Broken up Reviews Breaks Reviews

Just recently a certain big game review outlet started breaking certain reviews into specific sections for different game modes/ types.  Two recent examples would be Call of Duty: Black Ops IV (I refuse to write IIII), and Battlefield: V.  Each was given separate reviews, Multiplayer, Zombies, and Blackout for COD, and Single player and Multiplayer for Battlefield.  This raised a lot of negative comments on the videos, a lot of which I agree with, but not for entirely the same reasons.

Let me just say this first: There is no point in separating parts of a review if you cannot purchase those individual parts.  COD comes as a package with those three main modes, and while each will certainly have positive and negative aspects that don't apply to the others, there is no benefit it just looking at each in isolation.  That said, I think this is just a weird step that kind of goes in the right direction for how reviews are done because even in single reviews, for the most part, each primary mode is given a spotlight of sorts.  A traditional review would look at things like story, game play, graphics, sound, multiplayer, and so on, sometimes with certain parts mixed together.  Each part is important, and I don't disagree with the fact that a mode like zombies in COD does need specific focus and attention that doesn't completely overlap with the other modes.  Basic game play, graphics, and things like that will probably be more or less consistent across all the modes a game has, so that specific section would focus on what makes it different, what works, what doesn't, how enjoyable it is, and anything else unique it brings to the complete package.  The key term there being "package."  So far, each mode being reviewed separately is being scored as if it stood alone when they do not.  Yes, they are giving an overall score as well, but if a game got a perfect score for it's single player but had an awful multiplayer component, that's just being disingenuous to anyone who doesn't know to seek out separate reviews for the same game.  Even for people who do, is there that much value in seeing each part rated separately?  Scores in general are something I've already spoken about, so I won't repeat my ideology on it again here, but more and more outlets do seem be moving away from a scoring system entirely.  Putting in more scores just dilutes our ability to relate to what the review actually thought about the game.

Except that it gets even worse.  Not only are these individual reviews made, scored, and published stand alone, but they are being done by separate reviewers.  Now, I actually kind of like the idea of multiple people reviewing the same game, even though I know how unrealistic it is in terms of time, money, and resources, but giving different people individual sections of a game to review is beyond ridiculous.  Any sense of consistency goes out the window.  What if one person found the shooting boring and lacking any good sense of feedback, while the other thought it was the pinnacle of the genre? Or what if the mechanics were at odds with the story, which wouldn't apply to multiplayer?  Those kinds of things would sway both scores and even further dilute the message readers/ viewers got.

There is a tiny, muddled, silver lining in this though.  Each piece of a review has been about the length of a normal review, which means that those who actually consume each part get a more fleshed out review than they otherwise would (excluding the whole multiple reviewer issue).  Longer reviews are not necessarily better, but The 5-7 minute video reviews that most major outlets put out can certainly be lacking, so getting more would be a benefit in most cases.  However, the issues already described obfuscate this minor advantage to the point it might as well not exist.

Reviewing a game in pieces is like reviewing each color of Skittles in a bag individually.  Yeah, each one is technically different, people will like some more than others, but you're not buying just one color.  You get the bag, all colors included whether you like them or not, and a review should do it's best to convey the good and bad as clearly as possible.   Split reviews provide less context, and when its hard enough to find a reviewer who's opinions line up with your own, this just makes the entire review industry even less useful to consumers.

When it's okay that your choices don't matter.

We all want our choices to matter, or at least feel like they matter, in games.  When we see that they actually don't, when players discover that no matter what choice they made will result in the same outcome, we feel insulted.  This is a completely understandable reaction to have.  It can feel like the developers are trying to deceive us, or even insult us, by giving us the so called "illusion of choice."  To be fair, in more cases than not, it's kind of true.  Games built around choice, like those from now defunct developer TellTale games, would need to basically build dozens of versions of their games to actually make every important decision a player makes have a true payoff beyond slightly different dialogue or one character being swapped in or out with another.  This is not a new issue, in fact it comes up all the time, but I want to look at it from a different angle (I hope).  We all know the argument that choices should matter, but it's not realistic, so it's okay that they don't as long as we feel like they do.  That's all well and good, but there's another type of choice that games can throw at us that sometimes matter, sometimes don't, but even in cases where they clearly don't can accomplish something even greater in my mind.

One of the difficulties I have when approaching a topic as broad as choice in games is how to handle approaching it on a general basis.  Specifically, games that feature a lot of choice are often RPGs or have RPG elements in the sense that you are role-playing a character.  This can either be a blank slate, or a somewhat established character.  In the latter case, there is a large range of how far the developers allow the player to divert from that base character in their choices.  Sometimes you can turn a pure, good character into the most vile and ruthless anti-hero, while other times you can only slightly tip the morality scale.  So there's that issue, but another one that compounds on it is how the player chooses to play.  When you get a character with a baseline of personality, however small, do you make choices in the way you think they would, or how you would if put in that situation?  There are so many things that make talking about choice so difficult because not only does each game treat them differently, each player going through that came will come with a unique approach.  All that acknowledged, hopefully my main point will still make sense.

Hot take coming up:  My favorite choices in games are ones that not only don't change how the game plays out, but often times can't.  Let's explore what I mean.  Regardless of if you're playing as yourself or the character built for the game, you absorb each choice and view it through a unique lens of experiences and morals to make a choice.  At least when the choice is well crafted and all aspects are properly built up and understood by the player.  The most common is the traditional choice of who to save and who to let die.  This choice typically occurs somewhat early to midway through a game, so that the player understands who each character is, what they offer, and their faults so that they understand the weight of their decision.  While all well and good, this choice, among most that effect a game on a mechanical level, can be broken by logic too easily.  Everyone has preferences in how to play a game, and if one character offers a more enjoyable experience than the other, I would guess a large majority of players would make that choice regardless of how they actually felt about their personalities or any other factor.  Please let me know if I'm wrong in that assumption.  So, what does that have to do with choices that don't, or can't, matter?  It's all about divorcing the choice from being strictly grounded in the mechanics of the game.  If the choice can't possibly have repercussions on you, as a player, then you're going to think about it without the baggage of wondering if you're making the game harder or on yourself, or anything else along those lines.  

But, if the choice presented makes no impact on the game, or even the narrative, then how could it possibly be the "best"?  What's the point of a choice with no stakes?  Simple, my dear reader: introspection.  The examples I think of are usually ones near the end of games, but not always, that involve the larger universe.  Think the choices at the end of Dues Ex: Human Revolution where you are asked to decide to reveal the truth about what happened with all the augmented people going crazy, blame it on the anti-augmentation terrorists so that augmentation technology can progress, cover up the Illuminati and allow them to continue running things from the shadows, or do nothing and let the populous come to its own conclusion with no interference.  None of these choices will have an impact on your game, at this point its clear the game is over, but also are so wide-reaching that the consequences of your choice are essentially for everyone but you.  You know everything already, that can't be undone, so the choice is if you want to share or hide that information, with the potential ramifications of each option explained.  There's no 'right' answer, and no way to make one by gaming the system by looking for some objective positives or negatives.

In a way, uninvested or mentally lazy players might see this kind of choice as pointless.  If the game's over and the choice has no bearing on anything, why give it any deep thought?  And I can't really argue that except to say that games are amazing at positioning these kind of deep philosophical thought experiments and hypotheticals to work through.  After living in that world, knowing the characters, getting a grip on society, politics, and everything presented to the player, what better way to end that experience than by asking: "Would you change this world, and how?  Would you do it if it was based on a lie - your lie?"  The rabbit hole of questions goes as deep as you want, which can't be said for choices like which character you want to save, or which side of for choices that do have an impact on the game like which side of conflict you want to fight for.  I don't remember those choices very often, but I remember the ones that ask me to really think about my own moral alignments because even  though they don't matter in the game, they matter in learning about ourselves.

Thank you for reading,

J.Lennox

"Blank Explained": or a look at misleading and click-bait titles

I might be really late to the party on this topic, in fact I know I am, but I have just started seeing the excess of "the ending explained" or "what *blank* really meant" type videos online.  They haven't quite reached the level of "Top 10 *whatever*" click-bait titles, but are certainly elbowing their way in there.  There are entire channels dedicated to explaining the ending of movies, and as someone who really enjoys watching film analysis videos, I gave a couple of them a try.  Let's just say the disappointment has been overwhelming.

