Guitar Hero: World Tour and Left 4 Dead

It was a weekend of high profile titles: One new IP (Left 4 Dead) and one sequel (GH: 4).

Left 4 Dead is an example of a game that is built for co-operative play from the ground up. Notice even that the top option on the Start Menu is to play the co-op campaign. Second option: MP. Third option: Single Player game.

I haven't played with strangers yet (or MP variants), but so far the game has been a blast. Nail biting suspense, tactical depth that makes the game challenging and fun, and decent bots to substitute for when you don't have enough friends online and don't want to play with strangers.

When you get to spend 3 years loving, crafting, and building a game that -- at its core -- is based on an extremely fun premise (co-op survival horror vs. zombies) and you are committed to iterative design, you have an opportunity to deliver a powerful and polished experience. Valve has done just that.

Guitar Hero: World Tour is a game I'd been meaning to pick up for a while. I've written about the "flow" that I've experienced on a couple of occasions while playing Rock Band with friends and I wanted to study that a bit more. The initial experience was daunting and not really optimized for a more "newb" like myself... But once I got going I definitely got sucked in and I can't wait to play some more.

I'll have more specific comments and updates as I dive deeper into both of these games. I also have 2 DS games on the way (I'll be traveling a bunch, so I figured I should): 

• Sonic Chronicles (the Bioware RPG starring Sonic)
• Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Clue Bender Society (I want to see how these games translate to other platforms)

Some gaming updates: Wii Fit, Guitar Hero, Conan, Bejeweled Blitz

First things, first.

I finally cracked 100,000 points on the Facebook app Bejeweled Blitz. I've been struggling for over a month to do so while some of my "less serious gamer" friends reached this mark with little or no struggle at all. 

I've been trying to figure out "what gives?" Many folks tell me "it's all luck". But I guarantee that I've played more rounds of BB than these friends, so that kind of rules chance out. What I'm left to believe that I was systematically pursuing strategies that were leading me to perform worse than chance.

As someone who spends his professional career breaking down core game play mechanics, this has been a very humbling experience. Now I need to see if I can replicate my success (as my other friends have done) and then analyze what I'm doing now that I wasn't doing before.

On another note, I just received a copy of Conan. I don't know much about the game, except that it's from THQ and I know one of the design leads who provided a lot of combat mechanics, balance, and pacing feedback to the development team. He wrote an article about it in Game Developer that was quite instructive. I'm curious to see how the "learn as you play" was structured and how the challenge ramp was built with the goal of applying some of those findings to other games I am working on.

And, just to take a completely different tangent, I also fired up Guitar Hero: World Tour and watched Liza play some Wii Fit. GH:WT has some interesting usability challenges associated with it. I only spent a few minutes with it, so haven't formed any complete impressions. It looks like the kind of game where the design intentions were noble (Quick Play mode; Tutorials; customer generated content sharing; "Beginner" difficulty level) but somehow along the way it crossed the fine line of "you're killing me with all this help". It's already a game about sensory overload (especially when you add band mates and beers), so the question becomes: How do you please everybody (and this is a game with a mass following of diverse gamers) without failing certain basic use cases (like easy to jump into party mode; co-op tutorial sessions; etc).

More thoughts to come.

The night ended with Liza demonstrating some of her new Wii Fit accomplishments and having a quick 27 minute workout. It's amazing how all of the sudden it hits you that you've done almost a half an hour of exercise. Yeah, there are problems with the trainers (they're creepy) and the challenge ramp (it seems like there should be at least one more step between Basic and Advanced for some exercises), this is one of those games that could probably change someone's life around. I'm excited about doing some of the stretching and balance exercises -- they'll be really helpful for hockey. And some of the strength exercises also look pretty darn useful.

Rock Band continues to grow on me...

I wrote in an earlier post about how, surprisingly, I enjoyed playing the drums on Rock Band. Well, tonight I met up with friends after some board gaming to chill out assuming that I'd either play some drums or (to everyone's horror) sing because I never got into the guitars in Guitar Hero.

However, I jumped in on bass (medium difficulty) and had a blast. I experienced bursts of the sense of flow that I had while I was drumming and I wonder if it has less to do with the kind of instruments that were available and more to do with the number of people who were able to play at once. This is mere speculation, but 2 player co-op in the original Guitar Hero never felt as electric to me as the 3-4 player modes of Rock Band. Of course, maybe it was just the addition of the drums or the mic. But I really do think it has more to do with the social pressure (and reward) of trying to gel with multiple people. You feel extra bad when you can't hold your own weight -- and you feel extra good when the 3 or 4 of you are in sync and rocking out.

I'll have to investigate this further.

Side note: We played board games at an awesome game store in Queen Anne called Blue Highway Games. The game was called Power Grid and it was quite fun. The only problem: No beer.

OK, I finally get it. My life as a drummer.

I could understand the appeal. I even enjoyed watching people (especially non-gamers) play the game. But I just never enjoyed playing Guitar Hero. The gameplay was too boring at the easiest level and seemed disconnected from the actual flow of the music. Higher difficulty levels brought frustration that I knew could only be overcome with dozens of hours of practice. Practice... Not something I intentionally want to do while gaming.

On Friday night I took a few turns on the mic at Rock Band. Yeah, I've done karaoke with friends before after a few drinks and it can be fun. I'm a terrible singer, but I've gotten over that. And now I get to play a fun co-op game with my closest friends who are really into the game.

However, I've said it before that even the "fart in a bag" game can be fun if you add co-op play. What surprised me about Rock Band was that I played again on Saturday night. And this time I took over the drums. I'll admit that while watching (and listening) to others play, the drums seemed pretty lame. The dull thuds on the drum pads sound disconnected from the game's soundtrack and break the immersion of the game -- to the observer. But, to the player the feeling of flow (once you've gotten over the constant failing for the first 15 or so minutes) is incredibly rewarding.

I was hooked. And I even thought I might want to try the single player drummer career mode on my own. I started to wonder what it would be like to ramp up the difficulty and really get into it. I'm thinking about going to a friend's place this afternoon and playing again...

One challenge the game does not overcome (admittedly a tough challenge given 4 player co-op) is game setup UI and flow. Man was it ever hard to set up individual songs especially if there were first time players in the mix. The rowdiness and drinking added some extra difficulty here, but come on -- that's the kind of environment that this game is built for.

It makes me wonder what kind of field research the folks did on this game before launch. Did they actually roll it out at bars with first-time players? I have a feeling if they did they would have come up with a "party" or "social" mode where controls and sessions could be streamlined:

• Eliminate the complex UI by ditching profiles and band member setup.
• Have playlists that you can set on the fly (without going back to gameshell).
• Have a "social" difficulty setting that is more equivalent to the "easy" setting on the original Guitar Hero if one of the players fails twice.

Note that I'm not saying replace band campaigns (these are obviously fun and essential) but make a party-friendly mode that fits with an evening of drinks, newbs, and livin' the rockstar fantasy.