A while back, Michael Abbott posted an excellent post about the status of sports games, which I agree with. [I posted some of my own experiences in support of his points.] If you’ve seen me on Xbox Live, you’ve probably seen me playing NCAA 2010. I have a couple of online dynasties that I play with my brother. And we’ve been experimenting with the new teambuilder feature, that allows you [as you might guess] to build and customize a team from scratch.
And to follow up on Michael’s post, we are taking the customization in a fun direction, doing things outside of the game.
You see, we decided to combine comics and gaming to start developing teams based on superheroes. The idea is to take the traits of the character and apply it to different aspects of the team–player attributes, playbook, school attributes.
For example, a team built around Ben Grim/The Thing might look like this:
The Thing QB has a 99 throwing power rating but probably a low throwing accuracy, of say 55 or 66.
Everyone on the team has boosted Strength stats: Strength, stamina, Injury, break tackle, stiff arm, Run & Pass Block Strength, Kick Power, Trucking, Block Shedding, Hit Power, Tackle.
All of the speed attributes are much lower than normal (which would depend on the attribute–a basic speed of 40 for a RB might be unusable, although an interesting test when pared with the high strength values).
Intelligence-related stats would be 50, 60 or so.
The defense would be a 5-2 or 4-3, and the offense would be a more run-oriented team with some short to middle passes.
But here’s we started having fun–characterizing how the team is played:
The same Ben Grimm team would take a lot of chances because Grimm is an emotionally, fly-off-the-cuff character. That team would go for it on 4th a lot more often.
You’d always play to win, not to tie. For example, that team would go for 2 point conversions outside of the normal.
It would blitz a lot, too.
It probably would run up the middle more often than not. Very few screens and no trick plays.
We started going even further with these out-of-game characteristics:
With Doctor Doom’s Doombot team, the Doom player gets to pick some aspect of the opponent’s coaching or gameplan and remove it [as an agreement since it can't really be enforced]. For example, he could say that you have to start your backup QB and demote your starter to 3rd string. Or he could say that you can’t call any inside runs.
But the Doom team has a weakness for monologuing, which means that once a quarter, the Doom team has to take too long to call an offensive play. The Doom player picks when [early or late in the quarter].
No, this probably won’t appeal to college football fans. But we’re captivated with this new ability to play the game in a different way. And the game’s RPG aspects now seem to be more open and obvious than before. We’re no longer playing a strategy game and focused on numbers. We’re now developing game personas and playing roles.
As of August 24, Microsoft’s game-making site Popfly will no longer be accessible. Instead, you can use Microsoft XNA, Kodu, or other programmatic tools.
I thought Popfly was actually a decent site–more robust than Kodu but a visual program interface that is more accessible than dev kits. Kodu is supposed to be available for Windows, but a date hasn’t been announced. Popfly beared more than a passing resemblance to Game Maker from Yoyo Games. The visual interface made it accessible without cutting off more advanced game programming.
But Popfly offered an online game making and sharing experience. Yet, there are other online game makers, like sploder and gamecrafter, not to mention simple level creators at kids sites.
In my little spare time, I’ve been playing with Kodu, creating a simple game centered around healing sick creatures and removing a pollutant causing the sickness.
Kodu communities are sprouting up. Unfortunately, the tutorials included with Kodu aren’t that useful–I think you can learn more by looking at the ‘code’ for the other included games. This forum is decently active with a couple of very good threads about tricks, creative coding, and tips for a good game world. There’s a kodu wiki, but it’s light on information. The Gamefaqs forum has also picked up in posts.
If you’re interested in sharing Kodu games, read this.
Without a doubt, this is a limited game making app. Yet, it’s very accessible, and with a little creativity, you can do a bit. I’m using it as an opportunity to teach some basic programming principles to my kids and helping them to plan and think through problems with a limited set of tools. In that respect, making the game is actually more interesting than the game output.
In some respects, Kodu is like a robust level editor–it’s for small games, something you can create and play quickly. I’ve done more of trying to create this or that small part of a game. Some people are creating some interesting bits. When you contrast Kodu with Microsoft’s online game maker Popfly, you quickly see what Kodu is. In Kodu, you have template characters where you can’t upload new graphics or sounds. You can’t dive into deep customization of a character or scene, like in Popfly [which is itself a limited game maker]. With Kodu, when you drop in a character, you don’t have to work about animating it when it moves, assigning health points. Kodu isn’t just for kids, but it’s so much more approachable for young kids than Popfly.