First off, I want to make a distinction between a click-bait title, and one that is straight up lying.  A click-bait title is just a title meant to prey on a person's curiosity in order to get them to read or watch some content.  Well, not even read it, just click on the link.  A false title promises to do the same, only fails to actually deliver what was promised.  While the answers found in a traditional click-bait article are hardly ever as exciting as the title promises, they at least deliver what was advertised.  These "explained" videos, for lack of a better term, have predominantly been about everything but what the title promises.  I don't want to call out any specific channels, although finding them would be incredibly easy since a lot are very popular and get hundreds of thousands of views per video, so I'll be vague in recounting my experience.

I tend not to stay on my YouTube homepage very long, mostly just using the subscription tap to only see who I subscribe to, but occasionally will take a glance at the recommended videos.  Usually they're not worth the .75 seconds I spend glancing over them, but occasionally it can uncover some good stuff.  Anyway, I did my quick glance a little while ago and saw a "ending explained" video for a film I had recently seen.  I didn't think the ending was too confusing, I had already come up with my own conclusions about the elements left ambiguous, but, as previously mentioned, I enjoy hearing other people's analysis and other possible interpretations.  It wasn't a terribly long video, about 20 minutes if I remember, so not long enough to be a complete deep dive into the entire movie, but probably long enough just to cover the ending in depth.  So, the fool that I am, I fell for the title's trap.  The video began, after an obligatory spoiler warning despite how obvious that should be to anyone who read the title, by recapping the entire narrative of the film.  Only after minutes went by did I realize it wasn't so much of a recap as a truncated retelling of the entire plot point for point.  Okay, that wasn't what I signed up for, but at least they went in depth on why certain things mattered and things like foreshadow...oh wait, they didn't.  It was a literal, objective, recap of what happened in the movie with no insight, critique, or commentary of really any kind (except for some little jokes or whatever here and there to keep the viewer engaged).

Okay, a lot of time was wasted, but there was still hope, a tiny sliver of time left to salvage the promise of this video...but no.  The ending is "explained" in the same way a witness would explain a crime.  They'll say what happened, and maybe point out the lingering questions, but never provide any answers, let alone evidence to back any implied theory up.  What I explored of these videos always end up so spineless, never taking as hard of a stand as their title promises in providing an actual explanation for the ending to a movie.  Maybe that's because they don't want to alienate people who disagree.  Or maybe it's because they make these types of videos for every movie that comes out and a lot don't have endings that actually need explaining, and those that really do have endings open to interpretation would take too much time and effort to dissect.

I understand why click-bait titles exist.  It's all about catching people's attention and triggering their curiosity enough to read that article or watch that video.  In a world where people get paid just based on getting that view or click, the titles have been designed to be more and more exploitative just to get that click.  That alone crosses the line of shady business practice, but if the trend of making click-bait titles actual lies becomes more commonplace, then it's all over.  We're back to the days of getting "Rick-rolled", only this time people will be getting paid to do it.

Low Skill Floors and High Skill Ceilings: An Uneducated Observation

Skill floors and ceilings, not to be confused with difficulty, is a topic I see discussed a lot even when the people talking about it don't necessarily know it.  The inspiration for this little ramble was actually a forum thread talking about a game's difficulty, specifically about how a player could reliably just "mash the attack button" and get through the game with little to no need to adopt more complex strategies, making it boring.  Others argued that there was actually a lot of depth in the combat, which becomes more essential to explore on the game's critical difficulty level. The game in question was Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix on the PS4.  Being one of my favorite games, I felt a need to add my own thoughts to the topic, but found it took me a little longer than I imagined to really identify how I felt about it.

The first time I played Kingdom Hearts 2, I was guilty of mashing attack, and occasionally backing off to heal, through basically the entire game.  Proud was the highest difficulty level we got in the West on the PS2 original version, which wasn't even all that difficult for those familiar with action RPGs.  There were times where a little more strategy was involved, sure, but for the most part a player really could just rely on throwing themselves at whatever enemy or boss they were faced with and hammering in on the attack button and hitting reaction commands when they popped up.  On my first play through, my magic bar might as well have been my healing bar because that's all I really used it for.  Plus, since a single heal depleted the entire bar, I felt like I had to conserve my magic for that heal, which disincentivized the use of other magics.  Drive forms, which granted Sora a second keyblade, new set of moves, and other abilities, ended up becoming my back-up heal in boss battles since transforming into those forms also restored full health.  Summons...I actually never used until I had completed the game and was completing everything in the journal.  The same goes for party member abilities (Except Auron's and Riku's because I'm a shameless fanboy of both of them).  Exactly like the people posting about it recently, I didn't need to use magic, summons, drive forms, or any of Sora's more complicated moves beyond increasing his combo potential to beat the game.  Does that make the game easy?  Well, kind of, yes.  Add in the fact that you can grind levels to brute force your way through things, and yeah, the player absolutely has the ability to negate most of the challenge of the game on proud without switching tactics.  However, the answer to the question as to whether or not KH2 has a low skill ceiling is certainly no.

Sora has an incredibly diverse list of magic, attacks, movement options, and more that all flow together for the player to experiment with.  I didn't even know until my second play-through, after 100% completing my first, that Sora has a launcher that can be performed anywhere in his combo.  I didn't know until watching a video online that you can use magic as combo finishers, and they're different from how the spell behaves normally.  I had no idea about so many different options and ways to approach combat that the game offered until I had long since beat the final boss.  So, no, the skill ceiling is not low, but the difficulty doesn't push players to actually go beyond the first optimal strategy they are given.  Since you begin the game with basically no options besides a basic combo, never being pushed to do more than that leads to the game coming off as a button masher, despite the full tool set on offer.  In other words, the game also has a very low skill floor, which is the amount of skill needed to beat the game.  Critical mode, which was mentioned earlier, does actually do a lot to push players beyond that way of thinking.  Sora has far less health, and can only gain so much through leveling up, and enemies are much more lethal.  Brute forcing a boss no longer becomes an option in a lot of cases, leading to players exploring those other options or give up.

So, Kingdom Hearts 2 has a bevy of options that raise the skill ceiling, but the question I faced next was what I spent the most time contemplating.  Does it matter how high the skill ceiling is if you never have to explore it?  At the same time, is it be a bad thing when games do force players to 'be this tall to ride' so to speak?  It's an issue that I can see people taking both sides on.  A low skill floor means more people are able to play and enjoy it, while still offering that high level of skills for those who seek it out.  But, on the other hand, is there even a point in making such a high skill ceiling if it isn't necessary to get through the game?  Why scale the side of a building with your bare hands when there's an elevator right over there?  For the challenge, of course, which led me to my next conundrum.

Are self imposed challenges as valid as ones built into the game?  Or, rather, are they valuable?  Personally, I say yes.  Character Action games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta also have very high skill ceilings, and show that to the player by giving rankings on how they perform during a fight.  Different factors like how long it took, how many hits the player took, how big of a combo they reached, how many different moves they performed, and more are tallied up and calculated into a rank the player can see.  It's a great and streamlined way to show the player how much higher there is to the skill ceiling to go without actually holding them back from progressing through the game.  Take those rankings away and, well, they wouldn't be all that different from Kingdom Hearts 2, would they? 

Skill floors and skill ceilings need to be given a lot of attention when making a game.  Depending on how they are adjusted, a game could swing wildly between different types of audiences.  Too easy and the "hard core" audience would get bored with it, and too hard would alienate those who don't want to, or can't, commit that much time to learning and mastering the game's systems to the level required to progress.  The obvious sweet spot is to have a game that just about anyone can beat, but allows players who want to master it a satisfying and deep experience.  Does Kingdom Hearts 2 do that?  In my opinion, yes, but it fails at conveying that there is that deep level of mastery available compared to how DMC or Bayonetta handle it with their ranking systems.  Kingdom Hearts 2 will never tell the player they can play in a more effective, complex way.  In some ways that's good, because no one likes to see a D rank or stone trophy after winning a fight just because they got hit or used healing items.  Now, I'm as far from a game designer as you can basically get so I have no idea how much work it would actually take to implement, but it should be possible for ranking systems like this to be optional.  Why not allow it when choosing difficulty?  Easy, medium, hard, or whatever they might be called, and then a toggle for ranking on/ off.  That way the information is there for anyone who wants it, and those who don't can enjoy the game without it demeaning them for mashing their way through if that's how they want to play. 

