Genji: Days of the Blade

Developer: SCEE
Publisher: Sony
Release Date: Nov. 14, 2006
System: PS3
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web Site

Today's Game for Lunch comes from guestblogger Alexander Sliwinski of Joystiq.

In a nutshell: Ninja Gaiden, but bad.

0:01 Pretty CGI intro of characters twirling around to some nice ancient Japanese drum beats.

0:02 Still enamored with the CGI. It looks like there will be four character to play eventually.

0:03 I hit start and prepare to attack enemy crabs for massive damage. Oh mercy, more intro. Too many characters being introduced to pay attention. *go into kitchen for a drink*

0:06 Another cut scene, now two guys staring at each other. They're so pretty with their perfect skin and hybrid Japan-British accents. They're even speaking with rumor being spelled "rumour" in the subtitles. They really are British. Oh, they're brothers and they are apparently going to fight together. YAY! There are warriors infiltrating the palace, finally some action.

0:07 More cut scenes? Nope, fighting time in front of a house on fire. Move two feet, another cut scene. At least these cut scenes are pretty.

0:08 Enough with the damn cut scenes already! The invaders are apparently after some temple. Who cares!?! Let's get the game going. Guys jump out. Fighting time?

0:10 Beat guys, magical chest appears. Grab swords in chest that seem stronger but make you move soooooo slow.

0:11 Beat two more guys and run into the burning building. Stuff falls and keep running forward.

0:12 Find a snowflake. Oh, it's the save point and it restores health.

0:13 I notice that the map in top right corner actually doesn't move in line with your character. The map is based on compass points and not on player view, meaning you can't look at the map to navigate.

0:14 Fight a bunch of guys in a courtyard now. I figure out my new swords from the chest are way too slow and make no sense control wise. Switch back to original with L2 button.

0:16 The camera angle is way too low. It's like you're watching the game from the standpoint of a member of the lollipop guild.

0:17 New game mechanic being introduced. The Kamui gauge which works like a God of War button-pressing-segment. I failed at using it.

0:18 Almost dead, I reactivate Kamui again. I can't tell if I'm supposed to hit the button they flash on the screen at the same time or in sequence, they actually give two options. Just keep hitting the square button. Seems to work, everyone dies and I only have a sliver of health.

0:19 Arrow guy killed me: GAME OVER.

0:20 Would I like to Continue? Sure. Start off back at the snow flake.

0:23 Figured out the Kamui section better this time. The annoying voice they have wailing through it is too much.

0:25 I can't figure out how to kill arrow guys attacking me. Ohhhhh, I have to jump on the lanterns. That wasn't very clear. Stupid camera won't turn to let me see other guy shooting me. So annoying...

0:26 Cut scene: magical barrier protects the house I'm trying to get to. Old woman from before tells soldiers to hold me off. She casts a spell and poof she's gone.

0:28 Camera angle is driving me mad. Bad guys are dropping extra health, but I can't see if because of the camera angle. Then the health disappears just as I see it.

0:29 I can't go any further. The gate is sealed, apparently. Switching to new character with giant battering ram as a weapon. Save at snowflake

0:32 I just fought a bunch of guys on a bridge. This new guy is awful. He hits sooooo slow. Got a chest with stone that dispels the barrier that blocked my path.

0:33 I can make character do ridiculous slide movement by just holding down the dodge right analog stick. The two characters now meet up.

0:35 Now I can switch between the two guys. I switch to the sword guy, he can at least dodge an attack. Enter the house I couldn't get in before.

0:36 Fighting in what appears to be the same courtyard from before, but I just went through this door. Is this the same place?

0:37 It is the same courtyard from before. I can't find a level map. So confused. The camera angle isn't helping Yeah, I'm back at the same burning building from earlier.

0:38 I ran back to the house, now in an alleyway. Trying to figure out where to go. This doesn't seem right either. Running back to where the enemies were. That's usually a good sign.

0:40 I use the big guy to break stuff in the fire house to reveal more items. Save at the first snowflake.

0:42 Back at the beginning of the game fighting off a bunch of guys. No idea if this is right. Now using the big guy, the camera angles are even worse. He's even taller so the angle is higher.

0:45 Defeated guys. Nothing new. Can't figure out what to do.

0:55 Figure out I need to run all the way back to where the big guy started, kick a cart to a wall and switch to the spry guy to get up it.

0:59 Defeat a swarm of enemies, watch the girl who jumped on my head earlier jump over a wall.

1:00 Break another wall to reveal a health crest.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? If I had to.
Why? Just to see if the game's structure gets any better. Also, because I must see the infamous "Giant Enemy Crabs"

This review based on a retail copy rented from GameFly.

Tigris & Euphrates

Developer: Reiner Knizia
Publisher: Hans im Gluck Verlag GmBH / Game Table Online
Release Date: 1998
System: Something that runs Java
ESRB Rating: Huh?
Official Website

Today's Game for Lunch comes from guestblogger Greg Costikyan of Manifesto Games and Play This Thing.

In a nutshell: German boardgame goes online.

0:00 I've spent way too much time playing the online version of Ticket to Ride, a "Eurogame" designed by Alan Moon, and I'm interested to see whether other online implementations of German boardgames are as compelling. Tigris & Euphrates is often held up as the masterpiece of Reiner Knizia, a highly regarded Eurogame designer, and Gametable.com has an online implementatiion of this. I've read the rules online, but am pretty uncertain of them, and have no copy, nor have I ever played, a physical version of the game. I'm also a little nervous about this format for reporting on a game in this context, because I'll be playing against other real world players online, who are unlikely to be happy with me if I pause for five minutes to write up my impressions of the -last- five minutes. I'll try to jot things down and expand them later, but it may be that this format is just not feasible for this style of game.

Anyway: What I've gleaned from the rules is that I can earn four flavors of "victory points" (red, blue, black, and green), and that my actual victory point total is the smallest of these at game end, so I want to try to increase all in tandem. I have four leaders, one of each flavor (king=black, priest=red, farmer=blue, trader=green), and one of the actions I can take each turn (I get two) is to place a leader on the board. The board has a square grid; some squares start with temples (each has a treasure). "Temples and tiles with a common edge are a 'region' and any region with leader is a kingdom." I'm not clear at this point whether a "kingdom" can only be a temple and the four tiles adjoining orthogonally, or whether tiles can be extended from those that adjoin the temple to make the kingdom larger, but I'll find out.

Anyway, apparently kingdoms aren't "owned" by players; instead, any and all players can have leaders in a kingdom--but each player has to have a different flavor (color) of leader, or there's a conflict.

Another action you can take in your turn is to place a civilization tile -- they come in the four colors; blue can only be placed on rivers, others can be placed anywhere. You earn a victory point of the tile's color, if you have a leader of the same color in this kingdom; if no one has a leader of that color, the king (black) of the kingdom, if any, earns it.

You have two catastrophe tiles; you can play one as one of your two allowable actions each turn; it destroys the underlying tile. But you can't place it on a treasure, monument, or leader. It can 'distrupt the connection to a kingdom,' so I guess kingdoms can extend beyond the four immediately orthogonal tiles to a temple. Maybe the rules should have said so to start with. Or it can divide a kingdom in two.

Another action of the two allowable each turn you can take is to discard any number of tiles from the 6 you start with and refresh with that number.

At the end of the turn, "players leaders linked with monuments" earn RP, and you draw back up to 6 tiles.

Okay, then there's something about four tiles of the same color in a square make a monument, which means anyone in the kingdom with a leader of that color earns a VP every turn for that monument. Um, okay.. And if a kingdom contains more than one treasure (which begin on temples), then the green leader in that kingdom gets the number above one, and treasures are "wild" VP, adding to your otherwise lowest total at game end.

Uh.... I think I have the basics. Can I play?

0:01 Well, no, I have to register. Okay. Need email confirmation. Sigh.

0:02 Okay, that was reasonably quick, but I guess I'd better change my password, because I'm sure not going to remember T4akp2.

0:03 Where's the 'my profile' link exactly? Um... Okay... Done. Now how to I get back to the game listings...? Okay, back to the home page, click Euphrates and Tigris. Um. Where do I click to play?

0:04 No, I do not wish to view screenshots or read the rules.

0:05 Oh, okay, 500 people a month get to be "core members" and play for free, but only get to remain core members if they play at least five games a month. Or they gots to pay. Well, screw, let's see if I can weasel in on this for now anyway.

