arts // no. 8 Adam Tatelman Arts Editor > Fist-fighting for fun and profit Combet is one of the most common video game mechanics because it is an easy way to give the plot conflict and tension. Why should I care about Ryu Hayabusa’s revenge mission? Because demons want to kill him, so he has to fight for his life. Action movies and Kung Fu films have used this trick in lieu of character arcs for decades, so adapting it to games is easy. However, that places the burden of being engaging on the combat itself. Since gunplay is fairly common in modern gaming, let’s examine the road less traveled: fist-fighting. Outside of tournament fighters like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, this is a mechanic that rarely carries a game by itself: This is because most melee combat outside those genres boils down to a simplistic block-and-counter badminton match that grows repetitive quickly. There are, however, games that buck this trend. The Condemned series, ostensibly a horror game, features brutal, realistic combat. Block-and-counter serves only as the base; aside from having individual control over your right and left hands for boxing combos, there are countless improvised weapons scattered through every environment for the player to take advantage of, each with its own distinct reach, swing speed, damage, and durability stat. This, along with the hyper-aggressive enemy AI, forces the player to be resourceful and fight dirty. The Batman: Arkham Asylum series features a more arcade-like system, focused on facing multiple opponents at once. Attacking and countering builds your combo meter as long as you avoid taking damage. Each time your combo reaches a certain number of hits, Batman can execute a number of devastating grappling attacks. Each attack is most effective against a different type of enemy, so trying to execute the optimal attack against a certain foe is a tense struggle, especially when you're rocking a 100-hit combo you can't stand to lose. This style, of course, was inspired by the spectacle fighters of yesteryear, sadly endangered now thanks to the tepid reaction to games like DmC: Devil May Cry (the reboot) and God of War: Ascension (the unnecessary prequel). Usually, these games pit a fragile-yet-acrobatic character with a huge arsenal of attacks against enormous bosses with even bigger health bars. These games, when played well, see the player use a wide variety of attacks to maintain their combo and look as stylish as possible. Warning: Not for those with slow thumbs. Though associated with fist fighting, the phrase melee translates literally to “mixture.” Thus, what makes these melee combat systems stand out from the parry-riposte clones lining bargain bins the nation over is, in theotherpress.ca Image via DC a word, variety. Be it a variety of moves to use, tactics to employ, or a belt of bat-gadgets, melee combat as a mechanic only shines when the player has the chance to be tricky and unpredictable. Real fights rarely look like two guys standing still and trading punches until someone gets a lucky shot. Maybe one guy is bigger than the other. Maybe it goes to the ground. Maybe they both know different martial arts, or maybe they know none at all. Maybe they are a couple of drunks with switchblades. Combat is an entire universe of move and countermove, throw and recovery, grapple and escape. Boiling it down to a virtual game of Rochambeau is perhaps the easiest thing for developers to do, but it sure as hell ain’t fun to play. Somewhere in the heavens, they are waiting > ‘Marathon’ trilogy retrospective Adam Tatelman Arts Editor ollowing the release of Destiny: Rise of Iron, the expansion pack to the popular co-op sci-fi shooter, it is fitting to take a look back at the surreal FPS series that catapulted then-unknown developer Bungie Studios to mainstream fame, Marathon. Marathon was one of the only successful franchises exclusive to the Mac computer in the 1990s, back when the FPS genre was first popularized by Windows PC exclusives like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. Believe it or not, the Mac vs. PC debate was every bit as cringe worthy as the Xbox vs. PlayStation argument of today, and Marathon was the biggest gun Mac had in the fight. Marathon was also the first-ever FPS to feature dual- wielding, and one of the first to have weapons with multiple fire settings. This makes the combat into a fast-paced rock-paper- scissors game where certain weapons are most effective against different enemy types, forcing the player to conserve ammo for emergencies and strategize on the fly. There are also sections which take place underwater or in zero gravity, something no competing shooter had yet considered. If Marathon’s design is forward-thinking, then the storytelling is lightyears ahead of the competition. The U.E.S.C. Marathon, the space vessel your character serves on, has been attacked by the Pfhor, a race of alien slavers. Seems standard. But the real drama comes from Leela, Durandal, and Tycho—the three A.I. programs who control the ship. Leela is your only true ally in this fight. Durandal, having become self-aware, plots to take advantage of the situation. Tycho, now corrupted by a Pfhor A.L, has turned against you. Beyond this, the story is told through your correspondences with the A.I_s through computer terminals. You can simply choose to run the gauntlet and complete your objectives, but there is a rich, detailed space opera happening behind the scenes, and it is well worth the player’s interest. Making the story complex, accessible but not in- your-face, is a novel idea—one which has rarely been imitated in 20 years of game design since. Marathon 2: Durandal sees the megalomaniacal A.I. pressgang you into serving his ambition on an ancient alien planet. Marathon: Infinity is... complicated. Supposedly, the player travels through alternate realities Quantum Leap style, mending corrupted versions of events from the first two games in an attempt to stop an eldritch abomination from eating all of existence. More likely, it was a poorly justified hodgepodge of production notes that vaguely resembles a story, since Durandal was actually intended to conclude the series. The level design will make or break the game for most. Being a shadowy corridor crawl like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D, the layout is extremely complex, often requiring the player to throw various obscure hidden switches to proceed through the levels. The feeling of being lost and powerless certainly works in the context of a story where everyone is manipulating you, but it can get extremely grating, especially given the lack of a catchy soundtrack in most levels. Fans of Larry Niven or Philip K. Dick will enjoy these games for their plot; Destiny and Halo fans will want to unearth them to experience a lost era in FPS history. For those undaunted by taking on the role of a rat in a maze, all three Marathon titles are available as freeware at alephone.lhowon.org, along with various fan-made scenarios, such as the horror-themed RED, and the pseudo-sequels Eternal, Phoenix, and Rubicon X.