Planet Mat

Our System, Our Structure, Our Illusion

2011-12-17T19:41:00.003+10:00

This poorly-edited, amateur documentary that eventually gets incredibly preachy, and in the most hopelessly heavy-handed way simply doesn't know when to quit... is in all actuality the most articulate overall critique of our world I have ever seen.

It will never win an Oscar or any other film-making accolade because it is aesthetically repulsive and poorly crafted.

It will never be recommended to you by anyone over polite conversation because it's taboo by it's very nature.

It won't even be violently opposed, or banned, or repressed because it's claims are so outrageous and so far removed from our normal way of thinking that it renders itself mute.

However, even after admitting all this, Our System, Our Structure, Our Illusion remains the best documentary I've ever seen.

World Parliament

2011-09-19T18:12:00.000+10:00

After having been exposed to two essential influences-

George Monbiot's inspiring book The Age of Consent -A Manifesto for a NewWorld Order

and

Ben McLeish's Zeitgeist interview with Richard Morley of the Molecularism movement

I've come to fully appreciate the need for a world parliament, especially since the three great crises facing humankind are global in nature- Environment, Economy, and Energy -we'll need a global body to address them.

And that's not the United Nations, sadly. (George Monbiot completely demolishes the UN in his book mentioned above, while Richard Morley ariculates an excellent understanding of the alternative to this as a three branch world government made up of Representatives, Experts and the People themselves).

I was most interested by how you would go about representing the entire population of the planet so I made a rough image based on population size. See pic below.

If I have time I would like to rearrange this image so that all the countries are arranged according to their geographical location (for instance all the African countries next to each other, etc).

I have a lot more to say on this, but I'll leave that for another time...

Grayson Sanders 2012

2011-08-10T20:56:00.002+10:00

Can we please FINALLY get some Progressives in the White House? Just sayin'...

YouSuck - A program I'd like someone to make.

2011-02-27T07:18:00.000+10:00

After the slow boil we've all experienced of YouTube's increasing persistence to prod their ads into every orifice of their site as they can, I think it's time for someone smarter than me to code a local program to cut out their annoying bullshit. That's why I created this...

Here's my blurb to it: (It's on the image as well)

YouSuck
Take only what you want ...and leave the rest on the internet
Wouldn’t it be great
to watch YouTube videos
again and again
without having to download
the very same videos
again and again?
Or download the video again
simply because you resized to fullscreen?
Fuck, that’s annoying.
And wouldn’t it be
awesome
not to see absolutely
any ads anymore?
...like the ones that pop up
5 seconds into it. Oh yeah.
Whoever thought of that little gem
is a major ass hat.
And how about removing all the comments,
and the buttons, and the view counts, and all the rest of the bullshit?
Well, now you can, with YouSuck.
Take only what you want ...and leave the rest on the internet.
YouSuck is a bullshit filter.

Run the program and it will read
YouTube’s html code without
downloading anything.
YouSuck will then download
only the movie
to your local hard disk
for you to watch
once its downloaded,
and then anytime after.
When the space on your hard disk
reaches 20 GB* the oldest
movie gets written over, and so on.

If there’s a movie you want to rescue,
simply drag it into the column beside it.
It’s that easy.

YouSuck allows you to download or
access any YouTube feature you want.
Download only titles and movies,
or allow it access YouTube search engine.
It’s up to you, and that’s what’s cool about it.
And whatever you do download, you only download once
with no ads, no comments, no bullshit.
How fucking awesome is that, eh?
Go to YouSuck.com and grab the motherfucker now!

If you're a coder, and you like this idea, let's make it happen!

Here's a before and after (remember, the after has no ads, pop ups, or on screen comments)

(Before YouSuck)

(After YouSuck)

HOPE Tanning Lotion

2010-05-11T22:48:00.005+10:00

There. My hat is now in the political ring.

UPDATE: There's plenty of reasons why I feel this way, some of which verge on the comedic (like appointing a fat, ex-Burger King advisor to the position of Surgeon General) but this image is for Omar Khadr, a 15 year old child, both shot in the back and shot in the head (which he lost and eye from) when being "detained" by the US, has remained in Guantanamo Bay without habeas corpus for 8 years, which included abuse of torture, who has now- out of desperation for some kind of freedom -is now pleading guilty to war crimes. This is two years after Obama promised to close Guantanamo, and didn't. How's that Nobel Peace Prize feel right about now, Mr Obama? Weighty, I bet.

Tablets, Magazines and their GUIs

2009-12-20T13:07:00.016+10:00

While tablets are heralded as the newest next big thing in the gadget world and print magazines are struggling to find a sustainable reinvention of themselves as content becomes ever more digitised I thought I would have a quick rant to encapsulate where things are at right now.

This has been prompted by a recent and extraordinarily brilliant video demonstration of a new tablet/e-magazine UI, which also serves as a flawless example about how to communicate ideas properly. Bonnier does both with style and genius. Take a look...

Mag+ by Bonnier

Essentially what we're looking at is Bonnier's excellent candidate for how the eventual electronic magazine format would operate. This is independent of the device, since the UI concepts here could be translated to any multi-touch tablet quite easily, however I am more impressed by the way they have effortlessly explained their concept.

About their concept: When I am looking at the person using the [mock-up of the] device I get the sense that reading a magazine with the Mag+ interface would feel a little claustrophobic after a while. I would want to be able to glimpse everything in the same way someone would quickly flick through a printed magazine. (This same feeling of claustrophobia exists in First-Person Shooter games like Call of Duty where the screen offers only a limited version of our own much larger field of vision. You get the sense that you want to stretch the edges of the monitor much wider apart). My suggestion to Bonnier here is to provide a way the viewer can zoom out to see the articles side by side. In a similar concept done for Sports Illustrated their solution is what they call a "Flip View" which can be seen at 1:08 mins into the below clip.

I very much liked Bonnier's solutions to reading an e-mag, including the way articles went right right to the edges, but to alleviate that feeling of claustrophobia the viewer could do the following: By dragging two fingers from the top the view zooms out the further you drag your fingers down the page eventually revealing all the articles side by side. Essentially, this is the table of contents. When you've zoomed out to a distance where you are comfortable you can scroll left/right, then click on an article to zoom back down to the original full-page view.

The "warming atoms" concept Bonnier has invented and thrown into the mix of ideas for multi-touch displays is as inspiring as it is simple. It's one of those ideas that invokes the reaction: "Of course!", and reminds me of similar creative uses of these devices in-built sensors like the iPhone's "shake to undo" feature in their SMS (whereby you physically shake the iPhone to undo your recent mistake).

As impressed I am with their e-mag solution I believe that this is essentially yet another way previously successful business models, like magazines, are molding (re: contorting) their forms to fit into the continuous explosion that is the internet. It is basically like whittling down a square peg to fit into a round hole. Chances are emags will eventually look like the websites they are trying to distance themselves from (in order to remain a viable business model) and current websites will start adopting similarities to e-mags, but that's just the perpetual cross-pollinating evolution of design for you, I guess.

Courier by Microsoft

This really surprised me. Not because of its pure-form innovation, or it's elegance, but because it came from Microsoft. In my really not-so-humble opinion I believe the Courier changes everything. Essentially the Mag+ concept could carry over to, and be seamlessly incorporated into, Microsoft's 2-screen Courier. (I.e. Flipping through articles scrolls the article on the right screen to the left screen). However I am particularly struck by the way the device's design limitation of its central spine has been cleverly incorporated to become a positive using the "tuck it" feature (at 1:08 mins into the video below)...

The overall achievement of the Courier is how cleverly, and how much, it has re-invented existing concepts, in a strange way, by going back to what people are comfortable with about printed books, journals and diaries. There's an in-built familiarity there that the design is brilliantly exploiting. (It reminds me in much the same way how the Wii controller looked very similar to what people understood as a television remote control, which allowed for a much broader acceptance of the device). Below is the second [deliberately] leaked video of the Courier...

What you're not seeing in any of the Courier videos is the touch screen keyboard being dragged up from the bottom of the screen. We're lured into some deceptive idea that the Courier is completely stylus-driven. Not so. When we eventually see the on-screen keyboard we'll know that if we tilt the courier on it's side it can become exactly like a normal laptop (if you ever need it to be one). Kind of like this...

I'm a big fan of the OLPC and it's intended sequel (pictured above), if only by the principle of it alone- especially its elegantly simple Sugar UI. I doubt whether the OLPC will ever reach the lofty goals it first set out to, or the kudos it really deserves, but I see it as the non-profit version of Apple. Go hard.

Playing the devil's advocate for a moment: Could the trouble with being able to have so many ways you operate a Courier, or Courier-like device is that it might easily become a mess of pull-up/down/sideways options, screens and functions? It may become so convoluted by its muli-dimensional access to everything that the user experience could very well lose itself as a substantive experience. Let me explain... If our icon-littered desktops are the "face" of our computers, we can recognise it because of this. Our task bars anchor us. Tablets on the other hand are like being inside a Swiss-army knife. I believe we need to make sense of where we are in the virtual universe of options that exists at the ends our fingertips. In a way, we need to see our Operating System, and I believe we are starting to lose that the more UI evolves. (Am I wrong about this? Am I showing my age perhaps?) Whether this is a non-issue or a genuine point, here are two ideas that may help ground our interactive experiences in the future...

1. We need an elegant hub. A home screen that can cleverly and intuitively guide us to all applications and features of the OS and the device itself. A starting point to everything- customisable and always familiar.

2. A clever file management system. We see too often the work-around solution to our mounting piles of data: a search engine. Although useful, search engines are a bandaid fix to the problem of organising our "stuff". Most of the time our data gets folderised or backed-up into oblivion, along with all of their well-intended duplicates. To be able to see our files in a way that we can easily understand and then organise all our system's content would go a long way to providing a helpful sense of user-orientation.

(I'm working on solutions to both of these dilemmas at the moment)...

What we see with the above videos is a strong direction where the overall gadget convergence is heading. The only point of contention is size. Do I want something small and phone-like, laptop-sized, or a hybrid-size between the two? If I were to pick a book out of my book case that represented a size I felt most comfortable reading- that would be it.

The Apple Tablet

I have a hard time believing that Apple will be able to match some of the incredible innovation we've been seen coming out of Product Development Labs lately. (What's ironic here, if we're to be truly honest about it, is that most of these innovations got much of their initial boost from the innovations of the iPhone). However, as much as I am a Mac fan, I can fall into sharp disappointment at the rate at which Apple introduces the plainer variety of improvements to their products. They seem as slow to upgrade as they are innovative, and almost as stubborn- see my continuing plea for sensible iPhone features here. For a few years now I have always thought that Apple would retain the edge on innovation. That they would always be one step ahead (at least), and that they would be the safest bet as far as purchasing choice and brand loyalty, but now it seems- with the expansion (or explosion) of the Information Age- this may not be the case after all. I'm genuinely not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Just for fun, I've included some notable ways printed media have fought back their inevitable fate...

The Esquire Augmented Reality Issue

A terrific and ultimately unsustainable attempt at embracing the future. And now for a diametrically opposite point of view, here's The Sun's clever and sarcastically witty bite back...

The "Newspaper" by The Sun

This charming ad highlights some of my lighter concerns with tablet concepts. For example, the task of reading for long periods of time on a tablet, and reading in the direct sunlight isn't the same as with printed media. Let's face it, if you're competing with real magazines then you're competing with the leisurely way I can read a folded magazine in my hammock, and in the bright warm glow of New Zealand's morning sun no less. A newspaper doesn't require batteries and I can read it (and preferably) with the light shining directly on it. I am aware that OLED technology uses far less energy, and that advancements in battery technology like in the new MacBook Pros can yield a far longer battery life, so I'm not too bothered by those elements, but I'm wondering if there could ever be a dual-system of screen technology (like the original OLPC) which could change between backlit mode (colour) and ebook mode (black & white) but using OLED technology instead? Perhaps the "front cover" of our new dual-screen book-like tablets could be a dedicated reader-friendly third screen using the black and white e-ink instead? That would actually be rather cool. :)

However, and to conclude my rant, in some small insignificant way, printed media will have one ever-lasting edge over any new advancement in technology that threatens to replace it... you can't roll up your fancy-pants new iTablet and swat a fly with it, can you? No, you cant.

Mat Brady

Do Us A Flavour!

2009-06-10T10:03:00.007+10:00

Smith’s Crisps are running a competition at the moment called ‘Do Us A Flavour’. Simply come up with a new flavour for their chips (with an accompanying image) and you’re in with a chance. This is my entry…

When I first saw the competition ad on tv my immediate thought was Pumpkin flavour, which my flatmate watching it expanded to Butternut Pumpkin, which prompted me to think of Butter Chicken- the one I stuck with. I was then a little disappointed to see that on their website they have two guys thinking of joke flavour combinations (like Lettuce & Liquorice), one of their random suggestions being… Butter Chicken. D’oh! If my idea had only been that and not a sexy Indian chicken to go with it I would have abandoned the idea, but I carried on regardless- mostly because I genuinely think Butter Chicken would be a great flavour for a potato chip, but also because I wanted to experiment drawing in Flash- something I've not done before. I like the result, I think it’s pretty funny, I learnt a few things on the way, and it was fun to do, so whether anything comes of it or not, it's now a new post for my blog. Huzzah!

Cheers,

M

The now even newer iPhone ELITE!

2009-05-19T23:37:00.009+10:00

This is my updated iPhone design.

Thanks for all of your previous responses. It has been remarkably overwhelming, in a good way. :)

So why the update?...

When I saw the LG Versa's Game Controller something clicked. I now believe a duel-sliding front face would be the most obvious and elegant solution to integrating game controls to the iPhone.

I have enjoyed other peoples attempts on how to do this, but (no offense, Jesus) I think this has nailed it. :)

Two quick notes on the design...

The keyboard has changed!
The new keyboard is not ideal, but it at least uses the entire length of the phone now. I think it's too complicated and looks ugly, but as far as physical keyboards for phones go, this isn't too shabby. And best of all, you can hide it away when you're done with it. :) (If you know of better physical keyboard designs feel free to send them to me)

The camera still zooms out!
While I would prefer no moving parts, or at least no exterior moving parts, I think it's important to put the best camera possible camera into the phone as you can. This, unfortunately still means a 3xzoom and lens shutters to cover the lens when its inactive. These features all use moving parts. If you have any ideas to improve this, be it leaps in technology or just clever work arounds, I'd love to hear them. :) (To pre-empt, I loathe with a passion the manual covers that slide across camera lenses. Tacky!)

Lastly, I must say that the reaction to the last iPhone ELITE image was nothing short of spectacular. Thanks so much to everyone who intelligently contributed in the comments section. Whether you enjoyed it or despised it, your insightful comments were much appreciated. Thanks!

Mat Brady

Team Fortress 2: The Mat.B Update

2009-05-11T19:56:00.048+10:00

I'm a big TF2 fan. Love it. But y'know... I find myself loving the art direction a little more than the game itself- mostly because I'm a crap games player. These young kids today have it all over me.

So while I've been in love with the game's art style I thought to have a crack at designing one of its characters... (The rumoured 10th character).

I doubt however Valve will ever take up this idea, nor do a 10th character at all, but anyone keen to do a mod with me- step right up -taking into consideration that I have absolutely no other talent than drawing pretty pictures.

