What makes a good game? (Part 1)

I'll admit it. I'm a video game geek. I like to play video games...a lot. My wife could easily make the argument that I play them too much. But I do have to interject that unlike many other video game geeks out there, I won't play just any game. For me to play a game it has to have some sort of unique appeal. There are certain prerequisite characteristics it needs to exhibit before it becomes worthy of my time. In general terms, these characteristics are storyline (Part 1), replay ability (Part 2), multiplayer (Part 3), and realism (Part 4). While a lot of games out there exhibit these characteristics, the mere fact they have them doesn't necessarily make them good games.

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Part 1

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Storyline
Almost every game out there has a storyline. The quality, believability, and implementation of the storyline is vital to a game's overall quality. Game studios hire on people exclusively to write the storyline for their games. Usually though, the storyline is what comes first and the game gets designed around that. Being the cornerstone of the game necessitates that the storyline be of good quality to begin with.

What makes a good storyline? That's highly debatable. To me, a good storyline is one that draws on other good storylines for influence. Don't misunderstand me here. I don't want cookie cutter stories that are straight up copies of others. It's possible for writers to draw on other great stories for influence and still have their own unique story. One example of this is Star Wars. George Lucas' story draws on many ancient myths and legends for content. But his story is his own and isn't a rip off of any other. The reason myths and legends last is because they are good stories. In the video game industry, one of the most successful games out there does just this. Bungie studios drew heavily on other science fiction stories and mythology for the Halo storyline. The biggest draw of Halo 3, the most successful game release in history, was not the new action scenes or features, but the storyline. People wanted to know how it all ended. Halo 3 is the perfect example of how storyline can carry a game, even a first-person shooter.

Another key quality of a good storyline is that it draws the player into it and makes you feel as if you're part of the storyline. With role playing games, this is vital. When other genre games are able to do this, it's usually a highly successful story. A game that did this well was BioWare's Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic game. While the game had its issues with technology, the story was almost flawless. The player was drawn into the story and actually cared what happened to the characters. The more characters are developed, the more players know them and actually care about what happens to them.

What makes a bad storyline? There are too many ways to list, but I'll try. Not including a background to the story is probably the biggest mistake game studios make. Even if your game is a sequel, you need to bring your audience up to speed about what's going on. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 made this mistake. The player was thrown into the game with absolutely no background given. The worst mistake that can be made, besides not including a background, is relegating that background story to the game manual included with the disc. No one reads those. Another way to make a bad story is to not close out the plot of the main story arc. Players don't like cliffhangers or plot holes unless the sequel has already been promised.

Basically, what makes a storyline good or bad is the same is the same as that for movies. With video games though, it seems storyline has taken a back seat most of the time whereas in the film industry storyline is usually foremost on the producers mind.

The Influence of Literature and Myth in Videogames

DVD -> Video -> Xbox 360

Converting DVD's to Xbox 360 compatible video format and sharing them over your network with your Xbox 360

Step 1 - Make an ISO image
The first thing I do is to rip a DVD into an ISO image on my hard drive, removing the encryption in the process. I do that with DVD Shrink. Sometimes if that doesn't work, due to some newer encryption algorithms out there, I'll use DVD Decrypter, which will store the DVD in a file format on your hard drive, which I then use DVD Shrink to open the files and rip to an ISO image from that.

Step 2 - Mount ISO image in virtual drive
To do this I use a free virtual drive program, Alcohol 52%. Alcohol 52% allows you to have up to 6 virtual drives. They make a more robust version, Alcohol 120% which allows up to 32 virtual drives, but I find 6 is usually more than enough. That, and Alcohol 120% costs $$$.

Step 3 - Convert DVD movie to video file
There are different video editing programs out there that can do this. Personally, I like to use Nero Recode (part of the Nero 7 Ultimate package). Video formats that can be shared with an Xbox 360 can be found here. Using the MPEG-4 H.264 codec, Nero can recode the movies up to an 8 Mbps bitrate. This is plenty big. Personally I recode my stuff to 2 Mbps at 720x400 resolution. This results in a pretty good quality movie while keeping the file sizes down a bit.
For a 45 minute TV episode, the video file is about 700 MB in size. Not bad, especially with how cheap hard drive space is now. I'm actually looking at picking up a 1 TB external hard drive sometime to store my DVD collection on. Then I can browse and watch shows without having to find the discs.
UPDATE - I found a free version of Nero Recode here.

Step 4 - Share your video files over your network
Depending on what video file codec you used, there are different options available to you for this. If you encoded your videos into Windows Media Video (wmv) format, you can use either Windows Media Player 11 or Microsoft Zune software to share your videos. If you did the MPEG-4 Part 2 or H.264 codec, you'll need to use the Zune package. I put all of my video files under the same root directory. I then setup my Zune software to watch that root directory and add the files to the Zune library. In the Zune settings you can then set it up to share with your Xbox 360 on the network.

