Friday 31 October 2014

Secrets That Should Remain Hidden: Top 5 Creepy Easter Eggs

The term 'Easter Egg' to refer to secrets hidden by developers in games was supposedly coined by Atari after it was brought to their attention that Warren Robinett left a secret message in the game Adventure. Referring to the idea of the "Easter egg hunt", the phrase came to stand for any secret items, levels or messages left by developers. Nowadays, the term has been used to also cover hidden elements of gameplay such as audio files, as well as glitches and seemingly irrelevant story information.

Since it's Halloween, I thought it would interesting to delve into the top 5 of the creepiest easter eggs the internet has pulled up.

5. Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Shadows

When playing the Shiverburn Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy 2, the player can look up and see three strange figures atop the mountain. On closer inspection it seems that these figures are watching you, and with no reference to them in the game, it seems they are something to slowly back away from, before putting down the controller and running out of the house. What's even worse is the fact that hackers have tried to put an end to everyone's fears by searching within the game, but the mysterious figures seem to disappear if you are getting too close.

4. Halo 3 - Monkey Family

On Level Sierra 117, after seeing Sgt Johnson's pelican go down, enter the woods and kill all the snipers. Once you are at the end, go back down to where you started and jump up to the elevated part on the right. Turn around again, and walk along the wall to your left until it ends. Have a look around. You are not going mad if you see a family of monkeys with human faces occupying your wall with you. They do not move, but they are not part of the scenery as shooting them will cause them to bleed. So these weird monkey people inhabit the world of Halo more often than you might think. They are dotted around levels, some of which are practically impossible to access. Perhaps the worst though is at the end of Halo 3 ODST. Settle in for the credits and watch the cut scene after them, but be ready to move the camera to the left during the last few cut scenes. Look around the spaceship and find an old friend sitting next to you the whole time... yep... monkey man.

3. Red Dead Redemption - Tumbleweed

Not so much an easter egg, more of a creepy level not necessitated by gameplay, the ghost town of
Tumbleweed is advertised throughout newspaper articles throughout the game. If you actually take the time to go there, the creepy atmosphere, only intensified by the disembodied whisperings and mutterings. One player has got to the bottom of these voices however, by going through a previously locked door to find a few random characters hiding out in a small room. It's obviously pretty boring in Tumbleweed if they spend their days waiting for someone to walk past so they can whisper to them... The real fear, however, comes when you notice the dog that's been constantly barking throughout your exploits in Tumbleweed. You follow the sound of his barking until you reach a cemetery with an adjoining churchyard. Inside this church is a pulpit with the words "The Devil has got into that beast" carved into it, suggesting a creepy little ghost dog following you around, possibly inhabited by the devil. That's always fun.


2. Bit.Trip Runner 2 - Slender

The problem with fast-paced side scrolling platform games is the fact that you don't really have the time to stop and look around at the backdrop to your dashing, jumping, falling, and flying. That's probably a good thing in Bit.Trip Runner 2. If you happen to need to pause, and you are looking for an adrenaline rush, take a look at the background and you may see the horrifically recognisable image of the internet's favourite demon guy in a suit - Slenderman. The thing with this one is the fact that you could be playing the level over and over and not realise that Slender has been following you the whole time. The fact that the kids game is so colourful and light-hearted only serves to make Slender's appearance just a little more terrifying.

1. Game Boy Camera - Run

In the old days of the Game Boy Camera, if a user pressed the 'run' button while on one of the menu
screens, the game would sometimes freeze. An image of a face vandalised with marker would then appear with equally creepy text - the worst of which, "who are you running from", would have sent me straight to the Yellow Pages, looking up any good demon-exorcizing priests in the area. And this was in the days when googling why your Game Boy had suddenly turned against you was out of  the question. 

Wednesday 29 October 2014

Gorillas, Carpentry, and Sewers: The History of Mario

In thinking about the origins of classic video game characters, who better to start with than Mario? The chubby Italian plumber bounced his way into the top spot in the video game hall of fame in the 80's and has broken more records than he has power up boxes in the decades since. Hailed as the video game icon, Mario's history is just as endearing as his famous catchphrases, stature, and gaggle of friends.



