This good article on Hellmode has sparked a lively conversation. Can’t remember if it was Cliff Bleszinski or Leigh Alexander who ignited it.

So, what is art? I’ve spent some years in art schools (nine), have talked about this to death several times with people much smarter than myself, and like to think that I have a clear idea. I suspect most people do not.

Most people think art is something that is attributed to a thing due to some perceived value in the process of making it. Think crafting skills. (No, not that kind.) Thus huge oil paintings are art, if they look nice enough, whereas low effort spray paintings are not. Some people – lots of people – think that nice things are art, but ugly things are not. Lots of people think that photography is not art. It’s not involved enough, not hard enough. The majority of people have no idea how come something is fit for a museum and something is not. Some folks do not understand why there is such a thing as a modern arts museum.

Film was certainly not considered art when it was first conceived. I think it took until the efforts of Man Ray and Dali and the like to lift it over the status of idle entertainment.

Let’s look at videogames. They’re certainly very hard to make, so it takes effort. They can be beautiful and indeed, beautiful games are often cited as examples when thinking of artistic videogames. You could easily call Flower or Shadow of the Colossus or Rez just because they’re really nice to look at and listen.

Or maybe you’d look at how they’re commenting the world they’re spawning from. Does art need to deliver a message? No, but if we think it must, there are plenty of games with messages. Take all of the above, and maybe add the Metal Gear Solid series to the mix, or Far Cry 2.

Is it because we’re creating an entertainment product that it’s seen as less valuable? Surely we’re no less important than whatever Hollywood is churning out, or whatever’s on the pop charts today.

If you look at all the people you need to make a videogame, a lot of those professionals certainly see themselves as artists, even if they’re working on the annual instalment of a sports game. Coders often speak of their work as art. Artists can spend days working on a reflection if you don’t put them on a timer (you should). Designers write about the meaning of games all the time.

As a producer, I want to make games that matter to me. I am pouring way more than my nine to five to my work. I care about it. So does the vast majority of the people I work with. We may not call ourselves artists, but honestly, I see very little difference in the work of my crew and, say, a film crew.

Art is whatever the creator thinks is art. If the creator is just making things to sell them, that’s not art. (A lot of videogames are this way, but fewer than what you might think.) You cannot argue about this. You can limit your own view of art to whatever you’re comfortable with, but that doesn’t mean the artistic value of the things you choose to exclude is diminished in any way. Yes, this means that anyone can be an artist. Everyone should be an artist!

There is still “good” art and “bad” art and good products and bad products. But we are so far beyond the point of videogames not being art, it’s going to look really ridiculous in retrospect that we’re still talking about this, much less apologizing for the state games are in.

A videogame’s publisher almost always views the game as a thing to sell, a product. That does not take away its value as art in any way. It merely makes it accessible to more people.

Oh and about those games I’ve been playing? On the PC, Gratuitous Space Battles. It is so awesome, I wish I’d made it myself. On the PS3, Demon’s Souls. On the PSP, Peace Walker. On the 360, getting closure on a bunch of unifnished games (Fable II, GRAW). With real people, I’ve been running Dark Heresy and I’ve been playing an RPG as well in a glorious campaign spanning the whole 20th century, year by year.

I’d be comfortable saying several of those games are art.

Flashpunk project WIP

I’ve been learning my way around ActionScript 3 and the Flashpunk library for the past few days, inspired by a flight to Los Angeles some months back, and stumbling to the Flash Game Dojo.

This is my first foray to hobbyist game making in several years. It feels good to be creating stuff again. (I’ve also picked up drawing again lately. Summer holiday can do that to you.) I can see that my professional experience actually helps a lot with this leisure project – I have a much better idea of what to do and in what order than I used to. I don’t know whether I can get anywhere this time, but I don’t really care – it’s so much fun just to design it. Make games, people.

King's Bounty: The Legend

Complexity can be appealing. Steven Johnson explained it to me first in Everything Bad Is Good For You: videogames are appealing in large part because they’re hard. When you set playing a new game, you often have very little idea of how it all hangs together. Figuring out the system is a large part of the fun. I regularly lose interest in a game once the underlying system is completely revealed or it seems a safe bet that I already know what’s coming next.

