Eliminate DOWNTIME

The biggest obstacle facing the online Fighting game genre is DOWNTIME and the problems which it creates.  When players sit down to play a game they demand some form of immediate entertainment. Every second spent not being entertained is a moment to think, “Hey, maybe I should be doing something else.”

The premiere games of this genre like; Street Fighter, Tekken, or Mortal Kombat, all emerged from a time where players would meet at Arcades and cheer loudly around a game cabinet pumping it with quarters and playing till their fingers blistered. With the emergence of online gaming, this scene is largely a relic of the past, and players now compete primarily from the comfort of their homes. Despite the significance of this change in venue, the format of these games remains largely unchanged. Now If you were to play any of these games online today, the majority of your time will probably be spent; navigating menus, watching loading screens, or waiting for the matchmaking system to find a suitable opponent. Unless you are already a dedicated fan, this experience can quickly grow stale, and it appears safe to say that the genre will need to embrace a new format in order to realize their true potential.

 To put it plainly, the online fighting game genre needs a way to alleviate the boredom experienced during the periods of time where the player is not engaged with an opponent, and furthermore the player must be convinced that he is not engaging in a solitary experience. I believe the most effective solution would be to add the presence of a game "Overworld", a place that encourages players to mingle and explore, while the matchmaking system runs hidden in the background. Even if this was done by allowing the player to navigate his character through an extremely simplistic 2-D world, it would succeed by giving players something to do in between matches, instead of presenting them with a screen that perpetually reads “Searching For Opponent." This would also help alleviate the feeling of disconnect exacerbated by a matchmaking system that pairs you with an opponent whom you have had no previous interaction with. There is no story being told when players are plucked from the confines of an ethereal pool and paired seemingly at random.  It is this profound lack of an engaging narrative combined with the drudgery of downtime, that dulls the game experience and continues to limit the genres appeal.

After playing the recently released Ultimate Marvel Versus Capcom 3, the game practically begs to be done in such a manner. Imagine walking through a snowy woodland as you play as the popular Marvel character Wolverine, out of the bushes comes another player who happens to play as your arch-rival Sabertooth. A challenge is issued and the game loads the “Snowy Woodland”, a stage that actually corresponds to your location within the 2-D Overworld. This format would really engage players and help to apply an overarching narrative to each game played. Instead of navigating menus only to stare at a loading screen while awaiting your next anonymous opponent, players could experience the joy of actually role playing their characters.

With the removal of players from the social atmosphere of a physical Arcade, some key factors of appeal have been lost and they remain missing. By giving online players the freedom to interact with each other both before and after their actual matches, you not only eliminate the problem of downtime but also help foster the communal and social atmosphere that contributed so much to the genres past success.

Life is a Work In Progress

And so is this Blog, I have recently begun some site maintenance and with the help of some Youtube tutorial videos, I have been attempting to provide a more polished look. Most notably I have added tabs so that it will be easier to navigate my posts by category. I have also decided to share more of the content I have created, including my newest video and some of my dear Game Concept design documents. Enjoy but please do not lift my ideas :)

Pumped Up Kicks Best Video

My Directorial debut

The subject matter is a little dark but... so are the lyrics

Innovate Fluid Controls and Conquer

Controls are an overlooked part of successful gameplay, and I would say that it is next to impossible to make a great game without a great control scheme. The first thing I do when playing any new game is to move around and see how it “feels”. Like driving a new car, one of the first things you notice is how a game handles, for me there is no greater turnoff than a game with sluggish or imprecise controls. If I cannot control the game properly why am I playing it? A few games come to mind when I think of great control schemes: Smash Bros Melee, Goldeneye 007, and Halo CE. In all of these games your character moves fast and actions are executed almost at the speed at which you can think of them. This makes for a truly gratifying experience, and at the best moments you feel completely immersed, with each feint and attack being performed instantly almost instinctually.

It is no surprise then that the top games, especially those in the FPS genre, tend to be the ones which utilize the most intuitive and elegant control schemes. When Halo CE was released, almost every subsequent FPS adopted a near identical control scheme. Now the dominant position is held by the COD franchise, and true to form its control scheme and notably the “Aim Down Sights” mechanic, is nearly universal amongst current shooters. This being said, the “Motion Controlled Shooter” genre has not taken off , even with the advent of advanced gaming apparatus like, Microsoft’s Kinect, or Sony’s Move. This is a genre that cannot gain steam because the dominant control scheme is by my description. Broken. Until a fluid and intuitive control scheme is introduced motion controlled shooters will retain their role as novelty games that lack in lasting appeal.

