The Joys of Heisting

I rarely get into multiplayer games.
As a kid growing up, I could count the number of friends I had on both hands, sometimes just one. I also lived a fair drive from most of them (about an hour round trip sometimes), so I didn't get out much. As such, I tend to gravitate to single player experiences, stuff I can play by myself. But I do have a particular love of co-operative stuff. I have always liked playing through things like Halo with a friend locally, and occasionally I will get swept up in some PC co-operative offering. The Left 4 Dead series is quite good, but doesn't have the hooks for long term play for me. Killing Floor was a brief obsession of mine, but I am not going to talk about that right now. Right now, I have only one game on my brain, and its Payday: The Heist.

Man, I love this game. Something about it just pushes all of my buttons, more than Killing Floor or Left 4 Dead, and I think it's because it draws from both. From Killing Floor, it gets the classes and level progression, and from Left 4 Dead, it gets the objective based gameplay, though it makes it a level or two more complex.
In Left 4 Dead, there are rarely any tasks beyond getting from Point A to Point B. It occasionally breaks this up with bits defending from waves of enemies, or running around collecting needed items like gas. It's simple but effective. Payday adds in additional wrinkles, such as in the First World Bank level, where you need to monitor an automatic drill that jams periodically while also going to the other side of the level to erase security footage, while also keeping control of various civilians around the level. Also, the police are almost always trying to stop you in some way, either through brute force assaults or sending in special units through the vents while you think you have down time. Adding in just one more thing to worry about besides the enemies adds an extra level of tension. Thankfully, it never has more than three or four things to worry about, so it never becomes too overwhelming.
These overall objectives add an important element that many other multiplayer games on the market lack: a tension arc.

http://www.musik-therapie.at/PederHill/Structure&Plot.htm

I have never really liked a multiplayer game that just involves killing things for this reason; each individual match lacks this important element. While the diagram above is the tension arc for a three act plot structure, in a good work of linear media (game, movie, book, etc.), a great many smaller pieces are also made up of tension arcs, even to the smallest things like shooting a gun (rising tension as you start to fire, increasing tension as you expend the clip on the target, and the denouement of reloading). This game uses these arcs extremely well. Police Assaults are a constant flood of law enforcement, and every time they come at you it gets harder and harder, but they almost always do end, after a while. Each objective takes time to complete, whether through direct interaction, such as herding a VIP you need to transport, or through only periodic interaction, such as with the aforementioned drill. Either way, there is an arc to the objective, from the low tension at the outset, or near the climax, when you have only 20 seconds left on the drill, but two teammates are down and bleeding, you are down to your pistol and two SWAT with riot shields are creeping towards you. It's really exciting what context can do to make a game more interesting.
I could go on about how authentic it feels to those modern heist movies, with the clown masks and brief audio vignettes before each level, or how they randomize just enough to make it interesting and unique each time (guard and civilian position, makeup and length of police assaults, even adding or subtracting objectives), or how you can complete some missions almost entirely by stealth and coordination, and only near the very end have to resort to violence. But to me, a lot of that is just icing on the cake. Now if you will excuse me, I have cash to grab.

Images from Photobucket, except where noted.

On The Importance of "Let's Plays"

I am a Let's Play addict.
There. I said it. Maybe now I can stop reading them.

Nope. Guess not.
So why do I love Lets Plays so damn much? I think I can break it down into 3 reasons, after reading and watching enough Lets Plays to make and omnibus and adapt it into a cinematic trilogy, and they are as follows.

1. Faster and Cheaper to Appreciate
One great benefit of reading or watching a lets play of a game is that you can take in all of the narrative struggles of game characters, as well as get an idea of the mechanics and difficulty of a game without having to play it yourself. The Lets Player in question will often truncate their gameplay experience, so you can make your way through the entire run of a 200 hour rpg in a day or so worth of reading. This allows for a lot more game appreciation for your time. Additionally, you don't have to pay for the game yourself, which is nice.

2. Fun Commentary
Some Lets Plays offer more than just letting us play vicariously through the Lets Player. Sometimes the Lets Play is worth it for some comedic value, or some informative purpose. For instance, a lets play of a classic RPG where the player breaks it mechanically for all to see like Ivan Drago, or a group of friends commenting on just how terrible a bad game gets. These Lets Plays let us imagine that we are playing with them in some respect, watching over their shoulder and commenting as they play. These sorts of Lets Plays often involve multiple people, or the player will stream the process live, letting the viewers of the stream also commentate.
The thing about this point is that we are still substituting a normal gaming experience for an inferior, but cheaper product. But there is one more reason, and the real reason I love Lets Plays so damn much.

