Nightmare Reality -- Alan Wake Review

A light shines faintly in the distance. The forest is dark and the fog envelops you. Instinctively, you know that you must head toward the light. If you know nothing else about your surroundings, your friends, your foes, or yourself, you do know at least one thing is true: Go into the light. Like a child in his room at night, the light can protect you from the monsters, from anything. But also like a child, you eventually grow to understand the reality of your fears, and the darkness is suddenly less frightening, less ominously secretive; the only thing left taunting you is the incoherent complexity of your nightmares.

Alan Wake is "a little heavy on the metaphors," says supporting character Sarah Breaker in Remedy Entertainment's highly anticipated third-person thriller. The same might be said of the game's writer, Sam Lake, who has crafted a wildly imaginative, captivating, enjoyable, yet frustrating plot for the studio's first game since the 2003 pulp shooter, Max Payne 2. When the literary technique is on, it works wonderfully, sustaining the story for at least half of its arc, depending on how one reads into it. But as the opening lines of the game -- "...nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations...there can be no explanation, and there shouldn't be one..." -- suggest, there may be no correct interpretation for the nightmarish mess in which author Alan Wake becomes entangled over the course of six short "episodes."

Although it seems that any type of cohesive logic applied to the game's narrative breaks down and falls apart at some point or another, sections of the plot make it a stellar title with one of the best first halves I've experienced in some time. This instantly captivating experience began to lose some of its magic in the second half, largely because of the demystification of the events surrounding Wake's retreat to Bright Falls: his wife's disappearance, the strange darkness possessing his enemies, the lapse in his memory, etc. The abstract seemed to become more concrete, and what I initially pegged as strictly psychological shifted more and more toward the supernatural. These changes were slightly disappointing and disenchanting, but even after finishing the game, a substantial degree of ambiguity still plaguing my perception of the experience tells me that the story is at least impressive, if not exceptional. Again, from the game's opening lines: "The unanswered mystery is what stays with us the longest, and it's what we'll remember in the end."

The one-paragraph, non-spoiler-free plot is ostensibly about an author with writer's block who comes to a small town in the Washington mountains to clear his head and calm his nerves, but instead winds up staying on an island that has been gone for over 30 years, where his nyctophobic wife is kidnapped by a Dark Presence lurking in the volcano below, which has been awakened by his arrival. He then spends a week in the non-existent cabin, writing a manuscript edited by the Dark Presence in an attempt to save his wife, the content of which penetrates the real world and plays out exactly as it is written, casting him in the role of a semi-amnesiac, nearly narcoleptic protagonist fighting the aforementioned evil with light, occasionally receiving aid via dream sequence from a man in a diver's suit who has been dead for as many years as the imaginary island. But it's not exactly as simple as that.

The early part of the game is about learning the story, revealing the reality of Alan Wake's situation, so stingily pieced together by scattered, non-sequential manuscript pages. Alongside plenty of deadpan narration that explores events, expectations, and emotions, the manuscript pages expand on character development, gameplay elements, and overall plot. They subtly knock on the fourth wall, and tell a meta-narrative that recapitulates what the player has already seen, predicts future events, and at times describes Wake's current situation: "He took out his hip flask when he reached the page that described how he reached the page that made him take out his hip flask." The player is driven to find these pages because Wake is driven to reveal what is happening to him. The pages feel like more than just cleverly tied-in collectibles; they are integral to the experience. As the secrets are revealed, however, the journey becomes more about just "getting there," reaching a prescribed goal rather than unfolding the plot. This shift is not a bad thing, but may have happened too early in the game's timeline, leaving the second half to drag its feet in terms of depth and allure.

Otherwise, the game is paced incredibly well, remaining consistently compelling throughout the mix of cutscenes, combat, exploration, and narration. Wandering throughout the majestic mountain forests of the pacific northwest as the atmosphere vacillates between serene and foreboding dominates the experience, with intermittent moments of tense, frightful combat, and driving segments that surprisingly don't detract from the rest of the game. These remain short enough to not be intrusive, and don't abandon the core gameplay, instead allowing Wake to step out of the vehicle and go on foot any time something in the environment interests him.

Combat, for the most part, is used very effectively to add to the overall experience. For the majority of the game, there is just enough to stress players into a state of alert, but rarely enough to become monotonous. One could argue, though, that the greater frequency of fights late in the game dampen the sense of suspense built earlier on. Conflicts are almost always foreshadowed by a change in atmosphere, which becomes increasingly dark, foggy, and obscured by blur effects before darkness-possessed locals called "Taken" quickly close in on Wake. The game uses a tight and responsive two-tiered combat system that requires Wake to cast away his enemies' shrouds of darkness with flashlights or road flares before dispatching them with hard ammunition. The flashlight has an excellent lock-on function and its persistent beam acts as a natural reticle for Wake's guns. Other weapons like flashbang grenades and flare guns, items usually considered secondary in video games, are now deadly, and quickly dematerialize even Wake's tougher opposition.

