mozidesign.com Unorganized Thoughts of a Game Designer

Assassin’s Creed 2 Impressions

I just beat Assassin’s Creed (AC2), I pretty much having nothing else to do with my spare time so I just play video games and beat them. Mind you, AC2 is not a short game by any means, unlike another game *cough…MW2*, I just have not slept that much the last few days as I was totally immersed into the world of Ezio Auditore, the main protagonist and assassin in this game.  Feel free to keep reading as there are no plot spoilers ahead.

The dev team at Ubisoft did a great job of removing content from the first game that was not that much fun. For the record I really enjoyed the first game but I agree with most of the comments that it gets repetitive. The first game had a formula, get a target, investigate the target, and kill the target. Rinse and repeat that nine times. Aside from that the fun part of the first game was the aspect of free running across the roof tops of ancient cities.

Unlike the first game, AC 2 follows a more linear path,  putting the players into the shoes of an assassin, rather than (for a lack of a better term) errand boy as was experienced in the first game. There are plenty of side quests to do but none of them directly affect the core path of the game. No need to investigate targets, or find view points to access sidequets. All of that is gone; AC 2 is just a straight up linear, and excellent single player game.

The best part of AC 2 is swimming. Seriously, it’s annoying has hell in any video game where water equals instant death, really? Swimming just adds new means of traversal to the game; no longer do you die instantly when you fall into a small lake or large body of water. Plus swimming is an excellent way to evade multiple enemies when you are on the run.

AC 2 also has a bit of a Vice City gameplay mechanic, where you get to own your own town. This town provides the player with income to spend on various things such as buying armor, weapons, or paying the doc to get healed (mental note need say something about the healing mechanics in a bit). At times if player has enough money they can re-invest back into their town to make it better and get more money in return. As the saying goes to make money you got to spend it right. Well by the end of the game or nearly halfway you’ll probably end up with more money than can possibly spend. Basically you can become the wealthiest assassin ever. Once you have too much money there are two very easy achievements to get by wasting it.  Though now that I think about those means of wasting money are actually quite helpful.

Money can buy you allies such as thieves, soldiers, and prostitutes. Yes, you read that correctly prostitutes. However, unlike our favorite game GTA, you can’t beat these prostitutes with a bat to get your money back. Anyways, these allies come in handy to distract guards or provide you with cover on your escape. To get them on your side simply find any of the aforementioned groups, and press a button to hire them. Money can also be used to distract large crowds and annoying street performers. The street performers are the equivalent of the crazy bums and begging women of the first game. However, this time around you get rid of them without killing them. At anytime during the game you just toss money freely out on to the streets, doing so gets rid of the annoying street performers and provides another option to escape past some guards.

Another great mechanic improved from the first game is blending. In the first game the only ways to blend in with a crowd included following the monks, sitting on a bench, or walking very slowly. In AC 2 the bench sitting mechanic is still there but blending overall has greatly been improved. Now at anytime during the game you can simply walk up to a crowd of people standing or walking and immediately become blended and invisible to the guards.  No more do you have to find the monks or bench to hide! Also your allies provide another means for blending. Simply hire them and stand next to them for a bit and you blend in as the guards run right past you.

However, there are times when the guards may spot you in a crowd, and not that it is a bad thing, in fact seems more realistic. In the first game you could have a high threat level (or whatever it was called) run and hide on a bench. The AI would be confused, saying things like “where is man responsible for this”, totally ignoring and not thinking the one dude in the white robe armed to teeth could not have done a heinous act. This time if your threat level (also known as notoriety) is high the guards will find you, unless you hide really well. But once you come out of hiding chances of them finding you again are high. To avoid be found again, there are three ways the player can lower their notoriety. Either they can kill a corrupt official who according the game has put money in front of honor, tear down wanted posters, or bribe town heralds to stop their slander against you. Once your notoriety is low you can explore the cities without being hassled by any of the guards. The only guards that will hassle you, regardless of your notoriety, are rooftop guards. These guys have nothing better to do than hassle you for running on the rooftops. Either you can easily kill these dudes (which increase your notoriety) or just run away as they rarely ever catch up to you.  Basically in a nutshell if none of that made sense think of it as GTA cop stars, the more you have the harder shit gets. The less you have, do whatever you feel like doing, but doing more stupid shit will bring back the cops, or in this case the city guards.