0:06 Woah, that actually worked. And click back to the game page and... still no link to play. Um?

0:07 Okay, this is frustrating.... look at the FAQ?

0:08 Hm... "click here for scheduled game times." Okay....

0:09 That doesn't work. Hm... "players in lobbies 1... games in progress ". Maybe this just isn't going to work, through paucity of traffic?

0:10 Uh.... apparently I have to click on the link that says "gathering place," that first downloads a jnlp file (what's that? ain't seen that before) then asks me to click through that I think this site's Java is okay, sure, then after a bit another click through to verify digital signature... Yeah, yeah....

0:12 Site's certificate cannot be verified. Yes, I'll continue.

0:13 Welcome, costik, to the gathering place, a Java applet that starts screen-maximized. What is it with people? Am I the only person on the planet who has a dozen apps open typically, and switches between them? Games should open maximized. Helper aps shouldn't. No tools on the window bar, but a menu option under "Window" lets me window it.

0:15 The "tables" listing is empty. Only fellow I see is markhodgeNZ, but he seems to be chatting with some invisible folks, and says "I'm up for Tigris in 15 minutes, just reviewing some legal documents at the moment." Others seem jake with this, so I figure perhaps I'll stick, although playing with a Kiwi lawyer doesn't fill me with rapture.

0:17 Oh, no, it appears I'm reading ancient chat, since after that the other dweebs are "gg"ing all over the place ('good game'). So guess I'm shit out of luck. Going to go get a drink. Then maybe I'll figure out whether to abandon this for a bad idea or what.

0:19 Okay, back. Figure I'll say something, maybe get a response:
costik: Arma virumque cano
costik: Qui Troiae ab oris

0:20 Let's think a little about this whole setup. A fella (or group of folks, I don't know) has coded this Java player-matching applet -- I'd guess a minimum of three months time on that, and even though getting into it is a little uneven, it's serious work here. And he's gone out and gotten the rights to do online versions of Reiner Knizia's Most Famous Game, and a bunch of other things I haven't mentioned but some of which I noted right away were really cool boardgames I might want to play online. And spent more months implementing versions of them in Java, which, even if he has some core and shareable technology, is a substantial and difficult development task. I may not be God's gift to programming, but I've done enough to have a pretty good idea of the time and energy required to do this, particularly if you're a single guy, or a small group, with little to no funding to pay the bills. People worked their ass off to get this site up and running.

0:23 Not a rise from our lawyer in New Zealand, but God knows what time it is there, minus some big fucking number GMT, probably middle of the night and he hangs out here permanently, like some geeks I know on IRC. I go check to see what other games I'm not playing. Chess, Checkers, who cares. Cosmic Wimpout, vastly over-rated game. I would totally play Kill Dr. Lucky, goofy game but fun. Lord of the Fries and Nuclear War, ditto. Rest I either haven't heard of, or know even less well than Tigris & Euphrates.

0:26 Our Kiwi friend is apparently not a Virgil fan.
costik: When someone makes a move
costik: Of which we don't approve
costik: Who is it that always intervenes?
costik: UN and OAS, they have their place, I guess
costik: But when in doubt, send the Marines.

0:28 Nor a Tom Lehrer fan, evidently.

0:30 So you can imagine.... Months and months of coding, high hopes, business development with key partners, and the day comes... You launch the site! Some of the best boardgames around, now playable online! Come ye, come all.

Dang, can I sympathize.

0:33 And you know, even as I write, millions of losers are playing shit games on Miniclips and Yahoo! Games and all, and these worthy games -- well, I perhaps shouldn't say that, as I haven't had an opportunity to PLAY any of them yet, at least in this environment, although I've played Kill Dr. Lucky and Lord of the Fries and Nuclear War in their non-digital form, and can certainly attest that they're pretty damn cool games in their original tabletop formats at least -- sit here with some sleeping mouthpiece from New Zealand in attendance.

0:35
costik: I'm a little teapot, short and stout
costik: Here is my handle, here is my spout.
costik: When I get all steamed up, hear me shout
costik: Tip me over and pour me out.

0:37 So how did Days of Wonder do it with the online version of Ticket to Ride? Doubtless it had something to do with the fact that if you buy a boxed version of the game, you get a code in the rules that you can input on their site for free play for a year. That surely generated a critical mass of players to begin with -- and offering free play to others (but not the ability to start games, just to join--though you can get that, and player rankings, for $19/year without buying the board game) had something to do with it. This isn't your 1994 Internet, alas. Put it up and they won't come. Nor is Google your friend, though they pretend to be. I'd like to look at Gametable.com's Google Analytics, but I bet they're pretty damn dismal.

0:40 So what portion of the lack of traffic here is due to my initial problems with getting to the games, and what with the basic structural dynamics of generating traffic? Some to the former, surely; you have to make things as dirt simple as possible for people, like, say, a "PLAY NOW" button flashing obviously on the front page. I have a t-shirt that says: >select * from users where clue > 0 0 rows returned

SQL humor. But yeah, assume your users are morons. Like, say, me.

0:42 But the latter is probably more important. Days of Wonder had promo through their physical games to rely on. Yahoo has its enormous traffic, some portion of which it can funnel to its game site. How do you build an online game site that actually gets people to play? Having good games obviously isn't enough.

0:45 And obviously, if you have multiplayer online games, having a critical mass of users, so that newbies coming in and looking to play something will find a game, is vital.

0:48
costik: Is anybody out there?
costik: Cause I just can't see what we have.
costik: Is anybody out there?
costik: Cause I just see over there.

0:50 Guess not. So one way to build that critical mass is to have something that's built it already--like, say, Yahoo's traffic numbers, or Half-Life sales that give you an installed base of Steam users, or a way of piggy-backing on your boxed game sales to generate online players, as with Ticket to Ride. And certainly there are web services, and game operations online, that do it, by spending big bucks on publicity and marketing, as with GameTap, or Kongregate, or the like.

0:52 But I guess I'm not getting to play Tigris & Euphrates tonight. And perhaps have learned something about the non-openness of the supposedly open World Wide Web.

0:53 Oh wait; ding dong! Somebody came in... and left.

0:54 It isn't actually any easier to attract a base of users on the Internet than in any other medium; doing so requires either hooking into partners who already have traffic they can pipe you, or spending on marketing to attract them. Of course, for a service like this one, the actual marginal cost of supporting a user is small, so it's hard to justify charging a substantial sum for their attention, so the notion of going out and splashing big bucks on Goggle ad words to attract them to your site to generate small per-user revenues is fucking foolish... So how do you square that equation?

0:56 Looks like there might be something of utility and value here, but it also looks like there isn't an marketing approach of a viable business model to support it.

0:57 I think I'll go shoot myself now.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? I'd like to play it for an hour. Really.

Escape from Monkey Island

Developer: LucasArts
Publisher: LucasArts
Release Date: Jan. 20, 2001
Systems: PlayStation 2 (reviewed), Windows, MacOS
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web Site

Today's Game for Lunch comes from guestblogger Matt Matthews of Curmudgeon Gamer.

In a nutshell: Rube Goldberg puzzle situations with pithy dialogue. And monkeys.

0:01 Classic Monkey Island music plays over an uninteresting credits sequence.

0:02 Already with the monkey jokes: "That's the second biggest monkey head I've ever seen."

0:04 The game finally gives me an opportunity to do something and...I'm tied to a post. While my wife fights a pirate.

0:05 Apparently I use the shoulder buttons to go up and down in menus. Not liking that one bit.
0:07 How do I skip lines of dialogue? Ah...L1. Of course.

0:08 Ok, got it. I kick over some coals, juggle one with my feet, and kick it at a loaded cannon. And the battle is won!

0:09 Act 1 begins.

0:12 More dialogue. None of it funny. Make it stop.

0:15 Finally the cut scene ends and I can start doing something again. After all that jibber-jabber, I only laughed at one joke (the one about getting declared undead).

0:16 Ok, I have my orders from my wife: stop the catapult operator trying to destroy our house and then head for Lucre Island to meet with the family lawyers.

0:20 I've determined the pieces of this puzzle are probably the funny-looking cactus and getting some snacks for the catapult operator. Nothing else here, so I head into town.

