Slipping past powers in Mass Effect 2

February 3rd, 2010

Shepard uses Shockwave in “Mass Effect 2”

My friend Max and I have been playing Mass Effect 2 on the 360. Though not quite what I expected, it is an interesting mix of action and role-playing and, in many ways, a smoother experience than its prequel.

Unfortunately, there is one thing about it that has gotten to me: the powers screen and the B button. It may not sound like much, but I have been jumping out of the powers screen and into a mission prematurely every time—even after realizing what it is I’m doing wrong. To me, the powers are very important; knowing that I’ve gone in with less than the best Shockwave available to me is aggravating. Worse yet, I get into that situation because of a silly interface oversight.

Powerless to stop it

In the case of Mass Effect 2’s pre-mission setup, the player must first choose two party members, equip them with weapons, and, lastly, upgrade their powers. In most of these screens, the B button is used to go back a step. In the weapons screens, B backs out of screens in which the player equips a certain party member with weapons, to go back to a screen in which she can then select a different party member to equip. To change weapons or check what each member will carry into a mission, the player needs to use the B button several times to navigate the weapons screens.

In the powers screen, however, the B button does not move between party members. Unlike the weapons screens that preceded it, in the powers screen the left and right triggers are used to switch party members. Since the player has just come from a set of screens in which the B button is used to navigate between details and party members (and, perhaps, because she is somewhat distracted by the task of spending upgrade points on powers), it is not unreasonable that she press B to switch to the next party member and spend its upgrade points.

Unfortunately, B doesn’t work that way in the powers screen, and instead exits the party setup screens and begins the mission. From there, the player has to load the pre-mission auto-save and redo her party setup, or play through the mission without the benefit of having spent her hard-earned upgrade points.1

This kind of error is known as a slip: intending to do something but performing the wrong action. In this case, the player intends to switch characters or go back, but presses the button that exits the powers screen instead. Slips often happen when someone acts automatically, doing what she is used to doing in a certain context. The previous setup screens, and Xbox UI convention, cause the player to expect that the B button will go back, not advance. Even though the function of each of the buttons is stated on the screen, the player’s expectations and habit is so strong that, even if she bothers to read them, she may go ahead and press the wrong button anyway.

B consistent

This kind of error could have been avoided. The screens could have used a consistent arrangement and means of navigation. If every screen worked the same way, the player wouldn’t get caught expecting one thing but executing another.

For example, powers setup could have been designed to use the same multi-screen design as the weapons setup: one screen listing the party members, each of which leads to a screen with details of that specific member’s powers; B to go back. Alternatively, it would’ve been possible to have the Start button advance, and B go back2, on every screen.

I don’t mean to take away from Mass Effect 2: it’s a pretty good game, and has improved on its predecessor. Overall, its interface is simpler and easier to use than it was in Mass Effect. The game’s design, generally, seems to be much more consistent and comfortable to play. It’s just a shame that this problem made it into the final release.

  1. It occurs to me that I’ve not fussed with the in-mission pause menu to find another way of upgrading powers. Can the player just pause and upgrade once the mission has started?↩

  2. There is a Back button the Xbox gamepad, yeah, but it’s not as convenient as B.↩

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Retro Game Challenge avoids retro-game frustration

January 9th, 2010

Two kids playing in “Retro Game Challenge”

Retro Game Challenge has been getting some attention in year-end roundups. In a recent episode of The Brainy Gamer Podcast, Retro Game Challenge was praised for being true to the NES-era games it recreates without being as frustrating. While RGC includes a number of familiar retro games, it does not seem to be as punishing to play as the original games or their remakes (Mega Man 9, I’m looking at you).

RGC is not just a collection of retro homages: the player plays as a player that must complete a number of “betcha can’t” challenges across a bunch of old-school games. The design of this meta-game works against much of the frustration of playing otherwise difficult and unforgiving games. It creates a variety of things to do and game types to play, and keeps play sessions short and sweet, not long or repetitive. It also gives the player the ability to help herself out of uncertain, frustrating challenges.

