The Real Story Behind the Video

Actually, I had to model Toad in my 3D Modeling Concepts class. And I used that model for the animation. Why did I choose Toad? Because I figured he would be very easy to model. And he was… Of course I had to also model a question block, tennis racket and a mushroom to make up for his lack of ears, nose, and legs. [If you didn't know, I started college a year ago; which is why you don't see many updates from me lately.] Then after that class, I had to take 3D Animation Concepts. To pass that class, we had to make a short 2-4 minute animation with the character we modeled earlier. The animation had to have a story, so I figured since I had Toad and a question block, I’d have him go through a hard time trying to get the contents of it. I hope you enjoy it!

This video was created with Blender.

The Super Mario Bros. 3 Sky World remix was composed by Sephirot24 of NewGrounds and can be found here: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/171240

Some of the best memories of many children during their years growing up were spent with their friends and for a lot of people in the late nineties that meant playing video games into the waking hours of the night with their best buddies. Whenever you talk about all the video games that everyone loved to play together, Goldeneye always gets brought up. In fact it is all over best all time video game lists from major companies.

The video game features an amazing first person mode, and even more amazing multiplayer capabilities – and it was fun playing it on a little box of a TV let alone a high tech Vizio. It was way ahead of its time and you could select from multiple different levels and multiple characters. It had a very cool selection of weapons and you always knew it was going to be a fun game and that it was going down when “proximity mines” were selected in the “Complex” – everyone had their own favorite tool, level, and character of choice – it’s what made the game so fun.

The ongoing joke about the game is that no one could be “Odd Job” as when you were that person you had the distinct version of being half of everyone else’s size – making you a very hard target.

Although it was originally a game for Nintendo 64 – a game that sold more than 8 million copies – it was so good that another version of the game was released in 2010 for the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo DS. This video is a trailer for that game – and it in a panel of game players were asked what makes the game a classic and so likeable to which they replied:

“It was the first game where I could sit down and play the multiplayer part for 4 hours straight.”

and…

“You can ask me at any time to play a game of Goldeneye and I would be down.”

The panel also unanimously agreed that it was the best shooter game in video game history – which many Americans would also say. If you haven’t played Goldeneye (well then you must be either very young or very old or just absolutely hate video games) then I suggest you get on eBay or Craigslist and find a cheap N64 and do so quickly – you won’t regret it!

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This article was written by Philip Rudy. Philip helps to run and maintain www.youreviewelectronics.com which is a web site that gives Vizio reviews.

Pokémon cards of the three starters from the Black and White deck.

POKEMON TCG NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) Championship Series runs for almost a full year – it begins in September and culminates with the World Championship event in August. The first tier of the competition is known as Battle Road. That’s followed by events for city and state championships and then a national event. After that comes the World Championships, where winners from Asia and Europe also compete. There are three divisions in this tournament, organized by age: junior, senior and masters.

POKEMON VIDEO GAME CHAMPIONSHIPS

The 2011 Pokémon Video Game Championship (VGC) is already underway. The first of the six regional events took place on May 14 and the Last Chance Qualifier is on July 8 in Indiana. Players competing in the VGC craft their own six-Pokémon team and battle with their Nintendo DS over infrared connections. Prizes aren’t announced yet for the World Championship event, but some national-level prizes include a medal, a Nintendo 3DS, and airfare plus accommodations for the World Championship, which takes place mid-August in San Diego.

ORGANIZED PLAY

There are many fans of the Pokémon trading card game that hold local tournaments for players who don’t necessarily want to join an official competition. These events tend to be more casual and are aimed at all levels of players. They usually take place at a community center, comic book shop, library, or other public places. Leaders of these leagues can register through the Pokémon website and receive licensed advertising materials, foil cards to use as prizes, and official scorecards. These leagues meet once a week and the cycles last one year, with eight seasons. People interested in this type of Pokémon play can visit the official website’s event locator to find a league near them.

