely: all of Nintendo's games presented on a unified platform free from hardware restrictions. Run NX on the WiiU, 3DS or PC. Maybe even Android or iOS. If Nintendo seems to be aware of the software modding scene with Mario Maker, they must be aware of the emulation scene (see: the Dolphin emulator, to name just one). They must be aware of Steam's success. They must realize that their vast, and frankly: stellar, library of games is a goose that will lay its golden eggs indefinitely whether they make hardware for it or not.

Nintendo must be aware of Steam's success. They must realize that their vast and stellar library of games is a goose that will lay its golden eggs indefinitely whether they make hardware for it or not.

There are more signs that this may become a trend, Xbox will share its platform on Windows 10 on PC, the idea has existed since Xbox Live was first presented. The concept of Crossplay is no longer an idea that endangers a platform, but something that strengthens it - we'll be able to see how it plays out when Street Fighter V shares its player base with both PlayStation and PC players.
But take heart, dear gamer, all this does not rule out new Nintendo hardware. Just not a separate line of spending that would pile the costs into Nintendo R&D, and thus take away from game development which is their primary strength. They may even partner-up with a computer company. After all, even Microsoft and Sony made their consoles in the image of the PC - the real difference is in the platforms they run and these will become more complex and less hardware dependent over time.
Nintendo, learning from past mistakes, wouldn't be a company that would refuse another manufacturer's hardware twice, would they? A Nintendo Branded Vaio? Stranger things have happened. And all things considered it's a vastly more preferable scenario than letting a heritage sink as if a ship, once so beautiful that the inheritors didn't even dare renovate it to keep it afloat.

Like it's 2008

Hello there. If you were keeping tabs on my blog, you may have noticed a distinct lack of new content. My schedule has been quite busy and I've had little time to write at length about what I think of the current state of the gaming culture. Luckily, I'm still an active participant and I'm in a pretty happy state of mind, which doesn't help with my usual ranting.

_{If you're not playing Divinity: Original Sin, you're really missing out}

First, The game I worked on this past year, straight out of the gate after Dragon Commander, Divinity: Original Sin has been doing very well indeed. Second, it's been a pretty good year for games so far. Though, I should amend that: it's been a pretty good year for PC games. I feel the new consoles have yet to make an impact.

_{Relatively light on grind and with much on offer, playing Wildstar has been a blast}

Besides Divinity: Original Sin, the games that have been on the forefront for me this last year have been: Wildstar, War Thunder (yes, still), Fire Emblem: Awakening, Guild Wars 2, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Dark Souls 1&2, Bioshock Infinite, Legend Of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Diablo 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Crysis 3, Dragon Age 2, Battlefield 4 and a little bit of Assassin's Creed 2.
This is a short list by my standards. Some of these games only have had a handful of hours, some are about to be uninstalled. That's what I get for putting too many MMO's on that list. But I have already made the solemn vow to never grind in a game again. The frustration I had with Star Wars: The Old Republic is very much alive. Instead I'd like to sample a more varied spectrum of games, and still have some time for blogging (and updating the design) or other more artistically beneficial activities. People also keep mentioning TV has become interesting again. For instance: I have been mostly ignorant about Game of Thrones. I am being assured that it's a lot like some fantasy games with permadeath. If the shock of not controlling the onscreen characters wasn't bad enough, there's an alternative: to watch Breaking Bad and see Walter White haplessly take all the Renegade conversation options and get the bad ending.

Watch Breaking Bad and see Walter White haplessly take all the Renegade conversation options and get the bad ending.

But who has the time anymore with all these games coming out. To name but a few: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Pillars Of Eternity, Wasteland 2, Destiny (sadly not yet coming to PC), The Witcher 3, Ultra Street Fighter 4, Elite: Dangerous, Star Citizen, Assassin's Creed Unity, Gigantic. I'd also like to try (F2P) games like DOTA 2 and Smite, because I get the feeling I'm missing out on some great gameplay.

However, there is one blogging related item I have had the time for: I have been writing about my views on the RPG genre. Between working on Divinity: Original Sin and playing the likes of Mass Effect, Guild Wars 2, Skyrim, Dragon Age 2 and Diablo, my focus has strongly been on this genre. The text has ballooned to the size of half a book, and I'm having some issues carving the whole thing into digestible parts. However, since there's no time like the present, I'll continue to do so tomorrow. Probably.

Whiskey Tango

I write to you a broken man. Before we get into the word man let me focus on broken. Because I have been unable to tear myself away from this game. I strain my brain searching a dusty vocabulary looking for words outside the narrow track of what words fighter aces use. Point in case, I hope not too many of you use the words 'boogie', 'yak', 'bingo fuel' or 'all banged up' on a regular basis. But if you do, do I have a game suggestion for you!

The game is called War Thunder. A game by the creators of Wings Of Prey of which this, basically, is a F2P MMO version of. I'm endorsing another F2P game? I have my reasons.

Yes, I'd repeat this till I'm blue in the face but I'd make a fantastic fighter pilot! In an earlier post I confessed to my deep desire to be a one, if you remember. Since conviction is half the work, the remaining requirements are filled by my basic understanding of physics, eg: stuff falls down when dropped, knowledge of aerial maneuvers: I was learned to 'do a barrel roll' from a very early age, and a keen eye which has since become an artistic eye by which I mean a painting done by me would be blurry and smudgy in the classic impressionist's way. Needless to say, my natural height advantage, which is mostly confidence or arrogance, over other people would make me the Top Gun's Tom Cruise of the Belgian Air Force.
I should attribute part of my aptitude for piloting to my father, who recognized this very potential at an early age. The thought of Falcon 3.0 still makes my knees shake from emotion and the memory of the heavy box that nearly crushed my ambition right there in the software store when I tried to lift the game's box.
Spurred on by my personal fanatical fighting of the Iraq war on my PC, the next step was being prepared. I was promised glider lessons if I kept my school grades up. I had to give up the simulator for study but managed to best my own grades the very same year. The sight of which reminded my father that two more siblings needed food and clothing and a compromise was made in the form of glider models. Which I flew flawlessly. And in this I can be modestly proud by saying I was a natural. Contrary to the norm, I didn't crash my first model. And didn't crash any further models. Except that one time when a freak wind tipped my glider upside down. It dove nose first into agricultural grade barbed wire which pretty much tore the plane in half. As I bit back the tears my father laughed off the incident, but I realized I may have been a bit too emotionally invested in flying. I dialed it back a notch but never lost the interest.

Which is the reason I'm so hooked on War Thunder. If you doubt my word on how good this game is, feel free to try it yourself. All I can still add to the argument that it really is good. War Thunder has gathered a pretty rabbit fan following, the forum is a hive of activity about everything you'd imagine and it has even spawned a couple of Youtube stars. No doubt the game has a bright future because fanatics like me keep pouring cash into the game, which is still even only in beta.

Since this is a free to play game, I should mention the business model. It's not too bad. The game has 2 sorts of currencies: Silver Lions and Golden Eagles. Silver Lions are gained by playing the game, and buy you all the normal planes, repairs, upgrades and ammo belts.
Golden Eagles allow for some luxury. Such as additional plane slots, remember: one slot is one spawn - if a plane is damaged, it has to be repaired, either by time or with lions. Eagles also buy premium planes, which yield additional lions and XP. As of writing, there doesn't seem to be a way to buy yourself an advantage over other players, since the premium planes often have a 'normal' counterpart and some of them are oddities or experimental planes history forgot for good reasons. Eagles also let you pour 'free XP', begot by simply playing the game, into faction progression.
Since this is an MMO, it pretty much adheres to the standard €15/month model. But there is no subscription model as such. Instead there's the option to pay for a time limited premium account - a prepaid system. This doubles XP and Lions income, so progression is faster than that of a free account. Again, the way I like it. Provide people with less time (but arguably: more money) a shortcut to speed up the rate of unlocks. Another nice thing about this game is that losing your premium status doesn't penalize you beyond the lack of the bonus XP and Lions multiplier. And should you fly a premium aircraft, or multiple, the lack premium is slightly offset by their higher income.

