Update: I was going to make a new post about Mass Effect and why BioWare's decision to possibly change the ending is horrendous. I may still do that. But for now, this sums up my thoughts about that subject too. 

When I was a child and wronged someone, either one of my parents would shake a finger at me and demand the same thing every time.

“Apologise.”

And it was always such a weak effort. I was rarely ever sorry and of course, an apology isn’t real if it’s forced. It’s just a parroted phrase that you use to get out of trouble. I didn’t actually realise what being “sorry” meant until much later in life, when I discovered what real guilt was.

Let’s switch over to GDC. This week, Deus Ex: Human Revolution creative director Frank Lapikas told players he was “truly sorry” for the game’s terrible boss fights. And let’s face it, they were terrible. Handed off to another company, not properly integrated, they ruined the entire feel and look of the game – not to mention the whole Deus Ex franchise.

It was a disappointing slip in an otherwise impressive game, but of course the nature of the franchise amplified the criticism. So much was riding on this game, the hopes and dreams of old-school gamers and developers alike, so a stumble felt like a fall of a cliff.

"Play tests did flag the boss fights as a problem, but they didn't flag the severity of it," he said, according to Edge. "They were a big part of the game, and we should have put more effort into them.

"I'm truly sorry about that. Next time we're gonna think about it more."

It seems an innocent enough comment. But he never should have given that apology, and we certainly don’t deserve one.

Being sorry can mean a few different things. Australian prime minister John Howard found himself in a whole heap of hot water when he said that while he was sorry for atrocities that occurred in Australia’s past towards indigenous peoples, he couldn’t actually say “sorry” on behalf of the government because his belief was they hadn’t personally committed those acts.

(A quick note, I don't agree with that position). The subsequent apology given by Kevin Rudd then attempted to take on responsibility for actions that had occurred in the past. Same word, two very different meanings.

On the other hand, being sorry can mean that you’ve:

A)     Legitimately wronged someone and seen the error of your ways.

B)     You’ve taken active steps to fix that behaviour, and

C)     You want to repair the damage you’ve caused

The fact Lapikas has said he’s sorry means two things. The first is that he feels the company somehow “wronged” the gamer, and in order to do that, there must have been a personal relationship there. Something much stronger than any normal title would have warranted.

There’s a great line in the sitcom Community about all this. Alison Brie’s character Annie has deliberately sabotaged the group’s efforts to graduate, so they all have to be held back and complete a Spanish class together – she’s afraid they’ll lose touch otherwise.

Jeff Winger berates her after she says she’s “sorry”.

“Be sorry about this stuff before you do it,” he says. “And then, don’t do it.”

And I suspect that’s the mentality a lot of gamers had for the Deus Ex franchise. “Don’t screw this up,” the collective mind says. “This is our franchise and if you ruin it, we’re going to kill you.”

So basically, they expect everything to be perfect. They’ve projected their own memories from the original Deus Ex onto this new game, saying that if it doesn’t stack up it’ll be a total disaster.

But Eidos didn’t ask for that. Yes, it may have subjected itself to the fanbase by taking on the Deus Ex name, and they may have closely associated the game itself with the previous title by constantly giving updates on how it was attempting to be faithful to the ideas of the original. Of course, it made it clear that it was taking on a massive project.

But that doesn’t mean they’ve established a personal relationship with the player that warrants an apology.

The second meaning behind the apology is that not only does he feel that he wronged this audience, but that he feels accountable to them. That he actually owes them something in return for having made a mistake.

This is a dangerous mentality. This is not a politician apologising for misusing taxpayers’ money, or a child apologising for stealing a toy. This is a grown man in charge of a piece of art – consumer art, but art nonetheless – suggesting that he is accountable to the fanbase.

This sets a dangerous precedent. When you buy a game, you’re taking a risk. Your money is buying you an experience and like it or not, that experience could be bad.

The fact Eidos took on the Deus Ex franchise and closely communicated with the fanbase for the entirety of this game’s development may have created a relationship between them, but that communication was given through grace, not through a mandate, and thus any expectation of accountability is completely nullified.

This is the same mentality behind the fans of George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series who suggest that he owes it to the fanbase to deliver the next book as quickly as possible.

Eidos owes you nothing. It created a piece of art, sold it, and made some missteps along the way. But just because they took the effort to create a relationship with the fanbase does not mean everything the company does is subject to player democracy.

I understand the mentality behind the apology. And it’s a great thing that Lapikas listens to feedback and is willing to incorporate that – more developers should. But the use of the word “sorry” implies this dangerous relationship where players dictate what should happen and should be catered to whenever a game maker makes a misstep.

And there is a legitimate argument here that Eidos hasn't given the player enough respect. And that's a legitimate complaint, and I would agree. But it's interesting that complaint then leads to the conclusion we deserve to be apologised to, as if not showing us respect was something akin to a friend backstabbing us. Disappointing, yes, but if someone feels as if they are disrespected in a fundamental way similar to how they would feel if they were portrayed by a best friend, then that's a much bigger problem than a bad boss fight.

Deus Ex is a product. You took a risk buying it, and for some, it didn’t pay off. But you aren’t owed a refund, and you definitely aren’t owed an apology.

We have not been wronged. We are not a parent, sister, friend or colleague. We are consumers of entertainment, critics and analysts. We may be invested emotionally, we may have given our lives to talking, writing and developing, and we may feel as though we have a connection with the Deus Ex franchise that has been soiled by silly mistakes.

But we are not entitled to an apology.

This is to the journalists among us.

The Double Fine Kickstarter project has been a rousing success. It represents a key turning point in our industry, where developers no longer need to be held captive to publishers' pocket books. There is the possibility now for some developers to find a dedicated fan base to fund their projects.

But there's also a real danger here.

Many of the people giving to this campaign are the older gamers, those who were around during the 90s when point-and-click adventure games were at their peak. The very mention of a quality developer such as Tim Schafer behind a new title saw these men and women laying down respectable amounts of money, in anticipation of such an adventure. And why not? If you're convinced the quality of such a project will be high, there's no problem in funding it - crowdsourcing has allowed projects to come to life that never would have before.

But plenty of game journalists have given to the campaign as well. And that shouldn't be happening.