Encounters become increasingly formidable as the game progresses, as stronger Taken attack in greater numbers with more dangerous weapons, and inanimate objects propel themselves across the landscape in attempts to pulpify the protagonist. This demands the use of improved light sources (e.g. spotlights, headlights) and weaponry, but also makes flight an appealing option more often than in most games. Because there is nothing to gain from killing enemies aside from peace and safety, simply running to the next protective light source can be preferable to annihilating every last foe in the middle of the dark woods.

Relentless forward progress is encouraged in Alan Wake, tying into the author's description of how he must keep writing, lest he fail to save his wife. The beacons of light that dot each level provide Wake safe haven from his enemies and always show him where to go next, but also burn out as he passes them, ensuring that the only path to safety is ever ahead, not behind. Retreat is never an option, a theme that is further emphasized by the bridges that continually collapse behind Wake, leaving him to advance across the next figurative island in his disturbingly disjointed nightmare reality.

Alan Wake is a great game with nearly all of the elements one should expect in a thriller. Whether it cleverly incorporates literary technique into videogame storytelling or intentionally obfuscates any true meaning just to harass players is a mystery, but it does start one thinking, and that's an important step for the medium. Otherwise, inventive and effective gameplay mechanics combine with excellent art and sound design to make what is an enjoyable game, regardless of the intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual) stuff.

The Power Is In Your Hands -- Sleep Is Death Review

It just doesn't feel right trying to review something like Jason Rohrer's Sleep Is Death. To me, that would be like trying to review Dungeons & Dragons, or campfire tales in general, or conversation -- all of it. Sleep Is Death is more a game creation tool or storytelling platform than it is a single, critiquable entity; it is a sea of possibility limited almost solely by the people swimming in it. For this reason, it is more appropriate to approach Sleep Is Death in a discussion than in a review (and Rohrer did chat with me and the Big Red Potion crew a couple of weeks back), but I will still do my best to convey what this little piece of software is and why it's both important and excellent.

Sleep Is Death is a game for two people, and is only a game at all when two people are involved (otherwise it functions as a storyboard creator). The more important role is that of the "controller": the storyteller, game master, or game director, who presents each session's content in semi-real time. Via a simple gridded control panel interface, the controller customizes the game's current background, music, objects, characters, dialogue, and narration, or selects from a number of pre-made items, available from the outset. The controller essentially builds a new game/story in every session. The "player," on the other hand, sees only a single window with three available actions per timed turn. The player may move anywhere on the screen, type anything into a speech bubble, and/or indicate with an arrowed box that he or she wishes to interact with something in the scene, again using any words that come to mind. It's then up to the controller, in the next 30 seconds (a default setting that can be changed to anything, including the 300 seconds that I personally prefer to use), to respond to those actions with what would typically be stored in unalterable form on a game disc, but is instead dynamically generated by a real human brain.

For the player, Sleep Is Death is only what the controller can author and offer in any given local or remote game session using the tools available. For the controller, however, the game is a powerful design utility that can be used to tell incredibly varied, open-ended, and meaningful stories, and to create player-director interaction that is impossible in current single-player games and completely different from standard multiplayer experiences. With the support of a robust community at sites like www.sidtube.com, creative expression can be fueled with numerous downloadable "resource packs," which include any number of game assets created in Sleep Is Death's surprisingly capable and versatile scene, room, object, sprite, and music editors. Every game session also outputs a pictoral "flipbook" of the entire story once the controller decides to end it, and hundreds of these game records can be found online, as well. What SID players have put together and shared with the community is astonishing, and makes the game an ever-expandable product.

Sleep Is Death's primary fault is the steep difficulty curve it imposes on the controller. While Rohrer himself recommends not being overly ambitious to start with, perhaps beginning with a single-scene game and some solid dialogue, the potential is enticing enough to lead a controller to destroy his own game with unnecessary complexity. On the other hand, practice with the control panel and a reasonable time investment can lead a controller to create very impressive content; I've already seen pseudo-3D games, first-person games, dungeon crawlers, shooters, and even inventory management systems produced by members of the community to go along with the basic adventures SID is most obviously suited for.

Sleep Is Death brings the concept of the game back under the control of the players involved, at once combining the natural ease of conversation and storytelling with the self-contained, individually directed experiences offered by film and modern video games. It is about the people at the keyboard; their stories, their creativity, and their interactions are the real substance here. SID is but the medium of transport, and although it expects a high degree of openness and willingness of its users -- which it may not always get; it's not for everyone -- it accomplishes its goals very admirably, and shows us at least one direction in which this industry can and should be moving.