3. The Narrative of the Player OR The Constructed Narrative
Here are a few links to Lets Plays that fit this criteria which I wholeheartedly recommend. Some are just incredibly hilarious, others are dramatic, and some are both. These Lets Plays are the reason I have the Lets Play Archive in my bookmarks bar ahead of Facebook. Not all of these have constructed narratives, and may amount to little more than commentary, but they do tap into one of the important reasons I love games so much, and make them such a unique medium: The capability of radically different experiences while playing the same game. I have already gushed about Fire Emblem in this blog last post (which you should read for context, it's not that long), but this is why I also like to read and play along with Fire Emblem Lets Plays. Its a lot of fun to see how the other person is doing in the game, like how their roster differs from yours, things they found that you missed, and how they approached situations differently. Its a fascinating exercise. But what is much more compelling is when a Lets Player creates an entirely different narrative by adapting the events that happen in the game to a narrative that they construct, sometimes entirely on the fly, or by creating artificial challenges for themselves. These Lets Plays become more like written stories about the game, rather than a direct transcription. It's really compelling, and I love to marvel at their progress, or their audacity.
So that's why I read these things. I have considered starting my own, but I can't think of a good game to do it in. If you have any suggestions, comment or send me an email.

Image from lparchive.org

All Hail the RNG!! or Coaching Gamblers

I have been playing a fair bit of Fire Emblem lately, and I started to wonder about it's distinct appeal. I really can't think of other games that I play in the same way as it. I do like other tactics games, like the Final Fantasy Tactics games and the Disgaea series, but I always return to Intelligent System's second party series.  And I think I may have pinpointed why. If you know how Fire Emblem works, skip the next few paragraphs until you see " So, knowing all of that mechanical crap, ". It'll be considerably shorter, but more convenient.

Some explanation of the basic mechanics of Fire Emblem: The game is about a fantasy band of heroes lead by a central character, who is often a lord of some description. You command them in a series of grid based tactical missions against other armies. They come in a large variety of classes, often with the potential to upgrade into another, better class as the characters gain experience and level up. There are distinct statistics to keep track of, a rock paper scissors relationship of weapon types, and magic on top of that. This is a fairly easy concept to understand for someone fairly game literate, and is far less complicated than other iterations of the genre. But it has three fairly important elements that make it distinct and compelling.

First, instead of a stable of customizable troops, each recruit is a distinct character. While the game rarely takes the time to define the characters in the main plot, there is always some flavor for every character, either through optional scenes or Support Relationships. Support Relationships, or Supports, are conversations that characters can have with each other. Usually there are only 3 for each pair, and the characters gain bonuses for remaining near characters they have a Support with.

Second, the benefits of leveling up are somewhat random. How this is achieved is through what is known as an individual growth rate. A character has a growth rate for each statistic, which determines the percentage chance that a particular stat will increase by 1 at every level. Growths are rarely higher than 60% for an important skill, say Strength for a career Axeman, but there are definitely stats that a character is more or less likely to gain. But, there is always the chance that the aforementioned Axeman may not get an increase to Strength in 5 levels.

Third, Statistics in Fire Emblem are small, easy to understand numbers, as you can see in the screenshot of Rolf above. The equations for determining what a statistic does are also very easy and predictable. For instance, if an attack hits an enemy, then the damage is the strength of the weapon and your character's strength statistic, minus their defense. There are a few other potential modifiers, such as the weapon triangle (that rock paper scissors thing) and Supports, but they don't add a whole lot of complexity. The highest a character's strength can usually get is somewhere in the mid to high 20's, so its pretty easy to calculate everything.

So, knowing all of that mechanical crap, why does that make Fire Emblem so compelling? Because it makes every level a tense experience. Since your stats are fairly small numbers, every level matters a lot for a character's overall effectiveness, and their role on the battlefield. The random chance of getting stats you need means that the Cavalier you have been trying to nurture for half of the game is rendered entirely useless by the Random Number Generator, or RNG.

Oh Godammit!

On the other hand, every character could potentially be extremely lucky, and become a godly machine of death.

Keep in mind that Mist here is a healer.

This element adds a lot of replayability to the game, making each playthrough result in a different final team out of your gang of plucky heroes. The various combinations create a different net of potential Supports, allowing for a different character driven story to supplement the main plot. And there is always the chance of a once in a lifetime roll of the dice, resulting in terrifying creatures of majestic death dealing prowess.

Every number glowing green is a stat that is maximized. Just... wow.

This potential for a crazed endgame party of monstrous power is what keeps me coming back to this game, coaching these little fantasy characters through their adventures over and over, rolling the dice to see if they finally come up Death God. Because I want to see my healer beat the crap out of the final boss too.

Header image courtesy of Photobucket, others from Fedule's Fire Emblem : Path of Radiance Lets Play