A Most Excellent Retro Strategy Action RPG

INTRO!


In the hustle bustle gaming scene, everyone is on the lookout for the next big selling game.  The modern game comes with lots of glitz and glam and a sheet of options as long as your arm.  The gaming industry itself is huge and want your dollar, dammit, and they will have it!  Whether by selling you something old or something new, if you want games, publishers will sell!

But it wasn't always this way, no sir!  In the late '90s, PC hardware was on the cusp of allowing end-user customization.  Manufactures started creating better video cards to render better graphics while software developers created games with more intense graphics and opened up a race between software and hardware.

What's with the history lesson you might ask? Well, I'll tell you if you sit down, shut up and quit being so darn impatient!

The purpose is to clarify why in the late '90s there were so many ground breaking games with unique styles and creative experiments.  Developers took creative risks because the cost of failure was much less...at least it is less when compared with modern-day game development.

Enter the game "Shadow Company: Left for Dead," developed by defunct company Sinister Games[Link] and wholly owned by Ubisoft[Link].

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY!

First the good!  "Shadow Company" is a unique blend of strategy, action and RPG or "role-playing game" for the sadly ignorant among us.  The game never received much acclaim, being overshadowed (pun intended) by better known games of the time and receiving middling reviews.  But if a daring soul looks past its now dated graphics, they will find a treasure trove of gaming fun and challenging strategy.

When starting the game, players have the choice to do the tutorial or skip it and delve right into the action.  While normally I suggest skipping tutorials (as "Tutorials" are rated just above "Going to the Dentist" and "Colonoscopy" on my personal "Fun Scale"), this is one game that you might want to play through the tutorial.  The amount of user control and options allows for an incredibly in-depth experience.  Without the knowledge of how to play this game, you fall back into "Colonoscopy" territory on my Fun Scale.

        

                                        -A screenshot of the tutorial.  Yay!

After opting out of or finishing up the tutorial, the game starts players off with a rag-tag group of three mercenaries and a short intro video.  The intro video is a live-action person claiming to be your contact on a mission that went horribly wrong.  Now it's up to you to lead your small group, defeat anyone who stands in your way, and get the mercenaries to a safe zone.

While not immediately apparent, each character has stats and abilities that make the character better at somethings and weaker at other things.  For example, a character with an ability score of 89 in grenades will be able to throw a grenade farther than a character with only a score of 45.  But, as you lovingly guide your little psychopaths from mission to mission, they increase in ability points based on how much you used a character with a specific ability.  This "leveling up" of abilities occur at the end of each mission as seen below.

                                        -Ahhhhh sweet, sweet rewards!

 The RPG fun doesn't stop at just stat numbers either!  At the beginning of each mission after the first, you have are presented with a tactical screen.  There are three specific categories of interest: equip, team and planning.  Each category is pretty self explanatory in my opinion.




         You can buy equipment for your mercenaries...

...you can hire new mercenaries for your team...












...and you can plan and strategize how to accomplish the next mission with the available data.









This may seem pretty simple to understand but its the options available and the strategy involved which makes for an exciting challenge.  For example, do you load up your mercenaries with heavy armor or do you want some tactical black ops clothing that provides less protection but more stealth?  Do you load someone out with a knife or do you prefer a silenced pistol with limited ammo available for it?  Do you want to make the mission a night op or maybe a daytime raid?  The choice is literally yours to make!

                                       -Night time ops with night vision goggles?  YES PLEASE!

Normally, the problem with giving the player so much choice is there's always some idiot that doesn't know how to make a decision and will get lost or confused by the options.  This game can be completed any number of ways and there isn't any one right or wrong way.  There is simply the results of your choices and actions.

So where is the "bad" and the "ugly"?  Well, the bad/ugly comes in the form of AI retardation.  Yes, if you snipe one enemy from a 3-man patrol, the other two will home in on your mercenaries and start unloading or throwing grenades like you'd expect.  But if it's a night ops, you go load on a the 3-man patrol, alarms will sound and everyone else is on alert for about a minute or two...then that's it.  The other patrols don't actively hunt for the disturbance.  It's business as usual for brain-dead bots.

                                               -Snow sniping!!

