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Telltale’s Engine Was a Telltale Joke and a Liability

For years, Telltale Games has been doing god’s work by making fun and engaging episodic stories for video game consoles, computers, cell phones, and any thing else that could run their proprietary engine. At times it seemed as though Telltale games were being ported to nearly as many devices as Doom. It says a lot that a proprietary engine would end up being malleable enough to make so many leaps to so many different consoles and across generations. But, that same engine has become a liability for the company as we saw recently when Telltale laid off a quarter of its workforce.

I have been playing Telltale games since the Sam & Max games were announced. Telltale Games preached to the masses that they were going to bring about the long desired model of episodic gaming and many were excited about the prospect of a video game that could be played like TV is consumed; in small compact bites. Episodic gaming is an idea that had been a glint in the eyes of the video game industry for years but had never really been done in a way that worked (see Half-Life and SiN Episodes).

Sam & Max finally made that dream come true for one developer. Telltale become the one company that you could count on to actually finish their episodic stories and, for those of us who had been burnt by other developers on our episodic dreams, it was a welcome form of storytelling.

Back to the Future was the first Telltale game that I played to completion near to its actual release. (I am not a person who plays games day-and-date.) I enjoyed the game immensely but I did see some issues with the engine during my play though on the PS3 at the time. While BttF had some issues, it didn’t stop me from seeing the good points of the episodic way of storytelling in games.

Back to the Future and Jurassic Park were two games that showed us how dated the Telltale engine had become and these games came out before Telltale’s massively popular The Walking Dead was berthed into the gaming conscience.

The Walking Dead came out at a perfect time for Telltale. The comic and the TV series had both become cultural touchstones and the game’s focus on player choice and accessibility made the game easy for almost any fan of the series to get into.

It was around this time that Telltale had become the darling of licensed video games within the industry. They obtained licenses for many beloved franchises; they were chosen as “the” studio to put out a cheap, assessable games for nearly any premier property. It’s almost as if Telltale games had taken over for the cheap licensed game…game of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. But, many reviewers and fans alike had started to see the cracks in the engine.

Patrick Klepek, for me one of the ultimate Telltale reviewers, has bemoaned the Telltale engine for quite a while now while still enjoying parts of nearly all of their games. He wrote an article on Waypoint back in April concerning the issues he saw with the engine while he was playing through Guardians of the Galaxy.

Telltale’s history of hobbled tech goes back a ways, too. A source told me that even as the company was riding the success of The Walking Dead, their engine didn’t have a physics system. (Telltale has their own proprietary technology, it doesn’t use Unity, Unreal, or something else off the shelf.) If a designer came up with a scene requiring a ball to roll across the floor, or a book to fall off a shelf, it had to done by hand, an enormous time and resource commitment.

 

It’s my understanding that little has changed since, but Telltale didn’t respond to my request for comment.

Patrick was one of the early reviewers of The Walking Dead that was excited for the series and the innovative style of storytelling that Telltale was implementing with The Walking Dead series and how it has changed the way their games tell a story.

Telltale itself announced that Batman: The Telltale Series would feature a heavily updated version of its engine but even this doesn’t seem to have solved the issues for Telltale because as the Gamasutra article that announced the layoff informed,

Additionally, the company says the restructuring will be used as a way to shift the technology it uses for its own internal projects, saying that it aims to move over “to more proven technologies that will fast-track innovation in its core products.”

It is good that the company is moving on to new and “more proven technologies” but it is always sad when so many people lose their jobs. If Telltale had implemented these changes earlier could they have saved some of these jobs? Will these changes make for better more easily produced games? Who knows.

I’m glad Telltale Games is finally moving on from their old engine which provided some pretty good licensed titles and even some interesting original content. Hopefully they can get back to putting out quality stories without the technology getting in the way.

You can watch my play through of The Walking Dead: Season One Episode Three and Four here:

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Batman: Arkham Asylum Footage-cast

I just finished playing Arkham Asylum and I am going to start working on my next review. Join me as I finish up some Riddler Trophies and play a little bit of the hard mode.

Watch live video from OWR_Games on www.twitch.tv

 

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Bloodborne: And The Revival of “God Dammit!” Games

bloodborne dude with wingsIt really is admirable how Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of Bloodborne and the first two games in the Souls series, has reincarnated controller splitting, TV breaking, middle finger flippin’ games. Actually, Miyazaki’s games were at the genesis of this renaissance of impossibly difficult yet supremely rewarding games that have become the darlings of the industry. Most of these games are also for non-traditional developers.

