You Make Me Break Out

Time for some super niche game design folks!

I want to talk about the importance of animation breakouts in shooting games as some games still ship without them.

So what is an animation breakout (from now on referred to as an anim breakout)?

Anim breakouts are points in an animation that are flagged to allow the player to trigger the playing of another animation. This might be at set points in the animation or the entire animation might allow this. They are used to allow the player to react to situations in the game and change what their character is doing. Depending at which point the animation is broken out of, the benefit of the animation is still conferred to the player despite the entire animation not playing.

Example:

1. Let’s say that the reload anim for an assault rifle comprises the following actions:
2. The player character ejects the clip.
3. The player character draws a new clip from their body.
4. The player character puts the new clip in.
5. The player character cocks the rifle.
6. The player character returns the gun to normal position.

This animation will only take two or so seconds but in a fast paced shooting game, those two seconds can see you killed if you can’t react in time. If you can’t break out of the animation being played to return fire, throw a grenade or melee kill you will feel cheated and frustrated. For this reason, designers allow you to break out of animations like a reload to respond to the game as it changes states (targets present themselves, you come under attack etc.).

Breakouts also allow for a higher level of play as you can (for want of a better word) combo actions. In Battlefield Bad Company every weapon reload has a cocking animation but counts as fully reloaded as soon as the fresh clip is loaded. The heal animation of plunging a syringe of adrenaline into your chest also has about half a second of animation that is played once the syringe has hit your body and you count as being healed. Thanks to the anim breakouts you can hit reload and as soon as the new clip is in the weapon you have full ammo. You then hit the weapon swap button to bring up your syringe. This cuts the cocking animation short and shaves half a second off the reload time. You hit the use syringe button and as soon as the syringe hits your chest, you are healed. You can then hit the weapon swap button to get back to your assault rifle and cut the syringe anim short, losing another half second. In total you have saved a second from the total anim time and that second can cost you a kill/death/the game.


Many games still don’t ship with anim breakouts and this is one of the many reasons reviewers may refer to controls as being frustrating and clunky. Often titles with anim breakouts have controls that are called tight or responsive when they are being discussed and this can often make or break a title’s success. The simple act of being able to break out of a reload to throw a grenade in Call of Duty elevates the ‘fun’ a player has as the game responds in a way that they want.

When a player picks up a game and starts playing they are immediately given a world of choices and decisions to make. As this world changes with the state change cycle, players want to respond and act with total immediacy. Games that don’t let you break out of animations inhibit the player’s ability to react to new choices and decisions and this lets frustration creep in and the player will complain that the game has bad controls.

Not only is it important to have anim breakouts, it is also important that the purpose of the animation is applied to the player at the appropriate point. In the Battlefield example above, as soon as the player character has fully inserted the clip into the weapon, the weapon counts as being reloaded even though the cocking part of the animation may not have been played as the player has broken out of it. Sometimes games don’t apply the benefit of the action unless the anim has completely played out and once again, this is incredibly frustrating.

I’m sure to many people this article is fairly obvious and elementary but having played a number of games in the past few months that don’t have this basic user functionality in, I wanted to post something about it.

Box Arts

Here are some more box arts that I like. Come, gather round and Regard Things.

Katamari Forever (European flavour).


WET.


WET as a whole is very stylish and should you play the game/demo, take a moment to appreciate the licensed music in it. You can listen the track from the demo here. It is an unofficial Youtube version and most of the soundtrack appears to be there for good or ill. While searching for the title of the track I wanted in Google, I was surprised to learn that most of the hits for dodgy game OST sharing sites are Russian. I had no idea they are so into game OSTs.

My Guerrillas, Let Me Show You Themz.

Like a futuristic sledgehammer to your minds my Red Faction Guerrilla review is up over at NTSC-UK.

I had a lot of fun with this game and can't wait to see what Volition do with the series.

As always the rest of my reviews can be hit up here.

I head to PAX next week so if you're lucky you may be getting daily posts. I am also going to endeavour to write a proper feature about it.

Finally, Some Good Box Art

You may remember that a while ago I talked about box art. Heady times indeed.

2K has recently revealed the box art for Borderlands (a post apocalyptic shooter RPG for those not in the know) and it is probably the best box art ever.

Come, let us regard it.


This box art is beautiful and somewhat surprising. Where is the hero? Where is the gritty backdrop? Instead one of the low level enemies is miming shooting himself in the head and the blood splat shows a glimpse of vehicle combat from the game. It's nice to see someone doing something like this.

I'll also mention the Halo 3 ODST box art.


I really like this box art and not just because the word Halo features on it. I think it captures some of the atmosphere of a lone special ops trooper in a hostile city. It thankfully isn't like the Halo 3 box art where all I can see is Master Chief tipping over.