That should be it. Now you can go to your Xbox 360 and browse your videos, music, or pictures that are in your Zune library. Some additional instructions can be found here.

Microsoft giving away free Xbox 360's

This is a really cool story I just read. And no, it's likely not what you think.

Microsoft is giving away free Xbox 360 consoles to a number of children's hospitals nationwide. The consoles will be Xbox Live enabled and have preloaded a number of E and E10+ rated games, Y-rated television shows and G-rated movies. With the 360's family content controls, hospitals will also be able to restrict the times that the games can be used by patients and families.

For being such an evil empire, Microsoft manages to do quite a bit of good every now and then. After reading a recent horror story about one family's stay in a children's hospital, I think anything people can do to make things go more smoothly is a good thing. Microsoft is even setting up an entirely separate Xbox Live network exclusive to the hospitals in this program. That way, children will be able to play with other kids in other hospitals as well.

One in a million shot

So there we were, playing a game of capture the flag on this snow covered level called Avalanche. Our enemy was strong, but so were we. We had played them to a near standoff the whole game. With just over a minute left we decide it's time to make our final push. We all go on the offensive and hold nothing back.


I kill off the last of their recent offensive and pick up a rocket launcher off a dead opponents body. Just my luck. Only one shot remaining. I jump in the man cannon to head back into the base, where I will take the teleporter route to get more rocket ammo. As I jump into the base I hear my teammate call out for me. I turn to see him waiting on his mongoose, needing a second man. I guess I'll forget the ammo and just have to make this one shot count. As I hop on he accelerates to insane speeds that only a mongoose can achieve.


Most of our team is already in the battle with only us and the tank operator behind. As we head towards the bend, ready to engage the enemy, our opponent comes around the corner. It's a fully loaded hornet, ready to rush in and grab the flag behind our offensive. My teammate shouts we need to turn around and head back to defend our flag as we're the last line of defense. As powerful as the wraith tank is, it's no match for the mobility of a hornet. Knowing the time remaining I shout back "No, we go on." I'll just have to make this one shot count.


Going full speed on a mongoose makes it difficulty to hit an enemy with any weapon, let alone a rocket launcher with absolutely no tracking ability whatsoever. As we approached the hornet I took aim and fired. We continued on at ludicrous speeds. I never even got to see if I hit it. All I saw was the beautiful words come up on my screen...."Triple Kill". Our flag was safe for now. Our whole team could concentrate on the offensive. Fate was on our side and there was nothing that would stop our victory this game.

Fileshare Download: Film Clip

No SkyNet Yet

Thankfully the US Army stopped a program before it got too far ahead of itself.

Now for the real threat-

-keeping an eye out for future robots who travel back in time disguised as Summer Glau....

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Review

I don't know what it is about Tom Clancy games, but they never really seem to live up to their hype. I'm personally a big fan of Tom Clancy novels, but really, he needs to pick a different game studio for his games because Ubisoft just seems to mess them up.

First off, I never really played the first Rainbow Six Vegas game, so I wasn't familiar with the storyline. When I put in Rainbow Six Vegas 2, I expected to somehow be brought up to speed on what was going on. I had no clue who the character is or what I was doing. The game didn't do much to enlighten me either. The single player campaign jumps straight into a tactical assault with little to no background information. That was the first clue I had that this wasn't going to be a good experience.

The next thing I did when starting the game was pause and try to setup my control scheme. I've played plenty of shooters and role playing games. Some games are really good at giving players customizable control schemes (Halo 3) and some are just horrible at it (Star Wars Republic Commandos). This game fell somewhere in the middle, closer to the horrible end. You think game studios would come up with some standard for control schemes for genres of games. Personally I feel all shooter games should have the same options available. That would eliminate control schemes from being a deterrent for some gamers. Even better would be if the console manufacturer would implement a set of standard schemes that players could set globally and have all their games pull from those settings.

RBSV2 does have some interesting features, such as the ability to use your Xbox Live vision camera to scan in your face and put that on your character. The game also gives immense customization options for how your character looks, what clothes and equipment they have available, and what weapons they carry. As good as those things are, they really don't make up for the lack of storytelling and the inept control schemes available. Overall I give this game a 5/10 score and will be placing my copy up on eBay very soon (Link to Auction (ends 4/11/08)).

Grifball Phenomenon

Halo 3 is one of the first games out there to offer a wide range of custom games and custom maps to players and to do it effectively. Just recently a custom gametype has taken hold in the Halo online community. Grifball is a very simple game. It's just a neutral bomb assault variant in an open room map with no objects to use for cover. Weapons available to players are the gravity hammer and the energy sword, both melee weapons.

As simple as the game is, many players have taken to it. Subtle strategies have emerged and those teams who can master those strategies seem to dominate all others. Simple things like learning how to use the shock wave from a gravity hammer can give a team a decided advantage. The designer of the gametype, Rooster Teeth Productions' founder Burnie Burns, even went so far as to organize a league with playoffs and everything for this gametype. Bungie Studios has even setup a whole playlist for just this gametype. Considering the popularity of the gametype I really think Bungie needs to go ahead and make the Grifball playlist a permanent addition to Halo 3's matchmaking lists. So long as the playlist has the popularity it does now, which rivals that of the Team Slayer playlist, it needs to be available to the online community.

