Unlockable Unlockables

Hello and welcome to another installment of our continuing mission to explore new terribad ideas and poor design choices. Today we'll be looking at how not to handle unlockables. Now, the concept of an unlockable is almost as old as video gaming itself. Meet certain conditions and you'll get to play as a boss character or maybe there are some additional super-hard levels awaiting those who persevere. Either way it's a simple concept that can, if done correctly, add a lot of value to your game's experience. In ye olde days most unlockables where additional content that wasn't necessarily critical to the overall game. These days not so much.

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In the first set of games we're going to be looking at unlockables are used to draw (see also: force) attention to an area of the game that the players might otherwise ignore. In the second set the unlockable content is simply withheld until the player has done enough grinding to satisfy some arbitrary threshold. It's also worth noting that for the purposes of this article I'm only referring to games in which either the multi and single player interact via unlockables or multi-player games in which the unlockables are just that poorly implemented.

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As mentioned above the first category offenders are those games that force the player to go through other (single player) modes in order to unlock multi-player content. The most egregious offenders in this category are fighting games and the most egregious offenders amongst fighting game (at least that come to mind at the moment) are 'Super Smash Bros. Brawl' and vanilla 'Street Fighter IV' ('vanilla' here referring to the first of three versions of the game). For Brawl we're looking at a game that has 36 (37 if count Zero Suit Samus) playable characters of which 14 must be unlocked. Now, while it is worth noting that all of them can be unlocked through normal (multi-player) gameplay that they all also have faster, if significantly more irritating ways of unlocking them by going through the games other modes collecting random trophies, completing events, etc. Hell, one of the unlocks is done simply through playing the game for ten hours, i.e. leaving your console on overnight. This is not good design. Withholding content until these criteria have been met is just obnoxious. Well then I guess the good news then is that vanilla 'Street Fighter IV' only has 25 characters. However that good news is followed swiftly by some bad news: you have to unlock over a third of them. The criteria here might actually be more tedious than Brawl as it involves simply grinding the same stupid single player mode over an over again. The criteria ranging from simply beating Arcade Mode with a specific character to beating arcade mode with every character (except the one you're unlocking obviously) to beating arcade mode while getting multiple perfect, super and ultra (don't worry about what any of that means just realize that it's arbitrary and obnoxious) finishes. Ugh, moving on.

Now we hit on those games which (thankfully) restrict their multiplayer unlockbles to the multiplayer mode(s) yet somehow still manage to screw things up. The best example of this and a game that in analyzing it last week actually inspired this article would be 'Killzone 2'. Now in general the pinnacle of class based shooters (FPS games in which players are allowed to select specializations) is the now free to play 'Team Fortress 2' so any game that's stepping into that sub-genre is going to have to at least kind of stand up to this comparison. Now, you might be saying that TF2 has unlockables and you'd be correct. However they're what we where talking about at the beginning with regards to correctly implementing unlockable content. You see none of the TF2 character classes are locked to the player. The unlockables are all extra tools for their respective classes (usually new weapons). It's also worth noting that (to the best of my knowledge) the new weapons unlocked in TF2 would be classified as more 'different' than 'better' than the starting weapons in that they allow the player to go about a certain class in a different manner than the stock equipment allows for. Ok, so now that we're done fawning over TF2 and explaining why it's a well designed game let's get down with why 'Killzone 2' isn't. The main reason for this is that 'Killzone' ignores TF2s example of how to do things and forces the player to unlock every single class via fairly tedious multi-player grinding. Here's a hint: when playing a class based shooter and everyone is forced to play the same (starting) class for a long time things get boring in addition to there just generally being a hell of a let less strategy involved. Hell, 'Killzone 2' even manages to cock-up it's one original idea (as far as I know) with regards to class based shooters in its multi-class combinations (that is allowing one class to borrow a skill from another). It does this mostly by making the more useful abilities for cross class work obnoxiously difficult and tedious to unlock for multi-class use.

Well that's pretty much it. Before I go I would also like to point out that I don't think 'Killzone 2' is that bad of a game it's just that had it not made a few small mistakes it could have been a future classic. Also another reason that I find unlockables irritating is that with the burgeoning competative scene for video games organizers are often relying on participants to bring some of the equipment and since most information these days is stored on a console's hard drive if a player hasn't unlocked everything for a game (or purchased DLC) then that console is useless for tournament purposes. Sorry there isn't a more cohesive conclusion on this topic but I'm being told I need a few more Skill Points in order to unlock the “Astute Author” ability. See you all next week.

