If you want a surefire way to kill your story and slay any interest a potential reader will have in it, let the plot drive.
Looking back on some of the books I’ve read in my formative years, a host of franchised novels many of which I’m likely to donate to a library when I move, I realize that only a few are truly driven by character growth and conflict. A good story based around characters, like Brave (here reviewed brilliantly by Julie Summerell), many of the later Dresden novels, or Chuck Wendig’s Bad Blood (the sequel to Double Dead, short version: almost as good as the full-length novel), doesn’t need all that much of a plot. If a character is going through a change, and that change is going to be opposed for some reason, you have plenty of fuel for conflict, drama, interaction – story. The narrative will breathe without assistance. The tale will live.
If, on the other hand, your story is the product of some non-character formula or relies on contrivance, the result will not be as favorable. I’ve seen it happen in lots of stories. Usually, you can see it coming. When technobabble or new powers as the plot demands or deus ex machina moments begin to crop up more and more, it’s sign that the story has a terminal illness. The execution of the plot means the execution of the story, hooded-headsman style, as potential interest and characters put their necks on the block to feed the axe of convenience.
The story may click along without fault or pause, merrily going from one plot point to the next as if nothing’s wrong, but if there’s no characterization beyond the very basics, if the conflict isn’t rooted in our characters and what makes them who they are, the story has no life of its own. A lot of video games have this problem. Lacking character depth, they move the player from one set piece to the next with the certainty of a commuter rail line. A game like Portal can get away with this because of good writing, characterization, and unique gameplay, but something like Space Marine has to work extra hard to overcome this problem.
I guess what I’m saying is this: if you want to tell a story, your characters are your most important allies. Even if you hate some them, even if you know some are going to die horribly, spend time with them and make sure you know them before you approach your plot. Get the balance wrong, or make the characters little more than cogs in the plot’s machine, and the metaphorical headsman will be waiting.
For all of its great design work, innovative storytelling through games, flat corporate structure, and altogether positive image, Steam can be downright insidious at times. This past weekend, for example, they held a sale on everything related to Warhammer 40,000 and its games. I got Dawn of War II as a Christmas present, including the Chaos Rising expansion, and had only played the demo of the over-the-shoulder shooter Space Marine. So how do the games hold up, and how do they do representing the universe from which they come?
Dawn of War II & Chaos Rising
I’d played the previous Dawn of War game and its expansions, so I knew the sequel would likely continue being a different experience from other RTS titles. Not only does Dawn of War II provide that gameplay, it surprisingly also showcases a coherent narrative with interesting characters. Rather than split its single-player campaign between the different races available, it keeps its focus on the Blood Ravens chapter of the Space Marines, and the tale of a young and untested Force Commander (that’s you) dealing with the invasion of the chapter’s recruitment worlds.
Space Marines can come across as taciturn, even sullen warrior-priests in the lore, which as I understand it is a departure from their first appearance in 40k back in its first edition. The characters in Dawn of War II that make up your closest allies and battle brothers, by contrast, show a diversity of personality and motivation that works very well. Minor characters, such as the governor’s adjutant on Meridian and the Eldar farseer, also offer glimpses of depth and complexity you might not expect from this setting. All of the characters are voice acted well, which I’m sure is a relief to anybody who is at all familiar with the last original Dawn of War expansion, Soulstorm.
The gameplay is focused more on squad-based tactics than it is building a huge army and tossing it at whatever looks at you funny. Especially on Primarch difficulty, things like using cover and timing attacks properly is essential. The rewards for doing well are improved gear for you and your sergeants, as well as experience you can use to enhance abilities. It gives the game an RPG feel while holding onto its RTS roots. I didn’t really touch multiplayer in Dawn of War II, given the way the single player draws you in, and I do plan on running through and finishing the campaign again on that highest difficulty. It challenges my brain.
