We’ve heard nothing but near-universal love for BioShock Infinite, so we didn’t expect the game to be very polarizing. But one of our Threeview reviewers wasn’t as crazy about the recently released shooter (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) as we expected her to be (albeit this is her looking at the game through an academic lens as we requested, not as a gamer). At the same time, one of our other reviewers liked it a lot more than we thought. It just goes to show how little we actually know about our guest writers and their crazy opinions.

Read on to see what our own critic, an industry analyst, and a smart-as-heck academic (and former games journalist) think of what many people are already calling 2013′s Game of the Year.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

BioShock Infinite: The critic’s review

• By Jeff Grubb, GamesBeat news reporter

BioShock Infinite is a great game.

The combat is fun. The pacing is excellent. The world is fleshed out and filled with interesting things to discover. While portions of the story’s ending disappointed me, I don’t feel cheated because it was such an enjoyable ride.

Infinite’s biggest issue is that the stiff nonplayer characters really dampen the impact of the social themes. Irrational worked so hard building this world filled with terrible racial imagery, but it’s difficult to feel the effects of that when I can’t relate to the mechanical mannequins that populate Columbia.

It’s actually a minor complaint, but it’s very noticeable in a product that is otherwise so exquisitely put together.

Read the full GamesBeat review.

Final critic’s score: 89/100

BioShock Infinite: The analyst’s review

• By Michael Pachter, managing director, Wedbush Securities
• Twitter: @michaelpachter

There really isn’t anything I can say about BioShock Infinite that does the game justice. Game of the year? Definitely. Most interesting game I’ve seen? Yes. Captivating till the end? I’m not quite finished (that pesky job keeps getting in the way), but from what I’ve played so far, it just seems to keep getting better.

Publisher Take-Two has a practice of letting its developers create art, and the company’s management gets out of the way. This is a risky strategy if the developers are unproven, but Take-Two has assembled some of the best development teams on the planet, and the guys at Irrational might be the best in the organization. Ken Levine and team has been working on BioShock Infinite since late 2007, and their work shows in this highly polished, compelling game.

I’m not a game reviewer, so my opinion about quality should be disregarded. However, with an average Metacritic rating of 95 from a total of 62 critics, this game appears to be a can’t-miss proposition. That said, I think that the interesting storyline will generate significant buzz all year-long, and I expect BioShock Infinite to sell 5 million copies quickly — and a likely additional 3 million copies for the remainder of the year. I expect the game to have solid sales for the next few years, as sadly, we’re not likely to see another game from Irrational for a while. Classics such as this one tend to have robust catalog sales.

With five-and-a-half years of development, BioShock Infinite was an expensive game to make; my estimate is that the team earned around $10 million per year, so the game cost an estimated $55 million to make. The typical marketing budget for a game is 15 percent of estimated sales, so it is likely that Take-Two spent another $45 million or so promoting the game. At that level of spending, BioShock Infinite is likely to be very profitable, with front-loading of expenses and back-loading of profits, given that Take-Two shipped the game in the last week of the company’s fiscal 2013 fourth quarter. I think that BioShock Infinite proves that good things are worth waiting for, and I cannot say enough about how much I am enjoying the game.

Final analyst’s score: 100/100

BioShock Infinite: The academic’s review

• By Jane Pinckard, associate director of the Center for Games and Playable Media, UC Santa Cruz
• Former producer, 1UP Show
• Twitter: @miyukijane

“They’re all dead … you killed those people. You’re a monster!”

“What did you think was going to happen?”

The complex layering of themes in BioShock Infinite invites analysis within diverse frameworks: as dystopian post-colonial narrative; the use of violence as a rhetorical device; as a classical tragedy illustrating that “character is destiny”; an investigation of historical determinism; but primarily it is a bleak existential fable that illustrates Sartre’s concept of bad faith.

The antihero Booker, witness to (and, we infer, participant in) the massacre at Wounded Knee, may blast his way through the many human targets in the game, but he is ultimately trapped by being in bad faith: alienated from his own self and unable to take responsibility for his actions. In Sartre’s foundational existential play No Exit, a character realizes near the end that “[h]ell is other people.” In this case, hell is Booker himself and by extension, the player too is forced into bad faith.

Bad faith happens when one renounces the authentic self; it indicates both a failure to take on the burden of free will and a need to define one’s self through the eyes of others. In No Exit, the three characters continually look to each other for confirmation of who they are, to no avail — that is the hell they are trapped in. Booker is presumptively on a path to redemption, but from the first apparently meaningful choice given the player (when Booker is offered baptism upon arriving in Columbia), it’s clear that this is no choice at all. The player, in order to advance through the game, must accept the baptism — or stop playing.

In this way the narrative is profoundly un-interactive, even anti-interactive, in a way that feels inauthentic within the fiction of the game. In the above example, presumably Booker could have punched out the old preacher or simply shouldered him aside and run past him. But the game does not make these actions available. Under these circumstances it is logical that the player gives up responsibility for any choice at all. Through a clever semantic twist involving interdimensional travel, the game attempts to justify the lack of meaningful choice by suggesting that because Booker has already done every act in this particular universe, he must do each act to maintain consistency. All such meaningful actions are predetermined. It’s an interesting philosophical quandary but noninteractivity evokes despair rather than redemption, nihilism rather than creation. One could argue that illustrating bad faith is a central theme of the game, but does the point need to be made over and over during 18 hours of gameplay?

“What did you think was going to happen?” Booker asks Elizabeth when she protests the trail of dead he has left behind after a combat encounter. What indeed? This is a first-person shooter, and we are bound to its rules. There is no choice but to shoot our way through.

Final academic’s score: 70/100

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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They wanted to play SimCity. They really did. And maybe they will soon. But our guest writers who are reviewing the city-building simulation had the same server-connection issues everyone else did in the days shortly after the PC game’s release (see our coverage here).

Publisher EA and developer EA Maxis say the problems are going away, but our Threeview just couldn’t wait. Our analyst reviewer dished out his lowest score yet, strongly criticizing the failures surrounding this big launch. Our academic reviewer (a SimCity fan and expert) was much more generous with his critique, but that could be because he didn’t exactly review the game itself (see what he does below). Meanwhile, our own in-house reviewer was the only one among the three to actually play SimCity.

Here are their thoughts.