A Question of Immersion

Immersion. The ability to lose yourself in an experience. This is something that many (not all for some reason) games strive for. Losing yourself in your character until a brief glance away from the TV and reveals that you where supposed to be in bed a few hours ago. That's an experience. Something that more games should try to achieve. Something that is pretty painful and pretty obvious when it fails. There are a multitude of ways to immerse the player in a game. A compelling story. Interesting characters. A well designed environment. And many, many more. Basically what I'm trying to say is that you want to make the game compelling and that there are many different ways to accomplish this. It's also worth noting that an immersive game doesn’t have to be a perfect game but that it will usually be a good game. All that said today we're going to look at one of the little things that can really break immersion. Technology. As in the question we're basically asking is: Does the technology in our game match up with our story and the environments that we're encountering?

So first up is the bad side of technological immersion in 'Killzone 2' and presumably 'Killzone' and 'Killzone 3' (wouldn't know, didn't play them). Here the game places you as the puppet-master of stalwart space marine Sgt. Tomas 'Sev' Sevchenko (thanks Killzone Wiki) who along with his thick as mud buddies murder the hell out of a ton of space Nazis. Seriously that's pretty much the entire game. It's an incredibly linear story punctuated by some sub-par voice acting and a set of enemies that are a hell of a lot more sympathetic than a cartoonishly evil Empire should be. However that's not what kills the immersion. No, all of that is what makes it a bad game. What kills the immersion for me is its weapon selection. You see, the game is set in the 24^th century (thanks again Killzone Wiki) and yet for some reason you are, with rare exception, using modern (that would be 21^th century) weapons in machine guns, sub-machine guns, a combat knife and a pistol (usually a freaking revolver no less). Now it isn't verboten for a game set way in the future to have its characters using modern weapons but it does warrant some sort of explanation. 'Killzone 2', to my knowledge, completely skips out on that much needed explanation in favor of blasting more space Nazis into bits. If it's the future I want futuristic (i.e. something that requires some semblance of an imagination) stuff to play with. If it's the 24^th century then I do not want a generic gray-brown shooter. I want lasers and spaceships that don't suck and stuff. In short I don't want a game that likely started off as a 'Modern Warfare' clone of some sort until some focus group suggested that they move the setting into the future in order to differentiate it from the game it was copying.

Next we have a very immersive open world post-apocalyptic game in 'Fallout 3'. For comparison sake it is set in 2277 (~200 years after a nuclear war; thanks Fallout Wiki). Although 'Fallout 3' has the same oversights* that every other post-apocalyptic video game, movie or TV series I can think does it also has roughly the same weapon selection as 'Killzone 2'. However 'Fallout 3' does a much better job of explaining things to the player. Namely that the world essentially ended, halted technological development and forced people to scavenge for resources, weapons, etc. That's the sort of context I'm looking for and it's also the sort of back-story that makes a game more immersive. Now obviously 'Fallout 3' is immersive for reasons other than its explanation behind the technology found in the game but I'm simply bringing that up here as a counter-point to a game that botches this topic so badly that it draws the player out of the experience.

Looking at the details of 'Killzone 2' and 'Fallout 3' juxtaposed like that its easy to see that the devil's in the details with regards to thing like providing your players context for their actions and abilities. It's a small effort to explain why something is or is not possible/available and in doing so you've (likely) greatly enhanced the immersive experience of your game. See you next week.

*The most major of these oversights would be the complete absence of bicycles after a nuclear holocaust. I can't even begin to count the number of post-apocalyptic settings where everyone is fighting over gasoline or failing that where people simply feel the need to walk everywhere. In these situations the existence or acknowledgment of bicycles would prove inconvenient from a plot perspective so they're ignored. Also while the internet seems ambivalent with regards to the expiration of ammunition I have a hard time believing the the ammo and weapons found in many post-apocalyptic scenarios would, given the conditions with which they've been "stored", still be functional.

