So this is the other half of the discussion I started the other day with an article about games I didn’t love, but still managed to finish.  This other half involves games that I thought were good, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to play.  Not that I won’t play ever them, but these are great games that always seem to sit idle while I play others, both good and mediocre.

So why do these otherwise great games get pushed aside?  In some cases the problem is clear.  GTA4, for example, has two very clear reasons.  The first is that not having checkpoints means enormous chunks of time can be rendered pointless because of small mistakes; ie. getting killed.  The other is that although the cell phone and the relationships that came with it were interesting and valuable to the story, being punished for not going to the strip club while I’m already very busy (ie. trying not to get killed) kept me from just fooling around.  Doing whatever you want in a GTA game is one of the great draws to the series, but you were constantly dragged away to play some dumb mini game.  If you didn’t get punished for saying no, I could put up with phone calls, but losing friendship benefits over darts was irritating.

Others aren’t so clear.  There can be much more subtle reasons that a game doesn’t get chosen for my occasionally sparse video-gaming time.  These are the cases I want to explore a little more.  These are games that I have enjoyed and have won several awards each.  Why aren’t I playing them?  Well, Mass Effect 2 is really good, so playing it keeps me from playing these others, but there has to be a reason I stopped playing them in the first place…

Bioshock

Playing time: ~5 hours

It is embarrassing, I know.  I have had Bioshock for over two years, but haven’t finished it.  It won half a dozen Game of the Year awards and many others.  I even enjoyed it for the several hours I put into it.  So what is wrong here?

Well, nothing is really wrong. Bioshock has fairly solid combat, an interesting plasmid (magic) system, and a good story told in an interesting way.  The best thing Bioshock has going for it though, in my opinion, is the atmosphere. Playing this game in the dark with full surround sound is one of those genuinely unsettling places to be, which is a great thing.  I felt a significant fear of the shadows (of which there are many) that I hadn’t felt since Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly.  Or Ravenholm in Half Life 2.  I don’t want all of the games I play to feel like this, but fear is one of those emotions that isn’t often done well in video games, so a game should be praised when it pull this off.

Another game where pictures can't convey the incredible atmosphere.

Still, I think this element of fear that I came to expect from Bioshock is part of the problem.  That is, when the fear wore off I stopped coming back.

The health system in Bioshock involves healing yourself or dying and respawning in the nearest Vita-chamber. When you respawn you have all of your weapons, healthpacks, etc but only have part of your health.  It sounds just like a checkpoint system, except that enemies that you have already killed or wounded seemed to stay that way. So the player could constantly respawn with very little punishment and the current battle becomes a little easier each time. This significantly cheapened the concept of dying in my opinion, especially when the nearest Vita-chamber was in the same room as the battle. Of course it is my own fault if I abuse the system, but the fact that I knew nothing significant would happen if I died took away any fear that I had.

(Side Note: I am aware of the option to disable Vita Chambers, which was patched in later)

Bioshock has many other great features which will probably draw me back to it someday. Studying your enemies with the camera, modifying your weapons, the pipe-connecting mini game (I loved that it actually hurt to mess up) were all very interesting. Not to mention I really want to see the rest of Rapture. It is just too bad that it lost its grip on my emotions (fear at least) because I don’t think I’ve played a game since that could measure up to what Bioshock accomplished in those first couple of hours.

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the original Unreal Tournament.  There is something about the original’s unbridled ass-whoopn’ that has never quite been matched by any other game.  The game was violent, blunt, and unforgiving.  The arenas were rough and dark, abandoned structures given a second life as the perfect places to watch competitors fight for their own.

The games that followed (2003, 2004, III, and Championship 1 and 2) never retained that feeling.  The environments became overly intricate, even delicate looking in some instances.  The players went from simply dodging to flipping and twirling off walls.  These are supposed to be hardened warriors, not ballerinas!  Nevertheless, these games have added some great things to the series and still provide a fun, competitive gaming experience despite how far they have strayed from the original game.

Even with the series’ advancements there is one thing, or rather a collection of things, that the Tournament has never gotten: a true sports game treatment.

The original trophy, like the Stanley Cup's evil twin.

For those who haven’t played the original game, Unreal Tournament is a bloodsport tournament conceived as the result of the conflicts that happen in the single-player Unreal games.  In the original the “story” section of the game involved fighting through each of the maps and working your way up the ladder of game types.  Game types included Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Domination, and Assault.  In the team games you play for the faction of your choice.  As the player completed every map in each game type they were award a trophy, which culminated in a final one-on-one fight and the championship trophy.

It was a simple tournament structure that was used to hold together what was primarily a multiplayer experience.  The structure was slightly enhanced in the 2003/2004 editions so that teammates could be added by the player as the team grew for the bigger game types, such as Bombing Run and Onslaught.  These two installments brought along other changes as well, such as vehicles.

For Unreal Tournament 3 the structure of the “Tournament” was changed completely to resemble a war campaign.  Events like Capture the Flag were somewhat rationalized by saying that the flags were key to the enemy being allowed to respawn soldiers, so they must be stolen to win the battle.  Cutscenes were used to tie the story together and missions are selected on a large map, indicating that there is a larger battle going on.  Although the core game was still reasonably fun, this type of story was never needed and wasn’t all that great.

Throughout all of this time the Unreal Tournament series has never capitalized on the fact that is, at its core, a bloodsport.  UT started out by following in the footsteps of Quake’s multiplayer and gathered a dedicated online following over the years, including some sports-like competition.  This following includes all of the game types that have been added and each seems to spawn its own techniques and specialists.