I don't mean to go on a tirade about how gaming journalism is the next big thing and that, you know, what we're doing here is actually really serious, guys, really. But there is a razor-thin difference between advocacy and participation, and the industry has come so far that it's more than ever a dangerous line to tread.

Gaming journalism finds its roots in that advocacy. When gaming was first becoming a big thing, the earliest magazines and publications were built on the idea that what's happening in the industry is exciting and we should all be a part of it. New games, new consoles, new faces making interesting leaps in coding and logic. That quickly found its way into the publications we see in the 90s. And while there were a few publications that catered to fairly serious discussions of games and the gaming industry, most of these were simply previews and ads for whatever SNES game would be coming out within the next six months.

I'm generalising, of course. But I point out the serious, philisophical discussions we have about games and game theory is new. Very new, and film criticism has us beat by a long shot. It was 60 years ago the greatest filmmakers of their day were writing feature-length articles about the French New Wave, Neo-Realism and so on. This has been going on in the gaming industry for barely a decade at a mainstream level.

Of course, you can point back to the debut of the film industry and quite credibly argue movies were made as pieces of entertainment. While film began as a weird photography experiment, this quickly exploded into what we see in the 30s and 40s - a product made by a company for consumption by a mass audience. As time as gone on, however, the criticism and discussion around film has grown to be as important as the films themselves. Eisenstein, Godard, even Ebert - these are the great minds of criticism.

And yet, could you imagine Ebert contributing to Spielberg's next picture via a Kickstarter campaign? I can't speak on behalf of the man, but I'm going to side towards "no".

There's a link between the origin of games journalism, and film journalism, in that both are products. But while film has had time to develop and mature, games are nowhere near that point yet. We are just on the cusp of what can be accomplished here - and we shouldn't abandon that journey by continuing to be participants, rather than journalists.

No, we're not at that point yet. Gamers still view gaming journalists as advocates, those who should champion new titles rather than cut them down. (Which obviously goes against the very nature of being a journalist - remaining skeptical). And it's clear publishers still view the industry that way as well - remember the Rage fiasco from last year? Gamasutra's Brandon Sheffield dares to question the game's creators about some questionable design elements, and the man was ripped to shreds by the gaming community. He claimed to have received an email from a AAA creative director who instructed PR not to respond to his requests.

This is journalism. And so is Tracey Lien's piece about the fall of Red Ant, and so is all the work being done around the introduction of an R18+ rating. It's stuff that people don't want printed. As our industry grows, matures and expectations grow around design and execution, so should the quality of its scrutiny. And that cannot happen while we are participants, rather than objective eyes-on-the-wall.

There's nothing wrong with saying a game is great, or even praising it to the point of hyperbole. But games writing has come so far in 20 years that actually participating in the creation of such a game is not only inappropriate, but counter-intuitive to what games writing should be accomplishing.

We should be pressing hard. Asking the deep questions, probing into the issues and discussions that gaming creates. And while few of those are likely to come from Schafer's new point-and-click adventure, it becomes extremely difficult to judge that game having invested a piece of your efforts into it.

I am a business journalist. If I were to buy shares in a company, I would have an ethical obligation to disclose my interests. Kara Swisher on All Things Digital does so, and is promptly criticised even for that by some in the industry. This is not a perfect comparison, obviously. Those who contributed shares here don't have a portion of the game's profit, but as I spelled out earlier -

There is a distinct difference between advocacy and participation.

The counter-argument to this is that the first Kickstarter reward of the Double Fine project is a copy of the game. You might say it's simply a down payment, a pre-order. I wouldn't have a problem with that except it's not the same as a pre-order. At all. You're actively making a decision to assist in this game's development, and are not simply putting up your hand and saying, "yes, I'll buy that when it comes out". But again, you're not just buying an end product. Your funds are part of what is enabling this game to be made. We as journalists must remain objective, and we cannot do so while we're standing alongside developers.

We encourage, yes - even tell people to donate themselves. But we also criticise and remain objective.

Maybe I'm taking myself too seriously. But there's been too much great writing coming out of the gaming scene over the past few years to not take it seriously. We must remain skeptical, objective and on watch. If you want to be a developer - be a developer. As journalists, we owe it to our readers to remain apart. And we cannot do that while handing out investments.

In the past 48 hours I've received a fair bit of criticism over a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago, titled "RPGs and the fundamental problem of sympathetic characters". I was linked to, kindly, I might add, by Rock Paper Shotgun's Sunday Papers article, which wraps up a few links from the previous week in a number of different gaming blogs. I was pretty surprised to wake up on a Monday morning and find my traffic had skyrocketed to about 5,000 views in 24 hours.

Before I explain my position further, as I believe I should, I want to point out a couple of things. Firstly, the first article I wrote was for a Critical Distance "Blogs of the Round Table" community project. The topic of the month was "being other", and bloggers are encouraged to write around that topic. As I'm currently playing Fallout 3, I decided to write a post about how, having been through the facial creation screen at the beginning of the game, I was frustrated to find that, once again, it ultimately didn't matter and I was just another silent cipher.

The criticism directed at my post is mostly well-received, except for the few personal attacks. I want to address some of those criticisms. Namely, that I didn't go into enough detail and as a result, didn't articulate my point. Had I known I would be writing for the Rock, Paper, Shotgun audience, I would have spent more time and care on my article. At least, that's what I told myself earlier today, but I also realised that I should be putting the same amount of care into each one of my posts. Laziness is no excuse. Because of that, I'm attempting to spend more time explaining myself in each of my articles to avoid confusion.

There have been a number of points laid at my feet, and it would be impossible to address them all. But I want take head on the most popular complaint about my post. And that is, firstly, that RPG protagonists are usually silent as that is the fundamental nature of the genre, and that quite a lot of gamers enjoy these silent characters as they want to create their own characters rather than having that experience ruined for them by a pre-imagined board of creative directors, who are usually more interested in sales than in anything interesting. Having the silent character empowers the player.

First of all, it's no surprise to me RPG protagonists are silent. I've been playing RPGs for years, and am well familiarised with the genre. And secondly, I completely acknowledge the strength a silent protagonist provides. One of my readers, Ken Liu, encapsulated this quite well:

Attachment and emotional engagement are not necessarily tied to what appears on your screen or what you hear through your speakers. Sometimes, you can get a more fulfilling experience by letting your own imagination fill the gaps.

