Race in Games - Not Caring About it Doesn't Make it Go Away

With the explosion over N'Gai Croal's comments about the Resident Evil 5 trailer, I feel like there's one issue that hasn't really been addressed yet. Basically, Croal said that we need to be careful with the kind of racial imagery as portrayed in the RE5 trailer, and a huge firestorm of comments erupted, some intelligent but most hateful, ignorant, and racist. This was particularly evident when Kotaku linked to the interview.

What really made me think, though, is demonstrated by this comment:

People who see all those little things "They're hidden in shadows, you can barely see their eyes, and the perspective of the trailer is not even someone who's coming to help the people. It's like they're all dangerous; they all need to be killed." are people who are keeping racism alive. If he was like the rest of us who didnt care and just want to play a kick ass game then racism would die a little...

Ignoring racial issues, in games or anything else, doesn't solve anything. If there's one thing I learned as a sociology major in school, it's that most things in society have meaning because they are socially constructed. Basically, over time, aspects have society literally come into existence because we agree that they exist. Race is a great example of this. Race itself, that people have different colored skin, has no meaning from a biological standpoint. It's just one of innumerable differences among people. But within the last few hundred years, race has come to be incredibly meaningful, largely as a result of slavery and colonial expansion. Just not caring about race and playing a "kick ass game" will not erase hundreds of years of economic, social, political, and psychological prejudices and injustices.

Furthermore, even if some people don't think a particular media text contains any racial issues, that doesn't mean they're not there. For example, as Croal articulates, it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see the problems in having a game where you shoot dozens of Africans. Granted, the game is not even out yet, but I agree that the trailer raises some concerns.

Croal's right. If video games are ever to be taken seriously, then developers need to think about issues such as race, sexuality, and gender. And so do we, the gamers. Because whether you want to believe it or not, race exists. And until there can be honest and open discussion about it, it will continue to exist and have meaning for millions of people for a long time to come.

Riviera: Final Thoughts

I know the title of this post leads you to believe I'll be talking about Riviera: The Promised Land, and I will. But I first I have a short diversion.

After finishing Riviera at the end of vacation last week, I reached a mental state I'm very familiar with: I didn't know what game to focus on next. Although I have many games I need to finish, I'm always racked by indecision right after completing one. I also like to play 1 console game and 1 handheld game at the same time. I know that my Wii time will be devoted to No More Heroes, but I was torn between starting a new game of Riviera, or reacquainting myself with or Final Fantasy III or Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. I played 1 chapter of FE, and think that will be my portable game of choice for a while. Which brings me to my point.

In FE, you always face overwhelming odds. Your group of 10-12 troops often faces 20, 30, or even more enemies. If you level up properly, the enemies should be at or slightly below your level, with the exception of the obscenely powerful boss. But this army imbalance was taken to a ridiculous degree on a mission I played a couple nights ago.

In this mission (#5x) you are only allowed 4 units (really 3, since the game blatantly marks one as a soon-to-be traitor) with which to attack and seize an entire castle, annihilating the 20 or so guards within. The odds are about 7-1. Of course, my forces prevailed. But what this really points out is how most RPGs (and many other types of games) rely on a horde of relatively weak, simple enemies and a vastly overpowered boss to provide a sense of challenge.

What's different about Riviera (aha, back on topic), and 1 reason I love it so much, is that not only are there no random battles, there aren't battalions of weak enemies to wade through either. As far as I know, the vast majority of the battles are pre-planned and unskippable. Any single encounter could potentially wipe out your party if you aren't prepared. And you certainly won't do very well in these battles if you don't exploit enemy weaknesses, which is an integral part of the game. Every enemy is a threat, and must be treated with caution, and some degree of respect.

Unlike my FE example, where 3 people slaughtered an army, if you invest your imagination in Riviera's world, you could reasonably expect the protagonists to actually fight the included number of evenly-spaced battles. While the bosses are a little tougher than their underlings, the same tactics apply throughout: fight fire with ice, and you'll be fine.

That being said, for me the game play is the primary reason to play. The plot is OK, but generally boring with an obvious ending that has little...gravitas. The dialogue is cheese-tastic, although the characters are all distinct from one another. There are 5 endings (I think), 1 for each party member plus a "true" ending that's much harder to achieve. As much as I like finishing games 100%, I would only earn any different endings as an indirect result of being drawn back into the addicting game play in a few months.