Around the time of the video game crash in 1983, Miyamoto understood that players were growing
tiresome of the similar designs of games that we're being rapidly churned out in the industry. Recognising the need for players to have a human character to connect with through the game rather than just a spaceship, he began working a carpenter character into his Donkey Kong game. And so the concept of Mario was born. 

Originally named Jumpman, Mario's original carpentry profession was developed to fit with the construction site setting of Donkey Kong. When he was granted his own title, however, his career path took a turn towards plumbing. It has been said that Mario's career was an effort to make him look more hard working, and therefore relatable to the player. A colleague apparently mentioned to Miyamoto that the character looked more like a plumber, and so Mario Bros. was based in the sewers of New York City. 

Mario's iconic outfit was originally reversed, with a red jumpsuit accompanied by a blue shirt. The character needed to stand out against his background and so his prominent nose, brightly coloured clothing and light-heartedly Italian moustache were necessary. Miyamoto completed the outfit with a red cap for simplicity's sake, to work around the issue of animating Mario's hair every time he jumped.

This appearance has developed with the abolishment of technical limitations. As the technology available for video games improved, so did Mario's characterisation. The colours of his clothes were reversed to what we see today, his cap took on the iconic 'M' marking, and his facial features became more animated. 

Charles Martinet is the prominent voice of Mario, and has been working for Nintendo since 1990. Originally uninvited to the auditions, he rocked up late to a video game trade show and asked to read the part. He originally planned a stereotypically husky Italian voice but developed the idea to become more child friendly, making his voice light, bouncy, and soft. The legend goes that Martinet's audition tape was the only one sent to Nintendo, but it must have been lengthly as Martinet stated that he maintained the Mario voice until the tape ran out. Martinet started as the voice of Mario at video game trade shows through the "Mario in Real Time" system - a motion capture interactive display in which groups of people would approach a 3D Mario head on a screen, watched on camera by Martinet, who would then have his movements synchronised with the image of his Italian character to respond to them. 

Mario is the proud icon of the best selling video game series of all time and has become one of the most widely recognised symbols of digital entertainment. With over 115 title games and countless other crossovers and references throughout the video game industry (everyone chuckled when the line "it's me Mario" was cheekily thrown into Assassin's Creed 2), his plumbing business has certainly had to take the back seat for a while. 

Monday 27 October 2014

Hoops and Hurdles: Just How Difficult Is It To Go Indie

Creating video games without the financial backing of a large company comes with a new set of game design rules. Developers focus on what makes them unique - the innovation and creativity of one or two individuals or a small group, and have done since the 1990s. Early shareware allowed independent developers for PC games to distribute their creations among fellow developers and players. However the steep rise of technology that occurred during the millennium saw a larger internet audience, bigger expectations for the quality of video games, and a more competitive market. While this has seen a large growth in social media marketing, retail (through sites such as Steam), and the general means to create these games, developers need to jump through the hoops this larger audience scope demands. 

In writing this, I was attempting to consider some of the most challenging aspects of independent video game design, and came to the conclusion that I pretty much had no clue what kinds of issues faced these organisations in the digital age. So I channelled Sherlock and took to Twitter. 

Finances are a big thing on developers' minds, when asked their opinions on the biggest hurdle in indie game development, it seemed the biggest limitation was the dollar. Red Tentacle Studios (@Red_Tentacle),developers of Crazy Critter Dash for iOS, pretty much sum it up when they say "with limited financial resources you have to compete with game companies with millions to spend on advertising, making it feel nearly impossible at times". Relying on social media and word of mouth is stressful and risky, in that sense the advertisement of these games is a slow, repetitive process of plugging, tweeting, posting and pleading, whereas top games companies just have to say one word at the right conference and half the world starts pre-ordering for next year. 