Kudos must also go to my friend (Scar From Lion King) who helped nut out some of these ideas (the Spy section is all his)

And now enjoy this completely fake Valve update... :)

1. Meet The Sparky

He's basically a Nikola Tesla version of a Ghostbuster. The general idea is that a Sparky would be a middle ground between a Pyro and a Heavy, but have unique abilities from the entire team.

The Electrocutioner

The Electrocutioner is a comparitively weak weapon, however it's unique characteristics make up for its lack of firepower. It can destroy Spy's sappers from friendly Engineers' machines, or it can destroy enemy Engineers machines. The beam will also attach to a disguised Spy at a more limited distance than a normal enemy, and won't reveal his disguise even when being electrocuted, but the beam acts like a giant arrow pointing and saying: SPY! The beam won't attach if the Spy turns invisible. Trust me, though, the Spy will get his own back when the Sparky's are duelling, but more on that later.
The beam will damage both the player and the enemies only when fired in water. Allies remain safe unless Friendly Fire is turned on.

(NOTE: Upgrades to the Electrocutioner will have Chain Lightning (mulitple enemies at once) with a wider field of fire, but with a weaker voltage).

(Update: Some very clever individual has just made a faaaar better version of this at Polycount. I insist you check it out).

This is what The Electrocutioner's beam would look like in-game...

And here's what the secondary fire looks like when charging up...

And here's what the secondary fire looks like...

(NOTE: The Ball Lightning is as fast as a Soldier's standard rocket, but more powerful, and will heavily damage Engineers' machines).

INSTRUCTIONS ON USE:

SPEED: The Sparky's beam will slow you down if you're hit by it, but only slows you down to a lesser speed. You'll never slow to a stop. You lose 20% speed when being electrocuted. A Scout being electrified is about as fast a Medic.

SPARKY DUEL:

When two Sparky's clash their beams will link (think the wand battle with Harry Potter and Voldemort at the end of Goblet of Fire) ...and thus begins a tug of war.
If the Red Sparky stopped his beam (or if his ammo ran out) the Ball Lightning would be propelled towards him at a speed relative to the power of the Ball Lightning. A largest sized Ball Lightning would be propelled faster than a rocket, the smallest would be slower than a Demoman's grenade with the same kind of shortened trajectory.

If the original duelist has died during the duel, or abandoned the duel, the duelist's who has been in the longest will be whose beam the Ball Lightning will travel along next, and so on. Duelists can enter or abandon a duel at their discretion. With people entering and abandoning a duel constantly will make the direction of the Ball Lightning more erratic and unpredictable.

Multiple duels (with multiple Ball Lightnings between them) would attract each other, and when in closer proximity, join to form one large duel (and one very large Ball Lightning). A ball lightning will have a limit to how large its physical size can grow to, but not its intensity. There would come a point that no matter which side won the duel, everyone would die.

Some final thoughts about the Sparky...

The Sparky would be the character a newbie would play with because they don't have to aim well, and it's got a satisfying special effect, however because of his unique abilities he'd have the depth a star player would be able to utilise.
His major strength is that he is electric, and that makes him cool. And dangerous.
His weakness is that he would very easily be automatically locked into a duel whenever another Sparky is waving his beam around. It would be very easy to get caught in the trap of waving your beam around willy nilly like you're all that.
His other weakness is that his equipment is constantly humming, buzzing, whirring and clicking, so, along with his lights and noises, there is no way he can ever sneak up on anyone. Stealth is never an option for the Sparky.
In a match, the Sparky contribution is a highly disruptive one. Well-layed plans, or entrenched scenarios would be blown apart with the introduction of a Sparky. They would be as annoying as they would be highly-useful. A well-balanced double-edged sword ...or nipple clamps.

2. The Sniper's Bear Trap

Even though I thought of this completley by myself (honest), I later found out there was a steam forum post about this very thing- then I found out that they have a secret model of a bear trap in the game. Even so, I shall continue on regardless, if for no other reason that I've already drawn some pretty pictures. I introduce to you, the Sniper's Bear Trap!...

Instructions on how to use your new Bear Trap...

3. A View To Stab

This idea isn't mine. It belongs squarely to Carlos Lin (AKA. Scar From Lion King). Basically, whenever you play the Spy and you choose your Dagger you go into 3rd Person Perspective. Simple, but brilliantly useful.

4. TF2 Babes

This is where I fall completely on my face. Not only did I think I was soooo original when I first had this idea, but I started it over a year ago and still haven't completed it. Even now, with this new thrust of ideas, it still remains unfinished. I'll put up this image as a teaser for the completed image, which hopefully tantalise you enough to come back (and motivate me enough to finish it off). Nothing hi-res for now...

Cheers,

M

Designing a 'news-filtering' website

2009-03-09T04:32:00.006+10:00

I was emailed from out of the blue by a news filtering website that was about to go public -veri.com- and, based on my other reviews in my blog, they asked me to give them constructive feedback. What follows are some high concepts about, not just their site in particular, but about news-filtering sites in general. I've asked their permission to blog my feedback and, bar some side comments about minor bugs and issues, here it is...

(My re-designed news filtering website for Veri.com)

FEEDBACK

I can't comment on the technology behind Veritocracy as that would take a period greater than two weeks to really study, but I've commented extensively in other areas.

When I looked at your site I immediately made comparisons to digg and google news, and since you won't be able to escape this comparison it's better to embrace it and go from there. It appears as though Veritocracy is a blend of these two sites, but I don't think it elevates itself higher than either, mostly because it doesn't take advantage of its strengths. But more on that later...

ABOUT DIGG
Digg has the enormous advantage in that it has established itself and, in this time, has expanded its product to include video and image results. People know what digg is, how to use it, and what it can do for them. It does Amazon-like recommendations, and has a strong user-based community. It appeals to a younger, more frivolous youtube crowd. It's mainstream, popular, and garish. It's very easy to go there with noble purpose, but end up wasting time.

ABOUT GOOGLE NEWS
Google is a diverse behemoth, yet the news arm of its website is as impressive as it is bland. It resembles what you would imagine an information-dispensing machine to look like, rather than a beautiful and intuitive news filter that is a joy to interact with. It's simplicity to a fault. More so, it is purely functional, but it delivers its intended function better than anything else on the web.

ABOUT VERITOCRACY
Veritocracy cleverly groups stories together into focused collections of interest. The way it packages information is its strength, but it looks clunky and ugly in a blog-like way and doesn't provide pictures or video like its competitors. Veritocracy also invites you to write and submit articles, but who's got time to write an article about every article they read, let alone go to the extent of copying and pasting urls to sites that it should pick up in the first place. What's wrong with a comments section? And what is a veritocracy anyway?

This is what I would imagine you'd expect to get from the blogosphere's quick reviews / comparisons...

(Veritocracy website - unchanged)

I do believe veritocracy's strength is the way it groups information, and in that sense it has a natural appeal to a more intelligent crowd. Readers, basically. People genuinely interested in news, but more so to get a broader perspectives on specific subjects. People who want to gain a deeper understanding of an issue rather than be satisfied by the first article they see. To appeal to this group and present yourself as a serious university/business-level news filter (and then broaden out from there) I believe will be key to creating a long and happy future for veritocracy. Unless you can introduce images and videos though (along with a sensible and accessible comments section) I doubt you will ever be as popular as digg, which, conversely, means that digg need only to incorporate key features of veritocracy to then make veritocracy far less valuable, if not redundant. This underlines the need to distance your appeal to a specific audience. There's the digg crowd and then there's the veri crowd.

I never got into digg because I never found it appealing as a source of information. I personally use iGoogle with gadgets from The Guardian, BBC, Google Technology, etc, for my immediate news and will visit dedicated news sites like crooksandliars.com or guardian.co.uk for a strong stream of focused news when I want to indulge. The bulk of my news information though, comes from a mixture of podcasts (of democracynow/ countdown/ rachelmaddow/ realtime) or online videos from the same shows' websites- mostly because I listen to them as I work.

As mentioned, I genuinely like the way veri collates its news stories and could see myself giving veritocracy a good period of time as my regular first news site to visit, which could possibly establish itself as that if it were to fulfill my news-gathering needs (producing focused clean easy-to-navigate information, be visually satisfying, and continually evolving. The fact that right now I don't have a news site like this tells you there is room in the market for veritocracy, and therefore opportunity). Unfortunately there's no escaping the fact that a good part of a site's satisfaction, for me at least, is visual. An image goes a very long way sometimes, but I'll address this further into my feedback. Right now, even without the images, Veritocracy has areas where it could be improved- so let's get into some of them right now...

VOTING

I don't know why people vote on things. Maybe if I had a personal investment in an article I would vote on it, but for 99.9% of articles- I just don't see the point if I don't need to. I'm certainly not against it, I'm just not motivated to do it myself.

It's like Google Images wanting me to provide keywords for the images it finds, not for my benefit, but for Google's- so that in the end their technology can improve and eventually give me a more accurate and fulfilling user experience. Ok, I get the reason, but on a practical and immediate level I don't feel the need to give it the energy. Same goes with voting on articles, images, comments, whatever. (There are some comments I make an exception for though, but this is because I'm assuming the positive feedback will get back to them- which is very different from voting on an article/url/etc). So my point is: Why would I go out of my way to take the time, even if it's the smallest amount of time, to tick either yes or no, to something. After all, most of the stuff I read is fairly complex, so for me to expend even one thought to simplify an article's concepts down to a black or white yes or no conclusive answer ends up being too much energy for too little reward. What do I get out of voting 'up' or 'down' on an article? I've just finished the article. It's over. The only energy I'm going to expend on it is to close its window. And that's it! From the perspective of Veritocracy- I'm a free loader. A filthy non-voter. A blight on any system designed around the quality of user input.

So how would a website convince me to do something I don't want to do and yet still keep me happy? That's one of the tasks I've decided to tackle. In fact, most of this feedback will be about trying to increase ways people can provide feedback, which can be done primarily by rearranging your User Interface. My self-imposed guidelines here is that any change should either: retain the quality of my overall user experience; or improve the quality of my overall user experience.

It is also important to tell you that this feedback will be completely without restraint or sympathetic in any way to the efforts you have already made. If I was being paid for this feedback you'd get a more tailored opinion, but as it stands, this is free in every meaning of the word. :)

ENERGY RETURNED ON ENERGY INVESTED

What I love most about Veritocracy (visually) is the way it opens up a separate window within it's window, all complete with a tidy drop shadow and a close tab at the top. Lovely. Bravo. I also really like the idea of reading an entire article within this window.

The main problem with voting (and corollary to this- the article's window) is that you really need to keep the reader within the veri window to have the process of voting make sense and not be burdened by clumsy steps of going backwards or as afterthoughts to the event. This is made even more difficult when you get incredibly good articles like this one which divide the article into two pages. You actually need to go to the original article to read the whole thing- necessitating the need leave the veri site (and therefore veri's article window).

This prompts me to think of new solutions (for those that like to vote): Could veri take a snapshot of the window it's going to open up and use this as a thumbnail in a new (small) pop-up window with a ratings bar there. Could this pop-up ratings window close upon the main veritocracy window closing? And be grouped together with other pop-out windows so that the user doesn't have a patchwork of pop-outs over their screen, but just the one with other ratings windows in its history? I'm sure there's some solution there somewhere, and it would be interesting to play with ideas about getting there, keeping in mind never to cross the line where something gets annoying enough to the point where the user goes somewhere else. There is definitely some leeway with users, they'll put up with a little, but not too much. In that space is room to experiment.

Right now, on the current veritocracy site, if I were to vote on an article I had just read in a veri.com window, I have to scroll up to the top of the article, find the small up and down arrows, make my decision, then choose the next article, or close the window to get back to the list of subjects.

That's more work than it needs to be, when all I'm there for is to read about something and, in this particular case, to vote on it. It's one click and one scroll up too many and by only rearranging the UI so that the rating box is at the bottom of the article, or better still- outside the scrollable window- is all it would take to minimise the hassle of this simple task and make each experience of reading and voting smoother.

As mentioned earlier, I'm looking to expend as little energy as possible once I'm done with an article, which usually equates to finding out how to close its window. One of the ideas I played with in my mock-ups is to rate the article in order to actually go to the next article. By that I mean: When you go to click on the 'Next Article' button, the button will disappear, and appearing in its place will be a rating box. Rate it and you get automatically sent to the new article. It's the same for the Previous button. Rate the article to perform a function. This does not happen if you want to go Back however. If you click Back you are simply taken back. (There's got to be some free way out at least). It may sound annoying, but it's the same amount of clicks- one. You rate the current article to go to the next article and the only tax you've been given is a momentary deliberation about something you've just read- therefore you're already primed to rate it anyway. (And this, coming from a non-voter such as myself, is really saying something. In fact, it would actually be saving time for people who do vote, and promoting people who don't vote to vote, so... Huzzah!)

MOCK-UPS

I have strung together a few mock-up images to explain my ideas much more clearly, however these will not be what I would consider "definitive". They are first steps, albeit visual steps, towards various UI solutions. The are not necessarily the solution itself. The idea I would most like to emphasise through these images, however, is one principal concept: If the user can comprehend how the tech underneath works just by looking at the UI then s/he will more likely use it to their maximum benefit. Ie. If I understand how the website works, then I can help it do what I need it to do better- to help me better. Win:Win. Right now I don't know how the tech underneath Veri.com works.

DISCLAIMER: It's also very important to note here (again) that these mock-ups are completely unrestrained. Be prepared to see your website wildly different to the one you've nurtured and bravely allowed me access to. So with that let me now walk you through what I've come up with in the last few days: (Deep breath...)

(Login screen)

(Think of this as a slide show). You'll see a few immediate differences in my design, but the first thing you'll probably notice is the...

My iPhoneCTO Interview

2009-03-02T04:22:00.009+10:00

My iPhone redesign, called the iPhone ELITE (see previous post) was chosen by the website 9to5Mac as making it to their list of "10 Great iPhone designs". The website iPhoneCTO caught wind of this and displayed my design to flag the article containing the other nine. (Boy, how I regret putting that stupidly cheesy image of me on that image now). It seemed that my design resonated with the iPhoneCTO website mostly because of the slide-out keyboard I added. So much so it seems that they went ahead and asked me to do an interview for them- Wow!

My iPhoneCTO Interview: Part One & Part Two

I even mocked up a new image for them as well. (See above). Not too provocative to Mac fanboys, is it?

In the interview I talk about crazy future phones (check out The Pomegranate), a strange trend in people designing their own products (see Trendwatching's article on the people like me: Customer-Made) and what Apple might do to bridge the odd gap now created by their innovative designs which now divide the needs of consumers with the goals of the company.

It's a hoot. :)

NOTE: The last two links won't appear in the interview as none of the links I included in the original transcript of the interview appear on their website. I do urge you to check out The Pomegranate (for a laugh) and the Customer-Made article.

The new iPhone ELITE

2008-12-28T15:39:00.015+10:00

UPDATE: A newer (and better) version of the iPhone ELITE is found here

Original post below...

I think my email to Mr Jobs says it all really...

"Hi Steve,

As you can see I've made a few design suggestions to your iPhone.
I've held off getting an iPhone until it gets a better camera. (See pic)

Let me know when I can get rid of my N95.