0:23 Spent two minutes talking to two familiar-looking pirates who claim not to know me. All of the dialogue is awful.

0:26 I left town accidentally and ended up going to a house owned by Meathook. He's got a nice bridge, but nothing else interesting. Yawn.

0:31 Found myself down by the harbor. No grog from the grog machine. Nothing from the harbor mistress. No way to play with the pink ship with the hot chick on the front. Ah, but I did find an innertube. A busted innertube. We'll call it progress nonetheless.

0:34 Found the SCUMM Bar. Dart players, bartender, owner, and a drunk with a balloon and a bowl of pretzels.

0:35 Wait a minute! Pretzels! Got it. Get them to the catapult operator. Regrettably, the drunk isn't giving them up.

0:45 Finally figured it out. Dart players can be goaded into hitting the balloon. Popped balloon causes drunk to pass out. Pretzels acquired.

0:47 Back at the mansion. Boy does it take ages to get around in this world.

0:49 Ok, the funny looking cactus looks like a wishbone, so I can use the innertube there to make a slingshot.

0:50 Got the catapult owner to leave for a few seconds with the pretzels, but that didn't get me anything.

0:51 Ah, fiddle with catapult controls, and then he'll aim for the cactus when he returns. Done.

0:54 Boulder hits slingshot cactus, comes back and smacks catapult. Catapult falls off cliff. Catapult explodes like a Hollywood stunt catapult. I actually laughed out loud.

0:57 Threepwood says he'll still love his wife after rigor mortis sets in. That's an image I really didn't need.

0:58 Charles L. Charles shows up. Who could that be?

1:03 Good heavens, the dialogue goes on forever. I wish they'd shut up and let me do something. Apparently my next job is to go see the family lawyers.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? No.
Why? Too much talk with too few funny lines. Instead of interacting with the game, I mostly hit the X button to listen to jibber-jabber. Monkey Gear Solid? Anyway, give me something interesting to do, for crying out loud.

This review based on a cheap used copy I've had for years and hadn't cracked open.

Blackwell Unbound

Developer: Wadjet Eye Games
Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games
Release Date: Sept. 4, 2007
System: Like, a computer?
ESRB Rating: Huh?
Official Web Site

Today's Game for Lunch comes from guestblogger Greg Costikyan of Manifesto Games and Play This Thing.

In a nutshell: Satisfies that old LucasArts adventure game jones, which no one else is catering to any more. Anachronisms drive me mildly crazy, since I lived in New York in 1973, and I'm not even sure Dave Gilbert could could even talk then.

0:00 I'm expecting to like this game; I'm a fan of Dave Gilbert's earlier titles, The Shivah and The Blackwell Legacy -- old school graphic adventures. Dave is a lone-wolf developer, using Adventure Game Studio, and pulling in friends for the graphics and voice talent; Blackwell Legacy, at least, was very reminiscent of LucasArts adventures from the early '90s, perhaps about the time Secret of Monkey Island -- though shorter, to be sure. In the Blackwell Legacy, Dave introduced Joey Ramone, a ghost who apparently haunts the Blackwell family; in that game, Rosangela Blackwell solved a mystery with his help, and we learned that her Aunt Lauren, whom Joey had previously haunted, had recently died -- after she had spent a decade or more hospitalized and routinely sedated for insanity. Blackwell Unbound apparently deals with Rosangela's aunt, and is set in the '70s.

0:01 Nice piano score, splash screen apparently by the same artist (or at least one with a similar style to the earlier Blackwell game). Yes, I will activate in-game instructions--something lacking in the previous game, a nice little additional bit of polish.

0:03 Brief intro.: Lauren is apparently a chain smoker, and unlike Rosangela at the start of the last game, already experienced with the paranormal. Her apartment looks a lot like Rosenagela's--except that since this is the 70s, there's no computer, and the TV has rabbit ears. Oh, interesting; in the previous game, you controlled only Rosangela; here you can apparently switch between Lauren and Joey.

0:05 Lauren goes to the balcony for a smoke; Joey talks to her. A bit of banter; writing is of course Dave Gilbert's strength, and the voice talent is actually good, so even though this is conventional dialog-tree stuff, it's actually entertaining. I'm asked to look at Lauren's case list (in inventory, mouseover the screen to to pull it down), which I do (forgetting you have to right click for a moment to 'look at'); I'm briefly confused. Most of the clues have been scratched out, and "just a little more to do and we can call it a night." Did I somehow start in the middle of the game? Okay, no, Dave is starting in media res. Two remaining clues: Strange music on the Roosevelt Island Esplanade, and construction halted on 53rd Street because of a bizarre accident.

Uh... Wait a minute. It was Welfare Island, then. It wasn't renamed Roosevelt Island until later. It was part of my mother's political district when I was a kid, and I remember going out with her to make sure the hospital inhabitants there -- there were no permanent residents -- got to the polls on election day (I checked later; it was renamed Roosevelt Island in 1973, but construction didn't begin until years later). There were no Roosevelt Island Esplanade. Oh, well, Dave wasn't living in NYC in '73; I guess I can expect some anachronisms.

Okay, let's check out 53rd street. But first, the usual adventure game routine; examine everything in the apartment.

0:11 Oh, the Yellow Pages. In the previous game, Rosangela looked stuff up on her computer; but this is pre-Intarwebs, of course. I remember the Yellow Pages; not only can you look stuff up, but you need something with the heft of the Manhattan Yellow Pages to kill those motherfucking waterbugs, the really big ones, three inches long. Judging by the state of Lauren's kitchen, I bet she's figured that out, too. Anyway, I don't have a name to look up yet. Man, she has a lot of ashtrays. I smoke, but I'm not in Lauren's league. Hmm... Won't take anything else, but she'll take the camera. Okay.

0:12 O-kay. Statue of Liberty in foreground, skyline in background, lines pointing to place you can go. But why is Roosevelt Island to the left (West) of 53rd Street? It's up the East River. From a harbor vantage, it would be to the right. Oh, never mind. 53rd Street ho.

0:14 53rd and Lex. Okay, in some ways I'm probably the worst possible person for this. I was 14 in 1973, and I remember very well what Manhattan was like. First of all, the street signs are green; they would have been yellow, then. Second, the lamp-posts are the ornate, pseudo-Victorian black-painted things we have today; that's, I don't know, late Koch era, maybe early Giuliani. In 1973, they would have been stark, modernistic grey aluminum things. Never mind...

0:16 The gate to the construction site is locked, and Lauren can't get in. Maybe I should go to Roosevelt Island? Or.. wait, Joey's a ghost--maybe he can walk through the wall? Bingo.

0:21 Okay, there's a ghost in the apartment complex. Seems to think the apartment building is still there.

0:25 The ghost claims she'll only leave her apartment "as a corpse," which perhaps is what happened; in the foreman's trailer, there's a note from someone who is upset that she's not being paid the same amount per month for vacating her apartment as originally agreed (that would go to the real estate firm, presumably, not the construction foreman, but never mind). The ghost still won't tell much to Joey, though, who is clearly "one of THEM," whoever They may be. Can't seem to make much progress here, so perhaps it's time to go to Roosevelt Island.

0:26 It's not clear on how they get here, since the subway station on Roosevelt Island didn't open until the late '90s, and the cable car wasn't built until the 80s, so the only access in 1973 is an offramp on the Queensboro Bridge, but never mind. Nor that the "esplanade" doesn't exist, nor that there's any reason for this saxophone-playing jazz musician to be hanging out on a desolate island occupied only by municipal service buildings. But hey. Let's talk to the dude.

0:29 The ghost won't talk to Lauren, nor to Joey, until Joey pulls his saxophone. Apparently he thinks he's on the stage at "Johnny Ivory's" (I foresee a visit to the Yellow Pages).

0:32 Okay, can't get anything out of the guy. Maybe time to go look up Johnny Ivory's in the Yellow Pages, and also the name of the woman who sent the letter to the foreman at the construction site -- Harriet Sherman (as I've written down, since it doesn't seem to go into my notebook).

0:35 Harriet's in the phone book, I claim to be from the construction company, she'll answer questions for the $60 "I" owe her. I've previously established that Lauren has $60 in small change in a jar by her door. Fine, except that Harriet apparently lives in "Battery Park City," which at this point is a gleam in the governor's eye, consisting of a large pile of sand off the West Side Highway, where they dumped the excavation debris from the World Trade Center construction. The first building won't go up until 1984. But whatever.