Variety keeps things fresh

There are a variety of challenges in the game. Game Master Arino dares the player to get 250,000 points in Star Prince, or finish first in the third race of Rally King. These challenges are explicit—the player is told what to do and, sometimes, how to do it—and there is no doubt when the player has completed them.

The challenges encourage the player to experiment or play under certain constraints1, something the games do not do themselves. While Rally King only asks the player to come in the top five in a race, RGC asks her to perform a number of boosts, to win while avoiding damage, or to reach a high score—without cheating.

There is also a variety of games to be played: Robot Ninja Haggle Man is an action platformer, Rally King a racing game, Guadia Quest a JRPG, etc. Though some games are repeated (Haggle Man 2, Rally King SP), the shifts in mechanics and genre keep RGC from feeling like a grind.

Game Master Arino from “Retro Game Challenge”

Play is brief

Most of the challenges can be completed in minutes. Each game has five challenges. RGC also allows the player to quickly restart games. This makes it easy for players to retry challenges without having to go through many game menus.

As Adam Saltsman has noted, long play times can discourage a player because she finds it too daunting or the rewards too spread out. RGC does not ask the player to invest hours of her time into completing its challenges, instead asking the player for a few minutes and rewarding her often.2

Help is at hand

In the same podcast, it’s mentioned that Shigeru Miyamoto meant The Legend of Zelda to be played by many players who share tips and discoveries with one another. Sharing was important, often necessary, to play through those older games: without friends or game magazines, I would never have beaten Super Mario Bros. or put up with Battletoads.

The experience of sharing expertise is recreated in RGC. All of RGC’s games have manuals. The player’s in-game buddy drops hints after failed attempts. He also has a shelf of GameFan magazines that the player can browse through to find ways of overcoming challenges and improving her play.

These things help the player help herself. Through the amusing, player-driven help RGC keeps the player from becoming lost and frustrated, without putting her through tutorials or adding anachronistic button prompts to the games.

  1. In a way, RGC offers a series of achievements. These, however, are the foremost goals of RGC (rather than asides, like most Xbox achievements); playing each of the games from start to finish is something to do on the side, once the player has unlocked Freeplay mode.↩

  2. This is also in part because RGC is a DS game, likely to be played for a few minutes on the bus or during commercial breaks, not in long sessions.↩

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Dead Space: scarcity is scary, not storage

October 30th, 2009

Isaac, low on ammunition, faces a black Slasher in “Dead Space”

Dead Space aims to be scary. Its creators went to great lengths to create a spooky atmosphere, to make the player feel tense and, at moments, panicked. Its play, characters, environments, sounds, and user interface are designed to support such feelings.

Unfortunately, some aspects of the game undermine its scariness. Particularly, its way of providing the player with ammo and its storage system spoil opportunities to make the player feel desperate. Dead Space tries to convince the player that items are scarce, but does not deliver on the threat. Instead, it keeps the player well supplied and safe from making meaningful choices about what she carries. Monsters aren’t so scary when the player has a full clip.

Ammo, ammo everywhere

Early in Dead Space, tutorials and tips encourage the player to conserve ammunition. This advice is not useful: there is a lot of ammo in the game world. The player doesn’t need be too careful, as she can expect to find ammunition throughout the environment in boxes, lockers, and corpses.

Not only that, the player can expect to find exactly the kind of ammo she needs. There is a system that monitors the player’s inventory and sprinkles just what she needs a few rooms ahead of her. If she’s carrying the line gun, she’ll find more line racks. When the player drops or sells the line gun, line racks are nowhere to be found.

As it is, the player is not made to worry about being careful with her shooting. Firing at monsters’ weak spots is more a matter of efficiency than of conservation. Ammunition isn’t valued as highly as it would be if it were harder to come across.

The adaptive system could have been tuned to keep the player just barely capable of surviving: spawning ammo only when the player’s supply is very low. When the player is well-enough equipped, perhaps it could spawn ammunition for weapons the player does not carry, or lock some boxes and lockers.1

Storage is too safe

Vending machines in Dead Space provide access to a personal storage space. Since ammo is abundant and storage available, the player is not likely to ever have to trade-off, say, four shots of the line gun for more stasis energy: the line racks can be kept for a rainy day. The decision to carry, drop, or sell an item can be put off by storing the item for later use.