SimCity: The critic’s review

• By Dean Takahashi, GamesBeat lead news writer
• Note: Turned in before launch

It’s a joy to see SimCity return in a better form than it has ever been. It is wonderfully complex but very easy to play. The title is a massive undertaking, and it has come together beautifully overall. Hopefully, EA will be able to improve the connected parts of the game, and the experience will become more fun with more players.

The game is as enchanting as it was when it first debuted so many years ago.

Read the full GamesBeat review.

Final critic’s score: 90/100

SimCity: The analyst’s review

• By Michael Pachter, managing director, Wedbush Securities
• Twitter: @michaelpachter
• Note: Turned in three days after launch

SimCity is a great game, and if this review was about the game, I’d give it a 95 review score.  Unfortunately, this review is about the impact the game will have on EA’s financials, which will likely range from “not much” to hurting them.  The fact is that the game doesn’t work.  The sad fact is the game’s failure to work is completely due to EA’s affirmative decision to require a persistent server connection.

The spin from EA appears to be that the “always connected” requirement is due to the fact that so much data must be handled by its servers, and the company believes that most consumers’ PCs are not up to the task. I can’t call BS on this, because I truly don’t know if it is true, but the perception among gamers appears to be that the “always connected” requirement is due to digital rights management, which is intended to prevent piracy. Apparently, few players are able to play the game for more than 20 minutes to 30 minutes without serious latency, and I have seen several reports of corrupted data. It is fatal for a city-building game to fail to save the city its players build.

Regardless, the “always connected” game is buggy, to the point of being unplayable for many people.  The SimCity franchise can reasonably be counted on to sell 500,000 copies a year and should have been expected to sell 1 million to 2 million in 2013; due to its bugginess, it isn’t clear that this year’s version will come close to the 1 million unit threshold, and if the bugginess continues, it is highly unlikely that catalog sales will be strong.

The question I cannot answer is whether EA can turn off its “always connected” requirement.  SimCity would be a great single-player game offline, and its online functionality should not be difficult to sustain for a company that manages online multiplayer for so many other games. It appears that a desire to boost [online store] Origin account activations coupled with paranoia over piracy clouded EA’s judgment, and the result is a failing score. The issues with latency and corrupted sessions have spurred outrage on the Internet, and I believe these issues, if not remedied soon, will cause lasting damage to the EA and SimCity brands. Accordingly, until the bugs are fixed and gamers can rely on a near flawless experience, I must assign SimCity a score of 50.

Final analyst’s score: 50/100

SimCity: The academic’s review

• By David Thomas, Ph.D., researcher at the University of Colorado, Denver
• Blog: Buzzcut
• Note: Turned in five days after launch

One of the joys of working as an academic is hearing people say, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” As I stare, once again, at the “unable to connect” message glaring at me where the new SimCity ought to be, I think: Well, since I can’t play, at least I can still do a little scholarly probing.

Fortunately, even though the game is having well-documented fits and starts, the instruction manual works just fine. So I’m going to review what I know while EA fixes the game.

Besides, what I really want to know is: Has SimCity has gained any smarts around engaging players with the challenge of actually running a city?

So to the manual I go. And here’s what it looks like from that perspective:

• The Mayor: Just like every other SimCity game before, you get to play Stalin. The people? Let them complain! These buildings are coming down for the greater glory of the state.
• Multiplayer: Interesting. Real cities evolve in complex webs of negotiation. I guess trading with other players sounds interesting.
• Global market: I’m intrigued. A city that has to wheel-and-deal resources to stay afloat? Now that is something a teacher could sink his teeth into.
• Mixed-use zoning: Nope. My dreams of building a transit-oriented commercial development with a mix of residential units remains just that — a dream. You get three zoning options, and that’s that.
• Sewage: Sounds nasty. Then again, pollution has always had a place in SimCity. This sounds like a challenging addition to the troubles you face as Mayor.
• Upgradable, plopable buildings: One of the central pleasures in this game is seeing your city grow. Showing a more effective government through an upgraded city hall sounds like a great improvement in the interface.
• Boats: From Hong Kong to New York City, well, you know, boats.
• City specialization: While it’s neat to think about flavoring the kind of city you want to build from the beginning, do you really want to run a coal town?
• Weather: Yeah, still no weather. And for those of us that live in places where mayors come and go based on their ability to keep the snow plows running, I’ll say, “We’re still waiting.”

Which, of course, brings us to curvy roads. For would-be junior designers intent on replicating the disorienting rat’s nest of the American suburb, maybe curvy roads seem like a cool new feature And, certainly, if you want to cook up a city with a European feel, then the curves come with the territory. But to my eye, the prototypical SimCity looks like a vaguely futuristic version of the same Northern Californian burgs Will Wright had in mind when he first designed the [original] game. And other than curves to work around tough geographical features, there’s no reason to layout that grand ring circling your city.

That said, I’m looking forward to playing the game. It might not be any more useful for teaching about cities than the other games in the series. Still, curvy roads and sewage look like fun.

Final academic’s score: 88/100 (“It’s a good manual!”)

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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But can Black Ops II sustain Call of Duty’s amazing momentum? We turn to industry analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities and Soraya Murray of the University of California at Santa Cruz to provide additional perspective on the success of this latest Call of Duty game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II — The critic’s review

• By Dean Takahashi, GamesBeat staff writer

My arms feel like they’re permanently vibrating from all of the machine-gunning I’ve been doing lately. I’ve played just about every aspect of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and I have the sore wrists to prove it. As the holidays approach, Activision Blizzard is launching its ninth installment in the Call of Duty military combat series, and this one is as violent, action-packed, and as full of adrenaline as ever before.

So much for peace on Earth.

Each year, Activision generates more than a billion dollars in sales from Call of Duty games. In order to hold the title of the fastest-selling game in history, the developers at Activision’s Treyarch studio have to keep trigger-happy gamers feeling like the game has something new to offer. On this front, Treyarch has delivered. Call of Duty: Black Ops II is loaded with so much content that its $60 price seems like a bargain, and everyone else in the industry is going to have to meet a high bar if they want to hang on to the attention of gamers as well as this title does.