Another negative is the controls aren't the most naturally intuitive though, to be fair, many developers in the '90s were experimenting with controls as well as graphics/gameplay.

There is a LOT of clipping issues.  I lost count how many times I had to save and reload because I had a vehicle or mercenary permanently stuck in the terrain.  Save and reload is your friend!!  Treat him/her/it well with tender loving care.

                                     -You can drive freakin' tanks yo!!!

The multiplayer aspect needed a bit more development time as well but had the makings of something really fun!  Instead of one player controlling a squad, each player controlled one mercenary.  The team of players rely on each other for fire support, tactics, medical aid and, if they were good enough, completed the missions without losing anyone..



CONCLUSION

Where does this leave us?  Well, this little gem can still be found in online stores but good luck getting it to run with any stability!  Since Sinister Games is no longer a company and Ubisoft has moved on to bigger things, there is no support or new patches.

I can get this game to run on my Windows XP desktop but only after monkeying around with compatibility settings.  Even then, I still get the odd random crash with no explanation as to why the game hated life so much.

After all of this and with the those annoying bugs, "Shadow Company: Left for Dead" is still a customizable joy to play.

I'd give it a 9 out of 10 without bugs, 8 out of 10 with bugs.  You learn to ignore the little pesky guys.

The Decision

Greetings!

After some thought, I've decided to keep this a blog focused strictly on gaming.  At first I was very hesitant as I have an opinion on almost every topic imaginable that deserves to be shared (duh!) and I didn't like the thought of limiting myself.  But I can always create a different blog or web page for those other opinions or thoughts.

Here's the plan: this will be a location that I can let the nerdy gamer run wild.  I will most likely make a couple of entries per week to voice an opinion on those rare gems worth my time.

Cheers!

IT....IT IS ALIVE!!!!!!!

Greetings to all!!

I've decided to revamp, reinvent, and restart my old blog.  It was an enjoyable little part of an English college class but I've decided to continue using it today.

The question rolling around in my head now is what should its purpose ultimately be?  Should I use it to continue looking at gaming theory, science and research?  Should I turn it into a location where I review some of my cherished memories of gaming history?  Maybe broaden the blog to include all forms of entertainment such as films, games, social media, etc?

Or maybe I should take it a completely different direction and use it as my "podium" or "soapbox" to shout to the world my opinions on a variety of topics.  There's something intrinsically enjoyable philosophizing about many random topics of interest.  Mayhaps this will be my springboard into creating my non-fiction book I've been thinking of writing.

What do you all think?  Is there an opinion?

Saints Row 2 - A Final Worth Mentioning!

Greetings fellow humans!

This piece will be the final post for Literature (Link) 220.

Humble Beginnings

To start off, the game that will be examined is Saints Row 2 (Link). I know that this most likely doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone as I’ve mentioned this particular game multiple times while in class. But there’s a reason for that: Saints Row 2 has done everything right to ensure that it is a creative and economic success. Volition, the game developing company who created Saints Row 2, has included many options and features to expand the enjoyment and engagement of the player. This post will examine what Volition did to make the game such a wonderful success. Specifically we’ll look at the multiplayer options in Saints Row 2 and find out whether such options were a vital part.

A Biased Word of Warning

Before I write anymore on this topic, I must share that I am completely biased toward this particular game. In a word, I love it. For the majority of my lifetime, I’ve been a gamer. Whether it was friends at the arcade, family time on the weekends playing board games, or messing around on a old 286 computer (Link), gaming has been a way of life. Further, having owned and played many hundreds of various titles for consoles and the Personal Computer (PC), it could be safely stated that I am no amateur gamer. Yet, in the past couple of months since playing with Saints Row 2, I’ve had more fun that I have in a very long time. Sure, I’ve enjoyed many of the other titles and they each have presented a challenge but Saints Row 2 was different. What made it so?

Volition – the Act of Willing, Choosing, or Resolving

To start off let’s talk briefly about the developer company, Volition, Inc.(LINK) Volition is no stranger to game developing. Its roots began back in 1993 as Parallax Software, maker of the popular Descent series. Parallax Software (Link) eventually split into two companies one of which was Volition, Inc. Volition was later purchased by the mega gaming publisher THQ and still continues to this day as a THQ subsidiary. All of this boils down to the fact that Volition is no stranger to game developing, having developed many other critically acclaimed titles such as the Red Faction series, The Punisher, the Summoner series, and now the Saints Row series.