In the end, I can forgive the weak narrative and ham-fisted characters in exchange for invigorating game play mechanics, which allows for a great deal of player decision-making despite the illusion of linear narrowness. I highly recommend Riviera as fun, unique, quality RPG. It really stands alone as a unique entry in the genre.

Back From Vacation

I returned from my spring vacation Sunday night, and am just now getting around to blogging again. The vacation was great. My girlfriend, her uncle, and myself traveled to Kyoto, Osaka, Himeji castle, and Hiroshima in western Japan. It was simply amazing, and very beautiful due to the prominence of fully-bloomed cherry blossoms. It was quite disappointing for it to end.

But I've been quite busy since then, and haven't had any time for blogging. What with accomplishing apartment and daily life tasks, sitting through endless ceremonies at school, and trying to adjust to the fact that 3 of the English teachers at my school (that's 75%) were transferred so I've been trying to get to know 3 new ones, it's been quite a stressful 3 days.

But I'm back, and I have some good ideas for my next few posts. One will be about a browser-based strategy game you may have read about recently, and another will cover a blood-spattered Wii game. Until then, I'm still recharging.

WiiWare: Quietly Disappointing

WiiWare launched to to resounding cries of...ehh...on Tuesday of this week in Japan. I haven't downloaded or played any of the titles yet, but several people have been posting online about the mediocrity of the offerings so far. These same posters have also been bemoaning the prices of these games, which also happened with the launch of the Virtual Console.

Over at the Wired.com Game Life blog, Chris Kohler has written quite a bit about testing the current WiiWare crop. Here's what he has to say of the pricing structure: "When you buy a WiiWare game, you can't try it first, and if you don't like it, you're totally boned because you can't sell it to someone else or trade it in. WiiWare needs demos."

From the preview coverage I've seen, none of the current Japanese titles seem worth their cost to me. But I couldn't agree more that WiiWare needs demos. I would even like to extend that to seeing the availability of demos of full Wii Games. But my desire for demos is counter balanced by the fact that the memory in the Wii is depressingly small. I hope Nintendo eventually expands this, but who knows what they'll do.

Microtransactions are also starting to show up, even with the WiiWare Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles game, for which this feature had never even been announced. I've never been that comfortable with extra costs for games, thinking that everything I need and want from the game should be included in it from the beginning. But it seems like microtransactions are one direction the industry's headed in. Hopefully, some better games will be released for WiiWare in the near future.

In other matters, I'm leaving for a trip to Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima tomorrow, and I won't be back until April 6. I may or may not be able to upload a quick post while I'm gone, because who knows what kind of Internet access I'll have. So, I'll leave you with this:

If challenge had a taste, you'd be quite delicious.

Nintendo's DS Download Service - Where Are All the Games

Over on ThatVideoGameBlog, for which I write occasional news stories and editorials, I recently posted my impressions of both a demo of Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword and the DS Download Service on the Wii's Everybody's Nintendo Channel. The DS downloads are finally coming to fruition in Japan, after more than 3 months of stagnation. There haven't been any good downloads until Ninja Gaiden and Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2. Unfortunately, they were both offered for download for a limited time, and I believe they were supposed to be taken off the service yesterday. I'm not sure though, so I'll have to check.

The DS demos are a great opportunity for Nintendo to show off some games, especially less-publicized titles. Unfortunately, they've barely put this function to good use so far. The Ninja Gaiden demo really sold me in the game. I had literally no interest in it before I tried it, and would probably consider buying it now. In fact, I probably only downloaded it in the first place because it was the first actually game I'd seen available on the service.

Nintendo should definitely expand the selection of demos on offer. While this channel has been available for Japanese Wii owners since last November, I'm surprised a release date hasn't even been announced for North America yet. Maybe they'll release it closer to Mario Kart or Wii Fit. I know that creating a demo takes developers off the task of creating the whole game, but this is a great service that only benefit Nintendo. They should especially try to release demos of lesser known games. Nobody really needs a demo of a Mario game, or probably even Ninja Gaiden, because those games will most likely sell well regardless.

