Greetings from the Rook Islands

I've managed to spend about 27 hours in the world of Ubisoft's Far Cry 3 up to this point and just when I thought the game had shown me all it had to offer, it pulled something new out of it's bag of tricks. Far Cry 3 drops you off on the Rook Islands as Jason Brody, some rich, young douche bag who has unwittingly gotten himself captured (along with his rich, young douche bag friends) by south Asian pirates/slavers/drug runners. Jason escapes his captors and with the help of an oppressed native population, begins a journey to rescue his friends and retake the islands. All the while Jason actually grows as a character, which while a foreign concept to most FPS games, is par for the course in a game like Assassin's Creed, which Far Cry 3 draws heavily from in more ways than one.

The game play format for Far Cry 3 will be familiar to anyone who has played through Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed games. The player is dropped onto a map that is largely covered by a "fog of war" and that can only be removed by climbing towers in order to get a bird's-eye view of the area. Each uncovered map section has various side missions and activities that are available once uncovered and after a few hours of play it's easy for even the casual player to have tried each of these activities. For the average player I assume the pacing is rather even as the main story takes them from one island section to the next and frequently offers breaks wherein side missions can be obtained and animals can be hunted to craft new equipment. For the hardcore explorer type like myself, I spent much of my first 20 hours uncovering every section of the northern Rook island, liberating every pirate-held camp, and crafting every item available. To say that I've been playing this game "methodically" would be an understatement. The only thing that forced me to move the main story along was the fact that large sections of the RPG-style skill trees are locked by mission completion. You would think even the main mission would be boring to me by this point (having bought, fired, and customized every non-unlockable gun in the game) but I love the AC-style of open world game and as an explorer I'm a huge meta-gamer too. I would often partake in the game's existing challenges such as liberating a camp (killing all the bad guys) without being seen, heard, or having an alarm raised, but I also created my own challenges such as doing to the above using only the bow and arrow. Still (truth be told) by hour 24 I was starting to hit a bit of a wall.

With the southern island locked to me and naught but a few relics left to uncover on the northern island I finally set about progressing the rest of the main storyline. I was on the set of missions that take you to "Badtown" on the eastern half of the northern island, which had some interesting objectives beyond just killing pirates such as using a flame thrower to burn pot fields. Novelty aside, I was still just doing "shoot the bad guy" missions and each mission was more or less a self-contained experience. It was the next set of 3 or 4 missions that acted a shot in arm for me however. Having found that one of Jason's friends had been sold to a ne'er-do-well in the aforementioned Badtown, I embarked on a set of missions to bargain for his freedom. The bad guy wanted me to obtain some ancient knife that had been lost on the island centuries before by a Chinese conqueror. What followed was a chain of missions that (while still having the Assassin's Creed meets FPS feel) threw a heaping portion of Uncharted into the mix as well. I was still killing the occasional pirate, but I was doing so in cave systems and ruins that opened up to entirely new set pieces ranging from the rusted skeleton of a WWII-era boat, to an overgrown subterranean temple-like structure. The experience of this very interconnected mission chain reinvigorated my game play experience, both reminding me that I had only scratched the surface of the game's main story, but also showing me that Far Cry 3 still had new challenges and experiences in store for me. For a game that I'm already quite fond of, I find myself looking forward to the next 20+ hours with renewed vigor.

The Final Zlam

Bands come and bands go, and it seems that the closer you get to the local level the greater that churn becomes. Making a livable career out of making music is a huge undertaking and one that even for full-time touring bands doesn't pay much. There comes a point in the life of many bands where a decision has to be made as to whether people want to continue putting the effort into making music or pursue other options. While some bands may linger around and play a show from time to time without putting out any new music, others often feel it's better to just call it quits and hang up the guitars. The latter is a decision that Austin's Zlam Dunk has made and they'll be playing their final show along with Equals and The Couch at Red 7 tonight.

If you've read any of my articles here and on OVRLD this year, then you've likely seen me write about Zlam Dunk before. Back sometime in April I realized that after living here for three years I hadn't really been exposed to much local punk music outside the burgeoning garage scene. I took to bandcamp.com in order to search for the kind of punk and hardcore I was into and among my first crop of finds was this energetic, danceable, but totally hard group called Zlam Dunk. I immediately took a liking to their 2010 LP "Nobel Ancestry" and as luck would have it, they were going to be playing a show just a couple weeks later at the Beauty Ballroom. Zlam Dunk played last that night on a bill with Searcher, Goldspine, and Boyfrndz and by virtue of the fact that the Beauty Ballroom is not a venue with much walk-in potential and that the show was on a Thursday night, there were maybe 15-20 people tops milling about by the time they played. Despite this fact, the guys played their balls off and I knew then that I would need to catch them again.

