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The Digital Toybox
==================
In the halycon days of eight-bit gaming there were no bad games, only misunderstood ones. This, of course, is a blatant lie. There were plenty of bad games, and we understood all that we needed to about them: they were rubbish. One common thread seemed to link these travesties together, and it was the film-license.
Making a film into a game just didn't work back then, and one of the big reasons for this was that designers always tried to do far too much. If there was a good car-chase in the movie then it had to be in the game. If there was a good shoot-out in the movie then it had to be in the game. If there was a good love-scene in the movie then teenage boys bought the game and were mightily disappointed. The point is that movie tie-ins never stuck to one genre, they chopped and changed as the movie scenes demanded. With the possible exception of The Untouchables this never worked: the platforming sections were sub-standard, the driving sections were terrible, the shooty bits were dull. Essentially the game of the film was a jack of all trades and master of none - and, given that production teams were small and processing power smaller, this was no great surprise.
So what's changed? Certainly not the status of licensed games, which are still terrible. But more and more nowadays games are able to span several genres, and do so successfully. Naturally there are plenty of games that fail to master even one genre, but amongst today's AAA titles there is an increasing confidence to break boundaries, step outside the genre paradigm and become a genuine digital toybox.
Actually, I think that being a 'digital toybox' isn't dependent on being multi-genre, this is just one manifestation of the trend. The real key to being a digital toybox is this: when the gamer gets bored of playing, he doesn't switch off and read a book - instead he looks for something else to do *within* the game. If there is always some unexplored avenue, a diverting mini-game, or just an idle sense of fun, then a game is a digital toybox.
I think there are two main methods that designers use to achieve this:
The first is the 'Lego box' method. Lego takes very simple components (bricks) and very simple rules (bricks stick together) and lets you make your own fun. Once you get bored of your pirate ship, you can take it apart and build a space station; if you have enough time on your hands then you can produce life-size figures, theme parks or even a whole country (Denmark). Games that use the Lego method say 'Here are the rules, here are your tools - enjoy!' Sim City is one example: you can build a city as sensible or as stupid as you desire, and then get Godzilla to crush it for a laugh. Vice City uses the same technique: there is nothing in the manual that tells you to combine guns, cars and cops into brutal chaos - but our imagination and sense of fun means that we spend more time wreaking havoc than playing the missions.
Second is the 'compendium of games' method, the digital equivalent of those boxes containing chess, backgammon, a roulette wheel and a whole world of (not very much) fun. One way of doing this is to skip lightly across the genres. Mario Sunshine, for example, has its blooper surfing levels - basically a lightweight version of Wave Race - and numerous boss battles that are hard to categorise. And Grand Theft Auto not only successfully combines every twist on the driving genre, but has shooting, flying and boating sections as well.
Another way of achieving the compendium effect is to pack the title full of mini-games. Mario Party's sole purpose is its mini-games, but there are numerous titles that contain them as an important side dish. Timesplitters 2 has its temporal uplink cartridges, and these are no mere throwaways: Anaconda manages to rescue Snake from Nokia hell, and Astrolander is a devilish recreation of Thrust-style inertia games. Animal Crossing - itself a mix of simple sub-games - allows you to buy NES titles to play in your digital living room; and Metroid Prime will contain its predecessors as unlockable extras.
One final method is for games to contain elements that would have stood as complete titles in the past. Vice City's pizza delivery missions are nothing more than the best version of Paperboy ever. Timesplitters 2 contains such a myriad of game modes that there is always somethng to do: stealth missions, arcade blastathons and, in its zombie challenges, the best survival horror available. Burnout 2 has its crash mode (Stuntman) and its pursuit challenges (Chase HQ) as extras to accompany an already phenomenal game.
Are these extras pointless? I don't think so. For one they add value to your games - it is hard to argue that any of the games mentioned above aren't worth £40. Most importantly, though, they sustain your enjoyment of a game and rebuild an enthusiasm that can otherwise be lost. Many's the time I have plunged to my death in Mario Sunshine and become dejected to the point of binning the game altogether; but, after kicking pineapples around Delfino Plaza for a few minutes, I'm prepared to go back and beat a frustrating level. And Vice City offers such an array of violent catharsis that it is hard to stay mad at it for long. So there we have it, my definition of the digital toybox. Long may it continue.
