Critical Analysis - Assassin's Creed III

I wrote this up as a homework assignment for the Fundamentals of Game Design course.  This is not a review of the game, but I do love the hell out of it!

Assassin’s Creed 3 (AC3) is the latest in the series of this game type and content.  The original game was released back in 2007 and has since seen 3 other games released up until AC3 was released in October of this year.   The main story among all the games is that it allows the user to play as an assassin, which is a secret society group, fighting arduously against the Templars who are working to control the world and events that take place in history.   Game play and story takes place over a span of different periods in time, but in AC3 the focus is late 18^th century in colonial America. A special machine called the “Animus” is able to read the playable character’s DNA and can then digitally replicate periods of time in history through the perception of DNA ancestors.  Going back in history the players not only experience historical events as they really were, but can work to influence events as well.

Control and movement is very simple and easy to pick up.  The fluidity of the controls and precise responses allow immersion for the player to really sense they are able to push the character of Connor to the limits he was designed for.  This complexity though also leads into some small issues that bugged me when I played.  Often times you have to tail a character or possibly chase them if they know you are following.  When this occurs I get my player character running as fast as possible, but NPCs (non-player characters) and objects are often in the way.  In my attempts to duck and dodge during a chase I sometimes find myself controlling the character into doing something I do not want at all such as climbing up a wall when I had just wanted them to turn sharply while running.  Once the chase breaks and I’m climbing, I often cannot recover fast enough to continue the pursuit, I am desynchronized (I died) and forced to restart that segment of the game. As much as I want to stick to what I hope is working, if I continue to find myself running up walls when not intended, I am forced to alter my route of chase and rethink how I react to obstacles in my way.   Maybe the game was designed this way such that I need to find the best path, but with the flexibility of open world play, I always hope my dynamic choices of action will come out with intended results.

An amazing new mini game mode introduced to AC3 is Naval Warfare. I’m extremely impressed with the gameplay design and the visual beauty during these sequences. I’ve not played any past games where naval warfare was view directly from the ship’s captain’s 3^rd person point of view, but this Ubisoft has created something amazing here.  As captain of the ship you’re given a basic control scheme, half sail, full sail, and stop for boat control.   For warfare you’re given 2 gun types, a single swivel gun to shoot any targets on each side, or the main row of cannons on each side of the ship.   The game modes typically consist of you escorting another large ship through contested waters or else you go out to hunt pirating vessels and sink them.  The included NPC animations are really tickled me to watch them running around on deck and completing tasks while I control the ship and command attack or defend orders.  The sound effects and the NPC screams and yells of commands or if in pain add to an immersive and fast paced energetic atmosphere. 

I find that 3^rd person perspective is a perfect fit for the gameplay and style of this game.  This view allows the player a more advantageous view of what is going on around them, along with the ability to see full animations when they appear during an action the player completes.  It would have been interesting to know if the game developer could have created an optional point of view through FPS for the game.  I know some game players are very critical about the point of view and not having their preferred style will deter them from trying out games. 

One portion of the game I feel is a bit of a letdown is in the controls and movements while on horseback.  A player will often need to jump on a horse to cover a distance faster than walking.   The basics in this are fine where you can lead a horse where you want and you can control your speed, however the downfalls in this hit two areas: proximity to objects, and riding across elevation differences.  When you’re pushing your horse for full speed and come in close proximity to a fixated object like a tree, rock or a building, your horse does not brush past, it just about stops dead in its tracks.  I find this frustrating, and even worse is during times when you really want to ride fast you end up trying to rush away but just jumble up the horse with objects further delaying your travel.  Another issue I do not like is that you cannot control the horse to jump down small edges or ledges.  If you’re on horseback and an elevation change is not directly jumpable, like a fence, then you’ll have to dismount the horse, walk past the barrier and then call the horse to come to you so you can get back on. I get the core logic in this, to avoid hurting the horse, but in the end this is just a cumbersome time loss for me as a player.

