One of the great things about being a video game enthusiast is that the medium still in a period of rapid growth. I hesitate to say infancy - it's certainly come a long way from even five years ago, but there's still an unbelievable amount of potential to unlock and distance to travel. But witnessing the strides this form of entertainment makes can be so engrossing and rewarding. Every once in a while, you can't help but say "WOW!" And I'm not talking about some lame old MMO, either. Moments where, if you hadn't been sitting down (as you tend to be for playing games), you'd be knocked clean off your feet. It's not where you think to yourself, "Huh, that's pretty neat" and move on. It happens when you legitimately have a hard time believing what just transpired in front of your eyes as a result of a finely-crafted experience and the direct input of you, the player. It's a rather rare sensation, but for me at least, it comes along infinitely more often than I find in literature or cinema. I think it has to do with the immersion created by the constant input and focus needed to partake in games. But the whole books vs. movies vs games topic is it's own beast. My point is that there are moments in my digital adventures and travels that I stumble on something that truly amazes me - as a credit to fine craftsmanship and/or technological developments.
Earlier in the year I stumbled across Wings of Prey - a great WWII combat flight sim. Because of my deep-routed addiction to all things WWII (particularly pertaining to the aircraft of the time), I quickly fell in love with the game. While I really wanted a sequel to Jane's WWII Fighters (a title I was particularly smitten with while in high school), Wings of Prey turned out to be fantastic. Sure, the DRM is garbage and it sucks that I needed a separate gaming e-commerce service in addition to Steam installed to run it rather sucked - I wish I would've researched it before the purchase. But aside from that? What a gorgeous game, with solid mechanics, and, most importantly, a great selection of planes that are meticulously detailed. Anyways, on to the point.
The Eastern European theater, 1944, flying a night mission for the Soviets in a Ilyushin Il-2. Me and my squad started off quite a ways from the hot zone, so on the way I took the leisurely time to climb up to about 15,000 feet before leveling out. Set course, and cruised for a while at around 300KM/H. It was dark and overcast - the odd snowflake drifted by, illuminated by the partial light cast from an obscured moon. Engine thrumming along. Hypnotic. Relaxing, even. Then 1-2-3 - beams of light are cast up vertically from the ground. 5-6-7, they keep appearing. "That's pretty neat," I think. I watch the search lights comb around the sky, darting this way and that. I'm so high up I can't even begin to see the ground below around the nose of the plane, so I roll over to see if I can spot where the beams are coming from. And just like that, FWOOSH! The cockpit is absolutely bathed in light. I'm totally blinded and can't make out anything on the dash while the projected shadows from the canopy supports move across the interior. "Wow, just wow." So, like an idiot, I take a second to let it all in - the dynamic lighting and small details, like how the light makes the tiny scratches and grime on the windshield so obvious. And then the flak starts. At first it's an odd pop here and there - I roll over to see what's going on, and watch the explosions burst against the dark sky. Pops turn to thuds as the AA fire is closing in. Looking out to starboard, I can see that my wing and fuselage is making a massive cast silhouette against the search light that is still following me. "Well, that'd explain the flak." Pitch the nose down and punch the throttle. I dive for a few seconds and then level out. The searchlight is frantically tracing it's way to my current position, being anticipated with aggressive flak closing in. One more bursts right ahead - the plane rocks, the side of my canopy is scarred, and there seems to be a smoking at the base of the right wing. Ok, enough screwing around. Lord only knows where the rest of the flight is, but I put the nose down, all the way down, and punch the engine into WEP. I go hard. I'm pressing 400KM/H before I know it, and the altimeter looks like it's having a spasm as the number it displays starts to shrink. 470KM/H, 11,000 feet. Keep going. 550KM/H, 8000 feet. The wind is screaming around the torn up metal of the wing. 680KM/H, 6000 feet. The whole plane is starting to shudder and vibrate. Acceleration is dropping as I get closer to my terminal velocity. I don't want to find out how fast that is. Wrench back on the stick and cut the throttle. The plane growns, and I keep pulling back. I finally level out around 2000 feet, and I'm slowing down to cruising speed. I look around and there's nothing but black. The lights are gone, along with any bearing on where my squad is. All I see are vague, morphing silhouettes from the scattered moonlight. Wow. Just, wow.
