TIF Plays: Week of 4/4-4/8 Gameplay Welcome to the The Impact Factor's last week of gameplay! Check out below to links of all my gameplay. Be sure to catch me live on Twitch (MegalodonPhD). I stream every Tuesday at 5:30pm PST and Thursday at 6:30pm PST. Plus some special Friday streams, too! You can do me a favor by subscribing to The Impact Factor's YouTube channel, but hey, don't let me tell you what to do! To keep up to date with everything The Impact Factor, and me, follow me on Twitter: @alexsamocha See you all next week!
Friday, April 8, 2016
News & Views
4/2/16-4/8/16
Phew, I’m
lucky to even be writing this post this week. Enter the Gungeon is finally out and I’m totally obsessed. What
game are you really into right now? I would love to know.
News &
Views is your weekly infusion of great gaming content! I scour the web each
week to find the articles, opinions, videos & more that are worth
consuming. Check out the links below for stories about a blind gamer who excels
at a highly competitive fighting game, how one pair of game developers are
nearly halfway to simulating existence, and the rise of young eSports pros for
a smartphone game.
And of
course please check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast that
was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods,
check out our SoundCloud. We’re on YouTube too!
Heather Alexandra writes a fantastic
piece about violence in games. The Division’s subject
matter continues to be divisive among professional game critics. She writes
that the game displays a recurring power fantasy of legitimized violence. The
Division not only allows you to wantonly
kill other survivors, it actively encourages you to do so. I might just have to
play this game at some point. The discussion surrounding it is just too
fascinating not to.
I always love reading about success
stories. More than that, I love reading about how people have used games to
over come obstacles, stave off criticism, and escape dark times. Dacidbro’s
story is a nice one and I’m glad he’s found his calling. His story reinforces
the idea that games can be more than just a diversion or escape. Games can
fundamentally change the core of your identity.
Reading about games I have never
heard of continues to be great. Caty McCarthy spotlights the old Japanese title
Idolm@ster and its depiction of depression. McCarthy
applauds the game for not focusing on overcoming depression or finding a cure
as so many other titles (across all media) do. Instead Idolm@ster shows the past, present, and future of
depression and accepting it as just a part of life. The game is able to transport
the player to a world, a depression, that almost none of us will experience:
being a pop idol. Really cool story.
The Impact Factor Ep. 49: The Burning Beard Podcast Welcome to the 49th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!
In this episode Alex and Fliss talk about Kingdom Hearts Unchained, EvE Online, Oculus, Vive, VR, DOOM, eSports, DOTA2, Baldur’s Gate, No Man’s Sky, Miitomo, Zootopia and much more! “What do you do in No Man’s Sky and Other Questions”
YouTube page For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:
www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com
Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd Follow Fliss @thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar Intro song:
You Kill My Brother by Go! Go! Go! Micro Invasion, East Jakarta Chiptunes Compilations. Freemusic Archive. (Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike License) freemusicarchive.org/music/Indonesi…s_Compilation/ Transitions: News & Views and Perspectives transitions from victorcenusa, Freesound.org (Creative Commons 0 License) freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148785/ freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148784/ Experimental Methods transition from Sentuniman, Freesound.org (Attribution Noncommercial License) freesound.org/people/Setuniman/sounds/143994/
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
Returning to the Fantasy of Game
Demos
Perspectives
Abstract: Video game demos were a huge part
of my childhood. Demos fulfilled a dual purpose. Demos introduced me
to new games that I wanted to add to my collection. They also provided their own
standalone micro gaming experiences. Video game demos have mostly faded away,
however. Square Enix is bringing back the demo in a fantastic way, with Episode Duscae and Platinum Demo for Final
Fantasy XV. I hope this phenomenon becomes a trend and we see more demos
coming out soon.
Video game
demos hold a special place in my heart. A PlayStation demo disk was one of my
favorite experiences on the PS1. Before you click away, hear me out. Game demos
were a bedrock of my childhood gaming. They contained the new, the
exciting, and the unreleased. It was hard scraping together enough money to buy
new games as a 9 year old. Even more than that, it was excruciating trying to
decide if a new game would be worth it. Sure, I read reviews in gaming
magazines. Sure, I listened to my friends to see what they had been playing.
But being on a shoestring budget meant that the next game I bought was a
serious commitment. A several month commitment at least. Demo disks solved
that problem and more. Demos were also experiences onto themselves—‘micro’
games for those in need. As a kid I was in desperate need. Trust me.
My parents' staunch refusal to buy me a video game console meant that when I bought my PS1
in 1998 it represented years of saving my money. It was a gargantuan ask for a
kid who spent money faster than he could get it. Bubble gum and trading cards
were my vices. But I put my head down and saved the $180 or so it took to buy
my PS1 and one game, Crash Bandicoot 2.
It was months before I had saved enough to buy a second game. For anyone who
has played it, you’ll know that Crash 2
isn’t a particularly long game. So I used game demos to fill my time.
