I Will Survive

I feel calm now. I've needed this calm.

I've been having a hectic few weeks. Spent a lot of time on various Pacific Islands really exploring myself. It's been eye opening. Oh, and traumatic.

But I've survived. And I'm different now. I'm not sure if that is in a good way.

At least... that's the general idea.

The truth is, I've been "busy" scraping through some survival games, both quite similar in nature. Unprepared white, young, Westerner gets trapped and stranded in uncharted lands (and yet neither game was Uncharted), forced to do desperate and horrible things to survive the attentions of crazed psychopaths and their hired goons.

Farcry 3 and Tomb Raider.

The short and succinct review is that I had a lot of fun with both, and that's all that really matters when it comes to these things, really.

And they got me thinking, which is another good thing, but I've been thinking about this whole survival thing, as it's obviously a big deal now. People want to scrape out of a hole having come through the ringer and ending up fulfilled. A metaphor for life. But playing through these stories has left me contemplating a big issue in all modern gaming: How hard can you make a game in this day and age?

Because if there is one thing I realised in playing through Farcry 3 it was that, for a survival game, it was jokingly easy.

I was really up for it. I was dropped into a hellish position and I was totally ready to fight and claw my way out. Then, my reality was utterly shattered when my first friendly contact was a cheery fellow in an army shirt, cargo shorts and black-rimmed glasses called Dennis. Now, don't get me wrong, Dennis was a bit of a dude. But he wasn't a survivor. I didn't get the impression he had been living the life of the wilds, on the verge of insanity. Rather, it seemed more likely that I had been rescued by a guy who had just come out of Starbucks with his MacBook in his Cambridge Satchel. I want to feel like I am constantly in peril, so throwing "The Tribal Hipster" at me kind of broke me out of the fantasy.

Ne'ertheless, I continued, taking my first steps in a game that rapidly became no longer a fight for survival but an exercise in performing a coup d'état on the resident criminal overlord so you could take his place. My first case-in-point being my first encounter with the native wildlife, a rather angry rattlesnake sat between me and my first synchronised view point liberated radio tower. Now, seeing as I had just about clung to the idea of survival, I wasn't going to waste ammo on a snake that I could potentially just edge around. So, calmly, carefully, I stepped around the coiled serpent hoping to make the stairs without inspiring aggression. This did not happen. Instead, the bastard bit me and I fought desperately to wrench it from my arm and fling it as far as possible from where I currently was.

And then... nothing. The red mist faded, my rapid pulse slowed and I stood, perfectly happy but for a puncture in my arm and a small chunk of missing health. But that was it. And so, I came to the conclusion that I was clearly invincible to have resisted what was clearly a venomous snake with no ill effect. And then I proclaimed how stupid that was.

And that's the general point here. You pitch the consumer the term 'survival' with the promise of nail-biting terror and flittering about the edge of death for an entire game. And then give us immunity to poison, disease and ferocious tigers. And fire, let's not forget fire. Many is the time where, having actually, for once, on rare occasion, run out of ammo, I resorted to C4 to deal with dangerous foes, burning down half of the jungle with me still in it. And then just patted my arm down and got on with things. And then I bought some more ammo with the thousands of dollars I was able to gather from the island's various jobs and gambling dens. Despite fearing I would need every last cent I could scrape from the enemies that fell in my sneaky, jungle native wake, it actually became a constant bother as guns were constantly becoming free to buy, you could make all the meds you needed and armour was just lying in random huts along the beach so that I had no need for money other than the odd bit of ammo and unnecessary secret maps, leaving me with the constant warning that I had no space in my wallet anymore. I would chase down sharks just so I could get more space for the literal fortune that was clearly to be found on this "den of nightmares."

There wasn't even a decent boss fight. No king of combat that would stretch your abilities with rifle and knife. The focal antagonist; an amazing character, wonderfully performed, who adorns the cover of the box, is removed from the story almost by a stage hand with a shepherd's crook and a 'wah, wah, wahhhh' soundtrack. The big boss, crow-barred into the story near the end, is felled by the dreaded quick time event, as is every notable villain in the game. By the end I felt thoroughly tired from being constantly dragged through important plot points rather than being dropped in and left to eek my own way out.

Tomb Raider was often guilty of exactly the same things as Farcry. Near the beginning, you are instructed to hunt down some food, presumably so that Lara doesn't die of starvation, and left with the assumption that this will be a regular occurrence. But, I don't think I hunted down anything else in the entire game, other than for something to do. I didn't really see that it was integral to Lara's survival, and I completed the game fine without it.

This was on hard mode, which only really seemed to apply to combat, and which roughly equated to a multiplier on the number of enemies faced in a given encounter. This wasn't so much survival as churning through gunfire to the fun, runny-jumpy-climby-puzzley bits behind. Once more, supplies were in plentiful supply; I don't think I went 5 steps without seeing a quiver of arrows, and the fire sources needed for much of the exploring and puzzle solving were never too far from hand, although a number of the set piece rooms early on were played quite well with convenient waterfalls sat between you and the most accessible brazier. But this was quickly snuffed out with the acquisition of an ignition device strapped to your torch and, later, a zippo from a dead pilot. Like they didn't want you to be too worried about surviving when all that beautiful scenery was there to be looked at.