Cheers,

Mat Brady"

Cheeky? Maybe.

Honest? Absolutely.

Offensive? I hope not, but really... we already know he's brewing away on something like this, if not, much better. What I have here isn't in the realm of the iWish (see previous post), it's merely the next stage of the iPhone's evolution that I'm deliberately prompting.

I make this plea, this dare, in order to expedite the iEvolution so that I can finally get rid of the old N95 clunker I have now and play with something decent. Sure, my N95 may (technically) do a lot of what this 'ELITE' fantasy dreams to do, but the the Nokia UI that binds all these functions together does about as good a job as duct tape would.

I was never a Mac fan until a few years ago when I bought my 17" MacBook Pro, and since then I've bought a 24" iMac for work, and all I need now is an iPhone and I'll be a complete kit. But truth be told, my N95 is still far superior to the iPhone for me because it has a real camera to take quality photos. This key feature allows me to do a 3-day trek through New Zealand's lush South Island, staying in the remotest of locations, and all I need to carry for the journey is my N95. It's been great like that, and I've appreciated it as a camera more than I ever have as a phone. But I've been teased with what a phone experience could be from the iPhone for almost the same number of years I've had the N95 and it's now time...

Time for the new iPhone ELITE, Mr Jobs. Whaddya say? :)

M

Update: The slide-out keyboard has generated the most response from any of my suggested features. The general consensus stands firm on two opposing viewpoints:
1. Most people would prefer to have an optional slide-out keyboard,
2. but don't believe Apple will ever "go backwards" and release anything like this.

In response to one comment (Mike) I have created what might be an answer to a third-party product which could solve this dilemma. (Pictured below)

Introducing... the iWish

2008-05-05T10:30:00.019+10:00

I call this the iWish because I wish Sony would get their act together and improve the PSP. So many people are doing such amazing and innovative things these days, and yet the only innovative thing to happen to the PSP since 2005 was that it got a little slimmer. Whoopedy-frikkin-doo-dah-day.

But I didn't make the iWish image to talk about that.

I made it so I could talk about THE FUTURE OF GADGETS!!! ...and, in particular, about two main trends taking place:

All types of hand-held gadgets are being integrated into one- becoming a single do-all device.
The need for a single User-Interface to link all the functions of this "do-all device" is beginning to emerge, but has yet to be created.

This post will discuss the limitations of designing a do-all-device and then explore the exciting possibilities of an omni-UI.

ALL GADGETS ARE BECOMING ONE

Eventually there'll be simply one gadget that does everything. Period. Or to be more specific- everything related to information. This uber-device won't blend your cocktail, trim your hedges, or replace your electric shaver, but it will do everything else besides. It's your phone/ internet/ GPS/ camera/ tv-tuner/ projector/ gamepad/ media-player/ umpc/ scanner/ RFID/ universal-remote-contol/ game controller/ flashlight/ laserpointer/ etc, etc... in one. I call this do-all device an Omni-Gadget (if only to put an air of godliness around the idea). The iWish is a whimsical glimpse of what an omni-gadget might look like.

If you're wanting to design a do-all-phone, then you only need to wait for the next iteration of the iPhone, as you won't get much better a design than that. But if you want to design an omni-gadget, a device that does everything, then you've got to make some design sacrifices- and here's why...

If an omni-gadget actually really genuinely does do "everything" then it should also play games. And properly. If it does, (and it should if it is to meet its own definition) then this automatically adds the need to hold it like a controller, not to mention adding about 12 points of input to go with it (buttons, triggers, sticks, etc). You'll never be able to play Grand Theft Auto on an iPhone. You will have to have a full amount of gamer user inputs in the final omni-gadget design regardless. This will inevitably make any design of an omni-gadget a clunky, unweildy, brick-like behemoth. If you didn't need to play games, then you could essentially do away with everything and simply have a touch screen and nothing more. ...However you would still need the screen to slide up to reveal a space for keyboard/trackpad functionality firstly because typing on a touch screen isn't very good, but also because the device will be used for so many different applications that it will require a trackpad/keyboard area. So that's another design hindrance. Then we run into the size of the screen itself. Since the omni-gadget will also act as a UMPC (ultra mobile personal computer) the screen must therefore be big enough to make this a happy experience. And if that isn't enough, the omni-gadget will also be your main photo-snapping and video camera as well, not a secondary one, so it needs to have an overall depth to the device large enough to house a decent photo-capturing mechanism inside it. This would include a zoom function of at least x3 capability. This, with the thickness of the sliding screen and keyboard, already makes it quite obese as far as gadgets go. Aesthetically, it needs to make an even further sacrifice by leaving a space large enough near the front panel for a web cam so it can make video calls. All these are restrictions to design.

An omni-gadget must include:

the buttons of a full controller
as big a touchscreen as possible
a keyboard
a decent sized camera and zoom
a webcam right next to the screen

...and yet still be small enough to fit in your pocket. ...That's tough.

The best design solution I've seen that goes towards satisfying all these requirements and still manage to look pretty is the PSP (minus the camera and webcam of course). And, indeed, the PSP is a very sexy looking thing. When it first came out it was eye-poppingly beautiful. Well done to Sony. The PSP provides a good starting point to what an omni-gadget might look like, which is why I ripped it off with my iWish image. Ironically though, a PSP is not the ideal design for playing games. The ergonomics of holding it for long periods of time is less than ideal. From a purely ergonomic perspective, if you cut a gamecube controller in half and put a screen in the middle, that would be the template for the perfect ergonomic games-playing omni-gadget. The trouble is that this design would be as ugly as sin. There is actually a way to have proper controller ergonomics, still with the PSP design, but I wasn't able to show that here with the iWish, however I hope to do so with further iterations of the concept. So, using the PSP as a starting point, squeeze in all the extra functions, like: Camera, GPS, wi-fi, infra-red, keyboard, webcam, SSD (solid-state drive), phone connectivity, etc, and this would be... an omni-gadget. Huzzah!

(NOTE: You wouldn't put this thing to your ear when you get a call though, as my friend assumed, because that would look ridiculous. You'd either speak into the mic along the earbud's cord, or speak at the screen as you would a friend on skype infront of your PC. It's not a phone. Besides which, bringing an entire device near your head in order for you to operate it is probably a concept that won't be around for much longer, historically-speaking).

A lot of people will ridicule me about integrating a keyboard into the design and accuse me of out-dated thinking. Keyboards are old-tech, they'll say. Well, besides my practical qualms I have with touchscreen-only devices, the keyboard in the iWish image is meant to represent a keyboard that also doubles as a trackpad. (A touchpad-keyboard? A track-board? A keytrackpad?) Imagine a trackpad three or four times the size of the trackpad on your laptop. Now imagine this over-sized trackpad with keyboard buttons cut into it. If you press your finger on a key it will depress like a regular key on a keyboard- making a satisfying click! But if you run your finger across the keys without pressing any of them, then it acts as a trackpad. This allows for much more functionality and flexibility that was previously unachievable.* At the side of the keyed-trackpad you would have a dedicated toggle key to switch between this surface acting as a keyboard and acting as a trackpad. It is another example of gadgets becoming integrated into one another... and goes towards the argument of not relying on a touch screen as your only input device. (Besides, if a keyboard is as undesirable to look at as what Apple wants us to believe, nor used all the time, then making the screen slide over it is the perfect design solution. 'nuff said).

I may also get a lot of criticism talking about an omni-gadget with such a large part of its design being dedicated to games. As you can see from the extra icons around them, these gaming buttons are multi-functional depending on what the omni-gadget is doing. It means that you can not just:

play games,
but also have full functionality of a digital camera,
and be able to interface with any games console (so you'd always have a spare controller when you go to a friend's house. (Only possible with two thumb sticks (A wasted opportunity from Sony)))
and these extra game buttons also enable the device to act as a universal remote control converting the gaming buttons to volume, channel, play, pause, etc.

So these extra gaming buttons enable the device to be much more. The tragedy is that it makes the final design look comparitively ugly next to the iPhone. I struggled with the idea of not including gaming buttons until I realised that this is like comparing apples to oranges because an omni-gadget isn't a phone. Right now the iPhone can do a lot, and the new version (iPhone 2?) will do a whole lot more. But the iPhone is still, essentially, a phone that does a lot, but it isn't every gadget all in one. That's an omni-gadget. Different.

Think of a phone as something you would take with you most places that can do extra things adequately.

Think of an omni-gadget as something you'd take with you everywhere- trekking, on research assignments, lectures, work- and be able to do everything brilliantly without compromise.

Using this comparison a phone and an omni-gadget seems to be a different product. In a lot of ways I see the omni-gadget as being a version of that utopian sci-fi vision of the future where everyone has a personal robot who does everything for them. It's their friend, their servant, their teacher, and their connection to the Global Brain that links all knowledge. (Which will most likely end up being called Google Brain).

Design-wise, some people will then ask: If there are so many gaming buttons around the screen, then why put 6 more buttons along the top? (A, B, C, 1, 2 and 3) Originally it was to fill up the dead space on either side of the iSight camera, but when it came time to thinking about ideas for the omni-UI (not shown) I felt that even with the best UI in the world... you would still need the reliability of a dedicated button for your favourite or most used functions. A lot of iPhone users won't be able to (or won't want to) understand this, but real buttons are essential, particularly when you need to get to a function without actually looking at what you're doing. I want to be able to not even look at the device and still be able to access its main functions. For example...

Let's say there's an event that needs a photo as quickly as possible. You're at an international press conference and take the wrong door. You enter and see George W Bush with his hand down Condi's pants! It's a photo for both the history books and the tabloids. They both look up as you grab your omni-gadget. The last thing you want to do is look at what screen you're in and find where the camera icon is. By that time George's hand is out and it's only you who knows the truth- not the world. So ideally, you want to hit a button dedicated to the camera as soon as you grabbed the device from your pocket, so that by the time the camera is pointing at them you are ready to take the shot (and let the World know what everyone has suspected all along).

At the end of the day I believe the omni-gadget of the future will look a lot like the iWish (except for the UI shown here), and that it will be a tussle between the iPhone clones and the omni-gadgets. This battle will take place on cafe tables and boardroom tables across the world. One person will put down their iClone, the other will put down their massive PSP-like omni-gadget, and it will be the scope of functionality that will decide the victor, not the design. You'll most likely get a version with gaming buttons, one without, and an accessory that everyone will despise that will try to solve the disparity.

ONE UI TO RULE THEM ALL

The UI aspect of an omni-gadget is what fascinates me the most- even though I haven't provided any images of the ideas I have for an omni-UI design in this post. The mock iPhone UI that I placed on the iWish was only meant to be funny, and a little provocative. I don't believe the iPhone UI, as pretty as it is, will be able to cope once more PC-like functionality becomes integrated into iPhones, however the slow crunching of gears when it tries will be interesting to watch. Most likely we'll see many companys' attempts end up as a collection of bits stuck together, rather than a seamless intuitive UI experience. The main reason why I believe this will occur is because of how we currently look at communication. Right now we differentiate between texts, chat messages and emails, and then create further divisions between their sources (Gchat, iChat, MSN messenger, Skype chat, etc). If the gadgets that provide the communication are becoming integrated, then why wouldn't the mediums of communication become integrated also? For example: If a friend wants to send me a written message, and I receive that message, what do I care if it's a Gchat or an iChat or a Yahoo Mail or a hotmail? They are words, and I receive them. That's all I care about. Period. The same goes for voice and video.

Essentially the omni-gadget UI will act as shell for all forms of communication to operate underneath- The user only being able to see the shell. I could have three different kinds of text communications sent to me in three different formats, but all I would see would be simply: 3 messages.

A txt can be as long as an email. An email as short as a txt. Formats defined by their size no longer matter. Nor should data attachments.

If I were to write a message on my omni-gadget and send it with a data package attached, the UI shell would be intelligently choosing the best way to send that information on my behalf- in whatever format- as I'm typing it.

With communication completely integrated by the omni-gadget's UI it means that my device will show me only four types of mediums:

text
sound
video
data (ie. programs)

Stripping down to just four formats will make organising files and information much easier than today's file sorting on PCs. And with future UIs being a mixture of a 2d and 3d interface, file sorting will be easier still. The desktop as we know it today may emerge into something quite different in the coming years- and following on from that, how we use them will change also.

An example of a completely integrated UI in action would be a white screen with a single cursor in the middle. All input is case sensitive. As soon as I type in a word or a number I should be able to see icons appear that correspond to what I may need. Type in a number and calculator buttons and unit conversion buttons appear. Type in a word and icons for search engines, or contact lists appear. Let's say I type in: "Hey, what are you doing?". I touch my contact list icon, and a screen of faces appears. I touch the face I want, let's say Hayley's, and I get prompt: Send / Attach / Cancel. I touch Send and I've just sent this sentence (as a txt/email/whatever) to Hayley, and in just three taps. From this "Info" screen I can access many layers of functionality within the same device.

The understanding that there is so much the omni-gadget can do, yet it's the UI's responsibility to get you to every function as quickly and intuitively as you can means 2 things need to happen:

Dedicated buttons/icons for favourite functions need to be one tap away.
If there is no dedicated button/icon available to get you to a function then you need to be able to get to where you're going as simply as possible.

This last point requires an interface all unto itself, otherwise you'll get the iPhone screen with page after page of icons- which would look messy, and confusing. So without using the smörgåsbord option, yet still be able to get to everything, you would need a Hub screen. From here, in order to contain the omni-gadget's entire spectrum of functionality into one branching tree we would start with five pools of basic motivation:

Camera (Take/Shoot/Record/Collect) Access to the cameras and mics on the device.
Info (Search/Find) Access to the internet, calculator, unit-converter,etc, but with cross-over with other pools of functionality (like Contact Lists, etc).
Work (Sort/Organise/Create) Access to Hubbub- a file sorting and clean-up screen, iProject (more on this later), Office Apps including Photoshop, Data-backup, etc.
Play (Entertain) Access to a Windows Media Center-style screen accessing all media, including games, podcasts, radio, tv, and iProject files.
Contact (Share/Communicate) Access to the phone/vid-phone, Contact List, etc.

Items like the Diary, Time, and technical asides (like battery life and signal strength) are always easily accessible from almost every screen.

Two more ideas...

iProject - This is essentially a Flash-movie maker. With access to more information these days, and the ability to share and spread that information, I believe a public and global self-education system will emerge and this will take the form of micro-docos (small documentaries). These small edu-packs will be between 1 to 15 minutes long and use simple animations, graphs, videos, music and speech, etc, and be packaged as either youtube videos or sent as iProject files. These small education packs have so far been highly effective ways to expose ideas and inspire others. I personally recommend the video podcasts of TEDtalks. iProject would enable people to articulate and spread their ideas as efficiently and effectively as possible from their single do-all devices.

Handshake*- Instead of having a separate profile for Blogger, Facebook, Gmail, Xbox live, Sony Home, etc, why not have an Omni-profile. One profile that collects all your profiles together. You could then share your profile with others just as you would when swapping business cards (except this business card would also have your date of birth, a photo, plus a few other stats). When you meet someone new, who also has an omni-gadget (or a device with an Omni-UI) you could ask if they would like to 'handshake'. You would hit the shake icon, which would send out your signal, and they would do the same. You would then verify that you want to shake with this person. You now have added their photo and contact details directly into your Contact List, along with an annual birthday reminder added into your diary.