Disgaea 3: Absence of Compelling Reasons to Finish the Game

Hello and welcome to todays article. This time around we'll be talking about the somewhat obscure Japanese tactical role-playing game 'Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice'. Now in a record that may go unbroken for generations here's the earliest I've ever put a disclaimer in an article.  I didn't finish 'Disgaea 3' nor did I finish 'Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories'.  I, however, did really like 'Disgaea: Hour of Darkness' (the first one). So what was it about the first one that resulted in me liking it enough to actually complete* finish the game? Well compared to its sequels 'Hour of Darkness' was a more complete package. For starters the writing in the first game is actually decent, well paced and clever (we are after all talking about a series of games involving demons fighting over the Netherworld). With 'Cursed Memories' our writing is down to 'adequate' as the pacing blows and the writer responsible for the clever dialog has apparently left the company. By the time we've gotten to 'Absence of Justice' the writing is just generally awful as is in my opinion the story. The pacing is nonexistent and the attempts at being clever are downright painful to listen to. Additionally here to exacerbate the sub-par writing is the voice acting. While never exactly a pillar of excellence in the community the voice acting in the first two games was at least serviceable. The voice work in 'Absence of Justice'...eh, not so much. Alright then well what about the gameplay? Well I'm glad you asked. In 'Hour of Darkness' we're treated to a quirky take on the tactical RPG that manages to be somewhat challenging while still offering opportunities to power level in preparation for the (much) harder hidden areas in the game. In 'Cursed Memories' and 'Absence of Justice' there is precious little added innovation-wise making the combat (the combat in a tactical RPG is pretty much the entirety of the gameplay) much more tedious. It was for this reason that I quite on 'Absence of Justice'. The reason(s?) for my stopping short of the finish on 'Cursed Memories' have been lost to history.

Pictured: A map that isn't especially representative of what you'll encounter in the rest of the game.

So what was the big issue with the combat that would result in me shelving the game? Would you believe that it's something as simple as character movement? Yup, something that simple can really screw up the experience. It's also worth noting that the picture above is representative only of the design of the Disgaea's maps as the typical map is roughly 3-4 times the size of the one pictured. The game made me update and in doing so my save data got axed so no pictures of more advanced maps. You may also have noticed that the map is broken up into square tiles which correspond to character movement. The issue here is that on larger maps you and your opponents will usually start at opposite ends of the map and spend several turns just marching towards one another. Now, I'm hoping what I'm going to say next isn't incorrect (or at least not by too much) but it feels like the actual movement allowed to the non-main characters (your grunts) has been reduced by ~25% since the previous iterations of this game. I know that the Mage classes movement wasn't this bad in 'Cursed Memories' nor in 'Hour of Darkness' and I'm pretty sure that other classes where more mobile in those previous versions as well. The reason this is a problem is that it makes things take longer. Now I realize (and remember) that a couple of character classes in 'Hour of Darkness' had some downright stupid movement options (“Go coast to coast on a large map in one turn? Don't mind if I do.”) and I'm not asking for the game to allow for something like that but at least let me get to the enemy position in under 3 rounds. It's also worth noting that in many cases if you're too far away from the enemy that they won't move at all (tactically this is the right choice as you're likely to move into their range on their terms, i.e. they get to attack first). So in this case a choice that I have to guess was made for the sake of balance (a somewhat stupid concept for a single player game of this genre) resulted in a game that left me less than enthused due to stuff just generally taking longer than it should. It sucks but when a game isn't offering much else then minor things like this can become deal-breakers. See you all next week.

*I use the word 'finish' instead of 'complete' as it is very possible to beat any one of these games without even scratching the surface on the content. The one person I know who got ~100% on the first game spent around 600 hours to get there. I suspect that the subsequent titles aren't too far off from that mark. My play-times where as follows (approximately):

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness – 200 hours

Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories – 40 hours

Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice – 15 hours

Some Possible Solutions to Ragequitting

Hello and welcome to another exciting edition of Critical Dissection. Today we're not going to be looking at an individual game but rather an issue that affects almost all online multi-player games and then examine a few possible solutions. The issue in this case being ragequitting, an issue that's at least as infuriating as my spellchecker insisting that 'ragequitting' isn't a real word. Ragequitting is the act of quitting or disconnecting from a game due to a frustration over an opponents tactic(s) and/or to avoid taking a loss on ones record. I wouldn't go quit so far as to call this behavior a blight on online multi-player games but it, to various degrees depending on what game is being played, can be an extraordinarily irritating occurrence. So let's first look at why the two main reasons for raging occur.

