Citizen Kane and Gaming: Or, Stop Talking About Citizen Kane and Gaming

Every once in a while, there's a rash of articles stating that Game X or Game Y is the Citizen Kane of gaming.  This invariably leads to be wharrgarbling for a while, then collecting myself, taking some pills with smiley faces drawn on them, and returning back to the blog with the glow of someone on heavy pharmaceuticals.

And with good reason:  People who talk about the Citizen Kane of gaming usually don't understand what Citizen Kane was.  I mean, everyone knows that Rosebud is the name of the sled, and everyone's seen that picture of Orson Welles in front of the giant Kane poster.  However, there's a lot of people who haven't actually seen the movie, so they don't quite get what it was about.

The key of Citizen Kane was not it's plot.  If you unwind the plot, it's just about a man who gets very, very rich and becomes miserable.  That's it, in a very small nutshell.  It's not what Kane is about that makes it great, but rather the way it's presented.  It was light years ahead of anything else at the time, with camera angles that still astound.

For instance, there's one shot toward the middle where a group of people sing and dance a song about Mr. Kane that looks like it's two separate composite shots.  Everyone is in focus, the people sitting in the front row watching, the man singing the song, the dancing girls behind him, and the long room behind them.  That was all the same shot, filmed with a special type of lens.  No one was doing that sort of shot at the time.  It's still hard to find shots like that in movies.  It was an achievement far ahead of its time.

However, those are where the comparisons end.  Citizen Kane wasn't really watched at the time.  It drew the ire of powerful men who blacklisted it, and in the end it only made back the cost of the film.  So, some people think that when you look at a Citizen Kane-ish type of game, it has to be one that's widely ignored by the gaming public but then brought back because it was just SO GOOD.  This is great for a lot of game writers, because then they have a chance to champion some random game as the Game By Which All Others Should Be Judged and make themselves look like Cool Insiders.

Here's the whole problem: There doesn't need to be a Citizen Kane for gaming.  There won't be.  I mean, what's the Citizen Kane for books?  What's the Citizen Kane for music?  What's the Citizen Kane for comic books?  There isn't, because Citizen Kane was a one-shot, one-time deal.  Plus, it's not like movies stopped evolving after Kane, either.  Movies keep on changing and incorporating the lessons learned from past movies while continuing onwards.

The reason why people keep on looking for some supposed Gaming Savior is because they want something to legitimize gaming somehow.  It's not enough that gamers like gaming, it has to be beloved by all, and if there's something that's legitimately artistic, then everyone will HAVE to love gaming!  It goes back to gaming's stigma.

As soon as you mention you're a gamer, nongamers look at you like you've mentioned that you got herpes from a toilet seat.  If only there was some way to show people what it's all about, then they would understand!  Then maybe I could wear my "I Am Murloc" shirt in public without being openly mocked!  Then I could maybe kick back with my PSP without getting rolled eyes and disapproving glares!

Well, the problem is that until nongamers start dying off, there will always be a stigma around gaming.  The literati of the time thought that movies would dumb down culture and become a social problem.  After that, they referred to TV as a "vast wasteland."  Comic books and D&D were singled out as Satanic and destructive.  Gaming is no longer viewed as outright evil, but it's certainly not beloved by millions.

So therein lies the problem.  If we get rid of our embarrassment about being gamers, we won't have to look for a watershed moment for gaming.  As it is, we've had several already, and if someone's not on board by now, they won't be.  Let 'em ignore one of the biggest cultural revolutions of our time.

The Gaming Landscape 2000 to 2009 Part 2: Nintendo & Sony, or A Tale of Two Companies

At the dawn of the decade, things were looking grim for Nintendo.  The Nintendo 64, which had launched to such fanfare and excitement in 1996, was increasingly outclassed by the Playstation and was receiving fewer and fewer new games.  Their handheld system, the Game Boy Color, sold in great quantities but desperately needed to be replaced soon, as it was based on outdated technology and also showing its age.

Meanwhile, Sony's position was never better.  Their Playstation had made a major dent in the console wars, gathering exclusives, buzz, and excitement.  They were gearing up the hype machine for the hotly-anticipated Playstation 2.  All looked rosy for Sony.  By the end of the decade, the companies' respective fortunes would drastically change places.  What happened?  Why did one company rise while the other fell?