==================
In the halycon days of eight-bit gaming there were no bad games, only misunderstood ones. This, of course, is a blatant lie. There were plenty of bad games, and we understood all that we needed to about them: they were rubbish. One common thread seemed to link these travesties together, and it was the film-license.
Making a film into a game just didn't work back then, and one of the big reasons for this was that designers always tried to do far too much. If there was a good car-chase in the movie then it had to be in the game. If there was a good shoot-out in the movie then it had to be in the game. If there was a good love-scene in the movie then teenage boys bought the game and were mightily disappointed. The point is that movie tie-ins never stuck to one genre, they chopped and changed as the movie scenes demanded. With the possible exception of The Untouchables this never worked: the platforming sections were sub-standard, the driving sections were terrible, the shooty bits were dull. Essentially the game of the film was a jack of all trades and master of none - and, given that production teams were small and processing power smaller, this was no great surprise.
So what's changed? Certainly not the status of licensed games, which are still terrible. But more and more nowadays games are able to span several genres, and do so successfully. Naturally there are plenty of games that fail to master even one genre, but amongst today's AAA titles there is an increasing confidence to break boundaries, step outside the genre paradigm and become a genuine digital toybox.
Actually, I think that being a 'digital toybox' isn't dependent on being multi-genre, this is just one manifestation of the trend. The real key to being a digital toybox is this: when the gamer gets bored of playing, he doesn't switch off and read a book - instead he looks for something else to do *within* the game. If there is always some unexplored avenue, a diverting mini-game, or just an idle sense of fun, then a game is a digital toybox.
I think there are two main methods that designers use to achieve this:
The first is the 'Lego box' method. Lego takes very simple components (bricks) and very simple rules (bricks stick together) and lets you make your own fun. Once you get bored of your pirate ship, you can take it apart and build a space station; if you have enough time on your hands then you can produce life-size figures, theme parks or even a whole country (Denmark). Games that use the Lego method say 'Here are the rules, here are your tools - enjoy!' Sim City is one example: you can build a city as sensible or as stupid as you desire, and then get Godzilla to crush it for a laugh. Vice City uses the same technique: there is nothing in the manual that tells you to combine guns, cars and cops into brutal chaos - but our imagination and sense of fun means that we spend more time wreaking havoc than playing the missions.
Second is the 'compendium of games' method, the digital equivalent of those boxes containing chess, backgammon, a roulette wheel and a whole world of (not very much) fun. One way of doing this is to skip lightly across the genres. Mario Sunshine, for example, has its blooper surfing levels - basically a lightweight version of Wave Race - and numerous boss battles that are hard to categorise. And Grand Theft Auto not only successfully combines every twist on the driving genre, but has shooting, flying and boating sections as well.
Another way of achieving the compendium effect is to pack the title full of mini-games. Mario Party's sole purpose is its mini-games, but there are numerous titles that contain them as an important side dish. Timesplitters 2 has its temporal uplink cartridges, and these are no mere throwaways: Anaconda manages to rescue Snake from Nokia hell, and Astrolander is a devilish recreation of Thrust-style inertia games. Animal Crossing - itself a mix of simple sub-games - allows you to buy NES titles to play in your digital living room; and Metroid Prime will contain its predecessors as unlockable extras.
One final method is for games to contain elements that would have stood as complete titles in the past. Vice City's pizza delivery missions are nothing more than the best version of Paperboy ever. Timesplitters 2 contains such a myriad of game modes that there is always somethng to do: stealth missions, arcade blastathons and, in its zombie challenges, the best survival horror available. Burnout 2 has its crash mode (Stuntman) and its pursuit challenges (Chase HQ) as extras to accompany an already phenomenal game.
Are these extras pointless? I don't think so. For one they add value to your games - it is hard to argue that any of the games mentioned above aren't worth £40. Most importantly, though, they sustain your enjoyment of a game and rebuild an enthusiasm that can otherwise be lost. Many's the time I have plunged to my death in Mario Sunshine and become dejected to the point of binning the game altogether; but, after kicking pineapples around Delfino Plaza for a few minutes, I'm prepared to go back and beat a frustrating level. And Vice City offers such an array of violent catharsis that it is hard to stay mad at it for long. So there we have it, my definition of the digital toybox. Long may it continue.