I want to end this by saying that I genuinely did enjoy both of these games, although I did start to get worn out with Farcry once Vaas was removed. But I loved Tomb Raider and am really excited for the future titles. It's good to feel like playing a Tomb Raider game is no longer an act of shame. But, at the same time, I liked these games for reasons outside of what, to me at least, came across as the main selling point. The 'survival' aspect. Bar a few set pieces in both games, I didn't feel exactly stretched by the situation. And, the rare moments that I did, my hand was being held the entire time with QTEs. And it's disappointing. I can't be alone in wanting a real challenge of survival gaming skills. The success of Dark Souls and its sequels attests to the demand for difficulty in games. So lets see it. For the next survival title, I genuinely want to feel like I only just made it out alive. Make me work for my endorphins. Make me guess what buttons I have to press to get out of trouble. Otherwise, I may as well be playing some bizarre version of Guitar Hero.

The Games Parade

It’s fairly painful even thinking about games at present. Due to a fairly restrictive income and a general inability to make any assured decisions with what to do with my free time I feel like my current relationship with games is akin to them being the shiny thing that came to be in my possession inside a locked glass cabinet for which I was not given the key.

I really want the shiny thing. I just don’t trust in it enough to smash open the cabinet. Besides, I might need the cabinet. Cabinets are important when you’re supposed to be an adult, right?

But there it is. What with one thing and another, I have kind of stepped out from the games machine for now and, slightly distressingly, maybe forever.

But games are still very shiny. More than ever, perhaps.

And this weekend has been the annual parade of shiny things, E3. I’ve not often paid much attention to it but I always appreciated the announcements and the inevitable awkward and embarrassing moments from the Big 3 consoles as they make their presentations. But, for those not connected enough to actually be there in person, the real attraction of E3 is the plethora of trailers and game play footage that get brought out for the occasion. Quite frankly, what I have seen from this year’s showcase has been almost incandescent.

If you haven’t seen the trailers, there are plenty of ways to do so, so I won’t give any transcripts or anything. But, as I’m sure you can imagine, they were typically shiny and alluring. However, I couldn’t help but notice that, with my cynical sunglasses shielding my eyes, there was just the slightest hint of forced lighting behind the glow. As is the way of trailers, I guess.

Now, I know trailers are, when all is said and done, the worst indicator of whether anything will be worth your time. They are marketing tools, engineered so as to appeal to as wide a scope of demographic as it can. They can, conveniently, cut out all the bad that might exist within a game and completely camouflage what type of game you’ll end up playing. They are aloof, mysterious creatures, dancing in the light, singing from the rocks and telling us absolutely nothing.  Or telling us too much, at least in terms of story. My biggest issue with the Tomb Raider trailer was how much of the story was just nonchalantly spilled out to us. It’s annoying and something I know has been bugging film viewers for years as well.

Tomb Raider is proving to be a real puzzler for me, personally. The original games I missed out on due to not getting a Playstation until five minutes before the Playstation 2 came out but I’ve witnessed them through friends and the action/puzzles/adventure mix that I saw was enough to pull me in and drag me to buy some of the later games on the later generation consoles. They hold a place in my heart, even if the ridiculousness was gradually escalated with each new instalment. I totally accept the need for change. This new game is looking like a serious change. For once, Lara actually looks like a real woman. This is definitely change.

The quite-astonishingly-large-elephant-in-the-room surrounding the game, though, is that, well, it’s very sinister. Now, alright, running around long-lost tombs shooting tigers and finding world ending artefacts to add to your collection is also very sinister. But the footage released so far is looking for a new scale in terms of sinister. This search is being carried out alongside The Last of Us; a brutal survival-fest through fungus afflicted zombies and roving bandits. Typical game scenario. But, like Tomb Raider, the content so far has been intense, to say the least.

I’m not coming out against the portrayal of such subjects. I view video games as an art form and, as such, should be allowed to present whatever they want if done so in the interests of art. And these games are definitely doing what they are doing for a reason. I can definitely see that. Additionally, this dark ‘realism’ is nothing new. Remember Saw? But I didn’t see those films. Never wanted to. I just didn’t feel that spending my free time watching two hours of hyper-real violence was a good way of stepping out of real life for a bit. I worry that the more I see of these games as more and more trailers and game play footage is released, the more I will worry these games are eschewing art for violence.

Inversely, I also worry that as more footage is released it will ruin the experience of playing the game. Both these games have taken much effort in showing the world and horror that you as the player will be submerged in that they are actually taking away some of the horror. The publishers have certainly succeeded in piquing my interest but I’m definitely a bit sore that I’ll miss out on the suspense and shock from the game play experience. I guess, in that respect, this is a no-lose situation for the publishers.

It is this reason that has kept me from seeing the new footage of Assassin’s Creed 3. In fairness to Ubisoft, they tend to do well at keeping secrets but I just don’t need to take that risk. I definitely want to play their game, they have thoroughly hooked me. I don’t need to see anymore until release day. To the other extreme, I took a look at the trailer for The Unfinished Swan, and learned very little at all. It sounded intriguing but I really will need to see more to know if it’s worth playing. Considering this was E3, you’d feel this was the weekend to have a bit more than an arty teaser for those not able to go there and test it. It doesn’t pay to be uninformed.

Obviously, trailers play a role in marketing and the lustre they generate obviously succeeds. But E3 is fairly unfulfilling in this way. It’s very hard to hear about what the game is. Penny Arcade has made an effort in bringing back information behind the scenes and the returns have been really interesting to me, at least. I can watch trailers whenever. What I want from E3 is more news about the real quality of the game; to hear how it plays, how gripping the story is (without spoilers, obviously), what plans the company has in its further development up to release. I’m tired of just looking of shiny things.