PES Matters 16th January 2010
Posted by dougiedonut in PES Matters on Sat 16 Jan 2010
I’d like to start with my first post of the new year by wishing everyone a happy new year. We enter a new decade, and with new hopes and challenges, especially with PES.
This week I would like to discuss a topic which whilst initially may not seem particularly relevant to PES, will hopefully come together. Recently I’ve seen a few single player games in the gaming mainstream which around 3 to 5 years ago I would have snapped up without a shadow of a doubt. But these days I find myself hesitating to do so. No I’m not tiring of gaming, or getting that deadly disease called “growing up”, but just find myself questioning the validity of single player games these days.
One of the games I am hesitating to get is the new Batman Arkham Asylum game. It has been getting rave reviews on metacritic, (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/batmanarkhamasylum) but I haven’t bought it because of the challenge factor in the game. What I mean is that playing against AI is not challenging for many people any more. Plus add in the factor that thanks to the likes of Nintendo we now have a new demographic for games – casual gamers, because of whom, games are dumbed down for everyone.
Because these people can’t handle proper games, everyone suffers if you ask me. Games are shorter and easier – even on the harder settings, which I’m sure many of you out there can testify to. Batman’s detective element for me summarises exactly what is wrong. Everything is laid out on a plate for you. Where to go and what to do. Where’s the intellectual challenge exactly?
Uncharted was another game which dissappointed because of the monotonous theme to the game. Endless mindless enemies, although to be fair, they at least ducked and dodged and threw grenades at you if you stay in a stationary position during battles. We need only look at one of the worst offenders for me – the COD series – particularly since COD4. Completely moronic enemies that just charge at you. Proper cannon fodder. Then consider the length of the single player game. Shockingly short and very very much on rails. No room for developing a sense of achievement in how you complete objectives. No options on how or what to do, just follow the arrow for idiots and keep shooting. Job done. (Uncharted 2 is another game I’m considering but hesitating to get)
Maybe I am getting older, but is that all there is to games now? Can some of you older gamers remember a game called Deus Ex on the PC from around 10 years ago? For me it is still the single most complete single player game ever. I can’t remember how many hours I put into it. There were various objectives in the game, from which you could pick the ones that you wanted to develop. You could also enhance your character with a skills base that you chose, and made moral decisions at strategic points to enhance your experience. With several different game endings thrown in, the play time for the game is really massive.
I’m going to go off on a quick tangent, but please bear with me – I think it’s worth it! In Deus Ex, you can take drugs and drink beers too. During the story I went into a bar, ignored the barmen and got plastered on beers. When you do this, the effects in the game made your character’s head (it’s played in FPS mode) whirl round and round, and the colours on screen went funny. It actually made you feel physically nauseous, and when you tried to walk, you would stammer around! I then pulled out a bazooka I was carrying and wielded it, to the horror of the people in the bar! They were screaming and running everywhere. I couldn’t shoot straight and so was letting off random shots. It was fantastic, but indicative of an experience which I still don’t think can be matched today.
Can anyone name a game that even sounds remotely as feature rich as Deus Ex today? That is my point!
What has this got to do with PES I hear some of you ask? Well a fundamental gripe people have with the game is that the AI is not challenging enough. Which is a fair criticism to have I believe. But to be fair, we really need to consider just what was possible with football games 10/15 years ago, and what is possible now. 10/15 years ago, we accepted that we couldn’t expect there to be many different ways the AI could be programmed to challenge us. We had to accept that a basic formula was used with some tricks to help the AI get almost undefendable goals against you, to try to help create the challenge.
Nowadays we are tired of the formula and want the AI to interpret how we play and what we do, and to work out how to stop us. Sorry if this is ignorant, but isn’t that incredibly hard to do? We’re pretty much asking for human levels of interpretation of dynamic playing situations to give us the challenge we crave in single player games!
So back to my original question – are single player games relevant any more?
I remember a few years ago, I only ever played PES games in single player modes. I hardly ever played against human opponents. When I would play against friends, the game changed considerably.
A good friend of mine would always have the upper edge during games because he knew how to play against humans more than me. I would play the game as though I was taking on AI, and the difference was there to see.
So where am I going with this question? Well, I’m certainly not advocating we lose the single player game that’s for sure, but wondering whether we need to see a new direction in how AI plays against us. I don’t know how much it has changed on the current generation of games. I personally find how AI plays very robotic (in both major footy titles for the record), and not enjoyable really. Would people say they would like to see changes in how AI fundamentally challenges us? With increased computing power, surely rethinking the whole apprach is worth thinking about?
Thanks for reading.
Dougiedonut
