This is the final round. The week-long short-session Vs. Mode between me and Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal draws to a conclusion in rather segue-ready fashion.

In this last round, N’Gai and I dissect “Nucleus,” “Pac-Man Championship Edition” and “Diner Dash,” among others.

And then your favorite Multiplayer blogger brings it home with the discovery of a short-session, itty-bitty game that might be better than “BioShock” at the very aspect of gameplay that “BioShock” is best at.

Say it ain’t so! Or say it is so! Or… say what? The surprise game is revealed in the last letter of this exchange, after the jump.

And guess what game we’ll be tackling in our next Vs. Mode? Get ready, Ken Levine.

(As always, Vs Mode is co-published on N’Gai’s “Level Up” blog.)

To: Stephen Totilo
Fr: N’Gai Croal
Date: August 11, 2007
Re: A Thumbs Down For “Nucleus”

Stephen,

An “EveryDay Shooter” sequel and an Entirely Different Jonathan Mak Project don’t have to be a zero-sum game. Will Wright is off making Spore while other people handle “The Sims” and “Sim City.” If “EDS” is nurtured into a hit, we’re more likely to get brand new Queasy Games, because Mak could use those revenues to support himself and fund original projects while still owning his own IP. (That last point would put him ahead of many developers, because like movies and TV shows–and unlike books and plays–publishers generally own the copyrights.)

I’d like to shift gears and talk about “Nucleus” for Playstation Network, because sometimes it’s instructive to look at a game that attempts some innovations, yet doesn’t entirely work. “Nucleus” has the same premise as “Blast Factor” (and “Innerspace”): a human body has been infected, and you go inside the body in a microscopic ship to clear various cells of bacteria. The design of “Nucleus” hews more closely to its concept than does “Blast Factor”: the level select screen has a biomedical feel to it, and as you navigate the screen to choose the mission you want to play, it looks like you’re sliding from one organic, fleshy structure to another. That biological sensibility is carried over to the game’s controls: each level feels like you’re swimming through fluid, with a thrust button for extra speed; you shoot enemies and cells to release flocks of yellow proteins that charge up your Protein Blaster—which can be used as a bomb or as a torpedo—and collect power-ups to increase your basic blaster. You can even push and drag cells from one area to another to block enemy attacks or, on certain levels, collect them inside an inert cellular structure to complete your objective. Combined with the ominous, industrial soundscapes, and you’ve got a promising experience that feels very different from other shooters…

But in the end, it’s more intriguing than fun. I didn’t get the tight feeling of cause and effect that I got from “Geometry Wars,” “Mutant Storm Reloaded.” The push-pull mechanic wasn’t terribly interesting. The thrust mechanic was better, but it didn’t have the risk-reward simplicity of EDS, where you simply stop shooting to move faster, or the thrilling multipurposeness (neologism alert!) of “Super Stardust HD,” where boost makes you temporarily invulnerable, lets you break through rocks and phase through bosses, and acts as a score multiplier when you zip through point pickups. The timed levels amp up the tension, but they add an unwanted level of complexity to the twin-stick shooter, which generally only requires that you destroy everything on screen. And too many of the encounters were confusing as to what I was supposed to do; I initially liked the muted color palette, but it meant that all too often, I could barely make out the enemies. That’s no good when you’re playing a twitch game.

We should talk about some innovations that do work. “Pac-Man Championship Edition,” perhaps?

Cheers,

N’Gai

***

To: N’Gai Croal
Fr: Stephen Totilo
Date: August 15, 2007
Re: The “Pac-Man” Jones

N’Gai,

Making up new words might be your thing. Presenting overly broad theories might be mine. To wit: I couldn’t get into “Nucleus” either, and I think it’s because for me to like a short game it needs to have consistent pacing.

As I began to think about the short games I’ve been enjoying, they all fit neatly into one of two categories. Twitch: “Meteos,” “Lumines,” “Pac-Man CE,” “Everyday Shooter,” and others all play out in rapid-fire bursts. They may start slowly in order to settle the player in, but soon enough they’re running at 100 mph. Thinking: “Picross DS,” even in it’s nerve-wracking multi-player mode is a thinking game and requires a sense of controlled, considered manipulation of the game.

My first problem with “Nucleus” was my discomfort with its pace. I expected it to play like a twitch-based shooter. But then I discovered my little space-ship’s tractor-beam controls and figured out that the game wanted me to do some furniture arranging in between swatting flies (to mix a bunch of metaphors). It was an uncomfortable clash of two rhythms.

(Counter-point: The short-session PC game “Defcon” enjoyably mixed slow-paced stage-setting with fast-paced all-out-war second half. So maybe mixed pacing is ok? Did I just kill my own theory?)

My other “Nucleus” problem was that it was too hard too soon. I struggled to beat all the levels in the demo. Perhaps a game should be designed to punish me only after it’s taken my quarters.

“Pac-Man CE,” however, got things really right for me. The very fun but very niche 2003 “Pac-Man Vs.” for the GameCube and Game Boy Advance already had proven to me that the 1979 “Pac-Man” formula could be re-mixed for modern times. Short games are made to be re-mixed. So “Pac-Man CE” — by going neon and techno, locking sessions into 5-minute time limits, distributing pellets in only set portions of its wide-screen mazes and adding multipliers to the consumption of consecutive ghosts — is able to bank on the players’ interest in seeing the “Pac-Man” formula twisted.