CONCLUSION

Originally I started thinking about an omni-gadget when I was sitting with a friend in a cafe in India. An old man came and asked if my friend had the latest Lonely Planet, which she did. As they pored over this heavily-bookmarked 2-inch thick tome, I started thinking about how that thick wad of tourist information could be easily condensed to a digital file and read on an e-reader of some description. Then... I thought about all Lonely Planets collected into one digital volume. Then... I thought about integrating that information database to a wikipedia database, then integrating that into google earth, and what kind of a device I'd use to look at that information on. Then I thought:

What would the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy look like if we were to attempt to make it today?

This thought propelled me on to the idea of a single and indispensable device that would do everything you would need it to, or want it to, if you were to travel the world. From the middle of the ocean, to the densest city, to the harshest desert, to the highest mountain. No matter what country, culture or language. A currency converter, a language converter, a dictionary, and knowledge database with or without an internet connection. From then on I've been engrossed with the idea and have yet to let it go.

I hope, at some point in the future, to make a working 3-d model of the omni-gadget incorporating everything I've talked about here and more. I'm particularly interested in exploring the ideas for the omni-UI.

Please feel free to share with me your ideas in the comments section.

Cheers,

Mat Brady

*This indicates an idea I haven't patented, nor ever will. Feel like using it? Go right ahead. And if, by chance, you have an opening for someone in product development, then by all means look me up. :)

Cloverfield 2

2008-01-29T21:30:00.001+10:00

(SPOILER ALERT!)

(Updated post)

Having just watched Cloverfield -the film that finally outdid September 11 for the biggest Big-Bada-Boom. (Who would have thought real world events would out-Hollywood Hollywood itself?)- this film has inspired me to plot out, with disconcerting ease, the script outline that will be Cloverfield 2...

Cloverfield 2 will have you experience the same event, with the same handycam mode, but through the eyes of a soldier via a helmet cam. If you notice in the first movie all the marines have cameras on their helmets. (Ha!)
The movie will begin at the start of the emergency. The helmet cam buzzes to life with your best mate checking your cam.
The captain tells you to look lively and explains the shit going down in NYC right now. (The captain is a nasty piece of work, and despises you) You're scrambling into a chopper as this is happening. Your camera will be faulty, and will turn off and on with strong blows to the head. This will allow the filmmakers to cut out bits of the movie that will drag.
You (the cameraman) will have another stupid camera-based name like Zoom, or Andy (as in "Andy Cam"- geddit?) and you will be part of a 12 man unit assigned to the NYC shit storm.
As the main character you'll have several cross-over points to the original story with the original cast, and eventually carry the story further than the previous.
There'll be more focus on the smaller bugs in the sequel, and the extra number in your team will be used to have more gruesome deaths and with extended visceral action. (Think 'Aliens').
Since the first one was a very romance-based quest, this one will be much more actiony, and lots more room for comedy as well. Then motivation will be to get back to your girlfriend (who is constantly calling you- your mobile phone and intercom will be crucial story drivers in this sequel).
The conversations you'll have with your sexy, but dumb girlfriend will be hilarious and provide much needed comedy relief. He will constantly placate her and put up with her hounding because he's so horny for her.
You'll act as part of a concerted well-organized military force until the Captain dies early on- the Creature lands its paw directly on him- and this fragments the team.
The ground force will be shattered and bewildered until the tanks roll in -this is where you get your mojo back and hitch a ride on the back of a tank (you'll pass Rob, Hud, and the others in the street- glancing at them briefly) to make a heroic bid to destroy the Creature head-on. This will have a small effect, but mostly just get the Creature's attention, at which time it starts playing Whack-A-Tank and begins throwing the other tanks around. (The one you rode in on will be thrown into the big tv screen at Times Square making a very satisfying explosion -with yet more way-too-obvious product placement advertising).
The Creature approaches and then stops straight over you. You panic, but then see a group of soldiers with RPGs (Rocket-Propelled Grenade launchers) arrive. They fire at the beast while it is directly over you. It seems to do incredible damage, because the monster rears back and screams. Its feet land with a thunderous boom and everyone is knocked to the ground.
Your teammates will think that its dying as it screams again, twisting its head. Just as the RPG guys reload (with the Creature over you) you'll be rained on by bugs (which will be filmed by a news reporter -which is the footage that was seen in the first movie) and you'll need to run and fight your way to safety into an underground car park (destroying several beautiful cars in the process). It's bug mayhem.
Scattered you'll get the message to regroup at an emergency head quarters where they've set up a make-shift hospital (re: first movie). One of your buddies will have lost his hand to the bugs and is bleeding badly.
Your remaining team mates (7 of them, including stumpy) will head down a sewer and shoot their way to the meeting point. There'll be bugs galore, and after a major shoot out three of your team mates will be bitten. Your handless buddy will look like shit, and will explode with wriggling larvae- which are already bursting out with small claws. Your unit treads on them all, then look at each other knowing what will become of the bitten and double-time it to the hospital with the screeches of more bugs on your tail.
You'll be relatively safe, then glance up and see a solitary bug lunge at your head knocking the camera to black.
Your face is the first thing the camera sees again. You just fixed it (and re-established who you are to the audience). There'll be a comment here about how that last bug was killed.
You put your helmet on and see yourselves in the emergency HQ/hospital. The quarantine boys in plastic blue uniforms see the bites on your buddies and tell you to take them to the quarantine area. They're asking a barrage of questions: "When were you bitten?", "How long ago?", etc.
They never make it. One explodes along a corridor wall. You and your buddies start squashing the bugs and the quarantine boys yell at you to stop. They open a cooler room door and drag the body bits in there as the other quarantine boys take the other two away.
You glance in to the cooler room and see layers of mutilated corpses. In amongst them are frozen smaller bugs from the bodies- twitching, fighting the cold.
On the way back you hear someone screams, "Bite!" You see Marlena being taken to quarantine and watch her explode much more clearly than the first movie. Rob, Hud and Lily pass you, panicking.
(UPDATE: You see another person in quarantine that hasn't been bitten, but is horribly mutated. You ask: "What happened to her?" No-one knows. She mutates larger, fights off some troops, and runs away. (Her name is Jamie Lascano- you'll hear more about her in the third movie) -see my post below)
You report to the commander. He's giving orders- talking about the final round of air strikes, and the evacuation of the citizens and military for the Hammer Down Protocol.
A hot female lab-coated biologist is with him and begins talking about the Creature's regenerative powers.
There'll be some dialog here about where the Creature came from and what it's weaknesses are. (My guess is it fell to Earth. (UPDATE: This is wrong, it's a sea creature from Earth) And it's weakness could be the kind of air it breathes- the puffers on the sides of its mouth are to siphon nitrogen from the air and convert it to a nitrogen-based highly explosive gas- which it breathes).
The plan is to get to the safe zone and initiate Hammer Down (a mini-nuke).
Bugs will then fall out of the roof and get the party started again.
You'll be chased through the building. The way to the roof will be blocked. Another way will need to be taken- through the stairwell and then through a vacated floors. The Creature will look into your floor with its huge eye and yell- just to establish its presence for an upcoming scene).
You'll run out of bullets half-way through the vacated floor and be down to your pistol and a lead pipe.
(You may also meet at this point a crazy French film-maker who asks you a bunch of strange questions- his entire quirky movie will be a short film in the special edition dvd).
You, the captain, the hottie and your two buddies reach the building's roof- followed by the most amount of bugs you have seen so far. You all barricade the final door as bugs gnaw at the other side.
The Cloverfield monster walks right past you as a wave of air strikes screech overhead. Boom!
You see the chopper and hail it down. As the chopper approaches you'll get to see the creature almost dying -like you saw in the first movie from chopper- and at the last second you will see it attack Hud's chopper. The Creature will turn to you, huffing, and approach, just as the bugs get through your barricade and attack. One of your mates dies- swarmed by bugs.
You hold the bugs off as the others get on. The creature approaches, the chopper starts taking off, you're still on the roof gunning and clubbing bugs. Your best mate in the chopper calls for you- C'mon! There is a razor-thin escape as the bugs leap to attack your chopper, just as you leap over the building's edge to grab it's landing leg. A bug also leaps and grabs your leg! Just as you grab the chopper, the Cloverfield monster hurtles into the building you were on, which you can see perfectly from your aerial perspective, and takes out all the bugs that have just been attacking you for the last 10 mins (except for the bug on your leg).
The bug on your leg runs up your body and into the chopper causing pandemonium inside the cabin (remember: you're still hanging from the landing beam). The rogue bug attacks the pilot and in the process the chopper is getting closer to the ground (Central Park). It gets closer and closer to the ground as gunfire goes off in the cabin. The commander divesout over you, yelling "abandon vehicle", landing in the trees. You let go soon after and watch the helicopter crash.
You go over and rescue the hottie. And rescue a bag of munitions for good measure. The pilot is dead, and your best mate is trapped in his seat and pleads for you to help him. He has bite marks all over him. You point the gun at him. The hottie tells you- don't. But your mate begs you to kill him. You see the burning of the engine and let the explosion take care of him for you. The hottie (the bag of munitions) and you dive to safety.
After a quick chat with the hottie for more exposition about how to kill the monster, you find the commander wounded.
The Cloverfield monster limps towards you into Central Park, but stops short at another helicopter crash. It stops right over Hud and bites him in two. We see it in clear and gruesome detail.
You help the commander get to a protected safe spot, hottie behind you. He apologises to the other two- I gotta do this -and radios in to initiate Hammer Down. They look over and see the creature limp away.
You tell the commander to wait, and give you the chance to plant an explosive inside the creature's puffer glands. He tells you it's no use, he's going to initiate Hammer Down regardless. Then you make a 9-11 reference and tell him that this city has seen its share of devastation, you just need five minutes. He tells you you've got two- Go!
You actually climb up the Creature's body, onto it's head (your girlfriend calls at this time, but you ignore it) and you cut into it's puffer gland- sticking your hand with the explosive into it. The Creature shakes you off (to a safe distance) and you land in the lake. The screen goes to black.
The cam blitzes back to life- You see yourself crawling out onto the shore with the detonator in your hand. And the creature in the distance. Breathing heavily you say something witty before clicking the detonator. The Creature goes boom, and the explosion expands out in all directions. The shock wave hits you and the screen goes to black again.
It comes to life seeing your blackened face. "There ya go. (exhausted) Gotta keep rolling..." You put your helmet on and walk towards the Creature's ground zero. Then a piece of meat falls near you. Then another. And suddenly it's raining meat- ala the exploding whale- (American ingenuity at its best).
You run for cover which just happens to be the collapsed bridge Rod and Beth are now trapped under. When the meat rain stops you hear a whimper and realized someone's trapped under there. You rescue the two- they're okay, but their camera's busted.
Your phone rings and it's your girlfriend. We hear him try to explain his way out of why he didn't answer her last call when she just tried ringing him (he was on the Creature at the time). Credits roll over this conversation.
(UPDATE) After the credits have rolled we look over to see a fallen building from the Creature's blast. From out of the rubble a now enormous Jamie-Monster gets to its feet, gives a big Godzilla roar to the sky and disappears into the streets of Manhattan. (For an explanation to this read my post below)

And that, in ridiculous detail, is what I think will happen in the sequel. :)

Now a short review...

Cloverfield, for me, was the B-movie I never knew I was waiting for all my life. As much as I realise it's bad, (paradoxically) I can't fault it for being everything I want it to be. It's an extra-cheesey creature romp set in the only place it can be set in- New York- and it is the closest thing I've come to getting a computer game experience on the big screen. To break it down: Blair Witch + Godzilla = Brilliant Rubbish. Recycled rubbish at that. Cloverfield is so perfectly generic and profoundly cliched that there's a respect I am going to have to give to it when I call it a modern-day classic. And yet, at the same time, it's completely disposable. I hate myself for loving it as much as I do, but I can't help but love it. What a fun ride.

Personally, I can't wait for the slew of home-made Cloverfield short films that will be done by all the Star Wars fans that now have nothing to do. Go on, fellas. You know you want to.

M

Half-Life: Episode One

2006-07-01T22:38:00.004+10:00

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MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!
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HALF-LIFE 2: EPISODE ONE POST-MORTEM

This feedback is dedicated to HL2:EP1 and is divided into five sections.
(Episodic Content, Character Relationship, Weaknesses, Strengths, HL3).
FYI: I have completed EP1 along with all other Valve products.

EPISODIC CONTENT
Even though Half-Life has already been episodic with it expansion packs and the sequel, it's first formal episodic content has delivered brilliantly. Well done.

But as exciting as this new step forward has been for the HL franchise, my only concern is what side effect being formally episodic has to its content. Particularly in regards to innovation. Whereas true sequels require innovation, formally episodic content can fall quickly into a steady pattern of only meeting a perfunctory list of basic criteria, and little more. For example: each new episode of any episodic content (of any franchise) will need to deliver on a set of basic requirements to make it a valid and worthwhile iteration of the series (and purchase for the customer):
- A technological tweak (HDR Bloom)
- A new enemy (Zombine)
- A new weapon (flares)
- A memorable experience (Being thrown across the chasm)
- A reveal of the greater plot (Destruction of the citadel)
- A teaser for the next episode (A glimpse of the Hunters)
- All our favourite characters (D0g, Alyx, etc).

HL2 obviously delivered in all these areas. It was not an advance in terms of leaps and bounds from what we have seen before, but it was a sure and steady single step forward. Opposing Force on the otherhand, a mere expansion pack, went far beyond what Episode One did in the context of the above criteria. (And was hailed accordingly).

However this seems to be the true role of episodic content, to dole out the excitement of a franchise in measured steps leaving the role of innovation to the mod community and its official sequels. Is this measuring down also a watering down, or does the industry work better for a franchise in more manic bursts? Time will tell.

Personally I was hoping for one of two things: either a stronger story-driven game, or more new content to compensate. It should be said here that, in my opinion, the atmosphere and experience of HL2 was very satisfying when valued at its parts, but I couldn't appreciate it in the context of the whole because I felt there was a lack of story telling prowess that the first Half-Life excelled at. I go into this later (under the section Weaknesses). So even as I still had a geat time playing both HL2 and EP1, it did end up being a series of exciting events, rather than a cohesive whole experience. For example, being thrown across the chasm was a fun idea, even if the "roller coaster ride" that came diretly after it seemed a tad corny, but essentially this was part of what you paid your 20 bucks for. The other reason was to battle some new enemies and gain more insight into the story left behind from HL2, which had left me with more questions than answers.

This really is enough to sustain episodic content, but the player will always know that any dramatic improvement to the engine, or even gameplay, must come from a completely new game, like HL3 for instance, and not the episodes following HL2. I personally believe you will successfully reach EP3 before players tire from the abscence of anything substantially new (beyond the above mentioned criteria at least) and start moaning for HL3.
The fact is though, that's exactly what I hope you do.

CHARACTER RELATIONSHIP

If you were to read only one section in this letter I hope it is this one, as I think this is the area you place most importance on when crafting a game, and it is what I'm most concerned about when playing a game. It might not be what attracts me to a game to begin with, but it's certainly what keeps me there.

