102 posts from 2007

Gosh, is that the time already. By jove, I've made it. One hundred days of games. No mean feat, I tell you. I took on this project on a whim, thinking I'd muddle along on the few ideas I had and make up the rest. That was the general idea, and one that led to far too many days up until the crack of dawn wondering what the hell I should be writing about. It's even made me late for work twice - and that's surprising considering I don't start until midday. I said I wanted to use this blog to improve myself somehow, and let me tell you, my procrastinations skills have shot right up. Every cloud, etc.

So, by my own standards, a few filler days, a few days I really liked and everything in between. I at least hope I got a good mixture of topics in there and didn't go on about how expensive games are and how I want to play Xenosaga (they are and I still haven't). Even if I have been stuck for ideas on occasion, there are a few things I never got round to, like my intended praise for PC Gamer, why I like Tim Rogers (and Action Button), an inarticulate article on how old PC graphical styles like SVGA never seem to get fondly remembered, and that bitter, definitive expose on the wholesale corruption behind the scenes of the games industry, but never mind, eh?
 

What, then, can I take from these hundred days? Well, way back at the beginning, Sony had just turned their fortunes around after a period of ridicule. Home and Little Big Planet had just been announced earning them their first steps on the road back to respect. One hundred days later and a stable online service and console have seen them e doing alright, but nowhere near as spectacularly as predicted. As I've said many time over the course of this blog, it's the price that's stopping them. As are the games - it's been a barren hundred days, and I'm willing to bet a hundred and more before I get one.

Their main competitor (although Sony don't seem to admit so), Nintendo, just keep getting bigger and bigger. By contrast, the only thing staying the same is the lack of high-profile Wii releases. They're in the same boat as the PS3 when it comes to new stuff, only the Wii's got a ready and waiting market hungry to snap decent titles up. Enough with the remakes and ports already, though.

As for the DS, well, 'nuff said. If you haven't experienced the joys of importing handheld games cheaply and easily from the far East, I recommend you do so now. The DS has shown, and keeps on showing that it's bursting with brilliance. Any drought on any other system is well-quenched by this little wonder. Er, that sounds a little press release. I don't know what came over me. Must be the giddy fumes of the final lap.

Rumours have also reached us of a redesign for the PSP. The PSP's not being doing much of anything these past hundred days, prepared to sit quietly in the huge shadow of Nintendo. Although, that's probably doing it an injustice since we've had Portable Ops, Crush, Ratchet and Clank. So it's not all bad. Compared to the DS, however, it's scraps from the table. Get better soon, Sony.

Now, Microsoft. I wrote about my 360's red ring error a while back, and the way it scratched my copy of F.E.A.R. It hasn't done anything since, but I'm still counting the days until it does. It seems resentment's continuing to grow towards the amount of faulty machines out there. Will Microsoft issue an apology or an official recall? Stranger things have happened. I did finally manage to fix F.E.A.R. with a WH Smith scratch repair kit and am currently making my way through on Extreme difficulty in order to net some Achievements. Ah, yes, they are addictive aren't they. Nice to see that Live Arcade's still delivering the goods every now and again. Can't wait to play Prince of Persia, and I'll be putting some time aside after I finish this blog to go through Symphony of the Night and Gears of War. So, 360: healthy on the surface, troubled underneath. Fair enough.

And finally, the PC. We're almost at the tipping point where my years old PC will just laugh wheezily at any new game thrown at it. It's been good so far, as long as I'm willing to cut the detail somewhat. But Crysis looks to be the one everybody thinks will change all that. If anything it should help justify a DX10 card and a Vista upgrade in the wake of buying a brand new rig because it doesn't seem that the much-maligned Shadowrun and Halo 2 Vista have been doing that for the latter. Regardless, I think Bioshock will be the game that gets me to finally upgrade, although I said that about Oblivion and I still haven't played it. Oh, PC, why do you stay just out of reach?

Well, I could go on, but I won't. Thank you to anyone who had a browse of this blog these past few months. It probably means a lot more to me than it does you. Thanks to Al Kennedy for putting the idea in my head. And thanks to my girlfriend who I'll have to make up to after all this time spent neglecting her to do this. Sorry! If anyone fancies taking up the torch and blogging about one hundred days of movies or music or whatever, feel free. As for me, I've got a good idea for another specialist blog (one that won't keep me awake all night, hopefully), but that's for another time, and there'll also be a belated update of Seventy-Three Percent sometime soon. Until then, blessed sleep.

