The Perfect Score

Spike TV recently held their annual video game awards where The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was named Game of the Year (GotY). The other GotY nominees were Batman: Arkham City, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Portal 2, and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. Now these games all have two things in common, not only are they sequels but they also have a metascore of over 90, and the reason for this is that the game review system is broken!

Let us briefly consider the 2011 Academy Awards, the award for Best Picture went to The King's Speech which has a metascore of 88, the other nominees where 127 Hours (82), Black Swan (79), The Fighter (79), Inception (74), The Kids are All Right (86), The Social Network (95), Toy Story 3 (92), True Grit (80), and Winter's Bone (90). So yes while there are movies that do receive metascores of over 90 these are not as common as they are in video games (a quick count shows around 40 90+ games released in 2011 while only 2 movies), additionally when a reviewer gives a game a score which is lower than the average they are often criticised for it. Why is this? Are games simply better polished than movies, with higher quality control or is there something else?

Firstly, the argument of higher quality control is incorrect. Skyrim has had to be patched twice since release with more on the way due to problems such as texture downscaling, dragons flying backwards, game crashes, and severe slow down for the PS3 version of the game when the save file exceeds 6 MB. The PS3 slowdown issue is still ongoing with players reporting that eventually the game becomes unplayable. Skyward Sword which won G4TV's Videogame Deathmatch also has an error where doing a specific action at a certain time makes it impossible to complete the game, Nintendo have since announced a fix for this. So how is it that two of the best games in 2011 are released with severe errors and the GotY eventually becomes unplayable on the PS3 and both still receive 90+ metascores? More often than not games are released on their publicised date with the intention being that any problems can be remedied later, and in general reviewers are quite forgiving of glitches and errors. But consider what would happen if a movie had a serious problem, such as the sound cutting out, none of the reviewers would ignore it by simply saying a version with updated sound will eventually be released. So why do game reviewers?

The thing about video gaming is that it still has the niche hobby mentality. Even with the explosion of the casual gaming market there is a large section of the gaming community who refer to themselves as 'core gamers', even the name core gamers shows the mentality of we are the real gamers and everyone else doesn't count. It is generally understood what this section of gamers like, and with most reviewers also being members of this group certain titles are almost guaranteed a 90+ metascore. Ironically it is this group who demand that games be taken seriously and be accepted by the general public, while at the same time deriding attempts to increase the accessibility of games with comments such as 'the Wii only plays kid's games'. If gaming is to be taken seriously then it needs to be viewed and reviewed by a wider audience, Roger Ebert doesn't just watch movies he knows he will like but rather he tries to see and give his opinion on as many movies as he can.

Now what would have happened if someone who usually plays PopCap or Facebook style casual games played Skyrim and had given a reveiw of 6/10 because although it was nice to look at the game was overly complicated and too dificult to know what you were supposed to be doing. The core gamers would pounce on them, complaining that they 'didn't get the game' or 'clearly this isn't your style of game', even though this is a valid review and one that needs to be out there if more people are going to become gamers. We saw a similar thing happen when Tom McShea gave Skyward Sword a 7.5 complaining about the controls and tired, outdated story line; he was heavily criticised with comments along the lines of 'IGN gave it a 10 and said the controls were perfect so you are lying to get more publicity'. Now either because of a problem with the game, his hardware, or the way he tried to play it Tom McShea experienced control difficulties and he shouldn't overlook them when writing his review just because Richard George at IGN said it was perfect. Making things worse is that most titles from the major publishers are sent to reviewers with guidelines detailing what should be the focus of the review, also in some cases reviewers are not permitted to discus certain aspects of the game until after it is released.

So how do we fix the review system? Firstly, we need to stop obsessing over metascores, the idea that only games with a 90+ rating are worth playing is nonsense, a better way is to find a reviewer with similar tastes to you and find out what they are playing (I liked the way the ScrewAttack used to rate their games Buy it, Rent it, or F' it). We also need to get rid of the reviewer guidelines and let reviewers say what they want, because if gaming is to stop simply being a hobby and become a normal form of entertainment similar to tv, movies, or music then a wider range of people need to have their opinion of the medium heard. One problem with changing the review system is that games reviewed before date X couldn't be directly compared to games reviewed after by simply looking at their metascores. But, since there is no consensus on what a review score actually means and what is required to get a 90+ score changes over time (the original Rainbow Islands had a 90+ score but the more recent releases have metascores ranging from 47 to 62) these comparisons are often pointless anyway.

Due to the upcoming holidays this is probably the last update until after the new year.