It's true that you reinvented character relationships in the FPS genre with the original Half-Life by using the rudimentary stay/follow command, not to mention the clever use of the NPC's idle banter and their recognition of you as a person in their world, but you certainly accelerated the idea in HL2, and refined it even more with EP1.

You may be slightly disappointed to hear that my greatest character relationship experience during the entire HL story arc was actually from your first game. You may be further disappointed to hear that it was also an experience unintended by your designers. It happened about half-way through the original Half-Life story where I had to get to a main elevator that led me to the surface. The areas just before this had several stranded or hiding scientists scattered here and there and I took it upon myself to rescue these people, each and every one of them, from all of the areas I had access to at the time. I ended up with a group of eleven people behind me. 7 scientists and 4 guards.

It was a great feeling to feel in charge of a group whose safety I was responsible for, and who were trusting enough to follow me and, in the guards cases, even to lend a hand. I had to organise them in stages by grouping them in safe areas while I cleared the area ahead. I also felt a bond with these people, like I was really helping, and I imagined what it would be like if they were bantering with each other, becoming friends and enemies within the group, and each one acting on whatever strengths they had to help- like in classic disaster movies. The opportunity to have real drama in this circumstances was clear. At the end of my rescue adventure I reached the elevator hoping to bring them up and lead them to safety, but alas this never happened because it was never intended for me to rescue them in the first place, let alone all of them. I was hoping that by rescuing a total number I would be rewarded by them returning with back-up, perhaps during a tough boss fight, or even to activate something that would grant me access to a secret area, or make my progress easier in some way. This experience, although unintended, was the most compelling character-based interaction I felt during the entire HL series. It may be of interest to you that I felt the same type of emotional bond in the PS2 game, Ico, only much much deeper.

The kind of emotional bond you're trying to achieve for players with Alyx is not only very different to this, but I'll assert: impossible. The problem with Alyx is that you're not really helping her. She can look after herself. When you do "help" her reach a switch to open a door, you're actually helping yourself. She doesn’t really enter into the player's "need equation". The player must care about Alyx's safety before we can even start thinking of Alyx as a real person (in the context of an action-themed adventure).

The other game, besides Ico, that had a strong character relationship for me was Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. In this game the Prince would bicker to himself about what an ingrateful and annoying woman his female counterpart is (when she wasn't there of course) and that she needed to be tamed like all women, and then he would drop his chauvenistic bravado and admit that he admired her in some way, and then snap himself out of it. Beyond being a hilarious insight into the character's mind, the believable relationship that slowly built up between the two created a relationship that you soon became emotionally attached to, and then wished to preserve in how you played the game. Being a well-scripted, well-paced and well-acted unfolding of events allowed for most of this emotional work to be done for you however. Essentially, the player was forced to follow the motivation of the character they played, not their own, but how much you wished to do this was determined by how much you were affected by its story.

The Prince's love interest, Farah, was very much like Alyx in her tone and temperament and is closer to the type of relationship you're aiming for with Alyx and Gordon. The main problem in creating this kind of relationship though is that Gordon isn't actually a character. He's a ghost without personality, or expression, or voice. Essentially, he is a gun with eyes, and because the gun element isn't valid when relating to Alyx we can simplify it even further: Gordon Freeman is merely a floating set of eyeballs. Period. To ask the player (Gordon) to have a relationship with Alyx is weakened by this degree of minimalism because all a floating set of eyeballs will do is look at what it likes and dislikes and approve or disapprove. And that's as far as the relationship can go. Fairly superficial, really. This may explain why a lot of players approved of Dr Breen's lab partner, Judith Mossman, over Alyx because of simple physical preferences. Eyeballs, it seems, are rather fickle.

So how do you solve this?

I have some suggestions in the last section (HL3) for advanced solutions, but in practical terms (particularly with the limitations of episodic content) my key suggestion is to think like a woman.

Put yourself in Alyx's shoes: Imagine the guy you were interested in wasn't giving you any of the kind of attention you really wanted from him. He's distant. Cold. He has never touched you with his hands, even though you've hugged him. And as much as you try you can't get a word out of the guy. So you do the only thing you can do: You make him jealous.

Why not make Alyx fall in love with another NPC? Anyone but you. Make her new sweetheart a pathetic, but endearing peacenik. An emotionally sensitive guy (everything you're not) and who is a mouthpiece for the soul of the resistance (another thing you cannot be, since you have no mouth), yet he is conflicted with himself because he detests violence (Okay, you hate him). And then engineer events so that, not only do you bear witness to the blossoming of this forsaken love, but you are put in a position where you actually have to protect the guy you now hate. Ha ha ha ha haa… Have Alyx choose whether to go out and help her fancy pants new boyfriend, or to stay on and help you- And get her to choose him. That's got to hurt. But why stop there? There is so much more you can do with this new guy. At the end of the game, kill him, just after the player has approved of the couple, and even begins to like the guy. Be cruel. It works. And in doing so the player is now more emotionally closer to Alyx because they've experienced a wider range of emotional with her. It requires a stepping back in order to move further forward.

Personally I was never truly emotionally invested in Alyx, or her father (even though I had many fond memories of the tv show- Benson). But I did get very emotionally invested in the plight of the citizens of City 17, which made me disappointed that there wasn't an emotionally satisfying conclusion to their plight at the end of HL2. On this point, I also was very opposed to the way these citizens were used as cannon fodder during the game. It cheapened the experience of fighting with them, knowing they have been assigned to my squad with the pre-arranged purpose of dying in battle. This also obviated any emotional response I could have had to them. At least when I rescued those 11 people in the original Half-Life I could be happy knowing I left them alive.

Even though I expected casualties with the citizens of City 17, I didn't like being put in a position where I had to use their lives in order to preserve my own. I realise the scenario in HL2 is that of a civil war, but I wanted to know the people I fought with longer than a transition between chapters. I wanted to know their names, form opinions about them, to remember them next time we met and appreciate their different personalities. And I wanted to ensure that the people who fought with me all survived. Just as I felt during my experience of rescuing the group of 11 scientists and guards in the original Half-Life.

As an example of this in play, imagine there are 4 citizens of City 17 whom you've given names to. Tom, Dick, Harry and Rosanna. If you choose to, they can fight with you during the entire game, right to the end even- if you can ensure their survival. They all have specific dialogue that is recorded for this perfect-score scenario, enhancing the story without being crucial to it. There may even be a specifically orchestrated scene in which one of them dies (Dick) or close to it, simply for drama's sake. But this is a scene that a player, who hasn't bothered to preserve their lives, obviously wouldn't see.

If any of these four dies they are replaced by a no-name stand-in (like the current citizens of City 17) who spout their regular occasional phrases, and the rest of the game is played in this way. If you're a fun junkie you'd lose your core team in the first few battles and the big explosion at the end will be enough to satisfy you. If you're into being immersed in the experience then you'll see that your team survives to the end, and the emotional reward is the enhancement to the game that you've worked to achieve.

WEAKNESSES

The story of HL2 and EP1 both suffer from a disunity of ideas. To explain what I mean by this phrase I'd like to refer to the original game, Half-Life, which had a strong unity of ideas. In the original HL I was introduced to its world (with a train ride) so that I could have a strong understanding of how much things will have changed after the disaster. This meant that I had a contextual starting point to work from. I then made my way through what was causing the disaster, and finally to it's source. It is a clear journey, and the elements along the way make sense to each other, and even strengthen each other in their interactions. I start at one world and end at another, but the elements between make it clear why.

The story of HL2 and the Episode One lack this clear exposition of ideas (and events). It's as though I started reading a book half way through and put it down before I got to the end. For example:

When I arrived at City17 I soon realise it has been invaded and subjugated by the Combine. The problem is I have no idea what it looked like before, so I can't have any emotional response to what it looks like now, apart from my immediate response. Nor do I have much response to what happens to it from this point on. The same applies to its citizenry. I am compelled to help them because they are clearly oppressed, but I don't know what they've been through, nor how much they've changed, nor even who they are as a people. This helps support what I mentioned before about creating a bond with the people you fight with. If more of the NPCs could have been given more lasting personalities, instead of being disposable, it would have provided an excellent opportunity for story exposition and the evolving emotional ties which would have helped deepen the experience of the game.

From the perspective of Gordon Freeman the world of HL2 seems like an alternate reality. I don't know if the Ant Lions are part of this world, or part of the Combine's world, or even if they are related to the incident at Black Mesa. I've never seen the Ant Lions before, even on Xen. Does any character in the game ever explain where they come from?

Another story element that passes without explanation is the dried sea bed. I don't know if this was a result of Black Mesa, the invasion, or global warming.

Essentially, the HL2 and EP1 story elements are floating around without relation to each other. Each element is cool in their own right, but they're not working together. It makes for a great game, but tough to write a story with an engaging narrative.

It's ironic that HL2 is set in a European city, because it provides a wonderful metaphor to encapsulate my overall impression of the HL2 world: It comes across as foreign, and at the end of the day my experience of it is that of a tourist, not a resident. This is the crucial difference between my enjoyment of the original HL, a game that is one of my top five favourite games I've ever played, and HL2, a game that was a stunning achievement, a wonderful and thrilling experience, but just not as emotionally gripping as the first.

(Judging by one of Alyx's anecdotes, the world of HL2 could very well be an alternate reality: Just as I was about to crawl into an air vent, Alyx spoke about how "some days" Dr Kleiner, Barney and I (Gordon) used to race each other into an empty office room via air vents and other means. This never happened. I didn't spend a single day at work with either Barney or Dr Kleiner for this to be possible. The Black Mesa incident happened on my first day on the job. What exactly was she talking about?)

STRENGTHS

I've definitely been very honest in my feedback. As honest as I can be. But I also hope I've been fair, and not harsh. The strongest thing I can praise about HL2:Episode One is that it's more of the Half-Life 2 that I've enjoyed so much in the past.

Or to put it another way, it's more of Valve. The quality of this product is incredible, and Valve has never let us down. Not once.

My personal favourite moments during Episode One are:
When I saw my first glimpse of a Hunter.
When I saw the beautiful pulsating sphere that was the Citadel's core.
Being thrown across the chasm by D0g.
After the crash in the Stalker train.
Seeing the advisors close up as they were being evacuated in their escape pods.
Watching the citadel collapse at the very end.
Blocking antlion hives with car bodies.
The list goes on and on. Each scenario had a signature of cool. It was exciting, tense, and fun. Everything we've come to expect, but with a little bit more.

HALF-LIFE 3

In HL3 I want it to open up to a very blurry image of Gordon. He moves his glasses into frame and puts them on. We see ourselves as him looking into a mirror. We get closer and see the detail of our face. Our hand wipes over our eyes and rests at our beard, scratching it. The face is war weary and heavy with emotion. Gordon says: "You look like shit". We turn a little to see behind us the G-man. The mirror shatters. The room fragments. White light fills the space and we are now hurtling fast through a dark void. We look down at our hands. We see our body, slowly spinning in the air. The player gains control. Pieces of the room float around us. We are drawn to a powerful light. We come to our senses in a steel room. The G-man sits opposite us, "Hello, Mr Freeman". We look down, we are strapped to a chair. We listen, and wait.

Basically I would like Gordon to have a body, and therefore a real-world presence. I want to be able to feel like I really am Gordon Freeman and that when a player hugs me (like Alyx did) it actually means something in relation to the player. Or when I'm on a thin ledge I want to look down and see where my feet are and how close I am to falling off it. I want to push open doors, pull levers, type in codes- with my hand. Even to have Gordon's shadow be cast over the keyboard, or lever, or door handle, that I am operating.

Let's say I'm in a thin corridor and Alyx is just ahead of me. My gun automatically drops when my crosshairs go over her. I get closer- within touching distance. My hand touches her back and she then presses against the wall knowing that I want to pass. And I pass.

To continue the example, we reach an open room. I stand infront of a console that she needs to get to. I'm facing the console. She turns me around by my shoulder and says, "Excuse me, Gordon, but I need to operate this thing." I stand there confused, not sure what she wants me to do. She pushes both her hands on my chest, politely pushing me backwards, out of the way.

Stuff like that. The Namco game, Breakdown, has begun this trend. What this would mean to the implausible idea of Gordon carrying around his entire arsenal is another thing entirely. Personally I think the character elected gun limit is a proven idea, thanks to Halo. Imagine the gravity gun has been modified into a glove. This would allow for, say, a three gun limit (plus grenades) to envigorate the combat experience. When the ammunition is out the default becomes your hand/gravity gun. I like the notion of carefully hanging on to particular weapons, and using Alyx to hold two of my less used ones. This creates an extra dependency on her and keeps things believable. It also provides excellent opportunities for drama when Alyx is separated from me and I'm left with my minimum number of weapons to survive.

And, yes, I want Gordon to speak. Not a lot, but enough to know his personal motivation.

This begs the question however: If Gordon is a full-bodied, speaking, thinking individual, then is this still Half-Life? Or is it an altogether new product? Can the fundamentals of HL evolve with the game's success and still maintain the integrity of the original product? I believe it can. Obviously there are some lines that can't be crossed, for very specific reasons, but I believe the ability to speak does not harm the experience of the game, but enhances it. In fact, it would make the balancing act between story-telling and the action that much easier. Afterall, the in-jokes of Gordon's silence can only stretch so far.

I would also like my second monitor to be a complimentary screen for the action happening in the game. To explain: As I'm playing the game on one monitor, in first-person, on the other monitor I can see a variety of related images. These may take the form of: a roving camera (as if an invisible movie director is filming me); or seeing through the eyes of another character that I send off to get help (like D0g); or it could be a map of my surroundings; or the view from my recently-fired guided missile, etc, etc…

I'd like to be able to drag this view into my main screen as a smaller HUD window (on my suit's visor, if you will)- because I also want people who don't have an extra screen to enjoy this concept. My reasons for requesting this extra screen for the action primarily comes from the need to identify myself as a character existing in and interacting with the HL2 world, and to also act as a constant visual reminder of who I am, what I'm doing and why I'm there in the first place.

Secondary to the reasons for this request are the possibilities it opens for new types of gameplay. With a second screen at my disposal obviously teamwork can be incredibly enhanced. Timing your actions to the other characters behaviour. Even using the map to assign the other character/s to new locations. Or even... to hack a Combine security system and use the sentry guns and other equipment against the Combine soldiers allowing you, by proxy, to navigate Alyx safely through the building. (This is an idea stolen directly from one of my favourite Amiga games: Interphase).

I'd also like to see the ragdoll physics on humans less like a ragdoll, and more like a human. For instance when a Combine soldier dies they fall to the ground in an immediate and discracefully floppy spectacle. I'd like to see a gradation of control if even over a second or two between the point of zero health and the time they hit the ground. I'd also like to see them maintain some elastic tension of their limbs that can keep them in a relatively believable position once limp. Too often I see the bodies of the Combine twisted in positions that are simply not believable, and therefore breaking the illusion of the moment.

It would be wonderful to see the Combine get hurt and limp away, retreating to a med-unit. (Afterall, they were put there for them. Weren't they?) To have the Combine work as a squad more, like the marines did in the original. This was incredibly challenging, and very rewarding when successfully defeating them. Even if the Combine can convert humans to their ranks, it would still make for very interesting combat to see the Combine rescue their wounded.