Quite right. There's an awesome power in being able to control every thought and action your character makes, not being bogged down by predetermined positions or relationships. Games like these allow you to be who you are, or who you want to be. I don't mean to take away that power.

This is what I would suggest. In my opinion, and in only my opinion, a character with a pre-determined voice, facial structure and personality is always going to be stronger than the character created by yourself. I freely acknowledge this is up for debate. I know plenty of people who complete pacifist runs of games like Deus Ex, and when I suggest they take a certain course of action while playing, they would say, "no, my character wouldn't do that". These players are strong editors, and, to complete the film analogy, they know exactly when to cut and which takes to edit.

But these people also don't represent the majority of gamers. When most gamers have the freedom to make a character, they'll create a facial structure, as a typical RPG will prompt you to do, then they'll enter the world. And they don't think about what their "character" would do in any particular moment. They just do whatever they think will give them the best outcome, whether that be money, an achievement, progress in the game, or what have you. I'd wager it's only the minority of gamers that take advantage of that opportunity.

Now, just because a minority of gamers only invests serious time and effort into that RPG doesn't make the silent protagonist any less powerful. It does, however, prove a point that because of that very choice you've given the player, the experience is not only fragmented but is also diluted. The rich and sarcastic quips from Nathan Drake are nowhere to be found, JC Denton's wasted cereal boxes also gone.

As I'm playing Fallout 3, let's take that for an example. Imagine the character I'm playing right now. A rugged, hardened survivor of the Vault, handy with lockpicks and small arms. He can talk his way out of trouble, and is able to barter a good deal. He shoots straight and is willing to help out the innocent and the poor. He goes where he needs to, doesn't bother with anything that wastes his time. Every decision I make is based around the personality that I have projected onto that avatar.

But for a person who takes that immersion less seriously, they might create, say, a character with a comical appearance, rather than something that implies fear or any other type of emotion. They may just pick random responses. One moment, they're completely kind, and the next, they're vengeful to a person they've never even met. To put this into a little bit more perspective, watching a film of that character would be incredibly frustrating. They'd be putting themselves into needlessly dangerous and ridiculous situations for no reason.

Again, I want to emphasise here that I'm not attacking this system. RPGs have allowed this for years and I hope it never goes away because it allows that power. But because you have these two extremely different experiences from the same game, it by necessity foregoes the type of connection you'd have to a pre-built avatar, such as, once again, Nathan Drake, or whichever character you choose. Now, this is where the main criticism has been laid. The protest is, "but the silent protagonist implies all the power I need, even more so sometimes". True, and as Ken just said earlier, sometimes giving that character a voice and a nature in an RPG just ruins the experience. But to be sure, even the most die-hard RPG fan will connect to a pre-built character more than they would their own creation, simply because their own characters will not be as well-rounded.

Do we see how that internally created character walks? Do we see him make little glances that imply years of heartache and pain, like those presented by Rob Weithoff in Red Dead Redemption? Do we see him, or her, swat away flies, or make off-the-cuff quips? These little mannerisms are essential to character building, and they simply cannot be created by the player because they're too busy playing the game rather than creating a pre-built person. They're a shell.

And once again, as I said in the earlier post, that's fine, it just means these games will never be able to provide us with any sort of strong characterisation. And that is the reasoning behind my words, when I said they are fundamentally broken. But that doesn't mean they are fundamentally bad. It's just my opinion that even the most die-hard RPG fans will connect to pre-built characters more than they will their own, simply because of that relationship. Whether they react to them in a positive or negative way is a different story. But to be sure, there will be a connection there. One that cannot be realised by a silent protagonist. And for that reason, I think whenever we play an RPG led by a silent protagonist, there is always going to be part of us that is held back, even though it's us making all the choices and imagining the character. It's a little bit of a paradox, I suppose, but because of that shell that's presented to us, it just takes us a little extra effort to get involved.

All of this is to say that this creates a barrier to "sympathy". When I say sympathy, I mean that emotional connection we have with the character when a negative or positive reaction occurs. When I'm playing Uncharted, I cry out when Sully is shot, or become on edge when Nathan is dangling from a train. But when this happens to me in Skyrim or Fallout 3, I care, but I don't tend to care as much because the character I've created exists in my head. Of course, in both cases you can just reload and try again, but there is still a little portion of a reaction there when you see Nathan Drake shot, or dangling from a precarious position. When my character in Fallout dies, or you find out a piece of information about your father, I don't necessarily feel that same pain.

This may be by design. Fallout 3 is designed to be completely bleak and desolate, and that can filter through into the player's experience. I totally accept that. And also, the issue of voice acting is an aside. I don't mean to suggest that we can only connect to players through their voices. As I pointed out, Half Life 2 creates this connection extremely well, and it's probably the most well-known example of a game that creates a connection to the character despite that silence.

There's a lot more I could say, like how if you're not investing enough of yourself into the RPG, then that's your own fault, and not the game's, etc. But I hope I've explained my position. I'm not expecting anyone to agree with anything that I've said here, or for that matter, even respect it. I just wanted to flesh out my opinion more and give a broader perspective. Because as some people said in the RPS post, it's a little unfair of me to simply post an 800 word piece and then expect people to understand everything I have to say. I made some other comments in that post, but they stand for themselves. I hope this gives a little bit more of a broader perspective.

I recently picked up Fallout 3 in the Steam Christmas sale after ignoring it for over three years. I don’t have any particular aversion to complicated role playing games, but to be sure they take a considerably larger effort than a 10-hour narrative.

They require a different headspace altogether. That doesn’t bother me, but I have tried to avoid them in the past - because despite all the talk regarding how these games provide us with a rich tapestry of character, I find them to be the most bleak and disconnected narrative experiences a game can provide.

Consider the beginning of Fallout 3. After being shown a picture of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, you actually experience birth. A small light slowly grows to encapsulate the screen, and suddenly, you’ve arrived.

The scene is quite startling. You look up at your father, voiced by Liam Neeson, who coos and praises how good looking you are. It’s a nice moment, watching the new father become wrapped up in the miracle of life. Just as a real infant is in its first moments of life, you’re completely helpless.

