^ HERE'S
A SMART AND SASSY ADVERT FOR ALL YOU CLEVER TYPES
30/7/07:
Fable A Motion
After the positive response to my
last review I have decided to attempt to make
this a series for as long as I can manage before
losing interest or being talent spotted by a
major broadcaster. To that end, here is my second
ever video review, this one for a somewhat older
game but which I've been playing a bit lately and
wanted to talk about anyway.
I've just
invented a new ultra trendy compound word.
'Blogligation'. It's a portmanteau of 'blog' and
'obligation', and describes the feeling that,
having in the past regularly updated a website,
you have this imagined inescapable duty to
hastily throw together an update for it whenever
the time gap since the last one grows too long,
no matter what other things you could be doing or
how little interest you have in writing them. I
just want you all to know that blogligation is
the only thing keeping me updating this site,
that and so the audience remains at a stable
level for the few occasions when I actually
release a game.
Which leads us
tentatively to the subject of today's
blogligation, because I'm going to put on my game
designer hat. I want to talk to you about
character damage systems in games, and why none
of them have even attempted to be realistic.
I'm not talking
about Soldier of Fortune-esque damage models so
you can make realistic yawning wounds burst open
in an enemy NPC's screaming flesh, or pump round
after round into their crotch until nothing
remains of their wedding tackle but a shredded
curtain of mutilated tissue. I'm talking about a
system of taking damage and dying that bears any
semblance to the real world.
If you've ever
played an FPS or similarly action-based title I'm
sure you know how it goes. Every enemy has an
invisible number of hit points representing the
firmness of that character's grasp on this veil
of tears. Being shot or smacked about in any way
causes this number to drop, in various increments
depending on whereabouts on the body the damage
took place, and when it reaches zero, the enemy
drops dead where he or she or it stands. But
there's usually absolutely no difference in
performance between an enemy at full health and
one with only 1 point remaining, despite
ostensibly being one toe-poke away from the
hereafter. Games with ragdoll death animations
just make it look even more ridiculous. One
moment an enemy is strafing and firing at full
speed, the next his entire body just goes limp
like Mr. Scotty teleported his skeleton out of
his body or something.
Besides the
one-time chunk of vitality loss bullet wounds in
games have no sensible effect on a human being.
They don't cause gradual bleed-out. They don't
shred muscle fibres to impair movement. They
don't shatter bones. An enemy shot in the
shoulder will still be firing his shotgun with no
ill effects. Kneecapping him will not impair his
ability to sprint in the slightest. Deus Ex went
a little way towards this issue with the player
having separate health for each limb and body
part but there were still very few long-term
effects of being shot multiple times in the chest
and stomach, and all the damage could be swiftly
healed by scoffing ten bags of crisps.
It's frustrating
that games touting realism still use the old
magic health bar system when a more realistic
alternative would actually be pretty easy to
implement. I'm not talking about fully-rendering
an entire human body complete with organs and
skeleton for every single NPC and having every
single square inch of the body behave differently
when shot, although it might not be long before a
major game attempts something like that. Breaking
it down to its most basic level, my new idea for
the FPS damage system would go like this:
- Enemy/player
is shot somewhere. There is a small one-time hit
point loss, then health starts gradually ticking
down to simulate ongoing pain and blood loss. The
amount of the one-time loss varies depending on
body part.
- The more times
the character is shot, the faster the
ticking-down becomes.
- The ticking
down continues until the character can spare a
few moments to use a bandage or health kit to tie
up the wound.
- When the
character's health is below 80%, their movement
starts slowing. When they are under 30%, they can
only walk slowly and cannot use weapons. After
the health is below 10%, they can only crawl
along the floor. Under 3% and they can't even
move, and can only lie and wait for death to
come, dreaming of their wives back home as
poignant music plays.
That's the most
basic I can make it. Ideally there would be other
features, like each character having various
'damage zones' which, when shot once, would not
cause another one-time health loss if shot again,
only maybe accelerate the ticking-down a bit. The
ticking down would obviously occur in larger
increments if the character is shot in a major
body part. If the game has RPG elements the
character's strength or endurance scores can
dictate how much health the player needs to be
able to walk or run. And of course only being
shot in the arms removes the ability to shoot,
and only being shot in the legs or torso removes
the ability to run.