An All-Points Bulletin For MMOs: Pay As You Go

For years, massively multiplayer online games have failed to suck me in like the virtual crack cocaine that they are meant to be. This isn't because I have supernatural powers to resist addiction or that I even dislike these games' content; it is primarily a matter of philosophical disagreement with the payment models a large majority of these games have chosen to adopt, and my own lack of desire to commit to playing enough to make the expense worthwhile.

The idea of paying continuously to access a game that I have already purchased once is ridiculous and annoying. This is especially a problem when the game's design makes me want to take frequent breaks and spread the game out over a long period of time. Using EverCrack and World of WarCrack as examples, there is only so much time I'm willing to sit and slay X number of whatever-you-call-its to bring back to Mr. Do-this-for-me in order to get experience points and items I usually don't need, want, or use. Gamers and critics often complain of filler in games, junk added to lengthen the overall game time, but in many MMORPGs, the majority of gameplay is exactly that crap I don't want in a game. The more I see this type of gameplay, the shorter I want my sessions to be, and the longer the gap of time before I want to jump back in. It's rather unfortunate, then, that these games make players pay by the month for access. So here's a game whose design forces me to progress slowly, and a pricing structure that takes my money in real time. Great. That's EXACTLY what I wanted!

There is far more value in a game that offers 40-50 hours of play, but doesn't charge me if I take too long to reach that time investment. Playing bits and pieces of Oblivion or Fallout 3 over the course of four months costs exactly the games' retail price -- around $60 -- but playing WoW for that same period costs the $40 initial investment and four subsequent $15 charges, totalling $100. I don't think "bang-for-your-buck" applies in this case.

It's true that there are a multitude of free-to-play MMOs out there now, and their increasing popularity is difficult to ignore. I also feel that they are on their way to being a proven new branch in the evolution of the industry, here to stay for quite some time. However, many of these games simply take the EverCraft quest structure and apply it to a virtual world for cheapskates, which makes little sense from one perspective, and is just not very interesting from another perspective. If the point of this type of design is to make character-building a slow process that forces players to spend more time paying into the system, then it doesn't belong in a free-to-play game, even if it is there to play a traditional filler role and lengthen the total game time for other reasons. This type of gameplay just isn't very much fun, and I'm sure a bit of play-testing would reveal that better-presented quests and story-driven adventure segments would do far more to pique interest in these mostly fantasy-RPG settings.

This is where Realtime Worlds' All Points Bulletin comes in. First, it changes the game in terms of genre by putting players in a modern world, in an urban setting, where the only wandering monsters are other players seeking to exploit the fair city with their criminal behavior, or those who seek to oppress and incarcerate the free actions of the lawfully unbound, depending on what side you're on. Stale fetch quests and odd-job-style goals are not expected to be a big part of APB, which will instead use a dynamic matchmaking/mission system to pit players against one another as they vie for those dangling experience carrots, ever-present in MMOs.

But unlike traditional pay-to-play MMOs, APB is using a payment structure that is for once actually fair to a variety of different types of players. First off, playing in the game's "social districts" -- where one can customize characters, chat with other players, create original car art, tattoos, or clothing, and trade on the in-game marketplace -- is completely free with a player's initial purchase. Only diving into the action districts will ever cost extra money, and it is all available at each player's own pace.

The first 50 hours are free, approximating the length of a hefty offline game, and already validating APB's retail price. After that, monthly subscriptions of $10 per month (or less for long-term deals) are available for players who have the intestinal fortitude to play extended hours on a consistent basis, which is right in line with traditional MMO models -- but still on the cheap end. Finally -- and this is the big innovation -- APB will let players top up like a prepaid cellular phone, in increments starting at 20 hours for $7, and use that time AT THEIR LEISURE. Finally, someone who can't stand being compelled to play a game just to avoid feeling swindled when the VISA statement arrives can enjoy an MMO on his or her own time. Playing intermittently will actually be a viable option, and that same $15 WoW charge for one month of play can instead be used by a two-hour-per-week APB player to stay in the game for five months. (Great for game journos who have to play new games every week, I might add.)

The important thing is that APB accommodates any level of commitment at a fair price, for something that is shaping up to be a top-quality title. Realtime Worlds is innovating not only in the game's content, but also in its delivery to the consumer. Other MMO studios would be smart to pay attention.

Carrot, Stick, Go! 3: Novel Discomfort

I guess it’s strange to genuinely desire discomfort, but I like it when a video game can make me feel uncomfortable.