When I first started this blog, my intentions were to segue neatly from Al Kennedy's comics theme into me talking about a game that had made the transition to the sequential art medium. Unfortunately, the book that I ordered on Amazon to write about turned out to be out of stock for about two months. It eventually came, in the middle of my epic blog adventure, but by that time I was off on another tangent. So why not leave it to the end, I thought, and sure enough I did. Here it is, then: a few words on the comic adaptation of Metal Gear Solid.

I don't know how familiar you are with the artist, Ashley Wood. If you are, you've definitely decided if you either admire him or loathe his stupid style and wish he'd never been born. Wood's art is very distinctive - his pictures are produced using a combination of broad-stroke painting and rough sketching that sacrifices detail for expression. You can't expect focus in his work, instead he draws a blurred, low-colour view of the world, where backgrounds are hazy or non-existent and ill-defined faces are never the same way twice. It's like peering through a fog and it's often difficult to work out what's going on sometimes. Indeed, it takes a little while to get used to. Once you develop the knack however, it's easier to appreciate. His style's saving grace is the way the lack of clarity allows your eyes to flow easily between panels, picking apart the shapes tointerpret your own vision of events. If you don't fall for that, though, I can see why he might be considered horrible.

Certainly, it's probably safe to say that he's been brought in as illustrator due to his similarities with the original Metal Gear Solid concept artist, Yoji Shinkawa, a factor highly evidenced by Wood's signing on for the art job on the PSP's Portable Ops spin-off. To that end, it's not a million miles away from replicating MGS's secondary visual style. At least not if compared to if they'd got someone of the the spandex-covered biceps and busts oeuvre to do the job. Imagine that.

Anyway, it's been five years or more since I played through the original Metal Gear Solid. Reading through the comic, I'd completely forgotten how much there is to it. It's just set-piece after set-piece, really, as Snake forgets the stealth part of his mission and blunders from one encounter to the next. Perfect for the comic, too. Even better, there's no lengthy Codec conversations to interrupt the flow. Writer, Chris Oprisko's job is to boil that down into essential dialogue that tells the story in the best possible way.

It hasn't forgotten its gaming roots, either. It's difficult to think of Snake's extended episode running around collecting weapons and avoiding guards as anything but a homage to the time spent doing so in the game. Likewise the endless nonsense about key cards and moving to the basement level of the maintenance base or whatever is largely redundant, but they've seen fit to stay true. By staying faithful, it brings back all those fond, old memories of playing through first time without having to listen to everyone drone on about war and philosophy.

Metal Gear Solid, for all its pretentious posturing and overdone dialogue is a flagship series for the PlayStation. Sink into it and it's OTT narrative can't help but drag you along effortlessly. The book does the same, and even though it doesn't offer anything in addition, it's a worthwhile companion piece.

And remember that it's also on the PSP as an animated graphic novel. Having never seen that particular version, I can't comment, but it does look even more lush according to this trailer here. Meanwhile, Oprisko and Wood are just finishing up their version of the MGS sequel, Sons of Liberty. I'm even more eager to pick that one up, if only to see how they handle that game's bonkers ending. Where Wood is concerned, I'd expect nothing less than indistinguishable insanity.

Finally, I did try to buy this in the shops at first, but I didn't know how much it cost. I spent ages looking for the price to no avail until I gave up in frustration and went home. I later found out it was on the back of the book all along! [Insert parping trombone punchline noise here.]

So three days to go and we're winding down here. In that case, let me pick up on two sensationalist stories I've just had a peep at by way of everyone's favourite embargo-breaking aggregate videogames new site, Kotaku. The first has Howard Stringer, chief of Sony, apparently acknowledging the phenomenal success of the Wii and hinting at a combative PS3 price cut. The second rumours that Beautiful Katamari, the next-gen sequel to the ball-rolling insano-thon, will be a 360 exclusive, i.e. not appearing on Sony's console.

If both stories turn out to be substantial, that's interesting news as it appears that Sony are prepared to do a bit of humbling. Looking back at the early days of this blog, I can see that I predicted that they would steadfastly refuse to drop the PS3's price so soon since this would imply that the console is losing out to the 360. After all Sony's hype, they wouldn't want that. I might have been wrong, but it is in my interest to point out that the story fails to mention Microsoft's machine. No, it's just the Wii Stringer compares the PS3 too, somewhat suggesting that while they see Nintendo as a sales competitor, they don't feel that their rivals are superior in all aspects - they still want to proudly stand out as a unique next-gen hi-tech experience, and that's something that they wouldn't want to do by comparing the PS3 with the sales figures of 360.