Also, it appears that the Kodu team will release an update. But nothing is definite.
I’ve been pondering a post about politics and comics for a while, specifically about readers decide to act when find comic creators speaking forthrightly about their politics. This is not that that post.
Lately, a couple of comic writers whose work I enjoy have opined their conservative beliefs, and even though my purchase and joy of their comic creations aren’t affected, I question their arguments and claims.
For example, Mike Baron discusses how comics, like other entertainment fields, is swamped with liberals and how unthinking they are.
I think quoting comments is typically viewed as shooting fish in a barrel, which Baron does. And I can quote the conservative comments similarly:
“It’s funny that so many comics folks (fans and creators) are liberal given that the general thrust of most comics is to, you know, get the bad guy.” Really. I had no idea liberalswerechampionsfor the badguy.
“ I must admit I’m a bit shocked that ANYONE in the comics biz would be conservative or even a moderate. And although I’d heard about Miller’s Batman story over a year ago, I had him pegged as liberal too.” Of course, Frank Miller is a liberal based on the fact that everyone is assumed to be a liberal until proven otherwise. Even Baron himself is guilty of this fallacy when he describes Jackie Estrada as a ‘true liberal.’ Estrada responds in the comments, ‘Gee, this is the first time I can recall anyone ever calling me a liberal.’
“Superheroic comic books are by their nature inherently conservative: absolute morality, the judicious use of force, the clear good and bad, the encouragement to show your special nature and work hard against evil, personal responsibility overcoming personal whims, and so on.” Yet, Captain America’s co-creator [among a host of comic heroes] was a liberal [and quite likely, so was Joe Simon, the other creator] Will Eisner, creator of the Spirit whom several posters think is conservative, donated to the Democratic party. The idea that liberals don’t understand “bad guys” and “good guys” is contradicted by liberals’ moral outrage, which conservatives even in those comments acknowledge. Alex Ross is something of a liberal, but he has been advancing idealistic superheroes in his work. In fact, Kingdom Come by Ross and fellow liberal Mark Waid is a story of the ‘traditional’ DC heroes reigning in the new breed of ‘heroes’ led by Magog. Their Superman has a very definite idea of right and wrong.
The point is that commenters of all political persuasions make asinine claims.
Baron then complains, ‘Occasionally a conservative voice breaks through what Emmett Tyrell calls the kultursmog.’ Conservative in what sense? Sometimes, this kind of complaint stems from a desire to see heroes situated in today’s political issues, such as the call for Superman to fight terrorists as he did against the Nazis and Japan in the 40s. And so Baron cites Frank Miller’s plans of a story in which Batman fights al Qaeda. Right. Because no liberal has ever advocated fighting al Qaeda.
As a counterpoint, I have enjoyed Willingham’s Fables and Baron’s Nexus because they were good stories, stories of right and wrong, of good and evil. Even though I am a liberal, I never found their comics and themes particularly political in terms of the American spectrum — Mass murderers are evil and should be brought to justice, and tyrannies are wrong and should be fought. If these are conservative values, then I guess I’m a conservative, except that I’m not, as least not in its current corrupted form.
I think comics work best at this general level because these kinds of themes are nearly universally accepted. Thus, comics are capable of unifying us in spite of our political affiliations. As several comments on his piece indicate, the politics of the Golden Age and Silver Age heroes were liberals, heroes that readers identify as conservative.
It seems that Baron doesn’t want comics to depict stories that appeal to conservative — he wants conservatives to come out of the closet, so to speak, by taking what he considers conservative turns.
So, let’s look at his ‘conservative’ views.
If you had not read Baron’s “Manifesto” article [which I could only find as a cached version], you might take Baron at his implied word that these liberals cannot tolerate conservative opinions. The fact is that Baron doesn’t want to use comics to wage a propaganda war on islamofacism but against Islam itself as he asserts the following as the messages of his proposed propaganda:
Islam is intolerant.
Islam is incapable of dealing in good faith.
Islam has no respect for human life. Highlight the loss in human life of the Intifada. Dramatize how Palestinians gladly sacrifice their own children to kill Jews—or any non-believers.
