Demonstrably Locked Content

Cody and one of his alternate costumes found on the SFxT disc.
Picture from Shoryuken.com

I felt a certain amount of irony last night, after I finally got around to playing DLC Quest, to then read about Street Fighter X Tekken having 12 downloadable characters on the game disc and that Capcom state it is to ensure compatibility between buyers and non buyers. The first comment on that article authoritively states: "Duh. Anybody that knows a single fucking thing about how games are made knows why DLC is on-disk. Whining babies don't know what the fuck they're talking about."

Okay, so there is a grain of truth in that first comment, DLC for consoles isn't just like modding on a PC or something, where dropping some new files into the correct folder will automatically be picked up by the game engine. With the console expecting all data to come from a disc (or a hard drive seamlessly pretending to be a disc), you have to know in advance how you're going to store extra content on disc and roughly what sort of content you'll be able to add.

This commenter clearly forgets the fact that just last year there was an update to Super Streetfighter 4 though, which added 4 new characters that were not originally on the game disc. To allow compatibility here a free update was made available to all players, which allowed them to play against the new characters but not use them. This all proves that it is possible to add bonus characters that aren't on the disc but that it takes more work to do so. The Arcade Edition update was the best example of a DLC update for a fighting game so far and I hoped that would be the approach taken by most in future. But of course not even Capcom themselves would take a consistent approach internally, with Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 being a brand new game, only available at retail (another game with 2 DLC characters on disc). Why people are willing to jump to Capcom's defense for taking the easy route I can't understand - other than wanting to brag about knowing how to make games.

With this case in particular, these unlockable characters feel like something that you would have previously gained access to by playing the game, in a similar fashion to the additional characters in Street Fighter 4. What I think might be a better approach is to follow the example of free to play mobile games, where everything can be unlocked eventually just by playing the game but you can also pay to unlock features if you are impatient. I'm sure that this would have been a welcome feature in Street Fighter 4, as unlocking all of the additional characters took a considerable amount of time. This was a frustrating task if you took the game around to a friends house or were trying to run a tournament. In those cases you wouldn't feel aggrieved about paying a little extra to unlock characters and those who don't pay would still have the same experience in the end. I'm sure this wouldn't please everyone but I think it would lead to a lot less backlash overall.

I wasn't always so critical towards DLC in general, I guess my initial idea of how it would work relied on 3 assumptions though:

1. It wouldn't be that expensive.
2. New content would be mostly created after the game was released.
3. Err, that you would have to download the content.

Each of these assumptions has proven to be false in a lot of cases and more often than not it feels like content is being held back from you, rather than it being a bonus. I understand that there may be cases where projects overrun and content has to be pulled, so it is a good thing that it can eventually see the light of day via DLC. The same goes for content released the same day as the game, where the development of the DLC starts after the development of the main game is complete, even if this still seems cheap to a lot of people who aren't aware of the different production stages behind the scenes. But when most of the content makes it onto the game disc then that means that it was finished by the time the discs needed to be pressed, probably at least a month in advance and it becomes hard to justify the fact that additional work was done to create an 'unlock code'.

Sadly I feel that I have very little interest in buying this game now, the entire thing has been a clusterfuck of confusing pre-order bonus gems and these locked characters are just the icing on the cake. I may feel especially strongly about this since one of the characters is Cody, a character I play quite a lot. I feel like Capcom have burned a lot of bridges that they have built in bringing people back to fighting games by the approach they have been taking. This constant monetization and new versions of games has shown that they haven't really changed from their approach in the 90's where they ran the Street Fighter series into the ground through a multitude of different versions. I thought better of it as I don't know for sure but I really wanted to reply to that first comment with: "Yeah, I know about making games and I know exactly why this happens - money."

More Fighting Game ramblings

I had a chance to play a little of Soul Calibur 5 at the weekend, not a game that I had been looking forward to especially but I'd been aware of it through coverage on Shoryuken.com. The fact that it featured Ezio Auditore from the Assassin's Creed series interested me slightly and he was clearly the character I was going to try out first. I was with a bunch of friends who mostly had some interest in fighting games, though for some it was a minor distraction before playing some FIFA.

First impressions weren't good - I was really shocked by the main menu, which was ugly, clunky and had us very confused as to where the option for standard player vs. player mode was hidden. Once we found it we then realised that we'd better go to the options screen to set up the controls as there was little chance that they had followed the Third Strike Online approach of having controller setup on the character select screen. However, I don't think any of us were prepared for a very simple screen with a shared setup for both controllers. We scrolled through the first few layouts, all of which seemed to be centred around the face buttons on a pad - I didn't even realise at the time that there was an option to customise it fully but that would have taken an age as you have to scroll through a list of attacks, not just press the button you want to do an attack.