What do you guys think?  Would this optional ranking system appeal to you, or is it completely unnecessary?  Do you get just as much enjoyment out of self-imposed challenges as ones provided from the game, like Nuzlock runs?  Are people who don't find the depth in a game because there's not a strict need to seek it out fairly complaining about it?  Lot's of questions on this one.  I look forward to seeing the discussion and hearing everyone's thoughts.

Little Things I'm Glad Gaming as a Whole Has Learned

It's only when revisiting older games that we can really tell how much designers have learned and evolved over time.  I'm not talking about things here, such as graphics or any kind of design choices like that, but the little things.  For example, and inspiration for this post, how in older 3D games there would be times when you completed a task/ opened a lock, or what have you, and the game would trigger a cut-scene showing you a door unlocking or something, and then cut back to where you were.  Fine, right?  Except, wait, the camera cut didn't give you any indication of where that door you unlocked was, and the brief scene you were shown was framed in such a way, or the environment around it was so nondescript, that you have no sense of direction on where you're supposed to go.  It wasn't long before developers started flying the camera either to or from the indicated area to let the player know where they were headed, but for a while there finding the way to unlock a door was only half of the scavenger hunt. HUD options are another little lesson we're seeing more of, but not nearly enough of yet. 

Then there are some things that only most developers have learned, or at least are able to implement.  These could be things like allowing cutscenes to be skipped (assuming it isn't hiding a loading zone of course), or allowing the player to do something (anything) during dedicated loading screens.  Bayonetta is among the best at this, allowing you to practice combos, but even the way Assassin's Creed games let you just run around a blank environment is better than nothing.  The best solution would be if games could put proper mini-games in the loading screens, but that's actually patented by Namco, so unless they give that up we're out of luck. 

Think of all the little advances we've made that we don't even realize until some outlier of a game comes along and doesn't have it.  From simple options like subtitles or adjusting aim sensitivity, to bigger things like customization controls, or even just alternate control schemes.  With the exception of subtitles, which has a ton of variations and work that could be done just on that subject, I haven't even really mentioned the wave of accessibility features and options.  Personally, after subtitles, colorblind mode was the first I saw getting a substantial push, but I'm glad to see more and more little options and features added to games for people who might not be able to enjoy games without that tweak.  On a macro level Microsoft's new adaptive controller is fantastic and something that all console makers should be able to provide.  Gaming has grown to the point where not serving people who have disabilities of any kind, on a software or hardware level, is not acceptable anymore.  Honestly, it hasn't been acceptable for a really long time if we think about it.  I kind of ran off my original topic there, but that's just where this thought train took me, and I hope you found something of value on this detour. 

There's plenty here I'd like to see opinions on.  What little lessons would you miss most if games stopped having them?  What are things only some games offer that you'd like to see become a standard?  What are your thoughts on making games more accessible?  What needs are not being met yet, and how do you think they could?  Say whatever you like, really.  Talking about things like this is  one way our industry can move forward.

Immersive Sims as a Genre

Just a quick post here about a thought I had after hearing some discussions going on about the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 and how it will be a true "immersive sim".  First, for those who may not have heard the term, it is loosely defined as games that "are primarily concerned with making players feel as though they are truly experiencing a believable world by creating mechanics that feel appropriate and logical within the game world and try to avoid feeling arbitrarily 'Gamey'."  Elements of an immersive sim would be things like believable and realistic physics and AI, multiple paths and solutions to every situation, the world of the game remembering player actions and reacting to them, non-linear world/ missions, and more but those are some of the most important ones.  There were games that fit this category long before, but the term really gained prominence with the game Deus Ex and the level of freedom, choice, and realistic reactions that could come about from any of the player's many possible actions.  

Thinking about immersive sims, and what it meant for a game to be one, made me pause.  If I boiled it down to a personal definition it would be something like: A game that allows the player to chose how they want to play, proceed and interact with the game world, or not, and the game will react in a believable and realistic way to those actions.  There was a problem with that, however.  That definition isn't something that should be attributed to a genre of videogame, but to videogames as a whole.  One of, if not the primary, defining elements that separates videogames from other mediums is its interactivity, right?  The fact that we are participating in the medium rather than passively observing or absorbing it.  To me, immersive sim is a way more appropriate name than videogames for the entire medium.  Videogames are meant to be immersive in ways that other mediums are not, participation, and are simulations of anything and everything.  The term 'videogame' only implies that it is entertainment played through a visual medium at best, and that antiquated term sells the entire medium short.  

On the other hand, the fact that we can classify some games as immersive sims and others as not shows that the medium hasn't reached that full potential quite yet.  I'm not implying that every game needs to be what we consider now to be an immersive sim, but do believe that just about every game could benefit from striving to include more elements from that 'genre'.  Having the game adapt and react to your actions beyond the action of shooting leading to the enemy falling leads to greater immersion, engagement, and creativity.  Not to pick on Call of Duty, but I recently played through one of the campaigns and can say that I went through not even thinking of other ways to approach situations beyond shooting.  Yes, there were stealth and vehicle segments that varied how I shot things, but never once did I think to try and sneak up on an enemy and hold him at gunpoint for information, or to flat out refuse to attack the enemy and surrender, or consider that the enemy would surrender, because I knew I didn't have those choices.  Even in games where you're lead to make wrong decisions, such as unknowingly killing innocents or comrades, you're more often than not forced to do it even on repeat plays where you know not to do it.  Player choice, player immersion, is just way too narrow in most games to really justify the entire medium adopting the banner of immersive sim.  

I hope that the industry does move more towards the design philosophy of what we now call immersive sims.  Again, not everything needs to be an open world RPG that reacts to every time you cross the street against the light, but am I wrong in thinking that even the most linear of games couldn't be made just a little bit better by giving more meaningful choices to the player, and then rewarding, or punishing, them for those choices?  I get that game development is incredibly difficult and creating things that some people won't ever see is often the antithesis of a lot of game design, but I can't be the only person who gets a kind of special feeling when I come across something in a game I know not everyone else will.  Plus, a lot of what makes immersive sims what they are is the fact that things happen 'naturally' instead of being scripted.  Yes, bigger moments would fall into that category of designing for part of the audience, but not everything would.  In my mind these qualities just make the game, well, more immersive to me.  The game recognized what I did and produced these results just for me.  I think that's the most powerful strength of this medium, and we've only just begun to explore it.

Studios We've Lost: Neversoft

Way back in 1994, all it took was three capable people to start a game development company and start creating games.  That's exactly what Joel Jewett, Mick West, and Chris Ward decided to do.  They left their jobs at Malibu Interactive, formed Neversoft, and never looked back.  From almost the smallest beginnings possible, Neversoft went on to impact the gaming landscape in major ways over the 20 years they were active.  Their most influential title, as well as what I expect most people to recognize them for, was the trend setting, popular, and incredibly successful Tony Hawk skateboarding games.  With that kind of pedigree, what exactly happened to Neversoft that ended in the studio closing down?  Well, let's take a look at the history of Neversoft from begging to end in this installment of Studios We've Lost: Neversoft.

Beginnings are Never Soft.

1994, their first year as a studio, Neversoft was hired by Playmate Interactive Entertainment to develop a game to be sold alongside the upcoming line of toys for the Skeleton Warriors cartoon.  Originally meant to be released on the Sega Genesis, the game was scrapped and restarted at Playmate's orders so that it could be released on the newer Sega Saturn.  By the end of 1995, when their first game was released, Neversoft had already more than doubled their staff and was looking to further expand.  They took it upon themselves to create a PlayStation port of Skeleton Warriors while seeking out more opportunities.  The only reviews I could find for this game were from IGN, who gave it a 5/10, and GameSpot's player reviews averaging it at a 6.3/10.  In terms of sales, the best source I could find put it at about 80,000 units sold.  Even for 1995, that's not very impressive, but for a studio that small basically having to make the game twice in less that two years, it was more than enough.

After six months work on a Ghost Rider game for Crystal Dynamics was cancelled, Neversoft decided to try and create their own original game tentatively titled Big Guns.  While this project would never see release, being sold to Sony, reworked, and eventually cancelled in 1997, the technology they created for the game still went to use in making a PlayStation port of the PC game MDK.  This port didn't go as smoothly as the studio intended, coupled with all the time spent on cancelled games, forced the studio to shrink back down to just 12 employees by the end of 1997.  They continued to look for more work, showing off their technology, until the beginning of 1998, essentially out of time and money, Neversoft met with Activision.