What’s In the Game?

Saints Row 2 was created in a non-linear (Link) “sandbox” world with light roll-playing (RPG) elements. Essentially, players create a completely unique, personalized character and then go anywhere and do anything in an extensive fictional city called Stillwater. The storyline and side missions are highly entertaining and certainly designed for the adult gamer. The side missions and activities are many and varied including base jumping, helicopter, plane, and jet flying, drug running, ambulance and fire truck missions, fight clubs, mayhem destruction missions, demolition derbies, boat and car racing, streaking, insurance fraud, and many others. There’s even an amusing mission where you drive a septic truck and spray sewage on pedestrians, homes, and businesses to devalue property. The list goes on and on but what makes all of this unique is that each and every single player mission can be played with a friend.

Maniacal Multiplayer

The multiplayer is where Saints Row 2 really shines. Imagine doing all of the above missions in a free-roaming environment with friends. Specifically, Saints Row 2 four specific multiplayer options: Cooperative, Gangsta Brawl, Team Gangsta Brawl, and Strong Arm. (Link) The Cooperative option is simply playing through the entire single player game with one other friend. Gangsta Brawl is a free-for-all mode of mayhem and destruction across the entire city of Stillwater with Team Gangsta Brawl being identical except there’s multiple teams vying for supremacy. The last multiplayer mode, Strong Arm, pits multiple teams against each other to complete various missions and be the first to earn $100,000. What makes all of these options unique and fun is that the game itself never takes itself or the story very seriously. As such, humor is spread liberally throughout each step of gameplay.

Nothing but the Facts

All of this creates a few questions: How vital are these various multiplayer modes to the critical success of Saints Row 2? Are they even important at all? And if these multiplayer modes are indispensable, which option is played the most? To find the answers to these questions, fifteen random individual gamers were queried. The first graph asked the players why they play or would buy Saints Row 2. Out of the fifteen, twelve stated that multiplayer was key in the decision to enjoy the world of Stillwater.

The final graph simply asked which multiplayer option was most important to each player. Ten responded that Cooperative gameplay was most important to them, three said Strong Arm, one for Gangsta Brawl, and one for Team Gangsta Brawl.

All of this data conclusively leads us to the idea that cooperation and social interactions were vital to the success of Saints Row 2. However, fifteen Saints Row 2 game players are a small microcosm of the whole gaming community. What do others have to say?

Final Paper!

Greetings all!

The all scary final paper is soon to be due and for this week's assignment, we are to come up with a bit on what our paper is about.

My brief synopsis is thus: the focus will be on the multiplayer aspects found in the game Saints Row 2 and how those multiplayer options are vital to the economic and creative success of games in general. The idea behind all of this is to show that social fun equals success. If there is no socializing, than the game becomes less fun and is short-lived at best.


What are y'all's thoughts? Any opinions?

Military Games and Propaganda

Greetings all!

This week was an examination of games and how they are impacting the way the military propagandizes, recruits, and trains soldiers. In addition to all of that, there was a brief bit on how the future of combat is going to involve game console controllers (LINK & LINK). Everything written followed along the lines to a logical conclusion: gamers grow up and the military gives them the tools that they are most familiar with (LINK). Military action games, such as Full Spectrum Warrior and America’s Army, are used to train soldiers in tactics and other military operations as well as being useful propaganda tools for potential soldiers.

The controversy surrounding this issue is whether using games is right or legal. Technically, these games could be enjoyed by all ages, even minors who cannot join the military yet. One particularly well researched editorial, written by Michael Reagan (LINK), is of the opinion that such actions are illegal and are not justifiable. Of course, well-meaning Mr. Reagan is also heavily biased, considers high school teenagers to be children, and disobedient, mutinous soldiers such as Lt. Erin Watada and others like him to be heroes. My response is that anything created or sponsored by our military branches for the use of propaganda will be biased and pro-military, that it is idiotic to consider high school students to be children, and that soldiers who disobey military orders are simply not heroes.