Thankfully all of us were using the same brand of Arcade stick and were prepared to just roll with the default setting but this is absolutely unacceptable for a game that was seemingly being positioned as a serious tournament game. Button checks have become a huge time sink at these events when there are so many different button layouts on arcade sticks and pads, with everyone plugging their own in for each match. Third Strike Online has demonstrated the best way of doing this now and I feel there's no excuse for future games that don't follow the same approach (if Street Fighter X Tekken does it wrong I will gnnnngghhhh!).The single controller setup seems like such an oversight that I feel like I must be missing something, I've not seen this complained about yet but I wouldn't have expected it to be difficult to find this option either.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the config screen isn't exactly friendly to new players either, you are just presented with a list like: A - G, B - K, X - A, Y - B, RB - A + B, etc. I took this to mean guard, kick and two types of attack but someone else observed that it could just as easily be interpreted as guard, kick, attack and block - were they really so short on screen space that they couldn't print the proper name of things?

We all jumped in and had some button mashy fun with it, people mostly getting beaten because they didn't use the block button (I always struggle with games that take this approach). It seemed harder than I remembered to get a ring out on people - you'd often have them right up against a sheer drop, hitting them with attacks but they would be absolutely fine as long as their feet stayed on the ground, like there was a foot high invisible wall all around the arena. Ezio was pretty cool and I even managed to finish a round with a combo into his hidden pistol, though I have no idea how I did it. So while it may have a training mode that sounds quite good, there was nothing in that quick game with friends that really encouraged me to take a more serious look at it. I would play it again in that kind of situation but by that point I'm sure there'll be something new and interesting that would take that experimental spot.

Speaking of mashing, we also played a little Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, where I managed to beat all comers with a team of Phoenix Wright, Dante and Hawkeye. I'll admit I was the only person who'd played much of Ultimate, though most had played the vanilla version and beaten me on other occasions. I was mostly playing Phoenix Wright for practice as I want to use him but he's so hard to do anything with online. The dream is to hit someone else with his level 3 hyper and take them to court but so far I've only had it done to me (still hilarious either way). Dante I've always dabbled with so I can remember a few combos and Hawkeye is currently my insurance policy even though I don't really know how to play him.

Hawkeye works really well at 'keeping people honest' I think, if you mash out a move without thinking he can pretty much punish you from anywhere on screen with his single arrow hyper move. I think you can maybe cancel your move with X-Factor as a bait for it but I've not seen it done. I can really struggle against more random players in other games so having the threat of that hyper really feels like it forces the match to be played more on my own terms - and if people don't learn then I'll keep on using it. He also gets a pretty good speed boost when you activate X-Factor, so he's a great character to save till last and on a couple of occasions I lost both of the other characters and then just ran through the other guys entire team in a red mist of glory. There's no better end to a match than hearing his "No!" followed by "KO!".

Hopefully I can get to play a bit more of it this week, I think I just need to be strict with myself and avoid trying to play ranked matches online as that's always the quickest route to disappointment city...

Competitive Gaming

As a contrasting title to my last post, competitive gaming can mean a lot of things to different people but I'm going to be talking about probably the only thing I do have a major interest in, which is fighting games. I've never really been a huge fan of online FPS games or anything like that and thinking right back to my early gaming days they are the only style of game that I've had a consistent competitive interest in, even if I didn't initially realise it.

Like most I was first introduced to fighting games through Street Fighter 2, we had a local video rental shop that also had two stand-up arcade machines and it was probably a while before I could get through the crowds of older guys to have a go of it. Back then I was a Sega Master System owner and later Mega Drive so I never experienced a proper home version of it, probably being drawn more towards Mortal Kombat's blood and gore (c'mon, plenty of us fell for it at the time). After the initial excitement for the genre wore down they remained as something that I would play with friends but not really take that seriously. The release of SSF2T HD Remix and Street Fighter 4 however would be the perfect storm of nostalgia, experience and disposable income that finally made me take a serious interest again. I invested in a basic arcade stick for the 360 as neither the standard pad or analog stick really worked for me and finally mastered the dragon punch motion *cough* input shortcuts *cough*.