And this is mostly funded through a day job, which in itself presents difficulties. For Robert Ota Dietrich (@nobunagaota), this financial matter is "like a timer" - financing a daily life around the demands of creating a successful video game is tricky. He says "for devs with day jobs, time is the biggest limit. Finding the time to make games can be hard. Especially if you have a family". Working around the timings and finances of daily life to create a game independently and then advertise and boost recognition means it's a sink or swim situation in the gaming world (which is why you can help Robert out and vote for his game Ookibloks on Steam Greenlight 

So you've passed the time constrictions and the financial risks, but the actual creative process of game design is what Voltwar Games (@VoltwarGames) reckon presents the most difficulty. Focus is something I had never really considered before these guys brought it to my attention, but now I can 100% understand when they say "no matter what, there will always be thoughts like "wouldn't it be cool if we added this thing or this other thing?". You need to learn how to handle that, when to say no". I suppose in the bid to stand out against this vast scope of internet audience, you want to do something innovative, unique and new. But in an unfocused project, this can run away with the developer and they end up throwing everything at a game and then realising it's far too unfocused and cluttered. Voltwar told me that "our first game was a disaster. We kept changing the concept, the target platforms, the scope of the entire project. We changed the art style, went from multiplayer to single player, changed the entire theme of the game... In the end we just put it on ice, because it was so unfocused."

So you've put the hours in, worried about the rent, re-modelled a game over and over until it was sleek, original, focused and fun to play - you have the finished product and you're pretty proud. But then comes the issue of quality highlighted by James Oliver (@JamesDestined) who says the most difficult part is "seeing the reality of how good your product is and not believing it is best / better in an unrealistic way". So after pouring so much of your life into this product, it's difficult not to become blind to its faults - it's what you've sacrificed months of your life for and it can be difficult then, not to get your hopes up for a Nintendo job offer. 

You've got your final product now, you've managed not to get your hopes up and don't have unreasonable expectations for its success. Now you just have to do that hard bit and get noticed. This, as well as financing, was the most common response to my inquiries. After all that work, you may still be a tiny, insignificant dot on the web. Steam, blogs, Twitter and Facebook seem to be your methods of advertising, while also relying on the risk of word of mouth. Lazy Lizzard (@TheLazyLizzard), creator of Stray Cat, told me that "it is way too easy to disappear in the crowd. Plus, the freemium market is unsustainable, so you either get rich quick or go broke". So once you've put the endless hours, worry, money, and risk into your project, you still have to break your way into recognition through the sometimes frustratingly slow process of social media marketing. 

I've discovered a new form of respect for independent developers now, I already had respect for their creativity and innovation. But the process of developing a game under normal pressures of every day life and then meeting the ever growing demands of both the consumer and the platform of advertisement creates a whole new respect for the dedication and resilience required to make a name for yourself in this day and age. 

Red Tentacle Studios: http://www.redtentaclestudios.com/ 
Lazy Lizzard: http://lazylizzard.org/
Robert Ota Dietrich: http://gamedevwithoutacause.com/ 
James Oliver: http://www.destined.com 


 




Friday 24 October 2014

Cheap Weekends - PS2 Classics Now Under £5

With game prices hitting the £70 mark in some cases, it's proving more and more difficult to pick a title up on your way home from work to have a laugh with over the weekend. But never fear, because good second hand game shops are here to help. So, if you're between games or just fancying a chilled weekend of classic favourites, here is a list of top PS2 games you can get from second hand shops for under a fiver.

Something Classic: 
Crash Banidcoot, The Wrath of a Cortex - ok, you caught me, it's around £8 second hand, but it's worth missing your morning coffee and saving those few coins for the chance to spend your weekend saving Wumba Island through some of the most memorable levels of PS2's impressive repertoire. 

Something Chilled:
The Sims Bustin Out is a good weekend game, purely because it's easy to spend a few hours moseying around the game but after that it gets a bit boring. There's certainly a lot more freedom than The Sims on PlayStation in that you can actually leave the house, and the rewards you unlock in the story mode are then available in the freeplay mode. However, it gets fairly repetitive so maybe not one if you're looking for story development over patient completion of quests. But it's only about £2, so that's a win.