Baron is dishonest about the disagreement and the comments that he quotes because he hides anti-islamic statements behind the word ‘islamofascism.’ He further deceives when he says that one particular comment summed up the reaction to his “manifesto” article:
’Islamofascism’–Interesting that this bullshit word took all of 2 days to seep so deeply into the public conciousness [sic]. Amero-fascism is what has got me scared.
There were 26 comments to that Newsarama post. Only one other poster wrote anything remotely resembling an anti-American tone, so Baron’s quote hardly captures the gist of the reaction:
There’s a sickness running wild in America, and he’s the latest casualty.
. . . I’m not in any way saying that America as a whole is sick, but parts of it are suffering from some terrible fever dreams right now. I think it’s the intellectual equivalent of the 70s, where masses of people went a bit crazy – but instead of bad fashion and the Village People, everyone today is into factionalism and ignoring reality, even as it crumbles down around our ears. Hopefully this era will end soon, and we’ll all still be around to feel foolish about it.
The fact is that Baron is deceptive in his argument, making the criticism of his manifesto piece seemingly an attack on conservative opinion in general and on the fight against terrorism specifically.
He obviously fails to see the problem of confusing, to use an analogy, Germans with Nazis. Or, worse, he does see but doesn’t care.
Mike is free to have his opinion, but he’s not free from criticism for bad arguments.
I played Advanced Civilization with 6 friends for about 13 1/2 hours on Saturday, and it was blast, especially since I’ve not played an all-day board game in ages. It’s amazing how well Advanced Civilization stands up after all these years as an excellently balanced game. At one point, I had 3 calamities that threatened to wipe me out, but I was able to get back into the game and remain competitive. The nice thing, too, is that there was talk of starting up a D&D 4th edition campaign. [The computer game Advanced Civilization is available for download at abandonia, and it's a very near, if not exact, duplication of the board game, unlike, of course, Sid Meier's adaptation.]
In that game session, I talked to several friends are game developers, and they confirmed not only how steadily the game companies in Dallas have continued to wane but how the recent cuts across game companies is going to affect the games we see, though not until 2010, given development cycles. Plus, the necessary credit for producing AAA games isn’t there. One large publisher is even concerned about the lack of new releases for the fall. [Again, I'm amazed that there's not more interest in producing up-market games for the Wii because of its relatively cheap development costs.]
I had played through a bit of Zack & Wiki and then stopped to play other things. But I picked it up again on Friday, playing with the kids who were very helpful. Games like this are actually excellent multiplayer games, as even my wife sat down and tried to help with a couple. The reason is that the game, unlike RTS, RPG, and FPS games, doesn’t rely on controlling the character to have fun–a puzzle is a puzzle . . . as long as the gamer listens to others and respects their suggestions.
I picked up Skies of Arcadia in trade from Goozex, and I’m looking forward to playing it. Having fun with Chrono Trigger has made me eager to play through those RPGs that i really didn’t give time to before. I found that Skies was actually rather available in different game stores as a used game. This could be one of those games that would probably make a good suggestion for a game club such as Michael Abbot’s [which I keep meaning to join].
Playing games, especially board games, as a family can be tricky largely because my 6-year-old daughter is at a disadvantage. I recently ran across a very promising coop board game called Pandemic, in which all the players work together using the strengths of their roles to prevent the spread of a disease. Below is a video of the creator talking about the game’s design. [It's a little advanced for my daughter, but as a coop game, it's easy to help her along.] I like the fact that the game not only encourages but also requires lots of discussion, which is both good for the family and good to help teach the kids about strategic thinking.
I’ve never been a big fan of Frank Miller for a variety of reasons, but I’m willing to give his work a chance. That said, his adaptation of the Spirit really put me off, as he was clearly Miller-izing Will Eisner’s work. So, I’m rather glad to see The Spirit getting an average score of 31 on metacritic, especially given that the movie’s biggest problem is the writing.
During the Nintendo Conference, Satoru Iwata said that Nintendo is working on improving the Wii’s Internet/network performance so that Nintendo can pursue a “New relationship between family and TV set and the Internet.” He noted that many Wii owners are not aware of the things the Wii can do other than play games.
