Review: Swing Vote

Directed by Joshua Michael Stern, this movie is about a man, Bud (Kevin Costner) , who doesn’t care much about politics or pretty much nothing at all except for his daughter Molly.  Molly registers his father so he can vote on election day and so the day comes but Bud gets drunk and never gets to vote.  Instead Molly decides to vote for him but something happens and the vote is not registered.  The next day the news announce that there is no new president because there is a draw in votes between the current republican president and the democrat candidate.  As Bud’s vote was left unregistered then he is to decide which candidate will be president for the next period.  So, the movie is about both candidates convincing Bud to vote for them.

I think this movie is great because it illustrates quite perfectly how democracy works.  Bud is a completely ignorant in political matters to the point he didn’t even know who the candidates for president were.  The candidates start trying convincing him by looking for things he might like and offering them to him.  They search for what he might want for the next president and so they start making propositions for their government that aren’t related at all with their campaigns.  And that, is something that happens all the time in most democracies.  The presidents try to buy votes by looking for what the majority and common people likes and they simply offer those things to them.  It stops being something about ideals and start becoming something about winning.

In the end, democracy works because it is all about satisfying the people’s needs and the most logical way to do this is by listening to the voice of the majority.  So what happens with the minority? Well, minorities tend to be easily spotted in specific groups so presidents can also generate propositions specifically for them.

However, I think the point of the movie wasn’t to show all this I have just said.  The point is that a country is better benefited if the voters are conscious about the problems that surround them and knowing what is best for the people, being educated about world issues and thinking about others as part of your decisions leads to a better quality of life for everybody.  If every voter stopped thinking of problems for their most inmediate consequences and realized that what is good for others is good for one would only leave one possible solution, the winner candidate would be more obvious, less superficial.

Review: Shawnimals’s Ninjatown

Ninjatown is a tower defense strategy game for Nintendo DS.  It has some original mechanics featured for the genre and is lighter to play than common tower defense games.  Its easy going, light gameplay, the cartoonish visual style and the ridiculously childish story and characters makes this a very fun game to play for those who likes to play childish.

GAMEPLAY

As others defense tower games the basic objective of Ninjatown is to protect something about incoming enemies.  To do so the player must locate towers with different characteristics in order to counter attack the inminent enemy offensive.  For Ninjatown the specific objective is stopping the enemies to cross given paths inside town in order to prevent them from stealing the ninja cookies recepies.

The innovative part of the gameplay is that instead of having the usual towers with some shooting turret or special power, it is provided with two ninjas that will engage enemies in combat.  So they are not really towers but huts instead.  Each hut hosts different types of ninjas and each ninja has different types of abilities.  They can be faster, stronger, perform range attacks or have special powers such as slowing down enemies.  And that’s not all, there are complementary huts which enhance the huts that are placed next to them so they increase its ninjas range, strength, health, speed or even gain more “happiness” from defending.

Happiness is something you earn from defeating enemies.  It lets the player do special general attacks over enemies that are done in-game by the ninja master.  This mechanic is very refreshing thanks to the different kind of actions that the Nintendo DS provides.  For example you can blow the enemies to push them back or scream something in order to stun them.  What is best about this feature is that it is very useful but not completely obligatory to use (you can finish the game without using this powers at all).

VISUAL STYLE

The style of the game is very cartoonish and very simple which suits a lot with the DS capabilities.  Everything in the game is very “lovely” and funny so you may find a lot of hearts and cute things in it.  This may be a game created for toddlers as far as the visual style and the story goes, something one could read to babies if it were a book.  For someone looking for astonishing effects and cool shaders then the style of Ninjatown may bother a little bit.  Otherwise I believe the visual style helps a lot in making the game easy to use and very intuitive.

STORY

The story as mentioned before is very childish and silly.  It doesn’t makes sense at all unless you want to use it to make your kids go to sleep.

The story goes like this (no spoiler here): There is a ninja town which has the recipe for a very delicious cookies and there’s a monster in the woods who wants to take the recipe to mass produce it and take control over the world.  That’s it.  There are some other details by I don’t think its needed here to go more deep into this complex story and I don’t want to spoil anybody’s adventure.