I’ve played quite a bit of Heroes Of Might & Magic and Disciples II. King’s Bounty: The Legend is very much like those titles. Why I became fascinated with it is two-fold: first, it’s complex and second, it’s gorgeous. Complexity in itself is enough to get me interested, but often is not enough – Dwarf Fortress, you’re alluring, but you’re impenetrable to me.

You play the commander of an army and explore a strange (in this case, crazy) fantasy world. You recruit troops and take on enemies to complete quests. Battles play out on a hex grid, turn-based.

My royal treasure hunter commander in King’s Bounty has a wife travelling with the army. I can turn her into a zombie with a magic word, but she doesn’t like it. When she’s not a zombie, she makes my robbers and pirates fight harder, but when she’s a zombie, she’s a boon to my undead troops. We have two children, who take up two of her precious inventory slots. The other child is an exemplary learner, benefiting the whole army, and the other child is very angry, again setting an example to my men. If I want another wife (say, the pirate lady I met on the beach), I’m going to have to divorce her. These being modern times, she’s taking one fifth of my money with her. Some of my troops don’t like each other (or my wife, I’m not sure about that) – especially the undead make the others nervous. Some of my items are aware. When their morale drops too low due to excessive use, I have to go into the object and fight it to return it to form. I can also go into objects and fight them to unlock new abilities. I have this chest of Rage I found and accidentally bound to myself. It has four spirits in it. I need to talk to them to get them on my side and then use them in battles to upgrade their abilities.

The game world is largely non-linear, requiring you to size up your opposition before taking them on. At times the gameplay becomes a hunt for opponents you can beat to stock up on experience and loot, which may be scarce if you haven’t been careful, because the game world’s resources are finite. There are only so many men, money, scrolls and easy enemies to go around and you need to pay attention to juggle it all. It feels like you could play yourself into a corner if you’re not careful.

This means that your army is always in flux, because in most fights you’ll lose some guys and there is no infinite well of bowmen or snakes or bears or vampires to restock from. Eventually you’ll need to replace the bowmen with skeleton archers and the other, living troops don’t really like the undead, so what do you do? You go hunting for some coffins to pull vampires out from to replace your knights, who you’ll need to go garrison in a castle.

It’s complex and gorgeous and difficult enough to keep me coming back for more. I’m not even one third done with the game yet and already I’m looking at the sequel – Armored Princess, awesome name – in anticipation of the new twists it brings. No more hunting for wives because you’re a princess, but you have a pet dragon to train. Awesome.

Remember Tomorrow

Remember Tomorrow is a new game by BoxNinja, aka Gregor Hutton, the author of Threesixteen (3:16). It’s available both in print and as a PDF.

While cyberpunk roleplaying games exist, they are nothing like the works that inspired them. Cyberpunk games tend to be about accumulating stuff, blowing up people and to a lesser degree, looking good doing it. There is nothing wrong with that – and I’ve enjoyed untold hours of that seminal game, R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 – but it’s nothing like the cyberpunk literature it imitates. Cyberpunk games went out of style circa 1995, but science fiction literature very much like the original cyberpunk works (a very small, select group) is very much alive and kicking. My most recent favourite is Richard Morgan.

Reading Gibson, a world of intertwining, tragic destinies, planehopping around the globe, chemical-addled violence and poetic justice is unveiled like a slowly loading JPEG image in 1995. Playing Cyberpunk or Shadowrun or Cyberspace, I mostly wonder about damage rolls and initiative and surviving through the combat-heavy mission, whatever it is. It’s like you’re playing the uninteresting stuff behind the scenes, or only the climaxes of the story. My memories are of shopping lists of guns and implants and software, not characters.

Remember Tomorrow sets out to recreate those literary experiences. It manages to do this without the need for preparation before a game… or a GM (game master). The game is improvised and it provides very good tools to help with that.

