Contract Killer

"Yeah, and let's not kid ourselves. If you sell a game that's a first-person shooter, then no matter how many RPG elements you shoe-horn into the game, the shadow that hangs over every character interaction that you have, no matter who they are, is the question in the player's mind of "What happens if I shoot this person?"

And that's our own fault! We've sold the player that; we've made a contract with the player that says it's okay to kill people. Why would we then chastise them for exploring that?"

-- Patrick Redding, narrative designer

Are We Gonna Be Together?

Keeping an eye on our local BioShock sidebar poll here, I'm actually fairly surprised at what an overwhelming percentage of you are Little Sister rescuers. I think the SVGL audience skews more empathetic than the average core gamer, judging by the discussions we have here -- but even still!

I find the results especially surprising because of all the talk I've heard around the Little Sister choice in the games -- people always say it's not really a "choice" since you receive a gameplay benefit in either case, or because it doesn't change much about the story save for the ending; people find them creepy AIs, not cute little people at the crux of a meaningful moral conflict, blah blah. If all that is so, why do so many of you care?

I killed all the Little Sisters in the first BioShock. To me, to do so seemed to suit the narrative better -- I was a faceless stranger in a man-eat-man world. I liked the repellent desperation that made Rapture so lawless, and so amoral was its world I thought I'd play along. Did I feel good about doing it? Not exactly, but to make my decisions based on a hunger for power felt appropriate for the story.

And I've always maintained I had a better experience in the first game because of it. When the things I was led to believe came crashing down, having to face what I'd done made the story's later revelations more of a gutpunch. Arriving at Tennenbaum's safehouse as a Little Sister killer was one of the most memorable gaming experiences I'd had that year. One thing I wish is that the game could have given me the opportunity to redeem myself, to start handling the little sisters as fellow victims instead of as prey once I knew what the real deal was -- but then, that might have violated the game's message of "no real agency".

I am hesitant to say much yet about BioShock 2 because I'm doing a review for Paste, but I'll say that the choice felt much different to me this time. Although the harvest-or-rescue decision is more nuanced and complex from a gameplay perspective, it seems not a decision at all from a narrative standpoint -- in the first BioShock, it felt equally realistic to take either path. In the second, I personally find it implausible to do anything but rescue. But maybe that's just me.

It does bring me to an interesting point: What's your motivation when you play a video game that allows you some agency? Are you writing a story and creating a character? Or are you using the medium of interactivity to express your own self -- and see how the environment responds to you?

What determines your harvest-or-rescue decision, for example -- something inside the game, or something inside of you?

Bonus Content: Header image is this wallpaper.

August 2007, I write my Aberrant Gamer column for GameSetWatch on the original Little Sister choice and what creates emotional impact versus basic cost-benefit analysis.

August 2007, I write a different Aberrant Gamer column on the Little Sisters themselves, and the use of creepy girlchildren in survival horror.

September 2007, Aberrant Gamer deals with one of my favorite things about original BioShock: the character of Sander Cohen.

July 2008, at Kotaku EA boss John Riccitiello tells me that he, too, was a Little Sister killer.

Question Of The Week, February 18

A real life little sister needs adopting, big syringe and lamp-eyes and all. Do you accept?

Could you nurture her out of rooting around in corpses? Would you try to take her to a physician so she could be "rescued" from her gathering urge -- even if doctors would treat your lil' orphan like a freak? Would you adopt her just to harvest her for superpowers?

Serious question. I've also added a sidebar poll that quizzes you on your quintessential playing habits within the BioShock universe. I am playing 2 quite differently from 1, wherein I killed everything.

For some serious thoughts, read Michael Abbott's take on fatherhood in BioShock 2, and then read Chris Dahlen's apparently-opposing take (they are both for-realsies daddies, whereas I'm probably way more Tennenbaum than Lamb). I did not read their columns, because I didn't finish the game yet -- I'm neurotically spoiler-averse with games like BioShock. But you could, if you wanted to.

I'm going to try to make "question of the week" a regular feature here. I said "try." Today I just wanted an excuse to post this Little Sister picture:

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

[Wallpaper-sized edition of above is here]

No Sleep Til Brooklyn

Have you been playing BioShock 2, the "sequel to a game that didn't need a sequel?" So've I. No, it didn't need a sequel, but I'm glad it got one. I hope it gets several more. It could be the beginning of something awesome.