_{The German Canadair CL-13A Mk.5 Sabre's cockpit}

One big question remains however is premium progression fast enough? And sadly this is my biggest gripe with the game thus far. It's a rather slow affair, at least compared to progression in other games.
I say this as someone who plays with both a premium account and premium planes. In fact, I couldn't see myself progressing at all without the premium stuff. You won't be convinced unless I share a few statistics. As of writing I have played the game a total of 280 hours. Which is rather a lot. Given the game is nothing more then flying planes in areas, completing an objective. Which can make it hard to justify the price if you're not into flying. It's like Call Of Duty with the slow progression of a hardcore MMO. So what have all these hours netted me? Considering the level 20 cap: both my USA and USSR faction are creeping their way towards level 13. My Germans are halfway through level 16. Britain, my second biggest faction is at a nearing 16. And bringing up the rear is Japan, at level 8.
I could spend a pretty hefty amount of eagles to convert my millions of free XP to get most of my nations to the very endgame. But I'm not yet that desperate. The good news is that having played that much has me sitting on a healthy amount of lions. So I have very few limitations other than time.

At the endgame you get to play with the big boys. Flying jets that cost a fortune to get and maintain. But as someone who got terrorized, even from such low level as 14, by jets in past matches. The big lure is to have insane power. Jets are so fast and hit so hard, that they are almost invulnerable against all but other jets.

The gameplay itself though, which is in essence air combat, remains interesting even after all this time. Maneuvering, dueling, tactics, energy management, getting hits on an enemy (bullet drop is a major thing in this game - and each calibre has its own trajectory), it's all so much more intricate than other games in which you need to hit a target with some sort of projectile. The difference with War Thunder is that it's not a shooter or arcade game. Below the hood is a flight simulator, with rules based in physics. This is game where even the weight of fuel makes a pretty big impact on plane performance.

To be clear. This game has consumed me. I have stopped reading fiction in favor of my old WW2 air combat and history books. I have watched some WW2 movies, countless documentaries... Down the street I pause just that bit longer in front of display window of store that sells model kits. How much longer till the glue and pincers for assembling model planes the way I did when I was so much younger? And that's exactly how I feel. These last few months I have been playing out my boyhood fantasies. I am once again a fighter pilot. When I first saw this game in motion on Youtube, nostalgia sprang to life. Materializing from ashes and smoke, a prop driven Phoenix, its grin mocked my graying mane. Its fires scalding me for the lack of airtime.

Seeing these old planes again brought back memories from Chuck Yeager's Air Combat. Chuck only had a few planes from both Axis and Allies on offer but War Thunder seems to want to include about every warplane from the mid 1930's up to the Korean war. All of them with their unique characteristics.
Flying these things is a challenge. Winning battles in them even more so. For the history nerd inside me, this game is settling the argument the like of 'who would win, Batman or Superman?' on a daily basis if the heroes' names were replaced by names such as Spitfire, Mustang and their contemporaries.
It does it in great fashion. At times you can spot an incoming duel literally miles away and you'll need to plan ahead for the confrontation. If you're ballsy, or stupid, you make it a joust-like head on shootout. Gun on gun. Get lucky and you may survive. But if you're smart. You'll set up the situation to your advantage. Even if your plane is inferior, there's always a fighting chance. This dynamic is what makes this game so rewarding. Spending minutes outflying, outsmarting is tense in ways I haven't felt in an online game since lightsaber duels in Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, this is no exaggeration. War Thunder demands knowledge of the individual planes, air combat tactics, patience and situational awareness in its highly fluid 3D emergency. As with many arena style games no two games are ever alike and War Thunder's regular content updates help the game even more in this regard.

Convinced? Then join this old boy (31 as of today!) and get into the mix before his premium runs out. Again. And if you want be a wingman, register an account using this link, you'll get 50 Gold Lions right off the bat and I'll get a little kickback once you reach certain milestones. It'll be terrific fun.

Maximum Redundancy

Installing and playing Crysis3 on my pc has made something crystal clear: my gaming PC is an ancient machine. This is somehow ironic. First of all because I am a big PC gaming advocate boasting about power and secondly, because this machine was assembled to play the cryengine (in the form of Crysis). Which ran like treacle on my previous PC, causing me to had a mental revelation that it desperately needed a replacement. And so I invested one of my very first wages into a new PC.

Back then, I also got the chance to get my hands on Windows Vista. I liked the rock solid performance of the thing, it never crashed. It was however, quite a memory hog. Making it clear that from day one that I wasn't quite done upgrading. After a RAM update, from 2 to 4GB, I upgraded my Nvidia GFX 8800 to a ATI 4780, which I had to replace later on with a Nvidia GTX 460. The CPU got upgraded from a Intel duo E8200 to an Intel q9505. This last upgrade almost didn't happen because the line of processors had become obsolete at that time, it had been for a while, and as such wasn't being sold except for reparations. That was only just two years ago.
Yes, this is by far the oldest PC I've ever had. If I keep it around for another half a year, it'll be 6 years old. But it's still going, pretty much without a hitch if not a chug. From the Vista days I noticed that the HD would sometimes tick, tick, tick and tick, making programs hang until the ticking ceased. At first I thought nothing of it. This was a new PC, what could possibly be wrong? So I ignored it. However, Vista picked up a few issues and got less dependable. The system files got broken and repaired a bit too frequent.
To fix it, I got Windows 7! installing it over Vista may have been a mistake but for a while, all was well. The ticking HD however was still there. A minor nuisance! Or so I thought. It started lasting longer. It certainly sounded mechanical enough to worry me slightly. So the inevitable happened and I got a blue screen when the system started ticking on the windows startup screen. This would have sent me in a vengeful panic, BETRAYAL MOST FOUL, if I didn't have most of my data backed-up or in the cloud.

BETRAYAL MOST FOUL!

However I was slightly ticked off at the delayed start-up. When the windows repair process ticked to a grinding halt as well, I was rather more annoyed. I started making plans to deal with this PC.
So I switched it off and twiddled my thumbs for a while in a suitably malicious manner. This happened on a hot summer evening, so I tried really hard to keep my senses in the simmering swampy city heat. Later that evening I had cooled down. I switched the PC back on. Mercifully, it booted just fine and I was relieved. I blamed the heat for the ticking problem. And it never got that bad again.

Until last January.

It finally dawned on me: the many reboots, error-checking and error repairing the system had to do, seemingly without reason, have had their toll on the files on the disk. Many important system files were 0kb in size. I could no longer adjust my keyboard and mouse settings because the configuration windows no longer existed. A DISASTER!

A DISASTER!

Because this was the middle of Black Ops 2 season and I wanted to toy around with my Razer Imperator's sensitivity settings. My indignant rage instantly returned in full force. THE HUMANITY!

THE HUMANITY!

A full system scan of whatever prompt command launched it showed me that there was no easy way to repair this avalanche of system errors.

That was the drop. On my hands was a PC that didn't have all the necessary (or unnecessary) functions and that couldn't go on. So I considered just getting a new PC, as I figured an upgrade was long overdue. But of course I had another option: reinstall windows 7, the 64bit version this time. The more economic option too. And in a way a small upgrade if it meant I could access the full 4gigs of ram. So I backed up all my remaining data and I mentally prepared myself for the fresh, blank windows desktop I'd eventually reach - and the experience of a most profound horror vacuum you only get when you see your own Personal Computer devoid of all the personal stuff.

the experience of a most profound horror vacuum you only get when you see your own Personal Computer devoid of all the personal stuff.

But also, happily, free of errors. Efficient. And this time I was surprised to see, or rather hear, no more ticking.
The system performs well again. But enough to keep it for another year? I think not. As I mentioned up top, Crysis3 isn't good to this PC. I play on LOW everything and even had to dig into a few custom configurations to disable default high-end features, just to try to keep the frame rate near 60fps. Truth be told though, 30fps may even be too much to hope for. Crysis3 is of course only one game, and I can play other games that aren't Crysis3 just fine.