In a way, both companies mirrored each other throughout the decade in the console race.  After the N64 limped to the finish line, the Gamecube launched and emphatically underperformed from start to finish.  There were lots of bright spots along the way, like Metroid Prime, Zelda: Wind Waker and Smash Bros. Melee, but lots of flops too.  On the Sony side, while the first Playstation was still walking tall, the PS2 launched and trounced all competitors from start to finish.  There were a couple of dark spots along the way, like the underwhelming Final Fantasy XI and rampant disk read errors, but there were far more successes than failures.

If the console race was all that mattered, Nintendo would have had to leave a while ago, taking the Sega route.  However, Nintendo's strategy included their extremely profitable handhelds, which propped up their entire company.  In the space of 10 years, Nintendo saw the Game Boy Advance sell 100 million units AND the Nintendo DS accomplish the same feat.  Both systems were cheap to make, easy to program for, and had a reach far beyond the typical gamer.

Sony, obviously, wanted in on this.  It would appear that's when the wheels started to come off.  The PSP was launched to much fanfare, but there were a few issues.  First, the original model had problems with one of the buttons being a little too close to the screen.  It made the button somewhat unresponsive for some users, which led to a redesign of the PSP.  Piracy started taking off on the PSP, so Sony had to try and redesign again to avoid it with the PSP-3000.  It didn't stem the tide, so they had to release the PSPGo to try and staunch the bleeding.

In effect, what should have been a cheap, easy cash-in for Sony turned into a long, headache-y mess. They didn't have the easily accessible puzzle games and brain games that gave Nintendo's handhelds such a head start. They had to redesign repeatedly to combat issues with piracy. They had to sink so much money and resources into their handheld that it would appear they missed the boat on the PS3. They released a system with a lot of really good ideas, but one that wouldn't be able to capitalize on those ideas for years.

In many ways, the Wii and the PS3 really show two completely divergent philosophies. The Wii introduced a whole new style of gameplay that captured the hearts and gaming dollars of a large audience. There was some concern that the core audience wouldn't take to it, and by and large they haven't. However, Nintendo has been extremely profitable in a way that they haven't seen since the NES.

Sony's idea was "more is better." Better graphics, some of the best of the generation. A Blu-Ray drive for maximum high-definition TVs. Their own half-thought-out motion controls with the Sixaxis. And, of course, more money. Sony seemed to subscribe to the philosophy of "if you want to have the best, you have to pay more." Most people have stayed away in droves from the PS3 until only recently, even though it's developing an outstanding library and has become cheaper to make.

Nintendo, meanwhile, always focused on profitability. Even when the Gamecube tanked, it was never a loss for them. Nintendo doesn't have the luxury that Sony and Microsoft has. They only have one division: Gaming. There's no operating systems or portable music players, no TVs or mobile devices to fall back on.  If their system isn't profitable, they have nothing else. Nintendo knew that and planned accordingly.

The switch in position between Nintendo and Sony was a rapid and drastic one, but as we can see, not totally without cause. Sony has tried to emulate some of Nintendo's design principles but couldn't quite nail them. Nintendo played along with the rest of the industry for several years, but found themselves on the outside looking in. They changed their philosophy and are now the leader.

Makes you wonder what the next ten years will bring, doesn't it?

Is Nintendo Oversimplifying Things?: Metroid, Mario and the DSiXL

I last played Metroid Prime on the Gamecube.  It was a lot of fun, for the most part.  I died a couple of times, but eventually made it to the rock monster in the Phendrana Drifts.  There I died, repeatedly.  I fought him over and over, and he kept running me over and killing me.  I couldn't understand why.  I put it down and never really returned.

Fast forward to yesterday.  I'm playing the Metroid Prime Trilogy, and I get to the same part.  I'm expecting to throw the controllers down in frustration, and I cruise through the battle.  My health never even dropped below four full energy tanks.  It took a while, but it wasn't grueling.  It was almost easy.

When I first played Super Mario 64, I was repeatedly flummoxed by various stars.  I got so upset that I almost threw the game aside.  I persevered and eventually beat it, but the bitter feelings remained.  Later on, I played Super Mario 64 DS and breezed through it.  It was almost too easy.

