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The Game Boy: From Space Invaders to Mothership Zeta – Why Videogame Aliens Suck

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:34:24 -0500

Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta’s opening scenes were absolutely out of this world. Within a span of ten minutes, I was torn from the Wasteland, poked and prodded with 100 haystacks’ worth of needles, stripped of the near-impregnable safety blanket I call “Power Armor,” and unceremoniously tossed into a prison cell. Upon awakening, my ragged, desperate human cellmate cowered in fear as some unknown force approached our cell, only to change course at the last second and perform its unspeakable act on some other hapless sap. The poor guy emitted a blood-curdling howl as his frail flesh clunked around in what sounded like a super-powered dryer.

I was absolutely thrilled. Fear, curiosity, and vulnerability hooked me. Adrenaline reeled me in. “Who are these unseen, all-powerful beings?” I wondered. “Why are they doing this?” My interest piqued when my cellmate mentioned our captors’ penchant for tampering with people’s brains. Then I actually saw them. Tiny, green, big heads, round eyes. Beaten and beamed up by God after only two strikes from my pithy 23 unarmed skill. Thrill and intrigue, it was nice knowing you.

What followed was roughly four hours of good old fashioned alien-blasting. Fun, but nothing special. No mind-blowing ulterior motives, no unsettlingly foreign alien culture; the mean, green abducting machines were just a new skin for everyday Fallout 3 enemies. Really, there was nothing "alien" about these aliens. After such a promising opening, I felt more than a little let down.

Upon further thought, though, I realized that Mothership Zeta’s extraterrestrial approach simply mirrored that of nearly every sci-fi videogame since Space Invaders. See, when gamers whine about “ANOTHER sci-fi shooter,” they think they’re doing it because aliens, lasers, and outer-space are played-out. However, like the final frontier it so often focuses on, I think the topic of aliens in videogames could use a whole lot more exploration. We just need to approach it from a different angle, is all.

Since the dawn of the gaming industry, “you = good guy, alien = bad guy” has been the guiding line of thought. And what do we do to baddies? We blast ‘em, of course – no questions asked. Halo, Half-Life, Gears of War, Quake, Metroid – you name it. If it’s not of this world, we like keeping it that way. Sadly, it’s only once you start asking said questions that things get interesting.

Hugely influential novel (and personal favorite) “Ender’s Game” puts forth a great example of extraterrestrial ground videogames have yet to traverse. (Note: Ender’s Game spoilers follow.) The book presents a world semi-recently ravaged by a bug-like alien species, with humanity gearing up to withstand an anticipated second trouncing by these “buggers.” Interestingly, though, the reader never actually encounters a real, exoskeleton-and-blood alien until the latter half of the book. The enemy’s unseen, with only hearsay and propaganda to fill in the blanks. Thus, curiosity propels you through the story. What’s the deal with these aliens? Why did they nearly destroy earth, only to flee when victory was at hand? Where are they now? Etc. I’d love to see this kind of masterful, mystery oriented build-up attempted in a videogame setting.

“Dawn,” by Octavia Butler serves as further food for thought about aliens in videogames. Here, we find main character Lilith Iyapo spirited away from a devastated earth by – what else – aliens. One major problem, though: these aliens are about as far from human as one can get. Little green men these ain’t. Instead, these things are practically made of creepy crawly tentacles, swap genetic information and meld with whatever species they come by, and can be any one of three genders. They are, to put it mildly, hideous, by human standards. Their very existence is an affront to ours. The whole book, then, is about integration with a truly otherworldly culture. What I think games could take away from this isn’t necessarily a totally non-violent alien-based game, but rather, the notion of a world completely unlike our own. Too many games depict aliens and alien cultures as humans with funny skin colors and human-like sets of value to match.

In this respect, I see ACE Team’s Zeno Clash as a step in the right direction – at least, as far as creating a totally foreign, yet shockingly believable world goes. Between the curvy, organic-looking aesthetic, inhuman characters, and oddball philosophy behind it all, Zeno Clash was not a typical first-person videogame. It pulled off its shtick so convincingly, in fact, that multiple people told me that the game scared them, despite the fact that nothing explicitly “scary” ever happens in the game. Why? Because it’s different. Just as non-humanoid creatures like spiders and scorpions unsettle us, so to do utterly strange worlds.

My ideas, of course, are only the tip of a very large iceberg. So, how about you? How would you like to see aliens and other such sci-fi themes handled in modern videogames?

Microsoft Announces Kodu Game-Creation Tool, Other Things at CES

Nathan Grayson — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:23:46 -0600

Microsoft’s CES keynote was, as expected, light on megaton gaming news, but a somewhat small – though undeniably interesting -- gem did manage to escape from Microsoft’s warchest. Titled Kodu, this easy-to-use game-creation tool is operated with only the Xbox 360 controller. However, based on a demonstration given during the keynote, Kodu could very well relegate games like LittleBigPlanet to the musty back corner of the toy box. Said MPC’s own Will Smith upon viewing the demo:

“The kid doing the Kodu demo (Sparrow) is hardcore with the radial menus. I forget how awesome they are if they're fast enough that you can actually use them. She was using the radial menus to adjust items in her game world. These are incredibly deep radial menus, compared to other apps. This is a pretty impressive tool, and she's controlling it entirely using the Xbox controller. There are lots of little games in the world.”

According to a Microsoft press release, Kodu’s colorful vistas are “expressed in physical action-reaction terms, using basic concepts like vision, hearing and time to control your character’s behavior.” Sounds pretty wicked.

Kodu launches this spring on the Xbox Live Community Games Channel.

See the rest of Microsoft’s game-related announcements after the break.