Next, I'd love to see some Wii demos, although I don't have hopes for this happening at all, partly due to memory limitations of the Wii itself.

Tomorrow I'll post probably my last post before I go on a short vacation. The topic: the just-released-in-Japan-yesterday WiiWare.

I Can't Resist Purchasing Good Games

When it rains, it pours. I regularly tell myself to not buy a certain game, or any games, for a while. But my will inevitably breaks. I bought 2 more games over the weekend, one of which was planned. As promised, I finally bought No More Heroes. I'm not really going to talk about it much here. I've moved up to assassin rank #8, so I still have 7 more assassins to take down. I really enjoy it so far, but I'll post some of my thoughts on it in a couple weeks after I've had time to play it some more.

The other game I bought, which I always kept an eye out for but didn't intend to buy yet, was Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 for the DS. I wish the title was a little longer, but I'll call it Ouendan 2 for the sake of simplicity. Wikipedia translates the title as "Burn! Hot-Blooded Rhythm Spirit: Hey! Fight! Cheer Squad 2." As you should be able to tell from the title, Ouendan 2 is a rhythm game, and was developed bu iNiS. iNiS is primarily a rhythm game maker, having made Ouendan 1, Elite Beat Agents, and also Gitaroo Man, which Michael at the Brainy Gamer heaped praise upon a few months ago.

The gameplay in Ouendan 2 is simple at heart, but so far incredibly difficult. There are three types of mechanics you use to tap out the rhythm of the J-Pop song. The primary one is the Hit Markers, which you just tap in time to the beat. Next is a Slider, where you follow a ball and slide the stylus along a track. Last are Spinners, which are discs you must spin in a circle really quickly to earn bonus points.

I'll talk more about my impressions of Ouendan 2 later, but I did want to touch on why I bought it. Part of the reason is that this is a fairly popular Japan-exclusive DS game. Seeing as I'm in Japan for a little while, I try to buy some games that are harder to get in the U.S. I'll also probably purchase Ouendan 1, although I rarely see it in stores. A second reason for buying Ouendan 2 was that I'm trying to extend my gaming interests a little bit, or at the very least I want to try games in genres that I rarely explore. I don't think I've ever played a rhythm game, so this should (hopefully) provide a good first experience for me. In fact, part of the reason I find the game so difficult may be because I've never played this type of game before. Of course, it's also supposed to be relatively difficult on its own.

So I'm glad I found the game, and that it was 50% cheaper than I had ever seen it. It looks to be a refreshing experience and a nice change of pace from the RPGs and strategy games I lose myself to.

Late to the Party - No More Heroes

It often feels like I'm playing catch-up with video games, because I so rarely buy games, even high profile releases, as soon as they're released. With a few exceptions, I often wait to buy games when I have time to play them or when a blind passion consumes me and won't allow me to not buy the game. This is now happening with No More Heroes.

Although I had been in interested in No More Heroes for many months, I haven't had much inclination to buy it until recently. The primary reason was that living in Japan, with my terrible Japanese language ability, I wanted to wait until I could play it in English. I also reasoned that this is a game I would ultimately want to own forever, so I might as well wait until I return to the U.S. this summer to purchase it.

But then, I saw some Japanese TV commercials and game play footage, and realized that the Japanese release of No More Heroes has a surprising amount of English. All of the cutscenes are voiced in English with Japanese subtitles, and it looks like even the menus in Travis' apartment are in English. So it looks like I won't miss out on much by playing through the Japanese version. I also just see people talking about this game quite often, and there's not too much I can add to that conversation since I haven't played it yet.

But all that will change soon. I plan on buying No More Heroes within the next couple of days. Although I'm not expecting it, I also have a faint hope that the game might be discounted by this point, what with the abysmal Japanese sales figures.

This probably happens about once a month. I start seeing a game more and more on the Internet, even older games. I then start finding as much information as I can about it, and my every waking though becomes consumed with acquiring and playing this game. Most recently, this happened with Brawl, which I didn't intend to purchase at all. But I succumbed to fate, I suppose. If I purchase it soon, I'll report in next week on the adventures of Travis Touchdown, which most of you are already very familiar with.

