Activity - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 74

One simple but interesting comparison is to simply count the number of activi-
ties in each profi le or to count those activities that score over a certain threshold.
If we just count those activities that score 2 or more in the three charts we see that
the Colin McRae and Gran Turismo have a similar complexity rating with nine
and seven AGs scoring over 2 respectively, while Wreckless has 17. So, Wreckless
is a more complicated game than the other two and that is borne out by the reviews.
But what do the differing activities tell us about the Wreckless and the other two
games?
If we work out a simple twitch rating, twitchy activities versus the more mea-
sured ones, we get the following:
• Colin McRae Rally 2005: 1.05, slightly twitchy
• Wreckless: The YakuZa Missions: 1.06, slightly twitchy
• Gran Turismo: 0.88, less twitchy
Now look at Figure 3.2 to see all the activities for the three games laid
out against each other. All of the games have only one highest scoring AG; this
is racing for McRae and Gran Turismo and mission-based for Wreckless. They
all share driving/riding as their second most important activity. Immediately we
see that Colin McRae and Gran Turismo seem to be quite similar while the Wreck-
less is already looking very different. Just looking down the rows we see that,
including driving/riding, the three games have similar scores for only fi ve AGs:
accumulating rewards, confronting, driving/riding, speed, and unlocking items. But
these are all low scoring AGs apart from driving/riding. However, even if we
compare Colin McRae and Gran Turismo we see that apart from racing and driving/
riding they only share two low scoring AGs. For some medium scoring AGs, they
are quite different. Colin McRae scores well on skill enhancement and damage
while Gran Turismo does not. In fact, Gran Turismo has only two high scoring
activities, which it shares with Colin McRae, but it does score moderately on
trading, which is a strong element of the game where you attempt to trade up your
car in order to win races and enter higher categories of races and advance your
career mode.
Wreckless has a number of medium scoring AGs all to itself including attacking,
investigating, music, story, and maneuvering. The fi rst four, along with mission-
based, are consistent with action adventure games, which is what Wreckless actually
is: an action adventure game where you drive. Wreckless is a very different game.
It is very strong on both twitch and non-twitch AGs, which means that story is as
important as the driving element. It is fairly strong on fi ghting and strategy/tactics
AGs but also represents gameplay/enhancement and stunts as well.
What conclusions can we draw from this? Colin McRae is a very focused game,
driven, pun intended, by being rewarded for the exhibition of driving skills and
vehicle setup. Set the car up right and drive it right, then you'll win. Gran Tourismo,
while still being a driving game focusing on racing, presents players with a broader
range of activities which take it into strategy/tactics, career development, and trading,
and it has a strong music element. Wreckless is a very different type of driving game,