However, one of the limitations of the Wii’s Opera Browser is that it uses Flash 7, not 8 or 9 because that is the only Flash SDK version available for non-Windows/Mac/Linux platforms. Except that the Flash 7 SDK is being obsoleted by Flash Lite 3, which is based on Flash 8 and which has actually been out since October 2007. Flash Lite 3.1 does support at least some Flash 9 playback. A year has come and gone since that release with no update of the Wii Opera Browser or an announcement.
Why does this matter? If you want to watch tv shows or movies on the web [at places like hulu, fancast, or joost], you can’t use the Wii Browser. If the Wii can’t existing relationships between owners, their tv sets, and the Internet, how are they going to create a new one? The Wii Browser is something that distinguishes it from the PS3 and Xbox.
Going back to the theme of my previous post, I have a hard time believing that updating the Wii Browser with Flash Lite 3.1 is much of an effort.
I know I haven’t written much in a few days, and now I’m about to head out for a family vacation to Chicago. No, we don’t have friends or family there, but it has a lot to see, do, and, of course, eat [including these fineeateries]. The food, the art, the architecture, and the beer.
Actually, I’m glad to go somewhere the high temperature is our low temperature at night.
A while back, I mentioned putting together a superhero playlist for a family roadtrip. The kids loved the songs, and my wife and I even enjoyed them. The following were the favorites. I found “Aquaman’s Lament” very addictive for some reason. There were some other good songs, which I’ll post later. Even though Johnny Quest isn’t a superhero, I loved the cartoon as a kid, and Reverend Horton Heat is just good.
I’ve been intrigued by online comics, webcomics, but sometimes, they don’t seem to read well online. Zuda is one of those sites. When I first tried it, shortly after it started, I didn’t like the format, which was often hard to read. I had to expand most comics to full-screen to be able to read them.
But I’ve been giving it another pass of late. Several have intriguing hooks, like The Erebus Effect and Action, Ohio, but they fall short for one reason or another. [And neither of these are bad . . . but the storytelling is off.] Some winners, like Melody, have a nice story, but I’m not hooked and wonder how they won. But others are good enough that I want more, like Celadore and Bayou.
In all zuda is good because it is limited and has a monthly competition, which makes it somewhat interactive. sites like web comics nation and keenspot are overwhelming with the number of comics, and you’re never sure if a comic you like will continue. But being a competition where only the winners get to continue their comic on zuda and where submitters are limited to 8 pages, it seems that comics with potential stop prematurely.
As I’ve seen with the DS homebrew games, you have to sift through a lot of novice or bad stuff to get some gold or even something that glitters with potential and is worthwhile. The question is how much time do people have to sift through it all to find it? Even with web comic review sites like comixtalk, webcomics examiner, webcomiker, and webcomic overlook, the choices are numerous. It’s a blessing and a curse to have the web for self-publishing creators, but mostly, it’s a blessing.
With the release of the movie Wanted, I was reminded of the comic that inspired it. I had succumbed to reading the comic after hearing how good it was, but unfortunately, I thought this ‘Watchmen for villians’ aspired to less than what it could have been. I think its flaws are more visible when compared to a book of seeming similarity, A Clockwork Orange. Both have been questionably translated to film.
[I admit I'm a huge fan of Anthony Burgess, and I have read several of his books, my favorite probably being the Enderby series.]
What makes both works difficult is that both involve wanton violence, with characters who have no regard for human life. To like such violent stories would seem to endorse that violence, which is a separate issue, but I’m going to assume this interpretation is not valid and it’s not a reason to criticize works: it’s like Emperor Joseph II saying “Too much violence.”
The problem is that with Millar’s Wanted, I think that the violence is all that there is. Certainly, there is a plot, and there are intriguing characters. And we can talk about how well done those are, but if we’re going to compare it as a Watchmen-like comics, then the point of the story is significant. Sure, we can appreciate the story-telling, transitions, and references in Watchmen, but it was the purpose to which it was all applied that captures us and makes that comic transcend its brethern and become almost literary.
