Of course, despite certain videogame-y elements, like minigames and very direct progression, the Miracle was pretty overtly intended as an educational tool, with its first priority on getting the basics out there. Rock Band 3 is some point on a much more circuitous path; there was nothing about the original Guitar Hero that was terribly similar to, oh, actually playing a guitar. Rock Band had a much clearer declaration of intent – “It’s like playing music with your friends” – but while the drums and vocals offered more realistic experiences if desired, the guitar mechanics were virtually unchanged. With RB3, their intent seems to have reached fruition – on the highest difficulties, Pro mode is apparently playing the song verbatim (albeit with only one hand on keyboards…). Once you’ve learned in the game, you can get yourself on a real keyboard/plug your guitar into an amp and hammer out the melody or chords FOR REAL! That’s fine and well, but I don’t feel that Rock Band has an appropriate framework for actually learning how to “play music” – it’s the difference between memorizing the solution to a puzzle and understanding how to solve it.

First, and this is pretty much *the* dealbreaker, beyond anything else for me, the game does not provide appropriate feedback for mistakes. Played the wrong note? *CHNK* Played the right note a bit too early? *CHNK* From a game design perspective, I can wave this away pretty easily (back when the buttons didn’t correspond 1:1 with notes, it was a reasonable, if not at all ideal, solution to the question of what noise to make when the player makes a mistake), but when it comes to actually understanding how an instrument works? I just don’t see how that’s workable. In the most brutally reductive sense, you are essentially playing an instrument with broken keys. I’m sure there are plenty of famous guitarists who were never taught, and started themselves off aping other performers they admired – but that hardly disproves my point. They had to figure out what they were playing by the trial and error of listening to the instrument in their hands. RB3 teaches you to follow visual cues on a screen as directly as possible, and what you learn from playing a wrong note is, “oh, that was a wrong note.”

Beyond that, the tremendously impersonal nature of the feedback hurts in other ways, too. For example, I’ve seen a lot of people bewildered by the fact that the keyboard is meant to be played one-handed. “How am I supposed to move my hands like that?” It would be a lot easier to explain if the game had anything to say about, oh, fingering. I’m completely serious when I say Pro Keys would be a much simpler for people to understand if the game had a demo that even just showed how to play a simple C-major scale. But of course, that would be superfluous when the game isn’t really interested in music theory anyway. Again, formal music instruction isn’t everything. But it’s much easier to understand, especially for people who don’t have a hell of a lot of innate talent.

Moving on, the fact that “play the whole song, starting from the beginning, at full speed” is the only way to work on a song is almost as bad. Yes, this is how I “practiced” piano when I was young and didn’t know better. No, it’s not actually a good way to do it. If you went to a professional orchestra rehearsal, even the day before a big concert, you might not see them play through an entire song, start to finish. Just bashing through a song over and over isn’t the most effective way to practice – not compared to breaking down the hard parts and working on them alone, and maybe even slower until you get them right. Repeatedly. That guitarist you’re imitating probably doesn’t only play his BLAZING GUITAR SOLOS at full speed when he’s preparing for a performance, regardless of whether or not he had a teacher who told him to go home and use his metronome every week. Why should the game expect you to?

I am not going to say that learning to read music, practicing songs hundreds of times, or grinding scales is “fun.” For many people, it is very hard work. But if your aim is to become “a guitar player” and not just “a person who can play ‘Du Hast’ on a guitar”, I don’t feel that Harmonix is providing a shortcut at all. If it’s enough to get you hooked, or convince you that maybe learning music isn’t as daunting as you might think, that’s awesome. But there is so, so, so much more depth and reward to be found in the performance of music than flashing lights and little dots and numbers on a screen.

