You should never be judged for picking assist options...not even by the game itself.

 So I can't believe I haven't talked about this yet, but dammit I love Control a lot. Honestly, I love Remedy Entertainment a lot. Never has a company done so much in an attempt to mix movie-type storytelling into their games (looking at you, Quantum Break TV episodes) and done so amazingly well. I've played almost every game by them (I'm only missing Max Payne, which, came out way too early in my life in my defense) and have enjoyed all of them. And Control is right up there at the top of my list. Everything about the title is phenomenal. From it's characters to powers to it's super crazy AF story that goes into some crazy directions. There's only a few annoying ticks I have with the title, and one of them is the game's intense difficulty. 

We know I'm not a fan of ultra tough games. That's why I see the fact I beat Control as a huge accomplishments. Yes there was many times I got extremely frustrated and just-done with the game. But the need to see what happens next was so important to me, that I pushed on. When I beat it, I honestly had no reason to come back to it due to the combat. But, then Remedy did the one thing that had me racing back, like a cookie on a string. They announced a connected 'Remedy-Verse', a DLC that brought in another character from their past, Alan Wake, and an assist mode for the game. 

Talk about right up my alley.

So I booted up Control as the DLC and the assist options went live, eager to start up and learn about a character I haven't seen in ages (did I mention I really loved Alan Wake? I really do) and I instantly went into the options to find the assist options. When I did, I got a glimpse of them. Immortality, the ability to change the percentage of damage taken, reloading, the energy gain...it was immense and amazing. But when I scrolled over to turn them on, a message caught my eye. 

Oh. Oh, that's not good at all.

Yeah, let's discuss this. For one, I can get designing your game to be challenging and rewarding. I, for one, felt incredibly rewarded after I beat it, knowing I fought through the difficulty and frustration to reach that satisfying ending. But, key word was I fought the difficulty. To be frank, I hate difficult games, not difficulty options. When you pick the 'casual' option, and the game is still extremely difficult? Then we have issues. 

Well, let's infer that's the reason the developers put in assist options a year after the game released. why weren't they put in at launch? Was it hard, or did the developers want people to play the game the way they intended to? Well, I'm a disabled gamer, with my anxiety making playing difficult games...difficult. I strive on games that include assist options and difficulty options such as Story Only, with aim assists, etc. So, for one, I cannot for a fact play games the way most developers intend people to. But I can still enjoy myself, I can still feel rewarded. 

Assist mode was made for people like me, to enjoy games like Control the way we want to. It allows us to still enjoy a game for it's story, it's characters, and even it's gameplay when we can edit it the way we want. Now, what we don't want, is a game to honestly patronize us for turning them on. 

Let me explain.

We don't care if your game was meant to be 'challenging and rewarding'. That's fine. But a game should also be rewarding for those not looking for a challenge, especially for those who do not want one. I play games to be relaxed. I do not play games to get so frustrated I almost put the game down for good. That's just a waste of my time and money. When a game gives me assist options, to me that's the developers saying we want you to enjoy yourself, no matter how you play. We just want you to play our game and have fun in the process. Which I am all here for. 

I always go back to it, but The Last of Us 2 is a perfect example of this. Those assist options are just-everything. It does not diminish your experience, you can raise the challenge as much as you want, and I did. I still played that game with the level of difficulty I felt comfortable with, and changed it if I wanted to. Even those who are not disabled, still got use of those options to help them through the game. But what The Last of Us 2 did that I appreciate greatly? Was it did not scold me for turning on some of those options. It did not tell me 'hey these options are here, but this game is meant to be challenging, and we are telling you not to turn them on.'.

What Control does, is it flat out tells you that this was not the way Remedy wanted the game to be played. Well, then how did they want disabled gamers to play Control? Did they want us to fight the difficulty, or the aiming in tense situations? While i'm aware this wasn't their intentions, the way it's worded is they basically don't want us to, or force us to fight through the difficulty and annoyance. Because obviously, we don't want to fight the developers and the play the game the way they didn't intend us too! (That was sarcasm, friends).

((image credit; engadget))

As I spoke to others about this when it released, I began to see that not everyone was fans of the way Remedy chose to represent it's assist options. Speaking to two friends, I got two answers that resonated with me extremely. While my friend Blaine had no real need for them, she did consider the way they represented them problematic. 

   "..but seeing "This game is intended/designed to be difficult so please try it normally before using assists" just sends an awkward message implying ppl who need those assists are thereby not getting the "Proper" experience."