Thankfully,
my PS1 came with a one-month subscription to PlayStation Underground.
Underground is a now defunct video game magazine that spotlighted PlayStation games and
news. Its biggest claim to fame, at least in my book, was
the demo disks. Each issue came with a disk that contained several demos for
upcoming games. My disks, so titled
because I only ended up with two or three, were good ones. They had demos for
Tomb Raider, Brave Fencer Musashi, Parappa
the Rapper, and Bloody Roar among
others. I played the living hell out of those disks. Over and over again. Hours
at a time over the span of months. Even though most demos were short, they gave
me so much.
If one image could sum up my childhood...
(P.S. I owned this disk.)
On one
hand, demos sold me on games that I later added to my collection (Tomb Raider). On the other, they were
self-contained games themselves. Brave
Fencer Musashi, in particular, worked start to
finish to not only spotlight the full game’s mechanics but also act as a worthy standalone experience. A well-designed demo was transportative. A
well-designed demo worked synergistically as a 30-minute long game and interactive trailer for a much bigger experience. I also enjoyed demos for
the breadth of experiences they presented to me. Parappa the Rapper, a rhythm game, is a genre I would have never
considered until I played through the demo (roughly 100 times over). Demos
rounded out my gaming time. Whenever I had finished a game, I would pop back in
a demo disk and mess around with old favorites. Demos feel like an old friend.
Is Brave Fencer Musashi a good game? I don't know.
The demo sure was.
Demos are
an old friend that doesn’t come around too often anymore, though. For the most
part, video game demos have mostly faded away. There are a myriad of reasons
why and no single one tells the full story. Perhaps it was the rise of smaller indies
titles or the huge mass of gaming content on the web. I do not have the time,
nor impetus really, to more fully speculate as to why this has happened.
Needless to say, though, it has. Demos are few and far between.
What
‘demos’ we do get are often multiplayer-centric betas for upcoming games. We’ve
seen the number of betas rising over the past few years. This month we’re
getting a Battleborne beta. Next
month we’re getting an Overwatch
beta. The DOOM beta is currently
running. At their best, betas can give a similar experience to the ones I had with
demo disks. They introduce you to something new and unreleased, and familiarize
the player with the game’s mechanics. Something is lost when the beta is just a
multiplayer mode or two, however. You lose that self-contained game experience
like that one I had with Brave Fencer
Musashi. You can’t look past that the demo is just an ad, a taste of the
goods to get you hooked for when the final product releases. They are not
something you can, or would even want to, go back to. I’m thrilled we are
getting more opportunities to play snippets of upcoming games, and I know I’ll
play the heck out of both Battleborn’s
and Overwatch’s betas, but they don’t
quite hit all the right notes.
Battle of the betas.
Thankfully,
it looks like Japan (or more specifically, Square Enix) is looking to bring
back demos in a significant way. Final
Fantasy XV is a game that’s been in development for a literal eternity,
i.e. about ten years now. As one might expect for a game that’s taken nearly a
decade to come out, a lot of resources have been put into making FFXV a game people care about. It has taken many forms: an
anime prequel, a
feature length motion picture, a
free-to-play mobile pinball game, and demos. The first of which was Episode
Duscae. Given to players who ordered the Day 1 edition of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, Episode Duscae allowed you to explore a
huge open area snipped from FFXV.
You’re given a few simple objectives to accomplish, but the meat of the demo experiencing
the gameplay you (should) have when the final game launches in September. You
can explore, you can grind to level up, you can summon, you can fight
impossibly hard monsters. Episode Duscae
also served as a beta of sorts, since Square Enix used it to gauge fan concerns.
Heck, they even updatedEpisode Duscae to reflect how they are
addressing players’ issues. Crazy.
Episode Duscae was a great introduction to Final Fantasy XV.
Square Enix
did not stop there. Announced at their huge Uncovered FFXV event last week, and released the day after, Platinum Demo Final Fantasy XV was a
second demo for the game. Platinum Demo
was a little different than Episode
Duscae, though, and in a way that caught my attention. Platinum Demo was a new, standalone experience. The content within
the Platinum Demo would not be
included in the final retail release of Final
Fantasy XV. It is an experience that was designed to be exactly what I viewed
demos as when I was a child: a self-contained, albeit small, game. A title that
introduced you to the universe, but was also its own thing. I’ve seen a few
demos like this pop up recently, like Bravely
Second’s Ballad
of the Three Cavaliers demo. It’s a phenomenon I would be more than happy
to see be made into a trend.
You won't see this in Final Fantasy XV. At least not in the same way.
The thing
is, Platinum Demo was a pretty
stellar experience. I came away impressed with the demo’s design after my
roughly 30 minute playthrough. Platinum
Demo retools the various systems that will be in Final Fantasy XV and presents them in a through the looking
glass-styled dream. Though short, the demo covers what I imagine are all the
basics to playing Final Fantasy XV.