WHAT’S GOOD

The game is very original and refreshing for a tower defense game.  It is very easy to control and intuitive and it is very fun to just sit for a while and play a level or two.  There’s enough content in the game for one to get satisfied and there’s also a lot of variety in game mechanics.  Not every level is the same as the previous one, in some cases some levels feel a lot different from the others but it doesn’t take you away from the general gameplay concept.

The visual style and the story matches with the simplicity that the game inspires so this makes the perfect casual game for the day.

WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED

The story may be too silly and it doesn’t give any motivation to reveal its end.  There are also some features that are kind of useless in front of others but maybe this is influenced by the playing style of the users.  It would be interesting if some levels had limited use of certain huts or special powers.

The God-Human resemblance

So the bible says man is similar to God in some way.  “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” says in the Genesis… and so humans were created.  This is maybe the best clue about how God is according to christian-like religions, or at least is something we can say almost all of them have in common, at least the ones believing in the bible.

The question now relies in how much alike did God created man in the genesis?  Modern thinking has lead to thinking that wester religions such as the catholic and the christian created a God with human-like appearance (in art pieces from all across history) in order to make it more earthly and tangible but that in fact God is a supernatural power whith no physical limits and therefore is impossible for it to have the human-like form described almost everywhere.  What I know for sure is that this argument is being made for the holy institution’s own convenience since the bible itself (written by the same ones who lived the Jesus Christ era) says God created man alike with his own image.

We now know that Heaven is not some place that is above the clouds nor above what is above the clouds (and Hell is neither something underneath the earth).  Therefore if God is watching us he must be somewhere on Earth itself watching us all.  He cannot be everywhere unless he can exist not in one human-like being but in a lot of human-like beings.  This is extremely possible since we don’t know what’s inside every men’s mind and perhaps what’s inside them is God’s consciousness itself.

But if it is like that, then what about God’s morality? is it also alike to human’s.  I’m an atheist and this is just another argument I thought about God’s inexistance.  If God lives between us in order to look at us un lead us to our fate then he must has done things that surely goes against his own rules.  But who says his rules apply to himself? This can be true, but if it is so then his is not a just being nor benevolent.  He must also have unlimited power but it shan’t be perceived by the common human.  So he is not really all mighty because he is limited by the same humans: he can’t show his unlimited power to humans for some reason, the reason is unknown but we know he is not showing it since most of us simply haven’t see it (most of us is something like 99.999999% of us).

The Super Intelligent Morality

So what if we create the perfect Artificial Intelligence? Could we be able to invent a robot capable of making perfect reasoning considering infinite number of variables and information?

Let’s imagine for a moment what would be the World like if Artificial Intelligence succeeded.  In any scenario, for better or for worst, Artificial Intelligence will help humans in almost any task.  Robots would stop being just instruments for mechanical jobs but also take decision in administrative areas.  Their relational capacity will make them able of performing creative tasks such as writing, painting, acting, or even directing a film.  Their understanding on social behaviour would make them capable of leading and cooperating.  The would have Super Intelligence and would gather all those mental capabilities we as humans could not reach.

The big question here is: would they be able to make human decisions? could they get “crazy” and get to a decision such as destroying humanity in order to preserve Earth (after all this decision could not be that crazy after all)?  What is the answer to our future in terms of a perfect rationality?

Working next to Rock Band

I have been working in the game industry for almost 3 years.  Ever since I started in Immersion Games I have had time to play different games and enjoy some of them while at work.  It was almost like a company rule to play some game in the afternoon or almost when the day was over.  Back then we didn’t had any console so we played mostly Valve’s Counter Strike: Source and some other racing games for the one who didn’t like shooters.

But now times have changed.  We have all Wii, PS3 and XBox 360 in the office and worst for me… we have now Rockband and the GuitarHero: World Tour game.  I must admit that I like this type of games a lot, mostly playing the battery.  I can almost use 3 hours of my day playing games because is not only the rockband/guitarhero but all the games that now I can find in the steam with some kind of special offer.