So yeah about healing, in the last game it was automatically regenerated once you went into hiding or had a low threat level. This time around it kind of regenerates if an entire health block is not lost. If a health block or multiple health blocks are lost the only way to get them back is either by taking meds or getting healed by a doctor (which there are plenty of). Either way both cost money, but as I mentioned earlier if you play the game you’ll end up with too much money, thus the charge for healing is nominal. But still I kind of miss the auto regeneration system from the first game.

Overall I’ll give this game 8.5 out 10. I would have ranked it higher but the three crash bugs causing me to restart my xbox brought the score down. No game is perfect, but considering how much fun I had in this game, I can forgive Ubisoft QA for not finding those bugs.

Now the important question of all, “should I play AC 2”? If you were a fan of the first one you are doing yourself a serious disservice by not playing the sequel. If you did not like the first one due to the repetitive gameplay or other reasons, I highly recommend trying out AC 2, due the fact that “crappy” parts of the first game are gone. However, the core essence of the game remains the same, you will have targets to kill, and getting to those targets requires a little work, but nothing as repetitive as the first game. Every target was a unique experience to tackle and hopefully once you try the game you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Step Aside MW2…

Left 4 Dead 2 is fucking awesome! The game was unlocked about an hour later than scheduled but damn it was worth the wait! Played quite a few VS. games with my co-workers and some random people. So much fun! The new infected are really evil if you can plan some good attacks with your teammates!

By far my favorite infected is the Jockey, nasty little bugger. Get the jump on some poor survivor and misguide them into danger such as spitter  goo, fire, or the best so far, off ledges from the hotel mission. Absolutely hysterical to see survivors run off the edge of a building with a Jockey on their back!

A quick note about the level design. It’s just brilliant! The start of Dark Carnival is just an invitation for the survivors to get owned as they weave through quite a few abandoned cars on the freeway. A standing ovation to you Valve! You guys are pretty much the last beacon of hope for PC gaming and you guys do it right! Bravo!

I have now forgotten about all of my frustrations with MW 2, thank you Valve.

Brutal Legend Impressions

Today I beat Brutal Legend. Was it Brutal? For the most part yes but only at the start (which is featured in the demo) and the end of the game (which I won’t spoil). Everything else in the middle is good, but not ‘brutal’ by any means. Now what I mean by ‘brutal’ (I’ll stop saying that) is that from the E3 and xbox live demo I got the impression that the game was a comical hack and slash with a heavy metal theme. Well as I am sure most gamers know by now, the game has hidden RTS elements.

I enjoy RTS games (Starcraft 2 where are you!), however it’s not hardcore RTS as in build a base, expand the base etc. It’s more like Overlord, as long as you have enough resources (in the case of the game ‘fans’) you can build units. This concept is expanded into something known as “Stage Battles” your crew vs. one of the other factions. The end goal, destroy the other stage! I have to say, stage battles were a lot of fun, even though I was hoping that the game would offer up more hack and slash sections. I could write a lot more about stage battles but watch this clip. Hopefully it will make more sense.

Oh yeah and you can fly (slight spoiler…my fault)

On to visuals, basically they were pretty solid. As Tim Schafer said in some interview, the world resembles and is  inspired by the art work of metal albums. Nothing says, “METAL” like a pile of skulls!

Finally the music. I have to say hands down this game has the best soundtrack ever. And yes I am being totally biased as I am a metal head!  There were times where I did nothing in the game except sit back and listen to the sound track on my speaker system. Full soundtrack list here.

Now for what I did not like. The game is lacking some serious player communication elements. For one, a mini map would have been nice, half the time I could not find my quests. The only way to figure out where to go in the world was to look up in the sky and find the big ass beam of light. Or open up the map screen. Both felt very disconnected and unhelpful when I needed to get from A to B.

Now this next point is sort of a 50/50 split. I am all for HUDless gameplay. Less bars and meters showing me everything on screen the better. However, in Brutal Legend one thing that is hard to tell is your health. You can take a serious ass kicking before the feedback kicks in. The feedback given to the player is that screen turns red and you hear a loud heart beat. That means your boned. Does it work, yes. But a little more could have been done. Gears of War has the same thing no health bar, however the skull icon at least shows you how much more you can push your limits before you die. Brutal Legend lacks that one missing piece of feedback. But like Gears of War as long as you run and hide from the danger your health comes back. So not totally frustrating but hard to gauge. So I can’t say it’s bad but the health mechanics could have been better.