It's Nice to Know Someone is Reading This

Blogging and writing about video games is still fairly new to me. Not only am I trying to figure out more concretely my thoughts and opinions on the state of gaming, but I'm also trying to work through the technicalities of blogging efficiently and in a semi-professional manner. So when I get the occasional comment or email that someone has enjoyed something I've written, I'm always quite surprised and taken aback.

Having said that, I would like to particularly thank Daniel Primed over at his DP's Gamer Blog for thinking my meager blog was worth linking to and mentioning. Daniel, thank you. I really appreciate your recognition of this blog the other day. And thanks for pointing out some characteristics of You Are Lose! that I had previously not considered. I've never considered myself a gaming 'enthusiast,' and I'm trying to see how that word feels wrapped around me. Although I suppose it's appropriate and accurate, given that I have no professional or developmental ties to the game industry, and instead I just play games a lot and want to write about them in a (hopefully) intelligent manner.

I also hadn't noticed, although it's fairly obvious, that I primarily write about specific software. Looking back, I'm mostly interested in how certain games are played, what I feel while playing them, and more recently, how games try to successfully tie together narrative and game play. I'd like to thank Daniel for pointing these things out to me, and making me a little more self-aware of what kind of blog I'm working on here.

I also highly recommend Daniel's Gamer Blog. He consistently has a slew of posts about gaming, and writes in a very accessible and thought-provoking way. His topics range widely from software to hardware, Nintendo to Sony, and everything in between. It's one of the blogs in my Google Reader that I always look forward to.

Riviera: The Promised Land - Play This Game Now

After completing Hotel Dusk last week, I had a decision to make: what game should I play next? Although I'm usually playing more than one game at the same time, I tend to focus on just one for completion's sake. Ultimately I decide to delve back into Riviera: The Promised Land, a largely overlooked Atlus RPG for the GameBoy Advance.

Riviera is completely unlike any game you've ever played, and I mean that as a compliment. I would describe it as a combination of an RPG, a dating simulation, and a modified point-and-click adventure. You improve your stats and gain more powerful items, can choose which of your female party members to compliment and impress, and explore the environment through menu-based choices rather than direct movement.

The game is comprised of about 7 large chapters, which are further subdivided. Each sub-chapter has anywhere from 3-10 screens, which you move between, battling demons and spending accumulated Trigger Points (TP) to explore the environment. You can take only 3 characters and 4 items into battles, and regular minigames pop-up where you must input a button combination or time a button press to avoid a trap. For example, in Chapter 1 there's a tribute to Indiana Jones where you must input a short button combination in order to avoid a large, rolling boulder.

There are no random battles, at least in the Dragon Quest sense, only in the sense that you don't know which screen has an enemy encounter. There's also no true movement. Each screen has a Move and Look mode, where you press a direction of the control pad to change screens or search an object, respectively. Every single battle takes careful planning of characters and items. You must exploit enemy weaknesses, and you don't fight the same enemies repeatedly, as in games like Final Fantasy. Each battle is almost a set piece, like a challenge you must overcome to be worthy of advancing.

The main reason I love this game is the choices you are constantly presented with, which I briefly touched on in a previous post. I find myself agonizing over a decision on nearly every screen. For example:

• Which direction should I move in?
• Your party is only allowed to carry 16 items, so if I find a powerful new item, what do I throw away?
• What 4 items should I bring into battle? Is it more important to have a Thunder Sword or a Healing Rod?
• If I'm running low on TP, should I search a chest or doorway, even though it could be detrimental?

Sometimes it's best to ignore environmental objects. A bad decision can: 1.) harm your relationship with one of the ladies; 2.) prevent you from acquiring useful items; 3.) waste valuable TP; or 4.) even reduce a character's HP by 5-15%. This last one I haven't quite figured out, because it seems as if you get the HP back either after a certain period of time, or after you clear the section. There are so many decisions that it's very easy to miss things. In fact, you pretty much have to miss out on sections of the environment of important items your first time unless you're using a walkthrough.