The game starts with the creation of characters and factions. Each player introduces one character and one faction (an AI, a gang, a corporation, a nation, …). All of these entities have some pull on the world and a goal. The game is about meeting those goals. All of the character attributes relate to the goals: how Ready, Able and Willing they are to reach their goal? Most scenes are about a character becoming (or failing to become) more Ready, Willing or Able to reach their goal.

One player at a time is the Controller, who frames the next scene – and everyone is welcome to propose and request scenes, depending on what they’re doing – and plays the part of the antagonist: they decide which of the player characters is in for trouble and who’s bringing it. In most cases, the Controller brings in a faction in a conflict with one PC, but that could also be PC versus PC or groups of PCs versus others. After the scene, the Controller role shifts to the next player. The Controller wants to bring in the factions and hostile PCs because he’s rewarded for doing so, helping him achieve his own PC’s goal.

Scenes are structured with very definite outcomes. In most cases the Controller is trying to either take away levels of Ready/Willing/Able from a PC or affect him with negative conditions: Injured, Destitute, Confused and so on – they’re not arbitrary, instead there’s a short list on the character sheet of the possible positive and negative conditions. As a result of a conflict scene, someone’s power is increased and another’s decreased. If through roleplaying the situation develops so that a conflict doesn’t make sense anymore, the scene is left as a color scene, again with defined results. There are no separate combat rules or anything of the sort.

Due to the focus on character goals, I think that the game is going to places very briskly. An episode is considered done when three characters have exited – having been written out due to meeting their goal or dying of injuries or any other reason. The mechanics do not force the goals to become intertwined in the end, but I get the feeling that in most cases they will be, thanks to how the introduction and scene mechanics work.

It feels like a game which should work really well, provided that the players are into improvising a cool cyberpunk tale together. I’m itching to try it out and hopefully will get a chance before my holiday is through.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

I never learned how to play Metal Gear despite finishing several titles from the series. Peace Walker teaches you how to play Metal Gear properly, and it feels good to finally be on even terms with the series.

It’s quite simple, really: all the missions are split into short segments and you can choose to replay past missions. You’re being graded for your performance, the main criteria being speed and secondary how few alarms you’ve raised, how few kills you’ve made and how few enemies you’ve left dying (as opposed to hauling them away to your base for care). Acting violently decreases your heroism score, which affects how many new recruits you get, but it’s usually the easy way out to just shoot your way out of trouble.

But the thing is, you know killing is not the right way to do it, and while you can progress in the story by clearing a path with bullets, you’ll be back to perfect your scores. In past games triggering an alarm was frustrating, because the enemies would just keep coming. This time you’ll kill a few and that’s it. It’s also usually a viable option to just leg it, hide yourself and wait for things to calm down. The enemy is quite good at flushing you out, but playing smart it’s entirely possible to evade capture.

The outcome is that you learn how to sneak aggressively, taking out enemies on your way without killing them and always remaining unseen. And it’s voluntary – the game does not force it on you, rather, it rewards it.

This structure alone would make me consider Peace Walker an important title in the series, but it’s got a lot more going for it, as well. Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops was an interesting title with lots of problems, the main ones being that the soldier collection mechanic was tedious to use – you had to physically carry every knocked out soldier to the exit – and the controls were more or less broken.

Peace Walker fixes both of these issues with instant evacuation (via a balloon) and shifting the camera controls to the face buttons, in addition to a host of usability improvements. The inventory is now large enough, for instance. It works really very well, I’ve only cursed the controls a bit in up close and personal combat – which always means you’ve messed up anyway – and during some of the boss fights.

The soldier collection is actually a key part of the game. You’re assembling an army, building a base and researching technology. Set in the 1960s in South America, you’re playing as Big Boss (as in Portable Ops) and very quickly it turns out you’ll be putting together Outer Heaven, the legendary mercenary state featured in pretty much all of the previous Metal Gear titles, being the setting of the original game (Metal Gear, 1987) which Solid Snake is infiltrating (to take out Big Boss). If you’re a Metal Gear fan at all, this is very exciting stuff! The Metal Gear universe had got so convoluted by the time of Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008) that I wasn’t really keeping up any more despite being a fan, and it’s great to reconnect with the series this way. It feels like you’re re-enacting history, if you’ve spent a lot of time with the series.