This game has so many elements that it is four games in one. It includes the single-player story campaign with 11 missions. On top of that, it has five single-player Strike Force missions, the Zombies cooperative play game, and multiplayer gaming with 16 maps and several new modes at the outset. The single-player campaign may keep you busy for eight hours or so (I played it on the Hardened difficulty (which is one notch above Normal), and it kept me busy for about 12 hours), but the whole package is meant to keep you occupied with Call of Duty so that it becomes a round-the-clock, year-round part of your life.

Read the full GamesBeat review

Final critic’s score: 89/100

Call of Duty: Black Ops II — The analyst’s review

• By Michael Pachter, managing director, Wedbush Securities
• Twitter: @michaelpachter

Call of Duty: Black Ops II is another gravity-defying offering from Activision. When the 2009 installment in the series, Modern Warfare 2, sold 16 million units, many (including me) doubted that any other versions of the game could achieve that level of sales. Instead, Black Ops sold a staggering 25 million units in 2010, setting the bar for future versions ridiculously high. Last year’s Modern Warfare 3 sold “only” 23 million units, and the skeptics returned, questioning whether Black Ops II could come close to that figure. It appears that this year’s version has a sufficiently high Metacritic rating (86), solid marketing support, and very good early numbers ($500 million in first-day sales) to once again exceed the 20 million unit sales level. Of course, naysayers may consider that a failure, but I think Black Ops II developer Treyarch should be commended for creating a series that will likely sell 45 million units in just two years.

When thinking about why the Call of Duty series has been so immensely successful, one need look no further than the large (and apparently growing) Call of Duty multiplayer community. According to Activision, as of June, the various Call of Duty multiplayer offerings had more than 25 million monthly active unique online players. I have heard anecdotal evidence that more than 50 percent of Call of Duty players never even bother with the single-player campaign, launching into multiplayer right out of the box. From the reviews I’ve seen, Black Ops II multiplayer is once again outstanding, and the community of online players will find itself once again compelled to purchase this year’s game.

While early returns may appear underwhelming, insofar as they are likely down slightly year-over-year, it is important to keep in mind that Black Ops II faces a lower level of competition, with last year’s solid Battlefield 3 effort replaced by this year’s Medal of Honor Warfighter disaster. It is highly likely that competition from Battlefield attracted wallet share, especially from gift givers, and we are confident that few gamers’ holiday wish list contains Medal of Honor. Thus, although Black Ops II may be off to a slightly slower start than last year’s Modern Warfare 3, I’m pretty confident that the game will catch up in sales by year-end.

Final analyst’s score: 95/100

Call of Duty: Black Ops II — The academic’s review

• By Soraya Murray, Ph.D, assistant professor, University of California at Santa Cruz
• Twitter: @sorayamurray

Call of Duty: Black Ops II possesses all of the storytelling elements of great theater or film: a tragic intertwining of a brother and sister’s fates, an almost Shakespearean relationship between father and son, brotherhood in arms inadvertently betrayed, and scenes of action, gore and all-around emotional gut-punching. The word “interactive” is a bit passé at this point, but it really does feel like interactive cinema, with gameplay driving the player toward the next tantalizing plot point. I remember sitting on a game panel with Jordan Mechner, creator of the Prince of Persia franchise, and he described one of the core qualities of the cinematic experience being as follows: No matter what happens on screen, you are powerless as a viewer to affect any outcomes. One watches helplessly, and that is an inflexible dimension of the form.  That means, depending upon the buy-in from the viewer, the maker of the film can potentially ratchet up emotions and angst to almost unbearable places.

I’ve seen a few games that can generate this kind of investment, even though the player can interact with onscreen action through gameplay.  Spec Ops: The Line, with it’s “War is hell,” Apocalypse Now-brooding meditation was one. Black Ops II excels in this regard. If there is some kind of benchmark for a game that is the most film-like, this would be it.  This is due in some part to the liberal application of references to blockbuster films (Mission Impossible 4, Battle: Los Angeles, Reign of Fire, Black Hawk Down, or any supersoldier film). Its first-person shooter perspective contributes to this investment, too. At times, it is frustrating what limitation this imposes. For example, the worlds of the past (1980s) and future (2025) are rich, textured, full of spectacular sound and image — and yet one is bound to always stay on track and complete the missions.  So, one fights through history and the future, seemingly to change the outcome, but the very form of the game itself precludes any real possibility of more than four outcomes, and hence any real exploration. Ultimately, one is trapped in the labyrinth of progress, from that which has been to that which will inevitably be, in a kind of tunnel vision of objectives. To be forced to experience it in that way doesn’t do justice to the game’s brilliant sense of place.

And speaking of past and future, this is a key theme of Black Ops II. Namely: What in our past makes us (both as individuals and the human race) who we are, what propels us toward our fates, and what assures the future. Let me tell you: If it were up to this game, it is not looking good, with it’s futuristic Cold War crisis, cyber-warfare, scenes of torture, drone attacks, and maniacal philosopher terrorists. Case in point: Raul Menendez, argued by many reviewers to be the most developed, pathos-inducing genius mad-dog villains in video game history, wants to bring the whole global economic system down.  He mutters anti-capitalist phrases like “Opulence is sinful, and we all pay for it.” Overlaid onto this is an interspersing of actual history with the fictional narratives of the game — including major historical figures, one of which (Oliver North) actually voices his own character for the game. What does this mean about the flexibility of these stories we tell ourselves about the past, the present, and what is possible for the future? Let’s hope our future outcomes aren’t quite so hopelessly delimited by our past.

Final academic’s score: 90/100

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The American Revolution held special significance this fall. As we prepared to vote, a number of U.S. citizens took a moment to reflect on how, more than 200 years ago, a people hungry for freedom cast off the Old World and in turn created one of the grandest civic and social experiments that the world has ever seen: the United States of America.

Ubisoft used the Revolution to bring the story of Desmond Miles to a close in Assassin’s Creed III. GamesBeat’s Rus McLaughlin has had his say about the game, but we decided this blockbuster need our “Threeview” review treatment, in which a critic, an analyst, and an academic examine a game to see where it stands on the business side of the industry and how game theory influenced its development. We’ve turned to noted analyst Jesse Divnich of EEDAR and Soraya Murray of the University of California at Santa Cruz for these additional perspectives.

Assassin’s Creed III: The critic’s review

• By Rus McLaughlin, GamesBeat staff writer
  

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel like jumping through trees and stabbing random Englishmen. Hey, it’s not like you’d have a better idea.