The rest of the mission was slightly less remarkable, but good nonetheless. The clouds parted, and there was a dogfight with planes against a full moon. Part of it was a rodeo to shoot down German transport planes before they reach their landing strip. It can be tough hunting in the dark, but when the moonlight reflects off the shiny metal wings your position is immediately broadcast.
After that initial waltz with the searchlight and flak I realized I was clenching my teeth. Man, that was good - and intense - stuff. It was hard to realize I had witnessed all that from home, sitting in a desk chair.
The next 'wow' moment happened in Battlefield Bad Company 2. A quick word about the game - the single player campaign was decent, but fairly unremarkable. It was trying WAY to hard to be Modern Warfare. Some of the characters, while a bit cliche, were pretty amusing though. The multiplayer, is well balanced, and I mean tight experience. I think it's the best multiplayer experience I've had since Team Fortress 2. I'd take it any day of the week over CoD multiplayer, which seems like a mediocre deathmatch in comparison. Anways, on with the show.
I had been playing off an on for a month, logging in maybe two or three hours every other week as I could squeeze them in around homework. Anyways, I was playing with a friend, and we were defending this barnhouse come hell or high water. Nothing could shake us loose. At one point the other team changes tactics, and they start to divert, perpendicular to our location, across to an alternate objective. I was in the loft/attack with my assault rifle, and I was taking quick pot-shots out of this small window that was positioned just high enough to be uncomfortable, restricting my line of fire. The terrain outside was hilly with lots of brush - I didn't want to go down a floor and lose my vantage point. If only I could make that window a tad bit larger... Well, duh. So I stepped back to the opposite corner of the room, took out my grenade launcher, and blew myself a gigantic hole where that old, tiny window was. PROBLEM FIXED. Of course, along with this (now unrestricted) view at an ideal vantage point came the problem of being more exposed to incoming fire. But I made do with my handiwork, and I was able to mop up a squad or two that was crossing the battlefield.
My wow moment occurred right when I walked up to the gaping hole in the wall I had just put there seconds earlier. Sure, the game looks good - the explosion was purdy, what with debris and smoke and all. But I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "This changes EVERYTHING!". Think of it in terms of gameplay. Previously video game environments had been immovable, static obstacles. And manipulation of this was either carefully planned cinematic events or rather gimmicky mechanics for expanding a line of sight. Now, though, the player can (in a way) tailor the environment to suit his immediate tactical needs. And, of course, the ramifications are obvious. As soon as you make that hole and use it, you've immediately traded off line of sight for protected cover. It's a most simplistic balance that makes it that much more effective as a multiplayer element. Prior to that, sure, I'd seen lots of environment mutilation in the game. I thought it was gorgeous. But there, in the loft, it clicked. As I stepped back to take the shot I thought to myself, "No, are you serious? This couldn't possibly work..." I don't know what else I could've expected - I knew quite well what a 40mm grenade launcher will do to the side of a house. But it wasn't until I fired and surveyed the damage that it really struck home what power this had to really change how the game is played. It's an axis of exploration I had no idea was plausible - I'd never really seen it done in a game before. But there it was, and it's like I could see this extra dimension to gameplay that was previously invisible.
Aside from Starcraft II, which while decent didn't have its own wow moment, the only other significant game I played this summer has been Assassin's Creed II. As a whole, I don't have a lot to report. I was a fan of the first title, and I found this one to be an incredible refinement on the formula. There weren't any huge eye-opening features, but it was such a fantastic evolvement of the series that just felt... Perfect. Well, like all games it has its faults, but overall it's a great title. Anyways, my wow moment came from recognizing my surroundings. As odd as that sounds.