Motion controlled shooters suffer from what I would call “Deadzone Syndrome”. This means that the dominate control scheme utilized by almost every motion controlled shooter uses the mechanic of a “Deadzone Box”. Unfortunately, this scheme is neither intuitive nor elegant, it places too many demands on the player and penalizes him with unreliable results. Like early Nintendo 64 games, motion controlled shooters suffer from their inability to compromise between giving the player control of his directional movement (where the player is moving) and aiming orientation (where the player is facing). Early 64 games were unable to reconcile this issue, and suffered for it. The player only had one analog control stick, but there were two tasks, what were developers to do? They had to compromise, the first company to do it right was Rare with Goldeneye 007. What did they do? They divided the tasks equally into a manageable and inventive control scheme. The analog stick was used to control forward and backwards movement yet simultaneously govern horizontal aiming orientation, a novel idea indeed! Lateral movement was regulated to the left and right C buttons and vertical aiming orientation was mapped to the up and down C buttons. This intelligent division of labor coupled with fast movement speed and an extremely active “auto aim” system struck an almost perfect balance. Controls were fluid, aiming was simplistic, but maneuvering still required substantial skill. All was right In the world of FPS and every game hence forth utilized a strikingly similar control scheme.

But then a Revolution occurred. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo released their next generation consoles, and all of them had one thing in common. There were now TWO analog control sticks, no longer did movement and aiming orientation need to be carefully divided between multiple sets of buttons, No, now their was a control stick that solely governed movement while the other took care of aiming exclusively. It was a revelation and it allowed for a far more elegant and precise control scheme to emerge. Games like Halo and Call of Duty led the way and to this day hold a virtual monopoly on FPS controls. With this revelation came a double edged sword, while it allowed the FPS genre to grow by leaps and bounds, it also saw game developers forget the lessons learned from dealing with the limitations of a single analog stick. This lesson seemed unimportant, we would never have to deal with that problem again, we had two analog sticks now. Predictably, history repeated itself, and despite great advancements in technology the video game industry was faced with an old adversary with the advent of motion controlled gaming. The Nintendo Wii, Xbox Kinect, and Playstation Move hoped to revolutionize gaming with the ability to have players actual motion control the game. One hand would navigate an analog control stick while the other hand’s motion would control the aiming orientation. Unfortunately there was an unforeseen complication, the players motion hand now must control aiming orientation AND the actual location of the Aimer. This is a new task altogether, where previously the aimer would always remain static in the middle of the screen. If we have learned anything, we know that we must have either enough analog control sticks to govern each task, or we must be inventive and divide tasks appropriately. To the detriment of gamers everywhere, developers did neither. There is no logical way to add a third control analog as players only have two hands, and its introduction would no doubt add a layer of complexity that is both difficult and undesirable. No, instead their strategy was to regulate all movement to a single analog control stick, while the other hands movement controlled both aiming orientation and aimer location. To compensate for the difficulty encountered when one hand must simultaneously controll two tasks, developers introduced Deadzone mechanics, what I would dub the proverbial nail in the coffin for the motion controlled shooter genre. The Deadzone mechanic creates a box (the size of which is often customizable by the user). When the aimer is within the box, only aimer location is controllable, and when it is outside the box, only aiming orientation is controllable. While this simplifies the near impossible task of navigating both with one hand simultaneously, it is clunky in the extreme. The player thereby spends most of his concentration on switching between these tasks and often gets confused, especially when a target lies just on the periphery of the Deadzone. The player must then first reorient his aim and then move back to control aimer location, in the heat of the moment this is extremely frustrating and gives new meaning to the term Sluggish controls.

The wonder is that the lesson of the N64 was so soon forgotten and exchanged for such a poor alternative. But there is still hope, in order for a successful control scheme to be accomplished we must recognize that there is only one analog at our disposal, we must be inventive. THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE IS REDACTED (I can’t give away all of my ideas :)

To be Complex or not to be

I recently purchased Street Fighter 3^rd strike online edition for the Xbox 360. It is considered by many aficionados to be the pinnacle of the series despite being released over a decade ago. Being a long time fan of the Street Fighter series and taking advantage of the games $15 price tag, I thought I owed it to myself to see what everyone was talking about.