As a new console cycle is revving up and new game engines are about to appear. It makes sense to get a new PC now and aim a fair bit higher than the new console specs. A guarantee it'll be able to play whatever game comes out in the foreseeable future. And I don't intent to skimp on the budget this time. A good PC can last a very long time even on a budget, so It's well worth the investment. At least that's what I think.
I'm still holding off upgrading for now though. We already have definitive info on the Playstation4: it's very much like a PC. But we still need to see exactly what Microsoft will do with the next Xbox console. Already it seems that the AMD dominated console hardware could influence PC game performance - the next Xbox and WiiU both also use AMD-made silicon. Should games be coded for the AMD graphics cards like the latest Tomb Raider was, it might not be the best idea to get an NVidia graphics card. It may be a bit too early to tell. More research is needed, as it is every time I purchase a piece of hardware. I am curious though, to learn what has changed.

A fond farewell to Guild Wars

Sometimes when a game shows up, it burns bright, fizzles and fades. One play through is all you're prepared to give it. It may be that the game is so bad it doesn't deserve it, like the Homefront campaign. It may be that the game is so good that you don't want to play it a second time because it may sully the memory of the first. A case could be made to just not bother. I'm talking about games like KOTOR1&2, Crysis2, Bioshock, CoD4 and pretty much every Zelda Game.
There are are games that stick around in the public mind for a little longer, these are games with legs. Hugely succesful, they become part of gaming history. Or have many expansions, a dedicated fanbase that makes mods, total conversions and questionable fan art. Good examples would be the Civilization series, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Assassins Creed, Mass Effect. All these are nominees for becoming even greater, if the studio that made them is able to keep the quality up.
And then there are games with wings. I'm talking about juggernauts. Mario, Call Of Duty, the Sims, Starcraft, Counter Strike, Team Fortress and World Of Warcraft. I have high hopes of the the Mass Effect Franchise becoming this big too. But there is another particularly close to my heart: Guild Wars.

Perhaps a juggernaut with a smaller footprint compared to the others in my little line-up here, but ArenaNet isn't known for touting statistics as much as the others. And as such they seem very casual about their place in the PC games market, leaning against the wall of the MMO niche, looking the other way while Blizzard shouts its coiffured head off selling plushes. No, Anet goes about its business talking mostly to their community rather than the press.
At the time of writing this, GW2 is in it's headstart period and people are playing the game. But GW2 got announced for what seems like a decade ago. The only thing us fans would hear about it afterwards was when the game's release got postponed. And we were fine with that for one good reason: the first Guild Wars was, still is, pretty damn amazing.

GW2 got announced for what seems like a decade ago. The only thing us fans would hear about it afterwards was when the game's release got postponed. And we were fine with that for one good reason: the first Guild Wars was, still is, pretty damn amazing.

My own active Guild Wars career started when it was launched and lasted right up until after a few weeks when the Eye Of The North expansion was released. This long period included the Factions and Nightfall chapters. I got quite successful as a PVP player, got some name recognition, and as a guild we earned quite a bit of notoriety on the world ranking.
It ended when real life started its inescapable conquest on my spare time. Now it all seems like a lifetime ago. Games are still in the forefront of my mind. But my perspective on Guild Wars has barely shifted. It holds up, It's still a great game.

When I first saw the game I was expecting it to sound like a Korean brand of J-pop. But when I finally dove in, it sounded like Vivaldi. I run the risk at this point to sound like a bad observer, I mean to say that the quick, fluid gameplay and "limited skill bar" mentality, at first sight, belied the depth and elegance of the systems in place. This really was a game and a really well-made one too, more defined by its limitations than its liberties. No screen filled with skill bars, no open world, only 20 levels of progression. Paradoxically, this "less is more" approach gave this game a clear lead over other MMOs. In Guild Wars, you really needed to think hard about your skill lineup, adapting your character to certain challenges. It made all the difference. And that's what the community did. Builds were invented, weaknesses and strengths exploited. This led to a very dynamic metagame, where builds would be balanced and countered by other builds. Not one build was ever able to ruin a class, or by extension: the game.
In contrast, the more classical MMOs would allow the player to use just about every skill on a class, transforming the HUD into what looks like the worst windows desktop. When the 50 onscreen skills were either on cooldown or useless in the situation, the only thing to really do was to use the first one to become available regardless of the tactical situation. Discouraging strategic play where you would ideally use every skill only when the time is right.
Guild Wars' closed world was made out of player owned instances, in which you could take other people, that changed according to your actions or active quests. The opposite from the classical MMO, where everyone shares the same unchanging game world - which makes them feel more like a theme park rather than a large living world.
Another aspect that sets Guild Wars apart from its kin is the ability to build a party. Nightfall introduced customizable Heroes to the game. Now you could add up to 7 more "builds" to your group, directed by you, but controlled by the AI. It felt so very close to that other classic Sacrifice. Of course you had to give them weapons and upgrade their armor. But this was another opportunity to show some prestige. Some of you may remember that I really love playing party based RPGs, because it allows for some strategy to get into the game plan. In this case it reinforced thinking about builds, but taken to a higher level. A party also avoids the situation where one "skeleton key" character needs to be able to solve every situation. This last issue could crop up in Guild Wars 2, but for now, I'm optimistic.
I have to keep this post short but let me dig up another pet peeve of MMOs, Guild Wars didn't split PVE and PVP. Top tier armor was equal across the board. When you had a PVE character (able to also play the story) you had to buy, collect or craft your armors, weapons and mods as per usual, with the added bonus that you could look really cool. But when you made a PVP character (standard at lvl 20 restricted to pvp zones) you could just unlock everything (skills, weapons, armor, runes, heroes, ...) as you played.
SWtoR, in contrast, infuriated me by putting both PVP and PVE on a separate gear track. Doubling the notorious grind that makes the genre so dull to play.
Not so with Guild Wars which had almost no grind to speak of. Sure, you could grind resources, but to get good drops you had to go in alone, and really outsmart the gameplay systems. One such clever player-made innovation was the 55 monk - nearly unkillable without enchantment removal or life steal skills. But rather then nerfing the skills and class, Anet updated the farming spots with smarter AI and a few tweaks. They even embraced the ingenuity of players by making one of the NPC henchmen a 55 monk in a tournament. Which really underlines the generous mindset of the developer. In my mind this is what happens when a company doesn't need to suck a monthly fee out of people. I approve.

Arenanet embraced the ingenuity of players by making one of the NPC henchmen a 55 monk in a tournament. Which really underlines the generous mindset of the developer. In my mind this is what happens when a company doesn't need to suck a monthly fee out of people.

The quality of the game went way up with every expansion, "expand-alones" in practice, because they were even more well-made. Not only did the art-style become more pronounced and interesting, the addition of better PVP modes, balancing, and endgame areas made the whole package much more appealing to keep playing.
Guild Wars factions had unique interpretations of Japan and China, added a forest turned to stone and a sea turned to Jade inhabited by two warring factions (and a focus on pvp combat). Guild Wars Nightfall took us from fantasy Egypt, fantasy Africa and a version of 1001 nights straight into the nightmare of a mad god, which held it's own twisted interpretation of said lands - the realm of Torment.
The Eye Of The North took us back to the original continent and started setting up the scene for a sequel. Here's where I picked up the thread, where my recent trip into nostalgia began but more of this later. Anet added even more post-game quest lines on top of the original game with Beyond.