Blaine's line about the "proper" experience was extremely telling. While a lot of games are made with a wide amount of players in mind, there are still some that are made with a narrow set of players. Games that are 'souls' like are a good example. Excruciating difficulty with no difficulty options or handicaps to help. While I wouldn't exactly call Control a 'souls' like, it still has some features. Very sparsely placed checkpoints, respawning enemies, etc. are designed to make every encounter difficult and stop you progression until it is beaten. 

Basically, Remedy is saying that they want the game to be that, difficult and challenging, because that's how they made it to be. Rewarding is one thing, but it's also a very loaded word. People can find anything 'rewarding', to the hardest challenge and the easiest one. You can complete what looks like the most impossible looking jump, or defeat the toughest, secret boss and still feel rewarded, even if you used assist options to do both of those things.  

Speaking about challenging and difficult as I brought up earlier, the second person I spoke to used said assist options specifically for the difficulty. Speaking to Jeff, he wanted to play the game and enjoy the story it was trying to tell, not the gameplay attached to it. Asking him how he felt with the assist mode wording, he also brought up the idea on developer intention.

"Yeah I didn't care for it. I have no problem with a developer having an "intended" default mode that they feel best conveys the experience they want the player to have."

"But that message went too far into guilting you for using it"

I know it's taken me long to say this (at least I think, i've been typing for awhile) but I have no problem with developers having an intended way to play their games. I know for a fact I am not like every other gamer, so i'm used to every game having it's 'way to be played'. But, if I'm given the option to make it more tailored towards me, I will do it. No, I'm not hurting the developer, if anything, I would praise them for making the option. Now, as Jeff mentioned, guilting you for using said option? Now that's a different story. 

Again, I'm aware they most likely didn't mean to word it like this, but to me it feels like those who pick assist options, for disabled or non-disabled reasons, are hurting the developers. Ruining the image they had for their game, when that should totally not be the case. You can say they added those options in for more people to enjoy the game, but it also comes one year (holy shit) too late. By this point, people who have played it have already beaten it, and have fought through the difficulty, and some have (like me) had a bad time doing it. 

I love Control alot, like, alot alot. It's one of the most psychologically crazy and down right mind-twisting game that I have ever played, and I love it for that. But it also, in my opinion, not disability-friendly. Even with the assist options. As my title says, you should never feel judged or guilty for picking assist in video games, disabled or not. When a game does do that, it sours the experience by non-verbally telling you that you are 'ruining the experience the developers made' even if it didn't outright say it. With, as someone with severe generalized anxiety, I can say is really, really not good.

((image credit; Game Rant))

So, we'll end this by asking, how can they fix this? And that's easy, either rewording or getting rid of their statement all together. The best thing I can say about the options, as The Last of Us did, they aren't gameplay stoppers. You can still get trophies/achievements, you can still beat the main game and all of the DLC with it on and nothing changes with unlockables and side missions. You can still play the game, just in your normal, which is most important. You should be able to enjoy games the way you want to, no matter what. How developers want you to enjoy something is one thing, but they should also give you the options to enjoy it the way you want to, if you decide to use it. Or, if you have to use it, and need to edit the experience to enjoy at you own pace. 

Hi guys! Thank you so much for reading this, and a bigger thank you for Blaine (@morbidcuriousty on twitter) and Jeff (@Jeffsimulator on twitter) for allowing me to ask them questions and quote them in this piece! Their both amazing and deserve the love. 

PS; AWE was fucking great and it's so good to have you back, Alan.

Why Halo's integration of it's extended universe is...not good.

 I am all for including extended universe fiction into video game story lines, let me preface this piece by stating that. When done right, you can add such little, great details into a game that, for those who have seek out the novels, comics, etc, they have great call backs for their efforts. A Series like World of Warcraft is a great examples of this, with it adding more context for future game expansions. Now, what including extended universe fiction into your games shouldn't do, is hide very important story beats and background behind novels. After a recent play through of the Halo series I am doing with a good friend, specifically Halo 4, and having seen 343 Industries attempt to mix the Halo novels in with the already existing canon they were building in the fourth entry of the series, I feel what and how they are doing it is just...

Well, let's be honest, it isn't good. It's convoluted, and leaves a huge mass hole of confusion in the middle of the games plot, literally a few missions before the end, introducing an insanely important plot point that should not have half of it's background described in only a novel. A background, I will add, is very important to understanding the big reveal in the game. In this short little opinion essay, I will make a quick discussion on how Halo failed it's extended universe integration, and give a suggestion on how they could improve. So, in this post I will be going into a big plot point of Halo 4, and perhaps a bit about the Forerunner trilogy of books as well. Halo spoilers ahead! 