Perhaps it will fall out of popularity. Perhaps some other gametype will take hold of the community's attention. Until that happens, this is a playlist that needs to have a permanent place, right alongside the MLG playlist that was recently implemented.

Logic Puzzle

Twelve billiard balls all weigh the same, except for one that is either light or heavy. Determine in three weighings on a balance scale which is the "odd ball", and whether it is light or heavy.

Answer to the last Logic Puzzle:

Start 3 of the ends burning at the same time. When one rope (the one whose both ends were started burning) is completely burned out (30 minutes), light the unburned end of the other rope. By the time that rope is burned, 45 minutes will have passed.

An all new high....

Well, it looks like my internet connection got slightly better. Above is an image from my all time high for bandwidth that I just hit today. Perfect gaming speeds, don't you think?

Xbox Live Video Marketplace....FAIL

During the last week I've started getting an error message whenever I try and download a video through the Xbox Live Marketplace. When I click to agree to the purchase of a video, the error message

"This item is not available at your current location".

From what I've been able to ascertain, this error message is intended to restrict video content to certain geographic locations. This is understandable as some videos are only licensed to be distributed in the United States. The problem I have with it is that I am located in the United States and have been for the last eight years, which wholly encompasses my time as an Xbox Live subscriber.

So, in an effort to resolve the situation I called Xbox Support (1-800-4MY-XBOX) which resulted in 30 minutes explaining the situation to someone with a thick Indian accent, only to be transfered to someone who (supposedly) knew what they were doing. The next person (still, an Indian accent, but just not as thick) had no clue as well, but thought that crediting me 160 MS points would fix the problem. By that time I pretty much determined that phone support was useless.

My next attempt was via the Xbox.com forums. Sure, it was exposing the problem to millions of idiots, but there was the slight chance someone competent would read it. I made my post, but only received responses from one person who really didn't seem to know how to do anything but throw out random suggestions.

My latest attempt at trying to resolve the issue was in using Xbox's email support. The email support form isn't exactly shown up front on Xbox.com. They really want to push people to use the phone support first. Anyways, I sent my email off, detailing the whole problem, copying much of what I posted in the forums. Here is the response I received today:

I understand, you can’t download some contents from Video Marketplace and you get an error message “This item is not available from your current location.” I deeply apologize for the inconvenience that this might have caused you.

Beginning in May 2007, the Xbox LIVE service will restrict the download or purchase of content based on geographic location of their console.

Xbox LIVE will determine the user’s geographic location based on their console’s IP address upon login. If the content the user is trying to obtain is restricted in their geographic location, Xbox LIVE will block the purchase or download from occurring.

Upon blocking content, the user recieves the following error message:
This item is not available from your current location.

Licensing Compliance will primarily affect Video Marketplace content, as it is licensed only for U.S. distribution. Additionally, gaming content will be restricted based on government regulation. There are certain countries, such as Germany, where that content cannot be viewed per government regulation. Thank you for understanding.

It looks like they didn't really read my email other than to glean the subject of the matter and send out a generic response. The big clue they should look at is why this just started happening a week ago and why it's still happening when it's pretty obvious if they did a simple trace of my IP address that I'm located in Utah, USA. It would seem whatever algorithm they're using for determining geographic location is flawed. I responded to the email and am waiting to hear back from them now. Hopefully it gets forwarded on to someone who is actually able to read and understand the issue and then go and fix the problem. If Microsoft wants to become an online distributor of high definition content (movies & television shows) they had better get this fixed, otherwise I see people sticking with cable & satellite on-demand, DVD, & Blu-Ray.

Firefox 2.0.0.13 Memory Usage

Mozilla's Firefox browser had me update to the newest version earlier this week, version 2.0.0.13. Usually this isn't such a big deal. Mozilla puts out a good web browser that so far has beaten hands down anything Microsoft has out (Internet Explorer). Yesterday though I noticed a problem with Firefox. It seemed that it was using a lot of memory, a lot more than usual. I thought maybe it was just my work machine, considering I was playing streaming music on it through pandora.com as well as running a few development environments.

Last night I thought I'd test it out. Before I went to sleep I opened up Firefox to an ordinary web page, one without any video, audio or flash running. I left the browser open all night while I slept. This morning I awoke and checked the memory usage for firefox.exe. It was using over a gigabyte of memory, on a machine with only two gigabytes available! I don't know what the problem is, but it seems Mozilla has a serious flaw in this version of Firefox. If you use Firefox and haven't already updated to version 2.0.0.13, don't. Wait until they come out with the next version. I assume I won't be the only one experiencing this problem and Mozilla should kick out a new version pretty quickly. Hopefully sooner than later...