Overall, I’d recommend trying out Brutal Legend beyond the demo, it’s a good game. If you don’t want to buy it, rent it or borrow it from someone that has it. In the end I am sure like me you’ll have a good time with the game.

Borderlands…

Do I need to say anything else? I’ll give it the award for best game ever! Will it dethrone my long time admiration for Deus Ex as the best game ever? In two weeks I’ll find out…plus check back later in two weeks, I’ll have some big news.

Shadow Complex

Go get it! As many reviews have said online, Shadow Complex, is hands down one of the best XBLA games out there. For $15 bucks, it delivers quite a punch, with classic Metroid style gameplay with Unreal Engine 3 graphics!

Just in case you have no idea what I am talking about, then check out this video.

So far I have clocked in about five hours of gameplay and still have a lot to explore within the world. In terms of pacing the game is well thought out and has a neat method of teaching new mechanics.  For example at the start of the game the player needs to make a high jump, but you can’t. Near by is a backpack, once you get that you can make the jump.  Similarly like Metroid, some doors and vents require different weapons to be used in order for them to open.  Just like the backpack example, if you can’t open a door of a certain type and there are a lot of them in the area, look around and the weapon you need will be nearby to continue on your quest.

I can go on and on talking about this game but it would be full of spoilers! Thus I will end on the fact that you should go get this game if you haven’t already done so. You won’t be disappointed! Once I am done with the game I may do a proper review if I have time.

Cheers,

Team Fortress 2 Map in the Works.

Ever since I got into level design way back in my high school days I have always used Unreal Tech, from the original Unreal Engine all the way up to Unreal Engine 3. Now it’s time for a change. I enjoy playing Team Fortress 2 and figured that I should start making maps for this game. I think that personally, I have a solid understanding of common level design principles, but believe that there is always room to learn new principles. The only hurdle I see with TF2 mapping are the tools, but that is just figuring out how to do common things with different buttons. Every editor has means to build geometry, apply textures, add in details and setup a lighting scheme. It’s just a matter of reading up on some documentation on how do all that with the prior knowledge of level design I already have from modding and work experience.  So long story short, I manged to get the hang of using the Hammer Editor within Source SDK to build my first Team Fortress 2 map!

My first level is going to be an Arena map as the game rules are simple and little additional scripting is required. Once I get the hang of the tools a bit more I will delve in to CTF and perhaps into more complicated modes like Control Points or Payload.  Without further delay here are the work in progress screens for my map ARENA_Warhead.

Not much but definitely gives a sense of how the map will look and feel as work towards a an Alpha build that I will share with the Team Fortress 2 community. For more information and updates feel free to check out the following thread at the site TF2  Maps.

Cheers!

Design of Frustration

Recently I have been playing Wolverine and thus far I am having a blast. The game pretty much has captured the essence of the character, he is a dude with claws and can pretty much beat the living shit out of anyone. The movie was horrendous but I won’t talk about that, however I will say it is interesting how developers at Raven tied in various movie moments to their own time line of events in the game. Which is better than just retelling the movie scene for scene in a game which some movie games do.

Anyways, the game is filled with many badass moments, crazy combo finishers, and various environment executions that make you cringe! In the mix off all that awesomeness there are some low points in the game that can be a little frustrating.  Without giving away any spoilers for the game I will talk about two moments thus far that really pissed me off.

Frustration moment number 1: This one occurs early on in the game, Wolverine is on the run from the folks that gave him his adamantium claws. Pretty straight forward objective, kill anyone in your way to escape, sounds fun. However, at one point in your escape you are ‘drugged’ for a lack of better term and can no longer heal until you meet someone that will remove the drug for you.  So I have lost one of Wolverine’s core abilities to heal, seems kind of odd but I can keep playing until I ran into the gun turrets of death.  I despise these things, given the fact I can’t heal and have been forced to have a low amount of health having laser sight turrets that can track me and kill me in one shot sucks ass!