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The Digital Toybox
==================
In the halycon days of eight-bit gaming there were no bad games, only misunderstood ones. This, of course, is a blatant lie. There were plenty of bad games, and we understood all that we needed to about them: they were rubbish. One common thread seemed to link these travesties together, and it was the film-license.
Making a film into a game just didn't work back then, and one of the big reasons for this was that designers always tried to do far too much. If there was a good car-chase in the movie then it had to be in the game. If there was a good shoot-out in the movie then it had to be in the game. If there was a good love-scene in the movie then teenage boys bought the game and were mightily disappointed. The point is that movie tie-ins never stuck to one genre, they chopped and changed as the movie scenes demanded. With the possible exception of The Untouchables this never worked: the platforming sections were sub-standard, the driving sections were terrible, the shooty bits were dull. Essentially the game of the film was a jack of all trades and master of none - and, given that production teams were small and processing power smaller, this was no great surprise.
So what's changed? Certainly not the status of licensed games, which are still terrible. But more and more nowadays games are able to span several genres, and do so successfully. Naturally there are plenty of games that fail to master even one genre, but amongst today's AAA titles there is an increasing confidence to break boundaries, step outside the genre paradigm and become a genuine digital toybox.
Actually, I think that being a 'digital toybox' isn't dependent on being multi-genre, this is just one manifestation of the trend. The real key to being a digital toybox is this: when the gamer gets bored of playing, he doesn't switch off and read a book - instead he looks for something else to do *within* the game. If there is always some unexplored avenue, a diverting mini-game, or just an idle sense of fun, then a game is a digital toybox.
I think there are two main methods that designers use to achieve this:
The first is the 'Lego box' method. Lego takes very simple components (bricks) and very simple rules (bricks stick together) and lets you make your own fun. Once you get bored of your pirate ship, you can take it apart and build a space station; if you have enough time on your hands then you can produce life-size figures, theme parks or even a whole country (Denmark). Games that use the Lego method say 'Here are the rules, here are your tools - enjoy!' Sim City is one example: you can build a city as sensible or as stupid as you desire, and then get Godzilla to crush it for a laugh. Vice City uses the same technique: there is nothing in the manual that tells you to combine guns, cars and cops into brutal chaos - but our imagination and sense of fun means that we spend more time wreaking havoc than playing the missions.
Second is the 'compendium of games' method, the digital equivalent of those boxes containing chess, backgammon, a roulette wheel and a whole world of (not very much) fun. One way of doing this is to skip lightly across the genres. Mario Sunshine, for example, has its blooper surfing levels - basically a lightweight version of Wave Race - and numerous boss battles that are hard to categorise. And Grand Theft Auto not only successfully combines every twist on the driving genre, but has shooting, flying and boating sections as well.
Another way of achieving the compendium effect is to pack the title full of mini-games. Mario Party's sole purpose is its mini-games, but there are numerous titles that contain them as an important side dish. Timesplitters 2 has its temporal uplink cartridges, and these are no mere throwaways: Anaconda manages to rescue Snake from Nokia hell, and Astrolander is a devilish recreation of Thrust-style inertia games. Animal Crossing - itself a mix of simple sub-games - allows you to buy NES titles to play in your digital living room; and Metroid Prime will contain its predecessors as unlockable extras.
One final method is for games to contain elements that would have stood as complete titles in the past. Vice City's pizza delivery missions are nothing more than the best version of Paperboy ever. Timesplitters 2 contains such a myriad of game modes that there is always somethng to do: stealth missions, arcade blastathons and, in its zombie challenges, the best survival horror available. Burnout 2 has its crash mode (Stuntman) and its pursuit challenges (Chase HQ) as extras to accompany an already phenomenal game.
Are these extras pointless? I don't think so. For one they add value to your games - it is hard to argue that any of the games mentioned above aren't worth £40. Most importantly, though, they sustain your enjoyment of a game and rebuild an enthusiasm that can otherwise be lost. Many's the time I have plunged to my death in Mario Sunshine and become dejected to the point of binning the game altogether; but, after kicking pineapples around Delfino Plaza for a few minutes, I'm prepared to go back and beat a frustrating level. And Vice City offers such an array of violent catharsis that it is hard to stay mad at it for long. So there we have it, my definition of the digital toybox. Long may it continue.
