Five Video Game Genre Conventions that need challenging

Regular readers will know that I'm not really a big player of video games. I enjoy them and put some time in on the Switch or PlayStation most weeks, but I don't keep up with new releases, don't follow the culture, and probably couldn't pick between a picture of DOTA and League of Legends. I grew up with Zelda and Mario and Tetris like most of my generation, but as I hit adolescence, my interest tapered off, not because I wasn't interested in Video Games, but Video Games became increasingly less interested in me.

Back in the day (read: My Day, you ungrateful kids), titles like Commander Keen and Day of the Tentacle tried to be fun and innovative; taking risks and trying new directions for the still-emerging Video Game market. With the exceptions of Nintendo and Sega, Video Game software wasn't a market that one could expect to make a great deal of money in, people did it (partially) because they loved it. This view may seem nostalgic in the extreme, but have a look at companies like Midway or Rare back before they hit it big; I'll wager the "CEO" was living off instant ramen and really cheap coffee until Mortal Kombat or Goldeneye hit the shelves for the first time.

These days, Games are big business, which is (typically) a good thing for the industry; developers get the funding to put out some amazing titles and the boundaries are really being pushed as to whether Games can be considered Art or 'read' as 'text' in the same manner as Film and Television (in an academic sense, of course). However, success has always bred imitation, and the Video Games industry is feeling this trend hard at the moment. Take a good hard look at your favourite game and you'll probably find that it "borrows heavily" (or steals directly) from another popular game before it. The problem with this trend is not only the obvious stagnation of experimentation within games development, but also half the games you get to play seem exactly the same.

So, without further ado, here's a shortlist of five common features of Video Games that have shown themselves to be problematic, at least according to me in my grumpy and stagnant corner of the internet. 

1. Time Limits

As with most of the things on this list, I'm not saying that Video Games need to do away with Time Limits entirely, just that it proves to be an unnecessary crutch for poor storytelling. Back in the misty, far-off days of Super Mario Brothers on the Nintendo Entertainment System, there were no Continues, no Save Points and only so many 1-UP Mushrooms, so the only reason not to take a painfully long time agonising over every jump was the timer counting down from 300 in the corner of the screen. The original The Prince Of Persia also made good use of this mechanic, docking time from the Game Clock for each death. So it's not a big conceit to admit that a timer on a game can ratchet up the tension and aid in the suspension of disbelief.

However, when every second level (or mission or whatever) throws a timer up on the screen and screams at me to get out of the burning building (or away from the bomb or get to the hostage), the sense of tension is replaced by a sense of irritation. I'm in a freaking burning building, how is my natural intention to do anything but run for my life? In a film or television programme, dramatic tension can be added with music or other, less melodious, background noise; only in 24 and one episode of M*A*S*H can one see a clock up on the screen to increase tension. There are many films where a bomb is counting down to a climax, but it is only in video games, where the player is directly linked to the narrative, that a ticking clock is a common device to keep the protagonist under the pump. If only this technique was not included in almost every game, it wouldn't be so bothersome.

 

2. Boss Fights

Back when games were made with a resplendent 8 bits of graphics, the occasional fight against a fire-breathing turtle was an important signpost of progression amongst dozens of same-looking levels. What is interesting is that, in today's world of Quick Time Events and complex interactive storytelling, at least one Boss Fight can be found in every game. Certainly, a climatic and thematically appropriate battle against a worthy opponent at the end of a game can be satisfactory, but not every game can make this formula work. Think back to Red Faction for a moment, did the boss there really add anything to the game? Shooters are particularly bad at boss fights, a game that has primarily featured goons with a variety of guns and body armour throughout has its tone shattered when the head Mafioso turns up in a walking tank with jets and lasers.

As with my complaint against time limits, it is not the concept of Boss Fights that I find disagreement with, the Metal Gear Solid franchise has always made its Boss Fights engaging and story driven. Instead, it is the seeming necessity of repeated Boss Fights in games where they simply do not fit. Personally I think that because video games have always had Boss Fights, that they continue to do so, gamers expect and accept them as part of the gaming experience, regardless of their suitability in any given game. Once again I point to cinema as a proof that conflict is not the only climax that a story can utilise.