Frustration is a natural human reaction in many situations. In the context of a competitive online game it usually comes from dealing with either an opponent who is significantly better than us and is therefore beating us down with relative ease OR from playing against an opponent who is utilizing a tactic that is simply hard to deal with (or at least hard to deal with from the victims perspective). While in my opinion all forms or ragequitting are inexcusable that first one, quitting against a strong opponent, is the least excusable. The reason for this is that getting smashed by a stronger player is usually one of the best opportunities to learn more about the game. I remember playing a series of matches in 'BlazBlue' against one of the best players on Playstation Network. Not only was this guy one of the best players on PSN but he also happened to use the same character that I did so I got to see how he played the character and how he approached the mirror match. I went 1(win) and 25(losses) against him but from all the stuff I saw him doing in those games I was overall a better player for that experience. An inability or unwillingness to learn from ones losses is a common trait among those who quit when overmatched. For those who are quitting against the perceived hard to deal with tactics they are, like those quitting when over-matched, shortchanging themselves in the learning department as you don't learn how to deal with a tactic by avoiding it. 

Now with regards to those who quit in order to preserve their record I actually feel a bit sorry for them as they really can't be mentally healthy individuals if they place that much importance on their record in a video game. That said, and depending on the game, quitting in order to preserve ones record (many games don't assign a loss in the event of one of the players disconnecting) is more common than quitting due to being overmatched or quitting due to an opponent using a “cheap” tactic. The reason for this being that most games have some type of leaderboard system. That is, a way of letting the whole community know who the best (in theory) players at the game are at any given moment. Some people, for some reason place a very high premium on their status withing such a ranking system. Also before anyone suggests that an easy solution to this would be to simply assign a loss to whoever disconnects doesn't know how seriously gamers take these rankings, as under such a system people would find a way (legal or not) to induce disconnects from their opponent in order to score free wins. Some people are looking for the (illusory) status of rankings and are not actually looking to improve at the game.

So how can we combat ragequitting? Well as already mentioned it would be hard to assign a loss over a disconnect due to the possibility of players gaming that sort of system. Now if a technology where to come about that allowed for an accurate assessment of who disconnected and why then it might be worth considering implementing. Also one must consider those who enjoy online games but whose internet connections aren't reliable. It is unfair to lump those people in with the raqequitters and while it would help their cause if they upgraded their internet services in many parts of the world that isn't really an option. And after all of that we're still left the question of what to do with disconnects? The system I propose would be to simply have people who have disconnected over a certain percentage of their matches be excluded from the leaderboards regardless of their record. While that proposal has a moderate chance of screwing those with unstable connections the main “victims” would be those who are quitting intentionally. Another follow-up to that several games have tried to implement (and usually failed at) is a so called "Ragequit Hell” wherein the players who've disconnected above the specified percentage of their matches will only be matched up with one another. This concept excels in two respects.  Firstly by matching the rager up only with other ragers you've removed him from the general players population and thus likely improved everyone else's experience with the game.  Secondly in his banishment to Ragequit Hell you've assured that his potential opponent pool is comprised of similarly immature individuals and that if he wants out of Ragequit Hell (granted when the percentage of disconnects falls below the specified threshold) he's going to have to be on his best behavior.  Ok, those sound like changes that could be implemented in almost any online game. What about a way to deal with raging due to being overmatched?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Now this proposal is a little more radical and as I've currently conceived it isn't as comprehensive as the leaderboard ban and Ragequit Hell solutions as it won't work for fighting games. The idea is to simply add the ability for players to concede. You're team is down by an insurmountable amount but there's still 2/3 of the game time left? Hold a vote and if the majority votes for it your team concedes. This is basically a feature that all team FPS games should already have. Especially ones like 'Left 4 Dead 2' where a full 4 vs. 4 match can, depending on skill discrepancy and map, take upwards of a hour and a half. There's no reason to subject a team on the losing end of that, especially if it's pretty obvious that the losing part isn't going to reverse course, to the entirety of the match if they don't want to. Similarly there's no reason that the losing teams only option to stop the pain is to quit. This idea gives them an out without denying the winning team their 'W'. The concession. Problem (probably) solved.