After watching a multitude of games on Youtube between high level players, I certainly was intrigued. Most striking to me is how fast the gameplay is and how unlike many other SF games, many players employ an aggressive “rushdown” strategy that puts constant pressure on their opponent. The games parry system also takes the focus off of endless projectile wars, and so while they remain useful distractions, players do not have the ability to “zone” or grind the game to a stalemate.

With that said Id like to focus on what a game like this means to the fighting game genre, and as always, how things could be made for the better. Any SF3rdstrike player worth his salt knows jargon like: hit confirming, canceling, linking, and kara throwing. The existence of such jargon is also the reason why the vast majority of players will never be worth their salt. These high level game mechanics are well implemented and they certainly add a layer of skill to the game, the problem is that they add a layer of what I would call “Execution Skill”. This means that the player must devote considerable practice to mastering the precise technique required to consistently execute these tactics during a game. To better illustrate this point think of a game like golf, an unskilled golfer knows that he wants to hit a ball in a high arc out of the bunker and land it next to the hole, because he has not practiced this very nuanced swing thousands and thousands of times, he will most likely not hit a favorable shot. This failure is frustrating to the unskilled golfer, though a pro player can hit that same shot in his sleep.

My contention is that although there is a market for the hardcore gamer who enjoys spending countless hours mastering his controller technique, overall this proves to be a major turnoff for many players and stands as a significant barrier to entry for those looking to enter the genre. I love the concept of a skillful fighting game, but I don’t want to have to live in a mountain dojo for 6 months training my fingers like a concert pianist to be able to compete in what is ultimately a video game. Rather than relying on the tedium of complex button combos, I think the fighting game genre would be better served by sticking to a more simplistic and user friendly control scheme. A game that did this in excellent fashion was Smash Bros for the Nintendo 64. This was similarly a fighting game but only had 3 attack buttons and a total of 5 necessary buttons. Despite such simplicity the game was played professionally, and was universally considered to be a highly skill based game.

The advantage in offering such simplistic controls is that a new player can quickly feel competent in his ability to compete. Though he may not have the tactics and experience of a veteran player, the player never feels unfairly penalized for his “inability to execute”. Because of this you never hear someone complain, “I wanted to hit you with a Shoryuken but I accidentally did a medium punch”. The player is not tasked with the challenge of performing a move, that’s easy, instead he must focus on decision making, timing, and reading his opponents maneuvers. These are skill sets that all people can maintain, juggling an opponent into a 1o hit combo and linking that into a SuperArt is something few can or care to achieve.

Ultimately I think SF3rdStrike is a truly excellent Street Fighter game which caters to high level players who want to experience a game so nuanced that there is always room for them to improve. For the sake of the fighting game genre, I think developers would be best served by keeping the fast pace and aggressive gameplay demonstrated in 3^rd strike and marrying it with the ultra simplistic controls of a game like Smash Bros. Keeping the game easy to pick up, exciting to play, and difficult to master, is surely the recipe for a successful fighting game.

Halo: Combat DEVOLVED

In a few short months the anniversary edition of Halo: Combat Evolved will be released. Despite my near fanatical love for the original Halo:CE, I will NOT be purchasing this game upon its release. Let me explain to you the motivation behind my boycott.

The anniversary collection will utilize the EXACT same Halo:CE game engine and players will be allowed to play the single player campaign utilizing either classic graphics or the enhanced version. Players will also be able to switch back and forth between the two versions on the fly. This feature sounds pretty fantastic and it actually is…Fantastic. Now when we enter the multiplayer portion of the game, we hit a MAJOR snag. During multiplayer players will be able to play upgraded versions of the original Halos maps, BUT players will be forced to utilize the Game engine of the franchises latest title Halo Reach and they will not be allowed to utilize the classic Halo:CE engine that will be available during single player.

WHAT!? Why won't players be able to utilize the game engine of the original Halo:CE in multiplayer as well? Obviously it has nothing to do with technology, as clearly the game is capable of utilizing both engines. Why offer the classic experience with the EXACT same engine for single player, yet disallow its use for Multiplayer!?