I really enjoy the world created in AC3 because of the NPCs and how they were built for interaction in game.  If a player is in a populated area like a city, most NPCs are tasked with mundane things like walking around, milling in groups, or possibly doing some labor work.  All of this creates a wonderful lively atmosphere of life within this game.  Unfortunately, I cannot interact with these NPCs to gain any relevant information in game or open up anything new in game.  They are well designed though in that if I do any unacceptable social actions including fighting or killing someone in their view, they will react to me, typically to cry in fear or run away yelling possibly.  Some characters do shout for help and may run off to have guards come get me.  I like these features in the game, but it would be excellent to one day be offered a fully interactive world where I can spend time with all sorts of NPCs and actually receive dynamic reactions or conversations based on my input.  Amongst the crowd of NPCs, there are singled out characters that instigate missions or tasks when I interact with them.  Many of these are enjoyable, but they do feel very canned and sometimes forced and predictable.

Combat in this game is both beautiful and brutal simultaneously. The combat animations and slow time sequences when you pull a special move are incredible to watch as your character brutally hacks enemies with his tomahawk, sword, dagger or whatever tool you’re using at the time.  Combat happens in many games, but the way it is done in this game is fresh and fascinating.  The newest combat item I use for best results in this game is the rope dart.  This device is commonly used to snag an enemy and yank him off his feet.  This helps immobilize him for my attack or it just slows him down while I focus elsewhere.  For situations when you’re outnumbered and need to pace the fight into a controlled schemed to make sure you don’t die, the rope dart is a savior.  Ubisoft did add a very fun feature to this tool such that if you’re at an elevated height compared to your enemy you can use the rope dart to choke your enemy out quietly, or even snag them, and pull them up to the ledge you’re using, as you jump down which creates a noose effect to hang the enemy in the air as both a kill method and a distraction to other NPCs.

Overall I find that this game includes a number of different aspects of gameplay or fun control mechanics that I have experienced in separate occasions in other games.   The combinations offered give the game quite a lot of lasting appeal.  A gamer has something different or new to spend the time playing or completing other than the main plot to reveal hidden stories, characters, and complete assassinations.  What started out as a great idea for a story playing as an assassin could be considered to offer another experience as a virtual tourist. The world and built for the game offers the ability to visit modern locations in their re-imagined ancient grandeur.  The side missions, activities and mini games make this an incredible value for a gamer and can appeal to wide audience.  Assassin’s Creed will continue to be a top hit as long as they continue to build upon the established features that gamers want and enjoy.

My Quick Pitch for a Halo MMO

Playing Halo has always been fun to me.  In fact this is the game that first introduced me to online multiplayer and coop, so of course I will have a lengthy appreciation for the game.   Having read the books, comics, and just about anything story or character wise I could consume about the Halo universe, I started to dream up an everyday life in this world.  Combining those thoughts w/ a homework assignment I have for my game design course, I wrote up this quick pitch on creating a Halo Universe MMO, somewhat like Knights of the old republic, WOW, etc.

Halo Universe MMO

Players can play as any UNSC, Colonial Insurrectionists, Covenant, or Flood in the Halo Universe in an intergalactic MMO that allows players to play in 1^st or 3^rd person using FPS combat tactics but having an RPG element for players interested in activities outside of combat and combat situations.

Players can select any faction from the Halo Universe.  UNSC players can be ODST, marine, space fleet, or Spartans.  Covenant players can play as any species tied to the Covenant collective. Players can also select to play a faction never been experienced in gameplay but only through supplemental stories as Insurrectionists.  Finally, players can play as the flood, starting off as a seedling and infecting another NPC or human player or else can select a pre-infected form as experienced in previous games.

UNSC – Players can be ODST, Spartan, marine or space fleet.  Space fleet players are not weapons trained beyond a pistol are best suited to stay within large battleships and play a support role for combat and travel.  ODST and Spartans have the same combat characteristics.  Each are highly trained in all weaponry and vehicle usage.  Spartans have increased damage, power, speed, and health.  Marines are the most well rounded characters in the game with moderate skills in all areas while offering the most versatility for non-combat related activities.