That is, until you’re prompted to choose your gender, and how you’re going to look when “you’re all grown up”. This isn’t such a big deal, every RPG does this. But something about Fallout 3 strikes me as wanting to be different from the pack.

I could have chosen any RPG here. Demon’s Souls, Dragon Age, Skyrim, anything that uses a face and character creator. But clearly, Fallout 3 creates a specific attempt to connect you to your character more than any other game of its type by actually having you experience your birth, childhood and adolescence.

By all accounts you should connect to this character the most, after having experienced literally everything they have as well. But you don’t. Walking through Fallout 3’s wasteland, I’m more struck by the sense of loneliness and despair than I am any type of grief when I’m killed by a fellow raider.

Why? What is it that whenever my character is killed or damaged, I have absolutely no concern for his wellbeing?

It’s because the character building aspects of role-playing games are fundamentally broken and prevent  sympathy from the player.

Consider what I’ve done with the character so far. I’ve created a façade for him, which is nothing more than an appearance. The fundamental nature of the role playing game is that you create a personality through your reactions to other NPCs, but even then, sympathy is hard to come by.

The character here is nothing but an avatar. When I respond to the Megaton sheriff asking me whether I can diffuse the bomb in the middle of tomb, I’m not responding whether my character can do it. No, instead, I’m wondering whether I, Patrick Stafford, can do it.

I explored this in my piece for Hyper Magazine last September about whether the decisions we make in games reflect something about our personality. Research I cited in that story suggests the decisions we make in RPGs are in fact a reflection of what we might do in that sort of situation, or are at least representative of how we feel about the decision at hand.

(There's also a piece on the Psychology of Games blog here that explores this in a little further detail. I'd post my Hyper piece, but unfortunately, it's in print!)

Part of the problem here is that I never see my character’s face. Whereas in games such as Mass Effect each conversation plays out by having a fully-voiced protagonist interact with NPCs based on dialogue decisions you’ve picked out, here, there is no audio.

You click a response based on what you want to say. Sure, you might argue that it’s your character who is making the response, and that you’re completing a “good” run or a “bad” run, but there is absolutely nothing about the character that dictates this. It’s purely the player’s decision to follow a certain path.

Perhaps we don’t play RPGs for rich characterisation. That’s fine. It’s been that way for years. But it can be done. Notwithstanding Mass Effect’s shortcomings, it places the player inside the middle of the action but without the abandonment Fallout 3 uses to create immersion.

Instead, we see your own face, reflect on the tone in your voice and become more of a puppet master than an avatar for your decisions. You’re here controlling the action in every conversation, but you’re not necessarily a part of it.

Or consider Deus Ex: Human Revolution and its own conversation battles. From the first person perspective, Jensen talks down criminals and head honchos using a variety of narrative options, fully voiced, making you feel more of a part of the action.

Both of these games provided me with fewer choices than Fallout 3 and yet I felt more attached to these characters than my own little vault dweller.

The lack of audio responses in games such as Fallout 3, Dragon Age and older RPGs such as Baldur’s Gate may be part of the avatar experience, but they also are a critical roadblock in the attempt to make characters more sympathetic.

Could it be the use of first-person perspective? Perhaps. But as I just pointed out, Deus Ex uses the same perspective for its conversation battles and yet you still feel a part of the action. It’s more likely to do with the fact that in Fallout 3, you never see your own face.

Yes, of course, there are moments where you catch a glimpse while in third-person. But for the majority of the action, the default-view is having you look through the characters’ eyes.

Even Dragon Age showed your character creepily standing by silently during text-driven conversations. Here, you’re not so much a part of the action as you are the direct conduit, and as a result, the use of facial-design features are pretty much nothing more than a distraction.

Is that a problem? Probably not. But we ought to acknowledge the limits of the genre and work around them in other ways.

The other end of the spectrum would suggest present characters in an Uncharted-like scripted format, but it’s not even necessary to change at all. When I say the use of these character building tools are fundamentally broken, they are, but only in the sense that they are broken when wasted. Maybe the only thing we need to add a little bit of sympathy is a face in a mirror.

For all the talk we do about how these games provide us with the opportunity to create any type of character we want, we ought to acknowledge more often how this system falls short of its potential, creates some of the least interesting characters and as a result, presents a fundamental barrier to inhabiting a digital body.

Note: This blog post was prompted by Critical Distance's "Blogs of the Round Table" project on the subject of "being other". You should go here and read the rest of the entries, they're all great. 

Second note: After being posted on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, this post has received a fair bit of attention. I've written a reply here. 

I've been on annual leave the past two weeks and during that time I've attempted to scratch some games off my pile of shame. I've been pretty successful so far, finishing Bastion, Amnesia, Uncharted 3 and Company of Heroes. Right now I'm battling through BioShock 2, which from what I've been told should take about 10 hours.

Part of the reason I've accumulated so many games is that I simply don't have enough time to play them all, given my full-time job and my freelance writing, coupled with the fact so many good games are being released due to the rise of independents. I'm actually grateful there doesn't seem to be anything really big coming out in the next couple of months, or at least anything I think should be given some attention. Please feel free to correct me if there's something coming in either January or February that I've missed.

But there's a big problem here. The gaming community, and more specifically, the gaming criticism community, is built on the discussion on whatever hot new title is out, and what that means for the industry and culture in general. Some sassy piece of writing hits the web and the whole culture goes into a frenzy for two or three weeks. And if you haven't played the game - well, tough luck for you. It just may be that you don't have the speed to keep up with everyone.

Eurogamer's review of Uncharted 3 is a great example, a wonderful piece of writing that sparked a fierce debate about the nature of linear games and specifically Naughty Dog's approach to story-telling. I felt lost out of that whole debate by not having played Uncharted 3 at that point. As a result, I felt like I was letting myself down as a writer.

But here's something to consider - how many other writers had completed Uncharted 3 by that point? Reviewers, certainly, but there undoubtedly would have been several other games writers who hadn't completed it and wouldn't for a long time. Hell, I didn't finish it until just before the New Year.

The fast-paced world of blogging and online criticism creates a rapid-fire atmosphere where critics are forced to gouge themselves on game after game after game to keep up to date with the discussion of what exactly this title will mean for us and the future of gaming.