GREY LEAGUE

The Grey League is fan-created Pokémon competition from the makers of Pokémon Podcast. The goal of this online-only competition is to recreate the gym battles from the video games. Eight gym leaders were selected for interested players to face off against for the chance to win. Upon beating each gym leader, challengers win a badge. If all eight gyms are defeated, the challenger is sent a prize pack. All of the battles are conducted using a Nintendo DS, the Pokémon Black and White game, and a wireless internet connection. Click here for more information on The Grey League!

For those of you who are still curious about how a few things work, visit the official Pokémon site or search YouTube for TCG or VGC. There are plenty of videos online of exciting battles in championships!

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MaDonna Flowers writes for T-Shirts.com while she’s not busy training her MewTwo. Check out their video game t-shirts .

Dead Island (PS3, X360, PC): This is a game that I’m really excited about, it’s like Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead came together and had a baby. The player takes on the role of one of four survivors stranded on a resort island that has been overrun with the living dead. It is a first person action game, just like Left 4 Dead and players can pick up weapons and combine them and upgrade their strength. The graphics are beautiful and the Island of Banoi is quite an impressive spectacle. Players can join each other’s games online (4 players max). Comes out on September 6th.

Resistance 3 (PS3 Exclusive): This FPS game picks up four years after the conclusion of Resistance 2 and the player steps into the shoes of Sentinel Joseph Capelli. The game takes place in an alternate version of the 1950’s in which America has been taken and destroyed by the brutal Chimeran alien race. In addition to the single player campaign, there will also be two-player split screen and two-player online co-op through the campaign. It also includes 16 online versus. PS3 owners will want to check this game out. Comes out September 6th.

Gears of War 3 (X360 Exclusive): It has been 18 months since the fall of the last human city and the war between the humans and locusts continues. Sad to say it, but this will be the last Gears game, but it looks like they’re going out with a bang. Includes a single player campaign and online versus modes, I got my hands on the beta and I was impressed to say the least, this is a must buy for fans of the series and newbies alike. Releases on September 20th.

Silent Hill: Downpour (PS3,X360): I’m glad to see that the Silent Hill franchise is going back to its roots. The past few games in the franchise have been mediocre, including onslaughts of grainy meat bags which hurl themselves at you. This game has a boost in graphics and story alike, the horror/thriller genre has had a dry spell for a while now on the consoles, and fans of the original games will want to check this game out. Comes out in October.

Batman: Arkham City (PS3,X360,PC): Sequel to the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum, the Dark Knight is back with a vengeance out to kick some bad guy ass. Cat Woman is also a playable character in the single player story. Rocksteady has said that a lot has changed in this game, Arkham City is a whopping five times the size of Arkham Asylum, there is a wider array of characters in the story, and now there are interrogations (Splinter cell?). Comes out on October 18th.

Battlefield 3 (PS3,X360,PC): If I were ranking the games that I was looking forward to the most, Battlefield 3 would be at the top of the list. Boasting the Frostbite 2 engine, top of the line graphics, and the enjoyment of reducing a building to rubble with your weapons. I can’t really give any reason why you wouldn’t get this game, EA and DICE have really upped the ante this time around with another single player and competitive multiplayer with up to 24 versus online. Comes out October 25th, mark you calendar.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS3,X360,PC): If this game is comes even close to its predecessor in quality and fun, then this is a must buy. A great RPG franchise already, this new addition to the series will hopefully live up to it’s franchises’ caliber. People who buy this can look forward to great DLC, which Bethesda is excellent with. This game releases on November 11th.

Honorable Mentions:
Uncharted 3 (PS3): November 1st
Forza 4 (X360): Fall
Mass Effect 3 (PS3,X360,PC): Unknown 2011
Star Wars Old Republic (PC): Unknown 2011
The Last Guardian (PS3): Unknown 2011
Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii): Unknown 2011

Graphics

Gran Turismo 5 has great graphics, in my opinion better than any game so far. Since it took 6 years for the company to make the game, they have spent a large portion of time adding details to the cars. The graphics from this game are set apart from others because they include fine details such as the design around the headlights. In my opinion I can not believe the car in the game is not real, that’s how great the graphics are.

What type of cars are you able to play with?