0:37 Johnny Ivory's on Bleecker and Seventh. Be a little more plausible for a music venue if it were farther east, but not impossible--the Village is not a high-rent area at this point, but it doesn't utterly suck, like much of the city. I decide on Harriet first.

0:40 Wow, that's a bust. Harriet used to live at 53rd and Lex (and has an amazing view out the window her non-existent apartment of what I have to assume is the then-non-existent Jersey city skyline, but never mind). And what is it with the colonial stencil decoration along the walls near the ceiling? Barely appropriate in, say, a reconstruction of a mid-19th century dwelling, completely stupid in a modern apartment, and probably not on anyone's decorating horizon in 1973. Off to Johnny Ivory's, I suppose.

0:42 Oh, yeah. This looks like a bad piano bar on Bleecker.

0:44 One of the photos on the wall has a (younger) sax player whom Lauren identifies as the guy on the promenade; I'll take her word for it. The plaque is "courtey of Jambalaya Records".... Yellow pages again, I suppose.

0:50 Oh, man, is the piano player a sleazeball come on artist. It makes me feel... you know.. dirty. I wouldn't go out with a guy like that... I mean, really, what kind of a girl do you think I am? Uh... anyway, basically no help, except the dialog choice to 'ask for a copy of the picture' suggested that maybe I should use my cleverly-taken CAMERA to take a picture of it. And it shows up in inventory, so I guess that was right. But nowhere to go now really except I suppose I need to check out "Jambalaya records" in the phone book.

0:53 Jambalaya Records, 240 Essex Street. Woah -- once upon a time Jewish ghetto, and now (in 1973) seriously scary Hispanic slum, with a few hardcore Jewish rag merchants holding out along there and Orchard Street and catering to bargain-hunters. You'd be goddamn insane to go to that address, in 1973, as an attractive and unescorted (well, escorted only by a ghost) female, never mind that record labels (or muscian's agents, as it turns out) are not likely to be open, at such a remote and friendless address. (The area has a seriously hip night club scene now, BTW.)

0:59 Dwayne (from de Aylands, apparently) manages jazz and reggae musicians; he recognizes the photo as belonging to a band call the C-Sharps, which he used to manage 8-10 years ago. Asking him about them again reveals that the female singer (presumably the chick in the photo) had a voice like velvet, but they just "disappeared." Fine, except where to go from here? Possibly back to Johnny Ivory's to see if the sleazeball piano player knows of the C-Sharps. Ding! Time's up.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? I not only would, but will.
Why? Dave's games tend to be five hours max, so it's not a lifetime commitment, and I'm entertained enough by the story (and am seriously in lust with the voice of Lauren, albeit her toon is not of my type). The anachronisms are quibbles -- although you know, Dave, if you want input on New York back to mid-60s, just drop me a line -- and earlier, talk to Eleanor Lang, who is a serious New York history fetishist and has a big library on the topic back into the 19th century.

Traxxpad Portable Studio

Developer: Definitive Studios
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Release Date: June 26, 2007
Systems: PSP
ESRB Rating: E10+
Official Web Site

Today's Game for Lunch comes from guestblogger Cyril Lachel of Defunct Games.

In a nutshell: A music making program for those who own a PSP instead of a computer.

0:01 As I turn on my PSP I'm greeted with the kind of repetitive beat that usually accompanies top 40 rap artists (50 Cent, Kanye West, etc.). Seeing as I'm not a huge fan of the hip hop I'm a bit worried that this "game" may just drive me up the wall, but I intend to see out this hour and learn whether or not I am able to compose a song with this time limit.

0:02 After choosing "Make Beats" I am met to a rather lengthy load screen and then a second start menu. While the game loads I should probably take this time to mention that the song I make can be used on more than just the PSP. The back of the case says that I will be able to export my music (er, beats) to the computer and cell phones. I'm not going to say that the beat I come up with is going to be good enough to be featured on a lot of cell phones, but it's got to be better than using Fergalicious as your ring time.

0:03 As I stare at the screen I mumble to myself: "what the bloody hell am I looking at?" The PSP's widescreen display is filled to the brim with graphics that are completely foreign to me. The only thing I recognize are the four face buttons (triangle, circle, square and X). When I push the face buttons four different sounds come out of the speaker ... nothing else happens, just four drum-like sounds. The rest of the screen is made up of nobs, glowing columns, a big dollar sign, and a play, pause and record button. I decide to see if I can figure all this stuff out.

0:06 After several minutes of playing around (read: pushing every button on the PSP) I decide that I'm getting absolutely nowhere. If I'm going to create a beat in an hour then I'm going to need to swallow my pride and read the ... gasp ... 50-page instruction manual. I can't even remember the last time I had to consult a game manual so early into my experience, but then again I can't remember the last time I played a music-making video game.

0:08 Only four pages into the instruction manual and I feel like I was making real progress. I knew that I was on the right path when I stumbled across a page called "Instant Music!" (their emphasis, not mine). Unfortunately all of the words ended up blurring together as my eyes glazed over. There is a lot of technical mumbo jumbo to deal with - R.T.I.S.T., MeLOD, S.T.A.C. and something called MyXxer. I feel like I should have taken some music production courses at the community college before jumping into this game. I decide to read on.

0:10 I make my way to page 10 and read an entry called "Instant Music!" (their emphasis, not mine). It talks about a bunch of technical stuff, like R.T.I.S.T., McLOD ... wait a second, didn't I just read this page a couple minutes ago? Sure enough, the first six pages are repeated twice in this instruction manual. Apparently there was some sort of printing mishap when they constructed this manual. I think it's time I skip ahead a little bit.

0:14 Okay, I figure out how to start recording the various beats in the R.T.I.S.T. mode. I actually have to hold the "select" button down in order to trigger the record feature, and then push "select" again in order to make everything start to move. That's a little awkward, but now that I understand how to get it going it's not so bad.

0:20 After playing around with the R.T.I.S.T. mode I finally laid down my own beat. It's a simple beat, but give that I'm only 20 minutes into this process you can't expect perfection.

0:22 After completing my beat and listening to it a couple of times I decided to head on over to one of the other modes. Of course, this means that I need to figure out what the new buttons do and read about these different modes. Back to the instruction manual I go.

0:27 Apparently the MeLOD section is for refining the melody (which actually makes sense now that I look at the name). Instead of giving you four face buttons to work with, MeLOD is set up like a keyboard. The problem is that there are more keys than face buttons, so in order to hit a lot of the notes you will have to hold a directional key and then hit one of the face buttons. It's awkward to figure out just what note to hit, but with some practice I'm sure I could make this interface work for me.

0:32 I'm still working on trying to get used to the interface. The good news is that my song is finally coming together. It may be short, but at least the melody and samples sound right. It's time to replay it a few times and figure out what it's missing.

0:40 After tweaking the beat a bit more (thanks to my newfound understanding of the various modes) I have decided that it's time to start rapping over it. Unfortunately I don't know how to rap, so I decide to just kind of mumble over it. To do this I will need that PSP headset that I bought a couple years ago for SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo. Now where is that thing ...

0:45 After searching through my drawers for that headset (and listening to a loop of my beat for five minutes) I now know what I'm going to do. I plug in the headset and switch over to the mode that supports singing/rapping. Like everything else, this mode looks completely foreign to me. Going between the various modes is like playing a bunch of different games, you literally have to relearn everything just to do the most basic functions. All I want to do is sing, how hard can that be? It's time to reference the instruction manual once again.

0:49 Recording my voice was easier than I thought it would be. It took me a few seconds to figure out what to say, but before long I was rapping my ode to yummy breakfast foods. Toast, eggs, pancakes, omelets, it all sounds so good right now. I guess I shouldn't be rapping on an empty stomach.

0:53 After a few more tweaks I have come up with a song that I feel happy with. I'm surprised that I was able to do it in under an hour; I feel a real sense of accomplishment. This song won't make it onto the radio or MTV, but it's far from the worst thing I've heard before (it's definitely better than anything Fergie has done). The only thing left to do is listen to it a few more times.