It's very difficult, extreeeemely difficult for me to stop writing down these ideas, as you have probably already noticed, but I'll fight the urge to continue and stop here.

Gabe, for me to write as much as I have should be an excellent indicator to how much I appreciate and admire your work. Thank you for providing us with such a wonderful experience.

My highest regards,
Mat Brady

Resident Evil 4

2006-06-25T22:21:00.002+10:00

This following letter was printed in Hyper Magazine (Issue 141)

Consider this a Reader's Addendum to your Resident Evil 4 review…

By now you should have bought the higher-priced Collector's Edition of RE4. (How the only edition available can be called a "Collector's Edition" is beyond me, other than to squeeze an extra ten bucks out of every copy). You should have either played a long way through it or completed the game and possibly gone onto a second round (like I did to see what the guns maxed out are like- not much different).

RE4 is a good game executed brilliantly, but does this make it a great game? Even though it's touted as a radical new improvement for the RE series the art still outshone the game design in leaps and bounds. Don't be fooled by the gorgeous attention to detail and the stunning animation and environments, they are all there to distract you from the glaring inconsistencies of the game. I loved playing it. It was fun, but in the end, it was as pointless as its story. Collecting the Red, Blue and Green gems to complete a "puzzle" or to angle the mirrors so that the light hits the switch to open the door is so very very old now, (four games old to be precise) and for a game as realistically gritty and "Mature" as RE4 this clunky Red Blue Green game design is not just a bad fit, it's a kludge. (Look it up).

Somewhere along the way you will ask yourself, how is it that axe-throwing zombie-esque villagers carry around boxes of ammunition? Why do the robed clergy of RE4's creepy creepy cult carry incendiary grenades, yet fail to use them while they lumber up to the barrel of my shotgun? Why do security doors open up when I take a precious item from its secured place? (Last time I checked that's when security doors close).

Or most of all, how can the Merchant that you buy all your new weapons and upgrades from even exist? With all these murderous villagers and cult members everywhere, how does he survive? And moreso, how does he get from where you just left- to where you've just fought tooth and nail to get to- before you did??? The gaps of logic are as horrific as the games content and destroy so much of the atmosphere and suspension of disbelief the art team went overboard trying to create.

To regain the tension and drama promised of the term "Survival Horror" I would have opted instead to lose the Merchant entirely, and with it all the gold in the game (since there'd be no merchant to buy from anymore). Definitely lose the way these simple peasant villagers drop unimaginable amounts of convenient items for you. There are far better ways to drop ammo in a game than this. Please. Also, I would have had more Creepy Cult and less Hi-Tech Laboratories. Did any of the reviews even point out how mindless zombie peasants could have the presence of mind to use electronic key cards and high tech genetics equipment, but then be stupid enough not take cover when you're shooting a machine gun at them? If you want to scare me, Capcom, I mean reeeally scare me, then have the story and game design make some sense at least. For example: It would have been great if you had a 2 gun restriction (like Halo) and Ashley (the girl you are rescuing) was used to carry any extra guns or equipment- then she would have replaced that horribly intrusive inventory screen. The effects of this to the gameplay would have been a much better fit- The more you load on the poor girl the slower she would walk. Asking her to follow you gives you access to more weapons, but also puts her in more danger. So what do I do? Survive on little and play it safer, or risk Ashley's life and get through it easier? These are almost ethical questions! And this is precisely the level of mature game design that needs to be asked of the new generation of games these days. Not the tired standard of being able to pause an enemy mid-attack to go look in an imaginary briefcase of weapons for a more appropriate one. Or at the very worst, asking the player to collect a red gem, green gem, and blue gem, and insert them into holes conveniently gem-shaped. What condescendingly pointless shite. Christ almighty, Capcom, don't be afraid to grow up a little bit, will you?

Now don't get me wrong, if I want fun RedGreenBlue game design then give me Zelda:Wind Waker any day. I'd argue that even it had more sophisticated game design than RE4 does. But if we're talking a new generation of survival horror for the growing main-stream market then for all the great innovations RE4 did have (like context-sensitive areas, etc) overall it still falls embarrassingly short of the mark. Perhaps we will only see a true reinvention of the series when a good game executed brilliantly isn't reviewed as a great game.

Hey M,

You raise some good points, but we can't help but think that Resident Evil is the wrong series to start demanding more mature game design and logical consistency in. For us it just doesn't matter that the villages are full of weaponry, ammo and life curing herbs, nor that the Merchant couldn't realistically get to his shop locations. They're just devices to keep the game flowing smoothly and work wonderfully in that context. By your logic healing yourself with herbs isn't realistic so Leon should only have one life bar for the whole game. And stepping in a bear trap should cripple Leon and not allow him to go any further. That just wouldn't be fun.

We do like your idea about having Ashley carry your excess weaponry, however, and certainly the obtuse puzzles could definitely be improved, but RE4 is first and foremost a game about atmosphere and intensity and we think it does this particularly well. You're meant to switch your brain off and enjoy it!

Moving away from RE4 though, there's certainly a case for more believability in games, but it must always be balanced against ensuring the title is fun. Games have linear storylines for a reason (as infuriating as that may be), and they let you get shot a bunch of times without dying for a reason. There is hope, however, for change and maturation, and many developers are aware of the need to break free of these artificial devices. David Perry outlines some of these things he'd like to see on page 38 for instance, and a game like Half-Life 2 (although constrained to many of the conventions of the genre) built in physics related puzzles as an intuitive part of the game world, as opposed to the inanity of "find the red key for the red door" type game design.

Cam Shea, Editor

Cam missed my point a little. Adding realism doesn't mean getting caught in a bear trap and staying there. That's not my point, but RE4 could have easily implimented some realistic solutions in place of their old ones (which have been inherited from their previous games from as way back as 1997). By doing so would have only made the game better. I'll also add that it would have been more appropriate to the extraordinary effort their art team went to.

My main point can really be summarised as so: Good game design doesn't invent solutions that are preposterous to the reality of the story for the sake of retaining fun. This is a kludge. Good game design invents solutions that stay within the reality of the story, but do exactly the same as the old game devices do, only better since they are in context with the events of the game. There is no compromise on the fun, or the story, when game design solutions do exactly job as those in 1997, only more intelligently/creatively/both. When I see so many of the old devices still being used in games it tells me loud an clear that for all the bells and whistles, there really isn't a lot of creativity in the games industry.

Prince Of Persia is a terrific example of good game design. The dagger of time is clever as a story device and game device which creatively and intelligently solves many of the kludges of the old game genres Prince Of Persia stemmed from. In fact, its harmonisation and reinvention of the platform, adventure and fighting genres makes me believe that good game design ignores genres. And why wouldn't it? Afterall, the term "genre" is really just another word for mold, and the purpose of molds are to create imitations. So what is the most common trend in games development? Imitations. But when someone creates a game with genuine innovation, what do the critics proclaim? That X developer has created a new genre. And so what then does the industry do? That's right... make imitations.

We need to destroy our genres.

(It's an easy prediction to see that in a few years there will be a much larger number of independent games developers who will act as the mad scientists of the games industry. Their role is to innovate on low budget titles (ie. taking all the risk) mostly with proprietory software (mods) while the major games developers immitate the most popular of these indie games in big budget titles (ie. taking no risk, making all the money and giving no credit to the people who came up with the original idea). Re: Gish and Loco Roco.

Gish

2006-06-23T08:17:00.001+10:00

GISH

I enjoyed this game a lot, but I enjoyed the idea more. It was terrific to see such a good idea taken to the next level with Loco Roco on the PSP.

Loco Roco has that friendly Zelda: Wind Waker art style about it that you can't help but smile as you play it. Loco Roco has definitely lived up to the idea that was obviously inspired by Gish, even if the Gish creators weren't able to, however that may be more to do with budget than anything else.

But still... there was something very cool about the nasty ball of tar that was Gish. Perhaps it was the way his eyes stayed perfectly level with the ground as his body moved around him. Or maybe it was his perfectly white fangs. Who knows? Gish was just such a damn cool character that I couldn't help but do some fan art for it (which is very rare for me indeed) ...

I enjoyed playing as Gish so much that I was also inspired to pitch in some suggestions for the game...

Unfortunately even with the pictures to help them they couldn't understand the ideas I was trying to get across. They saw suggestion 6 and thought I meant balancing on their heads was how you killed your enemies, which they pointed out was already in the game. Er... yeah! If only they read the little yellow writing I had with each image. Oh well.

Fahrenheit

2006-06-23T00:15:00.001+10:00

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MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!
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FAHRENHEIT POST-MORTEM

My overall criticism has more to do with the general perception of what the game was reviewed as ("A Next Generation in the Adventure Game genre") rather than the game itself. Since I felt the Adventure genre was almost a dead, and then to see Fahrenheit gain such high praise from reviews raised my expectations into thinking that Fahrenheit would be a complete reinvention of the idea of an Interactive Movie/Adventure Game. In some ways it was, and in very brave ways as well, but it wasn't a complete rethinking of the genre. Some elements within the game still remained true to the old generation of point & click adventures, and sadly these came across as very dated, and even out of place. One example that stood out more than any other was finding batteries to put in a radio, and then to fashion a bit of wire as its antenna. I found this so 'old school' that it made me wonder what the reaction would be from the new generation of gamers who don't know the old point & click style of games. They'd possibly see this as something of a banal chore- something that should have been automated instead of something a player needed to do what was crucial to the story.

From this I concluded that the ultimate motivation for anyone playing an Interactive Movie now days is that the player gets a chance to alter the flow of the story. I'll concede that sometimes finding objects and putting them together is required as part of the story, and in some examples of Fahrenheit this really worked, like mending your wounds infront of the bathroom mirror or hiding the evidence before the police came into my apartment. These were engaging and complimented the story perfectly. But finding batteries for a radio, or a bottle of alchohol and some glasses in the kitchen for my ex-girlfriend, not only burst the illusion of being in a movie, but dragged the pace of the game's story down to a crawl. The only places where this type of very slow 'old-school' play fitted well (and has always fitted well in many games before it) was during the crime scene investigation scenes- for obvious reasons. However I don't want to simply leave this as a negative criticism, so in the next two paragraphs I've provided a possible reinvention to this old school theme (where it doesn't apply to a "find the clues"-type scenario).

During a game, when finding a collection of items and fashioning them into something useful is necessary (for instance, the character is locked in a basement and needs to escape) instead of picking up everything and putting them into a bag/inventory screen to then piece together later in an environment that is completely incongruous to the game's reality, perhaps this could act as a viable alternative:

The player walks around the room and naturally sees objects of interest. He picks up a curtain rod to look at it. We see a cut-scene of him hitting his captor over the head with it- the rod breaks immediately and the main character is shot dead, returning us to the reality of the basement. He puts it back down and keeps looking around seeing some old goggles. He puts them over his eyes without putting them on fully, throws them down. "Hmph." Keeps looking. The idea here is that the player finds things just by looking at them. He doesn't even need to pick them up. Once the player is satisfied by how much he has "found" he chooses to sit down and think. This "thinking time" becomes the alternative to the inventory screen and would look like the main character sitting in the middle of the room looking around him. The player puts their cursor over the areas of the room where they found the curtain rod for instance, and an ethereal zoomed version of the curtain rod appears. We hear the characters inner monologue: "That curtain rod…" The player drags it to the area where the goggles were. "Maybe…" A small window appears showing the result of mixing them together at the foot of the screen (there is space for three of these windows). The small window shows the character wearing the goggles and holding the curtain rod (and looking rather stupid). Inner monologue, "What am I thinking?..." The on-screen character sitting down then shakes his head in disappointment of himself. The next "thought window" uses the curtain rod to dislodge the gas pipe on the wall. We see this enacted out in the next small "thought window" that the player creates. The idea here is that the player puts scenarios together in his mind and then chooses the ones he wants to act on (and even in what order). The beauty of this is that the player is also the audience and they will automatically assume that the game will do exactly what they tell it to do in the way that they tell it. When the "thoughts" are played out in the game's reality the events could purposefully unfold in a different way, not just for dramatic effect, but to allow the player to think on their feet in a new action sequence. (I've included an alternative idea for action sequences further on).

Another example of how the roots of old-school games had a negative impact on Fahrenheit was a nasty trait of all third person games- Wall Running. It first came to my attention when playing Resident Evil. The game character has a tendency to go into a running animation cycle and drag themselves along the wall. As a joke I would do this for my friends in real life immitating the Resident Evil characters. It's funny because it looks ridiculous and yet every third person game I've seen since still does it. I believe any serious attempt at creating a movie experience must have the game characters moving and behaving in the same way that characters act in movies. In this respect poly count becomes secondary to the animation, provided the animation is always preserving the illusion that these are real people acting and responding in a real world.

The obvious problem here is that as soon as you give the controls to someone they will run the character into a wall. Therefore if players won't give your character the acting abilities they need, you have to provide it for them and put in place whatever restrictions are necessary for this to happen. I like the idea of giving the player 'quarter control', the player has only enough control to guide their character to where they want them to be and to do what they want them to do, but not enough to make them look stupid. For eg. if there is no threat in the area, the player automatically walks everywhere. In large areas he might go into a brisk walk, or even jog if it's open enough, but would never run. When approaching a wall he will stop before he reaches it, perhaps even turning back around, since no-one walks up to a wall and stares at it. The idea is that you are guiding a characters actions, but you aren't the character himself. There could be storylines that could make this make sense (like playing as the character's conscience (or id) but the character himself reacts to their environment as they see fit). On saying all this, I thought Fahrenheits overall animation was brilliant and held up the reality of the characters greatly. The children playing tag in the park was eerily real.

The context sensitive actions to open doors and operate objects were excellent, particularly the movement sensitive elements giving the game a much more tactile and involving sensation. Areas where this worked best was when young Lucas had to climb a wire fence in the army barracks, moving his body left and right as he climbed. Areas where it became troublesome though were doors in general. I found myself mixing up which way the doors opened more often than not (depending on if I was going in or out). I felt the idea was good, but possibly a little to literal or strict as a general rule. In some areas it got quite frustrating when the context sensitive menus would disappear if I got too close to the object I'm trying to manipulate, needing instead to stand a step back most times. Harking back to the animation, each action the player performed seemed very separate, even staggered, but I believe that is because in these areas it was referencing the old school gameplay.

If I had a meta-criticism of Fahrenheit it would be that the game felt like a series of small mini-games linked together rather than a cohesive unified experience. I could almost blame the old school elements for this alone, but to be brutally honest the stealth (mini-games?) sections in the army barracks seemed like a forced addition to the overall game. They didn't have the same allure than the rest of the game possibly because they didn't use any of the trademark action sequences (of analogue stick reactions) that the older Lucas enjoyed. In fact, with the exception of the hide & seek scene, the stealth sections of the game were my least enjoyable moments, since other games have a far more refined version of the stealth in Fahrenheit. Perhaps if there were more than one way to infiltrate the army barracks or if the young Lucas had just as much Analogue Actions Sequences as the old Lucas it may have saved it, but as it stood I was glad to get back to the main game.

I felt the Analogue Action Sequences were really fantastic, particularly the first time I used them intensively- against the giant ticks in Lucas' office. I really liked the feeling I got from having to react so fast. It felt like I was playing Lucas' conscience instead of him. It wasn't direct control, and it wasn't Dragon's Lair, but more like 'quarter control' and this felt right. These action sequences were one of the two main strengths of your game. (The other being the game's story premise- being able to play as the murderer and his pursuers).