==================
In the halycon days of eight-bit gaming there were no bad games, only misunderstood ones. This, of course, is a blatant lie. There were plenty of bad games, and we understood all that we needed to about them: they were rubbish. One common thread seemed to link these travesties together, and it was the film-license.
Making a film into a game just didn't work back then, and one of the big reasons for this was that designers always tried to do far too much. If there was a good car-chase in the movie then it had to be in the game. If there was a good shoot-out in the movie then it had to be in the game. If there was a good love-scene in the movie then teenage boys bought the game and were mightily disappointed. The point is that movie tie-ins never stuck to one genre, they chopped and changed as the movie scenes demanded. With the possible exception of The Untouchables this never worked: the platforming sections were sub-standard, the driving sections were terrible, the shooty bits were dull. Essentially the game of the film was a jack of all trades and master of none - and, given that production teams were small and processing power smaller, this was no great surprise.
So what's changed? Certainly not the status of licensed games, which are still terrible. But more and more nowadays games are able to span several genres, and do so successfully. Naturally there are plenty of games that fail to master even one genre, but amongst today's AAA titles there is an increasing confidence to break boundaries, step outside the genre paradigm and become a genuine digital toybox.
Actually, I think that being a 'digital toybox' isn't dependent on being multi-genre, this is just one manifestation of the trend. The real key to being a digital toybox is this: when the gamer gets bored of playing, he doesn't switch off and read a book - instead he looks for something else to do *within* the game. If there is always some unexplored avenue, a diverting mini-game, or just an idle sense of fun, then a game is a digital toybox.
I think there are two main methods that designers use to achieve this:
The first is the 'Lego box' method. Lego takes very simple components (bricks) and very simple rules (bricks stick together) and lets you make your own fun. Once you get bored of your pirate ship, you can take it apart and build a space station; if you have enough time on your hands then you can produce life-size figures, theme parks or even a whole country (Denmark). Games that use the Lego method say 'Here are the rules, here are your tools - enjoy!' Sim City is one example: you can build a city as sensible or as stupid as you desire, and then get Godzilla to crush it for a laugh. Vice City uses the same technique: there is nothing in the manual that tells you to combine guns, cars and cops into brutal chaos - but our imagination and sense of fun means that we spend more time wreaking havoc than playing the missions.
Second is the 'compendium of games' method, the digital equivalent of those boxes containing chess, backgammon, a roulette wheel and a whole world of (not very much) fun. One way of doing this is to skip lightly across the genres. Mario Sunshine, for example, has its blooper surfing levels - basically a lightweight version of Wave Race - and numerous boss battles that are hard to categorise. And Grand Theft Auto not only successfully combines every twist on the driving genre, but has shooting, flying and boating sections as well.
Another way of achieving the compendium effect is to pack the title full of mini-games. Mario Party's sole purpose is its mini-games, but there are numerous titles that contain them as an important side dish. Timesplitters 2 has its temporal uplink cartridges, and these are no mere throwaways: Anaconda manages to rescue Snake from Nokia hell, and Astrolander is a devilish recreation of Thrust-style inertia games. Animal Crossing - itself a mix of simple sub-games - allows you to buy NES titles to play in your digital living room; and Metroid Prime will contain its predecessors as unlockable extras.
One final method is for games to contain elements that would have stood as complete titles in the past. Vice City's pizza delivery missions are nothing more than the best version of Paperboy ever. Timesplitters 2 contains such a myriad of game modes that there is always somethng to do: stealth missions, arcade blastathons and, in its zombie challenges, the best survival horror available. Burnout 2 has its crash mode (Stuntman) and its pursuit challenges (Chase HQ) as extras to accompany an already phenomenal game.
Are these extras pointless? I don't think so. For one they add value to your games - it is hard to argue that any of the games mentioned above aren't worth £40. Most importantly, though, they sustain your enjoyment of a game and rebuild an enthusiasm that can otherwise be lost. Many's the time I have plunged to my death in Mario Sunshine and become dejected to the point of binning the game altogether; but, after kicking pineapples around Delfino Plaza for a few minutes, I'm prepared to go back and beat a frustrating level. And Vice City offers such an array of violent catharsis that it is hard to stay mad at it for long. So there we have it, my definition of the digital toybox. Long may it continue.