Cheating 101

Earlier this week YouTube suggested I watch a video called "Hand Quicker Than Eye", which details ways to protect yourself against dodgy dealers in the home poker game. This got me thinking about how when I first started judging Magic I spent some time learning how to cheat, and not just the obvious cheating as outlined in the penalty guidelines, but the more devious sneaky ways to bend the rules. An example of an extremely easy cheat that requires no skill and is accidentally done by a lot of new players is called the double nickel, this involves placing your lands on top of your non-land cards and then doing two five-pile table shuffles. This ensure that you get neither mana flood nor drought as the lands are now distributed throughout the deck in such a way that any stretch of seven cards will have either two or three lands.

Why am I telling you this cheat? Because many new players are told that pile shuffling is a good method to use for randomising their deck (at least until they become good at riffle shuffling) and usually they are told to use either five or seven piles, because these are prime numbers which makes them magical and extra random. The truth is that pile shuffling simply moves the cards around in a set pattern, so if the deck is stacked so is the outcome. However, pile shuffling is useful for counting the number of cards in you deck so you can make sure that you haven't lost or gained one prior to presenting it, but if you want to actually randomise the deck you must riffle shuffle.

What should you do if you just watched you opponent do this? In a casual game you explain to them what they have done wrong as you can be almost 100% certain that is was a mistake, I have the policy that if the last type of shuffle completed before the deck is presented to me is a pile then I will explain my objection and ask them to shuffle again. At a competitive event, while it might be tempting to "undo" the shuffle (the cards are in a predetermined order so you can easily move them around) never do this! Instead always call a judge and explain what happened and why you think it might be a problem, the judge will then ask both players some questions, they might also look at the order of the cards and then based on what has been said one of three things should happen, either a speech about good shuffling technique (officially this would count as an untracked caution), a tracked warning penalty for 'insufficient shuffling', or if the judge believes that the action was deliberate a disqualification for 'manipulation of game materials'. It is possible that the judge will go away briefly before delivering their ruling as the DCI (Magic's governing body) keeps track of previous penalties players have received and they might want to see if this is the first time the player has committed the offence.

What I like about the Magic penalty guidelines is that they take intent and the 'spirit of the game/rules' into account, with a slight modifier for how easy to do or difficult to spot an infraction is. For me it comes down to games are fun, one of the reasons I started judging was I disliked the serious 'unfun' attitudes exhibited by some players at high level events, and if you are going to cheat you really need to ask yourself why. I remember being young and sneaking the occasional $500 bill in a game of Monopoly, but I grew out of it as it doesn't make you better at the game nor does it make the experience better, and you run the risk of no one wanting to play with you again.

Why We Needed Waggle

The term 'waggle' has been used almost like a four letter word by many commentators and reviewers when talking about the Wii. Common complaints were that poorly implemented motion controls resulted in the gameplay simply involving wild shaking of the arm. Another complaint would be that the controls were not sensitive enough and as such the motion you attempted did not correspond to the on screen action, and as such eventually you would just give up and start waggling the Wiimote (I know that the official name is Wii Remote, but Wiimote is a better name). With the release of Wii MotionPlus there were claims that this is what the controller should always have done. However, I believe that had the Wii shipped with 1:1 motion at launch things would have been quite problematic.

The Wii introduced a new control scheme to both players and developers, and as with any innovation there is a learning period, this learning period is obvious when early games are compared with newer ones. Need for Speed: Carbon, a launch title for the Wii, had several different control schemes. The default scheme had you hold the Wiimote sideways and use it like a steering wheel; another set-up used the nunchuck to steer and the Wiimote was tilted up and down to work as an analogue accelerator/break. This second control scheme shows that developers weren't entirely sure how best to use the motion controls and was removed in later entries in the series. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance used shaking the Wii remote to replace button presses, except they most basic of shakes was the same a tapping the A button so most players just used that. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance also used tilting the nunchuck to control the camera, and any player could do this which often meant that during four player games someone would tilt their hand to the side and the camera would start to spin.

I firmly believe that had MotionPlus been included at launch the control issues would have been even greater. Developers would have been even less certain how to best control the games and could easily have resulted in third party developers simply walking away. I see this as being similar to the problem the Atari Jaguar faced at launch, being the first 64 bit machine it was different and also difficult to code for. However, inside the console was a 32-bit Motorola 68000 chip for use as a 'manager' and to handle the controller inputs, these chips had been around for a while and developers knew how to code for them, meaning that quite a few games on the Jaguar used this chip as the primary CPU and as a result the games often seemed dated.

So in future when you hear people complaining about waggle, just remember that Wii MotionPlus, Playstation Move, and Xbox Kinect all owe their success, at least in part, to this most criticised of control methods.

