Trust, Brutal Legend (demo), and reminiscences

I loved Jade Empire and Mass Effect (except for the first 6-10 hours).

I loved Kingdom Hearts 2 (even though I disliked the original).

Will I love Brutal Legend even though I was left feeling kind of “meh” after playing the demo? I sometimes wonder how much weight I should truly put on the demo experience. The problem is that there are simply too many games out there to purchase – or even rent them all.

This problem is magnified when I think about games like the ones I list above – games where my first negative impressions were later transformed into very positive game play experiences.

These thoughts trouble me, especially because one of the core tenets of my business is that great games need to be approachable and fun from the first few moments of experience. Heck, that’s why I named my company “Initial Experience Consulting”. Yet, clearly I would have missed out on some great games had I dropped them after only a few hours of struggle.

So, the real question is: How do I determine whether I should invest several hours of drudgery into a game vs. move on to the next game if the first hour is not fun?

What I’m trying to talk about is the issue of developer trust. For instance, I trust that if I suffer through the first 6-10 hours of a Bioware console game that I will come to love it (except for Kotor). So, Bioware scores 2/3 for me.

Conversely, I struggled through the first 10+ hours of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 and only ended up enjoying the third one. So, Bethsoft scores 1/3 for me.

So, when it comes to Brutal Legend, I guess the main question is: What came before? As it turns out, I loved Psychonauts (except for the last boss battle sequence). [note: I know this is going to sound like heresy, but I haven’t played any of Mr. Schafer’s previous games]

And, if I remember correctly, it took a little while for me to warm up to the game. I wasn’t blown away in the first hour or so – but I was blown away by the amazing content that appeared later in the game.

This leads me to the reminiscences portion of this post. When I was working at Microsoft I tasked myself with playing Zelda Windwaker. It was pretty much my first Wii game and I hadn’t played any of the previous versions [note: again, heresy. I know] I started playing on a work machine with a work copy of the game. I struggled a bit and didn’t quite understand how people found the game fun at all.

Until hour 4. That’s when I checked the clock, realized I had 30 minutes before Best Buy closed, and scooped up a Wii and copy of the game and headed home for a late night gaming session.

In the case of Brutal Legend, I guess I’m just going to have to borrow a copy first and then purchase it only if it compels me in ways that the demo failed to do.

Brutal Legend: The Demo

So, I loved Psychonauts. Except, of course, for the final boss battle sequence. Frustrating way to end a great game.

I can’t tell whether I’m going to love (or even like) Brutal Legend based on the demo.

I love the idea of the game and believe that Schafer can pull it off. I love having Jack Black as the voice of the main character (I really liked his character in King Kong, too).

But the basic controls left me scratching my head, wondering whether the game would prove too frustrating to play.

• I find it really hard to get used to having a basic attack mapped to the A button of the controller. A is mostly mapped to jump or interact in these kinds of games.
• Moreover, I really want an easy to use jump/roll when playing this kind of beat ‘em up combat. Instead, I have to “modify” the block command to get a roll (LT + B).
• The main reason for having an attack on both the A and X buttons is so that the Y button can be freed up for co-op attacks with my partner. I’ll discuss these a bit below, but I’m left to wonder whether this special attack could have been moved to a trigger/shoulder button and left me with a more traditional A = jump, X = attack 1, Y = attack 2 scheme.
• Vehicle controls also seemed suboptimal. Accelerate and brake are fine (RT, LT). But why do I need to click the Left Thumbstick to activate nitro? A face button would certainly be easier – as would a shoulder button. Moreover, it was hard to tell when nitro was available and how long it actually lasted.

Combat is sometimes difficult because the camera doesn’t self-adjust in ways that make sense, meaning that I need to manually turn and fix the camera during combat sequences. This is annoying and detracts from the fun.

That said, the game does a decent job of autoaiming my attacks so that just mashing the A button carries my swing into the next available target if the current one dies. And it’s nice to have a ranged attack on the X button to help clear out harder to reach targets.

Visually, the basic ranged attacks are very satisfying (strum guitar, see baddies get zapped or thrown in the air). However, it could use some rumble sweetening for critical hits. Also, I’m not sure what sound/visual/rumble feedback I’ll get for enemies who are resistant or impervious to this kind of attack.

The melee attacks feel OK when it comes to basic chains – and sound/rumble/visuals make it clear when my attacks are being blocked/resisted. I’d have liked to have a sweeter sound, rumble, and hit stop/screen shake when I finish off an enemy with a chain. Occasionally the game will pause and show a decapitation in cinematic mode, but it’s unclear what triggers this (it’s not the last kill in a sequence and it doesn’t seem related to anything I do).

The charged up attacks (strum and axe) are visually OK, but lack visceral feedback in terms of sound, rumble, and hit stop/screen shake.

The ground pound attack has a decent look, sound, and feel upon release, but the wind up is too sterile.

The “throw ally attack” (Y button) is somewhat unsatisfying. The “ready” indicator is a flashing UI element in the bottom left of the screen. This feature would be more compelling if there were in-game sound or visual cues as to when this became available. I also wonder whether it might be more fun to “summon” your partner automatically when she was available as opposed to having to stumble upon her and time the Y button press when she is selectable. I’m thinking more like Kingdom Hearts or Beyond Good & Evil where you power up the co-op meter and then release a co-op flurry when it’s available.

So, the question becomes: If moment-to-moment combat and controls are quirky in some ways and decent in others, will I end up enjoying the game? Note that I didn’t see any evidence of either platforming or puzzle solving, so I have no idea whether these systems exist or it’s just hack and slash.