What happened?  Did I just get better at games?  Possibly.  There was a 5-year-gap in between the last time I played Mario 64 and my playtime with Mario 64 DS.  The Metroid Prime thing is a little harder to explain, since there wasn't a huge gap in between playing it on the Cube and on the Wii.  There's another reason, and it fits along with what's happening with Nintendo's newly announced DSiXL.

It's now become a well-known fact that Nintendo deliberately dialed back the difficulty on the Metroid Prime Trilogy.  If you want to play with the original difficulty, you have to choose the Veteran option at the beginning.  Otherwise, you're playing in what can essentially be called Easy mode.  Similarly, certain tasks in Mario 64 have been made far easier.  No longer are there Wall Kicks, but easier-to-manage Wall Jumps, that just require you to fling yourself at the wall, slide on it a little, and then jump.  Likewise, the DSiXL is easier to read, easier to see, and easier to hold.  It's more like a netbook than a DS.

Nintendo's been going about this for a bit now:  Making their properties easier to handle and easier to understand.  Is it a bad thing?  Some would say yes.  For instance, Metroid has always been about three things:  Solitude, exploration, and tension.  You may have played the same boss several times, but that boss will still give you a beatdown if you're not careful.  If you make Metroid too easy, you take away the tension.  Now those enemies that first looked so imposing and terrifying are mere annoyances that are swatted aside.  For instance, I should have to wait before crossing through a plume of flame.  I shouldn't be able to say, "It'll only take away 4 points of my health, so I'll just waltz through it."  I should have to respect that hazard.

Is Metroid Prime worse for being easier?  To a degree, but now I'm able to see the whole gameworld without struggling or having to scrounge for powerups in fear.  I'm able to be a little more brazen and take some risks, which is entertaining.  Plus, they greatly reduced the incoming scan messages that direct you to your next objective.  Now, they only appear when you've been wandering for a while, and they're far more welcome.  Still, Metroid always has been a more difficult experience, and it feels like it should stay that way.

Is Mario 64 worse for being easier?  Absolutely not.  While some franchises live and die on their difficulty level, Mario's never been that way.  Yes, Mario games are challenging, but they're not hair-pulling frustrating, nor are they supposed to be.  Complex controls in Mario obfuscate the underlying game and create more problems than they solve.

Finally, is the DSiXL going to be worse for what it is?  Meh.  It's not a great idea in my book, but it will make internet functions easier.  It might erase a little of the stigma of carrying around a video game system, but it does seem a case of too much oversimplification or a drinking binge in the marketing department.  Of the many barriers to purchasing a portable game system, I doubt that "It's too small" ranked near the top.  I hope that this isn't the case, but time will tell.

Professor Layton Problems

I while back, I reviewed Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box.  I found it excellent.  It was smart, witty, made you think, and had a great story to boot.  The key, as always, were the puzzles.  Many were of the "don't overthink this" variety, which I appreciated.  I decided to go back and play the first game, The Curious Village, to see if my opinion of it had changed.

When I first played Curious Village, I was very upset at it.  The puzzles were mostly of the "try and guess what we mean!" variety.  There were far fewer spatial puzzles, just word puzzles that felt more like a sadistic math teacher torturing his students.  Unfortunately, my opinion of Curious Village still remains the same.  It's strange how Diabolical Box can be so good, and Curious Village so bad.

I don't know if I'm the only person who feels this way.  I suspect I am, since I haven't heard anyone else state this.  It also makes me a little worried for the third game, since the only thing that made one game so very, very good and one game so very, very bad are the puzzles.  If the puzzles in the third game are the same type as the first...

Baseball Vs. Football

There's a great video that they're talking about on Deadspin where Joe Mauer appears to be tipping pitches to Jason Kubel.  It's a really interesting view of the game, and it got me thinking about baseball and football.

I've long held that football is the way we wish our lives could be, with big moments accounting for people's opinion of us, moments sprayed across the stage where everyone takes notice of our amazing accomplishments.  That's why it appeals to us: After we accomplish a task, we wish we could run around, giving high fives and getting encouragement and cheers.  However, in baseball, those moments are few and far between.  It's a grind, a marathon built up of little moments that add up to an overall reputation.  Do you play the same in April as October?  Do you always care about excellence, or do you only do the big things and none of the little things?