That can be dangerous, as I've discovered this week during my pile of shame-ing. This voice in the back of your head mocking you, telling you you're too far behind the rest of the community, forces you to rush through games as fast as possible. It makes you hit the shift button or push the joystick forward all the way, makes you more focused on achieving the goal instead of enjoying the journey. Which is what games are all about, really.

I'm not attracted to the notion of Skyrim but consider its die-hard players - people who want to spend hundreds of hours in a carefully crafted world for you to explore. Players climb mountains, wander through forests and float down streams, completely captivated by their surroundings. That's what a game should do to you, completely entrance you in the world and build up that sense of atmosphere.

I played through the rest of Bastion last week, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it and join the rest of the gaming community in calling it one of the best games of the year, I found myself rushing through the levels as quickly as possible. After all, I have other games on my list - other games that are just as critically acclaimed - and I need to get to them. Fast.

I enjoyed the experience, but when I was finished, I felt extremely sad. I had wasted an opportunity to bask in the game's gorgeous visuals, and instead, just rushed through it.

Is this what Supergiant envisioned for their game? That people would simply ignore their artwork and focus on completing the story, rather than taking careful time and effort, and consideration for the hours upon hours that had been placed into the characters? The iconic narration ought to have reminded me that I was not meant to be speeding towards the goal. Rather, I should be slowly savouring every morsel. Like a bottle of delicious wine, or a kiss, games must be savored and should not be rushed.

This is partly why I appreciate games and developers that have taken into account a three-act structure when writing their games, such as Uncharted 3, which clearly adhered to traditional screenwriting principles. Arguments about its tired format notwithstanding, the use of pacing in Uncharted 3 allows gamers to rush through the parts that don't require as much attention, and then force them to slow down when the story commands it. Just as a well-crafted piece of music relies on dynamics to create tension and peace, a well-paced game must ensure the gamer has enough room to breathe, especially for those action-packed moments when your character needs to run to survive.

Early last year when I was completing Dead Space 2, there was a point at which Isaac floats out into space to correct some solar arrays that had been misplaced. Gliding out into the abyss, I took a few moments to look around me. After hours of escaping from giant monsters, screaming bloody murder while trying to attack me, I simply remained still. There were so many stars to look at, and the nearby planet looked gorgeous in the cosmic horizon. It was beautiful. I was taking it all in.

I cannot play every game. It is inevitable there will be many titles that I miss, due to the giant nature of the games industry. But for the games that I, and other games critics, play, it is imperative that we sit down and soak it all in. We're doing neither ourselves, or the developers, any benefit by focusing on the finish line.

Look at that vista. A vast, open land just teeming with the opportunity for exploration. Limitless possibilities urging you to take part in an epic adventure.

The enchantment of a sandbox game shouldn't be underestimated. Other writers have spoken about this before - the moment when the world map opens and you finally have an idea of just how big the world in which you inhabit as become.

It slowly dawns on you. The world is teeming with life, waiting for you to experience it on your own terms.

The attraction to these types of titles has dominated mainstream gaming discussion. So much so, that in reviews games are often praised for being "open", and others are criticized for being "linear".

This piece is concerned with neither argument. Rather, I wish to explore whether these sandbox games - titles which have been some of the most critically praised - are in fact games at all.

Consider Skyrim. A game which is built on the very premise that the world is so huge, so advanced and so teeming with life that no matter where you go and what you do, your experience is pretty much guaranteed to be different from another players.

And although Bethesda has been pushing the narrative aspect of the game in marketing, it's clear this is not the main focus. Instead, it's the hundreds of side quests you are meant to accomplish- side quests that are given much more prominence than the single player campaign itself.

In fact, not once have I seen any one appraise the single player portion of Skyrim. They talk about the various side quests and adventures therein.

So Skyrim doesn't have just one narrative. It has hundreds. This is where the narrative portion of the elder scrolls games has been placed - in hundreds of stories that serve to form a meta-arc for your own character.

It's a build your own story, if you will. A choose your own adventure. A huge expansive world in which quests are available for you to reform at random.

But does the lack of decisive victory conditions make Skyrim a game, or merely a toy?

Notwithstanding the literal meaning of the sandbox, in which children are assumed to make up their own games and stories, it appears the makers of these games are closer than they realise.

After all, when players finish the main narrative of Skyrim, there isn't much fanfare. There are a few acknowledgements of your efforts, but the world just keeps on living, just as it would if someone else had fulfilled the quest instead.

You are not the hero of this story, you're just a participant in a world that was created thousands of years before you got there.

This metaphor breaks down easily because of course, games like Skyrim, Just Cause and Far Cry 2 have storylines. They have characters, plot and other story related structures.

But there comes a point at which the player must ask – why did they bother?

If there is no point in completing the main quest in Skyrim only because it's another mission to complete, then why bother distinguishing at all? What is the point of a “main quest”?

If the purpose of Far Cry 2 is to experiment with the open land as much as possible, why are we caring about an arms war between two rival factions who have no credible back story?

No one cares at all, anyway. How many times have you heard someone talk about how great the single player portion of Just Cause 2 was? No, they talk about how great it was to slam jumbo jets into each other.

Let’s consider Minecraft.

If any "game" were to be considered a toy, it would be this. There are quite literally no win conditions, save for survival mode in which you have to, well, survive. But there are no achievements for doing so and your only reward is the ability to continue playing.

No, Minecraft is a toy, just like a real sandbox in which you create your own games. The game to create the starship Enterprise, or a deep underground mine, or whatever structure you want.

Of course, Minecraft can become a game but only based the rules its players set for any particular time. On its own, it’s a well crafted toy. A sophisticated toy, but a toy nonetheless.

And games just like Just Cause 2, Far Cry 2 and Skyrim come dangerously close to slipping into that category.

So what’s stopping them?

There are two considerations here. The first is that there is clearly a market of players who are concerned not with a main story, but with the ability to go off and do what they want, when they want.

Secondly, developers seem to be heading that way themselves. Look at the narrative options of these games – there’s barely anything there. It’s hardly storytelling on the level of Uncharted, Red Dead Redemption or games of similar ilk.

So why are they bothering? What’s the point? If they aren’t going to create great stories, why not focus on what they do best?

The word “toy” has some weird and childish connotations – these games are anything but childish. But there is nothing wrong with fully embracing the program of sidequests with which these games seem focused on already.