Rules Glorious Rules

All games have rules, and it is these rules that inform us of what we are able to do and how we go about doing them. The problem with rules is that they tend to either promote complexity or intuitive timely play, with very few games achieving both. Even the most simple of games often can have quite convoluted rule sets when you try and take them to a more competitive level, or more often they create complexity by omission, that is the designers don't include details relating to borderline cases or what to do when a conflict arises between two game actions. The other thing that can make things more troublesome and confusing is the implementation of house rules, the most well known house rule is the Free Parking square in Monopoly being used to pay some form of jackpot to players who land there (this rule is so well known that many people don't even realise that it is a house rule and not part of the official game). House rules are even more problematic when players wait until halfway through the game to mention them.

The main area where I think most games rulebooks let themselves down is around the issue of timing, if players are permitted to carry out actions outside of their own turn there needs to be clear guidelines about when and how they go about it. Is it simply a chaotic free for all, do the actions form a stack or chain with the last card played being the first to be resolved, or do all players say what they intend to do and then those actions occur in the order they were announced? If the rules do not provide a clear description of how to handle two players trying to carry out conflicting actions at the same time then eventually a disagreement will occur, Munchkin's disagreement resolution system of the person who owns the game gets the last say is cute but not exactly free from potential abuse.

Another source of conflict can be the precise measurement of distance, especially in situations where parallax can be an issue. A classic example of cheating in Warhammer was to measure from the front of the miniatures base to the back of the miniatures base during movement. When playing Pirates of the Spanish Main, which involves using small pieces of card to measure distance, I like to use the system of players measure their opponents distances which usually removes any disagreement about what is in range; as I have only played this game in a casual setting with friends I also like to point out that if two friends can't agree on what is in range and what is not then they have more problems than their lack of ability to measure. Actually as a result of the measure your opponents ranges system, I found that far more things were considered in range than I would have initially thought.

So how do games provide a fix to the issue of rules needing to be simple enough to be fun but complex enough to resolve potential conflict? Obviously if it is just a fun game between friends you can simply rely on them to sort it out, but what if you want to take the game to the next level and have a competitive game? For example in a game of Chess at what point is a players move considered final? Is it when they take their fingers off the piece they moved, when they press the clock, or when they say 'your move'? Further more, should a player be required to move the first piece they touch, even if it was by accident? Questions such as these tend to result in the creation of a second more in depth rule book. In  Magic: the Gathering the basic rule book is 34 pages long with lots of pictures, while the comprehensive rule book is 192 pages long and has no pictures.

This large rulebook means that every possible action and response that can arise through the interactions of the 12246 unique card is covered, there are even some rules that relate to events that are not currently possible. These rules also force the cards to follow strict formatting guidelines so that their abilities are only activated or triggered at the correct time, which has cause one or two problems. For example in Alpha (the first set) the card animate dead looked like this:

This seems simple enough, you take a creature from the graveyard and put it into play, except as the rules evolved the term 'Enchant Dead Creature' was no longer permitted and so in fifth edition the card was changed to:

Then the enchantment subtype Aura was created, for cards which enchant other cards, so Animate Dead had to be updated again, the modern version of the card now looks like this:

First thing you notice (after the new picture) is that there are a lot of words in the text box, also exactly what the card does is now less clear than before. Especially the part where 'if it's on the battlefield, it loses "enchant creature card in a graveyard" and gains "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with Animate Dead."', which by the way is a triggered ability so can be countered causing the card to do nothing. So why does is need to be worded this way? Consider the first printing, the line Enchant Dead Creature is no longer a supported card type, also when the creature enters the battlefield it is no longer dead so how is the card enchanting it? In the fifth edition printing the card doesn't have the correct modern subtype of Aura and also puts the card into play before changing into a creature enchantment, so there is a period of time where the card is on the battlefield with full power being targeted by animate dead, the card also uses the now obsolete term bury. So we have to use the modern wording, even if it seems like a confusing way to say put this guy into play, it is the only way to generate game states that are in accordance with the comprehensive rules and have a similar effect as the original card. It is worth noting that a card like animate dead would never be created in the modern game precisely because of the 'wordyness' of it's rules text. So while a comprehensive rules set can result in some complicated situations, it more importantly provides a way to work through all possible conflicts and makes the overall experience richer for it.

And Now by Special Request: Wargaming

Wargaming offers many different facets for people to enjoy; it involves strategic planning, collecting, painting, sculpting, social interaction, high level competitive play, and a game narrative. What players choose to take out of it is entirely up to them, for me I enjoyed the social, artistic, and collecting aspects and as such was quite happy never playing in a competitive tournament.