Oh and the reasons that adding the ability to concede won't work in fighting games are as follows. The first being that players, just to be dicks, would wait until the last possible moment and then concede in order to deny their opponents a more legitimate and satisfying win. The other issue with concession in fighting games being the concept of boosting. Boosting is the use of multiple accounts controlled by the same person to generate wins for their main account in order to give the impression that they're a highly skilled player. Now, in theory if there was a way to track boosters and ban them from the leaderboards (thereby greatly if not entirely discouraging the behavior) then in spite of the potential assholish behavior it would allow for then concessions could be added to fighting games. That said there isn't to my knowledge a real way to track people who're boosting (other than to play and expose them) and there's also the fact that even the most slow paced fighting game is still over relatively quickly such that the need for the ability to concede isn't as pressing here as it is in first person shooters.

Ok, so after hopefully some of the ideas presented here find there way into future games as there really isn't a reason to be nice to ragequitters and if done well the leaderboard ban, Ragequit Hell (not an original idea just never done correctly), and option to concede would drastically reduce (hopefully) the desire to quit in addition to sufficiently punishing those who do with minimal collateral damage. I have a few more thoughts on this topic but this article has already run pretty long so those will have to wait for another time. See you next week.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of (Almost) Everything Else

*sniff*sniff* Sorry, I'm just getting a little teary over what's likely to be my last 'Marvel vs. Capcom 3' article. Or at least the last one until 'Ultimate' comes out in a couple of months. So today, in memory of this occasion, I'm going to be nice to the game. Mostly. Sort of. Today we're going to examine a few things that either slipped the net on our earlier passes at the game or are minor enough to not warrant an entire article dedicated to them. Let's get the bad out of the way first. The 'bad' in this case being the 'Training' and 'Challenge' modes as both of them are seriously lacking when compared to their counterparts in other fighting games.

First up on our beatdown parade is the training mode. But wait! Before we get too far into this here's about the nicest thing I'm willing to put on record about the training mode: it's at least functional. Now that we've gotten that out of the way well here's everything else. Like most modern fighting games MvC3s training mode has a recording feature that allows the player to record(duh) a brief sequence of moves that the training dummy will then play back. Unlike most modern fighting games MvC3s recording function is very well hidden in the menu and button configuration options making it probably the most clunkily implemented recording function I've ever seen. It also doesn't allow for a long enough recording time. That's really the big one. It would also be nice to be able to pick whether you wanted to start on the player 1 or player 2 side. I also fail to see the need for the taunt button to function in training mode (except for Deadpool, the one character whose taunt is also an attack) as it makes it so that you have to have the reset function mapped to two buttons. On a more serious note the game could use a major overhaul to the controls/restrictions that one is able to place on the computer when you hand it control over the training dummy as currently the computer badly fails to replicate the way an actual human plays the game. Ummm, I think that's it for training mode.

Now! Onward to what I would only jokingly refer to (even though that's what it calls itself) as 'Challenge Mode'. The idea behind the 'Challenge Mode' is a noble one. Familiarize players with the character's move-sets, brief them on the game mechanics and then maybe hold their hand through a few basic combos. It's just unfortunate that it fails pretty badly at all of these aspects. Overall the game has 38 characters with 10 challenges apiece or 380 total challenges. Now out of that number we're going to eliminate on average 5 per character as the early “challenges” are just single moves or simple move canceling exercises. This will leaves us with 190 challenges that supposedly convey some benefit to the player. They sort of do. A friend of mine and I counted and between all the challenges for all the characters there are maybe 7 practical, can be used in competition combos. That's pretty bad. Pretty much every other fighting game I've played that had something approximating a 'Challenge Mode' managed to include, and this is my low end estimate, 3 useful combos per character. Now, I'm not advocating that a should game hold the players hand and spoon-feed them techniques but if you're already set on trying to go down that road then at least spoon-feed the players something of use.  

Disclaimer: I no longer play these teams.

Pictured: This is what saving time looks like children.

At last. Something useful. Something correctly implemented. Something that actually saves the player time. The character presets. Yes, MvC3 allows you from your otherwise worthless player profile to preset up to three different teams in order to save you time later at the actual character select screen. Why is this useful? Well, for those who don't know (and shame on you), MvC3 is a team based game (probably should have mentioned this earlier) in which both players pick 3 characters from a roster of 38. Then for each character they pick they also pick that character's assist, i.e. a move that they can be summoned, when not on the screen, to do. So that's 6 total selections per player to make. Having something in place to stream line that, especially as these presets are implemented, is a welcome design decision. That's it. That's the one non-gameplay design choice that MvC3 gets 100% right. It's not a particularly sexy design but it's certainly saved me and countless other players a boatload of time. See you all next week.