A Bargain: 
Gun is one of my favourite PS2 games to have graced my many consoles. Set in the Wild West, this shooter consists of missions just easy enough to actually get somewhere in the game but still warrant several tries in certain places, making for excellently engaging gameplay. When you're not completing missions feel free to explore the landscapes and take up a day job as a cattle rancher - much more fun than it sounds. Think Red Dead Redemption but available to your for about a quid. 


Something Psychotic: 
The third person stealth game Manhunt will leave you questioning your moral integrity but not after hours of ducking and diving to complete a white-knuckle Rockstar hit. Famously surrounded in controversy after it's graphic executions, today you can pick it up for about £1.50 and test those fiddly controls for yourself... 

Something Funny: 
Destroy All Humans, despite it's potentially samey missions, flips the alien invasion genre on its oversized, grey head.  Presenting the protagonist as an alien on a pretty obvious mission, the game achieved critical success on its comedic value alone, so at £2.50 it's a good shout for some light-hearted Saturday morning gameplay. 


Something Scary:
Obviously it's Resident Evil 4 - arguably the pinnacle of Resi's success. We all know the terrifying laboratory creatures and the creepy villagers of the small town but what you might not know is that you can enjoy their lovely company for a fiver now. 

Something With A Great Soundtrack: 
I've always been an advocate of the SSX game, the best being Tricky (also available cheap now), but for a soundtrack to kickstart your weekend go for World Tour. With music from Billy Talent, Avenged Sevenfold, Def Leppard, Queens of the Stone Age, and OK Go. Tricks and manoeuvres feel really good when set against this tuneage, and the whole experience can be picked up for 10 minutes or marathoned until sleep deprivation kicks in. 

Something Destructive: 
If it's been a signficiantly stressful week, the urge to smash may be your primary concern in picking up a game. Burnout will give you the opportunity to plough into anything you see with immensely satisfying replays, all for £1. The gameplay is fun for a while but it's more of a 'see how many cars I can hit' for 5 minutes kind of game, which is telling seeing as the gameplay revolves around... not... hitting the cars... 


Prices from: https://uk.webuy.com 





Wednesday 22 October 2014

Why We Don't Trust Hollywood And Why We Should

The industry over the last few years has seen a pretty impressive boost in terms of how many beloved video games are being churned into films. The fear is prevalent though. This is the fear of placing our heroes and storylines into the hands of Hollywood and waiting to nervously fidget in the cinema some time in 2015 wondering if you will ever look at Assassin's Creed, Ratchet and Clank, or World of Warcraft in the same way again. 

In this discussion, the quality of the film itself is being set aside, I am thinking about the way the consumer changes from an active role in the story to a passive onlooker, and the reasons why this perhaps contributes to the distrust of Hollywood in the adaptation of our games. 

Why is it such a risk for companies to develop these cinematic adaptations? 

To start, everyone goes into that cinema with their own experience of the game, an experience and interpretation unique to them, but still imprinted on their memory of the game and their enjoyment of the game. A film is a complex collaboration of interpretations amalgamating into one representation of the game that is birthed into the world as the definitive representation of that game. The player will therefore begin to feel a certain amount of estrangement from the characters, story and setting because they are no longer in control of their experience. The character they have previously been playing is now operating outside of this control, losing the link between player and protagonist that drives emotional response to action. 

It's easy to see a film adaptation as a betrayal of a game's storyline, especially if different writers are employed. However, thinking about the film as a different product to the game can often lead to more enjoyment overall.  

The brand of the game series essentially works as a chain of products, with movie adaptations fitting neatly into this chain. Each individual link of this chain contributes something to the overall brand, a new Resident Evil game that perhaps doesn't perform as well will contribute to the hit and miss nature of the brand. However, at the same time, each individual link will differ and comment on links before it in order to keep the brand fresh and exciting. For example, though not technically part of the Resident Evil brand,  The Evil Within comments on the Resi games before it and sets up a new psychological element to the Shinji Mikami survival horror game concept. 

Films sit in this chain of branding because they offer a different way of viewing aspects of the game that continue or build around previously developed plots. The differences between the film and the game within the branding chain make certain aspects of storytelling more difficult in film. The main example of this is internality. As a player, we have access to the character's thoughts and control over their corresponding actions. A film, though it can use bawdy voiceovers, performs best when presenting the external. This distances the viewer from the protagonist and when the protagonist is a character the viewer has previously had this internal connection with, the result is often disjointed. 