You’re taught about combat—the switching between weapons, light and heavy
weapons, combos, thrown items, dodge rolling, targeting, warping. You’re taught
about exploration—jumping, activating trigger switches to open new pathways, tangible
rewards for scouring the open world. You’re taught about how FFXV play with scale—you’re pitted
against large monsters, groups of monsters, huge open environments. And Platinum Demo accomplishes all of this
while still being a set in the main character’s childhood dream. Playing Platinum Demo would have been one of my
childhood dreams. It is self-contained, it is edifying, and it got me
re-excited for the game it’s selling to me. What more could I ask?
Platinum Demo does a great job at being a great demo.
It looks
like we may be in store for more demos in the future, too. While writing this
piece, Team Ninja announced that their new Onimusha-Dark Souls hybrid game Nioh would have a demo
out at the end of this month. I hope the demos keep coming. Demos, like Platinum Demo Final Fantasy XV, bring me
back to my childhood. They remind me of the wealth of joy I derived from the
smallest of experiences. Let’s hope game demos stay underground no longer. I
want to return to the fantasy.
(In the
meantime, you can check out my full playthrough of Platinum Demo Final Fantasy XV below.)
Monday, April 4, 2016
TIF Plays: Week of 3/28-4/1 Gameplay Welcome to the The Impact Factor's last week of gameplay! Check out below to links of all my gameplay. Be sure to catch me live on Twitch (MegalodonPhD). I stream every Tuesday at 5:30pm PST and Thursday at 6:30pm PST. Plus some special Friday streams, too! You can do me a favor by subscribing to The Impact Factor's YouTube channel, but hey, don't let me tell you what to do! To keep up to date with everything The Impact Factor, and me, follow me on Twitter: @alexsamocha See you all next week!
Friday, April 1, 2016
News & Views
3/26/16-4/1/16
It’s no
April Fools’ joke: The Impact Factor is here as always to keep you up to date
on everything that’s happening in games.
News &
Views collects the week’s best writing about video games. Check the links below
for stories about manipulation in game design, addressing the walking problem
in virtual reality, and a musical analysis of one of 2015’s best soundtracks.
And of
course please check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast that
was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods,
check out our SoundCloud. We’re on YouTube too!
Jason Yu provides an in-depth music
theory analysis on one of 2015’s best game soundtracks: UNDERTALE. Yu specifically takes a look at the game’s leitmotif, which can be found
as early as the introductory sequence. This is a fascinating piece that really
dissects how music affects mood and vise versa. Well worth your time.
UNDERTALE continues to inspire great gaming writing.
One of the game’s selling points was that the narrative unfurled over the span
of multiple playthroughs and through multiple ways of playing the game. A
pacifist approach, many players’ second playthrough, sheds light on many of the
mysteries left hanging after completing a ‘neutral’ run. Nick Dinicola uncovers
a dark side to this seemingly peaceful approach to playing and writes about it
here.
PC gamers continue to fascinate me.
Jody Macgregor spotlights one player who has made it his quest to take the
biggest, most beautiful PC games and reduce them to their lowest possible level
of graphic fidelity. If nothing else, this article is worth checking out to see
just how low polygon count The Wither 3 can get.
My favorite game of the year (so
far) continues to fuel amazing discussions about video games. If you check
out my review, you’ll find that many of Heather Alexandra’s thoughts echo
my own. Firewatch is a game made by adults, featuring adults,
for adults. The subtle, human story of two people trying to escape the tumult
of real life is phenomenal. I urge other developers to follow Campo Santo’s
lead and to be unafraid to make narrative games that are nuanced, difficult or
even unresolved. The industry, the art, will be better for it.
The Impact Factor Ep. 48: A Literal Potato Podcast Welcome to the 48th episode of The Impact Factor! The Impact Factor is what happens when two scientists, and two best friends, get together to talk about video games. Hosts Alex Samocha [biomedical scientist] and Charles Fliss [social scientist] sit down every week to discuss the week in gaming! Listen in for the news, views, and games that made the biggest impact!
YouTube page For articles and reviews from Alex, check out: www.theimpactfactor.blogspot.com For a blog about Japan, pop culture & more from Fliss, check out:
www.flissofthenorthstar.blogspot.com
Follow Alex @alexsamocha on Twitter. twitch.tv/megalodonphd Follow Fliss @thecfliss on Twitter. twitch.tv/flissofthenorthstar Intro song:
You Kill My Brother by Go! Go! Go! Micro Invasion, East Jakarta Chiptunes Compilations. Freemusic Archive. (Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike License) freemusicarchive.org/music/Indonesi…s_Compilation/ Transitions: News & Views and Perspectives transitions from victorcenusa, Freesound.org (Creative Commons 0 License) freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148785/ freesound.org/people/victorcenusa/sounds/148784/ Experimental Methods transition from Sentuniman, Freesound.org (Attribution Noncommercial License) freesound.org/people/Setuniman/sounds/143994/