Another sore point of contention was the game Six Days in Fallujah. This particular war game was created around the real life 2004 military operation of the Iraqi town, Fallujah, and was to tell the story of the soldiers who participated in the action. This of course has prompted quite a bit of discussion and debate about whether we should be dramatizing events which happened only a few years ago. Many have pointed out movies and music as examples of why we should while still others use the games as an example of why we shouldn’t. (Sources for more info on this debate and game: LINK, LINK, LINK, and more LINK)

My perspective on these debates and arguments is that everyone is forgetting the overarching purpose of gaming: to simply have fun. Yes, yes, it is the modern medium through which propaganda and biases can be shared; gaming can be training tools for educational purposes; gaming console controllers can be used to manipulate million dollar equipment. But even still, when things are boiled down to their base essence, gaming is supposed to be about socializing and having just plain fun. If we as individuals want to know more about the Iraqi War, learn more about history, or fully understand all that our faithful military soldiers have to go through then there are many sources to draw from (such as books and documentaries).

I say, keep gaming as fun and leave education and propaganda to other sources better suited.

Cheers!

Living Dangerous in a Digital World

Greetings all!


In this week’s readings there seemed to be two different vein of thoughts the first being cheating and the harmful effects cheaters have on playing games (links found here and here). The second vein of thought dwelt on a practice known as “gold farming” and how it has evolved the economics both in a virtual world but also in the real world (links found here and here). The discussion on gold farming was particularly interesting to me as the articles dealt with particular emphasis on two different thoughts: politics and economics. Politics because the authors strove to show how what was happening in a digital world happened in the real world many years ago; Economics because money is being transferred between real-world nations but also changing the digital world and the value of the gold itself through inflation.

All mummery of politics and economics aside, I feel that gold farming is harmful both in the digital world and, more importantly, the real world. How so you might ask? One of the important parts of economics is how the common person creates value through increasing in skills and then using those skills for the betterment of the community, the nation, and the world as a whole. This idea of being able to create value is vitally important especially to the individual as it is a good indication of the growth of the person. In gold farming, it is literally creating a market of digital workers who earn real world money.


This is harmful to the gold farmer as well as to the economies. To find out why this is first, answer the question “what real world skills are being developed to create economic value?” The answer is gaming skills of course but games in general are very short lived in comparison to the lives we live. Furthermore, the skills developed are shared by 10-12 million other players. I would hypothesize that the gamers who participate in gold farming are actually digging themselves into an economic hole in which eventually they will find themselves unable to retreat from, having developed no marketable skills during that time and created nothing of real-world value. The game goes away, as it surely will in the future, and there goes the market.

The second vein of thought is cheating and how it has impacted gaming. I personally thought that the ideas were amusing and interesting but ultimately an exercise in futility. We are raising our generations to be winners, to accomplish great things whatever the costs. We are also raising our generations of people on the idea of getting ahead using the “quick and easy” way (for a good example of this, see the US economy and the bank industry). Continually we are promised perfect bodies with minimal amount of time (via a diet and exercise) or a beautiful home or expensive car with very little sacrifice of time or money. These all correlate to cheating, as cheaters are interested in quickly and easily getting ahead in a game. Why sacrifice time and put effort into a game when you can just cheat and be the top?


My ultimate answer to this is that nothing of value or worth ever came easy and that the things of greatest value take time and sacrifice. Gaming is for fun and in the grand scheme of things not of the greatest value. This leads me to the conclusion that I really don’t care if others cheat as putting everything into perspective lessens the need for perfecting a game character or the experience of the game itself.

To be completely honest, I’ve cheated on many games but they were only single-player games so no other players were effect except for me. “Why did I cheat” you may ask. The answer is quite simple:


When I play a game, I do so for the unique story. I play games as simple diversions in between all of the many real world activities I’m involved in. I do not have the time to invest in a game to experience the many hours of long drawn out, sometimes frustrating, gameplay. Interestingly enough, I’m not the only one with this particular mindset as there are many gaming developers which are now creating games designed to be enjoyed in bite-sized chunks.

In conclusion, how we play our games is ultimately a reflection of what we have going on in the real-world and not the inverse.

Cheers!