In the end, I guess, it comes down to world and story. I have forgiven many games for their moment-to-moment game play deficiencies if the world was fun to explore and the story was engaging. Will Brutal Legend deliver in these areas? I couldn’t tell from the demo, but I’m curious to learn more.

A few less important things:

Brief aside: I have been commenting on cinematics controls for games lately. Brutal Legend pauses the opening cinematic when you press the start button, but does NOT advertise that you can either press start again to resume or B to skip. The core functionality is still there, but is essentially buried and hard to discover. Once the game, proper, starts there is no way to skip the cinematic (start just takes you to the pause menu). Annoying? Yep.

Brief aside #2: I love how the game lets you choose level of profanity and level of gore from within game prompts. I wonder if these prompts respect global parental settings?

Brief aside #3: Although the UI was a little quirky and hard to use, the game does allow players to set horizontal and vertical camera controls independently (both inversion and sensitivity).

And a final question: Who was the hand model for the game shell UI? Really cool idea (a fan manipulating an album cover, liner notes, and the vinyl disc itself).

More SMGalaxy Goodness

I'm just getting a short Super Mario Galaxy break in. This, of course, is another great feature of the game: I can just take in a 10-15 minute snack if I want, which makes it fit well with my schedule.

Moreover, the game doesn't generally penalize you for forgetting some of the game play mechanics. There is always a learn-as-you-play tutorial at the beginning of each level that introduces (or reintroduces) necessary mechanics. Of course, this is Super Mario Galaxy, so you don't FEEL like you're being put through a tutorial. But, through clever and enjoyable level design and scripted events you are forced to learn without even realizing it. This game is simply magnificent in this respect.

I recently encountered my first hiccup in game play challenge ramp where it took a little bit more of a struggle to figure out how I was supposed to approach the world. That said, the game had already built up so much trust in the way it eventually rewarded "just screwing around until you figure it out" that I felt comfortable persisting and eventually figured out the parts I was supposed to.

I have a feeling I'm going to end up liking this game as much as Ratchet & Clank and Kingdom Hearts 2 -- two games that (at least in my mind) have clearly influenced this version of SMG.

More thoughts on Mass Effect...

So, I'm really enjoying Mass Effect for the most part. The "most part" being getting to know my character and supporting cast through interesting and engaging dialog.

Yep. By talking to people. Well, not even people. Scripted/AI bits of code that I can interact with.

It's interesting to reflect back on how attached I (and many others) became to the Weighted Companion Cube in Portal or how shocked I was when the white rabbit died in American McGee's Alice. Yet many "human" game characters with much more realistic graphics fail to spring to life.

Lots of variables come into play, especially in terms of the quality of the writing and immersiveness of the story. However, Mass Effect seems to succeed in making in game characters interesting and appealing in ways that other RPGs have failed to do in my mind. In some ways I'm reminded of Planescape: Torment with its incredible dialog amongst the main characters and the interjections between party members and various NPCs.

Where Mass Effect seems to take it to the next level is in terms of the cinematic quality of the cut scenes. They are shot like Hollywood sequences (similar camera angles, cuts, editing), feature gesturing and facial expressions that approach actual "acting", are recorded by high quality voice over talent, and are well-written snippets of dialog that convey drama as well as information.

In short, I'm actually being entertained by cut-scenes. Whoah.

Not surprising are some additional UI quibbles I feel are worth noting:

• Map/Journal integration is dismal. Yes, you can quickly go from Map to Journal via the Y button. However, what you really want to do is pick an objective from your Journal and then quickly plot it on your map (which then gets tracked in your HUD). Oblivion actually did a good job of this.
• Squad selection is painful and error prone. During the tutorial portion of the game you gradually acquire a bunch of NPCs that you can swap in and out. Later on you can swap NPCs at your spaceship hub (which I think was the same in KotoR). Unfortunately, there is no good way to micro your team management in one place (swap equipment, check stats and abilities, etc). All you get in the squad select UI is a big picture of the people you can choose from -- and each NPC is summed up by a single stats bar. This results in the possibility of severe errors in the first part of the game (because there is no way to change squad composition once you exit the squad select screen) and moderate errors for the rest of the game (because you need to select characters, inspect them, then go back to the select screen, lather, rinse, repeat until you get it right). Annoying.
• The Galaxy Map UI is designed in a way that makes it prone to a variety of errors:
• Discoverability: I couldn't figure out how to leave the original space station and go to my next location. I walked around and talked to people. I looked at the Galaxy Map. Finally I figured "it's been long enough, I must be where I should be" and walked outside -- only to find out I'd never left the station. Who knew that your default Galaxy Map view was too far in to suggest that you needed to zoom out several times in order to figure out where to go next?
  
• Usability: A zooms in. B should back out, right? Nope. X backs out. B quits the Galaxy Map. Let's just say that I exited the Galaxy Map several times by mistake.
• Usability: No integration of Journal and Galaxy Map. Forget where you're supposed to go? It's a multi-step process to call that screen up (exit Galaxy Map, go to Start Menu, go to Journal, find active quest, exit Start Menu, go to Galaxy Map, zoom out until you find a likely location, zoom in, select location).

I did experience my first vehicle combat scenario. It was about as uninteresting as I'd heard it was going to be. Luckily I figured out that holding the left trigger meant that I could at least see where I was going and aiming. But the combat feedback is so bad (basically you need to ignore all the beautiful scenery and focus on the ugly red health bar) that the whole experience seems rather hit and miss. It's too bad because it really could have been a cool mini game much the way that Kingdom Hearts 2 or Ratchet & Clank had space combat mission mini games during outer map exploration. Opportunity missed.