David Jaffe's career has taken some interesting twists and turns over the last few years. After truly making his name with the original God of War in 2005, he worked on a PSP game called Heartland. The game, which he described as "dark" and intended to "evoke emotion" never saw the light of day.
Now, he's back with Twisted Metal for PlayStation 3 -- big, loud, dumb, and action-packed. What did he learn over this difficult journey?
"A big, big, big lesson," Jaffe told Gamasutra recently. "I got a better understanding of the language of games, and what makes games special."
God of War might have been a big hit, he says, but "it wasn't speaking to the medium as respectfully, as powerfully, as intentionally, as I want to speak to the medium."
However, he says, "A lot of people hear that and think I want to go off and make iOS abstract Tetris games, just pure abstraction, and it's not that."
"I think the biggest thing i learned is that I don't want to try to make movies through games," Jaffe says. Instead, he wants to create "experiences that speak respectfully and powerfully using the language of interactivity."
"Games kind of got off on a bit of a wrong track that was really appealing," he says, once CD-ROMs began to enable cinematics in games. "It wasn't necessarily the only track we should have got off on."
"I don't want to try and make a cinematic game, I want to try and make a great game," says Jaffe.
How in the world does a throwback title like Twisted Metal play into that? "The way I think of Twisted Metal is that it's kind of the shallow end of the pool, and the deep end of the pool," he argues. "People might say that it's a throwback, in that in its first initial glance it's old school.
"Some of it was intentional and some of it was accidental... we really did begin to realize that what made the game special was the multiplayer tactical, strategic, meaty, nutritious gameplay."
In other words, he says, what makes Twisted Metal significant is that it's "not just the surface of blowing shit up."
The game is "meant to engage your brain and try and make really cool choices."
The full interview, in which Jaffe discusses in greater depth what he thinks of design and evoking emotion through pure gameplay, will be live on Gamasutra next week. Later this week, Gamasutra will also have live coverage of Jaffe's talk at the upcoming DICE Summit.
The direction taken by David Jaffe should be heavily supported by both gamers and game developers, otherwise we'll end up with many more experience comparable to Modern Warfare 3, games that spoon feeds the players instead of producing fun through interactivity.
And interestingly, the direction taken by David Jaffe goes against the popular concept followed by many game studios from all around the world; they dumb down video games, make them easier to supposedly appeal to a much wider audience. To engage the brain is the complete opposite and it works. That's actually why some people remember that many older games were more fun, because 10-20 years ago, that was the key to make fun games.
Well, I think its a false dichotomy to say on one hand we have Call of Duty suction tube campaigns, and on the other hand we have non-cinematic non-story games. If you look at the penultimate notorious cinematic series, Metal Gear, its very highly based on giving players sand boxes to experiment in. And on the other hand if you look at a game like say Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden, which are highly linear, there's no point to making them non linear necessarily because the whole point of the genre is the fighting mechanics. So I think this whole "games are not movies" is kind of oversimplified.
We definitely have an issue with games getting dumbed down this generation. Its gotta be a shooter, it should have a 5 hour campaign, death match, capture the flag, and maybe what mp mode is trending at the time---be it horde, tower defense, or whatever. That said, I'm very on board with the new TM, and I believe Jaffe about having more thought out game play.
I was only pointing out that MW3 is going to be considered as a successful model for many highly ranked people in the business who look at the numbers and stupidly conclude that MW3 was actually a great and fun game.
I fell asleep 3 times (literally) while playing the first half of the campaign. In 20 years it never happened to me and I've played many games that received far worst reviews. And because MW3 was successful, we can expect many developers to be asked to copy it and they might not copy the greatest aspects. There is a reason why some older FPS players state that Halo 2 and CoD literally killed the FPS genre (temporarily for now), because the formula is all about rewarding the ego rather than interactivity.
That's why I stated that we should instead focus on creating engaging experiences for the brain and it doesn't matter if it's physical or mental (ex: Alan Wake, a psychological thriller).
Agreed. I was just thinking of things like Jaffe has said. Sometimes you need a game that focuses on the play mechanics. That's what I thought the arcade generation of games had right.
Agree with Mr. Jaffe. Never played a game that has a story compelling enough to make me overlook bad gameplay. Gameplay matters more than anything else.