Activision was looking for someone to take over development on a game called Apocalypse that would star Bruce Willis as the main character, and the work Neversoft had done on Big Guns was a perfect match.  Development apparently went so well that only 4 months into the project Activision approached Neversoft with the opportunity to develop a skateboarding game in addition to Apocalypse.  Neversoft, probably glad to be offered continued work under Activision, accepted but was unable to spare many resources to the project until work on Apocalypse was complete.  Released at the end of 1998, Apocalypse was met with middling scores of 71 from both GameRankings and GameSpot, the latter of which specifically criticized the voice acting.

Going Vertical.

By the end of 1998, Neversoft was putting their full force behind their new skateboarding project.  Initially, the team started by modifying the engine used in Apocalypse, even using the Bruce Willis character model as a skater through the prototyping stages.  Near the end of 1998, realizing that a big name in skating would be needed to really push their game's wider appeal, Neversoft had Activision arrange a meeting with the studio with arguably the most prominent and well known skater at the time, if not ever, Tony Hawk.  Hawk was impressed with the early build of the game and agreed to let them use his name and likeness in a royalty deal that would see him earning a percentage of every game sold rather than a one-time buyout.  This decision would earn him 10 times the one-time payment he was offered within two years.  Hawk also gave input to the game through development, including what other skaters should be included.  Neversoft did attempt to use motion capture for animation, however the technology was still so new at the time it was deemed worse than the quality of animation they could create by hand.  Late in 1999, the first Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was released to outstanding reviews and sales.  The PlayStation version sits at a 92 score on Metacritic, receiving perfect scores from some outlets.  In terms of sales, THPS was the best selling game of the month it was released in, was awarded a "Platinum Sales" award meaning excess of 300,000 copies were sold in the UK alone, and would go on to be the second best selling PlayStation game of 2000.  Knowing they had a hit on their hands, Neversoft shifted to working on a sequel immediately after completion of the first game and letting Activision assign other studios to develop the ports.

Not content with working on just one game with a major name attached, Neversoft used their THPS engine to develop a Spider-Man game concurrently with THPS2.  This game, titled without frills as Spider-Man, would also go on to be a platinum seller and reach an 87 score on Metacritic.  Later that same year, the second THPS game would be released to the public.  This sequel, while further building on the existing engine, boasted a ton of new gameplay improvements such as level and character creators, along with plenty of new tricks and techniques to perform in game.  All these improvements and hard work didn't go unnoticed as THPS2 would get an even greater critical reception than its predecessor, sitting at a staggering 98 on Metacritic for the PlayStation version.  Reviewers praised everything about the game, from controls, to graphics, and solid performance.  THPS2 brought Neversoft their third consecutive game to be a platinum seller, being the best selling game on the PlayStation for two weeks straight, and would go on sell over 4.48 million on the PlayStation alone, or 5.3 million including all versions.  That's not to mention all the awards and accolades the title received.

Success like the one Neversoft saw with THPS2 painted a clear picture for where the studio should focus, and with new console hardware on the horizon, the team continued on with their tradition of releasing a new THPS game every year.  Being the first game in the series on a new generation of consoles, as well as Neversoft's first ever game on the new hardware, there was a lot of opportunities for this third installment to stumble given the development time.  Instead, Neversoft proved their mastery of the skating genre they pioneered, and THPS3 yet again amazed critics and fans alike.  Just barely below 2, THPS3 ended up at a 97 Metacritic rank, tied for the best ever PS2 title, with many outlets giving it perfect scores.  IGN even commented that the game "Should go down in history as one of the best twitch-fests on PS2. Yes, TH3 is that good. The perfect skating game remains just a tiny hair's breadth out of reach, but if you are not satisfied with your purchase of this game, head examinations are recommended."  

Somehow, while developing THPS3 and moving on to it's inevitable sequel, Neversoft also released THPS2X, an updated version of the second game for the modern consoles with a couple improvements and content from the original included.  I assume this was a minor project for a smaller team at Neversoft, requiring much less time and talent than a fully new installment, but even the improvements added couldn't keep the game from failing to impress a second time around.  Reviewers were somewhat split, acknowledging that it was the best version of THPS2 available, but not much more than that.  It would end up with just a 78 Metacritic score, an all time low for the series up to that point, and the worst the studio had gotten since 1998's Apocalypse.  

Back on the yearly release schedule, THPS4 came out on all major consoles with, if you'll excuse the pun, plenty of new tricks up its sleeve.  The most major addition was the inclusion of online play, a first for the series, where up to 8 players can join to together to play the multiplayer games previously limited to split-screen.  Despite continuing to add new features, content, tricks, and ways to play, THPS4 showed the first hints at series fatigue.  Even so, the game still reached an incredible 94 Metacritic on PS2.  

Through the Underground.

Perhaps sensing that more than graphical, mechanical, and gameplay related changes were needed to keep their yearly skateboarding series fresh and at the top of the market, Neversoft chose to take the series in a new direction.  In Tony Hawk's Underground, or THUG, players would create a new character and progress through a narrative story rather than complete missions as existing pro-skaters in disconnected stages.  A possible reason for choosing to focus on a completely original character for the story was that it would allow for that character to commit criminal acts, which might've cast a bad light on any real life pro skaters featured in the game, now showing up as NPCs in the story.  It seemed as though this work to push a more narrative angle in the series didn't help the series from its slow decent in scores, only just reaching a 90 on Metacritic on the PS2, but was still a strong enough seller to bring Neversoft another platinum seller.

THUG2 was, thanks to the previous game's introduction of a narrative campaign, the first sequel in the series to be a direct continuation of its predecessor in more than mechanics.  Neversoft pushed narrative yet again, although to many reviewers it fell short, literally.  Aside from being critical of the length, the writing and overall plot were not up to par compared to THUG or other contemporary narrative games.  Additionally, not much new in terms of gameplay was added compared to previous sequels, which I believe was only an inevitability with so many games coming out year after year.  In the end, THUG2 brought the series down to a an 83 on Metacritic for PS2 and Xbox.  

And into the Wasteland.

With 6 Tony Hawk games already under their belt, and the signs of diminishing returns starting to show its face, Neversoft looked to further push their series wherever they could.  With American Wasteland, that push came in the form of removing all loading screens.  The game would not be individual levels or stages that they player had to load into, but one giant map they could skate, combo, and ride through from end to end without interruption.  They also incorporated BMX for the first time, and while not as robust as the skating portion, still offered variety and new possibilities to the player.  Once again, the series took another downturn in review scores, ranging from a 69 to a 77 on Metacritic across PC, Xbox 360, and PS2.  The general consensus was that the technology used to hide the loading through corridors to create a seamless skating experience was great, and the more grounded story was refreshing, but the game itself was beginning to feel too familiar.  

For the first time since 1998, Neversoft released a game not beholden to any license in the form of the western TPS Gun.  Gun was about as far from skateboarding as a game could get, set in an open world old west with side quests, hunting, with a morality meter that rises and falls based on the player's actions.  Essentially, it was what many thought Grand Theft Auto would look like if it was set in the wild west, well before Rockstar would make Red Dead Redemption.  All things considered, the new game did fairly well for itself, earning a 79 on Metacritic and selling over a quarter of a million copies in its first month across 4 systems.  

Back to basics.

This brief reprieve from Tony Hawk games didn't even last a year, which I assume to be due to Activision's insistence on keeping the franchise going, with 2006's Tony Hawk's Project 8 followed up by 2007's Tony Hawk's Proving Ground.  The former was received mostly positively, earning an 81 on Metacritic, but the follow up saw record low scores for the series ranging from a 57 for the Wii version and the highest scoring being the DS at a 79.  At that point it must've become clear to both Neversoft and Activision that the craze surrounding the Tony Hawk games had all but vanished.

A new gig.

Activision had plenty of other franchises it was looking after, and as Tony Hawk was charting on a downward trajectory, another trend was spiking upward.  Guitar Hero, and the music/rhythm genre, was skyrocketing in popularity, plus required a specialized guitar controller to play which further increased profitability.  Neversoft was tasked with developing the third game in the series, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock after Harmonix, the series' original developer, was bought by MTV.  Having been fans of the games, Neversoft agreed and was able to fully develop and release the game in late 2007.  According to Activision, Guitar Hero III was their "largest product launch ever" and generated over $100 and selling 1.4 million copies in it's first week on sale in North America alone, with almost 2 million more units sold in the following month.  The title would sell so well that it became the first videogame to earn over 1 billion dollars in sales.  In terms of reviews, the title did well.  Most scores across its 5 versions lay in the low to mid 80's, topping out at an 86 for the Wii version.  

