Hand Drawn Games' Desktop Tower Defense

In Round 3 of our Vs. Mode exchange on short session games with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, which is also being posted on Totilo's blog MTV News: Multiplayer, we shared our thoughts on some interesting possibilities for an EveryDay Shooter sequel, while Totilo sang the praises of game consoles becoming more like cable TV, where there's always something new to check out and evaluate. In our final installment, we firmly express our beef with Totilo's bright line distinction between twitch-driven and thought-driven small games. But Totilo strikes the most vicious blow yet, making like Marlo Stanfield on "The Wire"--best currently-running show on TV, bar none--by dropping the most lethally addictive product we've consumed since, ironically, Dope Wars. What is it? We're speaking of Desktop Tower Defense. And if you value your life, your productivity, your every waking moment, do not play this absolutely brilliant gem of a game. You have been warned.

Some excerpts from our exchange:

N'Gai Croal: I'm not sure that the gap between twitching and thinking games is as wide as you've made it out to be. Some of the best games combine the two in engaging ways. Each new level of EveryDay Shooter first asks you to suss out its chain attack system, then exploit it to better eliminate enemies and rack up points, without ever downplaying its frantic twin-stick-and-move basics. The puzzle games Lumines and Gunpey out thinkishly (I may have to start trademarking these new words), but become more twitchy as time progresses and the pace picks up; ditto for Frequency/Amplitude, Guitar Hero and the forthcoming Rock Band. Wario Ware requires you to quickly recognize the situation at hand, then push, twist or gesture to solve it. And in order to maximize your high score in Super Stardust HD, you have to keep in mind multiple factors.

Stephen Totilo: Desktop Tower Defense doesn't look nearly as good as BioShock. It doesn't even have a story, let alone a narrative exploration about what it means to be in control a game. It doesn't have amazing water effects. But if one of the key draws of the nearly perfectly reviewed BioShock is that it is designed for gamers to tackle and re-play its challenges with varying strategies, well, Desktop Tower Defense, then is at least as good at that. I think it might even be better. Because while I may have beaten BioShock using a few different approaches (more on my 16-hour run of the game in next month's first-person-adventure Vs. Mode), I've already played through DTD about 25 times, using almost as many different strategies. And I keep wanting to go back and try something else. The game has me hooked.

To read the Final Round of our exchange in its entirety, click on the link below.

1. EGO...trip: TV appearance; blog mention
2. PS3...and Xbox 360 hardware, compared
3. UE3...Epic's Unreal tech criticized by ex-partner
4. F5!...Julian Eggebrecht attacks the ESRB
5. RED...ring of death: the death metal version
6. RND...The littlest terror suspect?

1. HOT...button issues in games examined
2. BAD...games competition announced
3. UWE...Boll goes postal on Game|Life
4. HMM..."videogame" or "video game," debated
5. RND...Universal to watermark DRM-free songs

The third level of EveryDay Shooter, titled "Lush Look Killer"

We hope you like cliffhangers. Because Round 2 of the current installment of our Vs. Mode exchange on short session games with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, which is also being posted on Totilo's blog MTV News: Multiplayer, ended rather abruptly with Totilo asking us whether Super Stardust HD "feels like one of the first of a potential new strain of high-end small games?" In today's entry, we respond to his question in the negative, while going on to sing the praises of EveryDay Shooter--and suggest some possibilities for a sequel. Unwilling to let us dream a little dream, Totilo declares his preference for a brand new game from the EDS creator rather than our much-longed for follow-up, before going on to champion the 500-channel universe that is his new small games existence. Some excerpts.

N'Gai Croal: Jonathan Mak has barely scratched the surface of what EveryDay Shooter can do. Today, the game only uses guitar-based music. Imagine an EDS sequel built around other types of instruments: brass, woodwinds, stringed, percussive. Imagine an EDS built around choral voices, or a human beat box like Rahzel from the Roots, or a DJ collective like the X-Ecutioners. Imagine an EDS with adjustable audio effects to go along with the visual effects that gamers can unlock in the current version, and new visual effects to boot. Imagine an EDS where you could mash up these different elements with new backgrounds and enemies. I'd love to play that.

Stephen Totilo: Since I started covering games, I've had a huge variety of big new games at my fingertips. I've played a lot of those titles. But it's only now as I indulge in this newly available plethora of small games on non-PC hardware that I'm experiencing that kind of variety at this rapid pace. And you know what? I like this gaming lifestyle. I like the idea that every couple of days there is a new game for me to play on the 360 or PS3 that I can download in the blink of an eye, have embedded in an easy-to-navigate menu of games, and that I can sample and judge whether I like it in just a few minutes. I feel that this is a more exciting way to be a gamer.

