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Hypothetical Moral Choice: The Game
Evening all. Sorry for no post last week. My dog had a run in with a particularly sharp tree so most of my designated writing day was spent in a veterinary surgery. (She’s fine now incidentally. Just got a new battle scar to show off.)
Ok, so now that moral choice systems are about as prolific in gaming as jump buttons, I’ve been thinking a lot about the level of emotional investment people put into games that they, through their own actions largely define. How much do people care about characters in a story that they have a level of control over?
While noodling over this question, I came up with a hypothetical scenario and I’d really like to see what you (yes, YOU!) as gamers would do in this theoretical situation.
Imagine you’re playing your favourite computer game that features some kind of moral choice system. Now imagine that there’s a character in it that for whatever reason you find very compelling and/or entertaining to be around. Maybe they’re a love interest in the game or maybe they’re just a relatable, well written character. So you play the game all the way through, new pixelated best friend in-toe but just as you come to the end of the story and the boss fight/last mission/final objective is well under way, you’re put into a situation. A disastrous, inescapable situation that for whatever reason has left you with one final choice. Either you leave your favourite character to die to save yourself or you sacrifice yourself to save them.
how does this situation play out in a video game format for you?
Alright, discuss.
See you next week!
Movie Tie-in Games and How Much They Suck
Evenin’ all. I’ve broken some toes! That’s not news, I just figure if I put an exclamation mark at the end it will sound existing. Anyway…
So through a series of highly random events, I’ve found myself playing quite a few computer game tie-ins to movies of late. Now if there is one undisputable, undeniable, unavoidable fact about these games… it’s that they are bad. And not just bad, baaaaaaad. Unimaginative, unfocused (I’m trying to see how many words beginning with un- I can fit in this article) and generally lacking the touch of anyone who gives a crap about the product.
But you know all this and I’m betting you’ve seen enough people whining about it online to be sick of the subject altogether. But let it never be said that this is a place of pointless bitching. No, no. Our bitching shall have focus and purpose!
And with that in mind, I pose to you 2 questions:
One. Have you ever played a tie-in game that was good?
And TWO! What do you think would help make tie-in games better as a whole?
My answers:
One: Matrix the game. Completely separate story from the films and seamlessly integrated into the established cannon. Someone gave a crap about this game. Whether that was just the Wachowski’s or the entire development team, it shows.
Two: Stop giving these games to big studios to develop. All they do is throw it to the unpaid interns to work on and the final product looks like something spit out by first year game-dev students. Try giving the game to a small studio with some interesting ideas. Give them some leeway and see what they want to do with it. Trust me, little developers would kill to work on a game with a big franchise attached to it and they’ll work a hell of a lot harder then better established developers who think tie-in games are beneath them.
Right, I’ve said my piece. Your turn.
See you next week!
Posted in Matt Mondays
Tagged computer, development, games, guardians, it, ralph, Rise, spiderman, tie-ins, wreck, wreck-it-ralph
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Indie Game – the Movie
Evening all (or morning, I have no idea where our readers are)
This week I just wanted to bring a very interesting documentary to your attention called “Indie Game – the Movie”. A documentary about the successes and stresses (mostly stresses) of developing your own computer game. I’m pretty sure most of Uberfriendship has seen it by this point and it’s a fascinating look into the mentality and motivations of an indie developer.
I thought it was good. You might too
See you next week!
PS. The music in it is pretty superballs too and it was made by this guy
Posted in Matt Mondays
Tagged computer, developer, development, documentary, game, indie, movie
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DLC and the fun of ripping us off. Bioware gets it
So a few weeks ago I was reading this http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115997-BioWare-Defends-Mass-Effect-3-Launch-Day-DLC and I must say, I completely agree with Bioware about DLC. If the company’s got paid time to kill, then it should defiantly use it to make new content. It makes complete sense to both the business who are appropriately using their resources and to the consumer, who’s getting the option to have something that they wouldn’t have otherwise. If they’ve got enough time to fit it on the disk, awesome. Less hard drive space taken up.
If it works the way described, it really is a good idea for keeping prices low during the possess of DLC production…………although, I am pretty sure that Bioware is lying out of its big conglomerate arse. I don’t want to get into that now though, lest a rant take shape. Instead I want to know what you think of launch day DLC. What’s your opinion on the whole issue?