Fortunately, Assassin’s Creed III (releasing today on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Nov. 18 on Wii U, and Nov. 20 on PC) steps up as my morally flexible enabler. This time, the action moves up from Renaissance Italy to Revolutionary America as the Order of the Assassins and the Knights Templar bring their centuries-old conflict to the New World at the onset of the War for Independence. Their clashes in the 1700s revolve around the same “First Civilization” vault that 21st century assassin Desmond Miles hopes can somehow head off the impending apocalypse … scheduled for Dec. 21, 2012.

The key to activating those ancient technologies lies in the past. With the doomsday clock ticking down, Desmond once again enters the Animus to relive his ancestors’ adventures in professional murder and uncover the secrets they buried.

And so developer Ubisoft Montreal finally closes the book on the historical epic they started five years ago. The ride hasn’t always been smooth. As a franchise, Assassin’s Creed pulled off several incredible highs and sunk to a few disappointing lows (tower-defense minigames, anyone?). Perhaps then it’s fitting that Assassin’s Creed III, as the culminating chapter, does both.

Read the full GamesBeat review

Final critic’s score: 79/100

Assassin’s Creed III: The analyst’s review

• By Jesse Divnich, VP of insights and analysis, EEDAR
• Twitter: @JesseDivnich

Over the last three years, Assassin’s Creed’s success has mostly been stagnant, selling between 6 million to 8 million units every year, with no growth in its fan base. While most publishers wouldn’t complain about having such consistent and profitable success, Ubisoft challenged itself with a formidable task: Grow an existing franchise with multiple yearly iterations late in a console-generation cycle. To date, none of successful franchises have accomplished such, but that might change with Assassin’s Creed III.

The gameplay, multiplayer, and storyline are what you are expecting from an Assassin’s Creed game, and at face value, it would seem the series is in for yet another stagnant year. However, the key difference with Assassin’s Creed III is its pop-culture relevancy—the 2012 United States presidential election.

Assassin’s Creed III’s storyline is entirely structured around the bloodshed, politics, and heroism that created this country, and it is no coincidence that Assassin’s Creed III’s release date coincides with the election. It truly was a brilliant strategy, one that will no doubt capture the attention of millions of more gamers who would have otherwise written Assassin’s Creed III off as yet another iteration in the stagnant series.

While some concerns were raised that a United States setting may alienate European gamers (over 50 percent of Assassin’s Creed’s fan base is in Europe), many have forgotten the critical role that Europe played in the foundation of our country, and that was not lost on the developers as European’s involvement in the Revolutionary War is present and prevalent.

What is even most spectacular is that Ubisoft didn’t need to completely overhaul its game design nor wait for a new console cycle, which is often what has to be present in order for a brand to grow (think Call of Duty: Modern Warfare). It’s truly a brilliant move on Ubioft’s end; one that executives and producers across the industry should make note of.

Final analyst’s score: 90/100

Assassin’s Creed III: The academic’s review

• By Soraya Murray, Ph.D, assistant professor, University of California at Santa Cruz
• Twitter: @sorayamurray

The first descriptors that leap to mind when playing Assassin’s Creed III are adjectives like “stunning,” “cinematic,” “sweeping,” and maybe even “grand.” And those are fair characterizations — certainly no exaggeration — as Ubisoft has spared neither expense nor creative energy on its large-scale period piece, albeit one that is punctuated by spectacular moments of science fiction. Though it occupies a different genre (historical action-adventure), you’ll bona fide moments of the sublime in Assassin’s Creed III that recall the fantasy game Shadow of the Colossus for its similar qualities of massive scale, vast unexplored space, artistic richness, emotional expressiveness—and, of course, the ability to whistle for your trusty steed.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Before you move on to this holiday’s other big first-person shooter (that’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II), here’s one last look at Halo 4 from our team of reviewers. GamesBeat’s own Rus McLaughlin already offered his thoughts on Microsoft and 343 Industries’ grand sci-fi adventure. But what does an analyst think about the game’s business potential? And what does a Ph.D. who studies games think of the design? One of these guys liked the game a lot less than the others… .

Halo 4: The critic’s review

• By Rus McLaughlin, GamesBeat staff writer

Halo 4 constantly ups the ante in smart, satisfying ways. Everything might’ve changed under the hood, but 343 did what it set out to do: make a Halo that can stand tall with original developer Bungie’s revered classics. That’s no mean feat. If you want numbers, you get two 8-10 hour campaigns plus a deeply involving multiplayer. That’s a hell of a lot of game for your dollar. Not an Xbox Live Gold member? Wait until mid-January, shell out $10 for a month’s access, and nab all the extra Spartan Ops episodes in one go. Consider that my sound economic advice.

It’s unfortunate that 343 didn’t stretch past the standard Halo playbook instead of falling back to so many recognizable gameplay beats (and I do wonder if that was a conscious decision meant to counter the “Will it be Halo?” doubters), but the gameplay itself offsets those issues. The level design is a precision instrument. Above and beyond that, Halo 4 expertly folds an intimate story into an epic scope, taking risks with iconic characters and sticking the landing every time. The Master Chief was heroic before. Now he’s a hero.

Next time, I’m expecting legendary.

Read the full GamesBeat review

Final critic’s score: 90/100

Halo 4: The analyst’s review

• By Jesse Divnich, VP of insights and analysis, EEDAR
• Twitter: @JesseDivnich

With Bungie fully exiting the Halo franchise, publisher Microsoft was faced with a fork in the road: Continue the Bungie-fashioned story, which could potentially upset loyal fans of the studio and the Halo franchise, or plow forward as if nothing behind the scenes ever happened. Choosing the latter, it is clear — after the fact — that Microsoft and 343 Industries made the right decision as consumer reception has been universally positive for Halo 4. Add a splash of a few bar-raising single-player and multiplayer features, throw in a $25-million marketing campaign, and a pinch of software and hardware special editions, and you have a brilliantly executed triple-A product.