To read Round 3 of our exchange in its entirety, click on the link below.

1. HUH...DirectX 10.1, clarified
2. AHA...Madden PS3 downgrade, explained
3. HMM...Testing games via Xbox Live, detailed
4. RND...New York Times op-ed, savaged

Naked Sky Entertainment's RoboBlitz for Xbox 360 and PC

In Round 1 of our Vs. Mode exchange on short session games with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, which is also being posted on Totilo's blog MTV News: Multiplayer, we explained that our twilight years had brought on an increased impatience with the pacing and structure of AAA games, prompting us to spend more of our time on small games. Totilo argued that longform games, not our graying dreadlocks, were to blame, and speculated that the existence of high-end short session games on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 were the accidental byproduct of machines designed for epics like Halo 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4. In today's installment, we set Totilo straight on the scope of the 360 and PS3's short session ambitions while making a case for the crucial importance of PR and marketing in nurturing the success of small games. Meanwhile, Totilo puts on his Man of the People hat, declaring that in the age of YouTube, the viral distribution and word of mouth are all that short session games need to thrive. Some excerpts:

N'Gai Croal: You wonder why many these newer short-session games like RoboBlitz and Super Stardust HD are graphically rich; it's because they're trying to stay competitive on high-end consoles. A $10 game doesn't necessarily get a pass on its graphics. (In Sony's case, a lot of its graphics emphasis has to do with the company pushing its 1080p/True HD talking points.) Small games don't get magazine covers; they don't generate many headlines; and other than a few exceptions--like flOw during the PS3 launch window and Microsoft and Namco's Pac-Man CE event in NYC--these games don't get much marketing or PR support. You and I both know small games developers who've been told by Microsoft PR to curtail their own promotional efforts. We also know that Sony PR wasn't even aware that they had a small hit on their hands with SSHD until we forwarded them the NeoGAF thread; separately, we only got access to a review build of Blast Factor Advanced Research a day or two before it shipped.

Stephen Totilo: You rightly point out that this could be a fleeting moment, that the small games resurgence may abate. It may, but we disagree on the needed safety measures. I don't think the continued success of the movement requires creative PR and marketing. After all, PR and marketing have had relatively little to do with the surge of popularity in small entertainment outside of games. YouTube clips and downloadable songs get popular without the help of "the man" thanks to the viral hype of "the many." Such viral success occurs in those fields because the platforms involved are open. Theoretically--and maybe temporarily--anyone could create something and anyone could share that creation with anyone else.

Click on the link below to read Round 2 of our exchange in its entirety.

1. 1st...game journalist to get own toy statue
2. BOO...Sony recalls two downloadable games
3. Bio...Shock art book .PDF available here
4. RND...We are all Sims, says philosopher

Q Games' Gunpey for PlayStation Portable

Time flies when you're having fun...or when you're arguing with a good friend. Along with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, we've thus far debated and discussed God of War II, the Halo 3 multiplayer beta and Manhunt 2. In this installment, which is also being posted on Totilo's blog MTV News: Multiplayer, we're taking on an entire category: small games, also known as short session games. Why? Because as the staff of Level Up gets older, we're finding ourselves unwilling to commit to the 10-20 hour experiences of most AAA titles, and increasingly drawn to simpler, more repetitive games that we can pick up and put down at our leisure.

In the spirit of our topic, Totilo and Level Up agreed to limit the length of our individual entries to 500 words or less. Some excerpts from Round 1:

N'Gai Croal: As we've discussed before, games are a generally ineffective medium for the plotting and character development aspects of storytelling. They're much better at action and exploration, the latter involving moving through landscapes and/or architecture in order to accomplish one's goals. But during my play session with The Darkness, my boredom stemmed from my increased aversion to exploration. I didn't want to navigate a 3-D world. I wanted a limited, clearly defined play space. I wanted simple rules. I wanted waves of obstacles to dodge and enemies to blast. I wanted to twitch and shoot and have the pleasure centers of my brain tapped over and over again, perpetually poised on the razor's edge between conscious thought and reflexive reaction.

Stephen Totilo: Let’s praise the short stuff! But let’s also wonder: why is it so arresting even for serious gamers like you and me again? A major factor is that games are getting a little more in step with the rest of popular culture. Short games are to long ones what downloadable songs are to albums, what E-mail was to letter writing (and then IM was to email and then texting was to IM). These days the cultural oddity is the 60-hour Final Fantasy. Oh, and "Harry Potter" novels and Vs. Mode exchanges (But which one is truly worthy of a movie adaptation?)

