Like many of my fellow gamers, I’ve recently become addicted to the new RPG/FPS hybrid, Borderlands. My inner dungeon crawler has been out in full force. Along with my OCD; forcing me to searching every nook and cranny for loot, maxing out my skill tree and exploring every dungeon. But a little while ago, after I reached level forty-four and the game’s story came to an end, I realized how little my character had really changed.

I started out as a badass treasure hunter with a thirst for blood, and I finished the game as … well … a badass treasure hunter with a thirst for blood. My character hadn’t changed at all.

After dozens of intense fire fights in the rugged wasteland of Pandora, you would expect my character to be bruised, battered and actually look like he had done all the amazing thing that he did. Instead, he was exactly the same: both physically and emotionally.

The lack of true character progression is plaguing the game industry. If games want to be held to higher narrative standard, then it’s time developers started to focus less on making their characters “cool” and more time making them interesting.

Take the Star Wars saga for example. Luke Skywalker starts out as your average, eighteen-year-old, whiny, power-converter buying, farm boy. But once he sets out on the “heroes journey” he starts to become a new person. He doesn’t just change physically, he changes emotionally as well. During the first film, and a little bit in the second, Luke tends to whine and complain about how unfair life is. But after he discovers the truth about his father, along with a number of other revelations, including getting his hand cut off, by the end of the saga, he becomes a full-blown Jedi master. Skilled, wise and truly “grown up.” If you compare Luke Skywalker from A New Hope, and Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi, they are two completely different people. That is true character progression.

Put Some Feeling Into It!

Now let’s look at what some have called the Star Wars equivalent to videogames: Halo. Master Chief fights through an entire war, single handedly taking out swarms of Covenant yet he never once seems affected by the brutality that he witnesses. So many war games say they want to be like Saving Private Ryan, but it wasn’t the explosions, or depressing atmosphere that made it great. It was seeing war, real war, through the eyes of five brave men, fighting for not glory, but personal enlightenment. When their fellow soldiers die, the men are horrified and disgusted at the savagery. But when Master Chief sees one of his fellow Marines shot down, he barley blinks.

Another game that is guilty of poor characterization is Kingdom Hearts: one of today’s most popular JRPGs, and a game that relies heavily on its story. But you wouldn’t know it, judging by the paper thin characters, especially Sora, the games main protagonist. Sora starts out as a plucky young adventurer, who is endlessly devoted to his friends and family. Want to guess what he’s like in the second game? That’s right. A plucky young adventurer, who is endlessly devoted to his friends. Kingdom Hearts has all the characterization of a meatball hoagie.

There are plenty of other characters like the two I just described, but I think you get my point. What I would like to see in games, is greater emphasis on characters displaying complex emotions outside of cut scenes. If one character has an argument with another character, the tone and banter between them, in-game, should change. Not only that, but if it’s an FPS, they should react more to when a close ally dies. Don’t have them just say, “Oh my god, what’s his name got shot!” Make them angry; make them cry; make them emote! These may sound like a bunch of meaningless little things, but as any good actor can tell you, it’s the little things make a character memorable.

Going back to something I mentioned earlier. Physical change is another thing I would like to see more developers take into consideration. Not just new clothes and armor, but things like scars after a fight, or limping after getting shot in the leg.

One game that did this right was Prince of Persia the Sands of Time. As the game progressed the Prince’s uniform that he wears in the beginning of the game is ripped and torn. After each battle he gets more scars, bruises and overall, looks like he has actually been in a fight. By the end of the game, the Prince has gone from prim and proper, to rough and rugged. While this change didn’t affect the game play, it made me feel like I had been on a long and dangerous journey. Going through that game was hell, and Prince reflected that.

Final Fantasy is the one franchise that annoys me the most. You’ve got a bunch of effeminate looking characters going on this epic journey. They fight countless monster, get snot beat out of them on more than one occasion, and to top it all off, they’ve been traveling through the freaking wilderness for weeks. They should be sweaty, buff and dirty. Instead, they get a few new pieces of armor and a sword and look exactly the same as they did in the beginning. This is something that almost every JRPG is guilty of and I’m sick of it.

An Old Hope

Notice that I said almost every Final Fantasy game. Final Fantasy III — VI if you want to get technical — is one of the few games, I’ve played, that has true character progression. Over the course of their adventure: Cecil, Rosa, Riddia and the rest of the cast struggle not only with the external challenge of their enemies, but also their own internal struggles. Some characters become older; some become wiser; some die. The characters in FFIII aren’t heroes. They’re real people, with real problems — and that game came out in thirteen years ago.

You probably noticed that I didn’t mention “silent” protagonists like Gordon Freeman, Chrono or Link. That’s because they are not characters. They are narrative “vehicles” that are meant to help link the player to the game. The difference between a character that speaks and on that does not, is that they change the role of the player. If a character is a “vehicle,” then they do not speak and let the player become the protagonist. If a character talks and acts beyond the players control, then they become the protagonist and the player becomes a contributor. Unlike movies, where the viewer is a witness, a player who controls a character in video game experiences the journey with the protagonist, but is not actually “in” the game him/herself.

As I said before: the lack of true characterization is plaguing the game industry. Developers need to realize that it’s not trench coats, guns or muscles that make a character memorable. It’s what they say and do that matters. I encourage my fellow gamer to raise their standards when it comes to they play as — don’t settle for some generic knight in shining armor, or a bald headed space marine — demand characters, not, ugh… Edge Maverick. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a strange craving for a meatball hoagie.