After the Mauer/Detroit incident, I thought of another apt comparison.  Football is usually likened to war, with an emphasis on offense and defense.  Quarterbacks are referred to as field generals.  Players are referred to as "warriors."  However, baseball isn't the same way.  It has an attitude more like diplomacy, where two teams put on the airs of gentlemen playing a gentleman's game.  However, peel back the genteel exterior and you'll find deceit, double-crossing and backstabbing.  Every time it's uncovered, everyone says that they're shocked, SHOCKED to be finding such things in such a dignified game.  Then, things go back to normal, where both teams are trying to backstab each other.

I love baseball.

The Gaming Landscape 2000 to 2009 Part 1: The PC

PCs have always been a staple of gaming going back to the 1970's.  Text-based adventure games, MUDs, and ASCII games like Rogue were some of the first immersive games.  Commodore games still get a lot of play, and the 1980's and 1990's were extremely kind to the platform.  By the year 2000, the PC's fortunes were skyrocketing.  The experience you could get on a PC was unmatched by any system.  Comparatively, the N64 was four years old and extremely long in the tooth and the PS1 was starting to show its age graphically as well.  The Dreamcast had just launched and had great graphics, and included online play on select few games, but EVERY GAME on the PC had online play.

That's to say nothing of the quality of the games.  Diablo II launched in 2000 and proceeded to break countless mice.  Everquest started to hit its stride and become EverCrack way before World of Warcrack.  Deus Ex created a believable world with countless solutions that still resonates today.  No One Lives Forever was the first shooter that was "better than Half-Life."  Sure, there were some lazy PC ports, but the vast majority of groundbreaking games came out on the PC first and foremost.

The PS2 launched in 2001, and didn't really dent the PC's strong customer base.  I mean, they promised a game like SOCOM that allowed for online play, but once again, the PC had it in virtually every game without any major hurdles.  Sure, the PC was more expensive, but the quality of the experience was unequaled, with games like Rise of Nations and Jedi Knight II providing an experience that rivaled or beat most consoles.

As a matter of fact, up until this point there was a pretty clear demarcation building.  The PC was home to shooters, strategy games, and Western-style RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment.  Consoles were the home of action/adventure games like Zelda and JRPGs like Final Fantasy.  Obviously, we're oversimplifying the matter and of course there were exceptions, but this was the way of things.  The PC had the graphics to keep up with shooters where consoles couldn't, and console controls were better suited to handle adventure games.

By the year 2000, things were going along swimmingly for the PC.  When did the PC's fortunes turn?  It can be traced to three things:  The growing ease of piracy, XBox Live, and Half-Life 2.

Piracy is usually the scapegoat for most people when discussing the downfall of the PC.  It's easy to blame, and it indeed had a real impact.  I mean, why pay for a game when you can get it for free?  It seems like a rather obvious problem.  In 2000, piracy was becoming an issue, but hard drives were small and discs held a lot of data.  CD burners were starting to become more prevalent, but they were still kind of expensive.  Broadband was starting to become common, but most people had dialup.  You could maybe get games on Limewire or Kazaa (remember Kazaa?) but you had to contend with viruses and slow internet speeds.  In other words, there were enough roadblocks in place to make piracy more of a headache than a boon.

What's changed?  With hard drives getting bigger and bigger, you can store more ISOs and cracks than you could in days gone by.  In the past, you may have had a 10-15 GB hard drive, and a game disc would take up 700 MB of that space.  That was valuable real estate that you couldn't afford to occupy.  Installing a CD burner to get that ISO off your computer would run you at least $200, and half of the time that burner would make coasters (Buffer Underrun Error!)  Now, you can get cheap hard drives that hold 250 GB or more.  Sure, an ISO may be 4-7 GB, but you're still in great shape, space-wise.  A top-flight, error-free DVD burner can be purchased online for $20, and DVDs are a dime a dozen.  On top of that, internet connections in 2000 were topping out at 1.5MB/second and most people were still on dialup.  Now, chances are that if you're reading this entry, you have a high-speed connection that's at least 1.5/MB if not far more.  That means that a full ISO, instead of taking you a full month to download, now takes you only a day or sometimes even an hour to get.  There are far fewer roadblocks to piracy than before, and it's become far more difficult to stop.

