Let me tell you something, scornful readers: I am excited by the prospect of a new Alone in the Dark game. But to explain why, we have to go back to the beginning… way, way back to twenty minutes ago when I read this article on the game.

You see, the last game I finished was Resident Evil 4, about six months ago. I mean “finished” in the sense that the story was brought to a conclusion. The thing is that the game came out in 2005. The only reason I actually completed it was because the gameplay was so fucking fantastic (and the controls on the Wii edition so easy to readjust to) that it was quite easy to jump back in to after a long hiatus. The fact that the story was practically non-existent also helped; the only plot point I really needed to remember when playing the game was “shoot zombies.” Most games I’ll play for a while, get distracted by real life, and then struggle with finding an entry point.

Final Fantasy XII was disastrous in this regard. I loved the pseudo-real time battle system and the interesting license board, but the time commitment was something I just could not deal with. After putting the game down for a few weeks, I’d return to it and be completely lost. Most of the time I’d be in the middle of a side quest or puzzle and just have no idea what I was supposed to do. Following an FAQ/walkthrough wouldn’t help, mainly because those types of things written by people who do nothing other than immerse themselves in the world of a single title and commit every detail to memory.

How am I supposed to make sense of that when I haven’t touched the game in a month? Even if I skipped the side quests and just tried to further the story I’d still be lost, thanks to Final Fantasy’s trademark convoluted narratives. This one’s even worse because it’s about politics. I guess the average fanboy is all grown up now and wants to argue on the internet about what really matters… military conflicts in the fictional land of Ivalice. And, uh, crystals and magical swords. Or something.

I think that Lost: Via Domus handles this problem quite well. Whenever you load a save game it presents a “Previously on Lost” montage of everything that happened up to that point. That’d be great if there was any reason to actually play the game. As it stands now the only engaging elements are the bizarre character animations and the lovely voice acting supplied by what must be Alberta’s best community theater.

I could go on, but I’ll save that for another day. I’m sure I can wring several posts out of how terrible it is.

The new Alone in the Dark title includes a similar catch-up feature but takes it several steps further. The game is divided into episodes, and each episode into chapters. When you initially start the game, all of this will be available for you to shuffle through. Want to fight the last boss immediately, then play through the rest of the game? Go for it! This is pure genius. If I’m stuck on some sort of, uh, wooden chair physics puzzle or whatever, I can just skip that chapter and go on to the next one. Maybe being presented with a story summary when I fire up the game for the first time in months may not be enough. But I can rewind to the last clearly presented goal or fast-forward to the next event that catches my eye. Why can’t more games do this? I’m going to buy it just because the developers have the balls to try something different.

More importantly, I’ll buy it because there’s a strong chance that I’ll actually finish the game. I miss the sense of closure I get from watching one-dimensional characters rescue anatomically improbable females after conquering an ambiguous, underdeveloped evil. Why is it that I can read Nabakov in a day but this shit takes months to come to a climax? And you wonder why people think video games are inherently inferior to other mediums! But back on topic: I wouldn’t be inclined to buy Alone in the Dark 2: Alonercaust if I hadn’t finished the first game. By being able to skip through and just see the story sections in Alone in the Dark, you can pretty much guarantee that I’m going to buy the sequel. If the gameplay isn’t terribly flawed and frustrating, that is.

Which, surprisingly, it doesn’t look to be.

What we’ve got here is a classic sense of immersive mechanics. I marveled at the way Goldeneye on the N64 presented the pause menu as James Bonds’ crazy ass watch, but in order for the watch GUI to fill the screen (given that it’s a first person perspective) James Bond would have to be mashing it against his eyeball. In a simple FPS this is excusable, but for a survival horror game nothing takes you out of the zone like spending twenty minutes fiddling around the inventory screen while that thing that’s about to dismember you remains frozen in time. So here’s Alone in the Dark’s inventory screen…

It’s like Orcs and Elves, only you don’t have to play Orcs and Elves to get it. If it doesn’t fit in your coat, you’re not going to hang on to it. And, more importantly, if you spend too long admiring the player character’s abs you can bet that you’ll end up gored. This stands in stark contrast to the rather polite monsters in Resident Evil 4, which wait patiently as Leon recovers the best weapon for the task at hand from his attache case. Which brings me to another great feature: first aid spray.

When you select the first aid spray, you’ll be shown specific injuries that need to be treated. It’s no longer an instant cure-all. That’s pretty badass. The idea of modern games presenting these hyper-realistic physics and AI but having your character be healed by walking over a medpack or an apple has always seemed somewhat odd. Whether or not having inventory and injury systems like this will make Alone in the Dark more fun or just tedious in it’s realism remains to be seen, but I’m excited to try it nonetheless.

I thought I loved you, Leon Kennedy. But this new boy… what’s his name again? Barnaby McCarnby? He’s saying all the right things to me. He may not have the cool gloves and jacket, but I like his swagger. When he’s close to death he doesn’t just walk a little slower. This kid bleeds, Leon. Remember blood? You bled in a cut scene once. And there was a comical fountain when that chainsaw dude decapitated you after that poorly timed reload. But it wasn’t enough for me. If you’re going to strive for realism, I need you to go all the way. I need–

Okay, forget it; this is just weird. Alone in the Dark still looks awesome, though.

