grudgingly optimistic

People are talking about NBA 2K16. Talking for good reason.  Spike Lee, academy award winner and two time nominee has, in an unprecedented step for sports gaming, directed the story-line for 2K16’s MyCareer mode.

At first, this seems like an unreal coup for the gaming industry, especially sports gaming.  Not only has Spike Lee brought more exposure by his presence alone, but an area of gaming which is renowned for being stale and lacking innovation suddenly has a chance to progress in ways it hasn’t previously managed.

Taking a second, less reactionary view of things, we come to realize that this may not be as positive as we initially envisioned….uhh….not really.

Let me put it straight. Spike Lee’s involvement is nothing but amazing for gaming as a whole. Period.  A passionate NBA fan and Academy Award winner; Spike Lee is famous for controversial and brutally honest social commentary nestled between powerful characters, intense action and progressive concepts.  Everyone knows who Spike Lee is. This man is working on a sports video game. A SPORTS VIDEO GAME.  A genre which for years has stagnated into remaking the same Be A Pro and MyCareer modes that entail little more than grinding endlessly through games in their relevant sport. Your ‘character’ possessing a personality and individuality that amounts to silly hairstyles and a haphazard collection of numbers and skills.  Finally, this cycle of mediocrity could be coming to an end.

Does it work though?

After spending some time with NBA 2K16 and completing the ‘Spike Lee Joint’ portion of MyCareer, I’d like to explore the execution of this incredibly promising concept.

I’ll be honest, from the first scene, I was disappointed. Personally, I like to immerse myself in games.  I enjoy games the most when I can become fully engrossed. This scene is actually happening, that character is real in their own way.  A world away from the real world; an alternate reality if you will. In the opening scene of NBA 2K16, immediately after building my character,  this perception is immediately suppressed by a real world,  obviously scripted and cheesy ‘outtake’ of a motion capture scene that only achieves to attach faces and personas to the forthcoming MyCareer character voices which are separate from the game world.

The ‘outtake’ transitions into Spike Lee telling the player what has been said already in multiple trailers and releases,  Explaining his role and the direction MyCareer is taking in this years installment.  Information that could easily have been conveyed via text during a loading screen or before the player ever begins the process of developing and becoming invested in their character.

Moving into the actual game; we are quickly introduced to the player’s character and his twin sister.  This first scene featuring the characters quickly sets precedent for the rest of the ‘Spike Lee Join’ segment of the Mycareer.  Information that could easily conveyed in a variety of natural ways is instead forced out as the siblings discuss their life history with each other in a weird, why-would-they-be-talking-about-this-stuff-in-this-situation?, manner. The result is a long winded and artificial conversation, virtually shoving context and setting down the player’s throat. This unfortunate style is one that continues throughout.

Disappointingly, the much vaunted story of this years MyCareer is a basic, cliche line of adversity and success with some tragedy mixed in.   I think most would expect more from the writer of such acclaimed screenplays as Crooklyn and Malcolm X. In fact, the writing is noticeably poor.  Twice I found myself bored while listening to a long, drawn out monologue that was seemingly covering and reiterating a single topic or message in every way conceivable. One of these occasions, during what (unbeknownst to me) turned out to be the final cutscene, I actually got up and went and made coffee, only partially listening to what was meant to be a heartfelt and dramatic moment. I may as well not have listened at all.  By the time I returned to the couch, the same character was still droning away at the same tired monologue. On a positive note, while the writing may have much to be desired, the performance of the voice acting manages to save the scene on many occasions with very impressive performances all round.  In particular, the voice actor of troubled and multifaceted ‘Vic’ executes a certain scene to chilling perfection before the writing lets him down and prolongs the encounter into mediocrity.

Another large gripe is the lack of control on the part of the player. Between cutscenes the player is reduced to playing a few shortened games and hitting the ‘continue’ button for the next cutscene. It feels as though nothing the player does will impact the outcome of the story, which is exactly the case. No performance goals are set for the games you do play, no choices are given. In one particular case, the player making an upcoming choice seems certain. An entire scene is dedicated to how huge and important an upcoming decision is and how only one person can make it. As it turns out, that person is not you.  Everything is preordained and it feels that way.

