Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

The Rock Opera is an unusual and rare musical form that I can’t say I’m especially familiar with.  The Who’s Tommy is actually the only example I could name off the top of my head; and even then, the term is a little fuzzy.  According to Wikipedia, a rock opera differs from the more common concept album (a la the wonderful Sgt. Pepper’s) by being, well, operatic.  The album has to have some sort of storyline, as expressed by a singer or singers who personify certain characters in the narrative or recount their adventures.

Anyway, to the point of all of this.  Thanks to a timely Penny Arcade update, I learned of the band The Protomen.  They have recently released a demo from their new album, which I proceeded to listen to.  That was all I needed.  I was entranced, but Breaking Out couldn’t prepare me for the brain fucking The Protomen were about to give me.

The Protomen’s self-titled album is a rock opera through and through.  The story is based on Mega Man, and the immortal conflict between Dr. Light’s creation and the evil robot-ruling Dr. Wiley.  But The Protomen tells a tale far removed from the innocent 8-bit storytelling of the original Mega Man games.  It’s a dark, depressing future in which Dr. Wiley controls humanity with an army of robots.  Worse, humanity is unwilling to fight for its own freedom.  The album practically exudes George Orwell.  Hope lies with the proles, but they won’t stand for themselves…

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From my 1UP blog (11/7/2007):

When you get right down to it, choices in video games are as simple as a straightforward “If X, then Y” statement. But the ability to choose your own path has slowly slithered further and further into video game design as each generation opens up a new world of complexity. At this point, it’s rare to see a game attain much more than a simple, black or white choice — which is fine, in certain situations, but it’s tantalizing to think about the technical and literary accomplishments that could crack gaming wide open in the next decade.

For now, guiding your Luke Skywalker-wannabe to the Light or the Dark side of the Force is a choice well worth making, and other games that share this similarity to KOTOR offer replayability, tough calls, and generally rewarding gameplay.

But I’m not just talking about huge, game-altering choices. There’s more than that. The other side of the coin is plain old customization — and while I believe the big choices will lead gaming in the direction it must eventually go, the option to choose how to color your Spartan, what kind of hat your Animal Crossing character should wear, or what color your lizardy Argonian should be is the secret combination to the safe hiding away that big old fat pile of cash.

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From my 1Up blog (10/21/07):

No, seriously, it’s extreme. When I heard about E4 six months ago and found out it was a music game that allowed you to use your own music, I was excited. The potential there is enormous, and while I don’t think E4 really matches that, it tries harder than any other music game I’ve played–though, to be fair, that’s a pretty small group.

Booting up the demo Wednesday afternoon, I was skeptical. 30 seconds in and I had no fucking clue what I was doing. Okay, so I’m…blowing up? And thing doing it again? What do these powerup things do? Why can’t I control my explosion? I died pretty quickly, and wasn’t sure how much I liked the game. But five minutes later, I was hooked.

E4 is more about sensory immersion than anything resembling the kind of gameplay you’d expect from a product in which you try to create massive combo chains via psychedelic kamikaze attacks. However, even the simplistic design becomes a fairly addictive concept as you focus on strategy and time management to collect the greatest number of powerups while constructing the longest-lasting chains. Do you break off a combo to grab a shield and nab a few quickens and time extends, thereby increasing the influx of enemies and allowing you to score more points in the future? Or do you let that chain keep on going, hoping to rake in as much as you can until it runs dry?

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From my 1Up blog (10/17/2008):

Oh, Bungie. You may have made the mistake of giving me too much in Halo 3–for every amazing little tweak I can make, I pine for even more addictive customization and subtle gameplay changes.

Halo 3 is a fantastic game, and it’s entirely possible that in a year’s time I’ll have logged more hours into matchmaking and custom games than I have in any other game in my life. And this is after having played something close to 3000 games of Halo 2, god knows how many hours of Super Smash Bros. Melee since 2001, and an unthinkable number of weekends in middle school devoted to Goldeneye and The World Is Not Enough.

So, to spend a few hundred or thousand words spewing fanboy gibberish and attempting to sound like A PROFESSIONAL with insight into what I’d like to see in Halo 3, strap yourself in.

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From my 1Up blog (10/9/2007):

…and probably read by no one. But that’s okay–this blog exists to allow me to prove to myself that I actually have something to say about an industry that I love, and that I know how to say it without seeming like just another guy who plays Halo a lot.

As a second year college student soon to be heavily immersed in all things journalism, I constantly wonder about the future. Moreso than where I’m going to be in ten years, I want to know where this industry is going to be in ten years.

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