1:00 I've now listened to my song several times. Unfortunately I'm now sick of it, all it does it make me want to go and eat some food. Perhaps next time I can do a better job at assembling a song, but for my first attempt this isn't so bad. I feel like there's a lot of nuance in the interface that I didn't even touch on, perhaps some other time I'll sit down with the game and give it a fair shake. But for now I have decided to shut off my PSP so I don't have to listen to that song over and over again.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? Probably not.
Why? Although I like the idea of making my own music, Traxxpad's interface is just too difficult to navigate. Even the simplest tasks are a pain, and almost every part of the game requires you to read all about them in the instruction manual. I can see how this could be a fun time waster for all of those aspiring rappers who want to try out something different, but this game just makes it too frustrating to get real work done. I think I'm just going to stick to the computer programs that let me do the same thing without all of the fuss.

The Longest Journey

Developer: Funcom
Publisher: Funcom
Release: Nov. 16, 2000
System: PC
ESRB Rating: M
Official Web site

Today's Game for Lunch comes from guestblogger Michael Zenke of Slashdot Games and MMOG Nation.

In a nutshell: Monkey Island meets an art house noir movie.

0:01 Oh, yeah, Funcom. My Anarchy Online friends. And 'Lion in the Streets'. The Roaring Twenties!

0:02 Wow. That guy has quite a hat. He's telling a story as a plot device for telling a story inside a game. It's so cliched it's almost original. The story of "the balance," eh? Are you *sure* that's a true story? And what the hell is "the balance?"

0:03 Okay, we don't get to know what the balance is, but we do get to hear backstory of the balance. I guess that's fair? There are many umlauts in the credits, and I'm okay with that.

0:04 There's a digital penis from the naked man speared through by the beam of light flowing into a magical crystal ... how would you convey this in a storytelling fashion? And now there's a seal, unlocking, that looks vaguely like the snake eating it's tail. It's unlocking, and I get the feeling this was foretold, that this was somehow momentous?

0:05 And now we're in a futurescape. A futurescape that was long ago? We're a woman, and we're dreaming. Wow. Check out the beautiful backdrop. It's awfully pixely. Any way I can improve it? .... no. We're pretty much stuck with these visual settings.

0:06 In commenting on the scenery, my character doesn't just say the same thing over and over again, which is much appreciated. And then we knock over an egg. "I bet if I don't do something I'll suffer seven years bad karma." Isn't that a mirror?

0:07 The interface is very intuitive; all I have to do is click on something, and there's an eye for looking and a hand for "interacting." I try to grab a stick off an old tree to help me with the egg, and a guy's face appears in the tree. And starts talking to me. It's all very Treebeard.

0:08 Oh, so if I hook the tree superhero up with water, the tree will help with the egg. Clear as mud. Also, a tree superhero? Whenever an injustice is done to a tree, we are there!

0:11 Ten minutes in, we have hints of a huge battle, and the egg is apparently "the mother's." I choose the acerbic and rude dialogue choices, since I almost never go that route; it's oddly satisfying.

0:13 I stake the twig in the ground, grab a scale from the next, and redirect the flow of water from the nearby stream onto the tree. After I stake the twig, but before I place the scale, my character says, "I have no idea what's going on, but it sure looks like I know what I'm doing." It's incredibly precarious, and a stray breeze will knock down my makeshift shunt ... but the tree doesn't care.

0:14 It's actually kind of satisfying; I like that they very specifically made the first puzzle really easy. Add A to B, and bingo bango you're done. I try to wake the tree back up.

0:15 After getting the tree back on track, the tree picks up the egg and puts it back into the nest. Then there's a gigantic noise, and a flash of light, and there's a dragon. Yikes.

0:16 Why do dragons always have to be so damn cryptic? It greets me as its daughter and says my coming was foretold. Gaah. "You are the mother of the future." There's some very confusing dialogue, and preposition use is extremely suspect.

0:17 My dream is cut short by a gigantic black smokey-demon worm thing.

0:18 Chapter 1: Penumbra. And then I'm awake in a very small apartment. The detail in the room is great. There' s a little utility fan in the corner of the room over the door, and lots of odds and ends the room. Guess I'm living in a city named Newport. There's talk of an exhibition, and work that needs to be done today.

0:19 When I try to get her dressed, she just comments on her wardrobe. Hmm. I do get to pick up the toy monkey. The writing is really good; all of her self-deprecating comments about her stuff gives us insight into her past. It's expository, but not in a bad way.

0:22 After clicking around the room a bunch, I get myself out into the apartment's hallway. She dresses when I try to leave the room. Man she walks slowly. And there's a guy in the hallway. He's kind of a douche. My reaction: He's some sleazebag hanging out in a hallway, calling ladies 'babe'. Giggity giggity. I call him on his assholery.

0:23 I have a hilarious interchange between the character and a terminal in the hallway, in which the terminal tries to upsell me on a voice interface technology; it then gets mad at me for having used the voice interface to find out how to interface with the machine. Really nice.

0:25 There's a hipster lounging on the couch downstairs. There are some matches on the table. I don't know why I'll need matches, but I bet I'll need them.

0:26 There's a picture of a football player on the corkboard, and she says "I'll take a nerd anyday!" Way to pander, Funcom. There's also a note about a lost ring, which my character thinks may be hers.

0:27 Fiona's my landlady, the lounging hipster. I want to ask her about the ring, but instead we chat about Emma (my best friend), Mickey (Fiona's lesbian lover), and my other friend Charlie. I'm fairly beaten over the head by Fiona and Mickey's relationship. They are LESBIANS! DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Fiona has enormous leg-warmered calves, I just noticed.

0:32 I finish my conversation with Fiona with regret. The voice actress behind both characters are really good, and the writing is really well done. I actually do want to hear more about the neighborhood they're in (Venice) and the history of the apartment building. But at this point I'm pressed for time and must push on. My only complaint: my character's voice while looking at stuff in her room and the corkboard was really enthusiastic, but down here with Fiona she sounds really tired.

0:34 I head outside, never having had the chance to ask Fiona about my missing ring. That's disappointing. I searched through all the chat options, but no go. Weird that they'd drop that hint and then not let me follow through with it. Right outside the door there's a bridge to another area and some sort of contraption off in a corner. I take a look at it, and it's obviously going to be a puzzle at some point in the future; there's a missing cable that will allow me to use the control panel ... but not now.

0:35 As I head across the bridge, an old Hispanic man starts jabbering at me. He starts out by commenting on the weather ... and then quickly turns to discussing my nightmares. He obviously knows more than he should, and my character (rightly so) gets freaked out and angry. We stalk off to the next screen. Sloooooowly. My guess is he's from the other world, but she's too angry to find out.

0:38 The next screen is a plaza with a fountain. There's an exit to 'the metro', 'the park', and 'the cafe.' No way to the university, where my studio is. Hmm. I guess I have to take the subway?

0:39 There's a homeless person outside the station, and he's the fattest homeless guy I've ever seen. It's actually a little disconcerting, and I assume he's going to leap up and attack me. Down below in the station, I have to pay my way to get past the turnstile ... but I don't have enough cash. My protagonist wants to get paid at the cafe... I guess I'll head there instead? I have a little trouble fumbling with the inventory interface to try to pay for the fare, but it's fairly self explanatory.

0:41 On the way to the cafe there are several NPCs I can't interact with, and it seems like a waste not to use them for even a throwaway line of dialogue.

0:43 Oh gawds, April walks slowly. Outside of the cafe there is a 'mystery door', which she says she's never seen anyone pass through. "And if I were Nancy Drew, I might care!" Cute. The cafe is closed for maintenance. So, I guess I'm headed to the park? A bit confusing.

0:45 'To the Academy', right across the park. Nice. I could have used a sign somewhere. She walks sooooo slowly. There has to be some way to ...

0:46 The escape button? Why does the escape button make her run? Oh, it's the 'skip' button. It'll let me walk through dialogue trees too. Why wasn't this included in the game as a tutorial element? I had to figure that out. Lots of slow walking as a result.

0:47 Into her studio space, and there's a holographic dragon-thingie in the corner, apparently Emma's work. I grab a brush and palette, and April gets to work.

0:48 Time passes in a cut scene, and Emma shows up. Oh, criminy, is Emma scary. Mostly I don't mind the pixely characters, but she's crazy freaky. She's trying to show boob, which comes off as her having a big block on her chest. She also kinda walks with a gimp. She has a message from Cortez (the guy on the bridge, I guess), and he says he wants to meet me 'Where children visualize their dreams.' Weird.