Gran Turismo has always had a variety of cars to select from, from luxury to Japanese racing cars. For example, you are able to use the Acura Integra Type R which is a car that is manufactured in Japan. On the contrary, you are able to play with the BMW Z4, which is also fast but more of a luxury automobile. If you’re interested in getting a full car list you can check out gran-turismo.com

What is the game play like?

The game play is very realistic, which I believe many gamers love. Throughout the race your car can become damaged, unlike some other racing games. In addition when you win a race you receive more money, and you can spend that new cash on another car. Additionally the games controls are flawless, when playing every time you move the joy stick the car follows with precision. Furthermore, Gran Turismo allows you to play the game with a driving wheel, which means the driving just got even more realistic.

Conclusion

Overall Gran Turismo 5 is an incredible game, and truly is one of a kind. It’s top of the line graphics truly shows the Playstation 3 at its finest. If you are thinking about purchasing Gran Turismo, my advice to you is buy it because you won’t find another game like this on the market.

Gran Turismo 5 earns 10 out of 10 zips!

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Author Bio: Cole is a blogger and writes for cash for cars San Diego, a cash 4 cars online specialist.

One of the most noticeable changes that will come with Cataclysm is the Classic zone changes. For the past 5+ years the original continents of Azeroth (Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor) haven’t seen much in terms of changes. With the new expansion, Blizzard is going to completely redesign Azeroth as we know it. Many areas will change dramatically from desert to lush forests and vice versa. The Barrens will be completely split in two and all the old towns will be destroyed. Players will have to re-familiarize themselves with the new towns and quest zones. In addition Blizzard is going to unlock areas that have been inaccessible to us thus far, such as Mount Hyjal in Kalimdor.

Worgen

Along with the new design will come two new playable races, both of which have been featured in the game many times already. Horde players will be able to play as a Goblin, while Alliance players will be able to play as a Worgen. Both races will have their own starting areas for levels 1-15. Worgens will start in Gilneas located in Silverpine Forest, and Goblins will start in a completely new area, on the Isle of Kezan. Almost all classes are available to both races; however neither can be played as paladins. The only other restrictions to classes are that Goblins will not be able to be druids and Worgens will not be able to be shamans.

Goblin

There are many other features in the Cataclysm expansion that are just as important to us WoW players. For instance Blizzard will be allowing flying mounts in Azeroth, but it is still uncertain as to what restrictions they intend to impose, if any. They are also going to create a leveling system for guilds based on new guild achievements. The new level cap will be 85 instead of the normal 10 additional levels. This is because they wanted to focus more on the end game material in addition to the reworking of the level 1-60 content. This includes new higher-level zones, eight new 5-player dungeons (both normal and heroic) and 4 new 10- and 25-player raids.

One feature I am excited about as are many other players is that Blizzard will also be making more classes available for each race, such as the Dwarf Shaman. To find out more about the class combinations that will be available I have provided a chart below.

Click the chart for a larger view.

In addition to this, there will be some major changes to each class. Blizzard intends to change some classes talent trees dramatically whilst others not so much. If you would like to know more about a particular class or any of these changes click here.

And finally, for those of you who enjoy learning new professions, Blizzard will be creating a new secondary profession, Archeology. Not much is known about the profession other than it will include collecting and using artifacts from ancient races within Azeroth. It will also be important to the new character progression feature called the path system. This system will be a new way to gain talent points through questing, raiding and completing other objectives within the game.

In my experience, most expansion packs are created to add some new content to games without changing the game dramatically. With all these new features calling Cataclysm an expansion pack seems like an under exaggeration. It should really be called WoW II. Although I have not been a WoW player long enough to experience the release of any of their expansion packs, I believe that this one will be Blizzard’s greatest yet. If you would like to know more details about these changes you can find them on WoW’s Cataclysm website.

[originally published on April 22, 2010]

Including all of your podcast regulars and favourites, this special edition examines and scrutinises this years best and brightest in this opening heat of the Game of the Year awards! Will your favourite make the cut, or simply just be cut? Find out by downloading it NOW!

