DISPATCHES JANUARY
If you say the word
Stuck with my PS4 for now, I have been heartily enjoying Hades and its wonderful narrative system – which is largely thanks to the Odyssean scale of its writing as much as the technical marvels that keep it humming. But ultimately, even though each time I’ve spoken to an NPC it feels special and relevant to my playthrough, it’s held together by what I imagine is a massive spreadsheet keeping track of every variable imaginable and matching this unique fingerprint to lines of pre-written dialogue.
It got me thinking about whether the sheer computing power in next-gen consoles could be harnessed not just for prettier reflections, but for prettier interactions. Am I being fanciful to imagine an RPG in which NPCs genuinely respond to your actions in the world, based on everything they know about you? Might there be a future in which we never again hear the repeated ‘it’s the end of the quest, move on’ bark, and instead have NPCs that ask – gently at first, then with increased annoyance – why you are still talking to them?
Perhaps I’m just hankering for the perfect Deus Ex game that seemed to exist in my teenage mind when I played the original; that feeling that the game was watching you, judging you, rewarding you with bespoke responses to situations of your own making, ostensibly unique to you as the player. Of course, the classic example was Manderley’s castigation of JC Denton’s lavatorial adventures, but I also recall the anecdote of using a cheat code to skip one of the game’s early levels resulting in a character in the next map asking why you, as a highly trained professional agent, sacked off an entire mission. It’s that sort of magic that sometimes still feels lacking in games with dialogue systems.
James Highmore
Perhaps the answer lies in chatbot tech, of the kind used in Superstring’s forthcoming Acolyte. In the meantime, here’s a response you might enjoy: a 12-month Game Pass Ultimate membership is coming your way.
Optimistic
I found myself strongly relating to Jack Weedon’s lament about gaming overwhelm. I realised the other day that I probably spend more time pratting around on the (horrifically obtuse) Switch eShop looking for cheap hidden gems than I do actually sinking my teeth into the games. With a daughter on the way within weeks, I’ve taken drastic action to try and actually get on with some playing in the tiny bits of time I’m going to have. So I keep three games on the Switch at any one time – a big adventure, something arcadey, and a wildcard new indie game – and then ban myself from buying/ downloading owt else until I’ve at least seen the credits or hit the ten-hour mark. It’s going great so far, with Pikmin 3, Link’s Awakening and Sayonara Wild Hearts finally nailed after months of gathering virtual dust. If only you’d stop reviewing stacks of brilliant new games I need to play right this minute, I’d be sorted.
Matt Honeycombe-Foster
“If only you’d stop reviewing stacks of brilliant new games I need to play, I’d be sorted”
Well, you’ve rather ruled yourself out of contention for Letter Of The Month there, Matt, but we’re glad your new strategy is bringing you joy. As for your last point, though, this issue’s Play section may be more hindrance than help, unfortunately.
Separator
Accessibility for people with special requirements to properly enjoy gaming is generally a mixed bag. Some games have colour-blindness mode, others have the ability to swap which buttons perform
which action, while others have volume sliders and that’s about it. An industry standard for inclusive options would ultimately be the desire, but there have certainly been improvements in this area more recently. Gears Of War 5 sets something of a benchmark with the amount of switchable options and customisations it offers. Included among these is support for Microsoft’s Adaptive Controller (XAC). Upon the release of this hardware, I was hugely impressed with the effort and thought that had gone into providing such a device and the opportunities it presented.
An advert recently popped up on my timeline for accessories that could be plugged into the Adaptive Controller and I took a look. For a single 1.4-inch button, Microsoft is charging £49.99. For a small foot pedal it asks £64.99 and a Wii-style nunchuk costs £19.99. For a setup including the controller itself, four buttons – as per Microsoft’s own advertising material – and a foot pedal they will ask £333.94: a shockingly exclusive amount of money for what are considered inclusive items. (A button similar to the ones found in hospitals to buzz in and out of doors, designed for heavy use and pressed hundreds of times a day, costs just £20.99.)
The XAC is also devoid of a cheaper thirdparty accessories market, no doubt due to its low sales volume and limited market. The optimist in me says Microsoft made the effort to produce a controller and accessories to enable people to game who otherwise wouldn’t be able. The cynic, however, sees an avenue of greater accessibility and more enjoyable gaming, cruelly hidden behind a paywall.
Gary Mckee
Both of those things can be true, of course. But you’re right: it feels counterintuitive to promote accessibility and then leave it out of the reach of parts of the intended audience. We’re listening, Microsoft, if you’d like to comment on the topic.
Little by little
I am a working dad. I play games when I can, which is far less than in my youth, but that is just fine with me. An accord was arranged with my gaming alter-ego whereby I did chores, fed the kids, did homework/bedtime, and in return a small window of opportunity would arise late at night where I could dip into a game and lose myself. This would often be either a fleeting moment due to tiredness or the cry in the dark no parent wants to hear: “Daddy… I’ve been sick”.
Again, this was fine with me as the games of yesteryear allowed for the occasional dip, since they were governed more by checkpoints and saves. One could happily while away hours if allowed, or enjoy tiny moments of progress if time was cut short. Now, as a slightly more grey, tired and busier dad, the game industry has levelled up and left me in its wake. I have no time for vast, sprawling worlds, infinite NPCs, game-altering decisions, and levelling up of my avatar. I cannot spend my precious moments deciding on the skill path of my assassin or the building of camps. I do not want to progress by skill points or perks.
I want to feel I am beating a game and making progress by my own mastering of the game mechanics over time. The rewards of beating a boss, getting to a new checkpoint or completing a race are diminishing in favour of character progression. This is not a slight on devs and the magical work they do: I wish I had more time to play their worlds! But please, remember us gamers who have grown up loving the medium and are now feeling older than they should.
Phil Galloway
All I need
I thought I would write about the changing priorities of an ageing gamer. Early 20s may not be classed as old, but it’s definitely given me enough time to get burnt out of lots of big-budget triple-A titles.
I think reviews should definitely start incorporating a metric that considers the conciseness of a game. An adult gamer with a few hours available at weekends would assess the phrase ‘good value’ completely differently from a young gamer with an entire summer to play a single game. I personally look for engaging core mechanics before I even think about game length, story or secondary objectives.
Blockbuster hits such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, Spider-Man or GTA 5 can produce 200 hours of play, but as I get older I value a game that explores one neat mechanic well. I grow tired of fetch quests and collectibles, instead drawn to the simple mechanics of banging humans on walls in Ape Out, or creating a powerful deck of cards in Slay The Spire.
All that is to say, should we be reassessing what makes a game ‘good value’? To anyone else out there who ignores all those ‘find six notebooks’ or ‘protect three turrets’ missions, I implore you to delve into the indie scene further, particularly those that are four to eight hours long and focus entirely on one core mechanic. It rekindled a flame in me that open-world collectathon blockbusters almost blew out. A great and cheap recommendation from me will always be Spelunky.
Daniel Sherwood
We often note if a game’s duration feels particularly brief, but we hear you all and will keep it closer to the front of our minds.
Ful stop
Recently I caved and took out a subscription to Xbox Game Pass specifically to play Unpacking by Witch Beam. Looking through the endless selection of games on demand, I was struck by the lack of the one genre I specifically wanted – ‘Short’. A game with a self-contained story, completable within around three hours, is what I, as a slightlytoo-busy adult, crave. So in honour of the need for short games, here is a short letter. Point made, I hope.
Richard Jackson
Indeed so. There. A short response, too.