My most recent wargaming experience came about because I was running a campaign of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, set during Archaon's invasion of the Empire, the players were free to do what they wanted but their paths would often cross plot elements relating to the impending invasion, with their actions both directly and indirectly affecting the larger story. For the final battle I converted their characters into Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles characters as I already had appropriate stat lines for Archaon and Valten and then generated an army list based on the events that had occured earlier in the campaign, for example their were no units of Greatswords as due to player inaction the Carroburg Greatswords has suffered severe casualties. The battle concluded almost exactly as it had in the original story with Archaon defeated and Valten mortally wounded.

Prior to this I had played a modern day wargame run by a local wargaming enthusiast, using the Command Decision system. He had a different philosophy towards how to approach the game than most other wargamers I had encountered, rather than having balanced sides fighting a pitched battle he preferred to have one side with an obvious advantage and see how well you players could work around this. In the game a 'peacekeeping' force attacked a town containing the rebel leader, with the goal of either capturing or killing him. The invading force was better equipped than the rebels which meant the rebel player had to use terrain and delaying tactics in an attempt to get their leader to safety. Because of the disparity in power level between the two sides at the end of the scenario he would usually play it a second time with each player now controlling the other side.

The final type of wargaming I'm going to mention are games such as Necromunda, which involve smaller forces and small skirmish battles. What makes these games interesting is that the battles do not occur in a vacuum, but rather the combatants grow in experience, gain new abilities, injuries, and need to gather enough resources to keep the squad fed. This creates a personal narrative to the game and can give a deep rewarding experience. While experience and advancement can be implemented in a game of any size, as soon as you have more than around ten unique characters to worry about things start to get rather fiddly and you are forever having to check stat lines.

Perfectly Unbalanced

During the development of every competitive multiplayer game there comes a time where the game's balance needs to be assessed. That is, what is the probability of winning provided by the different strategies/choices available to the player and are there any moves that will simply guarantee a win? I mentioned recently how chess slightly favours the white player when both players make few mistakes, while other games such as checkers will always result in a draw when played perfectly. Tic-tac-toe also always results in a draw when played correctly, however with so few moves available to the player the correct play is always obvious, making the game rather pointless. The game Anti-Monopoly claims that is has been perfectly balanced by a computer to ensure that being a monopolist or a competitor poses no disadvantage, all I know was that after six hours of playing we were nowhere near having either side win and 1/3 of the player had fallen asleep.

So how do you ensure that a game is fun, fair, and doesn't just result in endless draws. One way is to introduce a luck element, this way two people who play equally well will still obtain a result, and ideally the luck element will be small enough so that a better player will usually defeat a weaker one. You could introduce certain counter move/strategies to your game, plays that would usually be weak except in certain situations. Or you could just not worry about it and  let the players sort it out through metagaming.

Metagaming is the use of outside of game knowledge to increase your chances of winning. One simple example is that in a game involving temporary alliances player X always lies, after playing a few times people realise this and no one will ally with them, negatively affecting their chance to win. However the type of metagame I want to discuss involves game where players must decide on a strategy or move at the start of the game and stick with it. The simplest example of this type of game is rock-paper-scissors where you must decide on what hand gesture you will make and then you are stuck with the consequences, this example seems trivial as if picked randomly against a truly random opponent each choice has an equal chance of winning. But image if I told you that 60% of people choose scissors as their first move, using this extra knowledge you can greatly in crease your chance of winning by playing rock. However, what happens when you are paired against another player who also knows about this, should you switch to paper to defeat their rock? Or what if the information becomes so well known that rock starts to become the dominant starting move, suddenly the choice is much less obvious as the metagame has changed.

In games which are less balanced than rock-paper-scissors, such as a CCG or video fighting game your ability to do well in a tournament often depends on the deck/character choice made relative to the average deck/character choice. Image four different deck types A, B, C, and D. A defeats B 70% of the time, C 55% of the time, and D only 35% of the time; B defeats C 55% of the time and D 60% of the time; and C defeats D 70% of the time. The question is what deck should you play in the up coming tournament? Deck A seems to be the strongest as it has a favourable matchup against all decks except for D, which by contrast is only good against A. What your choice comes down to is what deck do you think most people will be playing, if most people own or want to play A then you should play D even though this is it's only good mathup. If however the metagame has got to the point where everyone is playing either A or D, then maybe C is the best choice as it isn't far off being even against A and usually defeats D. These choices mean that the unbalance between the individual decks is resolved by players making choices based on their analysis of the metagame.

Even with metagaming problems do still arise, the character Meta Knight was recently banned from competitive Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournaments because he has no bad matchup, meaning that even using metagaming the best decision is to simply play as Meta Knight. However, this also shows that as long is there is an active governing body with the power to take such actions mistakes such as this can be rectified.