Silent Hill Book of Memories and Skyrim

Two completely different games I know.

Take a journey with me if you would please!

Joystiq reported that there will be an upcoming entry in the Silent Hill franchise entitled Book of Memories that will be predominantly a multiplayer experience. As I have mentioned before this will be an epic fail. Ultimately this move really encapsulates what is wrong with the AAA game industry.

A lot of publishers and developers see Intellectual Properties as brands to be exploited rather than living, breathing universes that are specific works of art.

It is what I will refer to as the Guitar Hero effect. Something is popular, so lets push the shit out of it rather than take the time to develop the property into something that evolves and is continually exciting. Silent Hill 2 was so good that even 10 years later just the name will help a game sell well. It has brand recognition. Multiplayer games sell well too so if we combine a brand name with popular mechanics it should be a hit right?

This is indicative of what the AAA industry does wrong, but it must be doing something right? Right?!?!

Of course it does! I can't remember or find where I read it, but I saw that some lead on Skyrim said "we just want to make the most awesome, giant RPG" (paraphrasing). That attitude, right there, is how you make the big bucks. Take your time (within reason of course) to make the best product you can. It's how Blizzard did is, how Id did it, how Valve did it, and why all of those companies continue to be profitable when Activision and EA are laying people off and closing studios left and right.

AAA games will always be great if the people with the money, talent, and resources recognize the power they have to create brilliant art rather than analyze trends and imitate and not innovate. If you are going to spend $20 to $30 million on a game, why not commit those kind of resources to creating the best product you can? If you do there will always be plenty of "me's" to throw our disposable income at you (and we will be happy to do so).

Next time why Nintendo is stupid (short answer Wii U) .

Dead Island Gameplay Trailer

Thanks to the amazingly beautiful and haunting, yet increasingly irrelevant cinematic trailer released for the upcoming release Dead Island I have been following the media surrounding the game reasonably closely. Just a couple days ago a 12 minute gameplay trailer was released finally granting us snarling undead masses of the game buying public it's first real impressions regarding the actual mechanics to back up the amazing 3rd party cinematography. Don't remember the video? Click here.

So the game looks like a Grand Theft Auto clone with zombies. Well that's not entirely accurate..... more like a Just Cause clone with Zombies with a bit of Bulletstorm (minus the subliminal sexual assault impulses) mixed in.

It looks like it might be fun, but my pressing concern is that of a lack of gameplay focus.

I see instances of score boons rising from bloodied undead corpses being shot with automatic weapons and then scenes portraying horror and other similar emotions. It seems to me like you have to choose between Duke Nukem and Silent Hill 2; it really would be impossible to be both. Bottom line is looks like the game is trying to mix arcade style action with tense survival horror and that is the developer trying to have it's cake and eat it too. (The cake is obviously a lie anyways wakka wakka)

A horror experience needs to be before anything else immersive. For a survival horror game to really be effective the player needs to truly forget they are sitting on their couch and really be fully emotionally invested in what is happening on the screen and in the game. Huds, numerical scores, and other numerical information displayed on screen serves only to remind us we are playing a game; a pleasant diversion rather than being a part of a story in another universe.

Arcade style games are very fun, but for completely different reasons. It is simply a blast to pwn newbs with the sniper rifle from half a map away and see the kill message broadcasted to the entire server. It is a blast to get points for mutilating fodder enemies in creative ways a-la Bulletstorm, but it is a completely opposite experience from that immersive survival horror.

My kingdom for a true zombie apocalypse sim!

Honestly, making an fps where survival is prominent, you need to strike a balance between resource management, creating safe houses, and staying a step ahead of the zombie hordes would be epic. Hell a talented modded could do it in Minecraft in theory, or make a complete mod for L4D. It really would be a license to print money if someone would do it right.

Regardless Dead Island looks to be in danger of having an identity crisis. Of course the game doesn't release for some time, but being an anonymous internet troll I certainly won't let that prevent me from passing judgment!

Silent Hill MP? Just the thought is fail

There have been a few different websites reporting over the weekend that Konami, despite rulling out for the soon to be released next installment of the Silent Hill franchise, has discussed making a multi-player Silent Hill "chapter" be it part of another game or an XBLA or PSN title. Most people who actually follow and enjoy games, be them core or casual, can figure out this is a bad idea, but why is it terrible and why would Konami even think about it?

Silent Hill 2 is considered by many (including myself) to be one of the greatest games of all time because it is the zenith of how to use the medium for greatest effect. The game is great because of the way it uses the environment as the main means of communicating the story, uses the technology appropriately, and really uses the interactivity of the medium to create a feeling of loneliness and isolation without making it boring. Granted the game had some issues (terrible control scheme), but in all it was an incredible journey with great replay value that has aged well.

Multi-player mechanics would really go against everything that made this franchise great; the isolation and environmental story telling. The only real way I could envision it would be Left 4 Dead with monsters in leiu of zombies.

Konami see's Silent Hill as a franchise more than a tangible universe with a cohesive storyline. That is why we saw a mediocre at best movie, several sequels that received modest at best critical success, and the original developers jumping ship years ago. We've all seen the game jump around to multiple platforms. The game has changed from lonely and isolated horror game to a hollywood blockbuster Michael Bay mentality. The property has been streamlined.

The Call of Duty, Halo, and Madden franchises do incredibly well with multi-player console communities. We have seen a lot of different developers sacrifice quality, or shoehorn multi-player in to games because publishers seem to think robust multi-player equates fiscal success, but of course that isn't necessarily the case in reality. In the last 3 years Mass Effect 1 and 2, Dragon Age 1 and 2, Dead Space 1, Batman Arkham Asylum, Assasin's Creed 1 and 2(not brotherhood), and many other titles have achieved critical and financial success without multi-player, but the industry higher-ups don't seem to want to listen because all they see is the money CODBlops has made.

Of course it would probably cost little in comparison for Konami to develop and publish the title and there are enough people who would play it for the brand name alone, so I wouldn't be suprised if it does become a reality, but it makes me wish for a 5th Element mentality; if you make a work of art that stands alone on it's own very well, it doesn't really need a sequel (Bioshock comes to mind as well).