I’m wrapping up Fallout 3 and have been thinking a lot about it. It’s not my Game of the Year and I did not find it as captivating as Oblivion, but I did enjoy it thoroughly for about forty hours. The fact that I did actually play it for forty hours should be testament to that. Anybody who has talked about the nuts and bolts of design with me knows that I’m a kool-aid drinker of the MDA framework. And I think this will help describe where I think the game left me hanging.

When you choose a setting of a post-apocalyptic nature, scavenging/collecting seems to be a natural play aesthetic to work towards. Bethesda even embraced this play type in Oblivion with their Thieves Guild to great effect, weaving it into the narrative.

Fallout presents the following mechanics:

1. Money is necessary to buy equipment needed for the rest of the game.
2. There are many items in the world which have value.
3. You can steal about any item in the game that isn’t tied down.
4. There are many merchants in the game who will trade scavenged items for money and goods.
5. You have a weight limit of items you can carry, but you can carry a large amount of items.
6. Money and other key items have no weight.
7. You can only safely steal when you are not being watched.
8. You lose karma when stealing as opposed to simply scavenging from dead bodies. The karma hit is small.

The first point is the most important to notice. Where in Oblivion, there were numerous quests that give money and loot, this is less-so in Fallout. Thus, these mechanics lead to a dynamic where every player is constantly looting the world for whatever they can find, carrying to the maximum weight limit, selling and repeating. Thanks to points seven & eight, there is little recourse to the character for acting in this way. Point six is more troublesome.

Now, here’s the rub. Because this dynamic system is necessary, it creates a certain kind of economy for every player. The cost of salvaging goods is low: it takes very little labor to steal, it takes very little labor to sell, the fruit is low hanging and abundant. But the reward for salvaging goods is quite high: simply completing quests and visiting dungeons for a few hours gives you the resources to buy anything in the game. In a functioning economy, either the cost for salvaging the goods would go up or the supply of salvageable goods would go down.

It’s quite possible that the unique skill the player possesses of being able to kick ass with ease allows for an economic advantage over everyone else in the Wasteland. As this may be, it still allows the player to be the richest person in the world using only a few game-days work.

This system existed to an extent in Oblivion, yet the addition of one mechanic changed the entire dynamic system: stolen goods must be sold to fences. This simple mechanic drastically increased the cost of doing business as not only did it decrease the margins for stealing goods, but it decreased the availability of the player’s inventory for useless items unless they were planning on passing near a fence.

What happened in Fallout for me was that the aesthetic of living a scrapping scavenger’s life was valid until I had about 4000 caps, at which time I had the capital to buy whatever I wanted. After that, the aesthetic (which was supported by the setting strongly) was ruined.

There is no easy solution to the dynamic imbalance, but there are many jumping off points which could (and may have! Don’t assume!) been playtested:

• Give money weight. This may cause a ceiling in scavenging where the player has to balance between weight dedicated to items used for survival and those used for profit.
• Make crucial items more expensive. I find it hard to believe that ammo and scrap metal are roughly the same value in a dangerous post-apocalyptic society. Why ammo itself isn’t the de facto currency, I imagine is more of a implementation issue. If I had to spend my entire haul to prepare for my next adventure, I wouldn’t be flush with cash.
• Give ammo and stimpak’s weight. To that end, I found myself trading junk for stimpaks when the merchant ran out of money because I could carry an infinite amount of them and they were always useful.
• Make leveling cost money. Set up “master trainers” as they were in Oblivion, but give them a high price to teach your character the next level’s perks.

Scavenging isn’t the end-all play style in Fallout, but it seems with the setting that it would be a reasonable choice.

“A recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a depression is when you lose yours.” – Harry S Truman

Well, my recession just turned into a depression as almost four years at Tiburon came to a close today. I won’t comment on it as it isn’t a very good idea, but I figured I’d let my readers know out of full disclosure. I haven’t decided what I am going to do next – move out of Orlando and find a new studio and give up the great living conditions and friends that I have in Orlando or move out of the industry, let the dream die and stay where it is warm and safe. I’ll keep everyone updated.

I guess I’ll have more time to post. If any of you all know somewhere that is looking for a mint condition designer, you know how to find me – my email address is on every page.

