Lara Croft: Team Player

I just finished playing one of my favorite co-op experiences of the year: Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. This entry in the long Lara Croft series of games is a complete reset. Gone is the behind-the-back 3rd person view to an overhead isometric view. It's a welcome refresh for the series that many players were starting to bore of.

One of the main focuses of this game is the co-op experience. Even though it is possible to play the game on single player, it's clear that it was meant for two people, which is made even more obvious when you get a silver trophy on the PS3 just for starting the game on multiplayer mode, and when several other trophies can only be achieved with a partner.

This is one of the few games I have seen in a long time that really tries to emphasize the co-op part of a 2 player adventure mode. In many games, it's more like you're playing in the same field, side by side, rather than working together, which is something I've talked about before. After the incredibly uncreative story opening (as much as I enjoyed the game, the story was atrocious. Clearly not a focus for the developers), the game starts up with the tutorials. Lara and Totec, her stereotypical guardian of an ancient evil that has been awoken partner, are shown to have different abilities. If Totec holds R1 he holds his shield above his head, or L1 to hold it in front of him. If Lara hits L1 or R1 she shoots a grappling hook. Totec has a spear that he can throw and stick into walls. Lara, being light and nimble, can use these spears as platforms to reach higher ledges. She can also stand on Totec's shield when he holds it above his head. If Totec attempts to stand on one of his own spears, it will break. These mechanics are crucial to the entire co-op experience. Totec can throw a spear that Lara uses to get to a higher ledge. From here, she can throw Totec her grappling hook and act as an anchor as he climbs up to the same ledge. If Lara shoots her grappling hook to a golden hook, Totec can use the rope as a bridge. How Totec can use a flimsy grappling hook as a bridge, but not stand on his own spears without breaking them is beyond me, but I accept it because it creates a relationship between player 1 and 2. It makes them need one another, most of the puzzles being impossible without cooperation.

Because of the interdependence that Crystal Dynamics created, each player can enjoy themselves in different ways. Some moments are clearly meant for Totec to lead the way, blocking arrows with his shield while Lara tampers away at a puzzle while under his guard. In other moments, Lara takes the lead, climbing and leaping along some cliffs, then shooting Totec her grappling hook at the end to help him up. Rarely does it feel like the other player is in your way, which is often a problem with co-op gaming. Sometimes a tug-of-war over the camera and which direction to go next happens, but it never lasts long and is hardly a hamper on the momentum of the game.

As admirable as Crystal Dynamics' co-op gaming mission statement is, they seem to forget themselves shortly into the game. In the second stage, a new weapon is acquired. Much to my disappointment, it is the exact same weapon for both of the characters: an assault rifle. Sure enough, as the game progresses, Totec continues to amass more and more guns of all types. It isn't until towards the end that you start seeing more "ancient" type weapons, but they are all variations on the spear he already has. As both players collect a similar artillery, the combat aspects of the game become just like any other in a multiplayer experience; Who can shoot the most baddies with your bigass guns? Gone is the cooperative aspect of the game and the unique qualities of both characters that force the players to work together. I would have loved to see Totec learn some magic while Lara collected bigger and better guns, and to have Totec's magic affect Lara's weapons in various ways. Just as an example. It's an area where the game is weak in its goal of being a fully cooperative experience.

Despite its shortcomings, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is still an excellent experience. I don't recommend playing it on single player. I tried it, and although it's still a great game, it really shines with a friend at your side.

A Messy Weave

I just finished playing my very first Ratchet and Clank game, Tools of Destruction. Yeah, I know, I'm late on the Ratchet and Clank train, but hey, I still caught it and enjoyed the ride while it lasted. It's a game that mixes action platforming with some fun RPG elements and does it very well. Paired with characters that remind of Pixar movies, it's a fun experience. But as much as I enjoyed the game, something that always bothers me in games really stood out in this one.

It sends me to the brink of frustration when I just finished slaughtering hundreds of badass robots with my impressive arsenal of sci-fi weapons, then a cut-scene has 3 of said robots soundly whoop me soundly and make off with my hard-earned treasure. One scene in particular has an antagonist holding Clank, the quirky robot side-kick, captive with a blade to his throat, threatening to kill him if Ratchet doesn't give up the treasure from the level. The entire time the hostage situation was taking place I kept urging Ratchet to haul out his  Predator Missiles, lock onto the pirate's big ugly face and blow him to bits, or maybe use the shock ravager to trip the baddy off his feet. But no. Instead, Ratchet whimpers in fear and hands over the treasure, because apparently in cinematic mode his only weapon is his supremely useless wrench. Way to go Ratchet. Way to make the game last 5 levels longer than it had to.

Although these moments didn't detract from the game enough to hurt my overall enjoyment, it certainly didn't help when I was trying to believe the world that I was playing in. Game developers spend a lot of time creating a world that they can fit their characters into and make us as players dive in and understand its rules and logic. But when a game starts off with a free-fall from hundreds of feet in the air to a safe landing, and then I fall to my death down a pit 3 seconds later (this actually happened), I can't help but think, "didn't I just..." while blinking heavily. It makes me that much more aware that I am just playing a game with the occasional movie-like scenes interspersed, rather than a coherent experience that melts from cinematic to gameplay seamlessly.