Not too long ago, GW2 finally got its release date. And with it came the promise of a slew of rewards for longtime Guild Wars Fans, through the Hall Of Monuments. An in-game time capsule that connects your GW1 characters with their descendants in the new game. The tasks placed before the rewards are, to say the least, challenging. And rightly so, there shouldn't be an easy way to sum up, what should be, years of gaming.
Nevertheless, after a 5 year hiatus, I rose to the challenge to fill up my Hall Of Monuments. Luckily, I was on the cusp of getting this title, or that item, or about to craft this armor. So I got the job done in a couple of weeks of casual play. This would have been quicker if it weren't for the fact that titles were only introduced quite a while after I originally started playing. The rules were a bit stricter back then too.
Though now I'm all set to play the sequel. The little samples I took away from the beta tests were enough to get me hyped to the point I can safely say this has become my most anticipated game in years. So why am I not playing during the headstart periods? Because I pre-ordered the Collectors Edition from a local store that had no idea a headstart existed. So I'll be waiting like the rest of us sad saps who still place trust in retailers, and will be among the noobs all over again on release day.
I wondered about that and I should be relatively well off given the fact that I have played the original for a staggering 2413 hours, with 962 on my main character. Don't think too much on that number, it will make your head spin. It did with me. After I typed the /age command as part of a gag with a friend, I had to take a small break. My character just stood there, reflecting on its life. Next to it, its merry band of heroes started a small party, dancing and playing the guitar, as they do.

It was thinking. We had some fun times, didn't we?

A wider point of view, The Title Fight

The two game most FPS gamers were keeping eyes on were Battlefield3 and Modern Warfare3. A lot of us were wondering if BF3 would make the same impact as its predecessor. Battlefield2 was the first game to use the modern combat setting but it was Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that made it popular. Since then the market has been bombarded with a CoD every year. Pointing the way for rival shooters through sheer success. But as the novelty wears off, a lot of gamers are getting tired of the formula. Though the quality and production values of the series are what makes it such a hit every time. The reward-a-minute treadmill might have something to do with it too, and so might the stiff online competition. The gameplay is fast, often rage inducing and frustrating. But when things go your way, it's an ideal way to blow off some steam after a day's work. I should know. The game has to cope with diminishing returns however.

When games like Crysis2 and Homefront tried to copy the formula, some of us got a case of desperation because you couldn't buy a AAA shooter without getting a good dose of Call Of Duty with it. This fear persisted all the way through the development of Battlefield3. Even though most of us who played Battlefield2 knew that series had a lot more going for it. But more importantly, it had different things going for it. From the direction the Bad Company games were going, more console focused, we had little reason to be overly hopeful. But Battlefield3 turned out as an incredible step forward from Bad Company. And while it incorporates a few select innovations from CoD, the game turned out something else. A game with a very high skill cap, not only does a player need to know what role to play at what time, he needs to know it on foot, in tanks or in the skies. And he has to be a team player. This alone isn't the novelty though, but the way the game was made and the way it plays are. The pixel perfect user interface alone makes it stand out compared to the bulky font and laggy mouse found in the MW3 interface. The entire layer of post processing, and colour separation in BF3 also apply to the interface. When I first saw it in the beta I had the wide eyed look of a child who discovers that his new toy not only looks shiny, but also transforms into a robot. It looked so very expensive.

MW3 sticks to its guns. It isn't a spoiler to say that MW3 is "like MW2 but newer". A mark of the stagnation of Call Of Duty, which is just as well because the sub-series has now come to a close. Right on time for the end of the Xbox360. Does this mean that CoD is beaten by default? Not really. And I wager Activision doesn't see it that way either. Queue Black Ops 2 for November 2012 as the swan song of the CoD series as we know it. Another sign of decline could be measured in its players. I'm not saying we should crack open their skulls to examine the dopamine levels but instead look at their dedication. CoD4 was played for two years. And if you're a competitive player, you still do after 4 years. MW2 was actively played for 1 year and wasn't even that good. Black Ops was hot for about 3 months and now MW3 already seems on it's way out after only 1 month. It's hard to tell if it is because MW3 is considered to be slightly less good than BlOps was or if the formula has run its course, regardless of MW3's quality. Battlefield, with its new engine, bigger scope, more interesting shooting mechanic, seems the title to beat now. But still, it seems a very frail reign if we base this claim on sales.

Truth be told, CoD and Battlefield aren't that similar conceptually. They share the modern combat setting. Both have a team deathmatch and the M16, Americans and Russians. But they also share the mudslinging ad campaigns. To the untrained eye, both are advertising the same game! They aren't, but the perception is still there. Neither companies are informing otherwise because they actually are rivals. Both would want the public to buy their game, and not the other. If we go on customer loyalty, Call of Duty takes the lion share. As console popularity has given it the biggest audience. BF vets are almost always on PC, where the series by and large stayed, and are a minority.

As predicted earlier, Call Of Duty remains the more popular of the two. And as long as there's another dollar left, a company will keep making its product. Even to its own detriment. I'm not sure Activision has the audacity to carry the franchise into the future on the same tech though. Which in turn means that Activision will have to procure a new next gen engine to power their franchise for the next generation of consoles if they do. They will, Call Of Duty is a very important money maker for Activision.
This dependency is where Activision may have a problem.

Not a typical PC publisher, Activision has yet to show off a next generation engine or a game using one. Others did, EA has the Frostbite2 engine from DICE. Bethesda has the Rage Engine from ID. THQ has a few projects, Nexuis & Homefront2, using Cryengine3. And no doubt EPIC is working on a next generation iteration of Unreal Engine 3. Unfortunately I was only moderately impressed with the Good Samaritan Trailer they showed at GDC 2011. But we have yet to see a game using it.

Out of all these mentioned next generation engines, Frostbite2 has seen the most actual use thus far. Need For Speed: The Run used it, and rumour has it Dragon Age 3 will use it too. It's no stretch to say that the next generation of Mass Effect, Medal of Honor and Dead Space games will use it too. Just a few weeks ago, Bioware has already confirmed it is using Frostbite for the upcoming C&C Generals2. And then there's Respawn. The original CoD developers, now with EA, who are poised to fill the void that CoD will presumably leave in the next generation if it fails to reinvent itself.

Maybe the future for CoD as we know it today, lies with a free to play model, not unlike TF2 or Battlefield Heroes. A hardcore shooter running through a browser isn't new either. It could be an opportunity to bundle the entire Modern Warfare series onto one unified platform. With all maps, all weapons and a selection of balanced perks. Optimizations could even be made to create a Pro Mod to promote professional play.
Since the specifications to run CoD have become far below those of the standard PC, it can live quite a few years longer in this form, using the same engine, generating revenue through micro transactions or subscriptions. Away from the bleeding edge of technology, where expectations are more tempered. A key ingredient may be the social aspect of CoD. The basic framework is already in place: Call Of Duty Elite. The community site where player's multiplayer stats are shown on profile pages. People can watch video content, participate in community activities, start community groups, etc. Activision has delayed, or aborted according to some sources, the PC release of CoD Elite because they are worried PC gamers will mess with the statistics.
My inner cynic would rather think this story is hogwash because when was this company ever worried about PC gamers or what they did with the game? History has shown that Infinity Ward didn't care in the least about what the (PC) community did. Glitches, exploits and hackers in MW2 didn't push the developer into any sort of action. I'm also not inclined to think IW has had a change of heart, after the stellar job Treyarch did in supporting Black Ops, because the proof is in the pudding. MW3 has no Dedicated servers and no accessible in-game console. The buggy release version and no CoD Elite only add insult to injury. To further tarnish IW's image, this just happened. My guess is it will go unresolved. PS3 users have my condolences.
An argument that comes up time and time again is piracy - by now the oldest cliché in the book. In the case of Activision it's mind boggling considering what its other half, Blizzard, has been doing on PC for years. If a game runs through a (web)client with a bunch of server side operations, its useless to pirate. MMO's can't really be pirated.

DICE is halfway there with BF3 as the game launches from the web browser. Plus Battlelog is available for all platforms. And it's great. So great in fact that I'd wish other EA published games, such as Crysis2, Battlefield Heroes, Mass Effect3 MP, Medal of Honor and the upcoming C&C: generals 2 would use it. The statistics it tracks are useful, the internet browser server browser, yes you read that right, is the quickest thing and the social interaction is just logical considering the time we live in.
It almost goes without saying that BF3 is a pureblood PC shooter. It's very customisable: FoV, dedicated servers, a long list of tweak able variables. A PC gamer marvels at the mere sight of it all. Rendered in a brand new engine that pushes our hard earned computer hardware. Meaning, of course, that the graphics look absolutely stunning. Just look at this clip from FRANKIEonPCin1080p.