As much as I love the prominence of decisions, Riviera does have a few lackluster elements. Items have a limited number of uses, but in order to level up, a character needs to use an item a certain number of times. The best way to do this is in practice mode, which exists sort of 'outside' the game world. Although practice mode is necessary, the weaker enemies make it a little boring and it draws me out of the game narrative. Also, I found the story very confusing, largely due to a plethora of proper names that I can't quite wrap my head around. Finally, although I'm halfway finished, I just now feel like I have a good grasp on most of the mechanics. This is partly because there were a lot of new concepts I wasn't familiar with, and partly because I bought a used copy and had no manual to explain some of the finer points.

Other than the Practice mode, I really like how connected the game play is to your ability to find out about the environment and narrative. Essentially, doing well in battle earns you more TP, thereby allowing you to search more areas, get better items, and learn about the game world and characters. This, in turn, makes your characters stronger, thereby earning more TP in battle and so on. The mechanics are a big circle which feed into each other, and doing well in one area allows you to succeed in others. Although the combat system and item limitations seem very stifling and limiting at first, Riviera ultimately gives you a lot of freedom to experiment and try different things. Plus, with a different ending depending on which girl likes you the most, as well as numerous overlooked and ignored areas, there's compelling reason to play through the game again.

On a side note, in between chapters, you return to a home base of sorts. Twice, so far, your female companions have decided to take a bath during this break, and your character is able to go and spy on them. It's nothing too exciting, no nudity, just a static image with dialogue boxes over it. I would imagine that some people would be offended by this, but the game didn't sell well enough to attract any kind of attention. Plus, these scenes are completely tame, gratuitous, and well off the beaten path.

Whew. As you can see, I really have a lot to say about this great, overlooked game. I simply love Riviera. It's a lot of fun, and also quite charming and involving. The whole package is tied together really well, it's both simple and complex, and it's very addicting to just want to advance one more screen and see what happens. I highly recommend it, if you can find a copy somewhere. It's well worth the search.

Do You Prefer to Play Games By Yourself or with Others?

Congratulations to...me! Yesterday's post was my 100th. I consider that a small, signifcant milestone. I've really been enjoying trying to contribute to this blog everyday, and am still ever so slowly trying to increase my minimal amount of site traffic.

Today's post takes it's inspiration from an article by Stephen Totilo at the MTV Multiplayer blog. Having recently delved in Smash Bros. Brawl, Totilo describes how he primarily plays it alone, largely ignoring the multiplayer components. He behaves similarly with many other games. As he acknowledges, this is quite ironic in that he edits a blog with the word "multiplayer" in the title. I can completely relate to playing games primarily by yourself, even multiplayer ones.

The only two games I played extensively with at least one other person were the original Super Mario Kart and Super Mario Kart: Double Dash on the GameCube. My friend and I played the original to death not just because it was great fun, but because neither of us were capable of acing the Special Cup through our own, individual efforts. We needed a little teamwork. Double Dash entered the scene during college, and my roommates and I would play and fight about it for hours.

Other than these two games, I've been primarily a solo gamer. I didn't have a N64 when Goldeneye was popular, and I rarely play shooters now. Even games whose sole purpose as a game is multiplayer, such as both Melee and Brawl, I play them by myself. That may be why I don't enjoy those types of games quite as much.

Why do I do this? I think the primary reason for me is that I much prefer to play games for their narrative, to unwind a compelling, interesting story. These types of games are often necessarily solitary affairs. This is the same reason I regularly read novels and watch films; to go along with the story and see what happens. A second reason is that when it comes to games, I'm just not that competitive. I'm more interested in finishing a game and moving on to something new than in trying to dominate my friends or master the controls. A final reason for me may be that of current consoles, I only own the Wii. Since most of my friends aren't into games as much as I am, I often play by myself, which is fine. And the Wii's online multiplayer is just now starting to develop, although I'm only moderately interested in it.

I'm even starting to lose my interest in Brawl, which will hopefully prove to be an excellent online experience. Maybe part of this is that multiplayer, competitive games are rarely complete, at least until you just grow tired of playing them. In Brawl, I'm focused on getting 100% on the SubSpace Emissary, and beating all the modes with every character. For me, that will feel like I've, in a sense, completed the game.

So what kind of gamer are you? Do you primarily play multiplayer games? Single player experiences? A little of both? Much like Stephen Totilo, I usually play by myself.