An Entree to Half-life Discussion

June 17th, 2009

I’ve recently been intensively playing a number of games which I’m yet to have discussed yet, two of those include Half-life and Half-life 2. I’ve got a bundle of opinions on the series which I’ll get to later. For now though I just thought that I’d text dump this short story from Wikipedia that I found when doing some recent research on the series. I’m sure you’ll find this drama rather interesting if you hadn’t heard of it already.

“Half-Life 2 was merely a rumor until a strong impression at E3 in May 2003 launched it into high levels of hype, where it won several awards for best in show. It had a release date of September 2003, but was delayed. This pushing back of HL2’s release date came in the wake of the cracking of Valve’s internal network,[51] through a null session connection to Tangis which was hosted in Valve’s network and a subsequent upload of an ASP shell, resulting in the leak of the game’s source code and many other files including maps, models and a playable early version of Half-Life Source and Counter-Strike Source in early September 2003.[52] On October 2, 2003, Valve CEO Gabe Newell publicly explained in the HalfLife2.net forums the events that Valve experienced around the time of the leak, and requested users to track down the perpetrators if possible.

In June 2004, Valve Software announced in a press release that the FBI had arrested several people suspected of involvement in the source code leak.[53] Valve claimed the game had been leaked by a German black-hat hacker named Axel Gembe. Gembe later contacted Newell through e-mail (also providing an unreleased document planning the E3 events). Gembe was led into believing that Valve wanted to employ him as an in-house security auditor. He was to be offered a flight to the USA and was to be arrested on arrival by the FBI. When the German government became aware of the plan, Gembe was arrested in Germany instead, and put on trial for the leak as well as other computer crimes in November 2006, such as the creation of Agobot, a highly successful trojan which harvested users’ data.[54][55][56]

At the trial in November 2006 in Germany, Gembe was sentenced to two years’ probation. In imposing the sentence, the judge took into account such factors as Gembe’s difficult childhood and the fact that he was taking steps to improve his situation.[57]”

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Tags: half-life, valve

Metal Gear Solid Novelization Break down (Part #1 Impressions)

March 27th, 2009

metal-gear-sketch

I was going to cram all of this into one mammoth article, but I’ve been a bit behind the ball with posting lately (no shortage of ideas though, just other distractions) and there is more than enough hear to fill a regular article. So here is part one of my thoughts on the MGS novel. The second part is a comprehensive list of all the differences between novel and game.

Background

Back in November last year while studying abroad in Shanghai, I by chance stumbled upon a novelization of the original Metal Gear Solid in one of the many bookstores just off the People’s Square. Far too entrenched in the Chinese lifestyle and language, I decided to read the book once I returned home in Australia, and over the past few weeks I’ve been just doing that. These are my thoughts.

Metal Gear Solid (novel) was published as a paperback on May 27, 2008 in America and over a week later in Europe on June 5, 2008. The novel was written by Raymond Benson, most notably known for his contributions to the James Bond series of novels between 1997-2003. Metal Gear Solid is the depiction of the events of the Shadow Mosses incident just as it were in the original video game.

General Impressions (Review)

Metal Gear Solid is by no means a reinterpretation of the original Shadow Mosses incident. The book rarely delves deeper into the characters, plot or themes any more so than I believe Hideo Kojima’s script would allow, rather author Raymond Benson is mostly a scribe for the game, intervening with the text where possible and necessary, often doing so to great effect.

This isn’t so much a review of the storyline as it is the novelization of the video game, so the documenting of the already static sequences (codec conversation and cut scenes) aren’t really worth discussing. Benson writes as these sequences purpose, and captures the essence of the cut scenes and codec sequences well.

When it comes to what one might call the player narrative though, Benson’s experience within the espionage writing genre is faithful to the Metal Gear Solid experience and lore. What was once your own means for tackling the game, has now become ingrained in the Solid Snake character. Where as a player might rely on a knowledge of conventions they’ve learnt from other games, Snake’s methodology is based upon lessons taught to him Master Miller, prior experiences in the field and training. Perhaps Benson’s greatest strength in this book is substantiating Snake’s prior knowledge and then channeling this back to the relevant characters, plot and dialogue at hand. This makes Snake’s mindset seem all the more real. Snake’s tactics within the natural environment draw on his experience of living in Alaska, his combat derived from lessons taught by Master Miller, dialogue from Campbell, Naomi and Mei Ling’s relevant to the chaos unfolding. Miller in fact is heavily called upon, replacing Mei Ling as the feature’s Confucious of wisdom.

snake-meyrl-sketch

The necessary intervention at the point of where video games and writing don’t meet (the player) allows Benson to better contextualize Snake as a character. When he changes the already fixed narrative itself, the book become a little problematic, as he’s clearly playing with things he perhaps shouldn’t be. Thankfully, beyond the few exceptions where he does this, the story is just as you remember it.