Going even
further, it might be cool to have certain kinds
of damage cause severe internal problems that
bandages alone cannot fix, so health continues to
tick down until the player can find a surgeon, or
operate on themselves if their skill in surgery
is high enough.
If you want the
player to have some kind of advantage for pussy
easier difficulty settings then I guess you could
still have powered armour systems that would work
the same way as silly health does currently in
games. But once that's depleted, we go back to
the ticky downy system. It honestly wouldn't be
that much harder to put in than the current
system, all you need for the most basic level is
an extra variable for each character stating how
fast their health depletes.
I'll tell you
what my ideal realistic damage system would use
if I could get my hands on the technology and the
programming team. I'd use something like Will
Wright's Spore engine to create enemies with
totally procedurally generated animation. And
whenever the enemy got damaged it would stiffen
and paralyse the area that was damaged. If said
area was part of an arm or leg, then everything
below the wound goes limp and floppy, creating an
effect I would call gradual ragdollisation. I
think it'd be hella fun to watch enemy soldiers
try to limp away from you with one leg out of
commision and both arms wobbling loosely about
like a pair of swingballs.
And while we're
on the subject, it would be nice if enemies
actually realised they were in danger from you at
some point. After murdering about ten billion
having them run out screaming 'WE'RE GONNA KICK
YOUR ASS' stops being tense and stops being funny
and then starts making me feel bad, like
intentionally shunting a short bus off a bridge.
I neglected to
mention in the last update that it was Mark
'mods' Lovegrove who supplied me with the PC
Format review. I think he's made some music for
some free games or something. Sorry for
neglecting you, mods, now please respond to that
email I sent you.
So I've been
watching the Death Note anime lately. If you're
not familiar with Death Note it's a manga, an
anime and a live action movie about a God of
Death who gives his magic human killing book to a
standard anime girly-faced prettyboy who then
uses it to exert his own twisted ideals upon the
world, while attempting to fend off the
investigations of a sugar-addicted
social-skills-deficient master detective long
enough for him to slip into a diabetic coma and
die. It's a half-decent series, the decent half
being the first half, before the best character
is killed off and the whole convoluted storyline
disappears up its own convoluted large intestine.
It's a popular
series, judging by the way it's been adapted so
much, partly because of interesting characters
and a plot with more twists and turns than a ball
of steel wool, but I think mostly because we can
all consider how awesome it would be to own a
magic book that makes people die when you write
their name in it, and also what demented agenda
we could pursue once the absolute power starts
corrupting absolutely. Personally, I'd just break
out every major phone directory in the world and
get scribbling, but then I'm a misanthrope. In
fact, I might see if I could save time and just
put the dust jacket on a phone directory and see
if that works.
Anyway, the
concept of the Death Note got me thinking. And
here's the logical route I meandered down:
- There are
Death Gods that own Death Notes, and writing down
names of humans in the Death Notes make humans
die.
- If there are
Gods of Death there will probably be Gods of
other things.
- These Gods of
other things will probably own equivalent notes.
And that's when
I decided to come up with some ideas for
alternative notes owned by other Gods from
mythology. And since the driving force of the
Death Note series is the ridiculous amount of
rules attached to the use of the Note, I felt I
should come up with some rules for these new
alternative Notes, too.
Astarte,
Goddess of Love: Love Note
The person whose
name is written in this note will fall in love
with the person whose name is written immediately
below.
If no second
name is written within one minute or the first
name is written twice, that person will wank
themselves raw for the rest of their lives.
If two names are
written below one name, the ensuing events will
probably be made into a film starring Julia
Roberts.
Ares,
God of War: War Note
The country
whose name is written in this note will declare
war on the name of the country written
immediately below.
If no second
name is written within one minute, the first
country will be engaged in civil war.
If the name of
an individual human is written, that human will
lose all their hair, paint themselves red,
accidentally kill their own family and vow
revenge upon you no matter how much of the
incident was their own stupid fault.
Hecate,
Goddess of the Wilderness: Rabbit Note
The person whose
name is written in this note will turn into a
bunny rabbit. The writer has one minute after
writing the name to specify breed, colouration
and gender of the bunny rabbit.