Recent outings with generally unremarkable, formulaic game design have led to me consider why I can pick up and play 10 games, and yet only be truly captivated by one or two of them. The obvious answer is that some games are better than others, but is better really an objective concept, or is it simply a matter of measuring a game based on what is personally valuable to me? If quality is indeed objective, why do gamers and critics consistently bemoan sequels for being largely the same games as their predecessors, even when those predecessors were received with astronomical levels of acclaim? If quality is truly objective, shouldn’t a game with the same features, gameplay, and narrative delivery found in a previously extolled title be equally well received?

To me, novelty carries great weight as a component of my personal enjoyment of many titles. This plays a role in my preference of single-player or cooperative gaming over competitive multiplayer, original IPs over sequels, and genre-blending titles over conventional ones, as well as any game that emphasizes new ways to play or new strategies in game design.

This may seem obvious, as repeating the same actions and experiences ad infinitum should be torturous, but gamers actually do this all the time. Call of Duty players repeatedly shoot enemy soldiers, God of War players slash at mythical creatures for days on end, Final Fantasy players click "attack" thousands of times, and BioWare aficionados talk more than a Valley girl on speed. We do enjoy repetition sometimes, so maybe this common scapegoat is not deserving of the frequent chidings, and maybe quickly chalking up one’s level of interest to novelty is too much a simplification of the emotions at work during play.

Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack...

I used the word discomfort earlier because it communicates an emotional response that is only elicited once a certain degree of aberration has been achieved. A game may be slightly different from the standard, yet still not interesting as a direct result of its nuances, but a vastly anomalous game can be either loved or hated solely because of its uniqueness. This unfamiliarity is discomfort without qualitative assessment - simply a lack of established comfort with the content, gameplay, or other aspect(s) of the experience. Whether a good thing or a bad thing, this novel discomfort is easily recognizable when encountered, but in my experience is most effective when it literally perturbs the individual behind the controller.

Games like Monster Hunter Tri or Final Fantasy XIII do little to vary the formulas gamers have been presented with for years. I personally have spent very little time with either game as a result. Conversely, something like Demon’s Souls, also a Japanese role-playing game, is engrossing for all the ways it shakes things up, and in particular the way it makes me extremely uncomfortable while playing it. Foreboding atmosphere, fear of death, lurking phantoms, and messages from other players’ game worlds, among other things, make the game highly unsettling. The overwhelmingly positive critical and general reception shows that this works remarkably well.

Heavy Rain is another title that does an excellent job of making players feel uncomfortable throughout the experience. It does so with disturbing themes not often tackled by video games, including child death, divorce, kidnap, murder, and drug addiction. It also employs gameplay mechanics that are meant to give players a degree of influence over a long series of highly stressful, emotionally affective situations, but ultimately leaves them at the mercy of the overarching story, as authored by the game’s designers. The way it gives players control over multiple characters at different times, specifically ones whose motivations and actions are in conflict with one another, can also create a real sense of discomfort in players who are more accustomed to conventional videogame storytelling.

Completely un-conventional in that regard is Jason Rohrer’s recent 2-player storytelling tool/game system, SleepIsDeath, which presents no narrative of its own, but leaves the task up to the "controller" (a new-age dungeon master of sorts) of each individual game session. While the moderately haphazard behavior of characters in Heavy Rain can be disempowering to players trained for years on typical game design, SleepIsDeath removes even more rules of interaction, creating a blank slate that can be used to deliver some of the most powerful of interactive gaming experiences.

This can be discomforting because games with fewer rules seem less contained and less safe, with more opportunity to have one’s sense of well-being violated. This may very well be a large part of the appeal of open-world games, which the industry has seen a great push toward in recent years - that the world provides more possibilities and more unknown elements than a limited, structured game world with numerous rules governing play therein.

This all leads me to think about the reasons we play games in the first place. One is to experience the fantastic. For a seasoned gamer, the virtual experiences that were once extraordinary are not so anymore. Interest can wane, as it does in my case, without constant freshness and increasing distance from the recycled themes that reside within our gaming comfort zones. These comfort zones can relate to any aspect of video games: story content, gameplay mechanics, aesthetics, etc. Anything that challenges our sense of familiarity with the medium can put us in a state of alert, preparing us to encounter novel stimuli. In this way, novelty directly translates to discomfort as a measure of attentional agitation, automatically increasing our interest in what is being presented.

The simple truth is that for a fair share of gamers, especially progressive, veteran gamers like myself, convention in gaming is becoming increasingly uninteresting, while the unknown, untested, and unfamiliar can still maintain the wild appeal that enthralled us during our childhood. Games that cause us discomfort achieve this visceral captivation, and then some, better than other titles. To put it another way, if I’m not in tears, worried, terrified, or else on the edge of my seat, what am I playing for?