Following the early May release of their "Balcones" EP I saw Zlam Dunk several more times over the summer, sometimes playing to small crowds and other times to big. No matter who or what size the audience was, Zlam Dunk always left it all on the stage or in the case of lead singer Charlie Day (especially during the cowbell breakdown in "Ghostwoman") out in the audience as well. During every show I was up front getting my dance on, pointing my fingers, and singing along. Yeah I liked the music, but the energy of the show was what drove me. It's one of the things I love about punk music. When I'm out in a crowd and it's sweaty and loud and there's adrenaline in the air, I feel alive and to have that experience with a local band all summer long was a great time indeed.

Am I sad that Zlam Dunk are calling it quits? Of course I am, but these guys need to follow their dreams and if that means something other than entertaining my 34-year-old punk ass, well then I respect that. At the end of the day I still live in the music capital of the world and while bands may come and go, I've got my pick of the litter. For now I'm going to keep spinning my Zlam Dunk albums and make sure I enjoy the hell out of their final show and remember that sometimes it's better to burn out than to fade away. If you dig danceable punk music or just want to see what these kids are all about, come on down to Red 7 tonight. I’ll be the guy in front, having a great time.

Objectivist Lessons

This kind of shit makes me sick! People shouldn't have to deal with this kind of thing at all, suffering because of something that happens due to no fault of their own. It's first, second, and third hand experiences like this that drove me to become a Socialist, to understand the need for a leveled playing field to balance out the inequities emergent in all power structures.

Libertarians and other objectivists always argue against social safety nets by describing those that would be supported by them as lazy. We constantly hear comments like those by former presidential candidate Herman Cain that presume that there are jobs out there for people willing to work for them. If that's the truth then why is it that people who work to get a job and continue to work once in that job can lose that job due to no fault of their own? In an objectivist world aren't those the people who should be rewarded for their constant efforts?

The Truth is that for all their breast beating the objectivist philosophy was simply never designed to apply to anyone beyond ones self. They can say how people who work at it will be rewarded, but they neglect to mention that this is only if they can avoid the constant roadblocks thrown in their way by others seeking to secure their own positions first. In the objectivist view gains are privatized, trickling up to those who claim their right to glory over others due to their position in the hierarchy and the only socialism they know is how to spread their personal failures to those below them who were never at fault and who probably worked their asses off all the while.

Thoughts on The Secret World

I've put about 3 hours into The Secret World free weekend now and I think that's about all I need to invest. When I asked some other developers what they thought of The Secret World I got back an answer that I've heard before in regards to other games: "well, it has some interesting systems." For game developers this is roughly the equivalent of "well, she has a nice personality" in dating. You want to be nice, because there are redeeming qualities, but it's just not the total package.

My take on The Secret World is that I can see what they're trying to do, but ultimately I don't find much of what's going on compelling. I dig the idea of the horror angle and I want to become engrossed in it, but (at least early on) those aspects of The Secret World are just too thin for me to grab onto. There may be later areas of the game that better sell the otherwordly aspects I'm looking for, but there's little early on that sells the "secret" angle of The Secret World and that Lovecraftian idea of strange things being just on the periphery at all times is what I came here for. When it comes to MMO's I'm an admittedly tough audience. I think the genre is stagnating by following expectations of WoW-like subscription numbers and fear or misunderstanding of new business models and lack of innovation is the price we're paying. When push comes to shove, The Secret World just doesn't innovate in a way that gets me excited to play and while that's my take, I do have to admit that it's a solid game and I'm sure there's an audience out there for it, just not me.

Meta Madness

I saw this linked off of the Penny Arcade Report today and given my already public feelings on Metacritic and how we use it in game development, I couldn't simply remain silent.

Every game developer should be appalled at the notion of using Metacritic scores as the basis of a hiring decision. Maybe Irrational is just looking within that select (and lucky) caste for this position, a Design Manager is kind of a big deal gig after all, but regardless we need to take notice lest such requirements become common practice. I've worked on games that should have gotten higher Metacritic scores, but didn't and I've worked on ones that I knew were going to under perform. In both cases, there were maybe 5 people at the studio who could have done anything to change that fate and even then, it was a crap shoot.

Glorifying Metacritic scores within the game industry is only going to end up burning us in the end. We need to understand that Metacritic scores represent correlation and not causation. The scores don't drive sales, it's the factors that should exist to garner those scores that do it. What we need to understand however is that those factors don't always directly translate to the scores. I realize that an argument can be made that judging the relative quality of a game by it's Metacritic score is at least somewhat fair, it is not at all a fair however to use that same criteria to judge a developer; there are too many other factors that go into what makes a good developer and most of those are not and cannot be reflected by how the product performs on Metacritic. Let's look at this another way. Let's say you're applying for a public relations position somewhere and on the job listing it says "must have at least 500 Facebook friends" ... because someone who is in PR has to deal with people and therefore should have a lot of friends. Sure there's some correlation, but by and large the one thing has little to do with the other.