I said on New Year’s that I thought this would be my year for great things. Maybe it will be.

Ford and Honda are turning fuel-efficiency into a video game by adding more dashboard feedback on hypermiling techniques.

I was going to comment, but the last lines of the article sum it up for me:

“If you make it too much like a game, you’ll have people concentrating on the game and not on the road,” he says. “If you’re driving and thinking only about the environment, you’re going to smack into a tree.”

I’m all for constructive feedback presentation and I like the subtlety of Honda’s changing background color, but I already feel particularly distracted with my XM radio / GPS and it’s 900 features, especially with Florida’s insane drivers who love to signal after they start turning. God forbid they start looking at their fuel economy while blindly switching lanes.

I lied in the earlier post, which I seem to be doing more and more often. I’m not doing a Games of 2008 list until I whittle down my queue. It doesn’t feel right.

Have you seen Gamasutra’s Top 5 Indie Games post? I think by “indie” they mean “done gratis”, since the more popular 2008 indie games got plenty of love on some of their other lists. I was surprised that I had actually heard of all five and played four of them. Check it out as everything on that list that I can vouch for was excellent and free.

I downloaded Everybody Dies but haven’t found the heart to boot it up. Every time I play a text adventure I enjoy it, but it usually goes something like this:

You see something odd on top of the bookshelf.

> x bookshelf
You see a dusty, old bookshelf with something on top.

> x thing
I don't understand 'thing'.

> look top of bookshelf
I don't understand 'top'

> jump
I don't think that will help.

> climb bookshelf
I don't think that will help.

> yes it will
I don't understand.

> you suck
That's inappropriate.

> you are right, I am sorry
You can't take it back. I am offended.

> no, I really didn't mean it. i just get frustrated sometimes. you know how work has been.
I'm sorry. I'm going to need some time.

> wait
Time passes.

> take thing on top of bookshelf
I don't understand 'thing'.

> quit

YOU HAVE BEEN TRANSPORTED FAR INTO THE FUTURE TO THE YEAR 2009 WHERE:

EVERYONE WEARS 3D GLASSES
MUSIC IS MADE ON SYNTHETIC INSTRUMENTS
ONLY ONE WOMAN REMAINS

So every site in the world is crowing about what they thought was best. That’s really useful if there are games on the list you haven’t played, but worthless if they spend the whole time drooling over GTA4. Kotaku listed a summary of major/minor sources’ GOTY choices. Of note is the complete absence of Gears of War 2, Super Smash Brothers Brawl and Wrath of the Lich King. If each source had a vote in a kind of AP poll of Games of the Year, being able to rank 1-25, that might be interesting. Unfortunately, no one with a voice has come up with it. Additionally the Kotaku post is missing input from my two paragons of gaming opinion: Penny Arcade and MTV Multiplayer.

Since my utility from these lists is derived from finding hidden gems, I personally forego the One Game To Rule Them All format and give a short list (3-5 titles) that really “did it” for me that year by being particularly innovative and/or just by sticking in my craw and being unforgettable.

For history’s sake, here are the previous lists: (Also: Can you believe I kept some sort of blog since 2001?)

2001 – Halo, Ico
2002 – Splinter Cell, Jet Set Radio Future
2003 – Disgaea, Beyond Good and Evil
2004 – Katamari Damacy, Burnout 3: Takedown
2005 – Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, Psychonauts, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Meteos
2006 – Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Dead Rising, Guitar Hero II
2007 – Portal, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, Passage, Bioshock

Last year, I had to craft a longer “short” list before narrowing it down to the above four.

I will do the same here, but today I start with some tongue-in-cheek titles like I did in this article last year.

First, the snarky bits since I am on the Internet where no one thinks about being nice before typing. Last year I made up the following awards:

2007:
Most Underrated Overrated Game: Halo 3
Most Underrated Underrated Game: Assassin’s Creed
Most Overrated Overrated Game: Super Mario Galaxy
Most Overrated Underrated Game: Flow

But in retrospect the names were a little tough to parse. “Most Underrated Overrated” means that it was a game the public/press decried as overrated, but was actually pretty good. “Most Underrated Underrated” meant a game that wasn’t proclaimed a Game of the Year by anyone, but probably should have been. “Most Overrated Overrated” meant a game that had a ridiculously high Metacritic compared to the actual consensus quality of the game as measured by enthusiasm post-launch period. And the last category was a game that everyone said was underrated even though everybody knew about it and wouldn’t shut up about it.