In and of itself, piracy isn't the lone cause of the decline of PC gaming.  A large chunk of that can be traced to XBox Live and similar services.  Up until then, the PC's major benefit, online and LAN multiplayer, was just a mere pipe dream for console makers.  It was the one area of gaming that couldn't be touched by consoles, and it was beautiful.  Even when the PS2 launched with an Ethernet jack, it was still more of a headache to connect online than anything else.  Then the XBox came along, and Halo over Live became de rigeur.  It didn't take long for companies to latch onto the idea of a closed system that was easily manageable to keep cheaters out AND that wouldn't have the same piracy risks as the PC.

Slowly but surely, the XBox started becoming home to shooters, which were once solely the purview of the PC.  Now we're seeing games like Modern Warfare and Fallout 3 landing on consoles far before the PC, if they ever even get there.  Gamers decided that they would overlook the deficiencies of the two-analog-stick control system in exchange for ease of use and managed friend lists, and the XBox (and later the PS3) ended taking the runoff from the PC market.  In effect, they aren't growing their own separate markets, but rather taking away the PC's market, cannibalizing it in order to grow their own.

Lastly, Half-Life 2 is to blame.  It seems like lunacy to blame Half-Life 2, one of the greatest games of the decade, for the issues plaguing the PC.  Hear me out.

Before Half-Life 2, game activation was simple.  Put in your CD Key during the install, and you can play.  There was a booming used market at Gamestop, Electronics Boutique, GameCrazy, Fry's, and others because you could very easily transfer game ownership from one person to another.  Then Half-Life 2 came along and demanded that you activate the game online.  Once it was activated online via Steam, you really couldn't transfer ownership without a lengthy process.  Trade-ins on Half-Life 2 became nonexistent.  How could you trade in a game where ownership couldn't be transferred?  Since it was a very high-profile game, the issue really couldn't be pushed aside or ignored.

All of a sudden, EB Games and Gamestop saw their opportunity to downsize their PC gaming racks.  PC gaming had long been a thorn in the side of retailers, what with their big boxes that weren't easily stacked and their byzantine system requirements that led to more returns and customer service headaches than other games.  From the retailers' perspective, why waste the valuable shelf space on a platform that caused so many problems AND wouldn't give them their huge markup that they were accustomed to on used console games?

This led to the Great PC Game Selloff of 2005 and 2006, as gaming boutiques slashed their used inventory at unheard of prices.  It wasn't uncommon to find great, AAA used titles for $5 with manuals and cases.  It was beautiful and a little sad.  You knew what they were doing and why they were doing it, and the longer you held off buying the games the longer used PC games remained stocked at the stores, but how could you pass up those prices?

Once PC gaming left the boutiques, it lost its visibility.  A new AAA PC game no longer carried the same prestige as before.  Sure, MMOs have picked up the slack, but there's something wrong about paying someone a continual sum of money for the privilege of continuing to play their game that you've already bought and paid for.  Now, the only games that come out for the PC are MMOs, indie games, and console ports.  It's been a precipitous drop for the PC.

However, that's not to say that the PC didn't deserve to die.  For all of their merits, PCs are expensive.  A good gaming rig will cost you $1000 or more while a 360 or PS3 is $250.  Plus, trying to figure out the system requirements of their home PC is an exercise in frustration for most gamers.  It's a little sad seeing a once-proud, monolithic platform being reduced to a shadow of its former self.  However, it's still the system with the highest install base, higher than any console, higher than any handheld.  The glory days may never return for the PC, but it'll still be around for a long, long time.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2*6-12+86 Days

If I was Disney, I would be livid at Square right now. What started as a relatively straightforward Square/Disney mashup has now gone completely off the rails.

I played the first 20 minutes of Kingdom Hearts e=mc squared last night, and while it's neat, it's certainly not what Disney must have wanted at this point. You wouldn't even know that Disney characters were in here unless you look at the box art. There, in the very corner, is Mickey. The rest of the art? White space and spiky-haired anime characters. More and more, Kingdom Hearts is turning towards Square's increasingly convoluted storytelling and fleshing out a world that didn't really need fleshing out instead of focusing on what Disney probably wanted. It's no wonder that Disney is commissioning the "Epic Mickey" project.

Do you want to see something absolutely hilarious? I can't find it now, but Games Radar has an absolutely ridiculous recap of the events from Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, and Chain of Memories that will make your head spin. The series is not at all conducive to allowing new people to join up and enjoy, and that has to drive Disney crazy.