0:49 Emma's kind of catty and weird. April tries to talk to her about the nightmares, and gets a lot of rudeness in return. Boo. I don't like our best friend, April! We agree to meet for lunch at the cafe. Nice. I can get paid. I really hate the introduction to this character. April is a really sympathetic character, and Emma being a jerk to her makes me immediately dislike her, and question April's taste in friends.

0:51 As we're cleaning up from working, the holosculpture of a flying serpent momentarily comes to life. April manages not to freak because she mostly doesn't see it.

0:53 There are lots more NPCs in the park (as I run through it), but I can't interact with any of them. Meh, again. Let me talk to the scenery! As I head through the plaza with the fountain there are a trio of skaters being hassled by a cop. I'm sure for a second they're going to get shot. Very dystopian.

0:54 The cafe is open, and there are patrons outside. A set of backpackers are nearby, and April comments they should go to the near-earth colonies. I guess we're in space, too.

0:55 I enter the cafe, and it looks so good that for a moment I don't realize it's not CG. The art direction is great in this game, and despite the pixelated nature of the moving characters the game looks terrific. My friend Charlie is behind the bar, and indicates that Cortez was here, and was very interested in the poster by the jukebox. Charlie seems like a really interesting character, and I lament not being able to explore their relationship more fully.

0:56 I press on, talking to Stan the owner about my paycheck. I guess I need a timesheet for him? I don't have one of those. He's a hilarious eastern European stereotype, and again I really love the voice acting in this game.

0:59 The poster by the jukebox is a child's art exhibition. There's a little tear-off ticket with the address; I guess I'll need to use the metro to get there. Once again, I'll need to get paid before I can go.

1:00 I talk to Charlie again; maybe he knows where I can get a time sheet. No luck, and that's all the time I've got to explore. Guess the art exhibit will have to wait.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? Yes.
Why? The characters are really interesting, and I wanted to learn more about them. The plot itself, at least at the outset, is a bit 'meh' but I can see how this could develop into something really excellent. Plus, I love serious adventure games -- the Sam and Max games were a lot of fun, but this really hits home with the type of adventure experience I miss from back in the day.

SimCity DS

Developer: EA Japan
Publisher: EA Games
Release Date: June 19, 2007
Systems: Nintendo DS
ESRB Rating: E
Official Web Site

Today's game for Lunch comes from guest blogger Dave Thomas, who writes, "According to the display on the back of the seat in front of me, I’m cooped up in an airplane 38,100 miles above the Pacific Ocean near Alaska, jetting 512 miles per hour toward Tokyo. Soon I’ll be at the Tokyo Game Show and the Digital Games Research Association international conference. But for now, what a better time to kick back and play a little game of SimCity DS? Shall we?"

In a nutshell: SimCity, portable and flirtatious.

0:01 The game starts with the SimCity DS logo on the top screen and a cute little version of a SimCity scrolling along the bottom. It’s even playing a jazzy little soundtrack that we’ve hear in one form or another in every Sims game for the past 10 years.

A couple of taps and I, a seasoned SimCity player, am in the tutorials. And, wow... there’s a bunch of them. A stern but bobble-headed blonde with glasses stares at me as I stare back at the list of 15 individual tutorials. Looks like I’m going to spend the next hour learning to play. I choose obviously enough, tutorial 1, the basics.

0:02 Now I get I meet my on-screen temptress. The blonde is Julie McSim, and she, apparently, is going to show me around. OK, Julie, what’s next?

0:05 OK, I'm thoroughly confused. She's been showing me what must be every screen and button in the game and all I can do is nod and click forward. Come on Julie! I wanna play!

0:07 So Julie wants me to hold my questions until the end. Since I love staring into her beady little eyes, I’m going to go along. On to step 2, power plants.

0:08 Excellent, She let me build a coal power plant! I knew this relationship was going some place.

0:09 I can finally see how this is going to work. The touch screen is where you place things and make adjustments. The top screen shows the city in more classic SimCity graphic detail

0:11 Julie keeps telling me to relax. I don’t know if this is come on, or if she knows that her tutorial is a bit boring and stressful.

0:12 I’ve made it to lesson 3, zoning! This all looks familiar except when Julia starts talking about auras. Looks like they’ve simplified the SimCity model a bit. Now things have auras. Very new age, Julie, very new age.

0:15 Step 4, power lines. Did it take this long to learn the original SimCity?

0:17 I’ve finally made it to step 5 and get to build some roads. I’m tempted to bail on this tutorial, even though Julie and I have spent some quality time together. But this game seems to be filled with little quirks not quite like the old SimCity. So I think I better stick with the tutorials. For now.

0:19 I’m telling you, I don’t think it’s my imagination, but I think Julie is hitting on me. I’m trying to draw a rail line right where Julie shows, and it’s hard to get it right on the little screen. So, she giggles and tells me that my rail shouldn’t be too short or too long. Thanks a lot Julie.

0:22 Off to learn about water. At least I’m getting to build things, even if I have to put everything where Julie says. Really, this is straining our relationship.

0:24 OK, I just have to quote Julie on this one: "Like a blossoming flower, your city will need care, attention, and water!" And to think, I used to think you were smart.

0:25 See, here's why I have to play the tutorials. Now she wants to tell me about landfills. I don’t remember these as having a big impact on the original SimCity. So, let’s see what she has to say about these things.

0:27 I like the idea that you have to manage garbage initially by making a dump. That's a neat feature. I'm sure I will enjoy it if I ever get a chance to play the game. For now, it's just me, Julie and crime.

0:30 I'm half way through my hour and we turn up the heat—fire stations!

0:42 I'm a bit worn finishing up the tutorials, going over hospitals, schools, libraries, parks and rec, more on aura, quality of life, demolition control panel and the myriad of datasheets (But I did like when she asked me to use a firm touch. I swear! That’s what she said, the little vixen). But at long last I’ve completed the 15 tutorials so now I can build a city. Let’s see if my harsh task mistress will be pleased with her pupil.

0:44 I name my new town “Airtown”. Part because that is how many characters long the maximum city name can be and part because I am in an airplane and terribly clever. I select an easy level with a lot of ground and a little bit of a shoreline and get to work.

0:45 The first thing I discover is that Julie is still with me. And she’s even started my city for me. Thanks Julie. And now she’s going to tell me everything that she did. Ho hum. I guess she wasn’t done talking after all.

0:47 So, after all that training, I'm stuck. Can’t figure out what to do. All I can do is scroll around the map. I can't seem to figure out how to add stuff. Damn, I should have paid attention instead of staring into Julie's teeny blue eyes.

0:48 Not that it matters, I guess. Julie has dragged me into my office to meet Professor Simtown. He showed up to bring me a post office. Yes, you heard me right, a post office. The professor brought me a post office. Julie is very excited about this, which of course makes me happy. I guess this post office, if I put it in my city, let's me trade mail with other mayors. So, what are the odds someone else if playing SimCity DS on the plane? Hmm, guess I’ll have to check this feature out on the ground.

0:50 I don’t think of myself as a stupid person, but I can’t figure out how to get to the add a building screen. I did click on save, and that worked.

0:51 Ah, I found it. For future reference, it is this tiny thing that might be a manhole cover. Or maybe it’s a broach. Hard to tell. It’s very small.

0:55 I lay down a bunch of residential, because that seems to be what the people want. I bounced around a bunch of screens and can't seem to find anything wrong. So, I go back and ask Julie. Not only will she give you advice, you can chat with her. She tells me that she wanted to be a singer when she was younger. I imagine she has a wonderful voice.

0:56 Anyway, I ask her for advice this time and she tells me that I need to fund everything for it to work correctly. Really?

0:58 With time running out, I go on a building spree. A school! A ballpark! A zoo! Lots of new housing. Will my citizens adore me before I must leave office?

0:59 I check my budget and I'm still running a deficit. The quality of life indicator is in a slow slide. In desperation, I add a hospital and zone some beach front property. But it's no use. My time is up. My town has sprawled awkwardly to one side. The citizens are not terribly happy and Julie still doesn't seem to respect me.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? No
Why? Although this is a noble effort to capture the sandbox fun of SimCity, in the end, the screens are too small to show the level of detail that makes city building fun, and manageable. I'll miss her, but I’m going to have to break this off. I’m sorry Julie. It’s not you. It’s me.