The oft-ridiculed Metal Gear gameplay to exposition ratio is better than at any time before in the series. Generally, you get a cutscene every few missions and while some of them are a bit lengthy, they don’t get tedious. Some are interactive. The comic book style used is gorgeous throughout. Missions generally are never interrupted by plot. When you’re playing, you’re playing, and for once the Konami designers have allowed the gameplay to shine on its own. There’s plenty of variety on offer. While the levels are relatively straightforward, you usually have at least two routes through them, exploration is rewarded, and you always have options on how to handle enemies on your way, depending on positions, time available and what equipment you kitted out with when embarking on the mission.

The Southern America setting and the 60s vibe with Ashley Wood’s lively, animated comic book cutscenes contribute in a major way to the strong mood.

As we’re just past the halfway mark, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is a strong contender for game of the year.

Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer

Brütal Legend

Alan Wake (Xbox 360)

Alan Wake finally came out and for me, it was well worth the wait. Top of the line storytelling all through, with unparalleled pacing and cinematic conventions. Great setting, great writing, great characters and good gameplay. It could have used a bit more variety in the combat mechanics towards the end, but aside from that, this is one of the best adventures I’ve been on in years. One of the setpieces is an instant classic (the farm fields), and the other scenes don’t fare much worse. They have clearly cut all the fat and only kept the very best parts. Remedy are really the masters in what they do. Must play, if you have a 360.

I’ve recently been replaying Max Payne 2, and everything that’s great about Wake is evident there. It may be hard to recall what an ambitious step in storytelling the sequel to Max Payne was, despite a short development time. If you’re thinking about a revisit, for a seven-year old game, on the PC it has stood up graphically amazingly well.

Dead Or Alive 4 (Xbox 360)

I initially disliked (whoah, four years already!) DOA4 because the computer is super hard. But this time I stuck to my guns and learned how to play it. It’s easily the best title in the series, in every way an evolution. I’ve been playing single player and grown to not be frustrated with the CPU. My wife has become rather proficient in it, as well, usually soundly beating me. (I think I’m thinking too much.)

I’ve also played some online, but that’s just harsh. The guys still online are way too hardcore for me.

Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer (Nintendo DS)

All the way from 1995, this DS port of a 15-year old SNES game just sucks me in. It’s a graphical, less complex roguelike, which does not make it the slightest bit forgiving. A really hardcore experience, you’re supposed to perish dozens if not hundreds of times before making it to the end. Every time you die, you start from the beginning, although if you’re clever, you can carry over some of the stuff you’ve accumulated in your previous adventures. The narrow scope with lots of depth makes it very compulsive to play.

Soul Calibur Broken Destiny (PSP)

Still a great game. Both the fighting and the character building are fun and really at home on the PSP. If you have a PSP and like fighters at all, I’d say it’s a must have, even if you don’t have anyone to play it with locally.

Brütal Legend (PS3)

Tim Schafer’s heavy metal tribute is built for guys of my age (born in late 70s). I can’t help but smile! Right from the start menu, you’re in a world of metal, and it feels good. The writing is very good, often laugh out loud funny, and very well acted. The gameplay works, although it isn’t anything really special. If you’re into metal, you need this game.

Frozen Synapse

Sins Of A Solar Empire

Dark Heresy (tabletop)

Who knows, maybe I should see some people during the summer, too. The campaign has started off strong and I’m beginning to get a good ol’ RPG buzz. Who knew playing space fascists could be so much fun?

Space Hulk (tabletop)

It’s still a great game.

Descent (tabletop)

It satisfies my dungeon delving urges. Oh and since first covering the game, I’ve come to realize that it’s not so difficult when you play by the rules. Our adventurers have been getting way too few magical treasures. You’re supposed to award everyone in the party with the magical loot when you open treasure chests, not just the guy opening the chest, illogical as that may be.

Frozen Synapse (PC)

I’ve been playing this independent PC strategy game for quite a bit. It’s the only multiplayer strategy game I like. It’s still in alpha and if they manage a proper release sometime, I’m sure to spend lots of time with it. Even if they don’t, I’ve already been entertained enough.