Times have changed for my studio and also for the whole world.  We can find almost any demo on the XBox Live or the PlayStation Network.  For me, a PC gamer, I have the wonderful steam that for the first time in history has granted me to access to a whole lot of games and promotions to buy these which were never accessible to Latinamerican gamers.  Now I can buy a small game for US$9,99 when times before I had to spend almost US$29,99.  Big games are between US$29,99 to US$49,99 now when almost three years ago I had to spend almost US$99,99.  I think the way games are been comercialized nowadays is great reaching a whole new audience… but this is not what this is about right now, this is about playing games!  As I was saying, there a lot of games at the office with which I can get very distracted.  The question I make myself is: is this wrong? am I affecting the production flow by playing games?  Doest it get worst when everybody in the studio does this?

What I have seen is that there’s a lot of design changes in the middle of a game’s production.  I’ll take as an example Cellfactor: Psychokinetic Wars, a game in which I worked as programmer.  There were design changes until the end of the production (including the game name).  The thing here is that there are a lot of design issues all accross the development time and this can be a setback if the developers don’t know exactly what they are looking for.  It’s also a big time consumer when you have to test something in order to know if it goes well or bad in the game.  And that’s when playing a lot of games is the best thing to do because there will be a lot of game references which can aid developers in all kind of design issues no matter if he is a programmer, modeler, 2D artist…  It also doesn’t matter what type of game you are doing and what type of game you are taking for reference: there are always little details that you may find helpful like UI elements, Visual Effects used, Story design… you name it.

And finally, you will not only be having this games as a reference, but you will be updated with the last in innovation.  When I say innovation is not just about playing the latest games with the best graphics… is also playing those independent casual games that are sometime somehow under estimated.  But you’ll be surprised with what you find in the most simple games to do.  I have found really brilliant games and ideas for game mechanics that could also be implemented in a good AAA Game (sort of what Valve did with Portal by taking the Narbacular Drop idea).

[Update: (For the guys at the office)  Even though we play a lot games, we are still the most hard working developers you can ever find]

The Robin Hood Dilemma

So Robin Hood was a thief.  He stole from rich people for the good of the poor and for this Robin Hood is a hero.  Stealing is often a bad thing but good if done for the right reasons.  Or so is what the story tries to propose.

Let’s consider this: a society with one man and one woman.  The man has one apple and the woman has two and for this reason the man consider the woman as rich and himself as poor.  So he goes and steals the woman’s apples because it is what he considers just.  He eats the apples but the woman depended on those apples to survive so she dies.  Another thing that could happen is that the woman decides she is rich and that the man is poor, so she shares half of her extra apple with the man.  This way everybody is happy.

Now, let’s imagine the woman has a son and the man has a wife.  So the man still has one apple and the woman has two.  The woman has enough to feed herself and her son but the man is poor and can’t feed his wife.  So he decides to grow apples to feed his family indefinetely.  So the man and his wife lives for a lifetime while the woman and her child dies after three days of starvation.  The woman couldn’t have stolen the apples of the man because whe couldn’t have carried the tree.  The man didn’t want to share his apples because he needed to feed his family for all times.

So, Robin Hood appears to save the day.  He sees that the woman and her child are starving and so he decides to go and steal all the tree’s apples to give them to the woman.  The woman is happy because she can feed herself and her son for a long time now.  The man and his wife dies of starvation in some time but everyting is OK because they were selfish and didn’t wanted to share the apples.  However, Robin Hood, the woman nor her son knows how to grow apples.  So they run out of apples one day and starve to death.  Everybody dies.

The Democracy Nonsense

Democracy is a political system where voice and vote is given to the people.  This has been implemented in all countries as two fundamental rules: first, the people can express themselves and whatever they want without the government censoring anything and second, the people being able to vote for their representatives on every level of government.