As for Beautiful Katamari, that's an odd one if it's going 360 exclusive. I don't know how crazy gamers in Japan go for it, but it strikes me as a game that would achieve some moderate success. If this is some clever herding on Microsoft's part, perhaps we're looking at their effort to make the 360 more attractive to Japan. After all, it needs all the help it can get over there, apparently. Blue Dragon shown that it can be done, that (a few) Japanese can buy a console based on a game appealing to their character. On a wider scale, any game that expands the market beyond the 360's guns, cars, and sports is a good thing. Clearly, they need the kind of eclectic market of niche titles that the PS2 had in abundance for both greater success and respectability, and currently that's rather thin on the ground.

If BK's exclusivity is a result of faith being lost in the PS3, then that's rather surprising. I'd have thought it'd be a no-brainer to stick with it. Of course, that's dependent on the drought disappearing soon and the price dropping, but we know both those things are an inevitability some time. Only in the short-term would jumping ship make sense. I honestly don't think PS3 will do a Dreamcast or a Saturn. If that depends on Sony eating some humble pie, I don't know. We just have to remember that the 360 was, lack of decent games-wise, at this exact same point in its life. It'll be exciting to see what happens once things kick off at Christmas and the floodgates open.

As for the price cut. In the UK, £350 would be the sweet spot for the optimistic me. And rumble back in, please. And redesign the PSP. Oh, and sort out that backwards compatibility thing while you're at it.

(Oh man, four days to go and the Internet dies on me. So no entry until this morning. Worry no more.)

So where next for the future of games software? Some would say the future lies in digital distribution, where physical discs cease to exist and all content is downloaded direct to storage. I wholeheartedly agree, but I still have an innate attachment to tangible possessions. Knowing all my games exist in some gigabyte vortex makes me more paranoid for their safety than actual having a copy in a box.

Besides, do we really own these downloaded games in perpetuity? Lose one now and you can easily re-download what you’ve already paid for. But what would happen if, say, Valve with their Steam system went bust and vanished. Would we still have our stuff then, or would it get trapped in the ether?

Likely, it’s not going to happen for a long time, but it still worries me slightly, in the same way I know the battery backup on cartridges will eventually die making traditional play impossible (or at least a sleepless chore).

Digital distribution also completely eliminates the second-hand market, a factor of gaming I’ve been a strong advocate for. By only selling from one source it reduces the competition element. And without that, don’t expect games to come down in price as quickly as they are now.

Although, on the other hand, it may lead to better exposure for those overlooked games. Those games like Gitaroo Man which are off the shelves by the time word of mouth spreads (although that particular game did receive a second wind a while back), shouldn’t have any problems with downloads seeing as it potentially means infinite stock levels. That’s the kind of great service you get with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for Xbox Live Arcade – a classic open to any 360 gamer and not just the few who spend their time scouring expensive eBay auctions.

For that reason, we can salute the download of games. I’m still a stickler for boxes, though. I wonder if my kind will be a dying breed, pushed out by market forces while sticking to our antiquated methods of purchase like war children who still buy Spam and tripe for sustenance. Will we really see the collapse of game stores in the next few decades? Only at the same time as the music and video stores, I presume. Stranger things have happened. And are we seeing the beginning of an upheaval with iTunes, et al or just a fad? For its few drawbacks, it’d be interesting to see that change take place. If only to see how it would alter the gaming landscape. I'd got out on a limb here and say that the game and music stores of the future will evolve into some kind of community-based hub, sort of like a face-to-face MySpace in which people go for ideas and inspiration, and to share their likes amongst others rather than just a place to pick up a CD. It's an idea at least, although one we won't see for a long time, if at all.

Where do you get your ideas from? It's a common question to ask any designer or artist in an attempt to draw out their influences or highlight their originality. As far as games are concerned, though, should we really expect more of the former and less of the latter?

With games being the last of the large entertainment mediums to hit the streets, they've got something of a reputation for mainly cannibalising from another source: movies. Developers voraciously create games based on films, usually of the action or sci-fi genre, derivative plots structured around a playable framework.