That is the million dollar question and one that I have no trouble answering. The answer is FEAR. The multiplayer for the original Halo:CE is the closest thing to gaming perfection that I have ever experienced, the balance, fun factor, and overall level of competitiveness was superb. Unfortunately for fans, Halo:CE was created before the era of Xbox Live/ internet enabled console gaming, thus it could not/was not played online by the vast majority of fans . With the advent of Xbox Live, its sequel Halo 2, became a gaming phenomenon with millions upon millions of players playing against each other worldwide. The release of a Xbox Live compatible version of Halo: CE has been called for by fans for many years now. Now that they have the opportunity to do just this, why would they choose to disable the very feature fans desire most?

The answer is that the developers and or Microsoft, fear that the release of Halo:CE multiplayer will create a public relations nightmare. It will expose them to the sad fact that despite considerable technological advancement, 3 sequels, and the expenditure of an obscene amount of money, their original installment of Halo: CE remains vastly superior to any product they have released since. Furthermore by releasing the multiplayer of Halo:CE using its original game engine, it would most definitely be a HUGE HIT amongst Halo enthusiasts. Despite the critical acclaim this title would no doubt bring, it would compete directly with their most recent release, Halo Reach, as well as their upcoming title Halo 4. Its impact would not necessarily be a monetary setback, after all, a hugely successful game should only increase profits. More importantly it could strike a deep blow to the community psyche, developers ego, and perhaps set a benchmark that the developers are unsure their upcoming game Halo 4 can measure up to.

First of all, the competitive community would in all likelihood abandon Halo Reach in favor of the far more balanced and skillful gameplay of Halo:CE. The "Competitive Crowd" and substantial Major League Gaming Community has long maintained that Halo: CE multiplayer was vastly superior to the games current form, and many would gladly abandon Halo Reach in favor of a graphically enhanced Xbox Live enabled Halo: CE release.

The top Halo players and a very vocal "competitive crowd" abandoning the most recent iteration of Halo, in favor of a game created more than ten years ago, DOES NOT MAKE THE DEVELOPERS LOOK GOOD, let alone fit their image as progressive pioneers bent on furthering the quality of gaming. It would be as if a 2000 Ford dominated the 2010 model in performance tests despite the newest models highly inflated price tag. Consumers and the current Halo community might justly say, "wait a minute, this game was released over ten years ago, why is it so much better than the current rendition, what are these developers doing?". Asides from posing this dangerous question, It might also be a problem when Halo 4 releases next year. Chances are with the release of Halo 4, many influential community members and top competitive Halo players, might view the upcoming sequel as a downgrade, instead of being the next must have game. This would cost the developers and Microsoft both street credit and risk the all important dollar.

So what actions are they taking? They will release the anniversary collection and pander to all those who loved it by offering the exact single player experience (also a process that is cheap for them because they don't have to add anything new). Theoretically these players will buy the game for it's nostalgia factor while Halo Reach enthusiasts will be treated to an overpriced "Halo:CE Map Pack". Rather than give the consumer what they really desire they plan to keep the measuring stick low, this way they wont have to compete with themselves, nor risk alerting any of the younger Halo fans to the fact that their was once a far more enjoyable version available.

I cannot help but hate the cunning being displayed, as a consumer and avid Halo fan, it makes me sad to see the possibility of an incredible release, purposely castrated. This is exactly how franchises slowly fade away into irrelevance. Halo like many other franchises (COD, Madden) has become serialized, as they try to squeeze every last dollar out of a fanbase whose enthusiasm is rapidly deteriorating. I urge those who see the merit of my views to not purchase the Halo:CE anniversary edition in an effort to deter this policy of corporately enforced mediocrity.

Nuke Nuketown?

Anyone who is familiar with Call of Duty: Black Ops knows about Nuketown. Nuketown is a multiplayer map that is extremely small, it resembles an average american neighborhood complete with two homes, a backyard, school bus, and lots of mock civilians in the guise of mannequins. Players fight each other on what is according to the story, a suburban nuclear testing ground. Personally, I hate this map, it is incredibly small and players basically take turns either gunning each other down in a narrow car filled street, or ceaselessly firing from one house into the other.

While I dislike the map for its lack of tactical versatility, and the constant threat of enemy players spawning directly behind me. I have come to realize that the majority strongly disagrees with me. Every time I play COD and Nuketown is an option, players almost always choose to play it in favor of the other maps offered. Not only do they choose to play it, but after the game is finished, players exercise their option to replay the map. I cannot think of any other map that gets played and replayed with such frustrating frequency. It is lucky for me that the map can't be played indefinitely, for if it was an option, I have no doubt that 90% of games played would be within the confines of everyone's favorite neighborhood warzone.