My general feedback on these Action Sequences was that the coloured markers were way too colourful, looking like they would be more suitable in a Mario Party Game than a gritty interactive movie. They were also far too opaque when not in use. But aside from this I felt as though the decision to use both analogue controllers may have caused an unexpected problem. Although using both sticks played well, the fact is that to do this you had to display two coloured circles, which I felt cluttered the screen and distracted you from the action. It seemed similar to the problem of games like "Puzzle Fighter" where the players concentration is almost completely on the blocks infront of the image, and the action that happens behind it is secondary- to the point of being almost irrelevant. In the context of an Interactive Movie however, I think it should be the other way around. Seeing the action should take the prime focus, with the players actions being played off to the side. In the example I've created in Flash I've used only one analogue stick for the movement allowing for a space in the centre to watch the action unfold. The idea is that you watch the action in the middle, but you control the action through your peripheral vision. In my example I've used one analogue stick but I also include the analogue button (and a less colourful palette).

The other element I've addressed in my example is the idea at the heart of interactive movies- the ability to alter the storyline. With alternative storylines branching out and coming back to key scenes and continuing on again, I thought about how best to organise this so that replaying scenes to change their outcome is intuitive and enjoyable (and won't require playing the entire game again).

Here is my rudimentary mock-up of the above two concepts (navigating a branching storyline and controlling action sequences using peripheral vision)...

BRANCHING STORYLINE CONCEPT
(Requires Flash) 1MB

As you can see from this crude example, a player could follow their own storyline (literally) and go back and create a new story tangeant from any scene. It also adds as a way to clearly see what parts of the game remain unexplored. The truth is that I couldn't really alter the story in Fahrenheit to the degree that would make it a true Interactive Movie (with the exception of the three alternate endings). What I mean by this is that there are 45 scenes in Fahrenheit and each one will be visited with the same objectives needing to be accomplished regardless of what happened in the previous scenes. Even though it was a nice touch to choose which character you'd play as from scene to scene the actual storyline never changed significantly enough.

When I first started playing I thought about my favourite movie, The Matrix, done as an interactive movie. I imagined what would have happened if Morpheus died before Neo could rescue him from Agent Smith, or if Neo didn't enter Trinity's car, and how that would have affected the tone of the rest of the movie, and ultimately, the ending. It is this range of alteration that I naturally associate with interactive movies. In my opinion it would be better to play an interactive movie with only 15 scenes from start to finish, but with 30 wildly different alternatives behind these, as opposed to 45 scenes from start to finish with relatively few alternatives. The players "fun" being had from the way they can change events. The payoff for doing so being always surprising and engaging. (I also like the idea when the player completes all the scenes that they can choose the scenes they enjoyed the most into their definitive storyline and play through it as a movie in and of itself, say, for their friends!)

Keep in mind that because replaying events for interesting/entertaining alternatives is fun then I believe that being very strict, and even cruel, in regards to the player missing opportunities in dialogue or story during their first game can in fact be very motivating. I'd even go so far as to remove any chance of replaying scenes (or having quick saves) in this first run so as to promote 1. the focus and tension the player has playing the game and 2. the replay value later on. The consequences of the players actions, even in failed situations might not necessarily result in a story arc that is worse than if they had succeeded- just as it happens in real life. The twisting storyline and surprising outcomes would have the player receive a full emotional experience no matter what story arc they happened to be on. The idea that to get the best experience out of a storyline is to have a string of successful situations is "game-oriented thinking". What movie has the main character needing to win all the time? (Neo couldn't replay from a previous save when he failed to jump between buildings and nor shoud any Interactive Movie character) Almost always the tools of turmoil and crisis are used for great drama, and I believe the same thinking should extend to interactive movies also. The only, and obvious, exception to this rule is when the main character dies and the life of the story therefore dies along with him. In this case a replay from a continue point is unavoidable, unless of course the story is crafted in a way where it can give sense to this (for instance, if the player was already dead (like Lucas at the end) and comes to thirty minutes later having to suffer (or be rewarded by) the consequences of his defeat).

(As a quick aside, if there's one thing I love about computer games it's when the game design mechanics are put into contextual harmony with the story. Context. Context. Context. When it's achieved between design and story it lifts the entire game beyond what any one of these factors could do by themselves. For eg. In Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time the dagger is used to reverse time to replay a nasty fall, or missed ledge. This game design mechanic works perfectly within the context of the story and therefore both are enhanced as a result. Whether game design must bend for the story, or vice versa, it's always obvious when things make sense for one at the sacrifice of the other).

For the player to be forced to accept the consequences of failure during first time play may sound a little too harsh, but the controls are easy enough for the player to know what they need to do the first time around and they've also been supplied a brilliantly entertaining tutorial that they can come back to at any time. So why not make them play it for real? They will always have access to the Scene Select menu once it has been finished. With a clear warning at the start that there are no second chances until the end, it would make for a rivetting glued-to-the-seat cinematic experience.

In almost every computer game I've ever played the universe revolves around the player. It dotes on the player, waiting on their every move. This is absolute fantasy and cripples the thrill of being at the mercy and wonderment of another world or another universe. In real life things keep going no matter if you've kept up with them or not. To have the player work for their time in the spotlight only adds to the excitement. Again, keep in mind that the fun had by the player (beyond playing the game) is replaying the game. I'd even dare say that replaying the game IS playing the game when it comes to interactive movies, but that could be stretching things a little. The idea here is that the show must go on- and that's exciting.

The three different ways Fahrenheit is approached as an interactive movie are:
1. Action sequences
2. Point&Click adventure secitons
3. Real-time dialogue decisions

Out of all three only the first one was truly a next-gen idea, and all three will be open to unique reinterpretations when others game studios take up the challenge of making their Interactive Movies. But even though I enjoyed the real-time dialogues there seemed to be little motivation for making the right decisions. I would have liked to have seen conversations or even relationships have larger impacts from my choices. There's so many different ways real-time dialogues can be approached that it's almost useless writing an alternative, but for the sake of being positive I feel I must anyway:

I believe, like in real life, you don't get all the choices of what you'd like to say straight away because you can't think of all your choices all at once. In dialogue, the first answer that enters your mind is the most instinctual, and then as more come to you they are more refined. So too should it be in an interactive movie. One option would appear, then the next as they are thought of. The character umming and ahhing until they make a decision.

You've also used the real-time dialogue technique to make decisions about real events, like when Lucas accepts the cross or not. I personally disagree with using this mechanic on physical actions as it makes it a little like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. I would have preferred instead to see Lucas look down at the crucifix, hands in his pockets, his brother beckoning him to "Take it, Lucas" and in two seconds time if the player hasn't move the stick to the right Lucas would say, "No, I don't need that" or whatever his line was). I have seen this in games before and I prefer it much more than screen prompts, especially as it is more in keeping with the cinematic format. However it did make me think of different ways to approach the same idea. Unfortunately, I used an action sequence to describe it, and for doing so I now consider the following Flash example as a failed experiment…

MY FAILED EXPERIMENT
(Requires Flash) 1MB

It was supposed to provide an example of how a player can be intuitively taken from their actions to a selection screen, make a decision, and then continue into the action (possibly even begin an Action Sequence ala Lucas' battle with the giant tick monsters. By the way, the girl in this example was supposed to be Carla Valenti and the bug in the background was supposed to be the giant tick monsters that Lucas hallucinated in his office, even though Carla nor anyone could see them). Let's move on…

The dialogue sections bring me to the most puzzling element in Fahrenheit- the Mental Health guage. This was a great idea and immediately got me caring about my character (almost like an emotionally-complicated Tamagotchi). I'll also say that even though I prefer no on screen guages or indicators (like Ico) I felt that having a Mental Health gauge seemed entirely appropriate when playing a character in an interactive movie. However, the old school methodologies crept in once again to tarnish even this. The Mental Health guage seemed to simply be a replacement for a health bar rather than used in a way worthy of being included in a next generation adventure game.

To explain- When I replayed Fahrenheit I did so with the specific intent to "break the game" rather than act out a genuinely alternative storyline. I wanted to see what would happen if I made all the wrong decisions. For example, when I first played it I saved the young boy's life from drowning, but during the second time around I let him die. This had no real lasting effect on my character other than a drop in my Mental Health guage and a moment's reflection from my character- "There's not a day goes by that I don't regret that decision." What I would have liked to have seen is my character change his personality as result of his moral choices, whether it be a corruption of his soul or a redemption, but some type of internal change that will affect your characters persona and what that will mean to your role within the story. Maybe then Lucas could have said something like this: "There was nothing I could for that kid. He had it comin'... We all got it comin'."

For instance, at 100% mental health I was "diagnosed" as Normal, but I felt that the guage should go beyond Normal to Confident instead. The motivation for doing so (to put it into context within the game) would have then allowed the character access to situations or dialogue depending on his level of mental health. You wouldn't be able to face up to an enemy with low confidence in yourself. Nor could you garner the sympathetic support of others if were too confident. But moreso, I felt the character should change within themselves. If I let the child near the ice rink die, and rudely brushed off my ex-girlfriend, and killed the cop that came into my apartment, this should mean I cannot access a certain storyline (and therefore a certain ending). The only way around this is if I seek redemption for my misdeeds. Seeking redemption for a bad decision may not sound like something players usually choose to do, but if you were trying to play as a good character and you made a terrible mistake, but couldn't go back to replay it, then chances are you would try to save the soul of your character before the end is through.

Unfortunately, without including any story context for the Mental Health guage it reduced its purpose within the game as simply "something I had to prevent from reaching zero". In this respect it dominated the freedom I had in making decisions during the game, regardless of whether or not I would have made those decisions anyway.

The last thing I'd like to say about the Mental Health guage is that it would have been nice to have seen the emotional status of the characters reflected in their body language. To see them slouch, shake their head and tsk, tsk, at even the smallest inconvenience, or to see them walk with a confident stride, would have added an extra dimension to their on-screen presence and personality.

I hope by now I haven't given you the impression that I disliked the game. I liked it a lot. I found it more inspiring than enjoyable, if that makes sense. However there were elements to it that I genuinely had trouble with, in particular was the in-game camera. The worst time I had struggling against the camera was in Lucas' apartment when I had to find the key before the cop busted down my door, and there was no clue as to where, or in which room, it was. I remember that switching cameras close to a wall got me visually "lost" and I had to sacrifice this moment to replay it. Perhaps if the camera was positioned over the key itself and I simply had to navigate through the furniture towards it would have been the ideal solution. In fact, having the Camera Switch on R1 and R2 switch to pre-set camera positions tailored for each scene would have been preferable as a handy means of escape when visually lost. Also, the camera when controlled by the player was too "springy" and not at all cinematic. Perhaps simply a slower Right Analog camera with a reset to default on Right Analog button may have been a more cinematic approach, instead of "springing back" to neutral. It would have also been nice to have the Pause screen as a first person view so that you could look around to get your bearings and find an exit in a stressful situation (not to mention make for some great screenshots).

Lastly, you lost me with the story. I won't go into detail about this like I did with the other elements of the game, since a lot of the reviews have done this already. But I will say that I would have much preferred to have sacrificed a lot of the surreal enemies and the "end of the world" climax for a more human drama and ending. I believe this would have strengthened the wonderfully told and intelligent human drama the game began with. In fact, if I haven't said it before, the idea of being able to play as a murderer and the two detectives tracking him down wasn't just great story telling and a wonderful premise for a game, but I also count it as a stroke of genius.

Looking through my notes, I have scratched together a generic model of an interactive movie/episodic adventure template where information is the means of exchange and ethics are used within the game design. I was going to write it down at the end here, since it was inspired from playing Fahrenheit, but I fear I've taxed your patience long enough.

I would just like to finally say that Fahrenheit has advanced the ideas of what an Interactive Movie can be and has opened a world of dialogue amongst lovers of the Adventure Game genre.

Kudos to Quantic Dreams for this accomplishment.

Best regards,
Mat Brady

Zelda: Wind Waker

2005-01-19T09:52:00.001+10:00

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MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!
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ZELDA:WINDWAKER POST-MORTEM

Before I begin I need to state for the record that I had never played a Zelda game before this one. Perhaps it was the joy of playing a game title where it had enough inspiration and refinement from its previous games that made me appreciate it so much. Perhaps it was the art style that I've always been looking for in a game, but never realised it until now. Whatever magical element it was that made Zelda: Wind Waker so special it has become one of the greatest gaming experiences ever. With that out of the way, let's begin...

This post-mortem is divided into two simple categories: "What I Liked", and "What I Didn't Like".

I'll get the negatives out of the way first. I was surprised to see there were so many of them for a game I so thoroughly enjoyed. These are roughly organised from the lesser comments to the doozies.

WHAT I DISLIKED ABOUT ZELDA:WW...

I would have liked the chance to learn Hyrulian as reward for playing an obscure side quest, rather than understanding it only during the second time you play the game. (This is a COMPLETE Ico rip-off, btw. In fact, I dare say they ripped off Ico too much. Kudos to Ico for being so brilliant. It remains as one of my fave games of all time). Basically I didn't think playing through the game a second time was reward enough for having played it through the first time. Instead, I would have liked it if I was to go back to playing the game in the reality of having finished it (think Jak2) so that I had the opportunity to complete all the side quests that I may have missed or not known about before defeating Ganondorf. (Let's face it, if you wanted to start the game again, wouldn't you have simply selected Start New Game?) When you complete all the side missions and collected all the maps and basically finished the game to 100% (without the percentage score anywhere - which I actually liked not seeing) THEN I think it would have been cool to play the game again, but as Tetra, sailing on her pirate ship with her crew, completing all the missions that she helped with first time around, and finally to help Link fight Ganondorf. It wouldn't have been as long to play, but it would have been a very cool bonus.

I found that there was nothing really good to save money for. The most I spent my money on was getting Tingle to laboriously decipher all my maps. (He should have said: I see you have X maps in your possession, I'll decipher them all for you at X rupees or I'll do just one for Y rupees. Would have been nice). After Tingles expensive map exercise and purchasing all the interesting items to put around Windfall Island, there really was nothing to do with my money. This is where I would have liked the Personal Oasis to come into its own. It would have been excellent if you get the deeds to this rarely visited island (as the lady says) and it's completely decrepid! :) You spend all your money (at the end of the game) fixing the place up and putting extra rooms on (such as an art gallery for all the sliding puzzle images you complete, or a personal picto gallery for your favourite 4 pictos you've taken, or a spotlight room for a single favourite figurine to stand which you'd pay an arm and a leg for from the gallery owner). The task of making your personal oasis look lovely and special would have not only given you more sense of ownership about it, but it would also make collecting rupees and searching for sunken treasure a lot more exciting- I became disappointed with a haul if it only contained rupees.