Likewise, A Clockwork Orange has the impressively creative Nadsat language, about which a lot of criticism has been written, but in the end, this is a bit of creativity and genius that flavors the novel but is not the meat. The book’s themes are hardly hidden–it is clearly a story that calls us to question at what price do we value order and lawfulness? At a time when B.F. Skinner was writing and proposing behavioral technology, Burgess was examining the implications of such thinking. Given Burgess’s [lapsed] Catholicism, A Clockwork Orange could be considered a rephrasing of Matthew 12:26:
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain goodness, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
When Alex is reformed, he loses his ability to choose good as well as an ability to enjoy Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
I’m not going to rehash an intepretation of A Clockwork Orange , but I want to recall its themes, so that we can remember that the violence has a context. Even in Kubrick’s adaptation, which seemed to revel in the violence even moreso than the novel, the violence is not celebrated [although the rape scene is especially difficult to watch], even though Alex and his droogs seem a bit clownish. The movie’s violence makes us despise Alex and his gang all the more, giving Kubrick quite a challenge in making us feel some level of sympathy for Alex eventually.
To couch this theme in Christian and Biblical terms, God could have easily created clockwork people who are created and forced to goodness. But what would that mean? What would be the point? People are not basically good nor basically evil but both. And, while I have many criticisms of it, the Bible teaches again and again is that goodness is a labor and a choice. [Burgess has referred to Pelagianism elsewhere, but its theme is alive and well in A Clockwork Orange.]
Perhaps it seems unfair to compare Wanted to A Clockwork Orange, but I don’t think so. Maybe it’s my middle aged self, but reading about fucked up characters for the purpose of seeing just how fucked up they are is not entertaining and certainly isn’t worth my time. Millar has the opportunity with Wanted to offer us a challenging story, which he has done in other comics such as Superman: Red Son. [And actually, Red Son's point about self-determinism and freedom to choose is similar to A Clockwork Orange.] With Wanted, Millar had an opportunity to explore the idea of determinism via heredity and of choice. Instead, Millar drove us by that opportunity, pointed at it with disinterest, and went straight to the horrorshow violence. Just as the American version of A Clockwork Orange didn’t have 21st chapter in which Alex became good of his will but went back to his violent ways, a story doesn’t have to have redeemed characters or a happy ending for it to be meaningful. But Millar didn’t even give an interesting story of how Wesley changes.
Instead, we are told how Wesley’s father left him to be raised a pacifist until Wesley’s ‘true nature’ came out. Then, Wesley breaks the fourth wall to address the audience directly, ‘This is my face while I’m fucking you in the ass.’
How asinine.
I’m not saying that Wanted should be A Clockwork Orange, but the gulf between the two needn’t be so wide.
Unfortunately, when the focus of a story is on its reveal or surprise ending, then I think silly stories like Wanted are to be expected. But when the focus is to tell a good story that develops themes along the way, we get A Clockwork Orange or even Watchmen and Red Son.
When Millar and Hitch were announced to write and draw the Fantastic Four, I was somewhat excited because while I don’t like everything they do, I often enjoy it. Unfortunately, the first issues of their stint didn’t do that much for me. But issue 558 is a marked improvement because it’s the kind of story I think make for good adventure stories, the story that pushes several questions and situations to the reader.
The cover starts it off: ‘Death of the Invisible Woman Part 1.’ And from the previous issue, we start off asking why is Doctor Doom coming to Reed for help? Then we get a host of other questions–who are his attackers? What’s going on with Johnny’s girlfriend? And with Ben Grimm’s? And who is the Richards’ new nanny?
But it’s not just about raising questions like some frustrating episode of Lost. There has to be a story, some progress of the story. It was the first comic in a long while that I want to reread immediately. I thought they could have stretched out one of the main questions out a little more, but considering all the questions this issue raises. I have more to look forward to. I would like to see this sort of writing continue to some extent, with the intention of perhaps not resolving them for several issues. [I wish I could quickly and succinctly contrast this FF story with the very lackluster Ultimate FF of late.]
The previous story arc was more focused in my opinion on the characters of Reed and Sue and their relationship. In this issue, the characters are more secondary to the plot. I like this change, although I’m intrigued by Millar’s women. I’m waiting to comment on them because I think Millar isn’t easy to pidgeonhole. I’ve found some of his depictions women disconcerting, but to be fair, I’m not sure his men are any better.
One thing I want to comment on is Bryan Hitch’s art. While I really appreciate, sometimes, it baffles me. Too frequently, i think, action scenes come across as still life drawings. For example, consider the first two panels on this page. For one the timing between the action and the dialogue is awful: when he announces himself, a lot has to happen before that second panel. But rather show the action, it’s before and after. I’m not asking for Kirby shots and speed lines, but what a thoroughly undramatic scene. For example, imagine panel 1 as is. Panel 2 shows Ben slamming the machinery down amidst a blur of debris. Panel 3 shows the group unharmed. I know I’m not a professional artist, but sometimes, Hitch’s art is beautifully detailed but boring.