It’s difficult to say if I would recommend this book, as the text is only fodder to picturize the game unfolding in your head. If you haven’t ever played the video game then, I’d probably recommend you play that, rather than read about it. I doubt that the hybridized interactive manga/film/comic narrative translates outside of the medium that it was born. Overall though, this is a faithful, solid adaption of Metal Gear Solid to another format. Word has it that the sequel is also received an adaption by the same author, should be interesting.

^{Artwork pinched from Creative-Uncut}

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Tags: metal gear solid

Can’t You Just Be Fun For Once!

March 1st, 2009

zelda-midna

Sitting just above the top brim of my laptop’s monitor is a list of unfinished games blutacked to the wall with little dashes put next to the games that I’ve played but haven’t completed to my personal 100% satisfaction. What I’ve discovered recently is how resistant some of these buggers are to complete. Having done some backlogging in the past 2 years, I have quite a bounty of games now, so it’s easy to switch over to a different game every time another one throws up a roadblock. The problem is getting back to the previous game, getting unstuck or just brushing aside the last few challenges holding me from a 100% completion rate. I love playing games, but some of these games have become intolerably frustrating at forfeiting progression, whether it be compulsory or not. Here’s a few examples of some negative criticism, something that you don’t hear too often from me:

Zelda: Twilight Princess

I haven’t even reached the water dungeon* yet and I’ve already encountered more moments of dumbfounded frustration and cluelessness than I have in any previous Zelda game. This is a Zelda game, I am an N-fan and as those things would have it; I hold my chops when it comes to Zelda adventuring. Furthermore – just like any game – I want to enjoy Twilight Princess, I want to be caught in its charms and whimsy but despite these things I’m still stalling my adventure.

Some examples, please?

I’d been semi-stuck in Twilight Princess a few times near the start of the game, particularly with some of the more menial tasks like fishing (which wasn’t really explained) but I guess you can chalk those up to a long leave of absence from elfish adventuring.

Unfreezing Zora’s Domain had me stumped, big time. Wolf Link and his annoying-but-supposively-I-will-fall-in-love-with-this-sidekick Midna reached the frozen thrown room and mouth of Lake Hylia in Zora’s Domain. Being the hero you must snuff out some way to unfreeze the area, allowing the water to flow again. After randomly fussing about in that area for a few hours, I consulted a FAQ which told me that I had to warp to some previously visited area, on arrival Midna would see a giant molten stone which it would then warp back to the thrown room. Excuse me, but how is one meant to guess that for themselves? Did Nintendo just assume that people would automatically warp to this place for some unforeseen reason?

zelda-wolf-link

The same applies shortly after when killing all of the bugs in the Twilight Realm to free the area of twilight**. The game does little to inform you of where to go to meet the area’s overseer who will grant you the item which you can use to kill the bugs and hence restore the area. I wandered around a bit, found a few bugs, sang a song on some context sensitive area which yielded another wolf to appear on the map in a completely different place, on a mounting too high for me to reach. I eventually stumbled upon where I was suppose to go and began tearing through the various nasties as outlined on the game’s map. My container was filled with the exception of two light sources that I needed from the bugs. This time the map didn’t display where they were located, which seemed rather cruel at the time. So I again spent hours hopelessly running around the area, before consulted my FAQ to discover that one of the eight or so bugs was located away from Lake Hylia, residing in an interior area of Hyrule Castle Town. No wonder I couldn’t find him, he was in a completely different area! And so I killed him, the final one magically appeared back in the lake - Midna’s psychic abilities somehow sensed it.

I honestly cannot understand how a player’s meant to draw these long winded connections.

Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror

You’ll know that recently I’ve been playing Syphon Filter Dark Mirror. I’m a big fan of this series and therefore put a lot of effort into the way I played the game. When I play I try to take advantage of everything provided in my toolset. Now despite having thoroughly played the game in both normal and hard difficulties, collecting all of the secret evidence and simply playing in a pretty effective manner, I’m still a long way from unlocking all of the additional missions. The badge system the game employs is great, but the requirements of killing every possible agent in every possible way to the highest degree possible is a downright strenuous way of holding content from a player. You’d have to play through each level at least half a dozen times to get close to filling in the series of micro-stats. You’ve already given so much to me, why do you have to hold me at ransom for the final push?

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

Like the others, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams did this to me recently which is why I switched over to Yakuza 2. I’ve reached a point, relatively early on, where the game simply won’t provide me with enough information to progress. I’ve spent ages walking around this underground cavern, through 3-4 rooms and the game still refuses to throw me a hint. I mean, there are less than four rooms, how difficult can it be?

^{*I haven’t reached it, so I don’t know what it’s called yet!**How ridiculous is it that a bunch of bugs have such authority over the respective landmarks of Hyrule?}

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Tags: onimusha, Syphon Filter, zelda

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