The Nintendo Gallery had some annoying featues. The first of which is that you have to travel back and forth to the gallery (with a picto box that can only take 3 shots) to collect all 134 figurines! Assuming you took a successful shot each time, you would have to return to this place at least 45 times, and then individually have to: show your photo, perform Song of Passing twice, view figurine to be able to show the next picto - 134 times! That's way too tedious. And what's the reward if you collect them all? A figurine of yourself on the ship, but don't get too excited, because if you didn't take a colour picto of Aryll with her original dress on in the first play through, then you're unable to collect all of the figurines and you have to reload the first game and lose any figurines you collected during the second playthrough. Ngh. I would have liked it more if the Gallery Owner asked you to take specific photos of particular and difficult targets (let's say 3 per gallery), and on collecting one of these hard to get pictos (let's say a Forsaken Forrest bat), you would gain a third of the figurines from the Forsaken Forest gallery. Once you'd collected all the Forsaken Forest figurines (ie. taken three pictos of specific FF inhabitants) then the FF would gain its best feature, which is, when you activate the figurine to take a closer look at it, you can also activate a small animation of it as well. That would have been awesome. :) (and a lot more fun to accomplish this way). I'd also like to have seen the figurines in toon rendered mode instead of the lit gaussian mode that they have now, or at least a toggle option to look at it like this. :/

You have to hit Orca 500 times without him hitting you 3 time to get a Heart Piece. 500? Why not just 300? That's still enough! 500 is just tedious. And to think you have to hit him 1000 times to gain the title Sword Master. Yike! And the reward after this enormous effort? 200 rupees. Whoopedy-doo-da-day. : (I found this out on the net by the way. I didn't waste my time hitting him 1000 times).

I didn't see how such an improtant item such as the Wind Waker was simply given to Link by the Red Lion boat, like- "Oh, by the way, here, have this!" It kind of just came out of nowhere. Same goes for the Red Lion Boat too. Look Kid, here's something truly amazing, for no apparent reason!

I found it annoying that some text you could speed through and some you couldn't, even if you'd already heard it. Very tiring, especially when I'd be trying to climb back into my boat and accidently start a dialogue with the lion head bow. I'd already heard his speech, but I was still "not allowed" to skip through it. Urgh.

With the exception of the TriForce Chart, the special charts, like the Secret Cave chart, the Hearts Chart, etc, were just that- charts. They weren't a checklist. I would have liked to have had the map automatically tick off the Secret Cave, Great Faries, Big Octos, Sea Towers, Heart Containers, etc, once I'd achieved what I needed to at those locations. That seemed like a genuine oversight to me.

The game should have had a faster option to get to the more commonly used Wind Waker tunes, especially Wind's Requiem and Ballad of Gales. Perhaps something like this: Now that you've performed Wind's Requiem over 50 times, you've now "mastered this tune" and can perform it any time you select the Wind Waker simply by pressing the Y button. That would have been very handy.

I wanted to look through the telescope while I was sailing. That would have been damn cool - real sea-faring advernturer-type stuff, but instead you stopped instantly. :(

The HUD was too obtrusive, especially with the magic bar lining up on the horizon line when you were sailing. The magic bar actually blocked what you could see in the distance and there was plenty of space where the hearts (both rows) and the magic bar could have been moved up enough to give you a complete look at the horizon line. Grrr.

I got very frustrated by the points where logic and commonsense are replaced by "Try to guess what the game designer wants you to do here". Examples are... Finding the fourth kid in the Killer Bee gang on top of the tree. Okay, I found him. I get out my Skull Hammer and slam the tree base- BOOM! Kid doesn't fall down. Hmm... I fly to the top of the tree and stand right next to him. Nothing. I slash him. Slash the trunk. Shoot arrows at him. Throw puffs of wind from the Deku Leaf at him. Nothing! Hours pass. I combat roll into the tree. Kid falls down. = DAMMIT!!

I parry at Ganondorf and slash his head during the final battle, sword hits head. It does as much damage to him as hitting him anywhere else. Fine. I keep fighting. Then the Princess says: "I'll fire arrow at you. Use your shield. Do you get it?" Okay, I get it. I refract the arrrows off my shield. Ganondorf hurts. Okay. Good. I keep doing this. I keep doing this. Is anything happening? Princess says: "I'll fire arrow at you. Use your shield. Do you get it?" Okay, I still get it. I keep doing it. WTF? About 12 mins go by. How tough is this guy? Every other boss was 3 hits, you're out. I pause the game and am forced to read the play guide. I return to the game, parry once, it's all over. I'm thinking: Whaaaat? Why didn't that dumb ass princess mention anything more useful instead of something that was completley misleading? How about: "I fire arrow at your shield. Use it to weaken his defenses!" This would have made me understand that I was only weakening his defenses and that there is still more to do.

In the Phantom Rooms where you had to follow the direction of where the sword falls, there is a circular pattern on the ground in the middle of the room. This pattern has swirls on it and all the swirls go in a left-right pattern, except for one. This, I thought, was the clue I needed to find my way through these rooms. Wrong. The reason why there is one swirl different to all the others is completley beyond me and needlessly frustrating and distracting for such an obscure puzzle to figure out. Why on Earth would you put in a red herring like this? (the first and only one in the entire game) In addition, I don't think they flagged the actual clue as well as they could have. Perhaps if the hilt of the sword was shaped like an arrow maybe then that would have been enough to subtlety give the observant player more of a chance.

The button associations (particularly during selecting items) were annoying. After hours and hours of play it still wasn't smooth and intuitive to use and didn't seem polished enough, especially when I had to press too many buttons to perform a simple function. For instance:
To select an item in my delivery bag I'd need to press Start, move my cursor to the Delivery Bag, press a X,YorZ to open it (NOT A- that just brings up an annoying instructions page over everything) then move my cursor to the item, then press the X,YorZ button again, then press B to exit the menu, then press X,YorZ to use it in the game.
Jesus. That's 5 presses (using 3 different buttons) and two separate uses of the analog. Here's what I would have liked to have seen instead. Using the same scenario...
I press Start to get into my menu, I move my cursor to one of the bags (that are next to each other along the top) which automatically opens up a window along the very top of the screen to which I keep moving my cursor to the item I want, then hit X,YorZ to set it to one of my readily selectable items and hit the same button again (ie. select it twice) to automatically exit the menu and use the item.
Even with this simpler system it still assumes that I want to keep using an item all the time because it assigns it to X,YorZ during the game, even if I only have a singular and specific use for it (which happened all the time). This is why I would have liked it if, when you pressed A on an item, it would bring up the instructions of the item with an option at the bottom saying: Use Item? A = yes. B = cancel. If you pressed A again (at the instructions) you could exit the menu and use it immediately in game. This way you could select anything you wanted from the menu and use it simply (and once) without tampering with the items that you'd want to keep at X,YorZ- the items you use more often. :/ This got to me after a while. What also got to me was that the B button wasn't always the cancel button. It was mostly the cancel button, but using an arrow (or any first-person mode) A was the cancel button. Huh? I found this inconsistent and therefore needlessly confusing. I also thought the map screen should have been accessible through the inventory menu and vice versa.

In fact, the whole item selection process, particularly when going between sailing and running around suffered the same bane as Ratchet & Clank where selecting a specific weapon from a huge list really interrupted the flow of the game. I would have liked the inclusion of customised "Sets" for different scenarios, four in all. This way I could simply select the "set" I want and all the items in my X,YandZ slots would be replaced with the items I've pre-chosen. For example:
Sea Exploration Set (Y=Wind Waker, X= Sail, Z=Grappling Hook)
Sea Combat Set (Y=Boomerang, X=Sail, Z=Cannon)
Land Exploration Set (Y=Grappling Hook, X=Deku Leaf, Z=Hookshot)
Land Combat Set (Y=Arrows, X=Skull Hammer, Z=Bombs)
This would have been a great reward for a side-quest or something special to buy. Sets would have made things a lot easier, and just think how perfectly I could have refined my sets after a long period of time. :)

I really didn't like how you needed to buy the link cable and GBA to complete the game to 100%. Sure, I'd be okay if the Tingle Tuner could let you find things that by playing it normally you couldn't, but I bought the official game guide and I still couldn't. That's not very fair. I would have preferred that if you had either the TT or the playguide you were right, and that the joy of co-op play would have been reward enough for buying the link cable.

I didn't get to hug my sister at the end of the game. I finally got to see her again after such an ordeal and we never touch, or even speak to each other. Instead she sees me board my lion ship and sail off again, waving goodbye to me. That sucked. I need more emotional closure from my computer games.

I had such a strong affinity with the sister character than I did with Zelda herself. In fact, I remember feeling very motivated to rescue my sister from the Forsaken Fortress, but having no urge to rescue princess Zelda. This is mostly due to the fact that from the very start my sister meant something to my character and the relationship was nurtured enough for me to want to save her. But Zelda (or Tetra at first) isn't likable and never gets to be likable at all, let alone that Link doesn't have any "lump in the pants" type feelings for her, which I thought was very needed. In actual fact, Tetra/Zelda does nothing to make me want to rescue her at all, especially when I went back to Windfall Island and found out she'd taken so much money as a reward from people that she left a family destitute to the point where their daughter had to steal from the merchant's workplace at night. Dear God! Screw Zelda, that bitch can save her own greedy ass!

I always think that story and characterisation in a game matters a lot, particularly in adventures like this, because when my focus was shifted to rescuing Zelda, the game became very "check-listy" for me. Even though I was doing exactly the same stuff to rescue my sister the game seemed more rewarding then, and I felt like I was working towards helping someone, rather than scratching off tasks from a to-do list. That's probably why the ending was a little flat for me. This and the fact that I wanted the ending to be a bit more titanic (which is how I felt they built it up to be). I wanted to see Valoo and the giant bird from the Forsaken Fortress fight each other, the wind gods get involved somewhere there as well, the good king defeated at the hands of Ganondorf and then Link comes in with Zelda to settle the matter once and for all. Something like that. A little more of a titanic battle for the world.

And finally to the good stuff.... (which I already knew there were lots of :) This in no particular order.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT ZELDA:WW…

I was touched by the personal adventure of it: how everyone called me Mat, how I started the adventure on my birthday and how my family was caring, and therefore important to me. I liked the way my sister looked up to me and gave me her most prized possession, her telescope, for a day, because it was my birthday. I felt touched to receive it, rather than thinking that the game needs me to have this now. I felt like taking very good care of it and I'd feel bad if I damaged it in any way. I also got a nice buzz seeing our family photos in Grandma's house. :)

I enjoyed learning how to play while I was playing. That was real cool. So was the fact that I'd gain a new weapon, therefore something new to learn continuously through the game. Nice. That made playing the game always interesting.

Spreading "joy" by putting interesting items around Windfall Island gave me a lovely feeling, but the best part was that I could put whatever I wanted whereever I thought looked best. (Doing this after I built up the merchant's wares helped too). I put 4 strange skull statues in the pirate shooting sideshow room and all the blue flowers in the rich mans room upstairs, except I made sure to put a nice colourful exotic flower on the table as a centre piece. Brilliant! (The interior decorator really came out in me then).

During the first session that I played Zelda I came across a small island on the way to another. The rush of being free on the high seas to stop by and explore a small mysterious little island was sensational, but when I played around by cutting all the grass on the island, just for fun, to then discover a small passage way leading inside the dome.... well, I was completely awed. It was like no-one in the world had discovered this except for me. (I was completely hooked at this stage :)

But even before that were the simple pleasures this game gave me, like... sailing a boat. Searching for hidden treasure. Even talking to other characters and seeing what their interests were was a pleasure in this game (thanks also to the excellent character design and art style). Looking through a telescope. Playing hide and seek with the Killer Bees. (That was so nice. And then having them look up to me as the coolest kid. :) I enjoyed taking photos and seeing them afterwards, even if no-one else were able to comment on them. The fact that they actually could was a bonus. :) I also liked matchmaking the guy and girl on Windfall Island. He he. To see them standing next to each other on Windfall Island was lovely. (Would have been nice to see them strolling hand in hand too :)

The art style was simply a stroke of genius. It held so much simple charm that it became one of the real joys I got from playing the game. I loved the explosions most of all. This was the signature piece of Zelda's art style. (Kudos must go to Disney's Mulan here). Not only this, but the animations were all so fluid and interesting. The characters and creatures were so stylish and well-crafted. Beautiful stuff. Once it's all been said and done, and the game long since completed, I'll be loading up the game simply to marvel at these things again.

I loved the controls, the camera, the speed of the character, all this felt really smooth and wonderful to play with. I particularly liked the strafe/targeting mode and how it went into widescreen (plus the slight pause of the action everytime an enemy bit the dust :). Not only did the widescreen mode help to focus things, but it made it clear what you were doing and what was happening. In fact, fighting in Zelda was a heap of fun and never got boring, and some rooms were absolutely frenetic! My favourite enemy were the knights. I absolutely loved, with a sick passion, how I could slowly undress them from their armour with the Parry move. Before I learnt how to do this, they were my least favourite enemy, but once I figured out how to fight them... joy. Pure joy.

Another stroke of genius, of which there were many in this game, was the emphasis and use of wind. It established a great template to build gameplay on. I remember tacking in a head wind to get somewhere was very new to me in a game. Having the direction of the wind be an important element was such a nice touch I felt. Even right down to wind related items like the two modes of the Deku Leaf was very special, and getting a nice long glide from this felt wonderful. (Yet another simple pleasure).

I thought the "auto-jumping" was enormously brave of the game designers as a feature and at first I didn't know what to think, but after a short while I realised how clever this was to do. This removed the entire gauging distances conundrum that has plagued 3D platformers not to mention freeing up a button that would have otherwise been taken up by Jump. By removing jump as one of your options it also simplified the gameplay as well. This simplification actually made playing it a lot better I feel. Admittedly, I would have liked to have a little bit of air steering, but just the fact that the creators were brave enough to do this in the first place was enough for me. :D

One of the most breathtaking parts of Zelda were the Bosses. Jesus H Christ. They lulled you into this gameplay where you'd fight a little goblin, or you'd fight a rat, or a little bird, then they'd lock the door and shove an enormous hideous fiend infront of you. I remember completely freaking out, like I was suddenly playing an entirely different game all of a sudden. That was so damn cool! And the creatures themselves looked amazing. My favourite boss, not only to fight against but also the coolest designed creature, was the giant sand worm. So many games have the bosses appearing in different locations in really contrived ways, but not only did the sand element make sense, but I enjoyed how the shifing sands would bring you closer to danger (and give you a time limit to shoot the hookshot in as well). It's so much nicer when gamey stuff makes sense like this. One of the best, if not the best, boss fight I've experienced in a game ever. Awesome.

It's been done before of course, but the way links eyes moved to important areas of the room was excellent. This saved me from getting needlessy frustrated at a few puzzles, by giving such a small nudge in the right direction. Nice.

I thought all the creatures had very creative abilities, particularly the spikey eyeballs that jumped on you to slow you down. That's all they did, but that was really cool. :) But the screaming Undead creatures were genuinely scary. They really creeped me out. Especially how I couldn't move my character, because even my character was scared! The knights and their undressable armour. The one-eyed hopping statues that would come to life long after you'd thought they were inanimate objects. Clipping the moth creatures wings so they became those curly pincer creatues. Playing energy ball ping pong with the Phantom Ganon. Having to whack the bouncing skull off the mace-swinging skeletons. The hand in the hole creature who caught your bombs and threw them back at you. Fantastic and imaginative stuff. I also liked seeing the sad faces on the bottled fairies. He he.

But most of all, I loved the fact that the game inspired me so much that I felt the need to write all this down. Now that's very special indeed. :)