Ordinary Chaos

Tag: gaming news

  • Players Are Turning the ‘Echoes’ in ‘The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’ Into Cheat Codes

    Players Are Turning the ‘Echoes’ in ‘The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’ Into Cheat Codes

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    On top of a table, Princess Zelda magically binds herself to a green machine pouring gusts of wind. She goes zooming across the screen instantly as the air blasts the table forward as well as any jet engine. “Table go vroom-vroom” reads the caption—just a small taste of what an inventive player can do in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, the latest in the series from Nintendo.

    Echoes of Wisdom is all about finding new ways to use the world’s items. It relies on Zelda’s ability to copy enemies and objects and repurpose them as needed. In the early days of its creation, developers explored different ways the game could be played. That included the ability to edit dungeons by copying and pasting objects like doors or candles, allowing players to essentially create their own gameplay—and their own cheats.

    When series producer Eiji Aonuma had the chance to test it, however, he had a different take. “While it’s fun to create your own dungeon and let other people play it,” he said in a recent Ask the Developer post on Nintendo’s site, “it’s also not so bad to place items that can be copied and pasted in the game field, and create gameplay where they can be used to fight enemies.”

    So no, Echoes of Wisdom is no dungeon-builder. Like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, however, its ability to create makeshift solutions and items means players are quickly finding unusual ways to traverse the world and conquer its many levels. In some cases, by using items in ways so outlandish it seems like they shouldn’t exist.

    One of Echoes of Wisdom’s most useful items is also its plainest: a simple, brown-framed bed. Players have quickly latched onto beds as a go-to for getting around—stack a couple and they make a great bridge or a ladder. Dispense one in a fight and Zelda can nap to recover health while summoned monsters fight on her behalf. In one particularly inspired example, a player put Zelda on top of a bed and summoned an enemy to create wind gusts that made the bed fly. Tables are just as useful, especially when you want to barricade a couple of guards into their own prison.

    On Reddit, players are sharing creations that have allowed them to bypass both gated-off areas and the laws of gravity. One worked out how to create different variations of flying machines, no bed needed, by binding together a crow, a rock, and an enemy that creates wind gusts. In the game’s water temple, which requires players to slowly raise the water level to reach the top, one enterprising adventurer figured out how to skip that whole mess by carefully stacking water blocks—echoes that create a contained cube of water Zelda can swim through—to head straight up.

    As creative as these workarounds are, they also play directly into Nintendo’s hands. While echoes may feel like a nerfing of the Tears mechanics that let gamers build flame-throwing phalluses, Nintendo still wanted to empower them to be “mischievous.” As director Tomomi Sano has said, the point is for players to find ways to use echoes that “are so ingenious it almost feels like cheating.”

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  • How to Get Started on Valve’s ‘Deadlock’

    How to Get Started on Valve’s ‘Deadlock’

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    When word got out that thousands of gamers were already playing Valve’s “secret” shooter Deadlock on Steam back in August, the first reaction from many was: How do I get my hands on this?

    Since then, many more players have joined the invite-only playtest, allowing them to get their first look at the project. Valve made the game public on Steam a few weeks ago but hasn’t given the game a release date. “Deadlock is a multiplayer game in early development,” Valve wrote on the game’s Steam page.

    If you’re not already playing and are curious, here’s what you should know.

    What Is Deadlock and Why Are People So Excited About It?

    Valve, the famed developer of franchises such as Half-Life, Portal, and Counter-Strike, has slowed its development of new titles a lot, so any new IP is cause for excitement. Deadlock is a six-versus-six team game that combines the hero shooter personality of, say, Overwatch, Apex Legends, and Valve’s own Team Fortress 2 with some of the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) mechanics popularized by League of Legends and Valve’s Dota 2.

    A MOBA typically has elements like home bases, towers that each side must defend, minions that help the main characters in fights, and a progressive leveling up of skills through the course of a match. If you’ve never played a MOBA, Deadlock can feel overwhelming at first due to the resource management it requires on top of the action-shooter elements.

    OK, I’m Sold. How Do I Play?

    You’ll need a Steam account and an invite to the playtest. Some players have been randomly invited by Valve to play the game, possibly based on their history with other Valve titles, but the easiest way to get in is to ask someone in the playtest to invite you, which is an in-game menu option.

    In order to see which of your Steam friends is playing Deadlock, visit the game’s page and look on the right panel under Friends Who Play.