But that's only one part of the overall picture. Gaming also has a knack of copying itself. If one successful idea makes it into market, a dozen more will follow in its wake. Sniper rifles get made famous by Goldeneye, now every gun title has one. Max Payne does slow-mo Bullet Time (that, too, obviosuly copied from The Matrix movies), and everybody else wants to put that as a feature on the back of their box. It's testament to the togetherness of gaming as a one-for-all community that such idea-cribbing is so prolific. Without now getting bogged down in the minutiae of copyright law and what concepts a developer can or cannot take from another, I'd assume such homages are encouraged for the betterment of gaming as a whole. After all, it's not the plot and settings that (usually) get copied, but the playable features: the over-the-shoulder camera from RE4, the slideshow adventure format of Myst, or the shield recharge system of Halo. If it's in one good game, it'll definitely be in another one very soon.

Back to originality again. If narrative-based games take their influences for other media, it must be the abstract games that are truly unique. Games like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Asteroids and Pong. Basically, those very early titles, influential in themselves, but beholden to no predecessor. OK, we could get into an argument as to whether they're based on any other worldy influences, however the fact is that those kinds of games are the origin of our genre, residing at the base of the huge gaming family tree.

With such a proliferation of features stemming from the gaming's historical foundation and from other mediums, it's not much of a push to say that there is nothing new under the sun as far as games are concerned. Games don't directly influence other media, it only works the other way. But that's a sweeping statement to make (where does Dance Dance Revolution fit in here?), and besides, even if we were to qualfy it, it doesn't matter: it's not about citing your sources but about perfecting what you do with them. Ideas are only as good as how they're executed. Done well and we don't care.

Here's my tip of the day: when you're reading a hundred day blog, and you're in the final stretch, don't upset the balance by moving house and having very limited access to a computer. The usual service shall resume tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a short list of recommendations.

Go to the Home of the Underdogs - My favourite abandonware site. It's full of such PC gems as System Shock, Dungeon Master, Stunt Island...and, quite literally, more! All fully downloadable if you can get over the slightly illegal hump and the increasing realisation that it probably won't come to Xbox Live Arcade (although stranger things have happened). A shame it hasn't been updated for over a year - it'd be sad to see it go. It can also subject your computer to horrific pop-ups if your browser software isn't up to date, so be careful.

Listen to the Games for Windows magazine podcast - I spoke about the 1UP Yours podcast a while back. This is from the same publishing company, but with a PC gaming bent. I was prepared to knock this before listening myself because, well, it's a PC gaming podcast, but the team are funny, enthusiastic and able to turn the world of flight sims and RTS games into something interesting. More than that, they have the ability to go off on a bizarre and hilarious tangent at a whim, which makes it all the more listenable.

Or you could listen to the PC Gamer UK podcast - And that's only once a month, so take your time. Rumours of a PC Zone podcast probably aren't unfounded.

Play Samorost - What year am I living in? I know it's old but it's the first great quick and free game that popped into my head. If you haven't played it, play it now!

Finally, listen to this guy, he knows what he's saying:

I've been writing a few articles every now and again about my gaming history. Now would be a good time to finish it off, so today let's talk about my first leap into the world of the PC.

Unlike the glory days of the Amiga, where the machine's ubiquity made it easy to find another kid who had one, the PC's lack of popularity as a games machine at that time made it tough to do so. All of the few experiences I had on it, were through the meagre collection of games installed for leisurely moments on a parent's office PC. I seem to recall that the first couple of PC games I ever played were Space Ace and some kind of ASCII graphics platformer which felt unlike anything I'd ever played before. Still that was enough to satisfy me. Indeed, what turned me on to the PC was how different it was - its EGA/CGA/VGA graphics and its soundcard beeps were whole world away from Commodore's purpose-built machine. That and the fact that its DIY ethic brought out the tinkerer in me - I've never been one to dive under the bonnet hardware or software-wise, but DOS gave me a sense of control that the Amiga never could. It seems silly in these days of XP that trying to get a game to run by editing the autoexec.bat was as much a part of the appeal as actually playing them. Yet to know that this was a computer that could be tweaked to perfection appealed.

That was the main reason I migrated to PC as the Amiga's day in the sun came to an end. I bought a cracking desktop 486-33Mhz from Escom for an obscenely large amount for my age, something I got over by promising to pay my mum back with the money I earned from my two paper rounds over the next year. And while history neglects to remind me what the first game I actually played was, that period was definitely a good time to jump on that bandwagon. Over the next few years, a string of big releases would shape the PC as a viable gaming platform: Doom, Ultima Underworld, Ultima 7, Dune 2, Theme Park, Magic Carpet, Descent, to name but a few. It's hard to pin down, but those games had something special that no console could match.