I'm tempted to write a good review on it, I really am. But those are so hard to do, and might even be superfluous considering the game speaks for itself. I recommend it as it is, in my opinion, superior to MW3 in every meaningful way, as a serious FPS.

And With that I'll leave you with some BF3 entertainment by BirgirPall. Enjoy, and have fun.

Money Games

Belgium is a sporting nation with many national sports. Such as football: the international sport. The ever popular Cycling: the other international sport.
It also used to be Judo. A Belgian even won an Olympic medal once. But since said person retired, Judo was never mentioned again. International appeal is where it's at with the big sports because you're nobody if not a world leader.
I should mention Tennis as another somewhat national sport because of our tireless duo, racket-whipping the world's backside. But both are on their way out and this may spell the end for a few tennis clubs too many. As it goes, the afflicted sport will have representatives lobbying for government support, punctuated by the threat that no new talent shall be found or trained and our national image bruised unless certain financial demands are met. The government, faced with the dire prospects of additional international embarrassment will then pull funds from education and reallocate them to sports.

Education is a field we Belgians still manage to lead in, so why would funds be needed? As long as creationism stays off the agenda we're good to go. Unfortunately, too many young students become religious adults so there might be a spanner in the works. An expensive search campaign for said spanner was researched, planned, organised and subsequently scrapped due to budget cuts.

"Brawn over brains" has become the national motto. I wish I was kidding. The solution for the current financial crisis given by liberal democrat Dirk van Mechelen during election time was:
"We must work harder and harder, and I know because I used to be a butcher's son when I was young".
The line was delivered with the poised jaw conviction of Caesar crossing the Rubicon and tremendous intensity. To further clarify his point he said nothing, but let the grave rebuttal sink in during the long, long seconds of silence in which the camera paused the image on his fierce gaze.

I wonder if he managed to convince single mothers working two jobs to pay for food and bills. And I wondered at the time that if we were told the missing inner monologue about the butcher argument, it might have made at least some sense.

Money is always a problem. Even in sports. You can't get good at something without putting in the hours, and time is money.
In order for a sport to get subsidized we must first answer the question: what is a sport? We have appointed a minister to spend 8 hours a day to mull over this conundrum and come up with the list.

The current appointee is Philippe Muyters. After careful thought and consideration he has dismissed, among others, Chess, Darts and Billiards. The reason being "because there is no physical effort (involved)". The words inside the brackets were not present due to more budget cuts, but I added them for clarity.
He went on to say that "A sports-person must stimulate his physical development, upkeep or improve his condition. None of these condition are present with mental sports."
I do wonder how Sir Raymond Ceulemans reacted to this news. He was the World Champion of Carom Billiards 35 times and was awarded "Belgian sportsman of the year" in 1978. He even had an international nickname "Mr. 100".

Some of his shots look like magic:

During his long reign, Carom Billiards probably was a National Sport too. But even during Sir Ceulemans lifetime, the sport would cease to be that. Because of the lack of required muscle mass and sweat output?
The physical argument puzzled me because shooting Clay Pigeons still is a sport.

The reason Shooting Clay pigeons is still considered a sport by the minister is tradition. In my mind, this alone exposes the ministers intentions with the designation because shooting Clay Pigeons has no traditions as a sport. Though perhaps it does as a rich mans hunting game. Perhaps the ministers fancies himself in a tweed suit? Maybe he's the nostalgic type who would like a return to the time when colonialism yielded cheap Earl Grey Tea, a coloured man to shine your shoes and Jeeves to brush the dandruff off of said suit. I also find it hard to think of a sport as traditional when its main tools are firearms. Compared to Chess, Shooting Clay Pigeons is a toddler wielding a plastic pistol loaded with a suction cup dart.
Maybe the minister's reason for respecting the art of The Shooting Of The Pretend Bird is because it has the potential to put a meal on the table in a way playing Chess or Billiards doesn't. Those bring nothing to the table - they're not subsidised. However it may be, the former and latter definitions wielded by the elected official are inconsistent. In political speak, inconsistency is often named a dynamic response to demanding situations, or adapting to new situational circumstances, or tactical adjustment to stimulate a positive response. I'm sure Mr. Muyters has a fair arsenal of this kind of verbal buckshot. Which he wears like a bandoleer of blanks: Looking tough at first but looking more ineffectual with each subsequent shot.

For those wondering, my interest in this debate is from a gamer's perspective and e-sports. I'm sure Mr. Muyters has his reservations about all things e because of their minimal physical component. Which is a gross and offensive simplification. Say you're a programmer, your job is "pressing buttons on a keyboard". But let's stay on topic. I was wondering if games like Starcraft, Street Fighter, Call of Duty or Counter Strike could ever be recognised as a sport. I can attest to the fact those take a lot of effort to play competitively. One must have strategy, communication, lightning reflexes, nerves of steel and solid concentration. All those flow from good physical condition. And you have to use your brain.
If clay pigeons can be a sport, perhaps there's hope for Shooters like Call Of Duty or Counter Strike. Starcraft may be out of luck, because the strategy component makes it so akin to Chess, even if it's action packed and players need to perform about 250 to 300 actions per minute. I do wonder how Mr. Minister would view computer games. Pressing buttons like madmen, seeing rhyme nor reason in the actions. Probably the way he sees foreign languages, "Listen! It tries to communicate. How quaint, how primitive.".

So we probably won't see anything like this around here anytime soon:

Or even this:

But as with chess, so with e-sports. In that they don't require brawn, but finesse and clear thinking. Which brings me to the one thing Mr. Muyters probably has forgotten. While talking up physical condition and training he seemingly fails to notice that the brain is a physical organ situated in the corpus humanum and can be trained just as well as muscle. Or should I say, has to be trained. Perhaps the minister still clings to the belief that the mind and the brain are two separate things. A theory, that of the soul, invented more than 2000 years ago to try and explain the gap between body and mind. Because the mind is a projection of the brain. In my mind, or should I say brain, the following rule is true: the better the brain, the clearer the mind. And brains are more important than brawn. This is another rule: big brains are able to accomplish much more than big muscle and in much more then just sports. And that's where our country should make the difference. We need to develop our big brains because that's what were good at.
Anyway, if I told you about Muscles from Brussels, one man already comes to mind. So why still try? We could still take a shot at e-sports though.

I do believe that we should keep our bodies fit and healthy though, a healthy mind comes from a healthy brain comes from a healthy body. An idea that should be taught from a young age.
That's where Mr. Muyters has missed the point as well. At this point I would like point out that he's also the minister of Finances, Work and Planning. Plus he's got an economic background. A field he's probably better suited for. So imagine what his economist eyes beheld when he was delivered, on the 10th of June this year, the report that in 13 years our top sporting schools had only delivered 2 top-tier handball players. What a gigantic waste of resources! Logically, the sport has since been scrapped from the curriculum. Along with Judo, a former national sport, and long distance running, because our small country's lack of long distances.
With the budget cuts made to schools, the minister has crossed the border of the acceptable. If there's anything schools need it's more funding. The result of schools isn't just top tier sports-people but educated people. And that's what we can't have enough of. If we have enough of them maybe they'll even find their way to parliament.
And anyway, if you're a patron to the arts you can't be too concerned with return on investment. You just have to hope the artist you're funding that somewhere down the line, but don't count on it, because it's rare. It's the reason why patrons of the arts are rare. One just accepts that the money is gone, but the mind is at ease because the money has gone to a generally good cause, and not to say, an expensive mistress.
Speaking of arts, perhaps Mr. Muyters wants to take aim at the art schools because of the minimal amount of world renowned artists our country is producing? What a clever idea, if you can't sell it, why have culture at all?