Just as with Tony Hawk before it, Neversoft became the Guitar Hero studio, only this time Activision pushed them to produce more than just one title per year.  2008 saw Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Guitar Hero World Tour, with Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero 5, and Band Hero all releasing in 2009.  After Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, the only notable change in the series, aside from song selection and minor gameplay changes, was the inclusion more instruments to further capitalize on the public's obsession with playing as a band, as well as sell more peripherals.  Reviews across these games remained fairly consistent around the mid 80's on Metacritic, and looked to be an even more powerful brand than Tony Hawk had been for profits, even while in competition with the Rock Band games, although sales were starting to dip after Metallica, most likely due to consumer burnout with so many games of the genre being released so frequently.

With 2010's Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, Activision saw the need to refocus their development away from the sinking franchise by closing down Neversoft's Guitar Hero division upon completion of the title.  Perhaps knowing it was their last shot with the franchise, the team set their sights on recapturing what fans liked about Guitar Hero III, focusing on a strong track list based on rock, a solid focus on the guitar, which was the most popular instrument, and a good challenge for the large portion of the audience who played at higher difficulty levels.  In the end, the game was given scores in the low to mid 70's and sales of only 86,000 across all platforms in the first 5 days, far below expectations compared to 1.5 million of Guitar Hero III, and 500,000 of Guitar Hero: World Tour in the same time period.  After this commercial failure, 50 employees were let go from Neversoft.

Going Extinct.

With the Guitar Hero division closed down and a dwindling staff, Neversoft was left without a franchise to work on.  Having done some work on additional modes for the Call of Duty franchise in the past, Activision decided to merge the studio to work with Infinity Ward on an "extinction" game mode for Call of Duty: Ghosts where they would remain.  On July 10th, 2014, exactly 20 years after being founded, Neversoft as a studio was officially no more.  As a final tribute, the remaining employees set fire to their iconic eyeball logo by shooting it with a flaming arrow.

The Postmortem.

Neversoft was a studio that seemed unstoppable.  Their origins as just a handful of developers into the developers of two of some of the most popular and profitable games of their time should've spelled nothing but success for the studio.  The issue was that the games were only just that, popular and profitable for their time.  The skating culture died down, and the plastic instrument music/ party scene was so over-saturated that it took a nosedive from arguably an arguably higher peak than Tony Hawk in a fraction of the time.  But who was to blame?  From where I view things, Neversoft was resigned to a fate far worse than a team of their skill deserved.  They proved they could make amazing games, even ones that still stand as peaks in their genres, while working on strict time constraints.  Not only that, but they were versatile.  Sure, Activision was quick to tie them down almost exclusively to one license at a time, but little breakout games like Spider-Man and Gun proved they could tackle so much more than skating or rhythm games given the chance.  So is it Activision's fault?  Well, yes.  They were the ones who made the decision to merge the team into Infinity Ward after the poor sales of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, which was a commercial failure to be sure, but certainly not one that should've overshadowed the dozens of record breaking games they developed beforehand.  In my eyes, Activision's narrow focus on exploiting whatever franchise is big at that moment, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, and Call of Duty, blinds them to pursuing any other project.  As many more intelligent journalists and the like have pointed out, Activision is only interested in making the most amount of money, and just making a profit is no longer good enough.

Under a better publisher, I believe Neversoft could have continued developing very strong titles.  Would they ever manage to catch lighting in a bottle for a third time and break all kinds of sales records?  Maybe, probably not, but I don't think they should've been expected to.  The gaming landscape has changed a lot since the types of games Neversoft made a name for themselves on were flying off the shelves, but as a part licensed and part original IP studio, I think they could easily make games of a high enough quality to turn a profit every time.  It just so happened that they were bought by a publisher with a short sighted business plan that jumped from trend to trend as soon as it started to see sales dip.  Neversoft managed to survive under that toxic rule for a very long time, but eventually even a team as talented as they were fell victim to their greedy overlords.

Not Quite A Review: The Shape of Water

It took me far too long to get around to seeing this film.  Despite being a fan of everything I've seen directed by Del Toro, which admittedly isn't his entire body of work, I still put off seeing this one for a while, even after he won best director for it.  I guess I felt like I had to be in the right mood or frame of mind to see this particular movie.  It wasn't a big action anime love letter like Pacific Rim, or completely fantastical action-comedy like Hellboy.  Just by the name, The Shape of Water, I knew it was something...softer.

The film is set entirely in our world, but the sets, costumes, lighting, and overall color and tone contribute a feeling of that fairy-tail style Del Toro is so amazing at.  With a few exceptions, I was completely absorbed in just the visuals of this movie, but not because anything was specifically striking or unique exactly, but just because of the feeling I got from looking at it all.  It has a strange surreal, or dream-like quality I have trouble putting into words.  Coupled with the small cast of incredibly strong and distinct characters, I was sucked into the world of this film full force.  That's important, to be so invested, because of what the plot revolves around.  If none of what I mentioned resonated with you, or you purposefully resisted it, then I doubt you would be able to empathize and believe in the plot.  That's kind of why I'm avoiding stating the plot, although I will say it's a love story, because just reading it as a sentence wouldn't do it justice.  In fact, I bet it would make a lot of people dismiss the film when they might otherwise have enjoyed it.

That's a problem I'm glad The Shape of Water was able to avoid and get the recognition it deserved.  Just because a plot may sound childish or immature doesn't mean it should be rejected based on a single element.  Taking something and presenting it as honestly and sincerely as possible, no matter what it is or what medium the creator chooses to use, should not be discredited because of one relatively minor aspect.  Del Toro had something to say, and manages to get it across in a beautiful work of film.  That's something special in a world where a film is influenced by so many people coming at it from different angles.  If you enjoy unconventional romance stories, with beautifully flawed and believable characters, then see this film.

Are Reward/ Comeback Systems Fair?

As multiplayer games, and single player games to an extent as well, are being designed to keep players engaged for as long as possible, a strange side effect has been cropping up across essentially every genre.  It was a slow process, but we've gotten to a point where every major multiplayer game is inherently unbalanced.  There are a lot of ways this happens, and are different across genres, but a few have managed to spread across most.  One that is basically expected in all multiplayer games as this point is some kind of progression system.

Progression systems started out as an attempt to create balance in multiplayer games, and have slowly been corrupted into something that's almost the exact opposite.  Take the early Halo games, 2 and 3 specifically.  They gave you a rank based on how well you played in specific playlists so that as you got better, you played against people of a similar skill level.  This kept competition, in theory at least, fair.  No one who was on their 500th game would show up to crush someone on their first ever game.  Halo 3 added an overall rank in addition that added another little goal to work towards outside of game type specific ranks.  That was all well and good.  It may not have been perfect, but it was way better than nothing.  Then some people realized that, hey, people really like this system of ranking up by playing.  I bet if we offered more things to achieve besides a rank and number they would keep playing our game even longer.  This line of thinking was mostly a response to the supposed trade-in culture developers and publishers were so vocal about.  Anyway, this led to things like Call of Duty putting guns and perks behind XP barriers.  You haven't played 200 matches yet?  Well, you can't use this gun you like then, or get this perk that gives you more health.  This was certainly a step in the wrong direction, but was still somewhat mitigated by the ranking system keeping the playing field somewhat even.  It only got worse from there, though.  I know it's basically the poster child for the worst multiplayer progression system, among other things, at this point, but I've got to point to Battlefront II as the ultimate corruption of this idea.  Not only do people who play more than others get more powerful weapons and upgrades, but they don't even have to play to get that advantage if they just want to throw money at the game.

Okay, so balance was definitely thrown off by this progression system even at it's best.  However, that wasn't even the worst reward system in terms of creating an uneven playing field.  Something that became quite popular among the FPS genre is the idea of 'kill streaks' where the more people you kill without dying, essentially the better you do, powerful abilities unlock for you to use.  I can see the logic in implementing this system.  People like to be rewarded for doing well, obviously, but rewarding that one person for doing well is also punishing everyone else for doing poorly.  I think it goes without saying that people aren't to fond of losing, only to then be put at a disadvantage because they're already losing.  It would be like a hockey team getting an extra player once they were three goals up on the opponent, or their net was made smaller.  Games like COD did try and alleviate this problem a little, but not by reducing or removing the advantage the better players got, but by adding "death streaks" where you get some different bonus, usually not as good, after dying so many times in a row.  Now I'm no hard core COD player, in fact I haven't really played one much at all since 4, so correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've heard that system never really got fixed.