These kudos were actually a lot harder to come up with than the games of the year since their overratedness or underratedness is relative to expectations. Regardless:

Most Underrated Overrated Game (aka Great-Game-That-Didn’t-Meet-Public-Expectations): Burnout Paradise

Public reception seemed to be blasé about Paradise but I found it not only to be innovative in terms of game design and user interface but innovative in terms of content delivery with their DLC packages. It’s a damn fun game that I have never seen mentioned on any Game of the Year posts. It has flaws, but it provides the core Burnout experience in a fun, new way. I think it lost megapoints by not including a Crash mode. Certainly that was my favorite mode in Takedown and I am hoping it comes back in future installments. A Crash mode at user-defined points in Paradise City seems both feasible and filled with potential, especially given the shared-with-friends aesthetic that they tried to hit. If you didn’t try Paradise, you missed out.

Most Underrated Underrated Game (aka Great-Game-That-Even-The-Bloggers-Mostly Missed): Valkryia Chronicles

I feel wrong giving out this title to a game I haven’t yet finished considering the many other capable titles available (Etrian Odyssey 2, King’s Bounty: The Legend, Pixeljunk Eden), but I am going to even with only 50% completion. The game not only molds together tactical RPG with light elements of the precision FPS, but it avoids what turns me off on most strategy games by changing mechanics in every chapter. Very few fights are similar because in one you may have to take out a megatank that can obliterate your forces, in another you may have only a subset of your army, in another you may have to use the cover of sandstorms to move your army, and so forth. Each chapter brings something new and interesting and this is even in lieu of the beautiful cutscenes. The story could be better, but considering the game is Japanese, it could also be a lot, lot worse. I am generally surprised that this was released to no fanfare, especially given the drought of PS3 console exclusives. If you are interested in strategy RPGs at all, you owe this one a try.

Most Overrated Overrated Game (aka Mediocre-Game-That-Metacritic-Would-Have-You-Believe-Is-The-Second-Coming-Of-Christ): Grand Theft Auto 4 and Super Smash Brothers Brawl (tie!)

So this seems like an odd choice in the case of Brawl because it didn’t show up at all on the Kotaku List of Lists, but it had a 97 Metacritic for a very long time only to settle down to a 93 after some absentee ballots rolled in. Even with the dip, it is rated above most of the other GOTY contenders. Do this thought experiment: replace the beloved Nintendo characters with random IP that you have no attachment to. Is the game still good? Do you notice the vast camera issues? The control issues? The lack of polish (to be VERY generous) in the single player mode? No game with a 93 Metacritic was ever so riddled with basic flaws. Grand Theft Auto 4 is a much easier choice. Only 5/86 reviewers on Metacritic gave the game below a 90. 48/86 gave the game a perfect score. It is currently the top rated game on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. And unlike with Brawl, my quarrel is not that it isn’t a good game, but instead that it isn’t a perfect game.For every wow-neato moment, I had a similar and more powerful moment that both broke the illusion of the world and caused frustration and annoyance. The police that attempt to kill you if you brush up against them and that employ kamikaze techniques are probably the primary culprit that ruins the experience. The indestructible trees have been widely ridiculed but in a game whose primary kudos mention the “realness” of the world, it is the little things that do one in. For instance, don’t run into an officer on foot while in a drunken stupor or he will try to murder you in cold blood and there is damn little you can do about it. But I’m no nitpicker on minutiae – the meat of the game annoys me. It has the Wind Waker syndrome where 80% of the game is spent trying to get somewhere to do something interesting rather than having 80% of your time actually spent doing interesting things. Oblivion solved this systemic Morrowind problem by including fast travel. GTA has no analog. For every mission, you have to carefully (as to not upset the kamikaze kops) navigate across the world, checking your map multiple times only to get interrupted by calls from Cousin Roman when you are on the other side of the world. It’s a shame because the game has so many great moments hidden behind a veil of repetition and same-ness from earlier efforts in the series. Best game of all time? Not so much.