Why does the “CE” twist work? A few theories (oh no!): 1) the appearance on the game board of only small groups of pellets at a time, usually in a path meant to be gobbled up in one complex but unbroken line, teaches an exciting high-level traditional “Pac-Man” player strategy to all “CE” players and 2) when combination with the fantastic music 3) pulls players into an engaging trance 4) that has a joyously and frustratingly short, timed limit. Talk about pacing. One thing that’s so compelling about “CE” is that the frantic game stops me at five minutes no matter what. And I just want to get right back on that rollercoaster.

OK. Hand-off. Praise, pan and explain a couple more short games.

-Stephen

***

To: Stephen Totilo
Fr: N’Gai Croal
Date: August 15, 2007
Re: Twitch Like A Butterfly, Think Like A Bee

Stephen,

Your analysis of what makes “Pac-Man CE” great is spot on. I love the way it takes the empty spaces that I’ve already cleared—which would have been useful only for escaping the ghosts in the original game—and continually reconfigures and reloads the cleared half of the screen as you operate on the other side. It’s a small but profound shift in gameplay that completely outclasses the original.

Separately, I’m not sure that the gap between twitching and thinking games is as wide as you’ve made it out to be. Some of the best games combine the two in engaging ways. Each new level of “EveryDay Shooter” first asks you to suss out its chain attack system, then exploit it to better eliminate enemies and rack up points, without ever downplaying its frantic twin-stick-and-move basics. The puzzle games “Lumines” and “Gunpey” out thinkishly (I may have to start trademarking these new words), but become more twitchy as time progresses and the pace picks up; ditto for “Frequency“/”Amplitude,” “Guitar Hero” and the forthcoming “Rock Band.” “Wario Ware” requires you to quickly recognize the situation at hand, then push, twist or gesture to solve it. And in order to maximize your high score in “Super Stardust HD,” you have to keep in mind multiple factors: avoiding elimination to maintain and increase your score multipliers; choosing the right weapon for the right asteroid or enemy; acquiring and conserving bombs for tough situations; keeping an eye out for power-ups and point pickups; boosting through point pickups to increase their scoring value, and more.

These aren’t just my favorite short session games in recent years, they’re some of my favorite games, period–in part because of the way they combine deliberate choice and reflexive response. I popped “Diner Dash” into my PSP for the first time earlier this week, and after a bit of initial frustration with the controls—and a bit of disappointment with the lo-fi graphics and mediocre soundtrack—I found myself pleasantly challenged by the same twitch-and-think dynamic. But during our “Halo 3” multiplayer beta discussion, didn’t I say that the combination of tactics and action in frantic, highly pressured situations “blow[s] past the outer limits of my gaming abilities”? I did, but give me permission to revise and extend my earlier remarks. The reason that twitch-and-think doesn’t bother me in the games I cited in the first paragraph is that the gameplay in each title is 2-D, not 3-D. I never get disoriented. I never have to worry about something coming at me outside of my field of vision. I don’t have to aim high or low. Because of this, I can at my best become one with these games in a way that I can’t with their 3-D gameplay counterparts.

There’s so much more that I could say, but this is my final entry, and I’m about to hit the word limit. But we should consider revisiting small games in six months or so. It’s fertile ground for discussion and debate.

Cheers,

N’Gai

***

To: N’Gai Croal
Fr: Stephen Totilo
Date: August, 17, 2007
Re: Better Than “BioShock”?

N’Gai,

Another derailment, another dog-ate-my-homework excuse. I planned to write this final letter of our exchange last night, at around 6:30 PM. But first I wanted to try a quick little game a few developers from New York City development studio area/code raved to me about: “Desktop Tower Defense.” I understood that, like any good small game, a session could only last a few minutes. I’d give it a quick try, make a snap judgment and have something to say about it — maybe — in that final letter.

At 7:56 I was still playing it.

At 7:57 I considered bailing on evening plans I had so I could keep playing.

At 7:58 I decided “Desktop Tower Defense” might be better than “BioShock.”

Try the game yourself at this URL. But be warned: It’s free, can be played in a browser and is easy to grasp. There’s no defense against this game, except maybe not liking it. But how could you not like it?

Stubbornly sticking to categories you rejected last letter, let me tell you that “DTD” is a thinking game, not one designed for twitch. The playing field is the top of a desk that has had its clutter push to the edges, where only one path is open on each side. Little enemy “creeps” stream through the openings in marches toward opposite ends of the desk. The player plants turrets on the desk to shoot them down. Different types of turrets cost different amounts of money, as do turret upgrades. You gain money for the purchase by shooting the creeps, but lose health if they bypass your defenses. A few wrinkles aside, that’s it.

“DTD” doesn’t look nearly as good as “BioShock.” It doesn’t even have a story, let alone a narrative exploration about what it means to be in control a game. It doesn’t have amazing water effects.

But if one of the key draws of the nearly perfectly reviewed “BioShock” is that it is designed for gamers to tackle and re-play its challenges with varying strategies, well, “Desktop Tower Defense,” then is at least as good at that. I think it might even be better. Because while I may have beaten “BioShock” using a few different approaches (more on my 16-hour run of the game in next month’s first-person-adventure Vs. Mode), I’ve already played through “DTD” about 25 times, using almost as many different strategies. And I keep wanting to go back and try something else. The game has me hooked.

I agree with you that the accessibility of 2D gaming can easily trump the immersion of a 3D experience — even when the 2D experience masquerades as 3D, as in short-session “Super Stardust HD.” Best of all with these small games is that the gameplay can’t hide. It’s the core and the surface. A great short-session game has the chance to get it so right, it makes you wonder why anyone bothers to make anything more grand.

Talk to you next month.

-Stephen