How Mass Effect 3′s role-playing roots empower the multiplayer

Posted by Rowan Kaiser | Filed under gAmINg

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This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity.
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"I just want to see how this integrates with the single-player campaign," I thought, clicking on the multiplayer option in Mass Effect 3's main menu. I had no expectations of making it a habit. Like many people, when the multiplayer component was announced, I thought it sounded completely extraneous. Once I started playing, though, I fell for it, and have been putting more time into the multiplayer than the campaign.

Arguments about whether Mass Effect 3 is a role-playing game or not have existed since the first game's release. Regardless of which side you take in those, Mass Effect does include many components of role-playing games, two of which are essential to the multiplayer's success: world-building and character development mechanics. Of course, there are simple gameplay reasons to enjoy the co-operative gameplay of Mass Effect 3 online. The levels are well designed for dynamic changes within matches, and waves of enemies seem ideal for both difficulty and time. But those things aren't what make it special.

Continue reading How Mass Effect 3's role-playing roots empower the multiplayer

JoystiqHow Mass Effect 3's role-playing roots empower the multiplayer originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 04 May 2012 20:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | May 4th, 2012

Why skills are in, attributes are out in modern role-playing games

Posted by Rowan Kaiser | Filed under gAmINg

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This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity.
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It took four or five levels gained for me to realize something was different. I was playing the Diablo 3 open beta last weekend, merrily leveling my monk up, when I noticed that half the time a gained level just happened, without me needing to do anything. Sometimes I could choose new skills, yes, but I wasn't given five points to distribute to my core attributes like Strength, Vitality, etc. There's a little bit of text that notes which attributes have improved, but that's all. Diablo 3 isn't the only major recent role-playing game* to downplay the importance of its characters' core attributes. Mass Effect 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, both released within six months of Diablo 3, avoid core attributes entirely.

Skyrim and Mass Effect 3 don't include attributes at all, in fact, something that would have been unthinkable for a computer role-playing game at the dawn of the genre. But the lessened importance of attributes isn't necessarily a sign of the simplification of the genre (although that's often part of it). Instead, it's part of a trend in which skills, not attributes, serve as the most important statistical measure of an RPG character.

Continue reading Why skills are in, attributes are out in modern role-playing games

JoystiqWhy skills are in, attributes are out in modern role-playing games originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | April 27th, 2012

The delightful smoothness of classic Japanese role-playing games

Posted by Rowan Kaiser | Filed under gAmINg

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This week, Rowan Kaiser and Kat Bailey have switched roles -- with Rowan taking lead in this week's column focusing on the wonderful world of Japanese role-playing games.
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I was only defeated once in Suikoden. Even that was an accident - I thought it was a fight I was supposed to lose. Calling the game "easy" is something of an understatement. With a little bit of planning, you can win virtually every fight in the game, including the final boss battle on auto-pilot using the "Free Will" option in the combat menu. Yet, despite this easiness, Suikoden is one of my favorite Japanese role-playing games. "Easy" isn't the right term for it exactly. Instead, Suikoden is smooth.

"Smoothness" isn't a common criteria used to judge games. If anything, it's the opposite. Getting the difficulty level just right, so that the game seems like a challenge but is completable with practice, seems like it's an ideal. Or, you can use Sid Meier's model of games as "interesting choices" - but if the game isn't challenging, those choices don't seem to matter, right? I think acceptance theories like those are part of the reason that Japanese role-playing games are considered less important than they used to be.

Continue reading The delightful smoothness of classic Japanese role-playing games

JoystiqThe delightful smoothness of classic Japanese role-playing games originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | April 12th, 2012

Nintendo 3DS outselling four Sony devices in Japan, now has 65 percent of the market

Posted by Daniel Cooper | Filed under Techie Stuff

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The latest figures from Japan's Media Create are in, showing that last year's trend has been fully reversed. Now the consumers are hungry for Nintendo's 3DS, given that it shipped 121,921 units in the week ending April 1st. That put it comfortably ahead of the PlayStation 3 (23,771), PSP (18,356) and PS Vita's (12,105) sales combined. The stats reveal that the 3DS is now accounting for 65 percent of all hardware sales in the country, a marked turnaround from when the console's future looked gloomy. Meanwhile, the biggest selling game was Kingdom Hearts 3D for Nintendo's newest handheld, which managed to shift over 200,000 units in just seven days.

Nintendo 3DS outselling four Sony devices in Japan, now has 65 percent of the market originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | April 5th, 2012

Diablo’s Descendants

Posted by Rowan Kaiser | Filed under gAmINg

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This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity.
With Diablo 3's release date set, I decided to take a look back as the series' legacy --and play some of the better Western-style action/role-playing games around. Last week I talked about how Fallout, not Diablo, became the model for a generation of blockbuster role-playing games.