And regarding that same scene, I have a few questions:
So, in order to save Doom, Ben is willing to hit him as well with the machinery? A forgivable action since he is, after all, Doctor Doom.
We’ve seen the hallway in which this fight occurs, and there’s no way Ben could have swung that equipment without shredding the wall or ceiling. Yet, somehow, he gets a clean swing.
I love how Ben is willing to grab something, anything, presumably from Reed’s stash and then use it as a weapon. Who knows what the equipment does,, something worse that could injure the kids or other innocents but hey, Ben doesn’t care.
In general, I don’t know why, but Hitch’s thing looks okay, but something about the mouth really bugs me.
All in all, this was a fun comic that I look forward to reading more of.
This neogaf thread is intriguing: how could comic-based games be better? David Jaffe says that the sandbox Spider-Man games are the same missions over and over.
I LOVE Marvel Comics and I LOVE the promise of games based on Marvel Comics. But why can’t you guys make a game that feels like a comic? I don’t mean art style wise; I don’t mean like Comix Zone with panels and cliche stuff like that. I mean feels like a comic in a story based, narrative way: a game that shows off the OTHER aspect that makes Marvel Comics so special: The characters/story. It’s not JUST about the powers, you know. But your games are always ONLY about the powers.
Jaffe makes a later excellent point, which is that storytelling is achieved by more than just cutscenes but with the missions and gameplay. Jaffe’s note that Marvel games focus on power rather than story is a good one. One of the most appealing things about X-Men Legends was that it had a better story than we expected from a comic book game, which often haven’t had stories or bad ones.
What makes Marvel comics so different than DC comics isn’t really the character focus: it’s that we see ordinary people become empowered, but those powers are mixed blessings, even curses.
Peter Parker has spider powers, but they are making his personal life worse: his school performance isn’t up to his potential, his alter-ego interferes with his love life, he’s supporting a newspaper that depicts his alter ego as criminal.
Bruce Banner is the Hulk, but is he just misunderstood? It doesn’t matter because he doesn’t want to be the Hulk. He can’t have a normal life and is hunted down by the government.
Tony Stark has his armor, but, especially in the early days, it was always a risky situation because of the risk to his heart.
And there are others, like Ben Grimm, Dr. Blake [Thor], Silver Surfer, and Namor, but probably no one better exemplified this theme than the Inhumans and the X-Men because it went from an individual’s conflicts with powers to persecution. Unlike DC characters who either seemed compelled to become heroes or accepted the role almost unquestioningly, many Marvel characters were very aware of what their powers meant, and their conflicts gave rise to choices–choices to stop being the hero, to lose their powers.
Yet we get very, very little of this conflict of the blessings and curses of super-powers in comic book games. I believe that incorporating this theme and focusing on the story is best served by elements of role-playing and adventure games, elements that focus on choices of character, not just action.
Start the game as the person, not as the powered hero. Introduce a personal situation for the character. I think this could mean a split storyline, which is very common in Marvel comics. Peter Parker has a conflict to resolve with Aunt May, but Spider-Man is having to deal with a new villian.
Use the idea of alignment from RPGs, which is affected by what missions they use their powers for, or how well they use their powers. Spider-Man might chase criminals, but if he’s inefficient and allows a lot damage, his perception as a villian or vigilante increases. This affects, even limits, choices in other scenes. If the perception as a vigilante is too high, this could affect the personal storyline and its choices.[I think it would be interesting to explore even complex relationships between the powers and the personal. We could have the effects of the vigilante perception problem, but we can maybe see circumstances in which positive perceptions as Spider-Man could make his personal life complicated, too, so that it's not all a 1-for-1 correspondence. Also consider that overcoming personal problems could improve hero stats.]