I'm sure Mr. Muyters congratulates him on his big brains for being a minister. Perhaps hard to justify because it requires about the least physical activity in the nation's range of professions. I could call it hypocrisy, but I'm not sure about his after-hours activities. Maybe he has a second job as a longshoreman. Though more likely he goes to the firing range, where he shoots clay pigeons. Scoffing at his aide for his performance "Why did you load blanks instead of buckshot? Weren't you thinking?"

A wider point of view, part two.

In part one I talked at length about current games and their console and PC features. One of which is an often ignored option that has been irking me to no end: A configurable Field Of View (FoV) variable. A limited FoV is usually a telling sign of consolitis, a term the online PC community uses to denote a game that is marred by its console origins. Yet I have not explained just why it's such a big deal. Why the fuss over adjustable features? And what makes the FoV so important?

An example might clarify what I'm talking about. If you want to fully notice the difference between the following clips, watch the peripheral vision, size of opponents, sense of speed and turning speed. The effect is clearly visible when you look at the onscreen size and position of the AK47. This first clip is Black Ops at its standard 65 FoV:

This second clip is Black Ops at its maximum allowed FoV of 80. Which still considered on the low side by most PC gamers who'd want the scale to go as far as 90:

The differences are subtle, yet make a world of difference while playing. CoD might not be the best example of this because the gap between min and max FoV isn't that big. The engine is quite performant and so the standard FoV is still quite wide compared to other games.
But does it make a difference? Of course it does. Compare the render area with this picture in picture image images courtesy of the GamingAU.net Forums). In the picture is a screenshot of Bad Company 2, the numbers on the shot is the used FoV. 55 Is what the console uses, 85 is typically around what a PC gamer would use on a 16:10 monitor.

The difference in number of assets that are displayed on-screen is clearly visible. More on screen logically means the computer will need more system resources to display them. Also note that the 55 FoV screen is zoomed in, enlarging objects in depth. The shot with 85 FoV is less zoomed in, but objects in the distance appear smaller on screen.
There's an additional concern with the zoomed-in view. If we were to apply 3D vision to it, the effect would be less pronounced. If you've ever looked through binoculars and moved from left to right, you'll know that depth perception is minimized. This means that any game with a very narrow FoV will gain little from 3D effects, and might even get in the way of gameplay because it is so unnatural, at least on PC.
If the viewing angle gets to big though, the image will become noticeably warped, like watching through a fisheye lens. What's more, if more image is squeezed into the view port of the monitor, objects in depth will get pushed even further away, making them smaller and, as a side effect, harder to aim at in a shooter. Debunking the claim that increasing the FoV would be some sort of visual cheat, just because you get to "see more". Players need to find a workable medium, one that looks and feels comfortable.

PC gamers demand adjustable FoV because, unlike their console playing brethren, they're sitting quite close to the screen. A low FoV makes you look around constantly in order to take in your environment. Combine this with the screen distance, a lack of peripheral vision and one can easily get motion sick.
What's more, a larger FoV is more immersive because our natural FoV is quite large as well. So it is best to match the natural FoV with the one in the game. The further you sit from the screen, the smaller it can get without appearing unnatural. But when watching a screen up close, as is the case with a PC, it needs to be quite wide. To drive the point home: if your eyes were the screen, logically, you'd want to have the full natural FoV which is about 180 degrees. Fun fact: a large FoV also greatly increases the sense of speed.

So why don't console games provide a bigger FoV? The low FoV on consoles could be there for a number of reasons. As I mentioned before, one is that the player sits a distance away from the TV, his "window" into the virtual world. Making a smaller FoV appear more natural. We'll ignore the naturalistic appearance of a pair of arms more than a meter away for now. One argument against this then is: why don't they incorporate a FoV slider and give players a choice. I can imagine some console gamers are sitting quite close to the screen too.
Perhaps console devs simply can't. And that really narrows down the number of design choices.
Linked to system resources, a low FoV can also be due to the limited horsepower of the consoles. Rendering less makes a console render faster. Here is where we get to the crux of this topic. This highlights what infuriates PC gamers so much about badly ported shooters: inferior hardware dictating and limiting the way a game plays on potentially superior PC hardware.

In the past PC's have always been used for immersive applications that greatly benefit from wide viewing angles. A good example are flight simulators where, even in the early days, multiple screens would be used to simulate a real cockpit in which the pilot could watch not only in front but also to the sides. This was even more useful when piloting a fighter, where dogfights would take place in 3D space. By which I mean a fighter pilot has to keep track of his targets all around him, back, front, left, right, up and down. Watching rigidly ahead would narrow his spatial awareness to less than 1/6 of what it should ideally be. If the used foV is around 90 degrees.
We could quite easily change the context to shooters, where a soldier needs to keep track of his targets in a 3D environment. Perhaps not so much under and above him, but certainly in front, to the left and right and to the back.

With all this in mind. Let's watch the following youtube movie. The commentator, the esteemed El Presador, doesn't have an inkling about how a game engine works technically, but what he's saying from his gamer background is pertinent. And that's what really matters. The game is Killzone 3.

If you enjoyed that, there's more on topic El Presador on Killzone 3.

Killzone 3 is a prime example. A low FoV is its main persisting problem, as it has been present since the first Killzone. And its bad controls are always what people complained about however the "sluggish controls" are wrongly attributed to the controls. The game looks sluggish because the view is so zoomed in. It can make people nauseous. It makes the environment harder to navigate which in turn makes people run into walls. That's also what happened in the video.
I assume Guerilla squeezed the PS3 for performance, making the game look good, by squeezing the FoV. Render less to make it render faster. And despite the sacrifices the game doesn't run any faster than 30fps. Meaning that a TV running at 60hz will display every frame in the game twice, where it would display any given frame only once at 60fps. Twice the frame rate makes a game feel more responsive.

Because engines have gotten harder to run on consoles, the FoV has become more narrow. And in many cases can be blamed for the sluggish or unresponsiveness in console shooters. Which makes all of them fail to topple Call Of Duty. It has the lightest engine, the widest, most natural FoV, the highest frame rate and the most responsive controls on the market. Does this mean it is untouchable? On the current consoles it probably does. But I for one feel that the age of Call Of Duty is coming to an end. The new engines dazzle players with their effects, physics, realism and immersion. The visual fidelity of Cryengine 3 and Frostbite 2 will raise the standard in a way that Call Of Duty players will expect the same quality from their favorite game. Unfortunately though, if Call Of Duty has to upgrade its engine, it will also have to leave behind its 60fps and 65 degrees FoV in favor of 30fps and 55 or less FoV. With the same sacrifices on gameplay in favor of visuals, it would get attributed the same dubious award of looking great, but playing like garbage. Current console hardware only goes so far.

For PC players though, this tipping point is a sweet release from the shackles of console hardware. We're seeing it with Battlefield 3 already, where PC is the leading platform. PC hardware does have the power to run a 64 player battlefield game at 60fps with a 80+ FoV. Which is bound to get the goad of at least some ardent console players who'll have to admit that the PC platform is leaping miles ahead in both gameplay, scope and graphics. The consoles will only be getting a limited version of the very same game. Again, Battlefield 3 will have to use DX9 technology on consoles leaving out all the realism gained with DX11.

Ultimately, it's hard to point fingers. I guess the lead artist or lead gameplay designer of these games are responsible for allowing it. Even though they might not even be aware of the issue. Not knowing about the legacy of shooters or technical limitations. Perhaps they simply have to comply with the lead programmer that the game just doesn't run fast enough with these kind of high-end visuals.
Maybe it's the fault of their customers, supporting bad practice with their money. Though they are even less aware of the issues. And are at a loss about what some other, often PC players, are raving on about. Why are they getting so upset? They only know that this game doesn't feel as good as Call Of Duty but can't quite put their finger on as to why. So they play it for a week and go back to their beloved franchise with the crisp controls and the responsive frame rate. Even though they wished the other game would take them somewhere else.
Then, the newest trailer of Battlefield 3 stuns them into a new dream. The lighting looks amazing! And look at the soft shadows! Will it run at 60fps? But of course it won't. Even Josh Olin, Treyach community manager, hinted at that smirking all the way from his gold plated throne. Disappointed once again console players will go back to Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3, while DICE wonders why only the PC crowd keeps cheering them on. And EA, learning too little, will break their heads over how they could possibly reclaim the FPS crown from Activision once more. Funny that, how this cycle repeats itself.