3. Downloadable Content (DLC)

With increasing profits in the Games Industry comes an increased drive to create successful titles and release them to the public. When a highly anticipated game is pushed back due to unforseen circumstances, the furore released is akin to that evoked by the Nuremberg trials. To combat this, many developers leave parts of a game unfinished, making "patches" or even whole levels and characters into little downloadable packets so that people won't call them out for putting the game out a few weeks late. In some ways this is a good thing; games are released in reasonable time and overly long delays are avoided. However, is it just me, or does this seem like a little bit of a cop out? If a game is not finished, why is it being put into stores? It's not like a film is put into the cinema with some of the post-production remaining to be done. Perhaps it is too much to assume that the gaming public could be expected to wait patiently for the whole game to be ready, but honestly, is it that much to ask? Think about it this way, if you wait a little bit longer for a game, you could play it straight away, no patch downloading, no wait to play the bonus missions, just the whole game, in the box.

Of course, it is not merely a lack of completion that causes DLC, there is the ever-present driving force of money to consider. If someone is willing to pay $100 for a game, what are the chances that the same person will pay a few dollars for an extra mission or a new character to play? When a story is continued through extras like this, it evokes in me the same feeling as the "Extended Universe" novels associated with various Television and Film franchises. If someone is so engaged with a text as to pursue every permeation of it, it always seems that the makers of that programme/game/film are right there with an open till. That's my real problem with DLC, I guess, it's a cheap cash-in and unabashedly so; like "Collector's Edition" DVDs and fake Master Swords to hang on the wall.

 

4. Chase Sequences

When playing a game like GTA or Need for Speed, one expects to chase another vehicle down a hazardous road a few times, it's part of the experience of the game and an accepted part of game play. When one is tasked with chasing someone down in a First-Person Shooter however, something feels amiss. Much like Boss Fights and Time Limits, chases have become a common element of most games from Platformers to Shooters. Once again, the odd chase that works within the narrative of the game is fine, but far too often a chase can be used to bridge an obvious gap. If travel needs to take place to link up the various narrative strands of a game, there are more options than a chase, if nothing particularly interesting is going to happen during the journey from A to B, perhaps it doesn't need to be covered. Too often the length of a game is padded out with unnecessary sequences that distract from the story and the chase scene is one of the worst culprits.

5. Push Start to Play

This may be a bit of a petty complaint, but why is the Start Screen different from the Menu Screen? The time and effort of programmers, designers and artists has been wasted on a screen that is seen for seconds at most. What difference would it make to have a game load up straight into the menu? In the worst cases, after pressing Start, more time is spend loading before one can access the menu and actually start playing the damn game. Admittedly, I'm not a programmer, and perhaps there is something important about pressing Start that I'm missing, but it really seems like a convention of games that is only still around because almost every game in history has had it. I understand that sometimes a demo or cut scene is visible before the menu appears, but again, is this really necessary? Also coming into this category are the self-promotional ads that games start up with, Gamers seem far more astute about production than one would expect, so many would know exactly the origin of a new game. The fact that a handful of game creators are becoming as well known as Film Directors (in the right circles) makes the self-promotion seem a little unnecessary.

 

That's all for today, hope you enjoyed the read.

Superhero Media: Marvel Ultimate Alliance

Is Marvel Ultimate Alliance the greatest superhero video game ever made? Well, I think it's great, but you may have a different take. When Doombots and Ultron Drones make a coordinated attack on the SHIELD helicarrier, Nick Fury assembles a team (initially Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor and Wolverine) to fight off the villains, kicking off an adventure that touches some pretty damn obscure corners of the Marvel Universe. In terms of game-play, Marvel Ultimate Alliance can be repetitive and the whole thing is very dated by now, but the story and core concept of the game directly inspired me to start Supers gaming and my SuperSystem Ultimate Alliance project in particular. Although the game doesn't have every character (Hawkeye and Hulk always felt absent to me), the fact that Luke Cage, Deadpool and Black Panther are playable years before they hit culturally is pretty impressive; I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that Marvel Ultimate Alliance was my first introduction to Luke Cage. As was the style at the time, the game is heavily influenced by the Ultimate Marvel comics, with Cap and Thor in their Ultimates costumes, and some story elements having that general kind of vibe.