Over the weekend I took the opportunity to swing by one of the larger Gamestops in my area to look for a copy of Touch Detective 2 1/2 (now reduced to $9.99 new!). In what is most certainly a rare occurrence, they actually had the game in stock and sealed, they honored the price drop, and they rang me up without asking me if I wanted to preorder Metal Gear Solid 4 or whatever the push of the week is. Unable to stand for a positive transaction at Gamestop, I quickly scanned the store for something to bitch about. I didn’t have to look far as there was a stack of these beauties right next to the register…

Wow, so, um, the dudes who write for Game Informer are going to spend their economic stimulus checks at Gamestop? And the editor thinks I should too? Totally will do! If some sepia toned jackasses tell me that doing this is going to make more people think games are art I can’t not comply. I wonder if they’re getting some kind of kick back from that? Oh wait, of course they are, since the sole purpose of Game Informer is to move Gamestop merchandise. It’s one thing when they wrap it up in a magazine format and have to manufacture actual original content to go with it (even if it amounts to little more than “10/10 preorder this game now or INTERNET MEME”), but it’s a whole different beast when it’s nothing more than a shopping list on chemically treated paper. And why the hell does the Game Informer staff need this shit? You’re telling me that a bunch of guys who work as professional game reviewers at a massive video game publications are eagerly checking their mailboxes every day for their tax refunds so they can go out and buy a Playstation 3 controller? Somehow I doubt it, although this may support the theory that they don’t actually play the games they review. Controllers are pretty important for reviewing games.

Just as I was ready to punch myself in the face and burn down the store, I noticed something interesting inside the pamphlet.

“The Real American Gamer.” Damn. That was going to be my handle. But wait what’s on The Real American Gamer’s wishlist? Only the best titles out there! None of which happen to be made in America. In fact, every title on his wishlist is an English port of a game developed in Japan.

And then I thought “oh, I get it now!” This is a bit of clever satire. See, we’re getting these economic stimulus refund things because our economy is royally fucked right now. We’ve got national debt, external debt, crazy interest rates, massive current account deficit… we’re in trouble, and unless people start stimulating our internal economy we’ll be in a recession by the end of the year. So, how would The Real American Gamer spend his stimulus check? He’d send it all to Japan for crazy anime chicks and overwrought war dramas.

Voltaire, eat your heart out.

Iwata Asks is an occasional feature on Wii.com where Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, sits down with his staff and grills them on their latest projects. Most of the time it’s just everyone really polite and respectful to each other in that charming Japanese way, and occasionally they joke about how someone went batshit insane while working on a game and killed another employee with a tea table. The most recent entry in the series is about Link’s Crossbow Training, a rather fantastic lightgun title, and some frightening truths were uncovered.

I’m mainly surprised, Mr. Miyamoto, by the fact that you’re the most widely acclaimed game developer in the world and you actually like first person shooters. C’mon, you’re Japanese! I’m also surprised by the fact that being weaned on your games has made me pretty much despise everything with a first person perspective. After you’ve played Super Mario World, how can you honestly pick up something like Turok and say “Hey, this isn’t complete shit?” That may be an unfair comparison. I had more fun with the Irréversible than I did with Turok.

Miyamoto produced games just have a certain quality that I have yet to encounter in a first person shooter. The control mechanics and intuitive gameplay that has become his bread and butter is rarely seen outside of a plaformer. And when that does take on the form of something other than a platformer, it’s something very different. Like Pikmin or Animal Crossing or Pacman Vs or Nintendogs. I still contend that Nintendogs is one of the best games ever created. Take that, street cred! Most FPS titles seem to lack that level of polish and accessibility.

First person games can be done right on occasion, as seen with titles such as Call of Duty 4 and… uh… Perfect Dark? The original Perfect Dark, not the shitty one. Portal was technically an FPS, although that part is very far removed from all the elements that make it a great game. I think Portal actually circumvents the limitations of the first person perspective by the way it handles the narrative. By having what basically amounts to a voice over narration–cleverly presented as coming from a PA system–be the sole voice of the story, the player character needs no ‘focal point’ to absorb the information. I can’t even count how many times I’ve missed important plot elements in a FPS because my character was facing the wrong direction. That is, you know, in the few first person shooters that actually contain plot elements.

Link’s Crossbow Training succeeds because it’s an arcade style lightgun game. Only one third of it is presented in a first person perspective, and the reason it works so well is due to the complete absence of story–it appeals to the gamer in a ‘personal best’ sense and nothing more. Could you imagine if Ocarina of Time was a FPS? It’d be… bizarre. As a matter of fact, someone with more free time should definitely crack open Half Life 2 and design a Zelda mod, if only to see how it could work. I can’t imagine the standard Zelda design being shaped into the mold of your standard first person shooter. A Nintendo FPS would be–

Oh, wait. I just remembered the Metroid Prime series. Those are most certainly first person shooters, but they do everything right, thanks largely to the ’scan’ mechanic. The ability to bring up information on anything in front of you is wonderful. All of these things are linked together, and every component–from the little bug guys to the massive Chozo statues–is folded expertly into a larger overarching story. At the same time you don’t have to scan anything; more traditional FPS players can just blast the shit out of everything and speed through the game. In addition to that, you have things like the morph ball, beam stacking, inventory expansion… just the sorts of elements that are unique to a Metroid game but somehow work beautifully in a first person shooter.

All things considered, maybe a Zelda FPS wouldn’t be so bad. There’s a lot of potential with the formula, and Miyamoto has a good track record. Actually, it could be sort of badass. Climbing around with the hookshot, shooting arrows while strafing behind Darknuts (heh), using bombs to carve out tunnels… and no jumping puzzles since Link can’t jump! Well, no jumping puzzles until you get Roc’s Feather or cape or whatever. Hmm. I like the sound of that… I think that’s going to become my new personal motto.