A wider point of view, part one.

I may or may not have mentioned the end of civilization recently, which may or may not be coming our way soon. But just in case of a global meltdown, I'm preparing for extreme violence. Luckily as a Belgian I'm not far away from one of the world's most renowned weapons manufacturers. So when I go online and equip a FN F2000, like the ones delivered to the Libyan special forces, to headshot teenagers in Battlefield, I'm actually celebrating our great Belgian Culture. How our Minister of War, Pieter De Crem, would swell with pride and joy upon reading this post. If only he knew how to read. Yet all of that pales in comparison when compared to the way the man can pre flight check a Lockheed C-130 by patting the side of the fuselage as if congratulating it after winning the Ostend Derby. Sadly, the last great Belgian military victory dates back to when horses were high tech in the year 1302, when we kicked the French all the way back to France. We haven't had a French related problem ever since, proving the value of armed conflict once more. But let's not dwell on political games.

Suffice to say, I've been playing a lot of games. Mostly shooters. My most recent stint started about half a year ago with the release of the Medal Of Honor reboot. But even before that the market has been flooded with big budget hardcore first person shooter (fps) games. One remarkable trend among these titles: most of them are multi-platform. Console popularity is on an all time high with developers because of the large user base. So the leading versions are often for console and then get ported over to the PC. A process that almost always leads to an inferior PC title compared to pure PC games. Developers porting from console to PC usually leave out a lot of functionality or options the hardcore PC community is used to. Such as mod tools and dedicated servers. But the lack of one often ignored option has been irking me to no end: A configurable Field Of View variable.
The field of view determines what the viewing angle (in degrees) of a game is according to the old 4:3 aspect ratio. So a 65 FoV gives the player a 65 degrees viewing angle. This same variable, 65, will result in a somewhat wider view in 16:10 and 16:9 widescreen aspect rations.. Maybe it's not quite as ignored as I think though, but I am getting the idea that many devs just don't care. Which leads people who actually are passionate about this topic to write about how devs just don't care.

The following blog posts require a bit of gaming history to really be understood. This first post sets the scene for what is to follow.
I will talk about first person shooters on both PC and consoles. The differences, the design choices and the consequences. To some this might be sliced bread, but I'll highlight the necessary info just in case. And this chronological summary will provide some perspective on the genre today. This is by no means a complete list though, but it highlights the big hitters.

The game that popularized the "modern war" setting was Call Of Duty 4. Current generation CoD games were made with a very heavily modified Quake3 engine by Infinity Ward. The game has a fully moddable FoV in the .cfg file, which could be modified with a simple text editor. The game was smash hit and instant classic on consoles first and PC second. Which led to the sequel Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

A big console shift happened with this game. All variables were locked away, including the FoV. While still having a somewhat usable FoV even for PC, other neglected options, the biggest of which were dedicated servers and the access to an ingame console, made this game into the most hated Call Of Duty for the hardcore PC community. The outstanding production values made things worse as Infinity Ward dropped out of favor. Not supporting the game beyond a few simple bug fixes and exploits added insult to injury.

Not long after Battlefield Bad Company 2 was released. The name "Bad Company" denotes the console offshoot of the Battlefield series. Made by European developer DICE, the original had no PC version but the sequel did. Surprisingly it was quite configurable via an editable config file which allowed PC gamers to change the FoV, among other things. One year after release, the game still has quite an active PC community. While not a steamworks game it still makes the steam top 10 most played games list almost every day. Yet it can't get close to the popularity of CoD.

The 2010 release of Medal Of Honor marked the reboot of the series with a modern combat setting. Not surprisingly it was heavily influenced by the succes of MW2. It had a troubled development though and the game was ultimately split into two separate pieces with two different engines. Resulting in two quite distinct games. The Single Player campaign used Epic's Unreal Engine 3. Which has encrypted configuration files, making it impossible to adjust the FoV. Producer EA pushed the game primarily for the console market to compete with CoD but got absolutely destroyed in sales.
The multiplayer side of the game was done by DICE. They used their proprietary Frostbite engine giving players the same options as Bad Company 2. Making it quite configurable.

The current king of the market is Call Of Duty Black Ops. Made by Treyarch, it has been well supported across all platforms. Needed indeed because the release version of the game was very buggy for PC and PS3. The lead PC programmer (@pcdev) made a promise to make this a genuine PC title. A statement that was bound to come back to haunt him. Yet as a result this CoD game is much more configurable and enjoyable than MW2, its biggest rival. The games options menu has a built-in FoV slider. It and many more variables can be edited with a text editor just as before too. A remarkable and commendable return to form. As were dedicated servers. Mod tools are promised with a future patch.

Not a cross platform game but still important is Guerrilla's Killzone 3, as it is intended to be the flagship FPS game on Playstation 3. It's backed by Sony and presumably the answer to Microsoft's Halo before CoD took over the market. Rightly lauded for it's superb visual design but despite all effort has failed to catch on and hasn't even come close to competing with CoD.

Bulletstorm was made in response to the "serious" military shooters of the last year. This over-the-top arcade shooter was ported to PC and uses the Unreal3 engine. Many PC options were left out in the release version and the config files encrypted, which sent forums alight with rage. To soften the blow a bit for PC gamers, a decrypter was posted on the Bulletstorm forums so they could edit the config file.

Homefront is made by Kaos Studios. A spiritual successor to the developer's earlier game Frontlines. They develop games using Unreal3, not a very promising sign if we look at its history. However, Kaos has been wooing PC gamers with exclusive features, dedicated servers and the promise of editable config files. The game was recently released with moderate success. Undoubtedly it will get stiff competition from existing and upcoming games. But the success of Counter Strike has shown that a PC shooter doesn't necessarily needs to be a looker to be a darling. If it keeps getting support.

Speaking of lookers, Crysis 2 is developed by Crytek. Responsible for the exquisite Far Cry & Crysis 1. Crytek will now foray into the console market with this sequel. Now suddenly skeptical PC gamers are promised the same great Crysis style support and features. Crytek have a lot to live up to as the first Crysis had and still has the most impressive game engine to date. Just about every variable was editable. The game had dedicated servers and modding tools. It was pretty much exactly what the PC community wanted from a FPS game. Gameplay footage from Crysis 2 has been very promising so far. The demo, released on 4/03/2011, was not. Gamers all over the internet were predicting doom and gloom because the demo lacked just about every configurable setting while carrying over a few key console features, such as the now infamous "press start to play" opening screen and aim assist for gamepad users. A demo isn't representative however, so here's hoping Crytek remembers its promises.

Brink is being developed by ID software protegé Splash Damage. Like Bulletstorm a reaction to current "realistic" shooters and like Team Fortress 2 is very stylized. The game uses the ID4 engine, known from Doom3, which was also used in Splash Damage's Enemy Territory Quake Wars. They seem to be very aggressive in their stance on the genre, and very confident of the game's success. They also have the material to back up their claim as the game seems to be in great shape. The PC legacy of the ID4 engine is telling, the game is promised to be fully configurable with an ingame console, FoV modification and dedicated servers on PC. If the game is a success it could spell the end for Call Of Duty clones.

Speaking of ID software. It is also cooking up a new game, with a new engine. It's called Rage and will appear on consoles and PC. Curiously, it seems to be the only one breaking new ground with its engine. As the FoV seems very wide compared to other console shooters. Which is good news for everyone. Perhaps the venerable giant, I'm talking about ID, can come back to compete in style.

Battlefield 3 is the upcoming DICE blockbuster. Using an upgraded frostbite engine, it was originally a PC exclusive and will be using the latest DX11 technology. Meaning the PC version is the one to be downgraded to the DX9 generation consoles. Couple this with DICE's excellent PC support and it should be in great shape.