Jumping to another genre, let's look at fighting games.  This is perhaps the most directly competitive form of gaming there is, with one on one fights that follow very specific rules.  Granted there's a lot to be said about balance regarding characters, but that's for people way more knowledgeable about those things than me.  I do think I can comment a little on some of the systems in use, however.  Specifically the 'revenge' and 'meter' systems.  The revenge system works as the name implies: the more damage you take, the more the meter fills.  Once it reaches a certain threshold, you can unleash a special attack that can't be performed without that meter.  This is meant to give players who are losing a chance to make a comeback since there's no retreat or way to recover health (usually) in fighting games.  The normal meter fills by dealing damage and landing attacks, which can generally be used to power up other attacks or be saved for a separate special attack when fully stocked.  This, naturally, rewards the player doing better, but not exclusively since the losing player is also building these meter, albeit at a slower rate.  It is also worth noting that the "revenge" meter does not carry over between rounds, while any normal meter does.  The most direct comparison found in some fighting games to things like kill streaks is the dizzy/ stun system, where after getting hit in rapid succession in a short time, a player becomes dizzy or stunned and unable to do anything.  This allows the opponent, who was already demonstrating dominance by landing so many uncontested hits, a free shot to do whatever attack, combo, super move, or whatever else they want to the defenseless opponent; another perfect example of rewarding the winning player.

The question these systems bring up is whether or not they're fair or necessary.  Personally, I think there's a few lines that could be drawn.  First, and least controversial, is that no one should be able to flat out buy an advantage in a game.  Obvious, right?  As far as progression systems unlocking new items, abilities, weapons, ect. goes, I think they should go as well.  To me, that carrot on a stick of constantly chasing a new thing to unlock is unhealthy and unbalances the game.  However, I have seen people flat out say they would not buy/ play a game without any unlock system to keep them engaged.  As if, you know, the fun of playing a game no longer came from just playing it?  At some point the reward for playing a game switched from an intrinsic feeling of just being good, having a good time with the mechanics, to the extrinsic reward of a new thing the game will give me once I fill this meter up.  For some things I don't mind this, like costumes or other flavor content that doesn't impact the actual competition (bear in mind I'm speaking exclusively about unlock-able content not anything loot box related, either free or paid in this case).

I guess the big question, or one of them, behind this entire aimless ramble is how we should reward people for doing well, encourage those doing poorly, but without either system affecting game balance.  To be honest, I don't think there's any system needed during the course of play.  A person on the losing end of a game can make a comeback without an crutch, and a person winning shouldn't be given even more tools to ensure success.  In fact, it can feel pandering to be given an advantage when down, and be an aggravating way to lose a game an opponent would've otherwise won.  Comebacks are great, and the desire to make as many matches close, nail-biting affairs is commendable on the surface, but these systems are not the way to go about it.  Let skill and determination be the deciding factors.  If the playing field is balanced, then someone who is down should have just as much opportunity to make a comeback using the same tools their opponent gained their lead with.  There is one possibility I haven't mentioned yet, but mainly because I doubt it is often relevant or even worth much acknowledgement since it all boils down to maintaining imbalance, and that is how "kill streak" type systems could be beneficial as a comeback mechanic when a losing player begins mounting a comeback and is given an edge to further close the gap.  Again, I don't think this should be necessary, but that's just me.  How do you feel when you're on the losing end of a multiplayer game only to see the opponent(s) get more powerful?  What about when the roles are reversed?  Is winning by skill alone more satisfying, or should it be a race to see who can roll their snowball downhill first?  And then there's the same questions about advantages for losing players.  Speak your minds, I'm very curious to hear opinions on this one.

Climbing - Just Another Hallway

There's a specific complaint people around the gaming side of the internet like to make regarding a somewhat specific mechanic - climbing.  More specifically, how climbing works in most linear, but sometimes open world, games.  This complaint is usually about how climbing functions, and the entire argument, in my opinion, can be boiled down to be that "climbing in (game) is basically the same as going down a hallway."  In the most mechanical and basic levels, yeah, I can see why they'd say that.  Take a game like Uncharted, which is no stranger to this argument.  There are very specific climbable areas, and they're all marked/ colored to indicate to the player 'Hey!  You can climb up this yellow fence!  No, not that unlit grey one, this one!'  Then the player reaches the indicated place, usually holds a direction and maybe has to press a button here or there, and the character goes up a linear path of hand and footholds.  Sounds a lot like just pushing forward on the stick and going down a hallway, doesn't it?  Yes, but also no.  Even in the situations where climbing is as linear as possible, and requires nothing more from the player than walking down a hallway would, I still believe it adds more value than another hallway would.

Let's start by looking at those Uncharted and Tomb Raider type games where the climbing, often, is as linear as it gets.  The biggest difference in what climbing adds to these games, which is going to sound obvious, is just the act of climbing itself.  To me, walking down an empty hallway has a pretty low ceiling on how cool or interesting it can be.  Depending on the perspective and animation of the character, at best it is usually forgettable, and at worst drags down the pacing and becomes boring.  Climbing has a higher cap for coolness and engagement if for no other reason than variety.  There's really just a single repeated animation when the player holds forward to walk down a hallway, but climbing can have dozens.  The character can lunge, scramble, dangle, slip, reach, leap, swing, and do all sorts of different movements to traverse what amounts to a linear path.  Even if there's not any more input needed from the player, or any real danger to the character, its just more pleasing to watch.  It's a thin illusion that the world is actually bigger than it really is, but it at least is trying to keep the player engrossed in the world with some verticality and opportunities to view the world from a different vantage point, show a far off goal, or even previous location that is now way off in the distance.  These are not things easily accomplished in a hallway.

Open world games treat climbing very differently for the most part.  In essence, they're the opposite of the linear climbing games where either everything is climbable, or everything with a few exceptions are.  I won't spend much time on this type of game because the scope is so different from the linear type of game that it doesn't really make much sense to compare them.  It is interesting to see how the compare to one another, though.  Breath of the Wild felt like a true world because you could climb any surface provided you had enough stamina to reach the top.  There were no set points to start or stop climbing on.  You were free to crawl around and make your own path as you saw fit.  The Assassin's Creed games are all about climbing, but are more of an expanded version of the linear style climbing.  You can climb a lot of things, but every building has set anchor points where your character can hold on and climb up.  Some buildings can't be scaled from certain angles, and once you're on a path up, you're pretty much locked in until you get to the top without much room for variation without killing your momentum completely.  To their credit, the games do use this to their advantage in some cases, where climbing specific structures is meant to be something of a puzzle.  Again, that is much more interesting, and requires different thinking, than something like a standard flat maze.

A year (or more now?) late, and I'm playing Horizon: Zero Dawn, which is what inspired me to think on this subject a little more.  For those who don't know, Horizon is an open world game, but with linear climbing mechanics.  You can only climb certain rocks that have white edges, specific parts of machine architecture, or yellow wooden handholds in the rock.  From there you have one, maybe two, ways to direct your character to the same location.  At first, this felt very unnatural to me.  I obviously can't play all open world games, but I do think I have at least a working knowledge of a good amount of them and they either have free, or mostly free, climbing, or no climbing at all.  Not very often does an open world game only have set climbing points like a linear game.  For a while it frustrated me as I jumped against rock walls trying to make my own path up cliffs I knew there was something at the top of, but ultimately failed because it wasn't the one right spot I was supposed to begin climbing from.  After thinking through linear climbing as I did above, I wondered if I was thinking of the climbing in Horizon the wrong way too.  It turns out, I was, or could at least think of it in a more positive way.  Instead of the climbing point being an arbitrary barrier, I starting thinking of them more like secret passages.  Plenty of games have little nooks and crannies that are purposefully obfuscated or obscured from player's view to hide secrets in, which is exactly how these climbing paths work.  You can see something, a treasure, but don't know how to reach it.  Searching for and finding that path is rewarding, often more than the actual reward itself.

What do you think about the different types of climbing in games?  Do you like linear climbing sections even though they don't actually require more of you than walking down a hallway?  What's about open world climbing?  How else do you think climbing could be used in games that haven't been before, or aren't as much?