Most Overrated Underrated Game (aka Please-Just-Shut-Up-About-This-Already): Braid

Again, like with GTA, this criticism comes not because Braid is a poor game. I had a good deal of fun with it. Instead this comes from the legion of Braid followers that have been telling us for four years that this is gaming’s Citizen Kane and that it will not only change our perceptions of what games could be, but our very perceptions of life itself. I’m not making that last bit up, it was from a preview that I currently cannot place. While we didn’t get a new school of philosophy, we got a very capable and beautiful puzzle-platformer with a satisfying ending despite an incoherent and deeply pretentious story. Clever? Yes. Industry-changing? Not really. So can we stop talking about it now?

Extra snark awards:

Best Game Story Apparently Lifted From a 10-Year Old Boy’s Notebook Doodles: Metal Gear Solid 4

Seriously, I cannot stand the sites that praise this story. Histrionics, melodrama, and eye-rolling moments abound. It had the shit-blowing-up-factor of a Michael Bay movie with the meaningless philosophy of a coke addict’s ramblings. One comes to expect that from this series by now, so I wasn’t offended by it. I felt quite entertained by how ludicrous it was. What I am upset with are sites calling the writing “amazing” or “deep”. Neither words apply.

Best Game Starting with Q: Quantum of Solace
Worst Game Starting with Q: Quantum of Solace

Thanks to Matthew Gallant’s game list for this one.

Least Useful Name for a Game: Infinite Undiscovery

So what is the act of undiscovering something? Forgetting it? How can one be forgot to an infinite degree? And even if you answer that question, what the hell does that tell you about what the game is? A game’s title doesn’t have to be useful, but it should at least be coherent.

Okay, this post went on long enough. My top picks of the year come tomorrow with a big disclaimer that I haven’t played most of the top games of this year yet and will render a final verdict long after we stop forgetting that it isn’t 2008 when writing out our checks.

• Congrats to my CMU Game Design prof and all around interesting guy Jesse Schell on winning a GameDeveloper Front Line Award for his book I sinfully didn’t read yet.
• There’s a pretty fantastic interview up with Popcap’s Jason Kapalka on Gamasutra regarding design decisions with Bejeweled Twist. I wish I had more time to comment on it, but there are so many notions in there that I agree with, particularly about taking things out that people profess to want and a throwaway comment on visual cues that I found insightful.
• Apple is so easy to make fun of, but I still like their products. Keyboards have a pretty high barrier to entry when you think about it. If we were designing them today instead of lifting from the familiarity of typewriters, would they be similar to what we use today?
• Playing a theremin is pretty difficult, so using one to ace a Rock Band song is killer.

Post with actual content coming either tonight or tomorrow. Been fairly busy lately.

Happy New Year, blogotronics.

I know I shouldn’t get too excited about the Pitt Panthers being declared the best team in the land this week. They play in the Big East (who makes up 36% of the ranked teams!) and there will be room for at least three to five conference losses in there. Tempered expectations is what being a Pittsburgh native is all about. #1 is a fleeting award, but it is very nice to see them on top for the first time in history. Go Panthers!

I totally lied about getting the last part in my iPhone review series up by Christmas, so that is coming. Also, a summary of some of the best reads I had in 2008 since there are some items I highly recommend to anyone with similar tastes. My gaming backlog is ginormous thanks to the holiday glut which will likely include:

• Fallout 3 (Currently Playing)
• Valkyria Chronicles (Currently Playing)
• Prince of Persia
• Disgaea 3
• Far Cry 2
• World of Goo
• Witcher: Extra Witching Edition
• Fable 2
• and always more Left 4 Dead

I have to get through most of those before I can even come close to opining on the best of the year, but I will likely do a preliminary round shortly as not to be the last one out. Last year was so much easier even though there were so many great games. Why is that? Peter Molyneux is probably right that 2009 will be pretty quiet (I personally think that 2010-2011 will be worse) so hopefully the flotsam and jetsam of the winter explosion will keep me afloat until mid-year. Did you know that Skate 2, Godfather 2, & Resident Evil 5 come out during the first quarter of the year?

Have I missed anything?