It is worth remembering then, in 2015, that these movie adaptations are a continuation of the ongoing dialogue between the player and the game as represented by the branding chain. Essentially they work as an aside, something to give the consumer an external depiction of the world of the game to 'colour' the events that take place within the game itself. 

So when shuffling nervously in the cinema next year, just remember to watch the movie adaptation as both a separate product to the game and an expansion of the information already presented, it might make the whole experience a little easier. And if you really need to, you can always take a PlayStation controller with you. 








Monday 20 October 2014

SUPERHYPER review

There is rarely a new iOS game that really brings my life to a halt. It took some getting used to, but once you've retrained your brain to swipe left, right or up whenever faced with any flash of an obstacle (because your thumbs do have to become blurs across the screen) you're in for a pretty damn fun time. In truth, the game is disgustingly addictive. Its simplistic design and feel force you to question all skill you thought you ever had in gaming and return to the days of just trying to get pixels to stay on the screen.

It's refreshingly simple but diabolically tricky. Swipe left and right to guide a ball down a track with various pitfalls and obstacles to overcome and watch your life fade away behind the screen of your phone. 

It really is a brilliant new release from Sets and Settings and one I will definitely be spending a lot of time procrastinating with. 


Saturday 18 October 2014

Video Games That Broke The Mold

When we talk about revolutionary video games, or the 'most important' games, we often sit back and relax claiming 'Pong', 'Space Invaders' and 'Pac-man' are obviously the most influential games in gaming history. I don't think this is necessarily true. Sure, they are the leaders of the basic idea of gaming that we have but there are other games that have heavily contributed to the way we see gaming today and if these games didn't exist, the gaming world would be unrecognisable. The interesting thing is, I hadn't really ever considered the role some of these games played in the long history of electronic entertainment, and some of them I outright despise (sorry Mark Zuckerberg).

The Browser Based Game 

World of Warcraft 
Browser based games came about after Runescape popularised the genre through its free to play design. Released in January 2001, Runescape now charges a subscription fee but was one of the first games to offer a basis for a virtual world populated by other people across the world. It was eclipsed in 2004 however, by World of Warcraft that surpassed 10 million players at its peak and is essentially the MMO responsible for placing the genre within the mainstream perspective. 

Social Gaming 

The social game is a fairly newborn concept within the larger span of gaming history. Sparked by the micro-transacting, infuriatingly popular, seemingly mundane Farmville in 2009. Farmville pushed this new social gaming market and used native elements of social media (those irritating invites and notifications that narrate to you just how your dinner lady from school just hatched a new batch of virtual eggs) to revolutionise the way casual gamers saw games as well as how casual games were marketed. It is arguable, however, that social gaming began a while before the internet really even took off. Dance Dance Revolution cued the idea that social party games were a viable entertainment option. It proved that video games could be marketed towards a new crowd of individuals and that dance mats could become a frequent fixture in every home and bootsale. 


Fighting 

Oh Mortal Kombat - you are the motorcycle riding, heavy rock playing older brother of the gaming world - the one who just wanted to push those boundaries until they shattered and then pushed on more. The game put the idea of violence into the mainstream media's worried eye with its horrifically violent, brilliantly gory Fatality moves which sparked the thriving violence debate that so plagues the video game industry. You just did it with such style :'). 


Survival Horror 

This one's fairly obvious. Resident Evil popularised the survival horror game after its predecessor, and kind of parent, Sweet Home. The 1996 PlayStation game spawned a large marketing strategy consisting of movies, novels, sequels of varying quality. and comics. Its creator, Shinji Mikami, is still hailed today as the godfather of survival horror with his new release The Evil Within. 


Adventure 

I hadn't even heard of King's Quest before, and now the guilt is raining down because the game revolutionised the way adventure games were played in 1983. Previously players had to work with backdrops and textual information, but King's Quest featured the first controllable character who could move around and perform actions within his surroundings. However, this was only the first game to feature a visible character to relate the text to, Adventure allowed the player to move around a castle and find a key in 1979 and interestingly, featured the first easter egg - a secret room with his name scrolling through. 