Throughout the game, the heroes will travel to locations as diverse as the Omega Base, Atlantis, Attilan, Mephisto's Realm and Latveria, really getting around the Marvel universe and embracing some of the sillier elements of the setting. Of course I want to take Ghost Rider to Skrullos to retrieve the Ultimate Nullifier to defeat Doctor Doom, who has stolen the powers of Odin. Something the later games would struggle with is adaptation, trying very hard to realise certain comic stories (or even films) in the game narrative; Ultimate Alliance avoids this, coming across more as a "greatest hits" of the Marvel comics. Trip to Asgard? Hell yeah! War in Atlantis? Why not! Murderworld? Yes please! There is a lack of fear in Ultimate Alliance, it revels in the weird and the wonderful, not trying to be overly serious, in the Murderworld level the players fight Clowns, play dodgem cars and play a crane game to unlock Blade as a playable character. It's amazing and every time I play it I look at circus terrain online and consider a small table. My little gaming clique is getting ready for some Reign In Hell at the time of writing, you can bet I'm eyeing off the terrain for a Mephisto's realm scenario at some point.

Suffice to say, Ultimate Alliance is a big inspiration for my own games with miniatures. Not just the "anything goes" ethos, but in that I tend to use teams of 4 heroes. Basically, I played Ultimate Alliance and came away thinking "but what if I could use the Justice League, Hellboy and the Phantom"? And the rest is basically history, the long history of this blog and my never-ending project of collecting, painting and writing games. Four is a good number because you can get a spread, but the game doesn't slow down much, plus tends to be about as many people as I can get involved in a Convention game. I've never got much of a campaign going (yet), so my games have rarely left the city table, but you can bet I want to go to space, Atlantis, Hell and just about anywhere else I can scrounge the terrain for. Marvel Ultimate Alliance is dated as hell and maybe not a great game when all is said and done, but I maintain it's some of the best inspiration going for Superhero tabletop gaming, especially with miniatures. Just be warned, you'll almost certainly be adding Terracotta Warriors, Vikings and Demons to your shopping list of Supers minis.

Thinking Out Loud: Public Image Unlimited

Launched at the height of the Speculator Boom, Image comics, a creator-owned alternative to the big boys Marvel and DC, set out to be a unique and fresh voice in the comics industry. Famously, they did so with a lack of quality control, lawsuit generating disagreements and a great many missed deadlines, but despite a rough start and nearly collapsing several times, Image is still around today and is considered a purveyor of quality product. As well as producing the wildly-successful The Walking Dead and Invincible series, Image has become a home for smaller works like Empowered and Madman as well. Just what is and isn't part of the Image "universe" can be tricky to discern, as they don't have separate divisions like DC with Veritgo, but much like Marvel, quite a bit happens in the main Universe. If you've taken my advice and read Invincible, for example, during the "Invincible War" story, we see Youngblood, Spawn, Madman, Cyberforce and more fighting to save the Earth.

Actually, it goes beyond that, because an evil version of Invincible jokes that he thought Cyberforce broke up, a reference to the fact that the comic was canceled mid-run and had an excuse retconned in later. It's interesting, because back in the '90s, in order to have the appearance of having an actual continuity, Image comics did their own take on the New Gods that was pretty poorly received and way overblown to the point that they hired Alan Moore to write the wrap-up that buried the damn thing forever. No really. But, like the greats they strove to be, all that nonsense happened in the broader continuity still. I've been reading the series Local Man, about a former '90s heyday character being disgraced and having to move back to his tiny home town; it does a great job of capturing the mood of classic Image, whilst playing like a riff on Fraction Hawkeye combined with the early seasons of Smallville. In one part Jack, the protagonist, tells a priest about the time he met god during a massive crossover event and he was massive golden robot. That event happened in the comics, but Jack wasn't there as he was invented for Local Man.