You are commanding a small team of guys with guns, about to assault a small area held by another, like-minded team. The goals vary from elimination to sector control and hostage rescue.

It’s built as simultaneous, turn-based tactics. You make a plan and hit execute. When your opponent has submitted his turn, the results are played back in real-time. It is compulsive stuff – usually you have half a dozen games going at the same time, and the results keep chiming into your in-game inbox as you’re planning the previous game. You can easily play several complete games in one sitting, if your opponent is online. The matches are usually just a handful of turns.

It could use more work on the user interface and benefit from some wrapper. I’m all for abstract vector graphics guys shooting at each other, but it feels so much like the planning stage of the early Rainbow Six titles (which I loved) that I can’t help but think how much better it would be with a real-world backdrop.

Sins Of A Solar Empire (PC)

What a great name for a game! This is a space strategy title from some years back. It’s by the Homeworld guys and that shows – it’s just gorgeous to look at. I generally loathe these kinds of big strategy games, especially in real-time, because I like to be able to concentrate on what I’m doing, but Sins gets it just right. Even though it’s real-time, the pace is glacial, especially in the beginning. Space fleets just don’t get around all that fast.

If you’re interested in user interface design at any level, you need to play this game. Most of why it’s so accessible is because of the UI keeping you up to date with everything that’s going on in the galaxy, giving you just the amount of information you need and enabling you to give critical commands to the other side of the known space without moving your view from wherever you are. It’s stellar stuff, really.

Sins is the only real-time strategy I know of where I don’t feel like I could do with another pair of eyes and hands.

Final Fantasy XII (PS2)

I’ve continued my conquering of Final Fantasy XII. People who think that games of past generation look too crap on your new fancy HDTVs should plug this in – it’s still divine! What a great game. Too bad about the lackluster characters (especially the lead guy), but the game system is absolutely the best package seen to date from the JRPG field.

I went to my first Electronic Entertainment Expo this year. Los Angeles was loud, slow and relatively cold, with only the rioting Lakers fans generating some excitement outside of the show. I don’t much care for the city. We stayed in Santa Monica, which is a lot nicer, but the over one-hour transits on the freeway to pretty much anywhere begin to grate in no time at all.

As for the show proper, there were definite highlights and definite disappointments.

Bad: Front Mission Evolved

I am a sucker for mecha and I’m sad to say that it looks like there’s no way I’ll be picking up Front Mission Evolved, not unless it comes with Front Mission 3. Everything from the handling to the setting to the mech designs and animation was seriously lacklustre. It’s a shame.

Bad: Twisted Metal

The new Twisted Metal looked like it was from the previous generation. Barebones arenas with little effects or satisfying destruction going on, it feels like it’s trying to ride on its bygone charms alone.

Bad: MotorStorm Apocalypse

MotorStorm Apocalypse in 3D should have been a wild ride, but turned out to be a poor framerate show of questionable worth. Some of the rollercoaster pacing was spot on, but overall I wasn’t impressed at all. The story mode does sound intriguing, though, and I’ve been expecting them to deliver on the initial promise of the franchise for three games now. Still one to watch.

Bad: 3D | Good: Nintendo 3DS

Speaking of 3D, I am not impressed. Some of the games are nice enough, but they really need to be 60 FPS to work. Super Stardust HD and Gran Turismo 5 are probably the best examples so far. But you won’t see me wearing a pair of glasses.

Which is one of the main reasons that the Nintendo 3DS was so impressive. No glasses required, great 3D effect, some great demos. Pilotwings was the best one. I am likely going to finally upgrade my DS Phat. Sony and Apple have some catch-up to do!

Bad: movement

Both Microsoft Kinect and Sony Move failed to generate much buzz. Not very surprising as there were no proper games on show. Out of Kinect only Ubisoft’s yoga exercise program and Harmonix’s Dance Central seemed to interest people. Somebody did mention Kinectimals in a positive manner, but that’s about it. I didn’t see anything I would’ve been interested in on Move.