That time also coincided with the introduction of two of my favourite magazines, PC Zone and PC Gamer. Regularly did one of those mags stave off boredom reading it during my early morning paper round. I became quite skilled at walking without looking ahead back then, I must say. Those mags, also, were a great source was out there, at least until my friends caught up with the inevitability that the PC was here to stay.

Still, it wasn't long until I fell onto that slippery sloping of upgrading. First was probably another stick of RAM to get Command and Conquer working, then a CD-ROM drive for the upcoming multimedia revolution before turning my hand to a regular complete system overhaul every few years, and the eventual sky's the limit purchase of a new-fangled graphics card. You can take it from there.

I know this is a little brief for the amount of years I've owned a PC, but it's impressive that a machine that's changed and evolved so much since those days of DOS and Windows 3.1 is still the same beast underneath, and that reason  means it's not really something I see myself abandoning anytime in the future. Its bloodline means a long lineage of games that still work today on a modern PC (with a bit of luck and a few patches). That, and the fact that it's the home to so much free stuff, that it's impossible to run out of things to play if you have enough money for a net connection and no more. PC, I salute you.

You are the most powerful being in the galaxy. You've slayed a thousand goblins. You've stamped on a million spiders and silently assassinated a cabal of corporate tyrants. Now forget all you've learned and do it all again from the beginning.

Even the greatest journey starts with the smallest step, as profound new-age types are prone to say. Likewise, each and every game in which you earn experience starts with your character at a lowly level 1. Underpowered and weak as a kitten when combating anything but, er, a kitten, the game gives you no choice but to go out and start earning your stripes. The world is yours, but you're not quite ready for it. Time to learn. And you'll do so quickly, clicking up fast in those first few hours since the amount of points required for early levels is relatively low. A painless process, but one that we have to do every time we want to become a hero.

So why are we not sick of this sort of thing? Why not down tools and howl in angry protest at the next RPG that forces you to run around your village killing rats and delivering rings in order to earn some leather leggings and a healing potion of lesser damage? Well, for starters, it's satisfying. To earn that little bit of progress so quickly feels good to the achievement part of our brains. It spurs you on to greater things when you see how easy it is to get better. In fact, it's almost ritualistic - we're happy doing because it's what we expect. That also leads to the point of why we have to do it. Effectively, those basic levels are a tutorial, easing you in gently, letting you learn the ropes while remaining true to the story; it's what a good game should do.

But we've seen it all before. Why not just let us skip ahead to the main course? Why not, indeed. While we have that system in place, however, it's worth mentioning that the best sort of RPGs would use that time in the single-digit levels setting up your character's adventure. Baldur's Gate, for instance, turns your idyllic village errand runs into eventual tragedy, spurring you on into the world at large, and giving you a narrative reason to get better. On the other hand, you've got Final Fantasy and almost every other Asian RPG which, while often containing the same kind of tragic event to spur you on, rely on rote levelling up as an artificial barrier for progression rather than a reason. And it all makes less sense when you have to level up again in a sequel. Whereas Baldur's Gate 2 let you import your old character or start anew at a higher level, the two follow-ups to Gothic pretend you've forgotten all those great skills you learned and ask you to start the self-made protagonist from scratch. Despite all that you've accomplished, it jars somewhat with the overall heroic saviour you're meant to be.

So while the idea of being a young buck in an idyllic lifestyle, their world shattered apart by a cataclysmic event that only their destiny can prevent will never grow old, the underlying illusion of fighting the weakest to face the strongest might just be in need of an overhaul. The standard rats -> snakes -> wolves -> goblins -> trolls -> dragons level of progression is already starting to feel stale. Why must the mightiest warrior kill a hundred meaningless rats to justify doing in the dark overlord. That's not experience, that's wilful rodent genocide. We need a way in which learning how to be the best distinguishes itself from an abstract rule like the amount of things previously killed. At the very least, to show that killing a boss monster is more a matter of skill and technique and not on the time spent grinding. And when that happens we can start sorting out the mid-level doldrums - level 32 and 134 358 XP to go? Oh God.

You are the most powerful being in the galaxy. You've slayed a thousand goblins. You've stamped on a million spiders and silently assassinated a cabal of corporate tyrants. Now forget all you've learned and do it all again from the beginning.