Drop the “main quest” part. Either go down the route of Red Dead Redemption and LA Noire, and create a gripping narrative within a sandbox, or don’t focus on the narrative at all. Developers shouldn’t pretend they’re creating a quality story when the side quests are the actual focus.

There are games, and then there are toys. Skyrim is the latter, and that’s okay. But we need to start thinking about what this means for development and consider that while quality narratives can exist within a sandbox, doesn’t mean they always should.

Note: The original inspiration for this post came from a discussion thread on the Something Awful forums, where there is a much broader discussion about the topic with different perspectives. 

The stories given to us in games are not the same ones we remember. Instead, it's a myriad of small, random moments that we share that bind us together and make a game, or at least the memory of a game, more than the sum of its parts. It's the personal stories we remember most.

Here are some of mine. It's nothing deep or extraordinary - just the role some games have played in my own life's story:

Super Mario World

When I was four, I moved to Auburn, Alabama. I barely even remember packing up and going, so all my first memories are from there. As a result, I sort of consider myself an honorary American even though I'm not a citizen and don't speak like one.

We got there in January of 1992, and for the first several months my family and I lived in an apartment building. It was nice, but temporary. In about the middle of the year, we ended up moving into our new house - a beautiful two story home on a nice suburban road, with a creek out the back.

As far as I remember, I didn't have many problems setting in or making friends. But that Christmas, my parents gave my brother and a Super Nintendo with Super Mario Brothers. We played it obsessively. I remember sitting with my Dad, having him hook up all the complicated cables while I read about all the cool games that were coming out on the box. I couldn't wait to start playing.

My brother and I were obsessed with Super Mario for months, and to this day, I go back and play it every now and again. It's truly one of the greatest games of all time, with enough secrets and challenges to keep a kid going for months.

But above all else, this period of my life is about family. While other parents chose to dissuade their children from playing video games, mine encouraged it. In fact, they were so encouraging that they actually pulled out the system after we had gone to bed, and spent hours trying to learn how to play it - unfortunately, to little success. They still talk about doing that.

Other times, they would sit on the couch as we would play and watch us try to beat levels, sometimes shouting out tips or suggesting things we should do. It was teamwork - an early version of co-op - and I never feel the same when I'm playing Mario by myself.

To me, playing Mario is synonymous with family. It's not a game I can enjoy on my own. Now, when my wife and I play Mario games, we try to work together - I don't know if I could do it any other way.

Ocarina of Time

When I was younger, my Dad used to travel. A lot. It seemed like he would be gone all the time – to China, Europe, somewhere else in the United States. Even when we moved back to Australia he seemed to be travelling a lot – at one stage he was in New Zealand for 10 weeks, only coming back on weekends.

That memory isn’t a source of frustration or anger. Just as he was gone a lot, he was also present a lot as well and at no point did I ever feel neglected. But still, there was a time in the late 1990s when video games were a distraction from the fact it would be just me, my brother and Mum.

During those times I would play Zelda. I saved up for this game for months. Having read all the gaming magazines that were available, I was so determined to get the limited release gold cartridge. Having seen how hard I was saving, when the game came out my mother pitched in the missing cash and bought it for me. I was ecstatic.

Funnily enough, even though my Dad was gone sometimes my biggest memories of this game are playing on a Saturday morning while he would chill on the couch reading a book. Every so often he would look up, make a comment about what I was doing in the game, and then get back to it.

Whenever a new Zelda is released, I think of that time. It makes me feel small and helpless, lost in a world where I have no control over my destiny. As it turns out, that's pretty appropriate.

Half Life 2

Finishing High School in Victoria is brutal, especially if you want to get in to a particular course that requires a high academic performance score. The course I wanted - Journalism - required just that. And because the subjects I were doing were considered "easy", I actually had a few points taken away.

I just got on with the job. I spent three hours studying every night, and several more on weekends. It took me a lot of hard work to finish that year. There were a few times I thought it would just become too much and I should give up. Sometimes, my parents literally told me to go to  parties to take my mind off things.

But I kept going, and games provided a great escape for me during times when it was all becoming a little bit unbearable. In fact, 2005 was when I started getting back into PC gaming. I had just built a PC with my friend earlier that year, and it was the first I had for a while that could play graphically intensive games. One of the first I got back into was Half Life 2.

It's a bit trite to compare the goal of finishing high school with the "goal" of conquering the controllers of City 17, but there is an association there that can't be broken. When I play Half Life 2 I'm back in my bedroom, resting from weeks of study and instead just focusing on the task at hand. I'm a very task and goal oriented person, so having to make my way through a quest of this kind kept me focused on what my real-life obligations were at that time.

I still replay Half Life 2 now and again. Each time, I'm transported to the cusp of my adulthood, when responsibilities were few and many at the same time. I was frightened, but also excited about the prospect of taking control of my life for the first time. Until then I had just been in High School because that's what you do. But working towards the end of secondary school is something that you own for yourself.

No one cares about whatever my ENTER score was that got me into university. I don't really care either, anymore. But I do care about the effort I put into obtaining that score. Half Life 2 is blood, sweat, tears and freedom.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Finishing high school leaves you a bit lost. The friends you thought were your close friends aren't really that close, and instead you see yourself hanging out with people you never thought you would. Your social circles change and the people you start spending time with, you realise are your real friends.

When this game launched in 2007, I was in my second year of university, was in a serious relationship, but I also had a great bunch of friends - friends that I had kept since High School. Because we had been spending time together for so long, it became real to me that this group was spending time together because we wanted to - not because we had to. It's a nice feeling.

We would play Modern Warfare at LANs, online together, getting into groups and playing the Gun Game mod. I don't really care who won or who was the best player, but spending care-free, late nights in the wee hours playing, taunting each other and having fun. It was a good time for all of us.

We all still get together and play, but we don't move on to more modern games. Instead, we still play CoD4. It's not the best multiplayer game on the market, but it's something that means a lot to us. When we play, we're all friends, just having a good time. Hopefully, that feeling will continue among us for a long time.

Assassin's Creed II

I only bought an Xbox last year after finding a pretty good mid-year deal when the new Slim versions came in. Having saved up for a while, I had enough cash, and lugged the entire thing home on the train, eagerly setting it up.