Dawn of War II: Retribution
The second expansion to Dawn of War II sees it returning to some older RTS & Dawn of War staples. There are now multiple single-player campaigns, which I suspect all play out along very similar lines. However, voice acting and characterization remain top-notch. I am, in particular, fond of the Imperial Guard’s Lord General, a man whose stiff upper lip can be difficult to see under his mighty mustache, moonlighting as a big game hunter when he isn’t sending waves of impressionable young men into the fray armed with glorified flashlights. I believe some of the characters from the base game and Chaos Rising return for the Space Marine campaign, so I may need to play through that one, as well.
Unfortunately, the tight focus on squad tactics has been lost, in favor of more traditional RTS structures and strategies. Building up sufficient forces to deal with incoming threats feels a lot easier than manipulating the limited resources of the previous campaigns. It’s still fun, but to me it just isn’t quite as challenging. It was Retribution, though, that introduced me to the multiplayer mode known as The Last Stand.
Being interested in MOBA-style cooperative strategy, The Last Stand is right up my alley. Three players, each commanding a single ‘hero’ unit, must hold off wave after wave of incoming enemy units from the various races available in Dawn of War. Each hero has unique abilities, equipment, and strengths. The speed at which you dispatch your foes, the number of rounds you survive without a player becoming incapacitated, and the strategic points you hold all factor into your score. Between games you level up your heroes and assign them equipment and abilities. As quick little bite-sized morsels of RTS & MOBA-flavored fun, it works quite well.
Space Marine
My first impressions of this shooter/spectacle fighter were good enough that I picked up the full game while it was on sale. The action maintains its weight and ferocity, and the story seems coherent enough so far. I can’t say the Ultramarines are showing quite the diversity of the Blood Ravens from Dawn of War II, but the voice acting is still good and the characterization thus far is coherent and consistent with the flavor and atmosphere of the source material.
With the full version I’ve also been able to try my hand at the multiplayer, which is a decent experience. Joining a small squad of Space Marines, be they loyal or Chaos, to control points, annihilate the enemy, or seize control of an ancient weapon has appeal in and of itself, but some of the nuances of the gameplay make it feel just different enough to be worth a look. At the start of the mission or when you respawn, you can pick from several different kits you’ve unlocked through gameplay: standard Tactical, a Devastator/Havoc heavy weapons loadout, and the high-flying Assault/Raptor kit. The biggest attention-grabber, for me at least, is that when you get killed, you can copy the loadout of the player that killed you. Even if they’re twenty levels above you with access to equipment and perks it will take you hours to acquire, you can load yourself up to mirror them and engage in a little payback.
It does have some issues, such as mics always being hot and the peer-to-peer lobby based system that indicates the console port nature of the game. Unlocks happen at a snail’s pace and there are a few weapon balance problems. I’m going to try the Horde mode and see what else I can unlock through some casual dabbling, but I don’t see it replacing TF2 or Tribes: Ascend any time soon.
Endings to stories are every bit as important as their beginnings. I’ve heard, on at least one occasion, someone tell me to write the ending of a story first. I rarely do that, but I can often picture the ending in my head, or at least the climax. It should be an emotionally satisfying experience, even if it isn’t a happy one. The ending of The Dark Knight, for example, is far from happy – many important characters are dead, Batman’s on the run from the law, and the Joker did, in fact, get away, or at least lived. But it’s emotionally satisfying. Our hero did, in fact, triumph, even if it was a Pyrrhic victory, and will keep fighting the best way he knows how. Not happy, but one can set their teeth and nod in agreement with it.
I bring this up because I recently went through two ending experiences in video games. I finished Silent Hill 2 for the first time, and I downloaded the Extended Edition DLC for Mass Effect 3. Both games have multiple endings, determined by player choice, and the experience of reaching those endings says a lot about storytelling in general, and its connection to gameplay in particular.