Don't worry, I'll be explaining at Gamasutra soon. No More Heroes didn't really need a sequel either, but it got one (and I was also glad of that). All I'll say for now is that we ought to get used to sequels to games that "don't need them" -- and that the trend could evolve into something very positive.

I'm busy all the time, especially with my staff at D.I.C.E. I suspect that what people do at D.I.C.E. is play a lot of poker and get supremely drunk. So in other words, it's like my life, except my life lacks poker (which I don't know how to play), and lacks me having to cover people's talks. Props to my colleague, Game Developer EIC Brandon Sheffield, who's already got a couple talks from Vegas up at Gamasutra: Astronaut and new-minted Facebook gaming boss Richard Garriott's sorta-critique of game narratives, and Davids Jaffe and Crane talking about their experiences in the evolution toward casual gaming -- Jaffe says Calling all Cars was "a mistake", thanks to "a casual theme with a hardcore mechanic on a machine people had paid $500 for. Nothing matched up."

Speaking of evolution, remember that whole "virtual worlds" thing, where everyone wanted to interact in browser-based 3D environments with avatars? That lasted like, 12-18 months, didn't it? I feel sorry for the venture capitalists that are still buying that line (and for Sony, which appears to have some very expensive lemons with which it must now make lemonade).

A couple years ago when I was running the inaugural Worlds in Motion Summit, I got up in front of a room of all these starry-eyed venture-funded kiddoes (ignore the awkward pic! I thought we were friends, Zonk!), and -- okay, it was a bit nervy for a journo to do -- demanded that they prove to me why I should believe in their promises of a 3D web, an avatar-based future. I was skeptical that anyone wanted a "3D web" or to "democratize content" or anything like that, and what I saw was a bunch of people who had actually gotten someone to fund their fantasy that Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash could be real.

A little bit thereafter at Austin GDC, where I had less involvement in the Summit, I told FreeToPlay.biz I thought Web 2.0-types should "evaluate their substance" and take more lessons from the gaming biz. Now it sure looks to me like a lot of the buzz and enthusiasm around so-called "virtual worlds" has been transmuted into iPhone and Facebook gaming.

Just look how many game developers have gone into those spaces: The dude who made Klax (read my interview with him!) A couple guys from Rockstar Leeds, who miss the sense of agency that comes with grass-roots bedroom coding. Flippin' Richard Garriott! Sid flippin' Meier is even putting Civ on flippin' Facebook!

This, this I am interested in -- especially when you see publishers like EA plainly state that they depend on success in this small-digital space for their survival.

I used to snicker a bit at dudes saying things like "Facebook is a virtual world." No, Facebook is a social network. Virtual worlds are also social networks, and it turns out that Facebook is a method much simpler and more intuitive for social networking. People just want to be connected to each other in the most accessible way possible. Nobody wants the Web to be a world, a game, an "environment" or a "user-generated content space." They just wanna get shit done.

I was one of the earliest business writers on Web 2.0 -- one of the earliest neutral ones, at least. I remember getting into arguments with other journalists at events: I'd argue that Second Life was only relevant to the people that "lived" in it, and they'd argue back how wrong I was. The argument would soon reveal that they owned a business selling virtual fashions in Second Life, or selling virtual kits that could make their avatars into hermaphrodites or whatever. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I think a very vocal super-minority made a lot of people feel like this avatar thing was way more important than it is.

I did say that I hoped that a lot of lessons from the virtual-everything gold rush got transmuted wisely into the larger games business, and I think that's happening. Some bubbles pop, some don't, but mostly what happens is a lot of subtle evolution. All of this industry fragmentation is really good both for core games and for social games. It's exciting, and I'm glad I don't have to interview anyone who uses their Second Life picture as a real picture anymore.

Playing Catch-Up, Again

I've been sick. I've been busy. And it's always sooooo much easier to tweet at you guys and reach out to you instantly than it is to write blog posts I don't get paid for. But you love SVGL, and SVGL loves you, and so we are doing science and we're still alive. What game was that again? Tsk, this industry, you know?