Download: Game of the Year: Nominations

Some of you may know that right now, Lego Universe is in its beta phase, and is currently running a closed, invitation only preview of the game. I was fortunate enough to be invited into it. And because I love you guys so much, I’ve decided to give you an insight into Lego Universe. This is my journal of my adventures into a brand new MMO! Let’s just hope my PC doesn’t brick, eh?

The Venture Explorer and Avant Gardens

It wasn’t a smooth start I’m afraid, it booted in the wrong resolution and was quite laggy to start. But after some technical tweaks, it was looking great, despite a wonky frame rate. The character creation is versatile but simplistic, great for a game about a kid’s toy and I’ve heard that it will let you buy and order your own character in real life! Nice! The graphics aren’t that great, sadly. They’re a bit blocky (ho ho ho, ugh…) and screen tear is all too common, but then again this is a beta and also an MMO, it was destined to never look great. Still, what’s here is at least colourful and suitable, it looks like Lego, and I suppose that’s the point.

The opening levels I was given access to include a basic tutorial on a spaceship called “The Venture Explorer.” The only interesting part of which really is the “build” mechanic. Essentially you use “imagination” (read: Magic or Mana from World of Warcraft) to build objects you can interact with (and by build I mean hold shift until the object is finished, not actually build). There was also an interesting area where you could custom build your own rocket. Although this was basically selecting 3 out of the 6 pieces they had given me to assemble a rocket from premade parts, not quite the imagination overload I was expecting. The tutorial area itself was, well, spacey. The inside of a rocket ship with a sort of glass outer shell and some mechanical looking platforms filled out the area. And a view outside of a seemingly endless universe was shown. It looked pretty nice from an artistic standpoint, and is obviously a preview of the space levels that will come later in the game.

After the tutorial I was whisked off to Avant Gardens, a small grassy battlefield that was very enclosed and only really had one path. A set of very basic quests were handed out, things like “Kill 5 Enemies” and “Build a Wall” that lead to some slightly more interesting affairs such as “Race up the Monument” and “Construct Turrets out of your fallen enemies”. The combat has a closer resemblance to your standard action game rather than an RPG, you click, the character hits, the enemy dies; simple. Perhaps a bit too simple really, there’s only one method for killing enemies and despite an option to buy new weapons I couldn’t tell you how they were any different from the standard sword you’re given. There’s a much stronger emphasis on exploration and platforming than battling however. One area of Avant Gardens involves climbing Assembly Monument, a giant statue of a Heroic Lego man brandishing a sword fighting an Evil Lego man brandishing a scepter. There was a considerable amount of platforming involved. Three different branching paths are laid out before you, each one expecting you to use precision and timing to make it up to the top, as well as building a few mechanisms. Strangely, however, there is no leveling system, at least not yet. It looks like there might be a disabled one, but I never received experience or even loot from fallen enemies, instead I was given money and perhaps some health or imagination restores. Completing quests usually awards new clothing or money for your Lego Man, both of which only effect him superficially. There’s no bonus for wearing the armor or buying a new hat. If this is the first MMO without a leveling system, well, that’s kind of impressive, but it may be a bit too limiting to people expecting an addictive race for gear.

Building with Legos has never been so complicated.

I also had a look at making my own models in an area of property I now “own” according to the game. The idea is that you can make your own house and various things to go in and around it. Building stuff with bricks you’ve collected by finishing missions and killing enemies. It’s even been said that you can have your creations sent to you on order, just like your character; so the prospect of building should be great fun! The problem is that the building mode is so frustratingly difficult to operate (at present) that building anything is an exercise in aggravation. Blocks won’t go where you want them to. I can’t figure out how to rotate and buttons don’t do what you tell them; it’s all rather sloppy. Not only that, but the parts I was given were useless at making anything at all. I managed to make a door… thing with a barrier attached to the top. Not really the dream home I was thinking of… Still, I imagine that this will be the alternative to the leveling system. And while I like the idea of battling through to make the ideal place to live, the current building mode is far too difficult to operate, a note out of “Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts” should be taken, and bricks should lock into an invisible grid.