For the record, I now understand why people love Silent Hill 2 so much. The game is steeped in a tense, foreboding atmosphere that draws you into its dark, bleak world and refuses to let go of you. The sound design is excellent and the visuals sufficiently creepifying, even if the capacities of the PlayStation 2 were somewhat limited. The HD Collection doesn’t do a whole lot with the graphics, from what I understand, but the important thing is that James Sunderland is still wonderfully neurotic, incredibly determined, and deeply sympathetic, quickly becoming one of my favorite video game protagonists. I felt invested in seeing his journey through to the end.
Silent Hill 2, like many games, has multiple endings, and the three available to the player at the conclusion of the first run all make sense, based on the choices the player makes. The game examines how you behave, how you treat the NPCs around you, and what you do with the things you find. It makes sense of the seemingly random things you may do as a player, and produces the ending you think you deserve. It’s an impressive feat for a game from the previous generation, and a great example of an ending to a story being emotionally satisfying while not necessarily being happy.
As for Mass Effect, well… I went off on a bit of a rant on the endings of the final game of the trilogy before. I won’t go into detail as to how the new endings made me feel, emotionally, especially since Susan Arendt has already done just that. Swap a couple names in the very last sequence and you have my feelings on it. In light of Silent Hill 2, though, I can tell you why the “Extended” endings work where the originals don’t.
First of all, while some of the dialog still feels a bit stretched, better explanations of the Reapers, the Crucible, and our choices are given. None of it feels too stilted, and Shepard, bless his or her heart, often asks questions in the very same way we do. There’s also the fact that we are given the option to straight-up refuse to be involved in the final decision. If you think the Starchild is a pile of bullshit, you can say so. Granted, it comes off a bit as Shepard being a petulant child, but that’s totally not a reflection on the attitude of entitled gamers, right?
On closer examination and with these better explanations, it becomes more clear to me that the endings of Mass Effect 3 are, in fact, the culmination of our choices rather than the death of them. It was difficult to realize this when the explanation was so truncated previously; now, as there is back-and-forth, there’s more time to think, to reflect, and to choose. As the Starkid explained synthesis and the evolution of life, conveniently leaving out how magically rewriting DNA was supposed to work, it occurred to me that this was what Shepard had been striving for all along. In my play-through, time and again, Shepard chose the way of peace: sparing the Rachni queen, convincing Garrus not to shoot Sidonis, trying to warn the Batarians in Arrival, getting the Geth and Quarians to lay down arms… The final sequence is now a conversation, rather than a glorified menu of choices, in which Shepard reflects on all that’s come before, and when the battered soldier starts to move, it’s for good reason rather than just to end things.
In addition to making the final choices feel like they matter, the Extended Edition also makes the endings more personal, more accessible. To quote Susan, “Saving the universe is great and all, but it’s too huge a concept to really feel particularly connected to.” My favorite moments in Mass Effect 3 were deeply personal ones, from the fates of Mordin and Thane to the back-and-forth between Shepard and Tali on Rannoch. Making the endings grand and sweeping but ambiguous and impersonal was a misstep, one which has now been corrected. From the look on Kaiden’s face when Shepard tells him “I want to be sure someone survives this,” to that last moment at the memorial wall, we feel more invested in what’s happened. We see characters we’ve come to care about dealing with the monumental decision we’ve made. And, perhaps most importantly, we get the chance to say good-bye.
A similar moment comes in Silent Hill 2, as we hear Mary read her letter to James. Be it uplifting or tragic, the end result is an understanding of the choices made and an opportunity to bid the characters farewell. As in Mass Effect, the conclusion should and does feel personal. I hesitate to use the word “logical” when we’re talking about a psychological survival horror piece and a work of space opera that works on what boils down to magic, but the choices made and the endings that result from those choices do have make logical sense, and that goes a long way in giving them weight and making them complete.