I've been in game development long enough to know that job listings usually represent a company's most pie-in-the-sky ambitions for the position and that when push comes to shove a guy with excellent qualifications and shipped titles with only an 80 on Metacritic could totally land that job. The point is that this is a stupid road to begin going down. We're already judged by our number of shipped titles (a value, that changes drastically depending on the types of games you work on) so why add even more arbitrary nonsense values into the hiring process? If you ask me, anyone using Metacritic as an exacting measure of a developer's quality simply isn't doing their homework. This industry is stressful and tough enough without having to worry that you're going to be judged for employment based on a Metacritic score that is largely beyond your ability to influence.

DISCLAIMER

The views expressed on Plenty For All are purely the opinions of Brian J. Audette and are not at all affiliated with, representative of, endorsed or supported by BioWare, EA, it's shareholders, partners, or subsidiaries.

Declarations and Independence

Looking at my Twitter and Facebook feeds today is making me ashamed to call myself a "Liberal". All I seem to see is people using the 4th of July as a launching point to to attack conservatives in one way or another or to just generally let our displeasure with the state of the union be known.

I know we're all groaning at the fair weather patriots and the conservative nut jobs who come out around holidays like the 4th of July and remind us that many of the people who proclaim their love of America the loudest also do so in ways that embarrass, disgust, or scare us the most. I know that our gut instinct is to distance ourselves from these people as much as possible so as not to be lumped in with them. I know that our ideal America is very different from theirs and when we hear them hoot, holler, and proselytize we naturally want to disassociate ourselves from them and their ideas. The fact of the matter however is that both sides love America, regardless of the gulf between our views and if there is one thing we can celebrate over everything else it's that we're allowed to have and express those views openly. I won't fault anyone for disagreeing with the views of non-liberals and doing so with as much cynicism and vitriol as they like, but the 4th of July isn't the problem and neither is the idea that is "America".

So before you post your next cynical screed or sarcastic comment on flag-waving, hot dogs, or some yokel's idea of what the 4th of July and America are all about, take a breath and think about what this day is really celebrating. 236 years ago a bunch of people got together and told one of the most powerful nations in the world to get shoved. They declared their independence and started off on the incredibly rocky road toward building a nation. It's a road we're still on today and while we may not always agree with the people we're on the road with and we may not always agree with where the road should take us, can't we all agree that the road itself is a good idea?

Thoughts: Moonrise Kingdom

Does anyone else feel like Wes Anderson is just going through the motions these days? Moonrise Kingdom was good, but it just felt like it was a paint-by-numbers version of how to make a Wes Anderson movie:

• Wide-angle shots ... check
• Cross-section cutaway sets ... check
• Symmetrical compositions ... check
• Vibrant, deliberate color palette ... check
• Semi-detached yet resonant dialogue delivery ... check
• Looks/sounds/feels like it's set in the the mid 60's whether it actually is or not ... check
• Slow motion scene set to music that punctuates turning point in the plot or a major character moment ... check

This isn't the first time I've been critical of Anderson. The first time I saw both The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited I didn't think I liked either of them very much, but as time went on and the movies sank in, I grew to appreciate them a great deal. I don't expect Anderson to ever make a film as brilliant and resonant as The Royal Tennenbaums again (you'd have to be a robot not to be moved by that film), but I kinda feel like he's just phoning it in on Moonrise Kingdom.

Maybe it's that the film isn't for me, maybe it's a movie for tweens, but I never connected with any of the characters and so the film just became for me a series of Wes Anderson directed scenes that (while amusing) had little impact. The only character I really felt anything for was Ed Norton's scout master and only then because he got to a point where he had something to prove. The bare scraps of plot for all the other characters never really go anywhere, but I don't end up caring because I was never properly introduced to them to begin with. Even two leads and their apparently star-crossed young love are neither properly introduced nor built upon in any meaningful way.

In the end, Moonrise Kingdom feels like a Wes Anderson picture puzzle. All the pieces are there and they fit together to make pleasing enough image, but it's not something you're going to frame and put on your wall. When you're done with Moonrise Kingdom you'll forget about it and move onto something else. Maybe Anderson has gotten too wrapped up in his own style or maybe Owen Wilson (who was not involved with the writing of this film as he has been on past Anderson projects) is a bigger part of the Wes Anderson equation than I previously gave him credit for. In either case, Moonrise Kingdom was entertaining, but forgettable in the long run.