Anyway. I'm long overdue in pointing out to you a couple recent articles of mine you may have missed. Lately, I asked Ian Bogost what he thought of the indie scene -- we ask the same question of all IGF finalists over at Gamasutra (check 'em out so far; Bogost's will run soon). His answer was, "You mean the puzzle platformer scene? It's awesome, isn't it?"

Sad but true. It seems that brutally difficult platform games have become the new paradigm for genius. In my latest Gama editorial, I wondered whether there's a new trend going on -- how did "hard" become the new "good"?

You can't have missed my Kotaku feature, right? RIGHT? Well, if you did, you're in for a doozy. I write about Katawa Shoujo, the erotic novel about disabled girls that originated on 4chan. As I like to say, if you hated that I was okay with Bayonetta, you'll hate what I'm okay with now!

What about you guys? Favorite IGF nominees? Currently playing?

Character, Flaw?

Hello, SVGL friends -- long time no see! Busy as always, with some labors of which you'll hopefully see the fruit quite soon; the news pace has been picking up over at Gamasutra, too.

I'm still getting a lot of mileage out of Bayonetta, but Twitter followers know my favorite game in the universe right now is No More Heroes 2. I reviewed it at the AV Club, so those of you who have been waiting for more formalized thoughts from me besides "if you don't love it you probably just shouldn't ever talk to me again" and "no seriously listen this game is fucking brilliant"can read something that's hopefully a little more professional here.

I think that, according to scale, this is the overall highest rating I've ever given any video game that I had to score. No More Heroes had a mindblowing idea with a few weaknesses in its execution; those weaknesses didn't bother me as much as they seemed to bother others, but nonetheless I can appreciate a sequel that provides watertight solutions to previous flaws.

Speaking of which: I passed on Mass Effect 2; it's not the kind of experience that interests me. I don't really care for the "space opera" vein of science fiction, and I'm a little fatigued of dialogue trees. I can praise the first Mass Effect, which I did play at least for a good chunk of time, for how well-done it is, but I can't say I enjoyed it. Fortunately, there is Gamasutra's Chris Remo to offer you some thoughts on the ways Mass Effect 2 aimed to address the weaknesses of the original.

Back to No More Heroes 2. I've heard a lot of people say they feel that the newer, tighter trip to Santa Destroy loses some of the character that the first one had. Over at the Brainy Gamer, Michael Abbott has a thought-provoking articulation of this point of view. The perspective raises a couple questions for me.

I've always praised creative spirit over technical execution, maybe more than a professional reviewer ought. I'd always prefer a risky, high-impact experience with a lot of rough edges to a polished, fluid one that doesn't really shake the paradigm or feel artistic. I like distinctive auteurs, and Grasshopper's Suda51 is on my very short list.

I wonder if we've come to associate creativity with visible flaws? Does something with clumsy bits in it seem scrappier or nobler? Is there really a loss of "character" visible when something's streamlined or polished? Do we need to see the creator's errors to understand their vision and spirit?

One of the reasons I'm such a big fan of Hideo Kojima's is his self-awareness. He knows his cutscenes are too long and that his sense of humor is weird, and he knows how critics feel about it. Yet he won't change -- in fact, much of the time in Metal Gear Solid 4, the elements for which his direction is most often criticized are exaggerated in a way that feels intentional. Therefore, Kojima's work is a dialogue between himself and the players. They have a sense of "knowing" him because they know how he expresses himself in games.

Suda51 also has a distinctive identity, and a pattern of being behind games that are beloved for their concepts but encounter critical difficulty because of execution issues. Did we come to associate those design shortfalls with the "identity" of the creator? Because critics who like his work found themselves having to champion its "character," flaws and all, could it be that in a well-executed No More Heroes game, we no longer recognize the visionary?

When an offbeat independent band suddenly produces an album that's too polished, fans are likely to say they prefer the older, more distinctive material because it had more character. Same principle at work here?

For what it's worth, I am not on the side of the fence that sees any kind of character loss in No More Heroes 2. As I said in the comments on Brainy Gamer, I really think the issue is simply that something can only be new once, and it won't feel the same the second time.