Strategy 

Command and Conquer was certainly not the first real time strategy game, but it certainly tied up elements found in slightly earlier games to promote what we come to know now as strategy. It boosted the genre into the public domain and proved its viability with the addictiveness of its plan-20-minute-ahead gameplay. 



Simulation 

Obviously, The Sims brought about the largest video game movement the industry has probably ever seen. Behind The Sims, however, Sim City popularised the entire simulation genre in 1989. Though the 2013 version is a slight embarrassment, the original game was the pinnacle of creativity and freedom within your own gameplay and possibly paved the way for The Sims to ever exist in the first place. 



Indie 

The move to independent developers over the last few years has been pretty revolutionary in itself, however the first Indie game to really see the daylight of grand successes is Minecraft. Minecraft was so successful that is even developed its own genre, leaving players hooked on alternate, free worlds and non-players wondering why... until they tried it... then they were lost to it as well. 

Open World 

GTA is often hailed as the parent of all open world video games. However the first game to give players the freedom to decide where they want and when, was Body Harvest on the N64 in 1998. Since then, however, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time has held a lot of influence over the open world genre. The 3D world presented in the game changed developers' and players' perceptions of the possible size of the game world, with games such as Super Mario 64 assuring developers that the move to 3D might actually work. 

Mobile Gaming 

Now, you might not like this, but i'm going to say it... Angry Birds was critical in the launch of the Tetris was the poster-child for handheld gaming - a repetitive, addictive game that could fit in the palm of your hand and stay there fore hours, Tetris fully established Nintendo as a force to be reckoned with in the handheld market.
current mobile gaming hype. It was downloaded over 12 million times when it was released in 2009 and helped turn the mobile phone into a handheld gaming device. We must not forget our roots however, and look to the game that revolutionised the handheld console.

Narrative 

Narrative is critical to a game today. In the beginning, games were created with instant gratification Donkey Kong stepped away from the goals of its time (to kill anything you see) and employed a beginning, middle, and end set up to its game narrative. This step pushed storytelling in games a lot further than is often recognised. But then Myst decided to go further. Myst revolutionised the use of a narrative in video games - the linearity of previous games was abandoned and players were sent across different locations to gather clues. The game literally changed the notion of a linear time and space within gaming.
in mind. Nowadays we have the technology to build suspense, and create an in depth story which causes players to question character motives, build up their own suspicions about plot twists, and generally engage deeper with the context of the action.

Thursday 16 October 2014

Link's New Master Cycle... and a bit of a character crossover digression

Nintendo have just revealed that the 'Master Cycle' is to accompany Link in his escapades in the first Mario Kart 8 add-on content pack and it looks pretty impressive - Link, as always, means serious business. It's a shame they haven't made the full step and just straight up added Epona to his vehicle list, but you never know. This got me thinking about character crossovers - there's something about the reunion with your favourite protagonist in another setting that's bizarrely entertaining. Oh! Look - there's that classic Nintendo character i've seen dozens of times before in a classic Nintendo game i've been playing for years! Brilliant, how do they come up with this stuff?! It's like seeing a teacher outside school - strangely unnerving at first but after a while you feel like you need to tell everyone you see that you just saw Mr Smith walking past Subway with a Boots bag and how exhilarating the experience was for you.

Going from seeing Link battling his way through the dark forces of evil under the guiding light of a distant hope to hurling bananas at Baby Peach in an attempt to just get second place on Rainbow Road has been challenging to get my head around. It feels like this is what Link does on his day off - well that's what I like to think anyway.

Maybe we should start thinking outside the box on this one. Perhaps Bowser should take up a tenancy in Animal Crossing for a while, or if you're really hopeful perhaps a Jak and Daxter / Crash Bandicoot crossover - but that might be a tad optimistic given that neither title has really been active since 2004. I don't think a Princess Peach appearance on GTA would really do much for Nintendo's image however...