However these rules are complete nonsense to achieve democracy.  It seems more like rules determined to simulate the idea of Democracy but as any simulation it is not real.  On the first hand, censoring is everywhere.  The media is controlled showing only what is convenient (or worst, what someone thinks that is convenient).  Also, there are new laws everyday trying to control people’s freedom in order to achieve something that someonet thinks is convenient for society.  Sacrifing freedome for stability in society is not the reasonable way because it attacks the effect of a problem instead of the cause.

On the other hand, voting for someone to make decisions for the people is like giving away the rights to make any opinion on the decisions made for the country anyway.  And even if the people wanted to make a protest or a petition on something, they wouldn’t be having the complete information to anything since the government is already censoring some information for the public for what they think is more convenient.

My conclusion is that democracy is as utopic as communism.  They both try to achieve something great but fails greatly because it seems impossible.  But capitalism has proven to be a practical solution instead of communism.  Could there be a more practical solution to democracy without sacrificing freedom and knowledge?

Review: Hidden Path Entertainment’s Defense Grid: The Awakening

Defense Grid: The Awakening is a Tower Defense strategy game.  It contains a lot of levels, different types of towers and enemies with interesting abilities which make the game have a much more entertaining experience.

GAMEPLAY

Defense Grid has all the basic features that you will find in almost any basic Tower Defense game.  The objective of the game is to build towers in specifics spots according to the level with the purpose of avoiding enemies to steal some energy cores needed to power the defense grid.

There’s a great variety of towers to build and each one will be unlocked according to the story ane each tower will have a maximum of 3 upgrades available.  Each upgrade has a cost on resources which are aquired by destroying enemies and with a bonus given by not using resources for a certain period of time.

Enemies also have some interesting abilities such as stealth (can’t be detected unless too close to a tower), shields (a power shield that gives a bonus protection), speed, flying, and the best of all: some enemies have the ability to share their power up with his neighbor friends.

VISUAL STYLE

This is a futuristic game with futuristic visual style.  I read once that this project started with a post apocalyptic style and later they changed it without the apocalyptic.  There are some tech styled scenarios and some alien stylish.  However I think the apocalyptic still shows up somehow during the game but it doesn’t bother me at all.  As a game that is clearly a 2D game is has a very good 3D visualization, having a great navigation and control system.

STORY

This game could have been done without a story.  You are some kind of base commander who have to control some points in the world to stop an alien invasion.  That’s all there is to know about the story.  The scenario art style varies depending on what you are attempting to do which is revealed by the defense grid AI at the beginning of every level.

WHAT’S GOOD

This game is an average goodie.  The visual style is average, the gameplay is good but it already existed and can be found for free somewhere else, and the story can completely be skipped.  The best part of this game are the enemies.  There’s a huge variety of them and you’ll need to try different strategies to stop them.

I’m a huge fan of Tower Defense games and this game is no exception to this genre.  It fulfills the most important expectations and can be very adictive.

WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED

I think there’s a lot to be learned from the free Tower Defense game.  The story mode makes this game a little bit less replayable, there should be some open scenarios where you just had to stop a random entry of enemies.

There’s also a lot to wish for in the tower upgrades.  One of the best features in the free Tower Defense is having to strive to upgrade the towers to the maximum (5 upgrades) being the last one an upgrade with special significance on its abilities.

The predefined levels doesn’t leave much to the option of building custom paths for the enemies.  In most of the levels the player will have to decide only which towers to place in order to have a better defense.  I think leaving more space where you can place towers can give major flexibility to the player in matter of strategy.

Review: Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia

Prince of Persia  is an action/adventure game with a hard focus on free running.  This new edition of Prince of Persia differs from its previous trilogy in almost everything: story, visual style and game philosophy.

GAMEPLAY

As all the different Prince of Persia games, this one also have a strong focus on approaching obstacles from the environment.  The difference this time has to do with the game philosophy implemented: less difficulty, less fighting, more contemplating.  In general this is a more casual game.

The combat combo system is still awesome.  Specific control buttons relate to specific combat modes such as magic, acrobatic, sword melee, and grabbing.  The more movements you attach into a combo the more damage a movement will do (and the more awesome the combo will look).  However combos are not a very importan feature in Prince of Persia now that combat is very rare in this game (you only fight with one common enemy and one boss per level).