Instead of encouraging pack rats, Dead Space should make the most of the tension that “comes from managing very limited resources.” If the player has a lot of items, she should be made to decide which are most important. This will make managing her inventory meaningful, and create a better sense of being alone, of getting by with the skin of her teeth (and the few medikits in her inventory).

  1. This is not an easy thing to get right. I do not know whether or not the system is already tuned to do this and is simply more forgiving than I would like it to be.↩

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Interface, sorting, and fear in Dead Space

October 27th, 2009

Isaac goes through his inventory in “Dead Space”

Dead Space’s in-game interface has gotten a lot of attention. No doubt, the holographic displays look slick, and the way they’re presented in the game world does a lot to make them feel like a part of it, less artificial.1 But it’s the fact that the interface does not interrupt the game that makes it worth mention. The fear and vulnerability central to Dead Space isn’t ever trumped by the needs of the UI—and critics noticed. Rarely has the unobtrusiveness of an interface been so acclaimed.

Not pausing the game while the player fiddles with her inventory is not new (it’s a design choice used similarly before—System Shock 2—and since—Demon’s Souls), but Dead Space pulls it off particularly well. Thoughtful design compensates, in part, for the lack of pauses and the limited time the player has to keep track of her stuff. By sorting, organizing, and keeping the inventory simple, the interface reduces the amount of attention the player needs to spend on it, leaving her to explore, shoot off limbs, and be scared.

See-through and sorted to be useful

In Dead Space, the player is often assaulted or surprised by monsters. The in-game interface takes up three quarters of the screen, but is semi-transparent so the player can still see advancing zombies while she heals, reads, or orients herself.

Once the zombies hit, the player will need to heal herself or refill her air tanks, but may not have the time or ability to run away from a fight to a safe place. There are buttons that allow certain items to be used without going through the inventory (using small medkits or reloading weapons), but sometimes the player needs to use an item in her inventory quickly, in the action.

To help her out, items in the inventory are sorted by their usefulness in frantic play situations: medkits are first, then air canisters, then stasis packs (fuel for the slow-mo ability), then ammunition. Within each type, items are sorted by size: larger medkits come first. When the player is running low on HP or oxygen, the items to alleviate her distress are the ones the fewest button presses away. She can restore as much HP as possible with as few presses as possible.

Small, separated, and simple

Even when not under pressure, the player’s tasks are not needlessly complicated. The interface remains simple and interruptible, not ruining or allowing escape from any surprises.

Items occupy a single inventory slot, no matter their size in the world. There is never a need to rearrange things in order to fit in another item—no inventory Tetris. The player either has space or she doesn’t.

Fortunately for her, things such as weapons, power nodes, or quest-specific items are stored and presented separately from cheaper, fungible things like medkits. This ensures she has space for key items, reduces the chance that she will discard expensive weapons accidentally, and keeps them out of the way of the stuff she is likely to use or drop from the inventory.2

Without the need to move items around, and without needing to take much care to avoid messing things up, the inventory interface is pared down to the bare necessities. The player can, and need, only ever do two things with an item: use it or drop it. (When at a store, she can buy a new item; when at storage, move or sell one she already has.)

The holographic UI in Dead Space makes things fast and easy, intruding as little as possible on the game’s intense atmosphere. It looks cool, fits the fiction, and it supports the player’s tasks and the aesthetic goals of the game: mainly, being scary.

  1. On-weapon ammo counts are among the good ideas id did first, but perhaps not best.↩

  2. This also allows weapons to be presented in a four-slot cross consistently, echoing the d-pad buttons they’re mapped to.↩

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Dialogue in Mass Effect

July 27th, 2009

Dialogue wheel in “Mass Effect”

Of the many key activities in Mass Effect—shooting, driving, bumpin’ uglies—talking to others was the most satisfying. Though not something with much marketing appeal, dialogue is one of Mass Effect’s most effective game mechanics. It is easy to use, produces natural-sounding dialogue, and adds a sense of discovery to conversations. It was what I enjoyed most, and, despite a few faults, something I would like to see in other games.