While the overall package is solid, from the unusual story to the beautiful art, the thing that fascinates me most about KitN is how much the game is just a game.  For as much good as the current trends of story informing game design tend to do (after all, it’s responsible for things like the more unique elements of Dragon Quarter and the inventive network elements in Demon’s Souls), it’s amazing to see what people can come up with when they take most of their preconceptions off the table.  In most games, many elements of the HUD are frequently useless, but here, it comes directly into the gameplay.  The display of weapons you have selected for the turn doesn’t just show those weapons; you actually pick them up and move them to the unit that’s attacking.  A grid on the bottom of the screen indicates which enemies in the battle have been killed and which are currently active, but you don’t have to kill every one to proceed, just enough to complete a line on that grid, at which point you’ll “Break through!” and win the battle.  It’s a leap of game logic that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense placed next to anything else, but it’s perfectly understandable on its own terms.

There’s still plenty of connections between the game and story, though, but even they stand out as unusual.  The player character is a disembodied soul, capable of moving around the screen to avoid enemy attacks.  The other characters are also souls, but they’re not controlled directly; only by being joined with the player’s soul can they act.  And because (basically) everyone on your side is already dead, the game doesn’t use standard “health” like in RPGs.  The main soul’s actions are based on time, and being hit by bullets decreases the amount of time you get per turn.  The other souls run on a “Vitality” stat, which generally only depletes when they attack.  If it runs out, they’ll really “die,” and you’ll no longer be able to use them for anything.  It’s important to avoid this because even a Knight with .01 Vit left can still be useful out of battle or restored with level-ups.

If anything, the game’s weakness is in its writing itself.  Atlus have, as always, done a lot with the text, but the general style is still rather disjointed and confusing, especially at first.  As the plot begins to come together, it gets easier to understand what’s happening and what the writing is going for, but even then, it can feel kind of weird.  The plot itself features plenty of generic elements, but the “everyone is already dead” angle does a lot for the game’s flavor; like in Valkyrie Profile, seeing characters in some of their final moments is often pretty powerful.

Even that is just symptomatic of the game’s bigger trouble, though.  It’s almost too ambitious, getting caught up on big ideas before trying to draw people in.  Though the tutorials are (rightly) optional, the choice remains to either spend half an hour becoming familiar with the combat before even the first, simplest battle, or to wade right in and become overwhelmed.  I’ve talked to many people who played a bit and then got distracted or put off, and that’s a shame.  The game deserves better, and I really hope I can convince others to give it a chance.  Armed with a bit of knowledge about the planning and general strategy, I feel a lot of people will have an easier time getting into this wonderful Nightmare.

Anyway, my brother has the TV on pretty much constantly when he’s around and I never feel like fighting him over it so I ended up watching a movie called War Games tonight.  It’s pretty obviously from the ’80s, with a slight sci-fi bent most obvious in the main character (played by Matthew Broderick) having a relatively attractive girlfriend in high school.  Other than that, though, he’s pretty relatable even now; pretty smart, but underachieving and more interested in enjoying himself.

As for the overall plot, it’s another movie with a message about nuclear war, but not only will I not compare it to Dr. Strangelove (which is probably my favorite movie ever), I have to say it’s pretty enjoyable in its own right despite being blatantly preachy and incredibly absurd.  There’s basically not a single plot point that’s remotely believable, at least to anyone who knows anything about computers or AI.  The best part is at the climax when they’re shouting at the computer to just LEARN.

Then, of course, it does.

Even though nothing that happens in the entire film stands out as particularly believable, it’s still pretty enjoyable once you start suspending disbelief.  It’s got a classic ’80s charm and feels pretty well-paced.  It’s also really light on special effects (if there are really any at all, I don’t think I particularly noticed any) and has some fantastic sets, particularly the expansive NORAD they built, with all sorts of lightning and what I’m pretty sure is an incredible number of computer screens for a 25-year-old movie.