The opposite is also sometimes true, where the characters in cinematic mode are wildly powerful in comparison to their in-game selves. I'm currently playing Vanquish and am constantly presented with these types of cut-scenes. Your character, Sam, has your typical japanese super-soldier sci-fi suit and can move at blurring speeds while slowing down time and shelling out some major damage to enemy robots. But that's nothing in comparison to his cinematic-self. In cinematics Sam often propels himself into the sky, deliver lightning fast punches Dragonball Z style and spins at mach-speeds to drill holes into giant robot enemy heads. After getting destroyed about 15 times by one of these giant robots, I have to say that I would love to be able to drill holes into their gigantic heads instead of shooting them with my puny guns.

Tom Bissell, in his book Extra Lives, talks about Narrative Dissonance in video games, which is when the narrative of the gameplay doesn't match up with the overall story. The morals of the characters can be aimed towards a virtuous end in the narrative of the story, but then during the gameplay you are disemboweling random creatures and enemies mercilessly. Cinematic/gameplay dissonance is another type of dissonance that I feel is present in games. It's something that has been present in games for at least as long as RPGs have existed and cut-scenes with them. How many times have you urged your character to cast Fire 3 on a whimpy cut-scene enemy, or to use their mighty Jump ability to get over a ridiculously low wooden bench blocking their path? Occasionally, a game will try to make their character's aware of their abilities outside of battle. In Tales of Symphonia, for example, the magic user Genis will often cast his level-1 spells to solve puzzles or scare away enemies. Of course, he never casts anything past a level-1 spell, but at least it was an attempt to make the character's aware of their own power outside of a battle sequence.

This messy weave of gameplay abilities as opposed to cinematic abilities is something that only video games as a medium encounters as a problem. Any other form of story telling is one-way, where the user is being told or shown events as told by the author or director. I believe it to be an enormous obstacle. These types of games are essentially telling two different stories, one that you have direct control over and one where you are nothing but an observer. For me, this disconnect creates an apathy in the player that makes them want to get the cinematic over with so they can get back to their story, rather than the story of the game developers.

Playing Together

 

I think I finally understood Nintendo's current generation mission objective this past weekend.

Last weekend some friends came to visit for a couple of days. On the second night of their visit I stepped out to grab some pizza, and when I got back two of the ladies had found and turned on Kirby's Epic Yarn on my Wii. After scrounging for a second wii remote and making sure it was charged, I set them up with two players and they instantly squealed with how adorable Prince Fluff was with his big eyebrows and little crown (which they both thought put Fluff at a disadvantage since they thought the crown counted as a hit-area. They didn't understand the concept of hit-boxes). Being an avid gamer, I had an initial instinct to start helping them out with treasures I saw they were missing and difficulties they were having with controls. As I opened my mouth to let them know where a hidden chest was, they laughed in unison as one of them hauled a string on a fabric castle and it tugged aside. I then decided to keep my mouth shut. They were already having fun, why should I interrupt?

As I watched them play I saw a noticeable difference in play-style from my own. Not only because they were non-gamers who were being enchanted by Epic Yarn's charming graphics, but because of what their goals for fun were. I am personally not that far into Epic Yarn (part way through world 3) and I was not exactly enjoying myself to date. My co-op partner and I were playing the game like we do any other game, as serious gamers. We experimented with controls and how they interacted with the environment every couple of steps, we obsessively searched for hidden treasures and gems and we criticized the game and it's design choices as we went on. Most of all though, we got in one anothers way and got frustrated while it happened. The term co-op should mean that we are doing just that. Co-operating. In Epic Yarn it's a bit closer to contra-operating. One of us would swing out our piece of yarn to unravel an enemy and instead grab the other player,or we would both dash into our car form, which let us move faster, but often resulted in slower overall movement since we'd bump one another into holes or into enemies more often than smoothly coasting ahead. We had similar problems with New Super Mario Bros Wii. We were constantly in each others way, using one anothers heads as stepping stones and making the screen jerk back and forth while both of us tried to act independently. My criticism of NSBM Wii was harsh and I never beat the game, leaving Mario and Luigi stranded somewhere in World 5. It's the first main-title Mario game I've never completed and never plan on completing. I've now realized that it's not because it's a bad game, it's because I was playing it wrong.

Rewind back to my friends playing Epic Yarn. As they played they rarely got frustrated with one another, even though I saw them get in eachothers way twice as often as my partner or I ever did. They would coast through levels enjoying the cute details and giggling almost constantly, especially when they got a piece of magic yarn after defeating a boss. I can't say I was quite as excited at receiving something that was the equivalent of dozens of other games end-of-world-item-get. For them it was a real achievement

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the key difference in the way that they were enjoying this game is that they were playing together, not working together. They were enjoying what the game offered rather than trying to defeat the game and dissect its inner workings like experienced gamers often do. There is nothing wrong with playing either way, but with this game and some of Nintendo's other offerings, it's clear that some games are meant for one, and some for the other.