Click on the link below to read Round 1 of our exchange in its entirety.

1. EGO...trip: The Level Up manifesto, discussed
2. HMM...'The usual amount of racism' in games 
3. VSM...Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band. Fight! 
4. NRO...upset by grown men gaming; then ridiculed
5. MTV...more reactions to Braid creator Q&A
6. RND...turning a Realdoll into art

1. EGO...trip: Croal Vs. Ebert Vs. Barker aftershocks
2. VSM...Epic Games Vs. Silicon Knights, redux 
3. PUB...licity, under the microscope
4. RND...Movie critics, keeping it really real

A lot of what you get out of a movie depends on what intention you bring to the viewing experience. You can go to a movie just as escapism — and be swept up by the visions and emotions, or whatever. Or you can attend a movie with a more expansionist mindset: you want to experience those same visions and emotions, but you’re doing it to connect those things to the rest of your life, to bring them back; not to escape from the rest of your life. The goal is, maybe, to expand yourself into perhaps a greater, more experienced person. Even just a little bit.

Dogs play-fight because it gives them the experience to fight more effectively when they need to really-fight. etc. So this isn’t some quirk of human-exclusive behavior I am talking about.

Games can provide this kind of mental, emotional and spiritual expansion, and they can push it in a different direction than movies, or books, or music, or whatever. In his new book "Persuasive Games," Ian Bogost coins the term “procedural rhetoric” to talk about one of the core qualities of games: that they communicate ideas via the way things work, through behavior. I think that is sort of the right idea, but I think the “rhetoric” part is somewhat the wrong idea. I think the richest things that games have to show us are sub-verbal, maybe even sub-intellectual.

 To read the rest of the excerpt, click on the link below.

1. RED...360 fans trade info to avoid flawed units
2. W60...Play Halo with a Wiimote? Duly noted.
3. COD...Call of Duty 4 multiplayer beta: can't wait 
4. RND...How newspapers covered Barry Bonds' record 

What was your reaction to winning Best Action/Adventure game?

We've always won a ton of E3 awards for BioShock from the press, but we never picked up a judges' award before. So it was really gratifying.

BioShock has already gone gold. How have you celebrated this milestone in the past, and how did you celebrate this milestone for BioShock?

We just had a team party in Boston, and then we have a event on the launch night on August 20th, which we’re inviting lots of people to, including members of the BioShock fan community. I'm actually looking forward to that, because launches are usually such abstract things. You wake up launch morning and it’s like, "Hey, our game has, umm, shipped to retail!"  It’s not exactly like headlining at Madison Square Garden.

With BioShock already getting great reviews, and Harmonix's Rock Band receiving early accolades, 2007 looks like a breakout year for the Boston game development scene. Is there anything that distinguishes game development in Boston from that in other cities, and how much is the departed Looking Glass Studios responsible for laying the foundation for what we see today.

1. TOP...Ten Halo Pickup Lines: GGG!
2. TOP...PSP Cities: NYC, CHI, DC
3. RIP...off games are good for you
4. RND...A retired general reflects on war 

1. DGC...The Digital Game Canon gets official funding
2. SAD...Xbox 360 owners gripe about repair times
3. HMM...It was supposed to be a unique trailer
4. RND...Matt Lauer on hip-hop: is it really real, son? 

 

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced earlier this week, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. The big winner was Rock Band from Harmonix, which won three awards: Best of Show, Best Hardware/Peripheral and Best Social/Casual/Puzzle. We emailed some questions to Alex Rigopulos, CEO and co-founder of Harmonix. Here's what he wrote back:

What was your reaction to winning Best of Show, Best Hardware/Peripheral and Best Social/Casual/Puzzle?

As you can imagine, the team here was absolutely thrilled. When we got the news, we immediately and vigorously polished off several crates of champagne-which was a welcome relief from the stress of beta.

Now that we've sobered up again, there's this small matter of finishing the game...

A rhythm game has never won Best of Show from the Game Critics Association. Were you surprised to win given the history and your competition? What do you think this means for the music game category?

Yes, honestly, it was hard to believe, given the history, and also given the other incredible games that were nominated. I think it's a sign that music games have finally "arrived" in the U.S. and have taken their place as a major, mainstream category of games.

How close is Rock Band to completion, and what major things remain to be done?

All of the major systems are complete. As is normally the case in beta, there's plenty of bug-fixing to be done, finishing off of various details, and lots of play-testing, polishing and tuning. We're dying to cross the finish line and get this thing out into the world!