But Diablo did wield some influence. The first initial wave of clones didn't make much of a splash, but around the time Diablo II came out in 2000, the action/RPG style began to grab more attention. In 2002, Dungeon Siege and Divine Divinity were both released to some acclaim, but they never really fit the model of a Diablo clone. Dungeon Siege was as much Ultima VII and Baldur's Gate as it was Diablo, while Divine Divinity merged many concepts from Fallout and similar games with a real-time core. Missing from both? The constant clicking that, to me, defined Diablo.

Continue reading Diablo's Descendants

JoystiqDiablo's Descendants originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | March 27th, 2012

The year role-playing games broke

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This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity.
The most important year in western role-playing history was also its worst. The late 1980s and early 1990s were an obvious Golden Age, as RPGs were the drivers of innovations in graphics, interface, complexity, and narrative in Wizardry, Ultima, and the Gold Box series. That came to a screeching halt in 1995, when the once wildly popular genre suddenly became devoid of games.

The genre was rebuilt after 1995, but it looked very different. The companies and franchises which had dominated withered away, replaced by the ones we know now: Fallout, BioWare, and Blizzard. All these started shortly after 1995, and the only residual series from before, The Elder Scrolls, squeaks in with its first installment in 1994. So what changed, and why did it change?

The chief contributing factor was the rise of the compact disc for storage. Games comprised of a dozen ungainly 1.5 megabyte floppies were growing more and more common, so the CD, with 500 megabytes, was a godsend (or so it seemed). All the other technological advances: better sound and music, voice-over, 3-D polygonal graphics, full-motion video, etc, could be used with CDs. This made games bigger -- but it also made budgets bigger, teams bigger, and development times much longer. Role-playing games and their developers struggled to adapt.

Continue reading The year role-playing games broke

JoystiqThe year role-playing games broke originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | March 12th, 2012

February’s gaming sales a mixed bag: up for the month, down for the year

Posted by Terrence O'Brien | Filed under Techie Stuff

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At this point, every time NPD releases its numbers, the video game industry collectively holds its breath. The last couple of months have not been kind, as hardware sales continued to drop. But, in February there was finally some good news -- console sales were 87 percent over January. More impressively, that jump only falls to 62 percent if you exclude the Vita. Still, after so many disappointing months, even that stratospheric jump left sales 18 percent lower than the same period last year. Even when taking software into account sales were down 20 percent -- with the industry as a whole raking in just $1.06 billion last month, down from the $1.33 billion the previous February. Individually there was good news for companies, though. Nintendo saw Super Mario Galaxy cross the five million mark, while all of its consoles (the DS, 3DS and Wii) all saw more than 50 percent spikes in their sales compared to January. Meanwhile, Microsoft held on to its number one slot by moving 426,000 Xbox 360s. Hit up the various source links for more info.

February's gaming sales a mixed bag: up for the month, down for the year originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | March 9th, 2012

Heavy Rain creators produce ‘Kara’ PS3 tech-demo (video)

Posted by Daniel Cooper | Filed under Techie Stuff

Heavy Rain creator David Cage was showing off Quantic Dream's new game engine at GDC, which includes an innovative new performance-capture technology the company's developed. He's directed a seven-minute original short called Kara, which is the story of a female android as she becomes self-aware. Unlike traditional game production methods, this technology is able to record face and body movements at the same time as recording the actors voice -- ensuring natural and consistent performances from the characters. Actress Valorie Curry wore 90 sensors on her face, unlike in, say, Avatar, where the performers wore head-mounted cameras. Cage promises that the short is nothing more than a demo (it was rendered in real-time on a PlayStation 3) and none of these elements will appear in his next game. You can catch the impressive-looking footage after the break with one disclaimer: there's nudity throughout and a reference to adult themes, okay?

Continue reading Heavy Rain creators produce 'Kara' PS3 tech-demo (video)

Heavy Rain creators produce 'Kara' PS3 tech-demo (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | March 8th, 2012

Lighten up!: On thematic consistency in role-playing games

Posted by Rowan Kaiser | Filed under gAmINg

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This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity.
One of my all-time favorite role-playing games features a militaristic, near-fascist race of rhinoceroses who walk on two legs and wear uniforms. When you encounter them, they slide across the game screen, waving their muskets and cutlasses. They also fly spaceships around the galaxy, and are considered one of the most powerful empires in space, along with their spider-like rivals. It's a fantasy world.

The game is Wizardry VII: Crusaders Of The Dark Savant, released in 1992. The setting and story aren't what make the game great (see: the mechanics of the class system) but they are part of the whole, pleasant experience of the game. Yes, the setting is utterly ridiculous, but that's not a point against the game. If anything, it's a benefit. It's not serious, and it knows it's not serious, so why not just do fun weird stuff, like take on an army of blue-skinned theocrats aligned with an empire of spiders?

Continue reading Lighten up!: On thematic consistency in role-playing games

JoystiqLighten up!: On thematic consistency in role-playing games originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | February 24th, 2012

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