The dialogue wheel is easy to use

The dialogue wheel is an efficient means of presenting and selecting dialogue options. It is a variation of a pie menu: options are arranged in equal distance around the player’s cursor. Any one option is as close to the cursor as any other; the player need only pick a direction to highlight an option. This maps options to a gamepad’s analog stick directly: the direction in which the player takes a conversation is the one she takes with her thumbs on the stick.

In traditional list-based menus, some options require the player to move the cursor farther than others. Lists also place options along the same dimension, which makes it more likely that the player will overshoot the option she wants, selecting the wrong one or spending time correcting herself.

Conversations flow

Mass Effect’s designers also made it simple for the player to decide on an option. Firstly, the options are short and quick to read. Secondly, the position of dialogue options is meaningful: options along the right half of the wheel advance the conversation, along the left, they are more exploratory; nice-guy, neutral, and aggressive options are along top, middle, and bottom respectively. The player need not read all the options, only the options relevant to her. This helps conversations to move at a natural pace because the player does not spend much time reading and deciding.

On top of that, the dialogue wheel appears a moment before the final line of dialogue is spoken. The player can begin deciding among dialogue options while the current piece of dialogue is ending, making it less likely that there will be dead time between utterances. The dialogue seems to be written in a way such that information relevant to the player’s objectives comes early on; what she hears when the wheel appears is not important, so she can be a little distracted by the new dialogue options.

The combination of ease of use, well-placed and well-timed presentation of options, and good writing make conversations seem much more natural than they do in other games while reducing the burden of reading and picking options.

Commander Shepard speaks with a Salarian in “Mass Effect”

Dialogue is about discovery

Natural dialogue that is easy to participate in is quite an achievement, but what I found fun about it was the sense of discovery. The terse dialogue options in Mass Effect are quick to read, but only suggestive. It isn’t until the player selects one that she can know exactly what it was.

For the most part, dialogue in other adventure games can only be discovered by the player if it is spoken by non-player characters: the player knows what her character is going to say because she picked the lines already. In effect, her half of the dialogue is repetition.

There some exceptions: Sam & Max Hit the Road and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People use icons to represent dialogue options. These, as with the short options in Mass Effect, suggest a response instead of showing it outright. When the player selects one, she has some idea of what her character will say, but not exactly what.

Not knowing exactly what will be said adds freshness to the player character’s half of the dialogue, and creates a sense of exploration.

Unfortunately, this method risks betraying the player’s intentions: ambiguous or poorly written dialogue options can cause the player character to say something the player didn’t want. The position of dialogue options in Mass Effect adds information that can help a player know whether an option is along the Paragon or Renegade path, but that does not necessarily map to the character’s tone or discretion. Another problem occurs when options do not seem different enough from one another, making decisions more difficult or feel as if the writers and designers are forcing the player to follow a particular path. Such problems are less likely to occur when dialogue options are presented verbatim.

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Realism and conservation in WALL·E

June 16th, 2009

WALL·E contemplates a Rubik's Cube

It looks real because it is real

It is no mistake that, in WALL·E, trash looks real. The city-cum-junkyard in which WALL·E is marooned is full of texture, dust, and detail. The wasted city’s realness is meaningful1: it is a vision of the future of the world outside of the movie, the real world.

Pixar’s realism is not used only to echo a timely, real-world fear, but also to argue that humans are responsible. The humans in old recordings of Earth are not computer-generated, but flesh-and-bone actors. Earth is ruined, and real humans ruined it.

Further, the damage is the result of familiar, even friendly forces. The mountains of garbage were not caused by some large, international conflict (Planet of the Apes), deadly virus (I Am Legend), or alien invasion (Independence Day), but by consumerism and apathy. There are no flashbacks to secret labs or mushroom clouds, but instead chirpy billboard advertisements; no glowing craters, but bras, tires, and other recognizable bits of trash.