What's the point of mentioning all this? Well, the willingness of Image to acknowledge and even celebrate their awkward adolescence, combined with Frew comics having unbroken continuity since Thor knows when has kind of got me thinking about my own work and the stuff I've jettisoned Vs what I kept. I've often said that I'll never bother posting my Dragon Ball Z fan-fiction, and I still probably won't, as it's really badly written, but maybe I can have those characters return in some way. Hell, I posted that Danton stuff as an exercise in preservation, but who's to say that having a Tri-Colour Dynamo or humanoid Badger wouldn't be fun in a game sometime? I mean, I love that Spider-Man had a Spider Buggy and an antagonist called "Turner D. Century", so why not embrace the times that what I did was a little cringy and silly? I never really delete old documents or throw out old notebooks (seriously, I found hand-written 3rd Edition 40k army lists the other day), so maybe some of my abandoned ideas have some merit I'm missing out on or have just ignored? Let's find out.

Superhero Media: Loki - Season 1

Ok, I'm starting to get a little worried over here. Now again, I'm writing this in August 2021, a few days before Shiang Shi and The Ten Rings drops and months away from Spider-Man No Way Home, but it looks pretty much like we're getting an MCU Multiverse. Now, I'm not against a superhero multiverse in concept, my own Equalisers setting has characters like Ulysses and The Champions of the Omniverse, but I'm very wary of how it will play out in a major film release and ongoing series. You see, the MCU is excellent as a separate entity from the comics precisely because it's a stripped-down version of classic stories, without all the baggage of continuity and keeping track; which I also love, but get why that's a barrier to comics for many. Once a multiverse is opened up, the fans have to start tracking a lot more content to make sense of things and that wonderful simplicity will be lost. My hope is that this trend is only for "Wave 4" and doesn't represent a permanent change for the MCU, excepting, of course, What If? and any potential Exiles project.

All that aside, I really enjoyed Loki, especially as it is a cleverly-written series with a strong cast and a director with a clear vision. As a fan of Marvel obscura, seeing the TVA realised on-screen is wonderful, even if they're stripped of a lot of the more fantastic elements from the comics. Spending more time with the character of Loki is great, as he is able to shift from campy-yet-sinister foil to a more rounded and human individual driven by their history of trauma. The scenes in which Loki and Sylvie discuss their histories, where they diverge and where they're the same, almost play like a form of therapy, and is one of the best representations I've seen in fiction of the notion of going over the possible alternate paths of our own lives. I think that's the real appeal of Loki, that very-human tendency to look at ourselves and wonder what might have been. What is the version of me who became a teacher or took that sommelier course doing now? I mean, both are probably drinking, but you know what I mean.

I think the Disney+ Marvel programmes are really demonstrating what I've been saying for years about the Netflix Marvel programmes, in that they're too long and really should be cut down to a handful of episodes. Loki, as well as Wandavision, is strong because it plays more like an episodic film than a television series that is stretched to a particular length and padded out to meet a contract. One thing I will say is that the power behind the Time Keepers is clearly Immortus, not Kang. Seriously people, he's even wearing the Immortus costume (minus the hat), not to mention that it's Immortus, not Kang, who is traditionally linked with the Time Keepers. I am certainly enjoying all these deep-cuts of Marvel lore, but, again, I hope we're not heading towards a live-action Avengers Forever or anything like that. Though Marvel Studios should 100% get a Rick Jones happening in the MCU as soon as possible. Loki, despite my trepidation, is an amazing series with a hell of a lot of potential, and I'm excited to see where it goes in the future, so long as it doesn't mean that the MCU becomes an extended series of references to past media, as that's just kind of sad for the studio who brought us Black Panther, Civil War and Endgame.