Games have been trying to be more like movies for a long time. (Maybe it’s better to say the publishers wish games were more like movies.) But it was the PS3/X-Box 360 era where games became more streamlined – shorter length, longer cut scenes, more difficulty settings, etc. The industry knew that with potentially larger audiences purchasing the games; games needed to be more accessible. The machismo associated with hard difficulties and impossible bosses became more muted. The Wii definitely helped broaden the audience, but move to make games more accessible had been happening for years and it wasn’t necessarily bad for the industry.

We got games like The Elder Scrolls IV:Oblivion, Heavy Rain, and Gears of War. All of yolo arrowthese games were extremely cinematic and each game was accessible to a broadening group of gamers who have just as divergent familiarity with games. It wasn’t until later in the generation when we started seeing games like Demon Souls, Rouge Legacy, and Spelunky. While Rouge-likes have been gaining in popularity over the last generation, Demon Souls really blew the door open and showed the gaming industry that people like challenging difficulty.

A lot of the challenging difficulty associated with games had a lot to do with arcade culture and the need to have people insert more and more cash into the machine. I touched upon the machismo of difficulty as well. The difficulty of yesteryear was traditionally just bad game design. This caused a lot of violent outbursts at arcades which led to fights and broken machines and, in the home, it led to a lot of broken controllers and stern parental reprimanding after especially violent outbursts.

fuck youThis new crop of challenging games that have sprouted through the beds of mediocre, AAA games have taught us how to appreciate good game design again. I’m not saying these games are perfect. I’m not even saying they don’t have cheap parts to them. I’m saying game design has advanced a lot in the recent years and these games are a testament to good game design. They have caused a resurgence in games that make us take a step back and think about our next move. The difference is this time when we fail again and again and scream “God Dammit,” we smile and get back to it cause in the end it’s fun.

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Claptrap! Bang, Zoom, I’m Gonna Knock You Straight to the Moon!

 

Claptrap gonna get some DV
One of these days Claptrap!

Last week Gearbox announced that there will be an addition to the Borderlands franchise that will release before the year’s end. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel will be released for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

The biggest reveal though was that the player will be able to control Claptrap, the bouncy helper-bot from the first two games, as well as controlling other new playable characters. (The last game’s decision to add all new playable characters was a point of contention for many fans.)

I was not aware of much Claptrap hate before I read the Joystiq article. Matt Armstrong, Borderlands franchise director at Gearbox, said this to Joystiq concerning players love/hate relationship with the franchise mascot:

The four playable characters in Borderlands the Pre-sequel
3 characters PLUS Claptrap…huh?!

Some people will love Claptrap. Some people will hate Claptrap, as it’s always been. We would not be surprised to see – not to get too deep into what Claptrap is or how he works – but we fully expect to see servers that are called ‘No Claptraps Allowed,’ where if you join as a Claptrap, you get kicked. We’re okay with that.

I am one of the fans who does like Claptrap. I could see how the character could become annoying after hours of play, but shouldn’t the team take that as a challenge? Shouldn’t players who hate Claptrap expect dialog and action that will change their feelings towards the mascot?

The newest addition to the series will not be developed by the Plano, Texas based Gearbox studio, but instead 2K Australia will take the reins on this project. Gearbox is working on the next generation sequel to it’s popular Brothers in Arms franchise and most likely in development on the next Borderlands game.

words on a black backgroundBut, why isn’t Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel coming to Xbox One and Playstation 4?

Armstong threw some PR spin on his response to Joystiq’s question concerning why the game is not running on “current” generation platforms (i.e. Xbox One and PS4). Armstrong and Gearbox believe the Borderlands audience is still using their Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. “The install base [on Xbox One and PS4] isn’t quite there yet,” he says. “They’re doing fantastically well, and it’s going to be great in the next couple years, but I think we’re going to go where our fans are.”

What does this say about Borderlands audience?

What does this say about the Xbox One and Playstation 4 audience?

cat meme about marketingThis kind of thing happens every generation, so there is no need to worry about your favorite franchise or your Xbox One or Playstation 4. Smaller developers tend to make a play for keeping “last” generation consoles relevant.

Even though Armstrong doesn’t want us to believe that the development of the next game in the series wasn’t driven by marketing, we all know that was – and that’s fine. They want to keep Borderlands on people’s minds until Borderlands 3 and the best way to do that is to use the current engine and hardware to put out an offshoot.

That’s okay. Actually, that’s great. But…it’s still driven by marketing.