There are of course, a few problems in the beta. But if they make it to the final version I’ll be horrified and amazed. One such problem was that I ended up doing the same quest 6 times in a row. It was only after I received an email from the Lego Universe team did I discover that this was intentional. It seems you can repeat certain quests to get more money. I wish they had told me sooner; I thought that I had to do it several times to progress and as a result wasted plenty of time trying to finish an unfinishable quest. I can only hope in the full game these quests will come with an explanation.

As it stands, I currently can’t leave the first world as the beta has restricted my access. But fingers crossed that in the future I can tell you about the rest of the game, and maybe even a little about the different classes that Avant Garden has hinted at. The game is incredibly simple, but the prospect of the various worlds (Pirate, Ninja, Space Ranger, Knights, Cowboys) all sound great and hopefully the difficulty will ramp up as I get further into the world. As an MMO though, I can’t see how teaming up with anybody could have or indeed would have helped. I beat this portion of the game on my lonesome. Other people proved more of a nuisance than nything; constantly killing things I also was trying to kill and building things I wanted to build. This is probably because the party system isn’t fully working yet, but regardless for an MMO, I felt like I wasting my time with these other players. There’s one section on the Assembly Monument where helping each other out can help a bit, but the goals are still completely doable one your own. I know; I did them that way. To anybody over the age of 12 frothing at the mouth for this game, I say this; lower your expectations. That might sound a little pessimistic but here’s the truth of the matter: this is a game aimed at kids. As a result, it is extremely basic and while it makes it easy to play, it sadly doesn’t make it all that enthralling. You certainly won’t be handing in your Night Elf for a Lego Man just yet. Although, that could all change. What will Nimbus Station hold for me? Will I get a class? Will I get a ranged weapon or even a magic spell? Who knows, stay tuned to Zippy Gamer to find out!

CAMPAIGN

Halo: Reach is a prequel to the first Halo, and gives fans a deeper perspective on how things went down, even if you’re a reader of the Halo novels. The story follows a group of Spartans, the Noble Team, with you playing as the Spartan named “Noble Six”. As a rookie to the team who has a reputation for being a lone gunner, you’re quickly reminded to work well with your team. As the game progresses you will learn more about the Spartans, and although the story probably won’t win any awards, it fits well into the Halo universe and is interesting enough.

As I alluded to earlier, you won’t find many new surprising things if you’ve played the previous Halo game. The overall feel of the game is similar, though there have been some tweaks. Just as previous games, you’re usually teamed up with A.I., but they don’t really change much of anything. You are the main player who pushes the game forward. Bungie could have done more to focus on the teamwork aspect of the Noble Team, to make you feel like you really needed to stick with your team-mates, but overall this is what we’re used to. It’s Halo – not a squad shooter.

New to Halo: Reach is special armor abilities, activated by the Left Bumper button. In the campaign you’ll immediately be able to sprint, which is something Modern Warfare 2 fans will be grateful for. As expected, even a Spartan can get tired, so don’t expect to be Superman and run through the mission. Other armor abilities include a jetback to fly around (my personal favorite), the cloaking we’ve seen in previous games, an armor lock which paralyzes and prevents you from being damaged for a few moments, and the ability to shoot off a holographic image of yourself to confuse enemies.

The solo campaign lasts around 9 hours, on average. Depending on your skill level, you could finish it much faster. I highly recommend you grab some friends online and run through the campaign co-op style, which works very well in Halo: Reach and adds to the fun. For the first time, you can use the online matchmaking service to find team-mates, for when your friends aren’t online. The combat is very similar to other Halo games and the campaign is more of the same. You walk a bit, you find a group of enemies, you kill them, and then find walk to find more enemies. This is rinse and repeat gameplay, but at least it’s a good time.

The graphics are the best we’ve yet to see in a Halo game, but they’re nothing groundbreaking. The frame-rate is mostly smooth and things feel a bit more real, not only due to the graphics, but also the improved sounds and Spartan movement. Players are now able to earn points in the game to unlock more armor options and you’re able to select the gender of your Spartan too. I’ll be honest, the female Spartan has a nice butt.