The first encounter with these things was ok, as I was taught the dodge mechanic (which worked but still frustrating). The second encounter is where I practically lost it. Here is the setup, there is absolutely no permanent cover to hide from the laser sights of death unlike previous encounters. The only way survive is to use a switch to move one piece of cover toward your location. Once it is in place you got get behind it and follow this moving cover piece as it moves on a track alongside the catwalk you are on. Sounds simple, but if you fall behind and the cover piece moves slightly ahead of you, laser sights will spot you and kill you in one or two shots. If you use the dodge mechanic that you were just taught, you end up few steps ahead of the cover piece. The result, death from laser sight turrets once again.

Now if by chance you do follow the cover piece to the end of the line, you are not safe just yet. If you don’t run around the corner fast enough, guess what? One of the turrets can still see you and bang you are dead! After multiple attempts and cursing at the game I finally got past this point and resumed the hack and slash gameplay that I was enjoying before this stupid puzzle gameplay moment.

Frustration moment number 2: The traversal in Wolverine is pretty straight forward aside from a few places where you need to grab a ledge and jump to some other location or use a rope to climb to higher ground. Some of the cooler traversal moments are when Wolverine uses his claws to climb up some vines on a wall or up frozen sheets of ice. However, one thing Wolverine sucks at in game is jumping, to be precise double jumping.  Not sure if is me or if the jump mechanic and or timing of it sucks, causing me to fail traversal puzzles over and over.

My first traversal failure was not bad, but is was frustrating due to the fact that I could not make Wolverine jump across a stupid gap. If I fell, no problem I could climb back up and try again. Eventually I got it, manged to time the double jump and run just right to make it across the gap.

Now later on in the same level there is another double jump traversal puzzle. This one really pissed me off to the point I was cursing the level designer who built the environment. (If by some crazy chance any of the Raven folks or the actual level designer reads this I apologize for being harsh but was seriously disappointed in the design of this section of the Alkali Lake mission)

So here is deal, at some points in the game the camera changes it’s perspective for cool sequences, in this case I got a ’side scroller view’ as I am running along a path under a bridge. As I am following this path there is an attack chopper shooting at me in the background, very cool stuff, now here is where things go down hill. In this side scroller view I come to a point where I need to jump onto a concrete stump in the middle of a flowing river and from this stump jump to rest of the bridge supports. Sounds simple enough that I need to jump from A to B to C and move on. No that can’t be simple at all, it has to be frustrating! Here is what made it frustrating, first off as I am trying do do this double jump I am being shot at by a helicopter and some random dude on the other side. Second off all Wolverine can’t do the stupid double jump!

Countless times I would run to the edge of the platform to jump to the concrete block, and more often than not as I hit the jump button, Wolverine ran straight into the river and “dies”….restart checkpoint. I try again, this time I get Wolverine to jump but guess what he falls short and dies in the river! At some point I finally managed to make it to the concrete block, now the challenge was to jump to the next platform. Same shit as before, kept missing the damn jump or ran right into the water, brilliant!  Other times I did manage to get the double jump right and I overshot the damn block and landed in the river, WTF! At this point I am really getting annoyed, but eventually I made it across only to find a few feet further was the same exact shitty jump puzzle and this one was worse. Aside from the same mistakes as the first concrete block puzzle the second one pulls a total dick move on the player. If by some miracle you land on the second concrete block, guess what? The bloody helicopter shoots at it and it sinks into the river! So if you don’t time your jump just right you die right where you stand. And if you do manage to jump in time chances are you will fall into the river anyways cause you’ll miss the next platform!

Seriously WTF was up the design of that level, did no one see how frustrating that was in testing or play sessions? Sure it pissed me off to no end but as I was dying and trying I had a few good ideas of how all of this could have been resolved with less frustration. The best idea would have been to make the damn concrete blocks a little wider so the first attempt at double jump Wolverine would land on the bloody thing and move on.  Having the second block be shot out from under your feet was a dick move, why harm the player when they are already standing in tricky spot to begin with.

Anyways, I needed to rant about that, however other than those two moments Wolverine kicks ass and I recommend you guys play it if you get a chance. I just hope the next few missions don’t have any more shitty traversal puzzles or double jump puzzles. Really takes away from the fun of going berserk with Wolverine.