The free running system is very well complemented with the company of the princess.  The princess will be an important asset in the whole gameplay since she will be the one providing the magical movements (and attacks) in the game.  Also it is the princess which will save the prince every time this one is about to die (making it impossible to die).  The feature where the player is not allowed to die in the game is heavily critized for this game, however there’s a penalty on failure by having to start again from the last steady surface where the prince stood and having enemy’s recover health.

VISUAL STYLE

The visual style for this game is specially unique.  It combines the dark, opaque, and dry style from Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within, and a more lighted, alive and colorful style taken from nothing I have ever seen before.

If what you want is watching amazing visual effects, incredible scenes and astonishing views then this is definetely the game for you.

STORY

The story is probably the most particular feature i Prince of Persia.  It starts with the prince walking in the desert looking for his donkey, Farah.  He meets the princess Elika and help her escape from some guards.  Later he learns that the guards are being sent by the king, the princess’ father.

*** SPOILER ALERT: If you don’t want to know about the developing story please skip the rest ***

It turns out to be that Elika had died before the prince had arrived and the king resurrected her by invoking the evil god Ahriman.  By invoking Ahriman all the kingdom turns into darkness and so the story carries on with the prince and Elika turning all the world back into light by activating some fertile grounds.

It seemed obvious to me since the moment that the game make notice about Elika’s death that by defeating Ahriman she would have to die again.  Eventually, this is what happens at the end.  However, trying to find a happy ending I broke again the trees which imprisoned Ahriman but the game ended tragically with a message: “What is one grain of sand in the storm?”  With this, Prince of Peria’s endings has become one of the strangest moments in a game.

WHAT’S GOOD

Although the story was a very strange experience at the end I consider it to be very original and is worth getting all the way till the end.  It will be something that will make you think a little and fantasize about future Prince of Persias.

The interaction between the prince and Elika is very appealing, and gives the player certain sense of socialization with the game.  Conversations with Elika never feels repetitive.

Also, the fact that you can’t die is a very good idea.  It could be improved but it makes it a more continuous experience without having to think in check points and saving the game.

Probably the best thing of Prince of Persia is its visual style and graphics technical excellence.  It makes the whole game something worth of looking at and playing.

WHAT COULD BE IMPROVED

The story end is good, however there’s not a lot of incentive during the game to make you play until the end.  The gamplay is somewhat monotonous.  The worst part about the gameplay is having to re-visit all the places over and over to gather enough light points to unlock new locations.

The Quick Time Events during combat are a little bit annoying and feel random most of the time.  I would leave the combat system the same as it was on previous Prince of Persias.

The gold bars

Yesterday when I was on my way home on the bus a man stepped in to ask for some money.  In exchange he offered the bus passengers a story named “The Gold Bars” and the story went like this:

“Once upon a time there were four men who found two gold bars in the woods.  They noticed their worries were suddenly solved.  For some reason two of them went to town to gather some supplies while the other two stayed in the woods taking care of the gold bars.  So the two men who went to town eated a lot and got drunk.  Meanwhile the other two men who stayed in the woods noticed that if they shared the gold bars between the four men then each one would have half of a bar.  They discussed about that and decided one bar was better than two so they decided to kill the other two they took a gun and hid behind a tree and waited for the other two to arrive.  When they did they shot them, they took the supplies they had bought and eated, got drunk and then felt asleep but they never woke up!  The reason was that while the two men who went to town had arranged that they didn’t wanted to share the gold bars and so they poisoned the food and drink they had brought them”

At this point the narrator asked the audience why we thought all those years of friendship between them had fallen into pieces and ended in that tragic ending.

What I thought was… “because they are simply greedy, stupid drunk men”.

But the answer the narrator gave was that it was AMBITION! It was men’s constant pursue for money.  I quite don’t agree.  This guy reminded me of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.  My conclusion is that every day I find more people who seems to confuse the terms between greedy and ambicious.  Is not the same.  I won’t explain it since I already quoted the gold bars story to illustrate it.