Now the question is what does this mean and why are players so obsessed with such a small and simplistic map? Ultimately I think it is because Nuketown succeeds in giving COD players what they really want, and that is Action and lots of it. For these players, the score is mere trivia and enemy fire is just that inconvenient factor that forces them to respawn. This doesn't make these players necessarily foolish, it just means that they are playing the game for different reasons than me. To their credit, these players appear to be playing the Game, Purely to have fun. In this case, Fun means pumping round after virtual round into other players and watching them as they Die. Perhaps not the most civilized of activities, nonetheless it tells us what I have already come to suspect. That most players are not terribly interested in complex plots, level design, and proper game balance. Instead, they hands down prefer a reliable instant mindlessly chaotic Action delivering game. In this regard they can count on Nuketown to deliver time and time again.

Please...No More Origin Stories

Origin stories are boring, I don't care what the character was like as a kid, or how much of a chump he was before he decided to become a badass. Unfortunately the origin story seems to be at the zenith of it popularity, and with the upcoming "Green Lantern", and "Thor" releases, I see no end in sight. Apparently, every super hero film thinks they need to devote the entire movie to explaining to me the circumstances surrounding our heroes rise to fame. Let me spare everyone the suspense, your hero starts out as a total chump, and is either emotionally scarred by tragedy and thus motivated to dedicate his life to stomping bad guys, or he receives a "divine blessing" and stumbles upon an external force that empowers him to stop being such a doormat, cue feelings of inadequacy and initial rejection of responsibility.

Financially I understand that it's beneficial for a movie to drag its feet in advancing the plot, it allows for a story that should take 45 minutes to be turned into a trilogy, thus more cash. That aside I wish studios would stop the nonsense, and actually focus on entertaining us. I have stopped viewing "Super Hero" movies whether they be based on Marvel, DC, or Indie characters primarily because of "Origin Syndrome". Their are plenty of movies that give you almost no explanation of the characters origins yet succeed tremendously in creating a compelling character, aided in no small part by the suspense created by not revealing the mechanisms behind our characters motivations.

Movies like the Predator, Gladiator, or Blade, all succeed in dumping the audience into the thick of the action with minimal explanation of their past. These characters talk with their fists and throughout the course of the film we usually learn along with the other supporting characters, the true capabilities of our protagonist. These movies show you what the character is rather than providing a constant stream of inane justifications in the hope of convincing the audience that the supernatural events portrayed in this fictional universe are some how plausible.

If you look at a film like the Predator, you never are provided with any sort of narrative as to his origins or capabilities. All you see is that he came from outer space and is armed to the teeth with high tech weaponry. Based on his Actions, and the realizations of Ahhnold, you learn that the Predator is some kind of zealous ritualistic hunter on a human hunting safari. If anyone wants to know what happened during the Predator's childhood to drive him to kill, skin, and make trophies of human skulls, just go ask any of the current "Super Hero" film directors, Im sure they would love to bore us with a three part examination of Predator culture.

Kill the Campers

Call of Duty Black Ops is a great game, but the most common complaint is that it takes "No Skill", this is because of the advantages offered to players who "camp" and because of the ability to kill enemy players extremely quickly. Detailed below are five very simplistic fixes, that I think would make for a more balanced and skillful competitive experience.

1- All automatic weapons should require Two more bullets to kill their targets. This would give ambushed opponents a better opportunity to escape or at least return fire. It would also force players to better compensate for recoil due to having to fire a longer spray of bullets and force players to demonstrate adequate control rather than just "luckily" achieving a kill in a single burst of fire.

2- Light Machine Guns automatically benefit from the "Deeper Penetration" (giggles) perk. In their current rendition, LMG are vastly inferior to other weapons. They make your character slower, aim down sights slower, have increased recoil, and slower reload times. With built in "deeper penetration" they would be more useful in their role of providing suppressive fire even against targets in cover. Also with the addition of increased kill times, a LMG's greater ammo capacity would prove more useful.

3- Remove reload canceling. Currently players can choose to reload and then during mid reload, they can cancel their decision by double tapping Y, and continue shooting. This is tacky and allows players to reload at times when they shouldn't without suffering any consequences. Once you have removed the magazine from your weapon you should be forced to continue to reload before firing again.