A writer should never underestimate an audience. Allowing an audience to speculate on the unknown and draw their own conclusions is all well and good. It’s one thing to leave an ending open to interpretation; it’s quite another to simply cut things short. We can imagine all sorts of endings and fill in blanks any way we like, and while there’s great freedom in that, too many blanks can give the impression that the creators simply didn’t care enough, or didn’t know themselves. Seeing how the creators end things can be interpreted as spoon-feeding information to the audience, but it also allows for permutations we may not have anticipated. While you should never underestimate your audience, you should also never be afraid to definitively end your story where it should logically end. You don’t necessarily have to tie up all your loose ends in neat little bows (I’m looking at you, Legend of Korra) and you don’t have to chop up the ending into quick cuts to make a statement of some kind (*cough* 2001 *cough*). Let the characters make their choices. Let the audience understand those choices. Make that connection between the two, and the ending of your story will be far more satisfying.
You may now deposit your hate mail telling me how horrible I am for daring to compare Mass Effect 3 to Silent Hill 2.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and apologize in advance for what may turn out to be only passable fan fiction as I write down stuff that goes through my head as I play this game. Also, the following does contain spoilers for the game. Fairly be ye warned.
She waited until we were outside Solitude’s gates to speak her mind.
“I think you’re wasting your time.”
“How do you mean?” The wind was picking up, and I put on my helm before drawing up my hood.
“You have the Scroll. You know what must be done. Why not hunt down Alduin and kill him, while you still have the element of surprise?”
“I’m still not certain that I’m ready.”
She shook her head. “You are Dragonborn. You’re one of the most powerful people I’ve ever met. I know you can do this.”
“But if I do it now, would it be for the right reasons?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
We hired horses from the Solitude stables, and we were on the road, riding side by side, when I picked the conversation back up.
“I’ve been to Windhelm. I’ve seen how Ulfric Stormcloak treats those of other races, especially Dunmer.”
“I don’t blame him for keeping an eye on the dark elves. I wouldn’t want them running rampant in my streets, either. They can’t be trusted.”
“Not all Dunmer are cutpurses and backstabbers, Aela. That’s like saying all Khajiit are scoundrels and liars, or all Nords are illiterate barbarians.”
She looked like she wanted to elaborate on her opinion, but she regarded me carefully as I continued.
“If Skyrim is to be free, it should be free for all who wish to live here. I’m not enamored of the Aldmeri Dominion, either, but I will not trade a puppet regime for a racist one.”
“There’s an alternative, you know.”
Before she could go on, we encountered what I’m told is a place called Robber’s Gorge. We were ambushed, and our horses killed from under us. The bandits, to their dismay, were no match for the pair of us. Unfortunately, we needed to proceed on foot from there.
“Go on.”
“What?” Aela was inspecting her bow as we walked, making sure the string was still taut after so much use lately.
“Tell me about this alternative.”
“You are Dragonborn. The blood of conquerors and kings flows in your veins. Why not unite Skyrim under your own banner?”
I didn’t look at her or respond, at first. That very thought had crossed my mind more than once. But when it did, the voice that carried it was only barely my own. It’s woven into the chant that exists in the foundations of my soul, the one stirred by Alduin and awakened by that first kill outside Whiterun, when Mirmulnir fell and I breathed in his essence.
The day was waning and I could make out the houses of Rorikstead in the distance. I looked at Aela and smiled a little.
“Let me show you something.”
Nahagliiv’s bones remain where we left them.
Just outside of Rorikstead, where the dragon fell, Aela and I studied the sight. She’d been there when we’d slain him, but I hadn’t spoken of it since. I walked up to the skeleton and ran my hand down a rib.
“This was Nahagliiv. His name means ‘Fury Burn Wither’. His is one of the voices that now prompts me to do the very thing you suggest. And if I were to listen, I don’t think I’d be any better than our dead friend, here.”
Aela said nothing. I turned to face her.