Maybe I'm in the minority here but the reason I loved the old school twised metal and what I would desire from the new one is the blow **** up mentality. sure there were elements of strategy, driving around and finding powerups, driving into a situation where you could make a one on one fight a 1- on - 1 on- 1 and destroy the weakened victor of the fight. really I think the level design of the older twisted metals helped with a lot of the strategy . but at its core what made me happy was using one of the games numerous crazy characters to demolish my opponents, then strategically deploying my special abilities to cause as much damage as possible. I wouldn't say it was an extremely deeply-engaging tactical experience but it was a lot of fun . fun characters, fun maps, fun twisted - calypso endings.... just fun .
I agree with Mr. Jaffe. I've been saying this for quite some time now but it's very rare that today's games will engage the player's minds. Like someone stated above, most big budgeted games today spoon feed the kind of experience they want to gamer to have rather than relying on gameplay to define the gaming experience in a unique way for different players.
I still remember the games during the 8 & 16 bit eras. One game I fondly remember was a game called Shadowrun for the SNES. Granted, not too many people like that game, but what I remember most about it is how it put the player in a position to figure things out. The premise of the game was that your character wakes up at the morgue with amnesia. From there, only a few lines of dialog was given and it's up to the player to find clues and figure out what to do. For me, that was compelling and encouraged the idea of role playing. I enjoyed that game to the very end and sadly, never saw any kind of sequel to that game.
Today, we rarely see that kind of design mainly due to the fact that the publishers wants their games to be accessible to all, so they push the player forward with cut scenes, POI's, in game hints, systems that detects the possibility of the player being stuck and then tries to guide them to the solution. Now, I'm not saying those are all bad. Those mechanics certainly helped mature the game industry and has been used effectively in many games. However, what I'm saying is, it's rare that we play games that challenge the player to think.
The discovery and the rewards of solving the problems the game puts in front of the player are absent in games today. I hope the game industry will find a way to engage the player again so experiences the player goes through will be more satisfying.
Been playing this Twisted Metal demo since it came out. Everyday I have been discovering something new about the game and gameplay in general that deepens the game even more.
And interestingly, the direction taken by David Jaffe goes against the popular concept followed by many game studios from all around the world; they dumb down video games, make them easier to supposedly appeal to a much wider audience. To engage the brain is the complete opposite and it works. That's actually why some people remember that many older games were more fun, because 10-20 years ago, that was the key to make fun games.
We definitely have an issue with games getting dumbed down this generation. Its gotta be a shooter, it should have a 5 hour campaign, death match, capture the flag, and maybe what mp mode is trending at the time---be it horde, tower defense, or whatever. That said, I'm very on board with the new TM, and I believe Jaffe about having more thought out game play.
Agreed, but I'm sorry, my point was too vague.
I was only pointing out that MW3 is going to be considered as a successful model for many highly ranked people in the business who look at the numbers and stupidly conclude that MW3 was actually a great and fun game.
I fell asleep 3 times (literally) while playing the first half of the campaign. In 20 years it never happened to me and I've played many games that received far worst reviews. And because MW3 was successful, we can expect many developers to be asked to copy it and they might not copy the greatest aspects. There is a reason why some older FPS players state that Halo 2 and CoD literally killed the FPS genre (temporarily for now), because the formula is all about rewarding the ego rather than interactivity.
That's why I stated that we should instead focus on creating engaging experiences for the brain and it doesn't matter if it's physical or mental (ex: Alan Wake, a psychological thriller).
I still remember the games during the 8 & 16 bit eras. One game I fondly remember was a game called Shadowrun for the SNES. Granted, not too many people like that game, but what I remember most about it is how it put the player in a position to figure things out. The premise of the game was that your character wakes up at the morgue with amnesia. From there, only a few lines of dialog was given and it's up to the player to find clues and figure out what to do. For me, that was compelling and encouraged the idea of role playing. I enjoyed that game to the very end and sadly, never saw any kind of sequel to that game.
Today, we rarely see that kind of design mainly due to the fact that the publishers wants their games to be accessible to all, so they push the player forward with cut scenes, POI's, in game hints, systems that detects the possibility of the player being stuck and then tries to guide them to the solution. Now, I'm not saying those are all bad. Those mechanics certainly helped mature the game industry and has been used effectively in many games. However, what I'm saying is, it's rare that we play games that challenge the player to think.
The discovery and the rewards of solving the problems the game puts in front of the player are absent in games today. I hope the game industry will find a way to engage the player again so experiences the player goes through will be more satisfying.
Amen to that!