Even the greatest journey starts with the smallest step, as profound new-age types are prone to say. Likewise, each and every game in which you earn experience starts with your character at a lowly level 1. Underpowered and weak as a kitten when combating anything but, er, a kitten, the game gives you no choice but to go out and start earning your stripes. The world is yours, but you're not quite ready for it. Time to learn. And you'll do so quickly, clicking up fast in those first few hours since the amount of points required for early levels is relatively low. A painless process, but one that we have to do every time we want to become a hero.

So why are we not sick of this sort of thing? Why not down tools and howl in angry protest at the next RPG that forces you to run around your village killing rats and delivering rings in order to earn some leather leggings and a healing potion of lesser damage? Well, for starters, it's satisfying. To earn that little bit of progress so quickly feels good to the achievement part of our brains. It spurs you on to greater things when you see how easy it is to get better. In fact, it's almost ritualistic - we're happy doing because it's what we expect. That also leads to the point of why we have to do it. Effectively, those basic levels are a tutorial, easing you in gently, letting you learn the ropes while remaining true to the story; it's what a good game should do.

But we've seen it all before. Why not just let us skip ahead to the main course? Why not, indeed. While we have that system in place, however, it's worth mentioning that the best sort of RPGs would use that time in the single-digit levels setting up your character's adventure. Baldur's Gate, for instance, turns your idyllic village errand runs into eventual tragedy, spurring you on into the world at large, and giving you a narrative reason to get better. On the other hand, you've got Final Fantasy and almost every other Asian RPG which, while often containing the same kind of tragic event to spur you on, rely on rote levelling up as an artificial barrier for progression rather than a reason. And it all makes less sense when you have to level up again in a sequel. Whereas Baldur's Gate 2 let you import your old character or start anew at a higher level, the two follow-ups to Gothic pretend you've forgotten all those great skills you learned and ask you to start the self-made protagonist from scratch. Despite all that you've accomplished, it jars somewhat with the overall heroic saviour you're meant to be.

So while the idea of being a young buck in an idyllic lifestyle, their world shattered apart by a cataclysmic event that only their destiny can prevent will never grow old, the underlying illusion of fighting the weakest to face the strongest might just be in need of an overhaul. The standard rats -> snakes -> wolves -> goblins -> trolls -> dragons level of progression is already starting to feel stale. Why must the mightiest warrior kill a hundred meaningless rats to justify doing in the dark overlord. That's not experience, that's wilful rodent genocide. We need a way in which learning how to be the best distinguishes itself from an abstract rule like the amount of things previously killed. At the very least, to show that killing a boss monster is more a matter of skill and technique and not on the time spent grinding. And when that happens we can start sorting out the mid-level doldrums - level 32 and 134 358 XP to go? Oh God.

So much for episodic gaming. Which is something I would say going by the examples of Half-Life: Episode Once A Year and Sin: (No More) Episodes. For them, the glorious future of regular, new content vanished in poor criticism or overambitious perfectionism. They didn't really take off before they stalled.

There is, though, that example of episodic gaming done right. Step forward Sam and Max who managed to get a regular series of episodes out there quickly and efficiently. Admittedly, that did involve a little too much recycling of assets and some saggy comedy material, but the sentiment was there and I can only guess that they'll welcome bad feedback as a chace to improve and turn it around for the second season.

But there's no happy medium just yet, not one where things work out fine, at least. Episodes are either too far apart or released too quickly and either option can compromise the integrity of the whole idea. It's a shame as I still think the idea is sound in principle.

There is, however, another solution, and that's to split a full-price game into internal episodes. It's something we'll be seeing the results of pretty soon: both Alan Wake and Alone In The Dark's single player experiences follow an episodic structure. The games are broken into chapters, with a self-contained resolution and cliffhanger within each one to both compel you to move on and to not overwhelm you with an epic story. In this sense, gaming is cribbing something from the successful TV model of Lost, Battlestar Galactica, et al, instead of its usual Hollywood delusions of grandeur.

I suppose the question of why do this in one package instead of releasing it episode by episode is rather a simple one to answer: it's always more pleasurable to own the boxset than it is to just watch individual chapters. That way you can play as much or as little as you like. The plan as I see it, is to make sure that by chopping it into self-contained bits, the player who make get bored easily can feel as if they're making headway - it's always a frustration when you're stuck in the middle of an interminable FPS without an end in sight. Then again, is this something of the Emperor's New Clothes? After all, we already have episodic gaming: at the risk of sounding facetious, they're called levels. This is, however, something that's, if not new, then different. Bringing games under that episodic banner allows a talking point we wouldn't normally. And for that reason alone I hope Alan Wake and AitD do well for themselves.