In these ways, WALL·E uses realism and familiarity to tie its tale to the world outside the theatre. The unreal slickness of the Axiom and the goofy look of its inhabitants sets them apart from our experience. It is much more difficult to separate ourselves from the mountain of discarded boots and refrigerators, or the call to “abandon the planet” from a tired, wrinkled authority behind a White-House–like podium.2

From mothership to stewardship

As strong as its position on the dangers of pollution is, WALL·E fumbles its argument in the end. Though the realism of the first half says the danger is real and heedless consumerism a poison, the second half claims the solution is eagerness and care.

The film’s position seems to be what Rosemary Ruether calls the Protestant stewardship approach: “Nature must be regarded as an object, not as a subject. It is our possession, but we must possess it in a thrifty rather than a profligate way.” With care and hard work, the Earth can be saved. Nature and health are grand projects of conservation.

Hopeful though it is, this position often does not consider the historical and economic context in which damage and restoration occur. As Annalee Newitz notes, “everybody on Earth is dead except for those who could afford to take what is billed as ‘an executive class cruise’ on the BnL ship.”

This makes the film’s end seem not just naïve, but macabre. If unprepared humans (dreaming of “pizza plants”), galaxies and generations away from those familiar with Earth and the causes of its destruction, can repair the damage through good will and elbow grease, why did they not do so earlier?

Ultimately, as damning as WALL·E’s opening setting may be, its philosophy is toothless. It reduces the environmental problem to one between Nature and Man (the only things mentioned in “Down to Earth”, the song that plays over the credits), discarding the economic dimension. Having shown the audience its own dire situation and condemned its destructive habits, the film tells it that everything can be okay, that we can have buildings and high technology and a green world so long as we plant enough seeds.

  1. As is the verisimilitude of Washington in Fallout 3.↩

  2. If this is true, the filmmakers’ other conspicuous use of real-world humans is also meaningful: the clips of “It Only Takes a Moment” from Hello, Dolly! which WALL·E cherishes. Love is real too, even between two robots.

    The love between the two ‘bots is better realized and more convincing than that between the two humans on the Axiom. As in Blade Runner, it is the robots that are the most human. Unlike BR, the humanity of the robots is obvious, so much so that the movie doesn’t bother asking whether or not they can love. We know that EVE and WALL·E will be together, because “It Only Takes a Moment” has told us so.↩

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What I learned from megahunks and superbabes

May 16th, 2009

I’ve given a lot of presentations. I like giving them, researching, preparing slides, talking, answering questions. In the past few years, I’ve made an effort to improve my skills. I’ve reduced the amount of text on my slides, I face the audience, I speak slower—and I try to learn from my mistakes.

The Megahunks & Superbabes fiasco

About a year ago, I prepared a talk on the use of analogies to understand complex systems to give as a part of the Un-Distinguished Lecture Series (better known as UDLS). It’s a topic I find interesting, but I worried that it would be boring to a bunch of grad students dropping in on Friday before going out to drink.

In order to spice it up a bit and, yes, try to secure a larger audience, I announced a talk on a different topic: sexy men and women. Before giving the presentation on analogies and complexity, I would give a joke presentation full of garish slides, inane talk, and unfortunate typos. It would lighten the mood, I thought. The audience and I would laugh at the amateur quality and vapidity of it all. I put together a few slides, and mailed out the following abstract:

there are lots of people that are super hot for men and for women but do we know which is hotter the man or the woman? im going to show a lot of pictures of sexy people and we can decide which are the most sexy or the two. SAFE FOR KIDS!!! (your sick for thinking i’d make a pornshow) ;P c u there

Read the rest of this entry »

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Killspeak is moving

May 7th, 2009

Killspeak is moving to http://killspeak.lucasrizoli.com/.

The move will happen sometime later tonight (EST).

Once moved, this site and its content will not be accessible at the same web address it is now. You will have to change your links, bookmarks, and subscriptions from http://www.soupface.net/blog/ to http://killspeak.lucasrizoli.com/.

That is all.

Update: The new site seems to be working, though the look of the site has had to change. I hope to fix broken links and etc. If you notice anything funny with the site, please let me know: leave a comment on this post.

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