New Xbox Experience (NXE) has increased downloads 60%. 10B hours of gameplay and interaction on the service. The NXE includes avatars now. 33% more friends now than people had prior to the NXE launch.
Average players put in 150 hours of Halo on Xbox Live.
Halo Wars will be out Feb 28, and will be rated T. There will be a demo on Feb 5.
This spring, Microsoft will launch Xbox Live Primetime. Scheduled times to play games with your friends. Apparently, it will feature flesh-and-blood human hosts, catapulted into your living room through future Internet website.com wizardry.

2008 Nowhere to Be Found in Nielsen’s Most Played PC Games of 2008

Nathan Grayson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:00:49 -0600

Research group The Nielsen Company recently released a list of 2008’s 10 most played PC games, but seeing as how you’re probably still scraping bolded numbers off your monitor after you last careened into our list sanctum, we nearly skipped it. However, as it turns out, Nielsen’s runway strut contained a pretty interesting anomaly, so we want you to look at it.

Top 10 PC Game Titles in the U.S.

World of Warcraft (2004) / Blizzard Entertainment 671 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.723% AU*
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007) / Infinity Ward 403 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.163% AU*
Halo: Combat Evolved (2003) / Gearbox, Bungie 295 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.092% AU*
The Sims (2000) / EA Maxis 213 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.09% AU*
The Sims 2 (2004) / EA Maxis 291 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.086% AU*
RuneScape (2001) / Jagex Ltd. 451 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.084% AU*
Diablo II (2000) / Blizzard Entertainment 313 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.065% AU*
Team Fortress 2 (2007) / Valve 371 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.063% AU*
Counter-Strike (2000) / Valve 282 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.062% AU*
Counter-Strike: Source (2004) / Valve 426 Avg Minutes Played Per Week / 0.061% AU*

*AU is the percent of PC Gamers playing title in the average minute.
Data from Jan - Oct 2008.

Notice anything? Yep. Not a single game on the list was released in 2008 – except for maybe WoW: WotLK, but even then, this is telling sign of where PC gaming now needs to park its tuckus. Bottom line: Subscriptions and microtransactions. You’re welcome, industry. Our bill’s in the mail.

Halo 2 for Vista

Will Smith — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:44:53 -0500

I played a lot of Halo 2 on the Xbox. Every night for most of a year, I’d fire up the game with some buddies, lead off with a couple of swords-only rounds on Lockout, then jump into Coagulation or Zanzibar for some CTF or team deathmatch action. For that reason, I was looking forward to playing Halo 2 with the superior mouse/keyboard combination when it finally came to the PC.

Halo 2 for Vista is essentially the same game that was released for the Xbox in November of 2005. You fight the Covenant on Earth, just like in the Xbox version. An amazing twist is in the single-player campaign, just like in the Xbox version. The single-player story stops just as abruptly as it does in the Xbox version. And the multiplayer kicks as much ass as the Xbox version’s. However, the biggest problem is that there just aren’t many people playing. Even when you log on during prime time, you don’t see many people playing online. At best, there are just a few dozen populated servers. Generally, there aren’t enough players for matchmaking (a feature in the paid version of Live) to work properly.

The most notable addition to Halo 2 for Vista is that it’s one of the first titles that supports Games for Windows Live—the PC-specific version of Xbox Live’s friends and matchmaking services. Once you get Live working, you’ll see your friends list and have a bevy of communication options (text messages, voice messages, or live chat) within the game. I experienced some compatibility problems with the service but managed to get it working with a little help (see my previous article for more info). You need to pay $50 a year for the privilege of getting all of Live’s features, but a subscription works for both PC and 360 games, so current subscribers to Live can log in and play immediately. Without a subscription, you won’t have access to matchmaking (which doesn’t work) or multiplayer achievements. Woo.

Despite the crappy graphics and very first-gen implementation, this is still a brilliant game. Of course, it’s a brilliant, almost three-year-old game with a $50 price tag. And the Xbox 360's already on Halo 3.

Problems Connecting to Games for Windows Live? Read this.

Will Smith — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:24:16 -0500

I've talked about the problems I had getting Games for Windows Live--the version of Xbox Live for games that run on Windows--working. After spending a few hours on the phone with the fine folks at Microsoft who built Games for Windows Live, we were actually able to troubleshoot and fix the problem that was preventing me from logging into or downloading content from Live on my gaming PC.

The culprit? A beta version of the Cisco VPN client. However, removing the offending application isn't as easy as just using Add/Remove programs. I had to go through a series of processes. If you're having problems connecting (and from reading tons of message boards, I know some of you are having problems). So, here's what we did to solve my problem.

First, I followed these instructions, disabling any extra network adapters, and putting the adapter that I'm using at the top of the priority list. That didn't help, but it may work for you.

Second, I fired up my BIOS and disabled the second onboard NIC, so that Windows wouldn't even know it's there. That didn't work either, but it did make me feel like I was doing something useful, which is really all I was looking for by this time.

Finally, I uninstalled the Cisco VPN software, and manually removed the offending part of the app, the Deterministic Networks driver using these instructions. After a reboot, I was in business, and able to log into Live and play Shadowrun and Halo 2 online at home.

December 2003: Gear of the Year '03

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 -0600

In the PDF archive of the December 2003 issue, you can find:

Gear of the Year 2003
Case Mod Contest Winner
CPU Slugfest
Holiday Gift Guide
And Lots of Awesome Reviews including Halo and the ATI Radeon 9800 XT!
Ask the Doctor
Rig of the Month
The Watchdog
And a whole lot more!

Click the mondo huge cover image to the right to download the PDF archive today!