 

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced earlier this week, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. The winner of Best Original Game was LittleBigPlanet from Media Molecule. We emailed some questions to Alex Evans, technical director for Media Molecule. Here's what he had to say:

What was your reaction to winning Best Original Game?

Actually when we got the nominations it was another mad moment of disbelief & happiness that all the people we met at E3 understood the game vision so well. Our policy of basically trying to be as open as possible and show large amounts of the game hands-on, even really early in dev, is unusual but it's really paid off for us! So to actually win Best Original Game from the back of that--well, I don't think it's really sunk in fully yet. Especially against such a strong field this year. It's all awesome, and yet surreal.... :-) The team are totally stoked, and it gives us all new impetus to push forward and make LBP as fine a game as we can!

What was more special to you and why: the audience reaction at the 2007 Game Developers Conference, or the response from individual journalists at E3 2007 as they were playing the game?

They were extremely different. At GDC, it was a special moment just because that was when we burst into view, and the reaction was so wonderful and unexpectedly positive. But at E3 I felt we tackled a much harder and more interesting challenge--letting people (especially critical and knowledgeable gamers!) play the game, see if they had fun--and showing the create tools off for the first time. In a way that was revealing the most ambitious part of our project in a detailed hands-on way, so it's really great that everyone who has played seems to ‘get it'.

How far along is the game, and what are the major things left to be completed before it ships?

 

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced earlier this week, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. The winner of Best Console Game and Best Role-Playing Game was Mass Effect from BioWare. We emailed some questions to BioWare president Greg Zeschuk and chief executive officer Ray Muzyka. Here's what they told us:

What was your reaction to winning both Best Console Game and Best Role-Playing Game for Mass Effect?

Zeschuk: We are really thrilled and honored that we won both the Best Console Game and Best Role-Playing Game awards; there were some really stunning games at E3 this year and for Mass Effect to be on the top of the list tells us our team’s hard work is paying off. Going into the show is always a little daunting as the competition is extremely fierce, but Mass Effect being recognized by the key industry press really gives us a lot of confidence that we’re doing things right. We believe that Mass Effect will settle the “are games art?” argument once and for all… :-)

Mass Effect has gotten a lot of praise for its interactive dialogue and performances. What have been the biggest challenges in perfecting the games dialogue system?

Muzyka: Truly capturing deep, emotional engagement with the characters and the story in Mass Effect was the biggest challenge we faced while building the game at BioWare, but it was also one of the areas we focused on from the very beginning of development. We really started building toward this goal in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic where we did full voice over and lip sync combined with a great storyline in the game, and we extended it further with Jade Empire where we started adding emotional states in characters during dialogue. In Mass Effect we are not only giving players our best storyline yet, combined with the option of how they want to respond in real time during a conversation, but we’re also adding in an incredible level of subtlety and craft in how characters respond to your actions. As a result, the conversations look and sound incredibly real, so that no matter what dialogue choice a player makes, it feels entirely authentic, and exploration transitions to conversations and combat entirely seamlessly.

One of the things we heard after the E3 presentations and press playthroughs was that not only was it incredibly fun to play the game, but it was even fun to sit back and simply watch it being played. Mass Effect really feels like an interactive blockbuster movie where you, the player, are both the director and the lead actor in the story--and you also get to explore the galaxy in your own spaceship--need we say more?

How close is the game to completion, and what are the major things left to be finished before it ships?

Zeschuk: We’re getting very close to the end as we are committed to shipping in November; we are focusing on polishing the game to an extremely high standard. BioWare is known for quality, and we believe Mass Effect could be our best game yet. It is certainly the most amazing game we’ve ever made! Something that never seems to shock us is that we’re always discovering new things as we play it. We’d love to spoil it for you, but we want everyone to experience the amazing surprises in the game first-hand!

 

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced earlier this week, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. The winner of Best PC Game was Crysis from Crytek. We emailed some questions to Crytek president Cevat Yerli. Here's his reply:

What was your reaction to winning Best PC Game?

We were very, very happy. We understood what challenges we have and what concerns people express when talking about Crysis in regards to fidelity vs. [system] requirements. But I am glad that the level we showed from the game spoke volumes enough to help us win the award. It's a great reward and we'll use this as a stepping stone towards finishing Crysis. We are very happy with this on our shoulders now.

The game has always looked great, but what kind of specs will people need in order to run Crysis so that it looks as good as what you've shown publicly?