It’s rare for any entertainment brand to reach its fifth iteration and still maintain — and in this case grow — its loyal install base. Especially a brand that faced a significant behind-the-scene game changer. In other entertainment verticals, changing of the director or primary cast members is often a death cry and a clear sign that some executive suit is obviously milking any remaining fan equity that a brand may have (I’m looking at you, Saved by the Bell: The New Class). With Halo 4, this isn’t the case, and against all odds, 343 Industries has successfully met the unprecedented high expectations of the 15+ million loyal Halo fans around the world.

Halo 4 is a masterpiece, and while we’ll miss Bungie behind the wheel of the Halo franchise bus, Microsoft and 343 Industries have successfully hurdled an obstacle that few in entertainment have ever accomplished.

Microsoft and 343 Industries are a shining example of how to keep an entertainment brand going, even when the original creators have decided to hang their hats to focus on other projects.

Final analyst’s score: 95/100

Halo 4: The academic’s review

• By David Thomas, Ph.D., researcher at the University of Colorado Denver
• Blog: Buzzcut

With space junk drifting silently past the Halo 4 start screen, the game promises a story of rebirth. Instead, this scene provides an unwitting metaphor for what comes next: a junkyard of recycled ideas, a patchwork universe that fails to provide the kind of epic stage necessary to support gaming’s most iconic space marine.

While there is plenty to like about Halo 4, and much to quibble with around its increasingly baroque plotlines and worn game mechanics, it is the lack of inspiration in the game’s settings and levels most indicative of its failure to live up to the greatest moments the Halo universe.

Great games all share a common feature — they take place in evocative locations and fantastical worlds. From Mario’s many lands to Grand Theft Auto’s Liberty City, the best play always takes place in an appropriate playground. And this version of Halo, when it’s not simply recycling familiar sets from previous versions, simply slaps on a new coat of paint on the same old thing. When you crash-land on the planet of Requiem, for instance, you feel less a sense of awe than a creeping sensation of the familiar. The world is kind of orange, and the Prometheans look predictably devilish. And then it occurs you have seen this before. This new Halo world is nothing more than Doom’s haunted house design and aesthetics borrowed and dropped down as something new. Tossing aside Halo’s tangible worlds and places, Halo 4 throws up a cheap amusement park ride.

It wasn’t always this way.

The original Halo: Combat Evolved rang true on so many registers that it’s easy to forget how impressive the Halo world was itself. Looking up and staring at the ring arching across the sky provided a breathless moment of being someplace else, someplace special. At its best, Halo was a place that felt like it was there before you, and Master Chief showed up with an arsenal of weapons. Clever level design would tease with views of places you hadn’t reached and would send you sensibly backtracking through levels you had completed. Halo avoided what many shooter games in the past had never managed. It put the player in the role of explorer rather than a rat running through a maze.

Halo 4 fails on this account early on.

Notice when orderly and rectilinear corridors of the first level’s spaceship suddenly turn windy. Why? In the logic of the haunted house, it doesn’t matter. It’s just all a part of the drama. But to the person playing the game, this is a clear indication that you are being pushed through an attraction. And at each stop on the ride, moving forward means only gunning, or possibly flanking, yet another garrison of enemies sitting, waiting, and blocking the way to the next bit.

Even as Halo attempts to extend its legacy, it leaves behind one of the series most successful features: the shape of its places.

Final academic’s score: 75/100

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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We’ve been bothering our stable of critics, business analysts, and design teachers a bit too often lately to participate in our new  Threeview series. It’s only partially our fault, though: It’s our busy season, and all these high-profile games are hitting back to back to back to back … .

Our team of reviewers have already tackled Borderlands 2, Bad Piggies, and Resident Evil 6. Today, they break down Bethesda’s play-it-how-you-want supernatural thriller, Dishonored, which hit Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC just last week.

Dishonored: The critic’s review

• By Rus McLaughlin, GamesBeat staff writer

Dishonored nails the Thief-style gameplay while missing the BioShock-quality story that would’ve elevated it into something truly special. It’ll have to settle for amazingly cool instead. The impressive depth, range, and balance earn this one an easy recommendation despite a few hiccups and one dreary, excessively long level. Gamers who don’t feel the need for repeat plays might not get their money’s worth, but for me, one spin through Dunwall wasn’t enough. The care and imagination that went into Dishonored makes each return visit worthwhile.

Click here for the full GamesBeat review.

Final critic’s score: 86/100

Dishonored: The analyst’s review

• By Scott Steinberg, CEO/lead technology analyst, TechSavvy Global

Coming in the wake of a string of high-profile successes from Bethesda Softworks, Dishonored should prove another triumph for the company, which has quickly established itself as one of the preeminent names in action-based role-playing.

Stakes are high with this being a new intellectual property (IP); there’s a sizable gamble being placed here. Developer Arkane Studios’ previous works — largely cult and critical successes — haven’t enjoyed commensurate commercial uptake. However, actual execution is tremendous: The title takes its creators’ eye for atmosphere, detail, and storytelling and marries them with sumptuous play and visuals, making this among the most compelling stealth-action experiences seen since Deus Ex: Human Revolution. As such, we get a compelling, core gamer-focused outing that marries the best of old and new: Players essentially enjoy thinking man’s depth, a developer well-versed in old-school design’s eye for nuance, and gripping set pieces and action in a single package.

Given the strength of the hands-on experience and Bethesda’s marketing muscle, crossover appeal should be strong — this is a title that is expected to enjoy strong mainstream acceptance in addition to resonance with enthusiasts. Despite the dampened environment at retail, both word-of-mouth and sales are expected to perform well. Just how well depends on fans of somewhat paralleling franchises (such as Assassin’s Creed) and their willingness to accept or migrate to the offering, especially with a new installment of said series available soon [at the end of October]. However, Dishonored is anticipated to be among the holiday season’s standout offerings and a solid long-tail performer that should continue to post strong returns into 2013, buoyed by critical praise and end-user enthusiasm.

Offering extensive replay value, and among the best-executed attempts at introducing new IP that delivers on gaming’s intellectual promise as well as having arresting hands-on appeal, Dishonored is in many ways a bold and anachronistic experiment. And yet, despite being an anomaly, it may also point to the way forward for premium retail product and level of consumer expectation that will begin to surround similar triple-A productions.

Final analyst’s score: 94/100

Dishonored: The academic’s review

• By Devin Monnens, assistant course director for game history, Full Sail University
• Blog: Desert Hat

Judging from the trailer alone (see below), Dishonored is about a man who stabs other men through the face with a sword. When I saw this, I wondered what would drive a man to stab a sword through the face of another man. Dishonored doesn’t seem to answer this question — head stabs make up very little of the game — but it does tell us something about assassins.