Lately Unreal Tournament doesn’t attract the same following as it used to.  I’m not talking directly about sales, but about the game’s presence on gaming league sites like Major League Gaming and the Team Warfare League.  In these online communities it has very little presence while a game like Left 4 Dead has its own seasons and ladders.  L4D is a great game, but one might think it is at a disadvantage in terms of online competition, especially next to a game with “tournament” in the title.  This is where the Unreal Tournament series has to push its potential to the limits.

Making it to the end of a game has always been a significant milestone.  Many early arcade games didn’t even have “endings”.  They were often a constant barrage of harder levels until the player finally succumbed to the difficulty and hopefully got their name on the high score sheet.   Most older console games didn’t have the ability to save your progress and provided a limited amount of lives.  So even if a game had a story, getting to the end in single session was challenging, to say the least.

In the time since then gaming has made many changes, including saving, checkpoints, difficulty levels and regenerating health, that have made it somewhat easier to reach a game’s conclusion.  With the popularity of multiplayer, some stories are also getting shorter as more development time is spent focusing on online features.  Some game still make it difficult.  Fallout 3, Oblivion, Far Cry, and now Dragon Age all push the length of a single player story to the extremes.  But the point of this article is not to talk about how the difficulty of games has changed.

The point is that reaching the end of a game usually takes a certain amount of dedication from the player and it should be a momentous occasion. Unfortunately, sometimes it is not.  An unsatisfying ending can really tarnish an otherwise good game.  So I’m going to take some time to jot down my thoughts on what a good ending should have.

It is difficult to nail down what makes the end of game great, but I think it should have three things: a conclusion to the story, a culmination of the player’s skills, and it must feel more significant than the previous game events.

A conclusion to the story is probably a no-brainer.  Any good story has a proper resolution that leaves the player (reader, listener, viewer) satisfied and hopefully without too many questions.  It is important to note that a satisfied player is not always completely happy at the ending.  A significant character may die leaving the player unhappy, but that does not mean that the story cannot reach a proper conclusion in this manner.  The exceptions are games that end with a cliffhanger, usually alluding to a sequel.  This can be done properly by wrapping up significant short-term conflicts so that they player still has a sense of accomplishment.  I feel games such as Half-Life, God of War II, and Assassin’s Creed have done this quite well in the past.

A game should not finish by teasing a sequel if there is not guaranteed to be one in the foreseeable future.  Especially if the game is terrific.  I’m looking at you Beyond Good and Evil.  (I know the sequel has be teased yet again, but I’ll only be happy when I’m actually playing it.)

Teasing unconfirmed sequels is torture.

The second was the culmination of the player’s skills.  Often over the course of a game the player gains more abilities.  This type of development should be capitalized on during the final sections of a game.  A challenging finale will test the players skills and be more rewarding because of it.

Finally, it should feel more significant than any other point in the game, or at least on par with the best.  Nothing is worse than having a game get the player excited for the big ending only to have it be underwhelming.

With these points in mind, lets head to some of the more disappointing endings and final bosses I have experienced in recent years.

It is important to know that I am a big fan of Harmonix and my music gaming platform (yes, platform) of choice is the Rock Band series.  I have also played several of the post-Harmonix Guitar Hero games, but they just don’t provide the same level of enjoyment for me.  It is also important to know that as much as I have enjoyed these types of rhythm games, there is no doubt in my mind that the video game market is seeing a few too many of them right now.

I also haven’t played DJ Hero.

So then why am I writing about DJ Hero?  I am writing because of all of the new music titles being released since The Beatles: Rock Band, this is the most interesting idea.

I play Rock Band primarily for the group atmosphere.  I play with people who enjoy rock music and love it loud.  Some of these people play instruments, some of these people play video games, and some don’t normally do either.  The group dynamic is just too good to not draw people in, even if they aren’t familiar with the music.

One problem is that at some parties rock music just doesn’t fit.  The music in DJ Hero is able to appeal to a completely different group of genres, ones that are often better to dance to.  This is the primary reason why I support the idea of DJ Hero.  You could have people playing the game, or even battling 1 on 1, and people just might feel like dancing.  This happens in Rock Band too, but it seems like there is even more potential in DJ Hero.

A party game that people could play a dance-type party.  It seems like an odd idea.  If a video game is being played at a good party, it is probably the main focus of the party.  DJ Hero could be more than that though, both a game and the actual DJ of the party.  Maybe I’m way off here, but this type of concept gives DJ Hero a additional type of appeal.

Although I don’t follow many of the artists in DJ Hero, I support the game soundtrack  because of the quality and variety the game provides.  It has great artists; Grandmaster Flash, 2Pac, Public Enemy, Queen, Marvin Gaye… they simply did a great job selecting the artists, even though there are a bunch I don’t listen to.  Plus, the combination of songs create some really interesting tracks.  Personally, hearing the music is probably the biggest draw the game has.

Bittersweet Symphony mixed with All Eyez on Me? Yes please.

Still, I won’t buy it.  The main reason is price.  I have paid a fair amount for games and their peripherals, but the trade off was getting to play with a group of friends.  This doesn’t have that advantage and I highly doubt anyone I know would ever want to purchase it as well.  I just don’t think I would have enough fun playing by myself to justify the purchase.

It sounds odd, but the other reason is the music.  As good as the soundtrack is, I still prefer the growing collection of music on Rock Band.  It is more likely that I would pick up an official soundtrack if they released one.  I would still like to be able to listen to it, but without the enormous price tag.

I must reiterate that I haven’t played the game yet, so maybe the gameplay would change my mind.  If that manages to happen, I will definitely post an update.  Even though I don’t believe this game is for me, I believe the idea is worth supporting.  DJ Hero is the biggest chance the rhythm game genre has taken since Rock Band (which seemed like a sure thing to me) and I hope it has enough success that developers in this area aren’t discouraged from trying new ideas.

Additional Links
Official DJ Hero Website
DJ Hero on Metacritic