A Few Thoughts Had While Anticipating Heavy Rain

One of the freshest games to be released this generation is Heavy Rain.  Many say that Heavy Rain is a sort of 'next step' in interactive storytelling.  This is countered by my former roommate.  He gave up on the thing after one or two gameplay sessions.  A seasoned veteran had met his match.  I have no doubt that he could have completed the game, but not without something he hasn't had to deal with in a long time - not knowing what to expect.  The beginning of the game didn't grab him, but that happens all of the time.  Here though, Heavy Rain is at a distinct disadvantage.  If you've played an FPS you can pretty well gauge how the campaign will progress.  How can anyone, even a seasoned gamer, predict how Heavy Rain will progress?

Even though Heavy Rain is seen as a high-water mark of this generation, it too is part of the problem.  Many don't remember Indigo Prophecy, (or Fahrenheit, as it was known outside of North America)  but my brother was an avid fan.  I played much of the game, but didn't finish.  Still, it was a truly unique game.  The gameplay mechanics weren't always the most enjoyable, but they were also new.  There wasn't a game that Indigo Prophecy played like.  It was on its own.  This isn't true of Heavy Rain.  Heavy Rain plays like Indigo Prophecy, albeit a far improved Indigo Prophecy.  Heavy Rain has a lot more going for it, but as soon as I played a demo, I knew it was by the team behind Indigo Prophecy.  The controls aren't actually carried over from Indigo Prophecy, but the feeling is almost identical.  It's based heavily in narrative-progression sequences, the controls are explained to you in-game as you need to use them, and maybe most importantly - being good at other games has almost no bearing on your ability to complete either Indigo Prophecy or Heavy Rain.  Comically they even share the weather elements.

Jeez this Quantic Dream really loves their precipitation. 

Word is that developer Quantic Dream is not going to work on any sequel to Heavy Rain.  This seems appropriate, as they now have an image as visionaries to uphold.  My worry is that the next Quantic Dream game will fall into the same patterns as the two aforementioned games, even though it's said not to be another murder mystery.  Heavy Rain saw financial success despite its seeming lack of mainstream appeal.  The challenge for truly visionary development teams is to continually release products that beat the odds the way Heavy Rain did.

Pokemon: beating a dead Ponyta, err... Blitzle

One of the best examples of classic (stale) Japanese gameplay is Pokemon.

No matter what anyone says, Pokemon Black and White are the same games as Pokemon Red and Blue.  Every Pokemon game is a re-imagining of the past games.  I find this problematic.  Playing a new Pokemon game, for those of us in our late teens and early twenties, is a nostalgia experience.  We know we're not getting anything new.  We just want to see the new Pokemon, catch the cool ones, grind for hours on Pokemon that we deem to be lesser, and wreck the tough trainers at the end of the game.  The only reason that there are any changes is that it's now easy and economically feasible to make them.  Think about how ridiculous it is that there are 'remakes' of Pokemon games.  Fire Red?  Soul Silver?  What you're buying is more up to date gameplay mechanics paired with the classic creatures you love.  I haven't played the Pokemon remakes, but I admit there is some significant, albeit illogical, appeal.  Part of me wants to believe that I'll have an equally memorable experience as when i first played Gold.  There's no chance of this since the 21 year old me has less time to get an Evvee happy enough at night time (and doesn't that sound sexual to the 21 year old me?) to evolve it into an Umbreon.

The most common opinion of Pokemon fans is that Generation I (that's when Pokemon exploded) had the best Pokemon.  Generation II had a lot of great creatures and enough gameplay tweaks to warrant the purchase.  Generations III, IV, and now V all have some decent designs but many are often lacking, and seldom is there ever a new Pokemon that replaces a classic creature in the eyes of long-time fans.  Game Freak Inc. could have kept putting out games with monsters of deteriorating design quality without any complaints - if they kept the gameplay fresh.  The release of Black and White saw an improvement in battle pacing and surprisingly, story line.  I no longer have to turn off battle animations just to get through a fight in a reasonable amount of time.  This is a huge improvement, as one spends about half of their gameplay time in fights with wild Pokemon and trainers, who have hilarious things to say to you both before and after battle.  Team Plasma's "animal rights" approach is probably the most realistic aspect of any Pokemon game ever and made me finally care about the motives of the enemy.  