God Hand is one of the greatest games on the Playstation 2, and is frequently lauded for its music and the combat system, which is surprisingly deep and varied.  One thing that is rarely mentioned, however, even among fans of the game, is the plot.  Despite appearing initially to be a flimsy justification to punch things and a vehicle for silliness and jokes, and both of these are perfectly fine reasons to have a plot, God Hand’s story and characters have a depth rarely seen in game plots in any genre.  In it, the writers create a likable main character whose struggle and motives are well explained, and moreover, they explore the dynamics of male-female relationships in a manner that is at times brutally honest.

Gene’s battle begins in media res, with only a sliver of exposition.  Immediately, his troubles are revealed to the player.  He is thirsty and needs water, badly. However, he is suddenly approached by a pair of thugs, interrupting his important quest for a refreshing drink.  Here, the other main character is also introduced, a young woman who implores him to beat them up, further encouraging him by saying that it will be “cake.”  Gene’s response, “and [they're] sexier than you!” indicates some animosity or perhaps resentment toward her on his part.  However, the game wastes no more time at this point explaining what the cause of this might be; it is, in fact, time to go bust some heads for Gene.

The first environment wordlessly expresses many elements of the game’s world.  The town resembles one that would appear in a Western, with rickety wooden barrels and buildings, stables and a saloon, and dusty main roads.  Later areas build upon this, slowly revealing as more high-tech objects appear, that the setting is certainly not the 19th century.  The neon lights in the safe town where Gene shops and gambles begin this, and the massive, robotic crab that serves as the stage for stage 4 shows that the world has reached a state of advanced technology, and then, for some reason, regressed.  The story scenes never state anything about this outright, allowing the world to explain itself, where so many other modern games would feel compelled to describe every conceivable element and more of the apparent apocalypse.

In the second scene, Gene and Olivia’s relationship is further elaborated upon.  He shows himself again to be easily cowed by her, and furthermore, she places a piece of paper reading “Kick Me!” on his back as he leaves, as in the well-known practical joke.  Even though she depends on his assistance, it seems, performing no actual combat herself, she does not appear to value it.  However, the “Kick Me Sign” disappears if Gene uses one of his God Hand powers, thus asserting his masculinity in the face of her mocking.  Should he choose to not resort to such overt displays of power, though, the game is much more difficult.  Therefore, the meaning is apparent: though acting macho works well in the short run, it is the long-term, subtle displays of strength that show true manliness to friends and enemies.

Soon, the player learns that Olivia’s family are the keepers of the God Hands, and that she has entrusted one to Gene so that he will protect her.  He resents being used as a tool, but is unable to rebel against her as she carries an axe with her at all times and threatens to remove his arm with it.  Even when she is taking a bath, he finds her sufficiently intimidating and is unable to confront her.

Unknowingly, she is playing on his fear of having his arm cut off, which comes from a previous traumatic experience in which he did in fact lose that appendage due to  work of three villainous thugs.  All people are fairly attached to their limbs and would not like to lose them, but having suffered this fate himself, Gene is especially sensitive in this situation and his suffering is entirely relatable to the player, who knows that missing one or more hands would mean he or she would never be able to play God Hand again.

Gene is, ultimately, devoted to Olivia despite her bullying, and though the game never explains why, it becomes more apparent as the story progresses.  The handling of this is also impressive, because as opposed to many game plots in which the main character is a jerk the entire time until he has a sudden, complete reversal, Gene’s signs of caring are revealed incrementally and his “reasons” are never explained-it could just be that for all he knows, she’s the last remotely decent woman in the world-but that’s just the sort of mystery that should be present in a love story.  Though, to the end, Olivia continues to intimidate Gene with the axe, she seems to value him in return, especially as she knows how to keep him under control.

Thanks to the complicated interactions between Gene and Olivia, they stand out from so many characters who feature simple motives, spelled out in a manner so stupid as to not be worth talking about at all.  While the obvious elements of God Hand’s storyline are cliche and predictable, the real meat of the storyline lies in these characters, and they only add to what is already a fantastic game.