Firstly, being an assassin is hard work. They have to sneak around to avoid being seen by staying in the shadows, heading for the rooftops, and splashing through the sewers. When in combat, assassins must be good with blade, crossbow, and gun. Sneaky assassins will drop behind unsuspecting enemies and choke or stab.

Likewise, being an assassin is complex. Protagonist Corvo has many tools at his disposal (magic, crossbow, sword, gun, and stealth), and each tool has its own set of controls. Obviously, Corvo has trained for many years to become proficient with these weapons, just as hardcore players spend countless hours mastering games. An assassin thus feels natural in his body, just as players feel the controller is a natural extension of themselves.

Assassins must also be spatially aware. Just as Jason Bourne can naturally judge the fighting skills of everyone in a bar at a glance, so too can an assassin recognize the quickest route to the rooftops, the entrances to sewer grates, and understand the natural patterns of the guards. Players use these skills to reach their goals as quickly and quietly as possible.

Given this profusion of choices — weapons (and coordination to use them) and paths (and the ability to recognize them) — assassins must also be decisive: Think too long and you’ll get stuck, caught, or worse.

Assassins are also most interested in high-profile targets. Golgo 13 assassinates targets for $1 million apiece, but he makes no extra money for collateral damage. Corvo, on the other hand, assassinates for free, and head-on fights with guards will likely result in injury, reinforcing the need for stealth. Killing guards also gives pitiful reward — when you loot their bodies, you only find they make about 20 coins a day, roughly the price of a crossbow bolt. Putting their salary into perspective adds to other subtle clues, such as the game’s mention of “wailing widows” and check boxes for no-kill mission completions.

These lessons come from a long history of stealth games — from Metal Gear Solid to Thief – and suggest not only an informed design staff but also an experienced userbase. However, for newcomers to stealth — especially first-person stealth games — failing at being an effective assassin might make the player wonder if the torturer smacked a few too many brain cells out of Corvo. While experienced players can put on Corvo’s mask with ease, for newer players, it will take several hours to become a proficient head-stabber. In the end, though, it’s a whole lot more efficient than spending years of training in assassin school … .

Final academic’s score: 85/100
Note: This score does not represent the design of the game as a whole, just the portion covered in the review.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I don’t want to bum anyone out, but this might be our saddest Threeview yet. Resident Evil 6 recently hit store shelves for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with a PC version due out soon, but the longtime “horror” (in quotes for a reason — see below) series seems to be flailing about like a no-legged zombie. Reviewers and fans have been quite vocal about their displeasure with this latest edition.

Our GamesBeat critic, an industry analyst, and a game teacher break down what exactly went wrong with publisher/developer Capcom’s latest Resident Evil.

Resident Evil 6: The critic’s review

• By Giancarlo Valdes, GamesBeat staff writer

Everything in Resident Evil 6 is bigger, louder, and prettier than its predecessors, but that does not necessarily make it a better game. While it finally embraces the adrenaline-fueled action the series has slowly moved toward for so long, the rest is a schizophrenic mess. Capcom can’t seem to decide whether Resident Evil is a campy blockbuster film (undoubtedly its greatest strength) or a serious reflection on the human condition. For all of our sakes, let’s hope it chooses the former for future editions.

Click here for the full GamesBeat review.

Final critic’s score: 70/100

Resident Evil 6: The analyst’s review

• By Michael Pachter, managing director, Wedbush Securities
• Twitter: @michaelpachter

Let’s face it: Bad reviews kill, and Resident Evil 6 received a slew of bad reviews.  A “normal” RE game should be counted on to deliver solid review scores (that is, above 80 out of 100), with RE4 receiving an average Metacritic score of 96 and RE5 getting an 84. The game’s history has been mixed, with some versions of the game scoring in the 70s, but solid scores have been the norm for the series.

This version’s Metacritic average of 66 on Xbox 360 is all but certain to guarantee disappointing sales. The relatively weak review score is compounded by the fact that the game launched in the same window as highly regarded Dishonored (high of 92 average) and XCOM (89) and followed the immensely successful Borderlands 2 (91). In my view, gamers have a lot of solid choices to spend their hard-earned dollars on, and the sixth (or seventh) edition in a series that is already getting long in the tooth is not going to command a lot of attention with middling review scores.

RE6 is a symptom of a greater problem in the video game industry:  a low tolerance for risk by publishers leads to “safe” choices (meaning sequels) that don’t provide sufficient opportunity for innovation. It’s easy to see that RE6 was a safe choice, given the phenomenal success of most of the game’s earlier iterations; this time, we think that the safe bet wasn’t so wise.

Although some of my other comments may suggest otherwise, I really don’t think gamers are stupid.  Most gamers want a good value for their money, and a game with an average Metacritic score of 66 is not going to provide much value, particularly when the game is on the shelves next to significantly better games.  Of the 59 reviews of Resident Evil 6 on Metacritic, 25 were above 75 and 34 were below, with a high of 95 and low of 20.  My personal favorite reviewer, Jim Sterling from Destructoid, gave the game a 30.

I have to go with the critics: Resident Evil 6 is a bust.

Final analyst’s score: 60/100

Resident Evil 6: The academic’s review

• By Devin Monnens, assistant course director for game history, Full Sail University
• Blog: Desert Hat

A hunched zombie rips apart a hapless victim, flesh stretching string-like from wet, peeled-back lips. He turns. He shambles towards the camera, moaning. Leon Kennedy raises his gun. “Mister President! Don’t make me do this!” Not bad for the first 20 seconds.

However, this is as horrific as Resident Evil 6 gets. The rest is mostly punching and shooting. And more punching. You rarely conserve ammo. You rarely feel uneasy. It’s not horror, let alone survival-horror. It’s as horrific as Castlevania — an action game with zombies in it. The designers call that “horror entertainment.”

Horror stems from one’s confrontation with mortality, primarily through fear, shock, and disgust. Fear comes from confrontation with impending death and anticipation of pain … shock from how sudden or violent it is. Disgust is abhorrence of the human body’s decay or destruction — a rotting corpse, severed limbs, oozing entrails. If fear, surprise, and disgust are spices that make good horror, what does that make RE6?