New Gadget Get!

I've added a new gadget to the of the old, heh heh, blog where I will list the games I'm currently playing. As I update it you will get a post like this:

I'm currently a fairly wide selection of games. I'm rocking import goodness like Blazblue with my girl and revisiting RV62 and SR2 with friends in coop. Sometimes you forget just how good some games are. Saints Row 2 is a total masterpiece and the fun me and Phil have in coop is just crazy. We are currently tearing it up in Ronin territory and the amount of fun we are having can only be measured in increments of 'hella'. Rainbow Six is a game that is have played a lot of at home and at work and I never get sick of it.

I have a weakness for anything that has "2D" and "fighter" in its description. Unfotunately that weakness usually involves me either buying them and playing them once or indeed, not at all. There are currently 3 different 2D fighters sat unopened on my shelves. Fortunately Rachel has taken a real shine to it and so our Sundays are spent taking the fight to Xbox Live where we encounter an ungodly amount of people playing Jin. It's like SF4 and Ken all over again. Except I'm still not adept enough at it to counter him all that well.

Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires is a game that is thoroughly excellent but will be over looked. People need to check out DW games and this is an excellent one to jump into.

And then there is Damnation. As a designer I take my gaming literacy pretty seriously and will always find time to play bad games. There is often a lot to learn from them and Damnation is a game with many, many problems but at the centre there is a small glimmer of genius. Blue Omega bit off way more than they could chew with the tech and the combat designer needs a guiding hand but there are many interesting things to take away from it. It also has the most gratuitous cleavage I have ever seen in a game (I own and have played both version of Dead or Alive Volleyball).

Anyone want to talk about what they are playing in the comments? It's strange saying this but I don't get to talk to people enough about the games they are playing.

Bionic Assassin

My reviews for Bionic Commando and Velvet Assassin went up recently over at NTSC-UK.

As ever, writing with those guys was a great experience.

I also want to point you to the review we recently put up of Rainbow Six Vegas and the ensuing comments thread.

Many people questioned why a review of a (nearly) three year old game went up now and why it criticised the game so much. Pretty much everyone in thread disagreed with the text and score with one person saying that because because it goes into Metacritic we should be embarrassed about putting a review up that so many consider 'wrong'.

Rather than being considered an embarrassment, it should be considered a celebration. NTSC-UK publishes reviews that have something to say, no matter the game or the release date. When reading them I tend to look at reviews as a discussion between myself and the reviewer and that reading their critique I inform, enforce and explore my own feelings and views on the game.

I will go ahead and say that I disagree with many of the points in the R6V review but it is a fascinating read because the reviewer's view point is so opposed to my own. He came at the game from a totally different angle to me and that is super interesting to me.

When we are subjectively reviewing a subjective piece of art, can someone be wrong?

I would argue not.

Of Juarez and it's Call

Another huge delay between blog posts.

Remember the carefree days of GDC where I would post multiple times a day and you would lap the posts up like the salivating dogs that you are? Happy times.

Life has been incredibly busy for multiple reasons and I have been hard pressed to actually sit in front of my Xbox, let alone write some ish. Last week I failed to get any achievements. I know, right?

I have actually instructed my family that if I am offline from Xbox Live for more than seven days, I am probably dead. Or dying. Or wishing I was dead. Last week I was offline for four days straight. They had already pre-emptively warned the relevant authorities.

So, like I say I haven't had a chance to play a lot of games recently so I'm still slowly plodding through RF Guerrilla but last night I managed to get an hour in on Call of Juarez Bound in Blood.

The original Call of Juarez completely fascinated me. The developers Techland have flashes of stunning genius but can't maintain a constant level of polish across an entire game. Like From Software, Techland create games that are very much bound to the intended atmosphere of the game and they don't necessarily conform to game design conventions.

The level design places a great deal of faith in the player buying into the scenario and moving through the sequence without trying to break it. Set pieces will trigger and events will happen regardless of whether you are in the right place or not and if played 'properly' (as much as I shudder to type that) the game is enthralling experience.

It might not be the strongest FPS out there but it is rare in that it attempts to craft a first person experience that relies heavily on story and actions other than shooting to draw you in and through.

In the first chapter you enter a quick draw shoot out with a law man and instead of just blasting him away like any other enemy, the camera goes third person and focuses on your character's hand and holster. You can manipulate the hand with the right stick and the objective of the mini game is to wait until you hear the town bell toll before drawing your pistol and not blowing your load too early. My mouth was agape with how simple but amazing it was.

After that you drive a stage coach (complete with horses) through buildings.

My hetero life-mate Beast has requested that I post more than about games. I'm not sure what about though.

Stay tuned for a post this week which will hopefully be off topic as they say.