A while ago EDGE magazine here in the UK ran a feature under their 'Making Of' series on 'Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness'. It was a fascinating read, made all the more so because of the fact the writer/s had secured comment from some of the game's developers (now safely moved on some distance to other companies and therefore, presumably, able to speak without fear of consequence). I consider it one of the best pieces of modern videogame journalism I've read in a long while simply because this was the kind of story that rarely - if ever - gets told: how a bad videogame gets to be made.
I wrote to EDGE, congratulating them on the story (a letter they were gracious enough to print in the subsequent issue), even asking if they'd fancy doing a similar take on 'Two Worlds' - another game that emerged onto store shelves in an apparently broken state. With their customary diplomacy and tact, EDGE replied that perhaps with time and distance such a feature might be possible (not for a good while yet, I'll bet).
I've been playing Dark Messiah on the 360 just recently. Yep, another in a long line of titles that leaves me scratching my head in genuine bewilderment and not a little anger. How is it possible that a game built for a dedicated (i.e. locked) next-gen console architecture, on the bones of a four year-old game engine (Source) struggles to perform even as well as it's bug-riddled PC version, which debuted well over a year earlier? How is it possible that this game, released in 2007 on 360, looks and plays like it was beamed in from 2004 on a less than capable PC? How, in the name of all things holy, is it even possible nobody at the developer, the publisher, the tester or QA even seemed to notice anything might be remotely amiss..?
These things bother me. They bother me because I know for a fact the people who make videogames, as a rule, are not stupid. They can't be. Making a videogame seems to me, as no more than a player who has dabbled with various level editors, to be a huge technical and artistic undertaking, these days requiring a veritable army of talented and skilled specialists - not to mention a staggering amount of capital funding. I just want to know how then, given all this, that a title can emerge from development without any one of these individuals apparently ever spotting There Might Be A Problem..?
How does it work? Does eveyone in development realise at some point along the long, slow journey to that final milestone that things just haven't worked out quite the way they'd been imagined two years back when all they had were a few production sketches and some venture capital? Do they realise that, but just have to ship anyway? Do publishers wilfully decide to ignore the obvious flaws, forbid any further tinkering and order the game out of the gates knowing that this isn't quite the game they were promised and will, in all likelihood, struggle to ever recoup its costs? Is that even good business sense? Is there a point of no return for a game that is clearly struggling, failing to meet the grade? If so, how do we explain Duke Nukem Forever - a title who's tale of development hell will surely prove far more interesting than the product itself (boy, would I like to be the journalist who gets to tell that particular tale - videogaming's equivalent to 'Burden of Dreams' the fascinating feature-length documenatry about film director Werner Herzog's mind-blowngly difficult time making 'Fitzcarraldo').
Videogame journalism in particular needs to take it's subject a little more seriously, to stop being seduced by those mesmerizingly gigantic marketing spends and PR events, to become rather more critical and able to call to account titles and teams who are just not making the grade. This is a great time for the medium - truly impressive titles are being shipped and even an average gamer like me can spot quality a mile off. But, perhaps because of that excellence, I can also see the dross, the also-rans and the far less than perfect entries.
And if I can do that, without any special aptitude or skill for making games, how come the experts, who, after all, know a thing or two about this stuff apparently cannot?
I wrote to EDGE, congratulating them on the story (a letter they were gracious enough to print in the subsequent issue), even asking if they'd fancy doing a similar take on 'Two Worlds' - another game that emerged onto store shelves in an apparently broken state. With their customary diplomacy and tact, EDGE replied that perhaps with time and distance such a feature might be possible (not for a good while yet, I'll bet).
I've been playing Dark Messiah on the 360 just recently. Yep, another in a long line of titles that leaves me scratching my head in genuine bewilderment and not a little anger. How is it possible that a game built for a dedicated (i.e. locked) next-gen console architecture, on the bones of a four year-old game engine (Source) struggles to perform even as well as it's bug-riddled PC version, which debuted well over a year earlier? How is it possible that this game, released in 2007 on 360, looks and plays like it was beamed in from 2004 on a less than capable PC? How, in the name of all things holy, is it even possible nobody at the developer, the publisher, the tester or QA even seemed to notice anything might be remotely amiss..?
These things bother me. They bother me because I know for a fact the people who make videogames, as a rule, are not stupid. They can't be. Making a videogame seems to me, as no more than a player who has dabbled with various level editors, to be a huge technical and artistic undertaking, these days requiring a veritable army of talented and skilled specialists - not to mention a staggering amount of capital funding. I just want to know how then, given all this, that a title can emerge from development without any one of these individuals apparently ever spotting There Might Be A Problem..?
How does it work? Does eveyone in development realise at some point along the long, slow journey to that final milestone that things just haven't worked out quite the way they'd been imagined two years back when all they had were a few production sketches and some venture capital? Do they realise that, but just have to ship anyway? Do publishers wilfully decide to ignore the obvious flaws, forbid any further tinkering and order the game out of the gates knowing that this isn't quite the game they were promised and will, in all likelihood, struggle to ever recoup its costs? Is that even good business sense? Is there a point of no return for a game that is clearly struggling, failing to meet the grade? If so, how do we explain Duke Nukem Forever - a title who's tale of development hell will surely prove far more interesting than the product itself (boy, would I like to be the journalist who gets to tell that particular tale - videogaming's equivalent to 'Burden of Dreams' the fascinating feature-length documenatry about film director Werner Herzog's mind-blowngly difficult time making 'Fitzcarraldo').
Videogame journalism in particular needs to take it's subject a little more seriously, to stop being seduced by those mesmerizingly gigantic marketing spends and PR events, to become rather more critical and able to call to account titles and teams who are just not making the grade. This is a great time for the medium - truly impressive titles are being shipped and even an average gamer like me can spot quality a mile off. But, perhaps because of that excellence, I can also see the dross, the also-rans and the far less than perfect entries.
And if I can do that, without any special aptitude or skill for making games, how come the experts, who, after all, know a thing or two about this stuff apparently cannot?