This was the first time that I really took a great interest in what goes on behind the scenes in fighting games too. I've always been the kind of person to go through the tutorials to try and learn a characters moves (not that it usually helps me) but I think a combination of working as a programmer at this point and HD Remix having an option to display hitboxes, it just sparked my interest in how you would go about making a fighting game as well. I gradually started reading stuff that probably used to be reserved for 'professional gamers' on frame data, which really made me appreciate that not all combos are pre-programmed chains that can only be executed one way. It made fighting games seem that much more creative that someone could work out combos that the creator might never have even expected down to careful timing of another move just as the animation of one finishes. Of course a lot of these 'linked' combos will be carefully planned out these days but the history of fighting games is full of accidental developments that have gone on to be staple features of any modern game you can think of.

It was probably a little earlier than SF4 that I started to become aware of the competitive fighting game scene as well, I imagine initially because of this legendary comeback video:

As well as being amazed by what actually happens in the fight, I was always struck by the response from the audience. Here was a room full of 'nerds' by anyone's standards but the cheers and celebrations after were equal to almost any sports event you could think of. Combined with the sheer amount of people there just to watch two guys play a video game, it's a great reveal as the camera pans back around to capture the scenes of hype.

Through the competitive scene I also finally changed my attitude toward 'cheapness' in fighting games. As discussed in Intermediate’s Guide by David Sirlin - simply put, I used to be a scrub. Back in the day everyone had their own ideas about what was cheap in fighting games; Throws (some truth to that), Cross ups, Special moves (any of them - my wife still sticks to this view) and certain characters just for starters. This article finally made me appreciate that although there may have been some unintended effects back in the day, most of the time what is in the game was specifically designed to be in the game and usually nothing is unbeatable. You wouldn't see someone complaining that "Rock is far too overpowered against Scissors" but so often in fighting games people will stick with 'Scissors' religiously and insist that people who constantly use 'Rock' are boring players, without going looking for the 'Paper' to counter them. This is still a difficult thing to fully accept when you're locked in a corner with someone throwing fireballs at you but hopefully I don't get as mad about it any more. Or if I do get mad then hopefully it will push me to learn some new tactics rather than make me feel like I never want to play the game again.

The internet has done a lot to keep me interested in fighting games this time, from the sheer wealth of information out there to help you level up, to the simple fact of being able to play against people who aren't right next to me. I would say there was a period where I had reasonable success online but I was still not able to perform most of the great combos I was reading about (as much as I like the idea of links in combos I think having 1/60th of a second window to perform them is too tight for mere mortals). I gradually started to get frustrated with my own failings, which is probably why I took a break from them in the middle of last year and caught up on some single player games that I had been missing out on. This wasn't a complete break from fighting games though as I continued to watch plenty of videos online - insane combo videos and the like and of course, The Excellent Adventures of gootecks and Mike Ross:

These guys have pretty much become the face of the fighting game community (whether the FGC wants them to be or not). I think the fact that they are pretty down to earth and funny really helps people to identify with them compared to the traditional view of a professional gamer. I see so much of myself in Mike Ross in terms of how frustrated he gets when he loses - that feeling that you should have won a match but got beaten by a gimmicky tactic is pretty universal I think. There are other big characters that are starting to make a name for themselves in fighting game videos, like Maximillian's series of comedic Marvel Vs. Capcom tutorials and FC Jago's Why We Hate You show that has a (probably exaggerated) rivalry with gootecks and Mike Ross.

I find it interesting that people are actually becoming the superstars of the fighting game world but that this may not be what some of the community wants. I read an article a while back called The Rise of the Armchair Street Fighter, which talked about the importance of making sure that primarily the fighting game community revolves around people who take part rather than just watch. While I agree that the focus should be driven by those who play the games I think there is a place for people who are primarily spectators and I would imagine that the rise in these numbers has done a great deal to expand fighting game events. After all, with the costs of holding tournaments starting to require sponsorship, why would a company want to sponsor an event or a player if no one gets exposure to it? The article also refers back to another post by Seth Killian where he asks why football is so popular as a spectator sport when most people have no real connection to it. I think that this misses out the fact that the biggest football fans probably did love to play football back in the day though and they now live their dreams vicariously through their teams progress. For all of us 20-30 something people who have no great interest in sport but grew up on Street Fighter, is it so bizarre that we find enjoyment in rooting for our favourite players just like a sports fan would? Yes in some respects these people aren't superstars that are totally removed from the public but for most of us we're so unlikely to meet them (well, I think Desk lives somewhere near me) that they might as well be celebrities to us. I just hope that the community continues to grow and improve, while still providing entertainment to folks like me.