“I won’t save this world simply to put it to the torch myself. The sons of Skyrim are owed more than a mere conqueror. I would be known throughout the land for who I strive to be, not merely what my blood demands. I hope you can understand that.”
She stepped to me and took my hands.
“I do. But I still think that we should ensure there is a Skyrim whose sons can learn who you are, as I have, before something truly horrific happens.”
I looked over my shoulder. In the distance, I could barely make out the sky-stabbing height of the Throat of the World. The wound in time was there. My destiny was there. The Elder Scroll felt heavy in my pack. I turned back to my wife and nodded.
“We deliver the horn to the Shrine of Talos, and ask for his favor. Then we ascend that mountain, and we put an end to Alduin’s evil once and for all.”
Aela leaned up and kissed my cheek. “I’m by your side no matter what comes. Remember that.”
After a couple days of heavy stuff, I thought I’d lighten things up with a few mini-reviews of some of the best mobile games I’ve played lately. Here’s my take on three games available on both iOS devices and Androids.
Ghost Trick
I know that there are a lot of Capcom games out there that may give the impression that they don’t know how to tell stories. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is not one of them. Developed for the DS as well as smart phones and tablets, and under the direction of Shu Takumi of the Ace Attorney games, Ghost Trick introduces us to Sissel, a detective who finds himself the victim of a murder. Death is not the end, as Sissel and we discover, but before he can uncover the nature of his untimely demise, he witnesses another murder and finds he has the power to avert it. He teams up with the woman he rescues to get to the bottom of the situation, and maybe get his memories back as well.
The dichotomy of the worlds of the living and the dead yields unique puzzle mechanics. In the living world, times moves at its normal pace, but Sissel can manipulate objects. In the ghost world, Sissel can move himself but not other things, while time stands still. You can also rewind time back to a checkpoint, or 4 minutes before the impending murder if you mess something up. This intuitive system combined with an interesting story, fluid animations, and quirky characters makes Ghost Trick a rather immersive experience for a mobile device, and while only the first episode is free, I highly recommend checking it out.
Assassin’s Creed: Recollection
This game is, in a nutshell, a real-time Magic the Gathering game in the Assassin’s Creed universe. I admit, I have not played a great deal of it. While I do like Magic, and dig the Assassin’s Creed games, putting them together along with a constantly ticking clock and the unfortunate over-arching presence of a freemium model and U-Play feels like a hodgepodge meant to grab cash.
It’s not a bad game, despite its trappings. The territory is divided into three between you and your opponent, and you deploy allies and resources to defend and build up your side and increase your income. Every time day turns to night (a minute of in-game time), combat resolves, cash is collected, and new cards are drawn. I could see it working, but unlike the other games, I find myself disinclined to make the necessary investment to do well in it. Spending real-life money on digital cards has always felt off to me. It’s why I don’t play Magic Online.
Yet I’ve spent real-life money on digital skins for champions in League of Legends. I never said my mind was always entirely logical.
Jetpack Joyride
This little number comes to us from Halfbrick, creators of the very simple and satisfying Fruit Ninja, and holds to those tenets. The premise is the simple part: Your name is Barry Steakfries, and you steal a jetpack. The game consists of alternating between running and jet-packing down a long hallway, gradually building up speed, avoiding obstacles, and grabbing power-ups. If you’ve ever played one of those Flash games on the Internet that has you fling something to achieve maximum distance or one of the many “cave flyer” games out there, you’ll find Jetpack Joyride similar, but far easier to grasp and a great deal more satisfying.
Featuring a rather tongue-in-cheek presentation, a kickass soundtrack, and a true free-to-play model that does not require you to spend a dime on it, Jetpack Joyride does everything a mobile game needs to do in order to be memorable, fun, and habit-forming. With shout-outs to Angry Birds and (if I’m not mistaken) VVVVVV, Halfbrick has stuffed the game with appeal, surprises, and a lightness of tone that makes it undeniable. I seriously love this game. You have no excuse not to download it.