When I came home after work that day, I sat down on the couch next to my wife, started opening the box, and that’s when it struck me – that she was sitting alongside the box with me, reading the instructions and helping me fit everything together.

I read so many instances now of men who get married and say they have to stop playing video games, or they’re under pressure to stop spending so much time playing on the Xbox. But my wife – just like my parents – actively encourages my gaming. Not only that, but she actually games with me.

The first game I played on the Xbox was Assassin’s Creed II. I’ve written about the story, the lore, the atmosphere, and everything that makes the second game so great.

But really, I just liked being able to come home, slip onto the couch, and game next to my wife, who would encourage me and pick out things on the screen to laugh with me about.

This is my life now. I’m in a good place. I’m incredibly fortunate to have a professional writing career and a wife that actually supports me. While these prior games represented my childhood and adolescence, Assassin’s Creed II, to me, is about my marriage. Since then I’ve played Brotherhood and Revelations with my wife on the couch as well.

As my life ticks on, I can’t help but wonder about the next stages of my life and what games will represent them. If I have children – what games will we play together? And as I edge towards middle-age, what then? How will gaming have advanced?

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Just as smells and photographs trigger memories of faces, places and names, games evoke a sense of history that only a strong bond can bring up again. My generation is so in tune with games that we associate gameplay with times in our past – either good times or bad – and it’s incredibly difficult to let them go.

Sometimes, the best stories we get form games aren’t the ones written out beforehand. They are earned through the context in which we play and remember them. Those are the stories that can never grow old.

What about you? Do you have any games that remind you of a particular time? Did a game help you get past a difficult moment? Please feel free to share.

What is the purpose of a narrator? You might say a narrator is used by a storyteller to introduce listeners/viewers to the world in which the story takes place, or perhaps as a narrative device to frame the work you're about to see/read as a piece of fiction.

On the other hand, documentaries use narrators all the time. I can't associate a Ken Burns documentary without Keith David's smooth vocals, and The Inside Job wouldn't have been as gripping without Matt Damon's cool delivery.

As the title suggests, I've been playing Bastion. I'd heard about the narrative framework this game uses but hadn't even heard the voice until I started playing. Having this man narrate what you're doing and how you're doing it is a far better teaching tool than any other tutorial could have done. But I don't want to talk about that.

Why is the narrator here? The narrator is almost always positioned above a protagonist as an objective third party. He or she tells the story the way it should be told. The protagonist is simply too wrapped up in the action to be any help, and so the viewer, reader, or player, must assume the narrator knows what he or she is talking about and then go along for the ride. Most of the time it works.

But I've always been interested in the concept of an unreliable narrator. It's at the core of my work as a journalist - I interview so many people who think they are giving the "right" version of events, only to find out five minutes later that what actually happened was completely different. As a result, I'm drawn towards media that uses people telling lies, or slightly exaggerated versions of the truth. to tell different versions of events. This is one of the reasons why I think How I Met Your Mother is one of the best shows on television, as it spins back and forth in time to tell different versions of stories to keep episodes interesting.

One of my favourite musicals, Calamity Jane, is built on this premise. She appears on stage bragging about how she shot scores of indians, and all the chorus cries, "she's not exactly lying but she's careless with the truth". And yet, we're expected to trust this singing and dancing cowgirl who we're told is a downright liar?

So, Bastion. Everything you do, every action you take, is given some sort of narrative context, even if you fall off the edge of the platform and die. There's a comforting quality to this type of mechanic, as it gives the player some sense of structure. If there's a narrator, then the character has a concrete place in the story. After all, whenever you here a narrator, the words are chosen carefully and constructed in a way to tell the best story possible. When playing Bastion, you feel as if every action you make has been predestined, and you're working toward a greater goal.

But as ambitious a game Bastion is, I can't shake the feeling this narrative mechanic could go somewhere even better. Why can't we have games were the narrator outright lies to the player about what they're doing and how good they're doing it?

Perhaps we ought to be able to have more unreliable narrators in games? We've seen games like Braid or Prince of Persia where the player is able to rewind time to suit their needs if they fail to accomplish a task or beat an enemy. Could there be games where once a level, or boss, or interaction is completed, the narrator stops the action and says "actually, that's not how it happened it all", and then switch to a different level altogether?

Or imagine if you  had a narrator that was actually lying to you about what you should be doing. You'd have to learn over time when to ignore them and follow your instinct. It would be a great test in design.

I don't see why not. Up until now most games haven't had a narrator and they certainly haven't had any type of "unreliable" story-telling. What you see is what you get. But good story-telling is about subtlety and complexity. Once we have some of that, we might get some more complex and interesting games that experiment with narrative, story-telling, and the player's response to both.

Bastion is a great game with a wonderful premise. But developers should take the narrator mechanic and start messing with gamers' minds.

Note: I realise I forgot to mention Prince of Persia: Sands of Time here, which is probably a good example of what I'm talking about. But I think I'm imagining more situations where the narrator could actively work against the player, rather than the whole, "oh wait, that never happened" angle. 

Whenever I find a new favorite television show, I watch each episode fairly rapidly. It's not unusual for me to watch a 22 episode season within a week, even with 60+ hours put in at work and other activities.

My latest find is one I never thought I would watch - Friday Night Lights.  I've heard rumblings about this for several years now, about how it's one of the best shows of the past ten years, possibly ever. But I was always hesitant to check it out, because of a few words people kept repeating - "it's a football show".

I hate football. I hate all sports in general. Being part of a football culture is extremely frustrating, especially when people assume that you must back a team because, well, you're Australian, right? Wrong. I hate football, I hate everything to do with football and unless someone pays me I doubt I'll never attend another as long as I live.

But Friday Night Lights has me hooked. It's a football show that isn't about football.

There's enough written about FNL elsewhere, and why it's of such high quality. This show is about middle and lower class America. It is about marriage. It is about death, about responsibility, about growing up and about dealing with betrayal. The first cue I had this show would hook me was that you didn't see a football game until well into the first episode.

Instead, you see a montage of homes in country Texas, many of them run down and certainly not McMansions of any sort. A player reminds his grandmother to take her pills - it is clear he is th man of the house at 17.  - another wakes up among a trove of bottles.