Deus Ex: Invisible War

Developer: Ion Storm
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Release Date: Dec. 2, 2003
System: PC (reviewed), Xbox
ESRB Rating: M
Official Web Site

Today's Game for Lunch comes from guest blogger Michael Zenke of Slashdot Games and MMOG Nation.

In a nutshell: Oblivion's Neo-Futuristic Doppelganger

0:00 Oh, Ion Storm. Sadness. Man I'm old.

0:01 The graphics are shiny at 1900x1200 resolution.

0:02 We're looking at microchips ... and now it's the city from a top-down! Very classic. How is it that the 2003-era CG looks worse than stuff from a few years before it?

0:03 Terrorism with nanites? That can't be good.

0:04 Oh, it's a grey goo nanoswarm. Classic science fiction. Nice. The whole city and all of her citizenry are turned to dust. Talk about a dramatic way to start a game.

0:05 "We don't need cities or armies, we have human bodies. The perfect weapon for an invisible war." And we have a title!

0:06 There are only six generic choices for my avatar; two genders and three skins for each. That's a bit boring.

0:07 Ooh, tips. "Many weapons use a magnetic pulse, which can be used to disable bots and turrets." My first impression: Wow! It's System Shock 2 all over again. Oh I love games like this ... except my mouselook sensitivity seems really high. Must be getting used to console FPSes.

0:08 A hologram communication introduces me to Nassif, a woman who says she's my case officer. My name is Alex, it looks like. There's an explosion somewhere in the building, but she says not to worry about it. I'm skeptical.

0:09 Good thing: I can throw things around with some vague physics. Bad thing: my hotkeys make no sense. Why is 'V' my inventory key? Otherwise I have no complaints so far. Gaah, I love games like this. This is dangerous.

0:10 I'm picking up stuff left and right and adding it to my inventory. Soy chips abound. It really is the future. I step out into the hallway, and there's a dead guy out there. I'm pretty sure that's not right.

0:11 I can't loot his body, but I can effortlessly pick it up and carry it around. It's fun! I hold him like a box of pizza on my shoulder. Looking around the hallway is so much fun. There's little messages left on the 'away mode' for all the hallway doors, and they're very evocative of the NPCs that live inside.

0:12 I find my friend 'Billie', someone I've apparently been in contact with from Chicago (before my transfer to Seattle in the wake of the terrorist attack). All of a sudden I notice that everyone holds their arms out very stiffly to their sides in a really uncomfortable manner when they're talking. They look like mannequins.

0:13 I'm unreasonably excited about the fact that the toilet, sink, and shower all work when you use them. Why don't modern games have working details like this anymore?

0:15 I head downstairs to meet up with Nassif and get the plot moving. I'm still not technically at the game, unless the game is throwing around vaguely physics-enabled pillows in my apartment.

0:16 Nassif assures me that everything is fine, and I should head to the rec area ... even though as she says that someone tells her they're at a 'code yellow'. My fellow trainees are a bit odd. One's ridiculously cheery, and the other is an over-achieving prick.

0:18 The jerk NPC's facial mesh looks more polished than Alex does. Now I hate him even more.

0:19 Apparently I joined up with this spy group because 'what the hell.' That's not a great reason to start a career, really. More explosions begin, and I'm instructed to go find a multitool and weapon from my locker downstairs.

0:20 I load up on loot and steal my fellow trainee's stuff. The multitool lock hacking effect is really nice. A glowy beam connects your gadget to the target.

0:22 A security guard tells me to get out of the way of an incoming attacker. This is a somewhat obvious start to the game allowing me different ways to approach challenges. I can run in guns blazing, I can crouch in the shadows and slip away, I can use a baton to whack the villain upside the head ... it's a world of possibilities.

0:24 Billie reveals herself to be an inside agent for the Order, the religious group attacking the building. She says I'm a test subject, not a trainee. She says I should go get my biomods and then get out of the building. I don't see that I have a lot of other options, so I head back to my room. Why do my 'friends' always suck in games?

0:26 I help a security guard take out a Seeker by whacking him repeatedly with a stun baton. The game notes that he's not dead, just unconscious. I can even be 'non-violent' if I want to. Very nice.

0:28 The inventory system is a bit strange; there's an outer half-circle, and then an inner half-circle. I can select things from the outer circle by just using the mousewheel, and swap them between the two in the 'inventory mode'. It's not bad, just going to take some getting used to. Recordings overhead tell me that Billie has reprogrammed the building's security systems. I'm sure that won't be a problem...

0:29 I enter my apartment, and Billie pulls the power on my apartment. The ceiling disappears, and reveals a pair of scientists observing the room. Creepy. One of them is shocked, and the other says 'Let's hope she has a sense of humor.' Heh.

0:30 I head through a hole in my apartment wall and move through an interstitial space, and start climbing over a ledge ... only to have the world disappear. Crashy crashy! Thanks, Steam! Let's hope there was an autosave there somewhere.

0:31 Yeah. Autosaved after I got out of the elevator on the apartment level. I kill the seeker in the hall with the guard and rush back through my apartment in a few quick moments.

0:33 I note that I seem to have generic 'ammo;' ammo clips taken from pistol-using Seekers refill my power on my stun baton as well. Oookay...

0:34 Through the interstitial space (no crash this time) and into the Biomod lab. Nassif says "you might as well install some biomods". That's gratitude. Apparently, the Order aren't the ones who attacked the other building in Chicago. So ... the group has a lot of enemies, apparently.

0:35 I grab a trio of biomod packs, which can apparently be slotted into up to five different mod areas. I am liking my shock prod and stealth approach, so I choose a foot mod that quiets my footsteps, and a pair of mods that should cloak me from humans and robots/turrets.
0:37 Now that I have them slotted ... how do I activate them. Hmm. No tutorial around. I have to go to the keymaps to find out the F1-F5 keys activate them. That seems like an oversight.

0:41 I head out and do some actual gameplay. I slip past a turret and camera with my biomods. My biojuice goes down as I do so. How do I replenish my goo?

0:42 The scientists who were watching me want me to guard them from a pair of Seekers heading up from the apartment level. A guy in the next room beyond tells me that a pair of gold beams will 'flatline someone in about a second'. I can hack them to turn them off, destroy them with a grenade, slip past them through a air duct ... lots of choices.

0:44 The Seekers come up from below and I shock them into unconsciousness. I don't know if I trust these Agency folks, but there's no reason I should let anyone die. I'm given a silencer for my pistol as an award.

0:46 I choose the stealth approach once again. I slip out into the hallway past the golden laser beams via the air duct, and then hack the thing into submission. I wonder if the way I'm playing is being noted anywhere? It doesn't seem like I have any kind of skills.

0:48 I'm about to head downstairs to the Academy's exit, when another Order agent contacts me. She says I can join up with them in 'lower Seattle', if I choose to throw off the Agency shackles. Everybody wants me to hurry up and backstab the other guy. Exciting.

0:50 I make my way past a pair of WTO security guards at the exit, and I'm free of the Academy for the first time. A comm-call tells me to report to the WTO right away. The guards warn me against going to lower Seattle. Many factions, many options. The game does a great job of making me feel like I'm in control of my destiny.

0:51 Billie once again reminds me of the Order's offer. If I want proof of the Tarsus Academy's evils, I'm given the option of slipping into Nassif's apartment to search her things. Now that I'm in control of my own destiny, it seems like I'm going to be given lots of opportunities to explore the implications of my missions.

0:53 I explore the area a bit. There's a coffee house near to the Academy, and overhear a discussion between the barista and a patron about competition with another coffee shop in lower Seattle. My first quest! I can slip into the other coffee shop owner's apartment to get the access code to the place.

0:55 Still just exploring the area, I walk past the inclinator down to lower Seattle. A trio of thugs stops me for a good old-fashioned mugging. I tell them where they can shove it, and they open fire.

0:57 I pull a fade as the security droid steps in to take them on. It's joined by the WTO troopers from back near the Academy. I literally have to do nothing as they're cut down. It's a great example of how the NPCs have their own goals and factions.