MULTIPLAYER

For gamers like myself, the campaign is a fun distraction, but the main reason to play Halo has been the multiplayer. Reach gives us more options than we’ve seen in any other Halo game. You now have the ability to find matches in cooperative game types (Campaign and Firefight) in addition to competitive. Firefight was first introduced in Halo: ODST and pits you against as many waves of enemies as you can handle. Your goal is to rack up the highest score you can by surviving and killing aliens of increasing difficulty. Halo: Reach lets you set many custom options for Firefight, such as the type of enemies, how much health you have, the weapons you can use, how much damage the weapons do, and much more that we didn’t see in its last iteration. This adds longevity to the Firefight mode, which honestly could get a bit boring after a while in ODST.

Besides the new cooperative stuff, the classic online warfare we’ve enjoyed since the release of Halo 2 is back and has more options than ever. The idea of classes is new to the series, where you can specialize your Spartan or Elite with special abilities, though overall you’re still very similar in abilities to your opponents. This isn’t Team Fortress 2, so don’t expect any dedicated “sniper” or “medic” class.

Matchmaking searches have been expanded to allow you to vote on three or more choices of gametypes. This is a big improvement over Halo 3, which only let you veto one match and pray the randomly selected one that replaced it was better. Another new mode to the multiplayer is Invasion, an objective-based gametype that pits Spartans and Elites against each other, taking turns on offense and defense.

It’s now easier than ever to jump into a game with friends. If they’re already in a match, no problem. Just hop in their party and wait for them to finish. You no longer need to keep manually checking to see if they’re finished. The possibilities for an improved atmosphere are further increased by the concept of a Psych Profile. Fill in the details about yourself (are you nice or foul-mouth? Lone wolf or team player?) and Halo: Reach will attempt to match you up with others of similar interests. The verdict is still out on how well this works, but I appreciate Bungie taking a cue from eHarmony and matching us up with the type of people we want to play against.

In the end, this is Halo. It is more of the same. Many gamers are reporting enjoying this one more than they have enjoyed the previous two, so that’s a good sign. If you weren’t a big fan of Halo before, try giving it a go one last time. It may impress you. If not, there’s always Call of Duty…

I give it a 9 out of 10 on the Zippy Scale.

While this seems like common sense, it really isn’t. I hate switching between Open Office and Microsoft Office because the internal logic behind the two is so different. I’ve spent two years using footnotes and formatting papers for university classes in Word and the result is that Open Office makes little sense to me. The same idea is true to any endeavor. Designers will approach any project with assumptions that make sense to them but may need some explaining to everyone else. We tend to assume that what seems logical to us will seem logical to everyone else; this Games Radar feature best highlights that what must have seemed somewhat logical to a designer won’t make much sense to the rest of the world. So, how does this experiment by Grossman affect game design?

Left: Comfort and familiarity; Right: scary and foreign

Game developers need to be conscious of the tone throughout development. For example, the issue with the rubber ducky puzzle from The Longest Journey (mentioned on the third page of the Games Radar feature) is not the puzzle itself, but the tone of the game compared to the solution for the puzzle. When I first played through that part of the game I knew about the puzzle, but not the solution. I went into the puzzle knowing it was out of character with what I had seen of the game before hand, so the puzzle was easy for me. If you placed this exact puzzle in a Lucas Arts adventure game, it would feel right at home. But, the problem was, The Longest Journey didn’t feel like that sort of game.

I think the lesson the designers of The Longest Journey give the gaming community is the importance of unity within a game in how it will be expressed. I think a well designed game will be able to ease one into the thinking the game requires without the need of explicit tutorials. I feel The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the best example of this (I am a self-confessed fanboy of that particular game, though). As you progress through the game the dungeon design changes slightly. When you’re first in Hyrule Castle you just need to explore with no need to solve puzzles. Then as the game progresses various rooms have puzzles that you must solve to leave them. Then you’ll have puzzles that affect more than one room. By the end of the game you need to think how one action will affect other floors. I like to call this 3D thinking, in honour of Spock commenting on how Khan is held back since he only thinks in two-dimensional terms in the classic Wrath of Khan; it’s the same idea here, the game eases you into this three-dimensional thought process without you being aware of it. The people who have problems with the later dungeons do because they’re still thinking in the two-dimension terms.