Bad: Epic Mickey

Epic Mickey was featured in a major way, with a huge booth, plenty of demo pods and live performances. Too bad the actual gameplay failed to interest at all. It doesn’t help that it’s on the Wii – the lack of HD is beginning to really hurt Wii. (Some of the Nintendo booths did have very high quality visuals, though, I can’t figure out how they did that.) When it looks and feels like a barebones platformer, it’s hard to get that much into it. But then it might be a game which just needs more time than what you get at an expo.

Good: Dance Central

Kinect was going to play host to a good dance game and I’m super glad that it’s Harmonix doing it. I am a Rock Band fanboy and in my eyes Harmonix can do no wrong. There was a very nice buzz to the title. It feels like a title I might have to get and it’s the only Kinect game which felt like a potential system seller to me. But that’s mainly due to Harmonix’s pedigree, too early to say how it’s going to properly work. But four friends dancing together and Harmonix’s taste in music – it probably can’t go wrong.

Good: Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2

Need For Speed has been on the wane for years now, the golden days of Underground and the original Hot Pursuit a fading memory. EA has now put Criterion on lifeguard duty and what do you know – returning to Hot Pursuit, the game the fans have been crying out for for years now, seems to work. The game mechanics aren’t quite there yet, but it sure looks and feels nice. The handling isn’t as twitchy as Burnout, but a huge improvement over the previous NFS titles nevertheless (Shift excluded). The simple cops versus racers scenario just works.

Super good: Vanquish

Game of the show for me was Platinum Games’ Vanquish. Whereas Tecmo Koei’s Quantum Theory looks like a poorly deconstructed rip-off of Gears Of War, Shinji Mikami’s new title is Gears on amphetamine. It’s a sci-fi third person shooter, but this kind of speed and spectacle is not on offer anywhere else. Apparently the section on display was the first level of the game and I find it very hard to imagine the action becoming even more intense later on. Everything in the game is a sci-fi off-white, and yet it looks more spectacular than anything else on show. Certainly the days of Japanese developers not being able to wring power out of the current-gen consoles are over.

I got the download version from Direct 2 Drive. I do wonder what's going to happen to cover art in a few years.

I’m not talking about the sequel and no, it’s not 2007 (or 2008, when the Enhanced Edition was released) all over again. I have a bit of a backlog I’m trying to clear here. Clearing old PC titles is good for the wallet and if you pick your moment right in the technological curve, delightful, as the titles some 3-4 years back run very well and in this case look rather nice, as well.

The Witcher is a special case in that what they’re now selling is an enhanced, “director’s cut” version. It comes with partially rewritten and re-recorded dialogue, among other things. This strikes me as an odd thing to do for an enhanced edition, but if the level of quality present here noticeably exceeds that of the original, I am horrified of what the players of the original version have had to suffer. Not that there aren’t other things which could have used a tune-up: the character models border on the hideous (save for the protagonist, who’s very cool, actually) and the combat feels unresponsive. I’ve done plenty of it and I still can’t figure out how the fist fighting (as opposed to mortal, armed combat) is supposed to work. And not that the combat is the sole culprit here – the whole experience is somewhat unresponsive.

But none of that matters all that much, really. The game world is refreshingly rough around the edges – sexism is evident everywhere, peasant lives aren’t worth much anything, angry mobs rule the countryside. Elves and dwarves are present, but oppressed by the racist humans to the point that they’re fighting back guerrilla-style. The protagonist is a genetic freak, often referred to as a mutant, looking like a vampire. His manner is not that of a hero – he’s a monster hunter by trade and will certainly part with as much of the customer’s money as he can. Also, he really goes out of his way to bed every woman he comes across.

There are moral choices to be made and contrary to what you’ve come to expect from many other titles, the choices often are not black and white. You might lean towards one way or the other, but the game makes sure that you understand that it’s by no means a clear cut decision. Also, they make you accountable for stuff that you’ve done quite a ways in the past. It’s not always clear what your choice is going to result in.

It’s very much new and precious to play someone so far from what we’ve come to expect from a fantasy roleplaying game’s hero. Here’s to hoping that the sequel doesn’t tone things down one bit.