There is pain and brokenness here. Football is pretty much all these kids have, and it's repeatedly said they aren't the brighest of the bunch, except for a few. The camerawork is shaky, lots of close ups, and the music is pretty minimalist with lots of single notes played on an electric guitar to emphasise that sense of loneliness.

A big part of my attraction to this story is the casting of the two leads - Eric and Tami Taylor. Eric  is a fascinating character. A new coach, a family to take care of and scathing commentary from talk-back radio hosts. The entire town is watching him and commenting on whether he really has what it takes.

It's pretty true to life. I've lived in a southern Alabama town and they are obsessed with football. One particular scene I thought captured this well was when Eric and his daughter Julie go to pick up some dinner at a fast food restaurant. One of the patrons intimidates Julie - "have you packed your bags yet?", referring to a game Taylor lost the previous week.

I've been hooked since then and I'm looking forward to the next three seasons, savoring it while I can. It's a great show and if you love quality television you'll love it too.

Now I want to talk about video games.

Just as I hate sports, I hate sports games. Madden, NHL, AFL, all of them. I hate them. It makes no sense for me to play game versions of sports that I detest, although I've certainly tried. They never hook me, and there's a reason why - they're horrible emulators of real life.

I need to clarify that statement a little. I've been watching football games since the early 1990s, and of course there is no question they games have become much more realistic. It's amazing quite frankly, how good these simulators have become.

If you're a football fan, I can see why these games are so great. You get to trade the players - your favorite players - you get to call the plays. You are the coach, you are the star quarterback, you are the linebacker making the ultimate touchdown that wins the championship game. It's addictive.

I'm also really impressed with the cinematics of these games as well. The commentary is pretty top notch, and you really feel like you're watching an NFL game as you play. I can definitely see why people love it. In a way, these games have done a great job of emulating the real thing.

But they haven't done a great job in recreating the life associated with a football game.

One of the reasons Friday Night Lights is so great is because it makes you feel the pressure associated with winning. Because you live life with these characters, you see the intense pressure they are placed under by parents, teachers, strangers, radio hosts, and family members on why they need to win, and why they need to win big.

You see this permeated so much that it forces one young player from a poor family to start taking steroids in order to impress recruits, so he will eventually get to the NFL and buy a bigger house for his widowed mother.

I don't see that pressure in a Madden game. It's certainly fun, a great simulator. But I dont see any NFL game putting pressure on the player to win, which is supposed to be the ultiamte goal of the game. Isn't it funny that a game based around winning doesn't give you any pressure in order to do so?

My question is this - why has there never been a sports game with the same kind of emotional intensity as Friday Night Lights? Why has there never been a Madden game that has tried to create a narrative around playing?

What I am imagining is a mix between a player swap game and actual play simulated like Madden injected with narrative elements that affect your playtime.

A few thoughts:

• Such a game would see the player act as the coach. They are the one person that holds the overall team together, making the plays, keeping everyone motivated and managing it all. Instead of managing each individual player, you would play as the coach. This allows for a wider scope of narrative and a much more interesting game than just a singular player. The stakes are much higher when you're the coach.

• Whenever you play a sports game, you aren't always thinking about the game at hand. No, you're thinking about the test you need to take next week, or the pretty girl in the bleachers, or that snide comment your boss made the other day. These things weigh on people's minds and make them stressed, and they affect their performance. Why does this never happen in a video game? It would be great to see this type of sports game incorporate elements of family life into playing. For instance, you ability to judge the game might be impaired, and you might start calling wrong play

• You should also have the ability to mentor your team directly. If a team doesn't believe in the coach then they won't play as well. Having individual players like you more or less depending on your actions and conversations with them should affect their performance, similar to the system used in Dragon Age.

• You should have to deal with scandals that your players involve themselves with. If you don't motivate someone enough, they might go off and do something stupid like take steroids, or assault someone, meaning they are suspended from play. You need to figure out a way to make your games work even though you might have some stars on the bench.

• The player should have to deal with family life  as well. If you're spending too much time thinking about football, working on football, your family will start to feel neglected and that will eat into your play style as well.

I have no idea if such a game would even work, or if it even can at all. And I understand the complaints. Football gamers wouldn't buy it, and those who might aren't necessarily interested in football. There really isn't a market for this sort of game, and I doubt it would be any sort of commercial success. But that does't mean it's not a good idea to play it.

But I still think this is something worth thinking about. Sports games have reached a point where improvements every year are really tweaks and small upgrades. To really take the genre somewhere new, narrative elements need to be applied.

A report on a Developer 2011 discussion on narrative has been published by GameSpot UK, and has some interesting tidbits about how developers think gamers play and interact with story.

The discussion, which was made up of a panel with five designers and writers from a number of companies including  Six to Start, Fail Better and nDreams, hard that "gamers are losing patience" when it comes to titles that go on for more than 10 hours.

Fail Better chief narrative officer Alexis Kennedy found that "so many people don't reach the end and lose the full impact of the story", with regard to Heavy Rain, while Broken Sword developer Charles Cecil said that "the way people play games has changed dramatically". There were also a number of discussions on how stories can be developed into the growing market of casual and social games.

But one of the most interesting comments was that there is now less need to create games that are more than 10 hours long, because gamers no longer feel as though they're being left out. Many gamers now are used to single player campaigns that are only five or six hours, or even shorter campaigns in social and casual games that are seen on mobile platforms.

The discussion raises an interesting point. A lot has been spoken of lately about game length - many gamers are pissed that campaigns are only a few hours long, with most of the work being put into the multiplayer mode. Especially in AAA titles like Call of Duty, where the latest campaign was barely six hours long.

It raises the ultimate question: how do developers decide how long a game should be?

There are a myriad of answers, depending on genre, form and tone. But perhaps developers need to be considering the story before deciding on how long a game can be.

Infinity Ward realises this. Just recently Robert Bowling told Gamefront that it will be capping the Modern Warfare 3 campaign length based on however long the story needs to be.

Whether or not this is indicative of the final quality of the game, it nevertheless shows that a major developer is willing to put a lot of emphasis on the story - so much that it actually determines the run of the game.

While there may be certain guidelines a developer should follow in making a game a certain length, a well written story should be able to keep players captivated for the entire length of the game, however long it is.

It's an interesting discussion, and one that will be explored on this site with a feature piece in the near future.

The Gamespot article is available here.