Dead on arrival

by ERIK LEIJON

The Game Developers Conference happened last week in San Francisco: a yearly event where industry folk fret over the state of gaming and party afterwards. Although I was not invited to speak this year (besides, I was in Oslo accepting a Nobel Peace Prize), I still scribbled down an awesome speech outline on the back of a 3 Brasseurs coaster. So instead of industry types, you shall be my audience.

Ladies and gentlemen, and of course Will (points to a spellbound Will Wright in the front row), the unexpected worldwide success of the Nintendo Wii and portable devices such as the Sony PSP have forced developers to think about adapting popular franchises to these very unique platforms. Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (Wii/Capcom) and Resistance: Retribution (PSP/SCEA, Sony Bend) fit on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Dead Rising takes the 2006 XBox 360 zombie-blasting original and strips it of everything that made it fun—almost as if the game’s brains had been eaten. (crowd laughs) Resistance: Retribution doesn’t even have the pretence of looking or playing as well as the Playstation 3 Resistance, but instead simplifies the shooting mechanics and adds a new, true-to-canon storyline to entice existing fans. Ladies and gentlemen—we’re at a crossroads.

If you look at the monitor here (damn, no Power Point in print media!), Dead Rising was a surprise success in the early days of the XBox 360. Not to anyone who played the game though, as technologically, it was the first time anyone was able to place hundreds of slow-moving, brain-consuming zombies in the same space without sacrificing graphic quality. Adding the opportunity to snap pictures of zombies before capping them was an original touch.

Chop Till You Drop has the same storyline and the Romero-esque shopping mall remains the ideal setting, but everything else has changed—leading me to wonder why the game was made at all. (thematically appropriate lolcat picture appears on monitor, crowd laughs)

The Wii can only handle a fraction of on-screen zombies, the game looks choppy and colourless, and despite still playing the role of a photojournalist, photo-taking was removed from the game. Oh sure, you can shoot things with the Wii remote, but c’mon people, where’s the innovation!?! (crowd claps, nods approvingly) Resident Evil 4 was a pretty good Wii adaptation, and House of the Dead had a similar vibe and worked. With a name like Chop Till You Drop—that implies running amok with a chainsaw—why not make a completely original game?

Okay, now how many of you played Resistance? (half raise their hands) First-person shooters on the PSP are usually pretty terrible, so Sony was smart by turning the WWII-era alien invasion game into a third-person shooter with buttonless auto-cover for simplicity. There are only so many variations of shooting aliens while hiding behind a wall—even if you’re online—but Retribution was smart to keep the same presentation of the first PS3 Resistance, meaning that annoying British lady is back narrating the in-between level cutscenes.

Personally, I love it. Because the story isn’t convoluted, I actually wanted to know what happens to my character. People, we need to make games that give players a reason to care. If not, we’re making brainless games for brainless consumers. (picture of zombies flashes on monitor, crowd laughs) Thank you, come back in one hour for a conference on in-studio engines versus outsourcing.

No garden variety

This years winner of the Seumas McNally Grand Prize for best indie game? Blueberry Garden, by Swedish developer Erik Svedang. Previous winners have gone on to big things, so follow his progress at eriksvedang.wordpress.com/blueberrygarden.