Make the personal story compelling to the point that players not only feel something but that they even think about it in the superhero storyline. For example, if Aunt May is very ill and the game puts the player as Spider-Man fighting Electro, having something in the fight evoke in the player’s mind Aunt May’s illness. It doesn’t have to be cut scene.[This is probably too gimmicky, but imagine something like the blinding ink in Mario Kart. Spider-Man can encounter Electro in 3-4 possible areas, but in one, there's a billboard with the picture of an older woman and a hospital. If you engage Electro in that area, the billboard comes into view and the image of Aunt May appears which gives Electro an advantage. Or if you want to be more RPG-like, perhaps the billboard could cause something like a spell that lowers Spider-Man's stats.]
Allow the player to make meaningful decisions, even if it might not be consistent with a particular Marvel universe. If Peter has a choice of pursuing Betty, Mary Jane, Felicia, or Gwen, let it happen, and don’t have the game counter the decision so that it wasn’t real. Allow the possibility that characters could die [which, even though we knew wouldn't happen in the stories, were real possibilities to the characters].
Focus the game with its intertwining stories on the conflict of the powers. By the end of the game, the player should have made choices that further the stories and that lead to some resolution of that conflict, at least for the instance provided in the game.
I understand a lot of gamers just want the action, but many, including myself, are drawn to good stories and interesting characters. I think David Freeman’s emotioneering is important in game development because of the emphasis it puts on character, story, and player satisfaction and involvement. Some of my ideas and examples draw on his methods. While I think his methods can lead to formulaic gameplay, I think the idea in all of this is to make the game mechanics and such be subordinate to give the player more than just a game experience but a creative, emotional one.
A lot of games are providing players way to be creative and thus more immersed in the game, and I think it’s a shame that comic book games aren’t offering more of this experience.
The idea of situating superheroes in a more realistic world has always been a kind of petry dish, to see how superheroes would react to real situations or, much more frequently, to see what kind of person it would take to put on a mask and fight crime. Yet, another perspective is that these comics are asserting the importance and relevance of comics to the real world.
Comics have shared with their pulp cousins an escapist entertainment. At its most simple core, it is the ongoing story of right and wrong, with right and justice winning out. But it could be argued [and has been] that we don’t believe in that anymore. It’s not a relevant message. It’s fine for kids but adults move on to deal with the unfairness. Then came those efforts in the 80s to make comics ‘real.’ I’m not going to rehash the likes of Watchmen and Dark Knight, but our superheroes were some messed up people.
Yet, mature themes have frankly not made comics all that relevant. [Argue about the movies being relevant, but that is something different in my opinion.] I don’t talk about comics with anyone except my brother and the folks at the comic book shop. Well, sometimes with my wife. Yet, I can talk about a book or novel that friends haven’t read, and they’re intrigued. But if I start up with “I just read the Death of the New Gods . . .” I’ve lost before I’ve begun.
Yet, in these ‘realistic’ comics, something else is happening. A kid sees an evil thought to be just fictional. An older kid is inspired to do something to make at least a small part of the world right. A superhero becomes mayor of one of the world’s greatest cities.
When Leto says, “Could I really fly?” he’s focused on the powers, on the fantastical element of superheroes. Arguably, this is not what defines superheroes. A hero is someone who has the courage to act, most often to save a life. The super in superhero can mean two things:
someone who has superhuman abilities
someone who acts in the face of even greater power or opposition, an extraordinary hero
Stories of super-powered people is frankly silliness, as enjoyable as it might be. But perhaps I’m slow to this realization, but I’m seeing some of these ‘realistic’ comics emphasizing the latter point. On a superficial level, you see ‘real’ people talking about comics and supers seriously.
I might sound trite, but in days of cynicism and suspicions of those who would do good, it takes even more courage to act. When the currency of our beliefs are that people can be better and that people can make a difference, it might seem reasonable that acting heroically is easier. Or at least more tempting. But in the days when we are certain that homeless people could work but choose their lifestyles, when spiritual leaders prey on children or behave hypocritically, when we see evidence that peoples are basically fucked up, acting is more difficult, requiring more of an extraordinary effort.
You have stories in these comics that show comics and superheroes as relevant, not just how messed up the heroes are, how they would be thugs themselves. ‘Dark’ comics don’t make them more adult or significant. Otherwise, Saw III might be a great film.
What made the first Spider-Man movie so appealing to non-comic fans [at least based on my discussions with them] is seeing a kid deal with having an ability and doing something with it at a personal cost. When acting heroically or rightly is easy, well, that’s not a very interesting story. But when it’s difficult, you don’t get just action but character.
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