And then there's Valve. They release few new games, but instead opt to support their games long after release. Counter Strike, Left For Dead and Team Fortress 2 are prime examples. Updated almost every other day, fully modable, dedicated servers and more have made these games fan favorites.
Valve had their own FoV incident when Half-Life 2 was first released on PC in 2004. Many of people were complaining about getting motion sick while playing the game. The standard FoV was set at 75. Shortly after, a patch addressed the problem by adding a feature to modify the FoV to 90. Keep in mind that the Call of Duty standard anno 2011 is 65. You can read more about this historic event here and here and even here.
Most likely the game was configured as such because at the time Valve didn't want their brand new engine to run slowly. So they probably narrowed the FoV to boost performance. Which is key to my next post.

There's another layer of politics going on though. I've mentioned developers so far but it's the publishers who're really competing for the market. The big players are Activision with everything Call Of Duty, EA with Battlefield, Medal Of Honor and Crysis, THQ with Homefront and Bethesda with Brink and Rage.
At present, everyone on the market is trying to knock Activision of its throne, with little success. In my next post I'll explain just why this is and why it's probably not going to change anytime soon while this battle is fought on the consoles. Which in a way has consequences for our PC gaming freedom.

Don't forget to also read part two of A wider point of view.

The Humanism of Mass Effect 2

 

Ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a Malo

If there's one thing we can thank the bible for it's the way it has made literary archetypes and memes. At first glance Mass Effect seems to borrow quite a bit of them. Project Lazarus, a club called Afterlife, ascension... Could there be something more going on? In my previous posts I've spotted a very engaged humanist vision in the stories and characters of their games. So I kept my eyes peeled while playing Mass Effect 2. In this post I want to explore how far the bible analogy goes and where it breaks down. Are there any differences? Can it tell us something about our human condition today - which is for some, if not a lot of, people a big part of what defines art.

Mass Effect 2 doesn't seem to be as epic as its predecessor. It's more intimate. The game is much more focused on its characters, interaction and dialogue. The events less grand in scope. Shepard needs to build a team to take out the Collectors. Emphasis is laid on the team building. The taking out is done in, what is presumed, a suicide mission behind enemy lines. Because of this, you end up fighting primarily to save your team, saving the galaxy seems like a secondary objective.

I should say that this post will potentially be one big crackpot theory. As the rather pretentious title of this post might suggest. It's a continuation of my own series started with my Dragon Age post. In which I said that Bioware has a very strong humanist viewpoint. Christians might call it anti-christian. But besides the fact that any religion will feel picked on no matter what, there might something to be said for those feelings, given the biblical names and themes in the game. Also keep in mind that this is what I'm reading from the game and isn't said to be the outspoken opinion of the company.

Religion in Mass Effect is rather curious. Because no alien race in the Mass Effect Universe is religious. That is to say, truly religious in so far as the player would have to believe that there is a "true religion" within the fiction. When Ashley admits she and her family are very religious, Shepard would rather believe her dead father to be a zombie than believe he's watching from heaven. "Wherever that is" she adds, a logical comment to make when you're born in a space-faring civilization. Heaven was supposed to be a sky kingdom in the clouds, as evident in classical paintings, and space doesn't have quite the same kind of clouds nor anything we could naively call "the sky". As Shepard you can confess to Ashley that he is religious, just as she is. It is considered a Paragon choice. However, Bioware has made the Renegade Shepard canon. So they have made Shepard, de facto, an anti-religious Atheist (ruling out even Agnosticism).

The most outspoken religious race in ME are the Hannar. They are a Jellyfish-like race, soft spoken but a bit naive. And because of it, often the butt of jokes. And mostly referred to as "the Jellys".They revere "the inkindlers". A superior race who bestowed knowledge upon them. The inkindlers turn out the be the Protheans. They turn out to be an extinct alien race. Then there's the Asari. A spiritual race. They often speak of "the Goddess". Not an odd choice for a race of females. A further comment on our human beliefs where no deity could be female in a society dominated by men. The game is very positive about the Asari point of view. Yet the faith is dispelled as soon as the Novaria mission in the first Mass Effect. Where Benezia bemoans the lack of a "promised white light, they said there would be..." with her dying breath. It isn't said that the Goddess is an actual deity or a spiritual unconsciousness, but by Benezia's comment there is at least some deception going on. A portion of the Geth, a sapient machine race, worship the Reapers. Because they are supreme mechanical synthetic lifeforms. That they do not fit the picture of an ideal God needs no explanation. Or does it? They are powerful, eternal, or so they say, have worshipers, and promise ascension. Ascension is the term Harbinger, the main antagonist, uses in Mass Effect 2 during the collectors' harvest of human colonies. This because their actual physical biomass will be used to construct a "human reaper". A god in the image of man. Man made god. Or plainly put, a god made out of Human bodies. Bioware is painting quite a cynical picture of what a god is.

The central figure in the series is Shepard. Gathering disciples of all walks of life of many worlds. He's a born leader. His name is Shepard. It's pretty clear that the closest resemblance is Jesus. More so in Mass Effect 2, where he dies and is resurrected with project Lazarus. Lazarus, not Jesus. Indeed not, but imagine what game this would have been if the project had been called "Project Jesus". It would hit the player over the head with symbolism that isn't really necessary. It would change the tone of the game dramatically and would probably offend a portion of the lucrative American audience. And anyway, 'Lazarus' is also often used to denote a situation where one is presumed dead but ultimately isn't.

The meaning of the Illusive man becomes a bit more complicated. He's got godlike qualities, like the Reapers. He's seemingly all-knowing. Apparently lives forever. Doesn't give a sod about his health. Does whatever he deems necessary. Raises Shepard from the dead and like the god of the bit monotheistic faiths: cares about his own people (humans) first and foremost and at the expense of all other. A position that's bound to be problematic in a universe with a variety of sentient species.

Like all Bioware games, there's a lot to do about morals. As with religion. Both have a prominent place in everyday live. They seem linked even to the extent that it's generally, and wrongfully, believed that religion is where morals originated. I noticed that ethics in this story come from the characters themselves, not ever from some dogma or handbook. I could say these characters are a mouthpiece for the writers of the story, schooling the player in modern philosophy.

A prime example is Mordin, a Salarian scientist. It may be a stretch to call it an archetype. But perhaps accurate in this case. He's a genius who's considered a devil by some but does good work regardless. He's got his own set of morals that seem to work well enough. You can't call him an evil character because he's forced to act and tries to make the most of it. He's content to know that no one but himself could have done a better job. Mordin comments on the responsibilities of aiding foreign species and the dangers of bypassing any true need of technology and knowledge. In the context of our history, this is a comment on how irresponsible Humans have been in founding, or rather annexing, colonies. How native Americans were used against each other. How missionaries brought civilization to the "primitive" indigenous people of South America. Or how industrial Europe carved Africa into pieces for its own needs. And with that brought modern weapons into African tribal wars. Wars originating in no small way from the colonization. The Krogan are the analogy.

There are more biblical analogies. Miranda has been made out of the rib of her "father". Tali is a cloaked virgin, untouched, aloof, naive - though Shepard gets a chance to change all that. Garrus is John the Baptist, not quite a failed messiah but a precursor to Shepard. Jacob is symbolic of humanity standing alone. He's been separated from his father and has done just fine in constructing his life. In the story he discovers the faux-paradise his father has landed himself into, confronts the man and finds a repulsive, immoral, self-appointed hedonist King. He's a caricature of an evil, self-centered god. Jacob is disgusted and turns his back on him.

I consider myself to be somewhat of a humanist. I also consider the Mass Effect games to be one of the best games I've played these last few years. The cross-pollination between these make it extra interesting for me. Mass Effect is furthering the case that we have to see some games not only as consumer products but as carriers of information and points of view. Congratulations to the talent at Bioware for raising the bar once again. I can't wait to see where Mass Effect 3 will take us.