We are still working on finalizing our specifications; in fact, optimization is one of the things we're focusing on right now.  We still expect to meet our goal to make sure gamers will be able to get a great experience playing Crysis on gaming rigs 2-3 years old from the time we ship.  At the same time, we're thinking about the future and also making sure the Crysis still looks great 2-3 years from now, just like Far Cry, which still looks great on current state of the art hardware.

How far along is the game, and what are the major things left to be completed before it ships?

We are in the final stages right now. The Alpha is behind us, and we are about to finish our Beta stage. Some minor balancing, polishing, bugs and optimization are left. We are on track to release on November the 16th, 2007--a very exciting date for us! Cross your fingers please!

 

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced earlier this week, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. The winner of Best Handheld Game was The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass from Nintendo. We emailed some questions to Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma, manager/producer of Software Development Group No.3 in the company's Entertainment Analysis & Development Division. Here's what he told us:

What was your reaction to winning Best Handheld Game?

I was very grateful to learn that The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass has received the Best Handheld Game award, a few years after another handheld Zelda, Minish Cap, won the same award. As we were challenged to create something very different this time, I am particularly happy because the award appears to have meant that our challenge was worthwhile.

Why do you think Japanese gamers have responded so much more strongly to The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS than to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii?

The biggest factor must be that, in Japan, the gaming population has already been expanded. The sheer installment base of Nintendo DS is huge, far larger than that of Wii, and so many Japanese, regardless of gender, age and past game experiences, are now playing with Nintendo DS. We really wanted to make software that can be appreciated by the core gamers and casual gamers alike, and the sales so far appear to be showing that many Japanese are enjoying this new handheld Zelda.

What was the most challenging part of designing Link's controls around the stylus?

We wanted to create a new handheld Zelda experience that can be played only by touch pen so that novice players would not be hesitant in trying to play while core Zelda fans can find something very unique and fresh. Once we decided this basic play style, brand new ideas were hit upon by us developers one after another. The only challenge we faced was eliminating any and all ideas which made the gameplay too complicated or uncomfortable. In the end, we believe that we were able to create a brand new Zelda experience that can be very comfortably played only with a touch pen, and we are glad with the outcome. The core Zelda fans appeared to have some hesitation at the beginning, but after they started playing, we believe they understood the reason why we have chosen this new direction this time.

 

After the results of the Game Critics Awards were announced earlier this week, we reached out to several winners for their reactions and some updates about their games in progress. The winner of Best Racing Game was Burnout Paradise from Electronic Arts' Criterion Studios. We emailed some questions to Alex Ward, creative director of Criterion: Here's what he sent back, along with the exclusive screenshot shown above:

What was your reaction to winning Best Racing Game?

As ever, I speak on behalf on the development team and I can report that they are very pleased to win this award and very proud of the work we've done so far. It certainly hasn't been easy and we went into this E3 not quite knowing what to expect. There were some great titles nominated too, so let's not forget them.

How much of a challenge was it to set a racing game in an open world with increased destructibility and still maintain the Criterion standard of 60 frames per second?

It was enough of a challenge for us as a development team to throw away (or 'bin off' as we say) ALL of our old technology. That was absolutely everything we had. And that tech was FAST, world-class fast and I think everyone knew that.

Paradise has changed everything we've done and challenged us in every way possible. It's the first open world game we know of that runs at sixty [frames per second.] As I said to [Ziff-Davis editorial director] John Davison after the SCEA conference, to achieve this result in time for E3 was like us putting a man on Mars. Everyone else was shooting for the moon. Now there's nothing wrong with the moon, but everyone wants to move to Mars!

As I repeated a lot to people at E3, each Burnout game was a reflection of who we were at that time. And times change, and so do we. Just because we did something before doesn't mean we'll do it the same way again. Each Burnout game stands alone, both in technology and game direction.

With this new game we have to stream about five times as much world than ever before. This required us to totally rethink how we should approach building this world and changed our entire toolchain. I cannot tell you the shockwaves this sent through our team and our company. To just put ANYTHING onscreen meant going right back to square one. Right back. So we didn't want to just try and work smarter, we had to be smarter AND faster. And that's the real trick. We've set out to make a totally new gaming experience, not just an all-new Burnout experience.

In Paradise City, the player can now go anywhere, look in any direction, at any time. This means that we cannot precompute anything or chop anything out to maintain framerate - we don't control or restrict what the player does anymore. This is YOUR Burnout YOUR way. So has it been a challenge? Absolutely, but I'm incredibly proud to work alongside some of the best damn programmers in the world. And they LOVE a challenge.

How close is the game to completion, and what major aspects of the game's development remain?