In Resident Evil 1, a single zombie can — and will — easily kill you. They’re also rotting and grin hideously as they do it. Your shorts turn brown as they advance because you know that a.) they’re going to eat you and b.) it’ll be extremely messy. And you’ll have to watch.

In contrast, RE6 zombies flail around, and you can shake them off easily. Unless there’s a mob, you’re in little danger of even being severely maimed. If you die, you don’t actually get to see the zombies feeding. You’re never afraid for your life.

Apparently, fewer people want to buy terrifying and gory games. That’s what worried the game’s producers, who have shareholders to please. That balance between inclusion and horror they realize is “hard.” So what they came up with is popcorn horror: salt and butter to go with the explosions, but ultimately very little depth.

Horror also comes from what we imagine will happen, from anticipation. That’s why timing is so important — like when Leon enters a large, silent room, and lightning suddenly flashes. That’s why the xenomorph pounces from the shadows in Alien. That’s why in “The Raven,” the narrator opens the door to reveal … nothing.

Perhaps that’s what’s most frightening about RE6: the anticipation of what horror lurks within and what you actually confront. It’s the aftertaste from when you finally realize the king of survival horror wants to be something else.

Final academic’s score: 75/100

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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In our second Threeview, we get a critic’s, an analyst’s, and an academic’s review of Bad Piggies, the followup to casual gaming king Angry Birds.

Does developer Rovio’s new release (out now for iOS, Google Play, PC, and Mac) have the same addicting qualities and money-cloning potential as the original bird-flinger? It’s a very different game, after all. While both Angry Birds and Bad Piggies are physics-oriented, Bad Piggies is less about knocking over structurally unsound buildings and more about navigating tricky levels with homemade contraptions — like the surely 5-star safety-rated ride pictured above. See the game in action in the video below.

Our critic reviews Bad Piggies for consumers and gamers, while the analyst discusses its business aspects. Our academic wraps up with an analysis of the game design.

Bad Piggies: The critic’s review

• By James Pikover, GamesBeat staff writer

Bad Piggies may seem like a hardcore game from a casual gaming company, but the formula Rovio has implemented is very similar to Angry Birds. The only difference is the scale: A bigger challenge reaps greater rewards. That difficulty spreads too far with no option to skip levels, but a smart save system keeps it great for mobile users. The depth of puzzles and creative building aspect will keep players hungrily coming back for more.

Click here for the full GamesBeat review.

Final critic’s score: 85/100

Bad Piggies: The analyst’s review

• By Jesse Divnich, VP of insights and analysis, EEDAR
• Twitter: @JesseDivnich

Bad Piggies is a valiant extension within the Angry Birds’ universe. With an intellectual property as strong as Angry Birds, it’s essential that Rovio expand its portfolio to create an emotional connection outside of the primary characters. The goal of portfolio expansion, however, is twofold: to exploit loyal users of the primary brand while at the same time bringing new consumers into your ecosystem. Loyal Angry Birds fans will not be disappointed with Bad Piggies, which pushes the physics puzzle genre ever so slightly forward. I do, however, have to question why Rovio remains hesitant to experiment with other genres.

Rovio has achieved one of the greatest accomplishments in entertainment: worldwide brand recognition. Recognition that often takes decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve. With that recognition, however, comes great responsibility, and in the business world that means developing (exploiting) your brand to new consumers.

Bad Piggies is a sign that Rovio is still gun-shy on experimentation, and its lack of aggressiveness into other genres is resulting in missed financial opportunities. While there is always risk of “jumping the shark” with your brand, which often results in consumer alienation, there is also a risk of consumer fatigue. With countless popular genres outside of physical puzzles, I would have preferred to see Rovio bring its Angry Birds brand, along with its cast of characters, into new sectors. Whether that be word puzzle, pinball, or even an action-platform, there are innumerable amounts of opportunities to evolve the Angry Birds brand into newer, and arguably fresher, genres.

If Bad Piggies were released in 2011, I would hold no complaints. The title does introduce new features into the genre, and the mobile market was still too much of a rising tide to make any risky brand plays. If released in 2013, I’d hold serious concerns over management’s ability to capitalize on rising markets (genres). For now, Bad Piggies was a sane business decision, and the title serves its purpose for Rovio’s product portfolio. It keeps loyal consumers engaged, while at the same time raking in millions in revenue.

Final analyst’s score: 75/100

Bad Piggies: The academic’s review

• By Devin Monnens, assistant course director for game history, Full Sail University
• Blog: Desert Hat
  

After staring at the title screen of Bad Piggies for several minutes watching bizarre flying machines go by, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that this game is about the glory days of airplane invention. And just like many flight experiments met with embarrassing disaster, so, too, did my first attempts at self-propelled Piggie-mobiles, which wrecked in mangled heaps or exploded on the launch pad, sending pigs flying. After all, you can’t build a Boeing 747 without first crashing a few wooden contraptions into Midwestern farmland, and if invention is 99 percent inspired failure and one percent success, then Bad Piggies is the perfect sandbox to demonstrate that process, because you’ll keep wanting to try until you get it.

You’ll start off building a rickety soap box derby racer that wouldn’t pass inspection but displays the concept of what a “car” is: three boxes, two wheels, and a pig. Once you’ve understood the basics of slope and weight placement, you start playing around with fans, bellows, soda bottles, and the almighty box of TNT to create odd “vehicles” that can run loops and fly through the air — or more likely, be blown to smithereens. But with each failure, you’ll get closer to the solution, which lies in either a different vehicle configuration or better piloting technique, and with each new success, you’ll earn a new toy and a new arena to test your contraptions in.

This structure illustrates a theory of game design that early levels should teach players skills needed to master the later ones, and that each level teaches the player something new. This keeps players constantly challenged with mastering new mechanics, as skills learned early on build on each other, allowing the player to overcome more complex, interesting challenges. And by having a tight balance between the challenge and skills, the designer can hopefully keep the player in a state of blissful flow.

Only here’s where I run into a problem. I found it difficult to grok the basics of such simple tools as the TNT box and the sandbag weight, even with the helpful notebook of “Oinkville Wright.” Am I just a terrible engineer, or has the game not properly explained these mechanics?