As long as the
end result is recognisably a bunny rabbit then
you can also add unusual elements to the bunny
rabbit's description, such as glowing in the
dark, smelling of peanut butter, or being
nineteen feet tall.
If the name is
written incompletely, or an attempt is made to
erase it, then that person will only turn into
half a bunny rabbit and will go on to feature as
a fan service character in a Final Fantasy game.
Dionysus,
God of Wine: Piss Pants Note
The person whose
name is written in this note will piss their
pants. They do not necessarily have to be drunk,
but it's less socially ruinous if they are.
A person who is
not wearing pants when scheduled to piss them
will run to the nearest convenient pair of pants.
All that matters to the note is that pants come
into contact with urine.
If the person
pisses on another person's pants while they are
wearing them and is beaten up, the writer of the
name will find that to be fucking hilarious.
I have now seen
the PC Format review. Thank you Future
Publishing, it was very nice.
Also, I wrote an
essay. Click here to read it. It's about song lyrics.
It's also about other, less wholesome things so
you probably shouldn't read it at work.
6 Days A
Sacrifice, I am reliably informed, has been
favourably reviewed in issue 201 of British
'serious' computing journal PC Format.
Unfortunately acquiring a scan of it from the
magazine itself will apparently set me back 350
quid which could be more fruitfully spent on
rent, bills and ice cream sandwiches. So if
someone else could provide a scan I'd be
grateful. Perhaps even to the point of giving
away a free special edition.
Anyway.
Speaking of
serious computing journals I have an article in
the current Hyper and another one in the next. I
keep forgetting to mention this.
Anyway.
I'm going to try
not to swear in this article because I have to
mail this to myself through the office email
filters and they usually don't hold with that
kind of thing.
So I finally
sold out and bought an Ipod the other day. I
haven't sold out to the point that I'd spell it
with a lower case I and a capital P like the
makers insist upon, though. This is the English
language, for god's sake, it's gotten on
perfectly well for centuries without you faffing
about with it like a fop shaking a snotty hanky
off his manicured hand.
Sorry, getting
off topic. So yes, I bought an eyepod, and in my
defense I bought the cheapest kind 'cos I just
needed something to listen to at work. I got one
of those second generation eyepod Shuffles and
this thing is flucking minuscule. It's just about
big enough for a button and a headphone jack. You
couldn't make this any smaller without needing a
sewing needle and magnifying glass to work it.
I'm tempted to see if I can swallow it, and belch
the White Album all the way home.
But I think the
Ipod has a serious image problem, and this
problem is that walking around with one makes you
look like a twart. So for the benefit of my new
trend-following sheep-bleating fluckwit brethren
I've put together some methods to mitigate this
factor.
HOW TO
MAKE YOUR IPOD MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE LESS OF A TWART
1. Ditch
the white wires
Nothing says
'Ipod-wearing twart' than having those iconic
white wires dribbling down your front like the
twin gods of music just came in both your ears.
Replace the Apple earphones with third party
black ones or scribble all over them with a black
biro. Also, wear dark clothing, but not
all-black, because then you start looking like a
twart again.
2.
Disguise the earpieces
Find a way to
cover your ears to disguise the tell-tale
earpieces. One way to do this is to grow your
hair long and let it hang over your ears, but
again this is encroaching on twart territory from
another direction. The less said about earmuffs
the better. On the whole the best option is to
wear another, larger pair of earphones and maybe
dress up as someone who wears earphones for work,
like an air traffic controller or Agent Smith
from the Matrix.
3. Don't
move
As tempting as
it may be to start nodding your head or tapping
your foot when the really awesome half of
Freebird starts, remember that following the
advice above will cause people to not realise you
are wearing an Ipod, so if you start moving or at
worst break-dancing in the middle of the street
people are going to think you are having a
seizure. If this happens you might want to go
along with it because chances are they'll take
you to hospital and inject you with something
really awesome.
Updates have
been quiet from me lately because of a number of
rather significant events making things all
hectic like. Last week I found myself getting
into a little moving house action because of a
little breaking up with girlfriend action but now
I'm all wired up and settled into the spare room
of my friend and game dev colleague Matt. He has
two Guitar Hero controllers and every console
known to man so worry not that this shrinking
creature of twilight shall die of boredom. I am,
however, pining for the touch of a woman, which
may explain certain recent updates.