Covenant – Hierarchs are non-combative but may follow onto the field as they provide attack and defend bonuses for friendly players within proximity.  Elites are equivalent to Spartans.  All mid-tier races are equivalent to marines but each will have a few changes to make them particular and stand out in their own ways.  Brutes play like elites and Spartans, but are larger, stronger, but slower and can only use a limited set of weapons.

Insurrection – This group is portrayed as gritty, dirty and highly unethical tactics for battle and creating terrorism and chaos.  Perks of this group include skills for sneaking and staying unseen or detected.  They are able to infiltrate UNSC installations with ease and are highly skilled in explosives and demolition and sharpshooting.   They are agile and strong in hand to hand combat.  This group often utilizes weapons and vehicles from all races as they have only operate based on combat, black market trade, and scavenging

Flood – Players starting out as a flood spawn pod may control up to 10 flood pods w/ a POV in 3^rd person from above or else may select 1^st POV and view through a single pod.  Pods may crawl and jump attacking living organisms or else may infect dead corpses found.   Once in a flood form, they will acquire the skills of the body infected while adding extra strength and jumping but move slower than the original infected form.  They have a disadvantage in their ability to aim accurately using guns or vehicles but have increased damage protection keeping them in the fight longer.  When large groups of infected flood form together, Gravemind (AI leader) will give orders on screen to direct flood combatants into a more powerful force taking over large areas quickly

Gameplay features

Combat allows for players to collectively find their way to a battlefield.  This can be communicated through personal messages to your player via a universal network of information players can choose independently.  Otherwise, when they choose a faction they will be drafted into the military wing of that group and will receive periodic commands to complete missions and battles.  Players must find their way to rendezvous points in the universe to prepare for large scale battles. If players miss or completely skip these obligations they may find themselves penalized within the universe where they are fined, demoted, or imprisoned for some amount of time.  Players may choose to rebel and break free from a faction thus not having any obligations, but this will lead to a new path of play in the game where they must avoid contact w/ large groups and survive on their own.

For combat zones, large warships may collect and fight in space directly above the planets.  Players may beam down to join fights on the ground.  When a player dies, they may respawn in ground battles for up to 10 lives.  Once those are spent they player may not return to the battle for 10 minutes.  The player can wait for the time to count down or may respawn and continue their adventures outside of the combat zone.  Delaying spawns keeps battles from persisting endlessly.  The intention is that teams who do not value their lives will spend them all allowing the other team to clean out and own the battle or area.  If the battle persists, and players return they may come back and reinforce to shift the battle back in their teams direction.  

All races can use all guns and vehicles.

This game expands on the Halo games previously released offering more than FPS combat.  Players can live out their gameplay imagination through play as any faction experience different points of view through various characters while interacting with a massive online community.  The game will incorporate in game economies, story progression, and world destruction and rebuilding.  The game will follow Halo Canon keeping the story and gameplay in a seamless fashion.

Estimates are that the game needs 2-3 year of development if working from scratch. With the ability to license an established game engine and the appropriate tools, development time can reduced significantly.  

Mass Effect 3 - Putting the "WOW" in Multiplayer again

I picked up Mass Effect 3 (ME3) the same week it came out.  I immediately dove into the single player campaign as this is the third game in the series and I really enjoyed the previous games.  I recall how amazed I was at the total overhaul Bioware did on ME2 coming after ME1.  The game and its principles have not changed, but the aesthetics and game mechanics and features were upgraded and were such a welcome joy.  I tore into ME3 with the same expectations, and  I can say, off the bat, this game is worth every penny.