Thinking Out Loud: Major League

Hey gang, just wanted to take a minute to talk about something that has been bothering me a little lately; people know that Yamcha isn't a loser right? Like, Yamcha actually has it pretty good, in the grand scheme of things. I think Dragon Ball Z Abridged kind of perpetuated the idea into a meme, but even back when the Funimation dub was being broadcast on television, I remember fans talking about how much Yamcha sucked, and hey, I was probably one of them. Now that I'm way older and have actually watched pretty much all Dragon Ball audio visual media that's ever been made (not all that keen to start Heroes and can't get Xenoverse to play properly on my Switch), I kind of realise that Yamcha is a pretty lucky guy for the most part and has never really been represented as a loser in a sense beyond being one of the weaker members of the Z Fighters.

So yes, Yamcha is not the most powerful fighter in a series about fighting, pretty much being left behind since losing his fight to Tien at the World Tournament in Dragon Ball, but in terms of strength and skill, he's still ahead of every person on the planet that's not an alien, cyborg or one of his friends. Dragon Ball Earth is pretty sparsely populated compared to our reality, but Yamcha is stronger than a couple of billion people at least, including some real powerhouses like Ox King and Tao Pi Pi. A lot of people focus on the fact that Bulma and Yamcha break up at the start of DBZ, but that means they were together for like ten years, so hardly a failed relationship by any measure; sometimes people grow apart you know? Not being able to achieve his dream of being a champion martial artist, what does Yamcha do? He goes and gets a bunch of high-paying jobs. No, really, it barely gets covered in the series, but Yamcha has been a professional Baseball Player, a Male Model and a Bodyguard; dude has had a pretty sweet life.

Although I'm a big fan of the character, I have to admit that, in many ways, Tien is a bigger "loser" than Yamcha ever was. Tien keeps chasing the power and skill of fighters like Goku, even though he can never get there, forsaking everything else in his life to chase a dream he can't reach. Meanwhile, Yamcha is getting cheered on by thousands of fans as a star pitcher or jetting around the world to do fashion shoots. Damn son. Not bad for a dirty kid who robbed people in the desert to get by in his teens. I think the reason I'm liking Yamcha more as I get older is the very reason that many fans malign him; he doesn't need to be the best. Yamcha has been the hero in the past, helping defeat Pilaf, King Piccolo and the Saibermen, but he's outclassed against a lot of foes, so he does other things to fill the days now, but hey, if you need help, he'll be there. Yamcha is fine, he's doing his own thing, and that's pretty cool. Wolf Fang Fist-bump buddy.

Superhero Media: Joker

I don't know if I just happen to be stubborn, or if it's something held over from my degree in Film Studies, but I almost never fail to finish watching a film, even if it's utter dross like I'm Not There or it takes me a few goes like Jonah Hexx. If I'm watching a film, even if I'm not enjoying it, I tend to finish it, usually putting anything else off that I can until it's done. Following on from that, and apologies if this gets too personal, there are only two films I have stopped watching to have sex instead. Not that I don't enjoy sex or didn't want to have it with the person in question or anything, I just typically wait until the film is finished. One film I stopped watching in such a way was the dull Australian horror film Daybreakers, and the other was Joker. I've since watched Joker uninterrupted to give it the best chance I could, but I still just couldn't make myself care about it. And I feel kind of bad saying that, because a lot of people love this film and Joaquin Phoenix is amazing in the lead, but when you get down to it, Joker just really isn't about anything.

A lot happens in Joker, but I'm left baffled as to why any of it is happening, and much of it doesn't seem to mean anything. There are themes of a broken mental health system, but they're undercut by the setting of the film in the 1980s. Setting the film in the '80s seems to want to be about something, but Joker is shot and dressed like it's the 1970s because it wants to look like Taxi Driver and King of Comedy. The film strongly apes Taxi Driver, but there doesn't really seem to be a reason for that beyond borrowing some of the little gloss that Scorsese has left after the past decade of mediocrity and complaining. The soundtrack is bafflelingly tone-deaf, especially the inclusion of a Garry Glitter track, which, again, is from the wrong decade entirely. What, was "Psycho Killer" too obvious? Separating Joker from the Batman mythology is potentially interesting, but they wuss out on that too and Bruce FUCKING Wayne is in this film because we can't do anything in the DCU without reminding the audience that Batman exists. Hey, want to see the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne again? No? Too bad, because that's happening again.