Also, I turn 24
tomorrow, so if you want to get me a present just
plug my games on your popular internet forum of
choice to indirectly boost my special edition
income, which has trickled off at late.
Anyway, scurry
along now, for I have to write a letter.
AN OPEN
LETTER TO SPIDER-MAN AS HE IS DEPICTED IN THE
FILMS
Dear Mr.
S.M.A.H.E.D.I.T. Films,
It's been very
clear to me after the first two Spider-Man films
that Sam Raimi is kind of jerking off in our
faces. And I mean that in the nicest possible
way. Because can't we all agree that in certain
contexts and circumstances it's fun to watch
someone else jerk off? Before I alienate my
audience any further I should clarify that what I
mean when I say jerking off is letting off steam
and basically completely indulging yourself. And
what with the studio execs getting great big
boners from all the money his films bring in he's
in a position to use more and more fistfuls of
money in the pursuit of jerking off.
But while we
were happy to get Sam Raimi's love of Spider-man
all over our faces and lap it up with glee for
two films, his third production is making things
start to look a little strained, and while there
are still moments that make us lick our
acne-spattered lips, there are other moments when
Sam Raimi's jerk-off is starting to drool
solemnly down our eyelids as we watch in aghast
contempt. Spider-Man 3 has its moments but
suffers from being a big convoluted mess of
plotlines, inconsistency and dodgy character
motivation.
I'm pretty sure
from what I know from industry insider reports
that the flaws in Spider-Man 3 are largely due to
studio meddling, so maybe Sam Raimi's personal
spunk hasn't gotten sour quite yet. But now the
damage is done. The flaws in previous Spider-Mans
could be ignored because of all the sheer jolly
time fun we were having. But now that Spider-Man
3 has mis-stepped, all those flaws return to
light. Believe it or not I'm going somewhere with
this, so forgive me for the long lead-up as I get
to the nub of the matter.
Spider-Man: Your
girlfriend is a bitch-ass ho and you should dump
her.
I know it will
be hard to accept. I know one tends to regard
one's first girlfriend with a bit of the rose
tint, especially clingy dorks like you. But you
could honestly do a hell of a lot better and I
think you need to take stock. You are a masked
super-hero. You have the mystique that attracts
the chicks. Every single woman in New York would
drop their husbands and families in a second if
you gave the slightest inclination towards
letting them slide up and down on your spider
totem. But you insist on clinging to this mouthy
drama queen.
Let's reflect,
shall we? Film 1. Your webslinging debut. Little
miss prissybum is boning the school bully first
and the rich kid second. Then, abandoned by
latter, she starts wrapping her mandibles around
you. You wisely tell her where to get off (albeit
for the wrong reasons) and she reacts wounded by
the idea that someone in the world with a
Y-chromosome wouldn't jump at the chance of
sliding into her beef sandwich.
Film 2. Things
are going pretty well for the Hag Queen when she
lands a part in a play but she whines at you for
not taking time out of your busy schedule of
SAVING FUCKING LIVES to come see her act and
lavish her with praise. In an ongoing evil scheme
to punish you for not immediately ramming your
tongue down her throat at the end of film 1, she
shacks up with some cardboard cutout of a
handsome man just to see the look on your face.
At the end, realising that you are Spider-man,
she gleefully abandons a wedding at the last
minute, costing millions of dollars and putting
out absolutely everyone involved, because of her
irritating little feminine whims.
Film 3. Now,
maybe her insistence on your attention in the
previous episode could be justified by her not
knowing that you moonlight as a crimefighter. In
this film, however, she has no such excuse. She
has absolutely no right to demand that you think
of her selfish needs and niggling issues when
there are human lives at stake and superpowered
misanthropes tearing shit up. She gets pissy when
you fail to sympathise when she loses her job,
forgetting that she never actually told you about
losing her job. She gives you an earful for
snogging a hotter, infinitely more agreeable girl
despite it just being a frivolous photo op. Then
she goes off and bones your best friend for a
while. Then she breaks up with you because
someone threatened to harm you if she didn't,
either forgetting about the whole superpowers
thing or finally having the excuse she needed to
break off and find someone who can find the time
to wait on her hand and foot for the rest of her
fucking life. And then she has the sheer fucking
nerve to whine about your behaviour towards her
afterwards.