I've had the game for just over a week now and honestly I've spent 80% of my playing time in the multiplayer.  The story is as good an engrossing as it ever was continuing where ME2 left off and the Reapers coming to destroy not only Earth, but every inhabited planet or life force possible in the universe.   You, playing as captain Shepard, escape in the Normandy to recruit forces around the Galaxies and beyond to fight and hopefully stop the Reapers.   Here is where I found out more about the multiplayer portion of this game and what got me intrigued

This is the first game I can recall where my online playtime and progress can actually help and integrate into my single player story.  I do not think this blog will release any story spoilers, but then again I'm hardly half way done w/ the story so I don’t know a whole lot myself.   In any case, you will notice if you've jumped into the single player campaign, that you have a war readiness rating and you can look at the resources available while onboard the Normandy. You can also check this through the Mass Effect 3 page online and I believe you can view some of it through your multiplayer menu.  In the campaign you work to recruit help for the cause through dialogue w/ individuals, scanning planets for artifacts, or by completing some missions.   The multiplayer portion of this, to me, is very neat, and yet also so simple.  When you play online, you progress your character up to a level 20.  At that point you have the option of a 'prestige' type action where you will take that maxed player and incorporate them into your war assets for the campaign.  By doing this though, you will reset that character progress for online play back to zero.  As far as I can tell you can prestige any class over and over into your campaign game.

Diving more into the online portion of this game, there is only 1 game mode when you play multiplayer.  I'm not sure it was even given a name, but I'll go ahead and call it like it is.  The online mode is coop only with 4 players and is essentially "Horde" mode from Gears of War.  4 players of any class must stand off against 10 waves of increasingly difficult enemies and then must survive the 11th wave which is a countdown to extraction.   The game mode is a simulation of a Reaper or other enemy invasion going on in the campaign but now you get to play in these side story type matches. 

I'll be honest, my first game in was not very impressive.  You start off w/ level 1 and basically have no powers to use until you level up.  You get your guns and some basic power ups.   I played 2 matches and just wasn't feeling it.  My first class of choice was something I'd NEVER used in past Mass Effect games, the Sentinal.  However, after ranking this character up and unlocking his biotic powers of Throw and Warp, HOLY COW, did the game change drastically for me.   My reference point for these next few thoughts are that I've played hundreds of hours of games and many of them focused on being first person shooters.  I've had my lot of those games and at this point you REALLY gotta be impressive in how you make the game or else build features that are new and entertaining enough to pull me in.  ME3 hits that on the nose with the new features.  Once you embrace a character, w/ biotic or tech powers, this game mode becomes unbelievably addicting, or at least it did for me.  I now configure my characters to run w/ the smallest guns possible to keep my power recharge ability at full so I can just blast every enemy near me w/ powers beyond the basic shooting gun.   After a binge weekend of playing this game online I still feel endless joy in the ability to manipulate enemy characters w/ powers and then polish them off w/a  combo biotic to see and hear the concussion as they explode, get tossed, burn or freeze to death.  You may have to experience this yourself to really understand it, but this game is now the new precedent for me in terms of the FPS online gaming genres. 

The online mode overall mechanically feels like a rough start version of Gears of War.  If you've played Gears of War 3 you should know how amazingly smooth EPIC games configured the control mechanics for players to move into objects, then shift up over and around them on the fly.   ME3 has all this, but it's just not as smooth.  This does not take away from the gameplay at all, but can be frustrating when you want a quick escape and sometimes get stuck on whoknowswhat in your way.  The enemy characters are a lot of fun.  Bioware really did a great job creating a diverse challenge in each enemy team set and then building their weaknesses specifically against certain human character player powers or skills.  With that in mind, they made this game mode VERY challenging.  You'll be hard to find a group of players who can full complete a match without 4 players in the game on the lowest difficulty "Bronze".  Possibly if you have a group of 3 or 4 people w/ maxed out skills and powers can you survive Silver or Gold difficulty.   I've played silver  3x and lost them all.   The one time we did beat it, I did not survive and only 2 players were able to extract.  It was nuts!

I'm the kind of guy who hardly buys games at full price these days, but this one is easily worth the price.  You'll get hours and hours of replay through the campaign.  There are various endings built into the game, and you get some achievements for completing multiple playthroughs.   The online is very fulfilling and will keep you busy as well.  Bioware seems to be supporting the online community quite well as they release a community challenge with some nice rewards already.  I look forward to more content updates and challenges, and hopefully they may put in some DLC to keep players interested months down the road.  