4- Add delayed radar. Too often in Black Ops outcomes are decided by players respawning behind each other or ambushing each other for instant kills. By adding the radar system utilized in the "Sticks and Stones" gametype, players will be alerted to the location a player WAS at and not their current location. This would do two things; it would prevent players from being easily ambushed by respawning opponents, and it would make "camping" less effective by revealing the campers location while only betraying a moving players previous location.

5- Make the "Camouflage" perk only available to snipers. The sniper rifle is less effective in Black Ops due to the removal of the ability to effectively "quick scope". Regardless of the merits of "quickscoping", this would allow snipers to perform their prescribed "camping" role with greater effectiveness.

These simple changes could make a game like Black Ops retain it's fast paced and tactical qualities that have made the COD franchise so successful, while allowing for an increase in competitive value.

The Triumph of Simple Games

While remaining an avid fan of video games and a self proclaimed student of conceptual video game design. I have found that in many ways, games have come full circle. Old Arcade and NES games were often built upon very simplistic concepts, this owing both to technological constraints and the need to connect to audiences who could not be expected to perform the complex maneuvers required by most modern games. The advent of the I-pad, I-phone, and mobile gaming has opened up the gaming world to a mixed audience of seasoned gamers and total amateurs alike. Because of the diversity of these audiences, it is apparent that now more than ever, successful games need to be both intuitive and simple. The allure of these elements is in their ability to provide instant entertainment and allow the player to intuitively sense the games objective.

The game Angry Birds has become a ubiquitous tool of entertainment both among adults and children alike. Its great success can be attributed to the utter simplicity of its design. Give anyone this game for the first time and within ten seconds they will be able to ascertain that the goal is to slingshot the birds so that they knock over the structure that contains the pigs. The only game mechanic the player controls is in adjusting the strength and trajectory of their “angry bird”, and the only goal is to knock down the structure.

In analyzing this game I have begun to see the merits of severely limiting the scope of games, in favor of the focus on establishing a clear player goal combined with a pleasurable game mechanic. The thrill of these games is akin to bouncing quarters into a cup, they lack the depth and complexity of modern console games, but they deliver a simple pleasure without any confusion and without the need for any special training.

Based on these principles I have gotten to thinking of a multitude of extremely simplistic games. The difficulty often comes in reigning in ones imagination and ridding the games concept of any extra complication. A few examples of these conceptual creations will make an appearance on this site shortly, following my upcoming duel with the technical difficulties of web design. Stay tuned

Bringing Back the FUN

If you look at old NES games and especially games played in the arcade, you will see a common denominator. This common denominator is essential to experiencing FUN, something that seems to be sorely lacking in the majority of modern games. Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Contra, Goldeneye: all these games are treasured pieces of video game history and in all of these games things moved FAST. If you were to play any of these games in slow motion they would be a lot easier and considerably less FUN. We grew addicted to these games because they required precision and timing amongst a screen full of chaos. When Pac-Man is being chased by angry ghosts, he has precious few milliseconds to decide to turn left or right, but a successful escape brings a sigh of relief from the player and spectators alike. This is what made these games fun. For the competitive crowd it provided a challenge and for those who simply play for enjoyment, the FAST paced chaos made for some heart racing moments.

Todays games have lost much of this magic, developers are more concerned with Micro-managing a games mechanics to the point that when all is said and done, you are left with a spoon fed and overall dull experience. In the spirit of fairness or more cynically, the pursuit of a larger demographic and increased profits, developers have made games easier and SLOWER. This applies especially in regards to shooting games, but I think it applies equally well to Games in general, as a pervasive theme. Rather than assuming the role of a Commando left to his own wits, most games now have the player assume the role of a tourist, ushered around from site to site and occasionally ordered to perform monotonous tasks like killing mindless enemies or flipping a glowing switch.

This spirit combined with the modern “Facebook” perspective that everything must be social and universally accessible has poisoned the core appeal of numerous game genres. If we look to a game like Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64, we can see a masterpiece constructed with blocky graphics and a scary amount of “Auto-Aim”, a dreaded word for many fans of FPS. Despite this, the game is truly entertaining primarily because of it’s fluid and extremely fast paced nature. When played competitively, fast maneuvering is the key to the game. Juking opponents and weaving in and out of position provides more entertainment than the now Universal “Aim Down Sights” mechanic of modern shooters.