The film ends
with whether or not you and Mary Jane get back
together left a little ambiguous. So please,
while you still have the opportunity, drop her
like the ball on chain she is and shack up with
some nice pretty little thing with a handy skill
in sewing torn costumes back together and titties
like two cantaloupes in a sandwich bag. I'd
suggest Gwen Stacey but knowing the comic books
her life expectancy would probably dip severely
the moment you got it together.
Between magazine
writing, professional game design, amateur game
design, actually playing the games I profess to
be an authority on and my furious porn addiction
it's becoming increasingly difficult to update
this site on any kind of regular basis. Take now
for example. I need to update and have absolutely
nothing of interest to say. I refuse to divulge
anything about the games I'm currently working
on, as is my quirk, and all my best material has
to be reserved for my magazine work now. So,
plucking a topic right out of the air, I'll
devote this space to explain what I think it
would be like to have sex with a selection of
video game characters.
Ashley
(Resident Evil 4)
While Ada is
probably the more obviously boneable character in
Resident Evil 4, she strikes me as high
maintenance. The sort of girl who'd lay you, but
halfway through the act breaks your neck with her
thighs and runs off with your secret microfilm.
Ashley, veteran damsel in distress, is the
sluttier, less homicidally inclined alternative.
Okay, she may have ears, dress sense and smarts
in common with a chimpanzee, and she may have a
voice like a van reversing through the wall of a
burglar alarm factory, but her mouth can very
easily be taped shut, and after all that she
still has juicy jugs and an arse like a
shrink-wrapped peach.
Since she's the
daughter of the president she probably likes it
rough. I don't know what the hell I'm basing this
on but that's just the impression I get. I would
do her from behind while revving her ears like a
motorbike and it would be awesome. "Vroom
vroom," I will say.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," she will reply.
Gordon
Freeman (Half-Life)
Admittedly this
is a completely narcissistic fling because with
my current beard and short hair I bear something
of a resemblance to the man. Somehow I think
Gordon would be a very intimidating lover,
because his constant silence and nerdy exterior
lead me to conclude that he is in possession of a
growler of titanic proportions. Obviously this
was why he showed no inclination towards
reciprocating the lovey dovey motions of Alyx
Vance because getting an erection in that suit of
armour would result in a lot of pain and a
permanent L-shaped thing going on down there. And
then it would take some serious gymnastics to
have sex with him. For some reason I keep
thinking of the word 'limbo'.
Lost
Soul (Doom 3)
Hey, internet,
Yahtzee wants to have sex with a floating head.
Just stick with me on this one, it's not as weird
as it sounds. Firstly, a cutscene clearly informs
us that the lost soul is a female floating head,
so it's not gay or anything. Secondly, those
mouths open fucking wide and I think you know
what I'm getting at there (pumps fist). Thirdly,
they're just a head. You know how pissy the
chicks get when you don't manage to finish them
off. But with the lost soul, you've got an
excuse. "What was I supposed to do?"
you can say. "Tickle your neck stump? The
closest thing you have to an erogenous zone is
your nose."
Of course the
lost soul is also observed to have a mouth
crammed with shark-like fangs so upsetting the
creature may put us on the highway to severe
willy trauma but I'm thinking a few whacks with a
monkey wrench will show her who's boss.
Mask De
Smith (Killer 7)
If you're not
familiar with the game Mask is the demolitions
guy on the titular team, he is a masked Mexican
wrestler in a suit and cape who wields twin
grenade launchers and who is built like a brick
privy. But as we are frequently reminded, he's
actually a big old softy at heart who loves
children and puppies and gumdrops and rainbows
and explosions.
For some reason
though I don't want to have sex with Mask De
Smith. Not right away. He's a classy sort and he
deserves to be wooed first. I picture the two of
us, you know, skipping hand-in-hand through
fields of flowers. Sharing the same horse on a
merry go round, candy floss in hand. Reading each
other our poetry under the swaying boughs of a
shady tree. Slowdancing under the moonlight as
his hands creep closer and closer towards my
arse.