After an abrupt ending to the ‘Joint’, MyCareer transitions into a similar mode to previous years, leaving us to contemplate the latest fusion of Hollywood and gaming.

All in all, despite the cliched plot and the sub-par writing, NBA 2k16’s MyCareer is enjoyable. In fact, despite it’s flaws, this year’s iteration is quite possibly my favorite single player sports game mode to date. A backstory and shared experience invokes a larger investment in the character, making the later game more enjoyable.  Cliche story is better than no story, and poor writing is better than no writing.  In this case anyway.

2K has taken a huge step in the right direction.  Just knowing that they have even the intention of bettering the story of the single player modes is something that should get us excited.  Hopefully other developers (*cough* I’m looking at you EA) will now attempt to emulate what 2K have themselves have attempted and up the ante on their next installments.  Although, with the recent history of sport games in mind, I’m not getting my hopes up.

Not yet anyway.

It seems the vast majority of games that I enjoy revolve around stress.  Tension, fear and dread are all synonymous with the ‘stress’ to which I am referring. Whether I’m playing a Souls game in a slight (intense) state of panic, or sweating with trepidation before a risky move in XCOM; I’m in a state of stress. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it is usually what motivates me to progress through a game.

Grow Home, a game by Ubisoft Reflections, separates itself from that trend.  A game centered around a robot named B.U.D *(Botanical Utility Droid) growing an enormous plant into space and climbing it in order to board a spaceship and return home.

One could argue that hanging precariously, hundreds of meters above sea level with the threat of a gruesome death is ‘stressful’. It isn’t.  Well, at least not after your initial fall.   A few seconds of terror and regret as you realize that you’ve made a terrible misjudgment and fall to your doom, then a cringeworthy death of dismemberment-by-water, finally concluding with an encouraging message from the ever positive ‘M.O.M’ and your adventure continues as a new body for your consciousness is constructed and sent to the last teleporter which double as a checkpoint.

This perhaps seems an anticlimactic and light penalty to a failure of fairly monumental proportions. Especially when, as stated previously, my enjoyment of games usually stems from risk and tension arising from fear of death or loss. Yet, somehow Grow Home replaces this with a feeling of fulfillment without risk.  Perhaps it is the tangible progression as your Star Plant climbs higher, ever closer to your objective and ultimate completion of the mission.

But then, Grow Home isn’t about winning.  At least, for me it wasn’t. (cliche incoming) Grow Home isn’t about the goal or the destination, it is about the journey.

Little in my gaming life has been as satisfying as gliding downwards around my gloriously haphazard and chaotic creation. Descending down through the twisting vines, hanging rocks and falling water is an incredibly peaceful experience. Conversely, climbing upwards up rock faces, jumping from leaf to vine and straddling a shoot of your world tree as you steer it on it’s capricious and determined journey toward a distant energy rock can be incredibly satisfying. Just as the act of reaching that remote crystal glimpsed from hundreds of meters below and yanking it free is a uniquely positive feeling.  Especially when that crystal is the one needed to bump up your jet-pack to the next level.

The most challenging aspect of Grow Home is filling out your ‘data bank’.  An encyclopedia of all the flora and fauna encountered on your journey, one makes entries by grabbing and unceremoniously dragging said flora and fauna to the closest teleporter in order to scan it.  Seemingly simple, this can prove to be much harder in practice.

Holding a somewhat unenthusiastic sheep in one or both hands while simultaneously trying to scale even a slight slope can prove too much for B.U.D. The solution is often simple, yet just as regularly, one must be creative in order to reach the goal.  One of the most fulfilling moments in Grow Home is finally bundling the unique Artic Meep into a teleporter alive and well (intact).

All in all, Grow Home is a singularly satisfying game. Whether one is elegantly gliding beneath a giant leaf, gracelessly falling off a giant vine, or forcing a golden dodo against it’s will into a teleporter. Whatever the scenario, Grow Home is a pleasure.

As an afterthought, if you haven’t played Grow Home, you might need some context for this line:

“straddling a shoot of your world tree as you steer it on it’s capricious and determined journey toward a distant energy rock can be incredibly satisfying.”

Here it is:

Images source: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-GB/game/grow-home/