Thankfully, I don’t feel like a complete idiot, because my test pilot, a green, freckled pig with a silly stupid grin and ridiculous laugh, is an even bigger moron than I am. And that’s reassuring.

Final critic’s score: 90/100

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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We’re trying something new here at GamesBeat. Alongside the normal reviews that we do, we’re asking analysts and teachers or professors of game design to share their thoughts on big new releases. We launch this new “Threeview” series — which we almost called “Three-way,” by the way — today with Borderlands 2 for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

The new cooperative first-person shooter (with “870 gajillion more guns” over its predecessors, according to its makers) is getting rave reviews from critics and gamers alike. But what does an analyst think of the game from a business perspective? Is publisher 2K Games managing the franchise well? Does it have long-term sales potential?

And what does an academic who studies and teaches game design think of what developer Gearbox Software did with Borderlands 2? Is it something his students should learn from, good or bad?

For our first “Threeview,” we give you three separate reviews of Borderlands 2: one from a game critic (our own Mike Minotti, a staff writer), one from an analyst (Michael Pachter, the managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities), and one from an academic (Josh McCoy, a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Games and Playable Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz).

Borderlands 2: The critic’s review

• By Mike Minotti, GamesBeat staff writer

Borderlands 2 is everything fans of the original could have hoped for. No, it doesn’t mess with a formula that already proved itself. Instead it supports the framework for a great role-playing game with a bigger world, while offering more customization options for its players. It’s also one of the funnier games you’re likely to play this year.

It’s hard to imagine this kind of game getting much better. The few complaints I had were minor and easily overshadowed by the ridiculous scope of the experience Gearbox offers.

If you liked Borderlands, you’ll love Borderlands 2. If you missed out on the original, don’t make that same mistake twice.

Click here for the full GamesBeat review.

Final critic’s score: 92/100

Borderlands 2: The analyst’s review

• By Michael Pachter, managing director, Wedbush Securities
• Twitter: @michaelpachter

Borderlands 2 should provide a much-needed shot in the arm for 2K’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive. The company had a series of successful launches over the past few years, with Grand Theft Auto IV in 2008, Borderlands in 2009, Red Dead Redemption in 2010, and L.A. Noire in 2011. Everyone expected Max Payne 3 to be their big hit of 2012, but that game just didn’t meet investor expectations, struggling to sell-through the 3 million units shipped. Take-Two shares hit a three-year low in August, as investors all but gave up on the stock. With solid Metacritic aggregate scores of around 90/100, it’s likely that Borderlands 2 sales will surpass the prior version’s sales of 3.5 million units, and Take-Two stock has rallied by around 50 percent since early August as buzz for the game built.

It’s not clear whether Gearbox owns the rights to the Borderlands franchise, but it appears that the series is real and that the developer can continue to produce sequels every few years that will be snapped up by eager fans. 2K tends to take a backseat to sister division Rockstar Games, but games such as Borderlands 2, NBA 2K, and BioShock Infinite are likely to establish the 2K division as a standout publisher in its own right. Anticipation for Borderlands 2 was high, and the company promoted the game extremely well, with very effective television and print ads.

One of the things that Take-Two does better than most of its peers is the delivery of downloadable content (DLC). Unlike many of its peers, Take-Two tends to drop DLC within the launch window of its games, keeping its hardcore gamer audience engaged and entertained. Gearbox plans four campaign add-ons by June 2013, with character downloads beginning on October 16, 2012. I think that the frequent drops of DLC beginning only weeks after the game launches is a brilliant strategy, keeping the hardest core players talking favorably about the game heading into holiday.

Great effort, far better than expected, and extra credit for being better than the last version.

Final analyst’s score: 95/100

Borderlands 2: The academic’s review

• By Joshua Allen McCoy, Ph.D., Center for Games and Playable Media, U.C. Santa Cruz
• Working on: IndieCade 2012 nominee Prom Week (lead developer)

In featuring a fusion of mechanics from the first-person shooter (FPS) and role-playing game (RPG) genres, Borderlands 2 continues the exploration of this hybrid and less-developed area of game design started by the likes of its predecessor, Borderlands, and Hellgate: London. Through this exploration, Gearbox ambitiously steps on potentially treacherous design ground where players have two different sets of expectations originating from two different game genres.

There are some cases where expectations naturally align, such as increasing players’ ability to deal and take more damage through leveling up and acquiring new gear. The design tasks are more difficult when expectations diverge. One notable case has to do with the accuracy with which players hit their targets. The FPS convention is “point and shoot” to hit a target, whereas in RPGs, hitting is determined by calculations based on game statistics.

Borderlands 2 avoids the player-maddening situation where in an RPG, a bullet is seen to hit its target onscreen but does no damage because a random roll in a combat table determined that the shot did not hit. Borderlands 2 deftly handles this divergence by having RPG statistics influence the FPS mechanics of aiming, such as weapon spread, recoil, and stability, which avoids breaching players’ expectations. If the bullet hits, it does damage.

The “bazillion” weapons that can be created procedurally in Borderlands 2 is core to player progression and enjoyment. Avoiding the trap of having weapons represent an abstract set of statistics that translate into damage, Gearbox has done an excellent job of making a large portion of the weapons feel distinct through a smart mapping of equipment attributes to game mechanics. Two weapons from a similar family, such as two shotguns, will play very differently from each other, and each has the potential to fit drastically different classes, playstyles, and skill-tree choices. However, players are still periodically subject to the upgrade dry spells that plague all games that have procedural item generation.

The game features standard but well-executed RPG storytelling, complete with the standard array of kill, fetch, and escort quests. Humorous writing is a strong point of Borderland 2’s style of storytelling (the naming of Handsome Jack’s, the story’s antagonist, diamond pony comes to mind). While the game does not push forward the frontiers of interactive narrative design, the storytelling is compelling in its self-parody.

Overall, Borderlands 2 is a cleverly implemented fusion of FPS and RPG combat systems backed up by many interesting variations in playstyle. The detail found in the procedurally generated equipment is evidence of strong gameplay design. In this ARPG, the emphasis is on “A” for “action,” while storytelling and role-playing design work is standard but well polished.

Final academic’s score: 90/100

Hope you enjoyed the first Threeview. Please leave us feedback in the comments below, and check back for future installments.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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