A movie so awesome it deserves to be mentioned when I talk about game design!

In one final effort to convince the unconvinced, think about Ocarina of Time’s Water Temple. I suspect the reason the dungeon is so hated is not that it is genuinely difficult – it really isn’t if you go into it with the right frame of mind – but that the game failed to ease the player into this process. Imagine if one could sequence break the game so the Water Temple was the last dungeon they would complete before they set off to defeat Ganondorf – would it seem that difficult then? After all, the succeeding dungeons are pretty three-dimensional as well, and you even have to consider how time travel fits into the dungeon design. I suspect that if one shuffled the game around to make the Water Temple one of the final dungeons, we wouldn’t have heard so many woes toward it.

Before I go on, I feel the need to defend Telltale using the cheese-puzzle as a tutorial. It’s not an element of bad design, but a necessary concession that needs to be made considering the model they have chosen to distribute their titles. It would be unfeasible for them to have each episode in each season move us from the basics to more complicated extremes when one considers the short length of each episode and the fact that I can choose to play through episode three before I go through the first two episode in a given season. The only sensible solution is to have a tutorial for those that are new to gaming, the genre, or even those that aren’t used to the idea of cartoon logic.

In the world of Sam and Max, possessing this much cheese is comparatively sane

The publishers have a role in finding ways to properly communicate the tone of any given game to their potential audience. Action games, as an example, can have very different ways of portraying the violence on-screen and, naturally, this is an aspect of tone. I don’t think one needs to think too hard to see this is the case – the way violence happens in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon is quite different from Grand Theft Auto and that is also different from Doom. While the different tones may not change how we deal with problems in those specific games (for future reference, the solution to most adverse situations in these games tends to be “shooty shoot shoot”), it does change how we look what we see in the game. I think the issue Grand Theft Auto faced is that the defense of the violence was the genre when the better appeal would be the satiric elements that are prevalent in each title. That doesn’t somehow make the game acceptable for all audiences, but instead allows us to understand that the game does have a commentary on the violence it depicts and even allows and, in doing so, provides the means for us to see this satire at play through how we live and play (we laugh at the idea of Liberty City Survivor as we run over pedestrians). This doesn’t make violence seem acceptable, but it gives people a way in which to interpret the violence that they see (or commit) on-screen.

With the current business model, the developer’s responsibility is to make the tone discernible through the gameplay and the publishers are placed with the task of finding a way to properly communicate this to the potential audience. At the risk of seeming to be like a Games Radar fanboy, I’ll turn to their feature on why Japanese box art is better. A common theme is the piece is that American box art for games tend to, somehow, miss the point. As far as North American consumers are concerned Deus Ex is about a guy with a gun, Kirby is perpetually angry, and Ico is about a boy with a stick. We don’t need the GTAIII box art to feature Claude with a copy of “A Modest Proposal” to show that the game may have satiric elements, but perhaps selling every game on guns, explosions, and tits is selling the industry short. It’s a bit silly to sell games in this way while maintaining that they can, and do, have something to say.

While developers cannot always assume tone is self-evident, the traditional model of game design (as opposed to the episodic model) does allow the player to be eased into the tone and logic the game assumes. However, we need to remember the publishers have a role in the representation of this tone in advertising. Perhaps the reason this isn’t seen as an important part of the business is either an assumption that the average consumer has some form of familiarity with the game before they purchase is (they’ve played preceding games in the series or have read previews and reviews), and this would be a flawed assumption, or those in charge of selling the game to general population confuse “tone” for “genre.” Either way, Grossman’s little study does show that game designers need to deal with some core assumptions before they start the process of designing a game.

[This has been greatly expanded from my short summary from my blog, which I hope all the cool cats check out, in this little example of crass self-promotion]