Complaining about games is pretty widespread among all players.  Sometimes they complain about things that are unreasonable or unchangeable, but my complaints against the Pokemon series are so elementary I feel completely justified in making them.  All of my areas of complaint are intermingling.  I want new controls that take advantage of every button on the DS (and now 3DS); I want better use of both screens; I want menus that are streamlined.  Not being able to flip between sub-menus with the L and R buttons is pretty much unacceptable.  Often there is a completely blank screen when one is in use. Getting on your bike isn't a one button affair.  These are all negative aspects of the game.  It's not that these ruin the experience, but little things add up.  Pokemon fans could be having such a better time if they didn't have to back out of their "Deposit Pokemon" menu before choosing which Pokemon they wanted to take from their "Withdraw Pokemon" menu. 

I've sometimes thought that getting an upgrade to carry 8 Pokemon at a time would be helpful, since there are so many more types of Pokemon than when the series started, but this isn't unforgivable and adds to the challenge significantly.  I'm not so foolish as to really expect leaps and bounds in the graphics department from a Nintendo game, but lets hope the sprites aren't so pixelated on the Pokemon series' 3DS debut.

Despite the way this post probably reads, I really don't like to trash-talk the Pokemon games.  Its probably the game series I've been playing the longest, and there's a chance the total hour count I've put into these games is among the highest of all the games I've played.  Almost everyone I know has a lot of fond memories from this series and I think it's been good for gaming in general.  Problematically, as I've aged, my tastes have changed.  As Pokemon has aged, it's stayed for the most part the same.  The formula works, and I don't foresee major gameplay changes happening in the main series (see unsuccessful Pokemon spin-off games) but sometimes I wonder how much better Pokemon could be if Game Freak Inc. had made the maximum amount of changes with each new release, instead of the minimum.  I'm still playing (and often loving) Pokemon White, but what's a blog without rants?

Name Explanation (and an introduction to the first series of posts)

Other than the obvious reasons, like liking Pavement, or seeing that crookedgames.com is dead, what's the meaning behind this name?  The meaning I want to convey is that gaming, in general, is off-course.  There's a lot of progress being made, but we still have to suffer through 14 iterations of the same gameplay model across multiple series before we get the 15th game that "changes everything."  "Everything" in most cases means one significant change in the controls, a graphical improvement that impacts gameplay, a story element that had remained untapped until then, or something of the like.  The gaming industry mirrors politics – there are liberals like thatgamecompany, who deliver games most of the market isn’t willing to spend money on, and conservatives, accounting for many Japanese game developers that continually deliver similar, albeit satisfactory, gameplay experiences.  Forthcoming are a few posts about specific examples within the industry, and my thoughts on those games.

just so there isn't that one post there: answers to obvious questions

I have no illusions about anyone reading this anytime soon.  Even if/when people do start reading, they probably won't care about this enough to ask any of the following questions.  I'm answering them anyway.

My name is Ross Miller
Posting console ownership seems a little silly.  I have access to consoles, either my own or friends', to play all the major releases.  I have a MacBook Pro, so mouse and keyboard gaming is limited.  I'm an Iphone gaming novice.
I'm an English Major / Cultural Studies Minor at Towson University in Towson, MD.
The blog's name is a reference to Pavement's second LP - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.  Further explanation forthcoming.

This is me

I wish this was me

In Lieu of a Manifesto: The First Post

Having an anti-blog attitude was stupid.  I admit my mistake.  Clicking through random blogs on blogger.com leads to the root of some of my hesitation - there are a lot of unfocused, uninteresting, and/or dead blogs out there.  The only ones to find success, it seems, are highly focused music blogs. (These account for the 2 blogger.com blogs and the 1 wordpress blog I'll check out once in a while.)  Problematically, I no longer keep up with new music as I once did.

The only things I keep up with are video games.  This is also problematic - many professional publications already handle news and reviews better than I could.  This leaves me with opinions outside the realm of game reviews.  That's what I'm going to try - commentary on the industry and the products that might not be offered by some giant web publication.  There are some gaming blogs that offer some truly valuable opinions of this nature already, but they're usually in combination with news, interviews and the like.  I have some confidence that I will be able to bring something new to the table by focusing only on analysis.  At the time of this post, I'm in a New Media Theory class that has given me enough mental ammunition to start taking on this task.

It's odd to post this.  There's absolutely nothing to the blog yet, and in turn, no one will actually see this upon the time of its original posting.  I'll leave you (really, me) with something hopeful.