There's Potential Here: Point Man

First Encounter Assault Recon.  Perhaps the most forced acronym a game title has ever been subjected to, but at the same time almost feels fitting for the type of game F.E.A.R was.  On one hand, it was a hard-core FPS with satisfying weapons, impressive AI, and graphics and effects that were incredible for the time.  Even to this day people reference the shotgun from F.E.A.R. as one of, if not the most, satisfying shotguns to use in gaming.  Then, on the other hand, there's the horror element to the game.  The story, score, locations, and characters are all inspired by popular horror media.  These two seemingly disparate genres, a military style FPS with a focus on visceral action and empowerment, plus a mix of cerebral and in-your-face horror, are the two main ingredients that make F.E.A.R.

The franchise is comprised of the first title, simply called F.E.A.R, a sequel F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin, and F.3.A.R.  Yes, I know, but that's the actual title the new developers went with.  The first game also had two expansions, F.E.A.R Extraction Point, and F.E.A.R Persues Mandate, that did continue the story, however both were made by a different developer and rendered non-cannon once F.E.A.R 2 came out.  So, as always, let's go in chronological order and figure out what we're working with.

F.E.A.R

The main character of F.E.A.R was created when the game was still primarily intended to be an action focused title.  As a result, the team at Monolith went with the traditional silent protagonist, even going so far as to not give him a real name and referring to him only by his call-sign Point Man.  Point Man is the newest member of the F.E.A.R team, a special US military group that specializes in paranormal threats, consisting of the commissioner Rowdy Betters and teammates Spencer Jankowski and Jin Sun-Kwon, who are sent after a man named Paxton Fettel who has taken control of a battalion of psychically controlled super soldiers.  Of to a great start, right?  He used these soldiers to take over Armacham, the company who created the soldiers, as well as cannibalizing a number of their staff.  Fettel is tracked by satellite, but can conveniently evade detection whenever the plot needs him to. 

Starting with the first location Point Man is sent to after Fettel, he begins to see strange visions of things like Fettel as a ghost that dissolves into flakes and a hospital hallway where he hears a man guiding a woman in pain through childbirth along with cryptic narration about Point Man's origins.  Later the real star of the horror shows up when Sadak- I mean, Alma begins appearing.  Bits of story are fed as the Point Man shoots his way through the clone super soldiers, using his super human reflexes that give him bullet-time, through optional and hidden laptops the player can find that ultimately culminate in a couple revelations.  The first is that Fettel is Alma's son whom Armicham had trained to be the psychic commander of the clone soldiers.  Alma, an even more powerful psychic and part of Project Origin, was put into a coma after her father Harlan Wade, who was in charge of Project Origin, and the President of Armicham Aristide realized how dangerous she was becoming due to being experimented on.  When he turned 10, Alma formed a psychic link with Fettel to try and use him to free her.  To stop him, and from anything like that happening again, Harlan and Aristide decided to cut off Alma's life support and just let her die instead of keeping her in a coma.  Great group of people, huh?  It turns out that Alma's spirit, anger, psychic energy, or whatever you want to call it didn't die and makes another link with Fettel to kick off the events of the game.  We also learn that Alma had another son before Fettel with weaker psychic abilities.  I wonder who that could be?  Anyway, a lot of shooting and spooking later, Point Man ends up going down to where Alma is being held, has a hallucination where he finds out...no...that HE is Alma's first son!  What a twist.  At the same time he also kills Fettel, his brother.  Harlan is also down there, and goes ahead and frees Alma because he suddenly feels bad about basically torturing and experimenting on his daughter for her entire life.  Too little too late, though, because the second he lets her go she liquefies him.  Can't really blame her.  At that point Point Man's mission is to just blow up the entire facility because why not, right?  Things can't get much worse, can they?  So, he does it and escapes into a helicopter with Jin.  It looks like everything's going to turn out...wait, the helicopter shakes.  What was that?  One last scare/tease as Alma starts pulling herself into the helicopter's open door.  Why would a ghost need to climb in a helicopter?  Oh, and Spencer was killed by Alma at some point early on in the game.  He shows up as a ghost like once and is never really mentioned again by anyone.  Anyway, that covers the basics of the first game, or at least the important parts.  Point Man, Jin, Betters, Aristide, and Alma (sort of) survive, while pretty much everyone else is dead.  Cool.

F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin

Fun fact about F.E.A.R 2.  It wasn't originally a F.E.A.R game, and was just going to be called Project Origin after Monolith held a vote for fans to decide the new game's title since they lost the rights to the name F.E.A.R.  During development they ended up buying back the F.E.A.R name and the game became F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin.  Kind of interesting, isn't it?  Well...I think it is.

But on to the game's story.  Perhaps it was because Monolith didn't have access to the F.E.A.R IP in the early stages of development, or maybe it was always the plan, but the sequel does not put the player in control of Point Man but rather a member of Delta Force named Michael Becket.  The game begins roughly half an hour before the end of the first game where Delta is sent in to arrest Aristide, but even before that we experience Becket having hallucinations of a young Alma on a tree swing.  She also gives us a jump scare right off the bat just so we know this is a scary game and nothing says horror like a little girl and a loud noise, right?  So, right off the bat we're given a reason to think there is, or will be, some connection with this new guy and Alma.  As Delta Force makes their way to Aristide, they have to fight a bunch of soldiers sent by Armacham's board of directors who want to cover everything up by basically killing everyone involved with all the evil psychic experiment stuff.  They're lead by Colonel Vanek who will be our human antagonist for the game.  On the way to Aristide's penthouse, you find clues about a "Project Harbinger" that includes Becket and some other people in Delta Force.  Yep, Armacham has a lot of these "projects whatever".  You later find out Harbinger was an attempt at basically replacing Fettel as psychic commanders.  Of course you manage to get to Aristide, but just as she's starting to explain how Delta Force are the only ones who can stop Alma, the ending of the first game happens and a huge explosion knocks Becket out.  He's taken by Aristide and half hallucinates as he's undergoing surgery on Aristide's orders.  I would ask how anything is functioning anywhere in the city after a psychic nuke went off, but it turns out the hospital is actually way underground so I can kind of let it slide.  Becket wakes up alone for whatever reason, totally fine except for more visions of Alma, and figures he better get back with his squad.  Becket, now armed with the same bullet-time power as Point Man, fights more Armacham soldiers who are now after him and his team because of whatever Aristide did to them.  I will mention on the way out that you find Redd Jankowski, Spencer's younger brother, right before he dies on an operating table.  Why even bring back that family just to keep killing them off without having them do anything?  Regardless, Becket is also contacted and helped out by a guy calling himself Snake Fist, which I find amazing.  He tells Becket, despite him being as mute as Point Man, that Alma is trying to absorb him because of the psychic energy he is now producing after the mysterious surgery.  Oh, and the replica super soldiers are back too.  I guess they're being controlled by Alma at this point, which doesn't really make sense since Fettel was specifically trained to control them to be awesome soldier guys and Alma wasn't, but whatever.  To cut out a lot of fluff, while escaping the hospital and trying to regroup, everyone but Becket, Morales, Keegan, and their Lieutenant Keira Stokes are killed, mostly by Alma. Naturally, they split up and are separated so you end up on your own basically the entire time you're going through the school to find Snake Fist in the...secret underground base where Project Paragon was being held.  Oh good, I was worried we wouldn't come across another secret underground base or shady Armacham project.  Oh, what's that?  Paragon was all about testing psychic kids so they could be used my Armacam?  Sounds about right.  So, more shooting, some creepy new enemies, and you kill Vanek in a QTE with about as much narrative impact as this sentence implies.  You finally meet Snake Fist and are given a plot dump/ absolutely absurd solution to Alma.  He says you need to go to the, wait for it, secret underground base on a nearby island to find and use a super secret psychic amplifier to boost your power so you can beat Alma's ghost in a psychic duel.  What game am I playing again?  With his life's purpose of telling you about this plot device fulfilled, Snake Fist immediately, and I mean immediately, gets his head ripped off.  Seriously, the way this game treats supposedly important characters is ridiculous.  But, pressing on, Keegan goes nuts and wanders off so naturally Becket goes off after him alone too.  More fighting, same old stuff, and you get to the secret island base without finding Keegan.  Becket gets in the...psychic amplifier, but before Stokes can turn it on for you, Aristide shows back up and explains her evil plan to everyone.  See, she operated on Becket with the intention of using him to lure Alma into the amplifier so that she could trap them both inside, thus giving her some leverage to stop Armacham from trying to kill her.  The sheer absurdity, incredible stupidity, of this plan is just delicious.  I mean, how did she know Becket would even go to the amplifier?  He only learned about it from Snake Fist, so did she set it up so they would meet?  What if either one of them died?  Snake Fist literally only lived seconds long enough to give Becket that information.  If he died anytime before that, her plan wouldn't work.  Also, since when does a psychic amplifier double as a psychic/ ghost prison?  Just wait, though, because the ending takes the ridiculous levels up to maximum.  So Aristide shoots Stokes, Alma shows up and knocks Arisdie away from the controls, but still manages to start the process of sealing the chamber thing.  Alma throws you into a...disturbing hallucination where most of the time you're fighting Keegan and also trying to pull three switches to activate the amplifier....while stuck inside of it?  The rest of the time, mostly through flashes, shows Alma...to use the word accurately, raping Becket.  When you break the hallucination Becket realizes he's still inside the chamber, which Alma opens and comes in to put his hand on her pregnant stomach.  Yeah.  F.E.A.R. 2 ends with the player character being raped by a ghost and getting her pregnant.  If anyone guessed that, congratulations, you're clinically insane.