0:59 With that dramatic example of NPC interactions over, I head over to Nassif's apartment building. As I step inside, I get a com-call from someone at the WTO, who doesn't like that I'm there. She grudgingly offers me another mission as long as I'm in the area, to investigate the apartment of a diplomat. I guess even though I'm about to stab them in the back they're cool with giving me jobs? Nice. With that job under my belt, I end my time in Deus Ex.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? Yes
Why? Are you kidding me? Warren Spector? Harvey Smith? Ricardo Bare was the lead designer on the project! It's like Christmas in my PC. I didn't play this back in the day because I heard some very negative things from old System Shock/Deus Ex players, but in 2007 this is a beautiful blast from the past.

Second Person: Role Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media

Editors: Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Publisher: MIT Press
Release Date: March 2007
Medium: Book
ESRB Rating: N/A
Official Web Site

Today's Game for Lunch comes from Dave Thomas, who writes: "As a guest reviewer, I thought I’d change things up a bit a review a book rather than a game. I know, reading, "bleh." But really, isn’t it nice to know that people actually can think of enough things to actually write a book about videogames that doesn't feature Master Chief?

0:01 Second Person is, incidentally, the second book in a series about games and narrative from MIT Press. Since I read the first book, I’m actually looking forward to pulling this one off my pile and giving it a read. I’ve met both of the editors, Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, and they are spooky smart guys. So, I figure this book will give me something to think about when playing, and reviewing games. So, here we go...

0:02 Scanning through the table of contents, this looks promising. I see names of people that I know have interesting things to say: Costikyan, Zimmerman, Faidutti, Crawford, Meretzky, Bogost and more. Onwards.

0:03 This book uses a design familiar to readers of other MIT Press books. It has lots of sidebars and references to give the book a bit of a hypertext flavor. This is cool, but hurts your brain. I’m not even through the first paragraph of the introduction before I’m distracted by a sidebar explaining the limitations of formal game definitions. I’m tempted to put the book down right now and ponder this for a while. But, I’ll forge ahead.

0:04 It turns out that the editors don’t want to debate what a game is. Rather, they just want to look at how people play with media. That really opens up the discussion and provides an obvious direction for talking about role-playing in a bigger context.

0:08 What’s the relationship between story and role-playing? How does playing a role in a play differ (or is similar) from the play acting that children enjoy? And what does all this have to do with videogames? The intro touches on so many good questions, that I feel like I’m reading a mystery story and want to jump to the end and see how it wraps up. It looks like the book is going to be filled with a variety of perspectives, some technical, some academic, some a little less formal. And (cool!) the book ends with an appendix featuring three playable tabletop RPGs.

0:11 Section I—Tabletop Systems. My first reaction is a little bit of disappointment that we are not going to jump right into videogames. But it only takes a moment to figure out that talking about pen and paper games provides a perfect Petri dish for examining the subject. We can extrapolate to videogames later.

0:13 Didn’t know this: Apparently Wizards of the Coast owns a patent on the 20-sided dice, or at least games that use it. This is, I assume, is some intellectual property they acquired when the purchased TSR, the home of Dungeons and Dragons. A footnote in the book provides a link to the licensing terms WotC provides allowing other game developers to use the old d20 system.
0:18 The introduction to the tabletop section kind of runs on, summarizing the essays to come. Lots of interesting bits of history about how pen and paper RPGs have evolved in the past 15 years, with a special focus on indie game developers. More sidebars on terminology and the obviously important influence of Tolkien and Lovecraft on the genre help round things out for anyone new to the subject.

0:20 OK, I’ve reached the first essay in the book, Greg Costikyan's "Games, Storytelling, and Breaking the String." Greg must know as much about games as anyone in the world, so I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

0:24 Maybe you’d have to be extra nerdy to care about this, but I am, so I do: Costikyan does a good job of explaining, and providing a historical context, for the debate around games as stories or games as sets of rules. In a nutshell, there are those who see story as critical to the game (think Final Fantasy) and those that think rules are really what matters (think Chess or Tetris). Put into a historical context of tabletop gaming, some of those debates make sense. As he points out, D&D thrives on story. Old SPI wargame simulations don’t.

0:28 Here's the conflict between story and gameplay: Stories need to be linear. They need to happen in a certain way—they need to follow the most interesting plot line. Games need players to be able to make choices, otherwise they are quite boring. So, at first glance, these are incompatible cousins. But Costikyan also recognizes that games do need constraints. Using chess as an example, he says the fact that individual chess pieces have a constrained set of moves makes the game interesting. So, if stories need constraints and games need constraints, then the solution seems obvious—when the rules of the game match the narrative structure of the story, you end up with stories you can play. He’s going to offer some examples to see if this theory works.

0:32 Example 1—Hopscotch, a novel that you read the first time in order, then the next time you read the chapters in a different order, getting a different take on the same events in the same book. Costikyan admits that this is a pretty basic example. But he provides a baseline for illustrating that literature can be game like, you can have more than one path through the same story and that can be fun.

0:34 Example 2 – Hypertext narratives. While giving these some credit for exploring the idea, he doesn’t see them as very strong forms of storytelling, since the somewhat random nature of hypertext defeats the point of taking the reading from the beginning to the end.

0: 35 Example 3 – Chose Your Own Adventure books. He sees these as game like, and better at telling stories. But still not quite the thing to scratch his itch for games that tell stories.

0:37 Example 4 – Paragraph-System Board games. Never had heard of these. I guess you have a book that takes the role of a dungeon master and some pieces you move around on the board. An improvement in the game-story combo, but still primitive the way Costikyan tells it.

0:39 Example 5 – Dragon’s Lair. Cool idea. Terrible game.

0:40 Example 6 – Adventure games. Costikyan call these “beads on a string” games. What he means is that while there are the moments where you feel like you have some latitude in how things transpire (the bead moments) really you are being pulled through a narrative thread (the string). He actually expresses some fondness for this type of game-story, in large part, it seems, because he thinks Grim Fandango is such a good game (and it is!).

0:43 Example 7 – Computer RPGs. While these games typically have strong story elements and offer a level of customizability in character and/or play style, they still don’t offer as much latitude in play as he’d like to see. Basically, these games are still hobbled by the amount of time and money it takes to create branching content.

0:44 Example 8 – MMOs. While Costikyan argues that MMOs don’t really have stories, or at least the stories don’t have a lot to do with why players play, he does make room for the idea of the MMO as a “story setting."

0:45 Example 9 – Tabletop RPGs. Finally, we get to the heart of the matter. Like the MMO, these games have a lot of story potential. But he allows that some players care more about the story than others and the rule systems is generally concerned with the outcome of action. The story gets layered in later by the players and/or a game master. This leaves us at the “So what?” point. Looks like we’ll get some answers now.

0: 49 I have not played A Tale in the Desert, but based on the discussion in this article, I think I might like to. Costikyan talks about how quests in MMOs achieve a certain amount of successful storytelling by telling tiny tales that players can encounter inside the larger framework on the virtual world. And he suggests that using game engines to generate possibilities for the player can unlock a lot of game play and even narrative possibility. But he’s still hung up on the idea that stories are linear and they have an ending. So, either you program lots of possible endings (cost prohibitive) or you use a game master (self-defeating for many computer games where you want to play alone). A possible solution? A Tale in the Desert is an MMO that takes place over the course of a year. All the players in the world work toward a single goal. If they manage to accomplish it, everyone wins. If not, they lose. By putting the MMO on a timeline—a year—and giving someone control over the basic story—the pharaoh as game master—you get a cool story that happens in an open-ended world. Neat idea.

0:56 I’m running out of time and this article is getting really good. Costikyan is talking about a new wave of RPG developers, and how they balance narrative with game play. The examples are fascinating, from role playing an Igor-like creature serving some Dr. Frankenstein to pretending you are on a reality TV show. And now he asks, “Can you transfer these ideas to digital games?” His conclusion—It might be hard to do, but it’s the natural next step in game design. We’ve done what we can with the beads on the string model, so now it’s time to try new ideas. Whether it's embedded narrative or other ways to stimulate player creativity and control, that’s where the game design business is heading. And just under the gun, I wrap up that essay. I’ve got about 350 pages of this book to go.

Would I read this book for more than an hour? Yes.
Why? Look, I’m an academic game nerd. But reading this kind of stuff really brings the whole topic of videogames to life for me. It’s fun to think back through the games you’ve enjoyed and start to see why they work (or at times don’t). This book looks like it is filled with smart ideas from people that love, and play games.

This review is based on a copy of the book sent by MIT Press.