Left 4 Dead 2 demo code diggers did indeed unearth the names of two bits of DLC for Valve’s upcoming ZFPS. Just don’t get too excited by the news — they were fake names, created as a bit of test code in order for the demo to clear Microsoft certification stuff.

This information comes via Valve’s Chet Faliszek, who spoke about the DLC during a Eurogamer-sponsored event this afternoon.

“If you’re reading in the forums and you’re reading about the ‘Miracle’ DLC or whatever, that’s test code,” he said, according to Kotaku. “To get tested through Microsoft certification we had to do test scenarios with DLC.”

“We haven’t actually come out internally with what we’re going to do yet.”

Faliszek’s words end that little mystery, but there’s still a few more to explore. Like, for example, why these latest survivors even bother with leaving their safe rooms. It seems like the wise choice during a zombie infestation is to sit and cry in a corner until it ends. Perhaps the code has an explanation for this somewhere in its innards.

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Well it’s about time. The Xbox 360 version of King of Fighters XII has finally been patched to fix its various online troubles and stability issues. Its PS3 counterpart was issued some time ago, as it didn’t have the red tape and nonsensical certification hurdles, and this should bring the 360 version up to speed.

The patch addresses everything from matchmaking and chat restrictions to response time and lag issues, so hopefully whatever was broken before will be kosher from now on. Let’s hope nothing slipped between the cracks, lest we wait through another several months of Microsoft hoop jumping for it to be fixed.

The update is live now, so if you found the game less than playable online before, it might be worth giving another shot. Hit the jump for all the details in the official press release.

SNK PLAYMORE RELEASES ONLINE GAMEPLAY UPDATE
FOR THE KING OF FIGHTERS XII™
Newly Released Online Patch Fully Optimizes Gameplay on Xbox 360® Video Game and Entertainment System from Microsoft
 
October XX, 2009 – Today SNK PLAYMORE released a new online update patch for the award-winning The King of Fighters XII that fully addresses previously known issues to help optimize online gameplay on the Xbox 360® Video Game and Entertainment System from Microsoft.  In addition to the optimization of online matches, this patch also fixes a variety of in-game issues including specifications to the tallying of TrueSkill points in a ranked match, correction to movements of specific character combinations and/or match-ups, and specifications related to in-game chat capability restrictions.
 
This update places greater importance on the game’s response time by changing the way game data is processed and synchronized during online matches.  These changes provide players a stable gameplay environment regardless of specific internet conditions resulting in a smoother more intuitive experience.  The update also prevents players from experiencing slowdown during an online match when connections are less than optimal.
 
“The King of Fighters is one of the most popular fighting game franchises of all time,” said Shinya Morishita, SNK Director of Japan and US Relations.  “SNK PLAYMORE and Ignition Entertainment have worked together very closely to ensure that we have addressed all gameplay concerns.  We are both committed to supporting quality products and are excited to announce the release of this new gameplay update which allows our fans to continue to enjoy The King of Fighters XII.”
 
SNK PLAYMORE would like to apologize for any inconvenience or trouble they might have caused to fans of the The King of Fighters.  SNK PLAYMORE strives to improve the system of quality control for this title and all SNK products.  SNK PLAYMORE asks for your kind understanding and looks forward to continued support from its loyal fans.
 
The King of Fighters XII features four gameplay modes, new gameplay elements such as Critical Counter Attacks, arcade-style online lobbies, a worldwide online ranking system and more.  The 22 hand-drawn characters include favorites from earlier The King of Fighters including Kyo Kusanagi, Athena Asamiya, Terry Bogard and Leona Heidern.  Additional information about the game can be found at the game’s official website: www.kingoffighters12.com, on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KOF12 and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/kingoffighters12.
 
The award-winning The King of Fighters XII was released on July 28, 2009 for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system.

As reported, the God of War III demo is live, with customers who pre-ordered the game already receiving vouchers for the game. 

I went out of my way to get my own voucher for a few reasons. First, despite having seen this very demo played multiple times since last February, I had never actually played it. I’m a huge fan of the series — I’d probably lump God of War I, II, and the PlayStation Portable’s Chains of Olympus into some kind of “favorite games ever” file. But at E3, I saw another demo and did a Q&A with the devs, at PAX the lines were too long, and ditto for Tokyo Game Show.

But I’m not totally selfish. The second (and main, I promise!) reason was I wanted to make sure we could bring you guys video of the full demo in action. So here it is, nearly 20 minutes of God of War III in action. A few notes after the jump.

This is an unfinished build of the game, so despite its incredible looks, it’s not free of issues. There’s even a message you’ll see before the “Press Start” screen that makes this point very clear. You’ll see the game stutter from time to time, and sometimes you’ll hear sounds drop out. In fact, I played through the demo five times and it completely froze on me twice. Compared to the demos for God of War I, II, and Chains of Olympus, III is the most unpolished of them all. 

But I have little doubt that Sony Santa Monica will have worked all of these kinks out in time for the game’s March release. There’s simply no room for error in this long-awaited sequel. It barely scratches the surface of what’s in store for the final game, not even hinting at the game’s major addition in terms of gameplay and technology — moving Titan’s that act as the game’s world throughout Kratos’ quest. The demo only seems like a taste, a reassurance to fans that the game is on track to be as good, if not better than its predecessors.

We’ll see next March, when God of War III ships. I think I’ll be buying that Ultimate Edition.

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