Simplistic game mechanics are a lost art in console gaming, in an age where everything must come packaged with a complex story and layered multiplayer progression system. Rather than appeal to everyone it is my opinion that developers should really consider making more simplistic games with less of an emphasis on production value. This can only be done by offering the player something FUN, not necessarily deep or balanced, but fun. Give players a fast moving spaceship with a set of laser beams Instead of another shooter where one trudges at the speed of a shopping cart.

Ultimately Games are meant to be enjoyable challenges, this joy comes from the excitement and the anticipation of the unknown and the completion of an arduous task. When the puzzle comes already solved or the race is ran at a snails pace to accommodate the slow, you do the participants a disservice. Revive the challenge, Heighten the Intensity, and you will see the bells and whistles happily ignored. I am confident there is still a viable market for FUN.

Shotgun or Shotput?

Shotguns in First Person Shooters are a staple weapon. Almost every game with guns includes some form of shotgun. For many they are the most exciting weapons to use and for others they are cause for considerable dismay. First lets look at why they are such pleasurable tools for some.

A shotgun is a close quarters weapon so it appeals to players who prefer to get close to the enemy, in order to do so the wielder must maneuver constantly to get into proper position. So in general, shotgun users are players who can’t sit still and want to engage other players in Decisive combat. This brings us to our next point, shotguns if nothing else are Decisive weapons which despite their bullet “spread”, require precision. The rate of fire for shotguns is very poor when compared to almost any other weapon, but this lack of ROF is compensated for with stopping power. By nature shotguns are high risk and high reward weapons. A successful hit usually grants the user the instant gratification of a kill and a missed shot most often means death.

So why are Shotguns so misunderstood? The answer is the shotgun “camper”, or more appropriately, the concept of “camping” in general. Like in real life, an effective strategy when using a shotgun is to defend a specific location, and so standing in a corner with the gun pointed at an entrance is quite an effective strategy. Though this holds true for almost any weapon, shotguns are particularly lethal because of their ability to kill in one shot. To combat this, game developers have continually decreased the range of the shotgun to the point where in most FPS, I can literally throw a Shotput farther than the maximum range of most video game shotguns. This certainly makes the shotgun a less than effective weapon and furthermore, it exacerbates the problem. By limiting the weapons range so absurdly, the only really effective strategy becomes to “camp”.

Game developers would be better served by making a shotgun more equivalent to it’s real life counterpart. If one were to triple the range of shotguns in most FPS, the weapon would become less controversial. The weapon should simply become weaker and weaker at range. Close range (within 20 feet) the weapon should be a one shot kill provided the bulk of the “spread” hits its target. Outside of this range the weapon should be a 2 shot kill up to 40 ft, and up to 60 ft the weapon should be a 3-4 shot kill. Why would this help? It would allow the player to use the shotgun, like a gun, and not a glorified spear. Players would both consciously and unconsciously engage others at greater ranges and rely less on simply pointing the gun at open doorways. It is the range limitations of the weapon that ruins its gameplay potential.

I have not singled out any games specifically but let me make a point by using an example that the vast majority of FPS players are familiar with. The Model 1887 shotgun in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The very mention of this weapon will ignite controversy on almost any game forum, but it remains a fantastic example of the noble shotgun gun awry. The range, damage, and rate of fire of the Model 1887 is actually perfect. Keep your guns in their holsters for a moment more, please take a deep breath and listen. The range of the weapon is very comparable to real life, at close range one shot will kill you and at greater ranges it will only maim the target. Its power is counteracted by its very slow rate of fire, a miss with this weapon means almost certain death. The hatred generated by this weapon is due to the horrible design decision that let you wield two of them at once or in game terms “akimbo” (yes I know that this term is itself incorrect, I didn’t name it). Asides from the fact that it is utterly ridiculous to dual wield shotguns, this made it so that the power of the gun even at range was inordinate and they required very little precision because of the double spread. At this point their slow rate of fire was no longer an adequate disadvantage, and there constant use threatened to derail the game.

After ruining the game for many, the developers patched this issue by doing…..Guess what. They greatly reduced the range of the weapon. For those that can remember, a single model 1887 shotgun was not a gamebreaking threat, even with its considerable yet realistic range and power. It was an effective if underpowered weapon. Had there never been the ability to dual wield this weapon, I think it could have served as a model (no pun intended) for what a shotgun should be in a game. A weapon with a limited lethal range and low rate of fire, but deadly if used precisely in the right hands. Stay tuned for my next post which will detail how to bring back the Fun that is sorely lacking in todays games.