I think I'd be less down on Joker if it had just been an uninteresting film that came and went and didn't occupy space in my brain. But because it has a solid lead performance, some quotable lines and the illusion of depth, I'll be bothered by people telling me that "actually, Joker is the greatest and most relevant superhero movie of all time" and I may roll my eyes so hard they actually eject from the sockets. Joker has nothing to say, but the words it uses, to belabor the metaphor, are flowery and sound educated, so people listen and start to believe. There, Joker is the film equivalent of Jordan Peterson, I solved it. No wonder internet Nazis love it so much. Do yourself a favour and watch King of Comedy instead, it's actually interesting. Want to watch a good film about a descent into madness, how about Eraserhead, Manhunter or The Lighthouse instead? Broaden your horizons, try something new, get away from Joker and the Joker in general, life is too short to keep going around on this monorail of diminishing returns, insisting that opinions you held when you were fourteen are still valid. It's not good, and I'm tired of pretending it is.

Thinking Out Loud: Inhale the State

Is Nindendo's Kirby an anti-capitalist icon? Well, no. I mean, it makes no sense that he would be, or that Sakurai and Hal have spent decades making entry-level games for children that indoctrinate them into agrarian Anarchism, but it's kind of hard to shake the idea once you see it. I covered this a little back in my Kirby Planet Robobot article, but I wanted to explore the idea more as it's just a bit of fun and very much in my wheelhouse. When not battling elder gods and manifestations of esoteric concepts, Kirby tends to find himself taking on petty dictators, mostly royalty or would-be conquerors, like King Dedede or Queen Sectonia. Now, there is more than one way to resist feudalism, but I don't see Kirby building industry and using economic power to force a governmental change to a capitalist model, so when he returns to a rural and naturalist existence, I'm thinking of the movements that inspired Bakunin more than anything.

As Kirby is, quite deliberately, something of a blank slate, we can never really know what he is thinking, beyond "I'm hungry", so any motivation to his actions has to be discerned in who he takes action against. In the original Kirby's Dream Land, King Dedede, an absolute monarch, has horded all of the food, and we have to assume the proletariat of Dream Land are left to starve whilst the King gorges himself. They work, he eats. Comrade Kirby defeats the King and redistributes the food while the credits roll. Of course, people will point out, not all of Kirby's enemies are royalty, there's Nightmare, Marx and Dark Matter, who are essentially eldritch gods, and, of course, Star Dream. Let's start with the godlings, who, aside from Marx (and that's just kind of an unfortunate coincidence on the name, really) are certainly not strictly Capitalist antagonists, but the extreme-Left does tend to be anti-religion, or at least anti-organised religion, so what's more radical than killing the gods? Outside of Kirby Right Back At Ya!, there is no demonstrated religion in Dream Land, though there is magic, so I wouldn't really assume anything more than a basic pantheism for most inhabitants. Trees have faces after all.

And Star Dream? Well, as I've said in regards to Planet Robobot before, I think it is one of the most blatantly anti-capitalist video games available, especially to children. Star Dream's plan is to monetise the entire universe so that it can control all wealth and capital, a universal monopoly controlled by one entity. If that's not capitalism as reductio ad absurdam, I don't know what is. What I didn't mention about Planet Robobot is that Susie, and later Star Dream itself, are modifying the landscapes and inhabitants of Dream Land in order to make them more "productive". Even King Dedede and Meta Knight are modified to be more efficient workers, losing their, for lack of a better word, "humanity" in the process. Susie offers Kirby several chances to join the corporation, which feature indoctrinating songs and propaganda, but as Kirby refuses (or perhaps simply fails to understand what is happening), Susie becomes increasingly frustrated and eventually decides to discard Kirby, as he won't fit into her profit-making machine. I'll say it again, I don't believe the Kirby games are anti-capitalist propaganda of any kind, but they can be read with that lens and I think doing so is an interesting thought experiment if you enjoy that kind of thing.