(image credit; Halo Waypoint)

Near the ending of Halo 4, there is a scene where Master Chief is a shown a vision by a forerunner character called the Librarian. Keep in mind, no point in the video games has this character been discussed or even seen. Here, the Librarian explains to Chief about how in order to defeat the Flood, an alien parasitic species, she went behind the villain of the game, the Didact's back, to implant some genetic coding into certain humans, allowing their genetic code to accelerate and allow them to among other things, evolve past their normal human coding and survive something called the Composer, a weapon that is meant to eliminate the Flood, that is being used by the Didact, the games villain. 

Now, for those who don't know Halo lore, you would think this is a huge plot point. The implications it speaks of, that it isn't just Spartans that are the genetically altered people. If I took anything from that, it's that normal people, even ODSTs, normal soldiers, can have these genes that have been altered long before from the Forerunners. A major point, that 343 chooses to hide behind a trilogy of books titled "Forerunner saga.", a series that follows the Didact and the Librarian, both characters that appear in Halo 4, and a couple other characters that are not even named in the game itself, as it follows the first wipe of all life from the galaxy. An event that has been discussed in the Halo games, and something that has seemingly driven the plots (as seen as the main plot for Chief has seemingly been to stop the Halo Rings from firing). But the main plot taken from the books, is the fact that everything the human race has done, has been set up by the forerunners. Discovering our tech, everything from AIs to the Spartans themselves. Has all been set up by them. Which, one could say is a huge reveal for a series that has gone as long as Halo has.

Now, I know little to nothing about Halo lore. I know basically the same as everyone else does, as someone who only looks at Halo on the surface. But even so, as I watched the cut scene that glossed over the entire plot point, and then asked the person I was playing with 'what the fuck was that?' and he responded with 'oh, this is when they started pulling book lore.' I did what anyone else did. I looked up the book, interested for a moment to know the backstory and what Halo was trying to lead me to. Extended universe, obviously. But when I learned the fact that it was in a trilogy of books, and not one, and the fact that this was a huge plot thread that was hidden in that book trilogy...well, you could say my decision not to read it was because of laziness (as we all obviously have time to read now), and honestly that isn't it. 

Personally, the reason I didn't dive into this and buy the books and just, shove my head into the Halo ocean, is because I was ticked. Angry that 343 had decided to bring in a plot point that was brought up a in a series that, honestly, did a lot of people read? A point that, if it was important as they made it seem, why have it only be skirted over in a CGI cut scene? Then be told then you have to search out a book to get the full backstory? 

Listen I hate to say this, and I hate to be the person who bares this, but that's not good storytelling. That is locking a detail of a major story behind having to buy and put time into another medium. For the dedicated fans, that's great. They most likely will, and get the most out of it. But for those players who only pay attention to surface lore, they will be probably confused all the way through. Wondering why this feels so out of place, what it's supposed to mean, etc. 

(image credit me.me)

Now, what can 343 in the future do to fix this? Well, an easy thing to say is to remove huge plot points from ancillary novels and leave their books, while still canon, only including side stories. Small thing that can be referenced in small bits of game, to give as a small gift to those who follow your canon and side stories. But also, if you do choose to still add canon into your side content 343 (as if they are even listening???) then I highly suggest you do the following, in nice little list form! 

1. Add a disclaimer when you announce a new, say, novel. "This is the official prequel to Halo 25!" or "This follows character X, who appears in the upcoming Halo 32!" In order to give context, so people know a broad idea of what the book is covering 
2. And oh boy, this is the biggest one that no one is going to see coming, but JUST DON'T DO IT. Now, stay with me here as yes, I did mention this in the earlier paragraph. But, it's a simple fix, and other titles have done it to an amazing degree. Put it in collectible files, hide it behind character dialogue or even just put it as a side quest since it looks like Infinite is doing that, which is an amazing first start. The side quest thing, I swear I cannot tell the future of Halo.

As I end this rant, and I'm so sorry it came to this, the topic of story in games is extremely important to me. I believe gaming should be something everybody can get into, and that also works in the story aspect. Make games accessible when it comes to the story is an easier said then done task, but when done correctly, you can make a world lush and full of great story and details. And yes, that does mean you can add ancillary details and things from books and novels. 

Just do right, please? 

I mean if your still here how about getting 343 to add Buck into more things? please? I KNOW YOUR LISTENING.  

UPDATE; wanted to thank a good bro Mak for helping me with the plot questions I had. Can confirm I was so mad I forgot some of the plot talked about in the scene! Thanks for the help, my dude.