I had an amazing professor for my first semester of Art History. She was incredibly enthusiastic and had the best asides and random anecdotes. She talked fast, painfully so as far as taking sufficient hand-written notes are concerned, but her class was so entertaining and engaging. She told a story of how she once went to Florence, and arrived at night exhausted and suffering from jet lag. They logged into a hotel, and went to bed. In the morning, she went to open the window, and right outside was this white statue against a blue background. It was part of a series that lined the entire building. She freaked out. This was some famous hospital/orphanage by some famous artist/architect of the proto-renaissance (what can I say, I'm a terrible art history student. I do great on the exams, but once they're over the information I've memorized vaporizes and is never heard from again).
So there I was, plugging away at Assassin's Creed II in Florence. I was on some assassination mission (as assassin's tend to do), and had just killed the target and was fighting off half a dozen guards. Then I realized, "Hey, those small white statues on blue backgrounds with the shuttered windows sure look familiar...WOW." It hit me that I've seen this place before. It's a real place. I've studied it. At some point I even know what it was called and who designed it. It blew my mind. It's the last thing you expect to find in a video game. Sure, some play tribute to real life locations, such as GTA and Liberty City/New York, but as a whole you grow accustomed to roaming around entirely fictitious environments. This faithfully recreated real-life location felt like a smack upside the head. One of the reasons I fell in love with the Assassin's Creed franchise is that, in addition to the engaging alternate/dystopian story, the games explored lesser-used settings. What's the last game you played that took place in Middle Ages Middle East or Renaissance Italy? But that moment where I realized I was battling and running around the rooftops of a faithful digital replica of an authentic real-world location kinda blew me away.
While not a game, the other noteworthy piece of entertainment I partook of this summer was seeing Iron Man 2. Kidding, that was total crap. Inception, on the other hand, was great. I don't know if I had the same kind of "WOW" moment, but I can say that by the end I was pretty amazed at what had just transpired. The same kind of effect I got from seeing The Matrix or Fight Club for the first time - you feel like the world has just been turned on its head, and you know you just witnessed something unique. The concept was cool, the score was fantastic, the action was well done, and the story was original. There wasn't one single thing that blew my mind into itty-bitty parts, but I was really engaged from start to end. It felt like I was holding my breath the whole time, the whole movie was so incredibly suspenseful. I found the dreams-within-dreams to be quite straight forward, but some of the mechanics involving the dreamer/architect seem a bit fuzzy. Whether or not "reality" is actually a dream is an intriguing notion, which was obviously implemented in such a way as to foster debate. Overall, it's the best movie I've seen this summer. Sorry Toy Story, you were really good too and gave me some funny allergies that resulted in some misty eyes and an odd lump in my throat. It's hard to compare the two movies. They have next to nothing in common. But Inception really left me feeling like I had just seen something really special.
The only other thing that comes to mind, entertainment-wise, is that I played through Left 4 Dead 2, which felt much like Assassin's Creed 2 in regards to the prequel. It's a finer, better tuned experience that feels more flushed out. No big "WOW" moments here (Valve, baby, you know I still loves you, right?), but it was a solid game. The bots can be kinda dumb ("WHY WON'T USE PICK UP THE MEDKIT?!") and I kinda like the cast of characters from the first one a bit more. Ellis is pretty good, though.
And with the summer coming to a close, I probably won't get to make my way through anything else for the next four months. I kinda wanted to try Mass Effect. I got it for cheap on Steam, but I don't have the time to play through a whole game before school starts, so I won't bother. I also tried Red Faction Guerrilla, which was optimized so poorly it was barely playable.
Hrm, this is pressing 2500 words. I should prolly call 'er quits. Please excuse the poor spelling/grammer. I've corrected quite a few, but I have the sneaking suspicion it isn't anywhere near enough.
-Cril
God is an Astronaut - Ascend to Oblivion
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