I don’t usually watch press conferences. They either rub me up the wrong way by being filled with too much corporate chart waving, or have too many “we’re just like you, bro” developers on stage at once. Be that as it may, I did catch Sony’s Gamescom presentation for one reason or another and, despite the awkward opening, I was pleasantly surprised by the variety Sony is bringing to its platforms, particularly its much maligned portable, the Vita.
Sony have shown a real enthusiasm towards the Vita in recent months with a strong focus on supporting indie games such as Volume (Mike Bithell was included in a video confirming as much), Hotline Miami 2, and Fez. Also, the portable’s most promising bigger budget games, Media Molecule’s Tearaway and Ovosonico’s Murasaki Baby to name but two, go against Sony’s early mantra for the Vita, of shrinking down triple-A experiences and letting you play them on the bus or wherever. Shahid Ahmad, Sony Europe’s Senior Business Development Manager and the driving force behind the mass indie support, was the most genuine person speaking that day, and his enthusiasm instilled a certain confidence in the company’s stance on the matter. Colour me swayed.
That wasn’t the only video I watched that day. I’d grown interested in the Assassin’s Creed franchise recently, having dabbled with Assassin’s Creed III, and decided to have a look at an early presentation of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. All was going well, pirating and swashbuckling and the like, until one of the developers explained it would take half an hour to sail from one side of the map to the other. Half an hour. Obviously, not every play would consist of these epic cruises, but it shows a certain amount of intention from Ubisoft Montreal, that it wants its players in for long haul.
It’s not so much a matter of time, but a matter of time well spent.
Then I think about Limbo and Journey, and how memorable they were. How I could run through the entire game in a couple of hours and still be left as satisfied as completing a 60-hour triple-A monster. It’s not so much a matter of time, but a matter of time well spent. Certainly in the past, I wouldn’t bat an eyelid at spending a whole month trying to take a game through to 100% and find all its nooks and crannies. I was the first one of my friends to find all 100 secret packages in GTA3, something of a personal achievement back in the day, but a source of regret now; I should have spent that time studying or talking to old relatives. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Being concise is something that is low on the agenda for most game manufacturers, but has become much more important to me as my amount of free time steadily dwindles. Playing videogames is an incredibly selfish thing to do as I am the only one to benefit from it and, as such, I find myself doing it less and less. The thought of undertaking something that will cost me 100+ hours, such as Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, is much less appetising than playing something much more tightly woven, such as The Last of Us, my favourite game of 2013 so far.
The ability to tell a story, and tell it well, in a short space of time is a gift and one to be treasured. Leaving out all the ancillary gubbins developers pack into their games is a brave thing to do, and should be commended. I couldn’t tell you what Far Cry 3 was about as I gave up on the story (because it was rubbish) and focused more on hunting the wildlife. Same goes for Borderlands 2, Skyrim, Tomb Raider, and a hundred other games I’ve played this generation that feel compelled to add superficial layers of gameplay as opposed to depth of narrative and character. I play games to enjoy myself, not kill time.
Sony seems to be winning votes thanks mainly to its developer-friendly interface and its consumer-friendly policies. Hopefully, if the PS4 performs well, Sony will continue to support the indie community on the Vita, and I will get as many tightly constructed, narrative driven games as I can get my busy little hands on. The future certainly looks bright from here, but I remember saying the same thing about the PSP, and the quality games soon dried up for that. Hopefully Sony’s change in direction towards supporting indie development will, thanks to its self-publishing policy, unleash a wave of creative freedom allowing greater access to diverse titles. I certainly hope so – my spare time depends on it.
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