Saint's Row the Third and Why You Should Be Playing This Game

I'll come right out and start off by saying I completely ignored this game series until I picked up Saint's Row the Third.  I figured this game to be a low quality slapped together cheesy gangster type of game in the shadow of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series.  To be honest, I've still not played Saint's Row 1 or 2, but picking up this game I'm totally blown away.

The game starts out with a small history into the series background, but then cuts right into game play. This intro sequence completely caught me off guard, and the best part was that it was so over the top that I had my jaw open the whole time. I loved it.  This game is about everything GTA offers you but then adds its own small bits of amazement, and tops it off with so many ridiculous things that you can't help but laugh out loud while you play.  I will make comparisons to GTA in this blog, and that is just my way of showing that I consider the GTA series as the precedent for this type of game.

The action is wild in this game, you can strike it up any time any place just as you'd expect.  Fighting the police in this game can be pretty fun. In GTA it always seemed like a workout to me as the in game AI was pretty tough such that you could not complete some missions if they were after you.  In Saint's Row you can really knock law enforcement around with upgraded weapons along with friendly gang members backing you up. You get some hefty guns early in the game, so police fights that start up can escalate quickly.  In the later GTA series, high police activity didn't seem to go crazy with heavy armor or military action.  Saint's Row brings everything in.  If you really go nuts and the police can't handle you, the Army rolls into town with Abrams tanks and helicopters, but the best part is you can steal any vehicle in the game.  I took the tank and stored it in my garage so now I have it on demand.  It cleans up, but its not invincible.  You also get the added challenge of dealing with rival gangs throughout the game so if you happen to stumble across a pack and piss them off, they will come at you just like the police. If you continue to escalate a gang they get stronger and end up with a brute character who can be a real problem to deal with. You can have both coming at you at the same time and those fights can quickly feel out of control.  One good thing to say, is this game doesn't lag or freeze up at all.  For everything that can occur with this much combined action on screen, the experience is seamless

The story is fun as it involves your gang reclaiming its ranks in its local city and overcoming official and gang enemies.  Playing in coop with a friend will definitely double your fun.  You almost need to for some challenges and missions.  The game, to me, even on normal has some really difficult missions to complete.  Maybe I need to rank up and build my perks, but having a partner would really split the load and make some things less a chore and more fun.

The biggest reason I bought this game in the first place was from comments I had seen on twitter regarding the use of licensed music in game.   This reason got me excited to play; and the game delivers.  In an early action sequence when your gang attacks a rival gang at the penthouse of a high rise building, you parachute onto the poolside roof and the song "Power" by Kanye West starts up as you unleash a fury into every enemy you see.  It was AWESOME!  There are plenty of great songs among the radio stations you can hear while in vehicles.  Honestly, I hope this game is an example back at Rockstar that they should be using licensed music.  Fans will love it.  HOWEVER, I really really really want to highlight a radio personality in this game that has me locked on his station in every vehicle I steal.  DJ Jon, on station WDDT Adult Swim.  His character is from the show Delocated airing on Adult Swim on the Cartoon network.  This guy is hilarious and his voice is the perfect fit.

Finally, looking at the little things, and I mean the little things.  When you're driving like a fool tearing up everything you can't dodge, every so often you can hear pedestrians yell at you.  Some of the comments are so funny because they are off guard and more aggressive than you'd expect.  Comments from enemies along with death sequence and other actions are pretty funny if you catch them during intense parts of the game.  The outfits and ways you can customize vehicles and your character are definitely the cheesy aspect of this game, but after a while you really sink yourself in and go nuts. My brother plays his character as a short fat troll looking female dressed as a lumberjack that has a zombie voice when it speaks.  It's pretty disturbing actually.

In closing, this statement alone, which I found on www.metacritic.com comes from Games Radar was the final push I needed to buy this game. "The complete realization of everything this franchise has set out to do. Yes it's ludicrous and lewd, but it's also a joy to play, a streamlined sandbox that hooks the fun directly into your veins."