F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn

This expansion is super short, and has only one important element to it, so I'll make this quick.  A replica, who is a clone of Fettel, is drawn by Fettel's ghost, because of course he has one, to find him.  He does, Fettel possess him and is "reborn."  Done.

F.3.A.R

The third game in the series has some notable differences behind the scenes.  It was made by a new studio, Day 1, had John Carpenter contributing in some form to the cinematics, and was written by Steve Niles.  With those names attached, F.3.A.R definitely raised a lot of people's expectations.  Did it deliver?  Get it?  Because Alma's...pregnant...okay, never mind.  Also, this game is the first to have a co-op mode where two players control Point Man and Fettel, one with the traditional shooting and bullet time powers, and the other ghost powers like stun and temporarily possessing enemies.  Learning about co-op in a horror game...well that caused a lot of people to worry.

Set a convenient 9 months after the second game, Point Man reappears after being...somewhere and starts of captured and being tortured by Armacham.  Little do they know he's the most committed silent protagonist ever and never says a word.  Ghost Fettel shows up to rescue his brother, apparently being 'bound by blood', and helps him escape in a forced alliance.  They take a helicopter and head out to meet Jin while Fettel dumps exposition about how terrible a person Harlan, their grandfather, was to them between chapters.  Oh, do you remember Jin from the first game?  The member of F.E.A.R we saw maybe twice?  Yeah, she's back too.  Along the way there's plenty of new enemies to shoot, new creatures to spook, and visions of Harlan monologuing.  Once you reach Jin she shows Point Man a video of Becket, now feeling like talking, who explains his...unfortunate situation with Alma at the end of the last game.  Jin decides that, based on the 'psychic anomalies' that are 'like contractions', there isn't much time to stop Alma from giving birth.  So, yes, F.E.A.R. was supposed to specialize in paranormal threats, but how did she come to the conclusion that this psychic stuff, and none of the other 'abnormalities', if that's what we're going to call them, are in any way related to how soon a ghost is going to give birth?  And their plan to stop the birth is to first...rescue Becket from Armacham?  Okay, I mean, that's probably a good idea, but wouldn't exactly solve the problem, but sure.  Let's rescue Becket.  On the way, which is a long way with even more monsters and soldiers, by the way, Fettel and Point Man, well mostly Fettel, starts to disagree with the plan to stop the birth/ kill the child if they can't.  He wants to 'think about things as a family.'  Because the Wade family is just the pinnacle of a healthy family.  By the time Point Man and Fettel reach Becket, the world is basically ruined.  The entire city is crumbling, water is blood, and the sky is red.  Point Man opens his pod thing he's being held in, and then Fettel, right after saying, "This will kill him," just goes ahead and possess Becket.  They learn about everything that happened to him in the second game, he freaks out a little, pukes, and tells Point Man to kill his unborn ghost child right before Fettel explodes him.  Man, and we made it so far into this game before an important character was killed off with little to no reason.  Shame.  So, basically, they gained nothing from finding Becket.  More backstory about Harlan and a big dumb boss fight with his memory, or something later, and they finally reach Alma as she's about to give birth.  At this point the game can have one of two endings based on which brother got a higher score during the game and was, therefore, the favorite son.  Yeah, it sounds as bad as it was.  If Point Man wins, he shoots Fettel in the head, killing him...again and then Alma also dies...again, just after giving birth.  Jin comes over the radio and says things are going back to normal as Point Man walks out of the room with the baby in his arms.  If Fettel wins he's able to possess Point Man, delivers the baby to raise, and then...eats Alma for her power.  Supposedly that will make him like a God or something?

Wow, that took longer than I expected for just three games where the main character never even speaks.  Still, now that we're all caught up, we can get on with how the series could fix itself should it ever be brought back.  First, though, we have the issue of multiple endings to decide on.  Really, there's only one primary difference between the two.  In both endings we can confirm that: Alma is dead and the world is starting to go back to normal, the baby was born, and one of the brothers intends on raising it.  So, how will we decide which one to move forward with?  Trick question!  As much as I'd like to just pick the one I think leads to a more interesting sequel, we're going to let the players decide.  By looking at how many people got the achievements and trophies for...wait.  This game doesn't have separate trophies for getting specific endings...oh.  Well, that kind of ruins my entire plan, to be honest.  I guess I really will just pick whichever ending I like and go from there. So...

Fettel possesses his brother, eats his mother, and adopts his new younger brother.  What can I say?  "Bad" endings are way more interesting most of the time.  So, where does a F.E.A.R 4, or 4.E.A.R if we're going to keep on with the stupid naming conventions, pick up?

10 years later, Fettel is still possessing Point Man's body.  Due to his higher than average psychic abilities, and their blood ties, Fettel is able to hold this possession without killing him for this long, but not much longer.  He needs a new body, which is what he's been training his new brother/ son for his entire life.  He's almost ready to do this when the new F.E.A.R team made up of all the characters the franchise mercifully forgot about rather than outright killed: Jin, Stokes, Morales, and Betters at command, interrupts him.  His ghost can only partially take over the third child, who we will just call Wade for convenience, causing Wade's immense powers to go out of control.  Point Man, now free again, goes after Wade to finally wipe out Fettel for good. 

I imagine this game to put Point Man in various scenarios that challenge his goals, as well as make him reflect on his history as a silent and blindly obedient tool for killing.  Point Man has been used by everyone for his entire life, including his mother, brother, grandfather, superiors, and even his enemies like Armacham.  After being a prisoner for 10 years inside his own body, he refuses to let himself be used anymore.  Through the game he will work with and against three main factions: the new F.E.A.R team who want to kill Wade, Aristide and Armacham who supposedly has changed and want's to teach him to control his power, and Wade himself who, like Point Man, want's to be free of everyone else's influence.  He'll spend equal time with each faction through the game, with Fettel getting more control of Wade and his powers over time, thus upping the distortion of reality and introduction of new horrors to deal with, until he must make a decision.  Kill Wade with F.E.A.R, trust Aristide and Amracham to contain Fettel and train Wade, or team up with Wade to fight an incredibly strong ghost Fettel and set him free. 

Through the entire game, just like the previous ones, Point Man, and by extension the player, will have no choices in what they do/where they go.  The Point Man will still be silent, but we will hear his voice in the form of an inner monologue growing more fed up and sick of being a means for other people to achieve their goals.  When this final choice occurs, prompts will appear on screen for the player to select, however no matter which one the player selects, the Point Man will reject it and make his own decision.  His decision would then have to be one not presented to the player, which could just be him throwing his guns away and speaking for the first time just to say, "I'm done." 

Naturally I expect an ending like that to be very divisive.  In what other game does the protagonist, completely out of the player's control, just decide to abandon the game and leave before its conclusion?  The thing is, while we may want to see how it all plays out, Point Man doesn't.  He doesn't care any more, and just wants to make the most out of what's left of his life rather than continue risking it for other people.   After looking at what Point Man has been, or more importantly not been, in the series, I believe that the best way to close out his story would be this build up to a complete rejection of participation.  First he was a silent killer who should've been far more vital to the plot of the first game than he really was, then abandoned for a game, and when he was brought back we got some context on his and Fettel's childhoods and relationship with Harlan.  This final game would be about him realizing he's essentially been possessed his entire life, including by the player, and breaking free. 

Those are just my ideas, though.  As always, I welcome hearing criticisms and better possibilities in the comments.