    An invite may take a day or more to get to you once it’s sent. When you have it, you can download and install the game.

    This might be a good place to warn you: Deadlock is a work in progress, and as such it’s liable to change a lot between now and its official release. As of this writing, there’s only one map, called “street_test,” and the roster of 21 heroes and their skills could evolve with future updates.

    My play group has found the game remarkably stable and polished considering it’s so early in its development, but that doesn’t mean you won’t encounter bugs, glitches, or crashes in the game. The playtest is free; don’t expect the kind of customer support or full-featured experience you’d get with a retail game.

    Learning the Ropes (and Rails)

    First thing’s first: Whether you have MOBA experience or not, Deadlock’s set of tutorials under Learn to Play are a must. They’ll show you how objects and controls work in Get Started, how to get acquainted with the game’s 21 characters and their skillset “builds” in Hero Training, and how the paths leading to victory work in Lane Training, a guided quest through the city map.

    Once you’ve completed those three guides, you’ll have the basics of how the controls work, how to purchase and level up your character’s items and abilities during a match, and how souls, the currency of the game, work.

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  • New AI Model Can Simulate ‘Super Mario Bros.’ After Watching Gameplay Footage

    New AI Model Can Simulate ‘Super Mario Bros.’ After Watching Gameplay Footage

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    Last month, Google’s GameNGen AI model showed that generalized image diffusion techniques can be used to generate a passable, playable version of Doom. Now, researchers are using some similar techniques with a model called MarioVGG to see whether AI can generate plausible video of Super Mario Bros. in response to user inputs.

    The results of the MarioVGG model—available as a preprint paper published by the crypto-adjacent AI company Virtuals Protocol—still display a lot of apparent glitches, and it’s too slow for anything approaching real-time gameplay. But the results show how even a limited model can infer some impressive physics and gameplay dynamics just from studying a bit of video and input data.

    The researchers hope this represents a first step toward “producing and demonstrating a reliable and controllable video game generator” or possibly even “replacing game development and game engines completely using video generation models” in the future.

    Watching 737,000 Frames of Mario

    To train their model, the MarioVGG researchers (GitHub users erniechew and Brian Lim are listed as contributors) started with a public dataset of Super Mario Bros. gameplay containing 280 ‘levels” worth of input and image data arranged for machine-learning purposes (level 1-1 was removed from the training data so images from it could be used in the evaluation). The more than 737,000 individual frames in that dataset were “preprocessed” into 35-frame chunks so the model could start to learn what the immediate results of various inputs generally looked like.

    To “simplify the gameplay situation,” the researchers decided to focus only on two potential inputs in the dataset: “run right” and “run right and jump.” Even this limited movement set presented some difficulties for the machine-learning system, though, since the preprocessor had to look backward for a few frames before a jump to figure out if and when the “run” started. Any jumps that included mid-air adjustments (i.e., the “left” button) also had to be thrown out because “this would introduce noise to the training dataset,” the researchers write.

    After preprocessing (and about 48 hours of training on a single RTX 4090 graphics card), the researchers used a standard convolution and denoising process to generate new frames of video from a static starting game image and a text input (either “run” or “jump” in this limited case). While these generated sequences only last for a few frames, the last frame of one sequence can be used as the first of a new sequence, feasibly creating gameplay videos of any length that still show “coherent and consistent gameplay,” according to the researchers.

    Super Mario 0.5

    Even with all this setup, MarioVGG isn’t exactly generating silky smooth video that’s indistinguishable from a real NES game. For efficiency, the researchers downscale the output frames from the NES’ 256×240 resolution to a much muddier 64×48. They also condense 35 frames’ worth of video time into just seven generated frames that are distributed “at uniform intervals,” creating “gameplay” video that’s much rougher-looking than the real game output.

    Despite those limitations, the MarioVGG model still struggles to even approach real-time video generation, at this point. The single RTX 4090 used by the researchers took six whole seconds to generate a six-frame video sequence, representing just over half a second of video, even at an extremely limited frame rate. The researchers admit this is “not practical and friendly for interactive video games” but hope that future optimizations in weight quantization (and perhaps use of more computing resources) could improve this rate.

    With those limits in mind, though, MarioVGG can create some passably believable video of Mario running and jumping from a static starting image, akin to Google’s Genie game maker. The model was even able to “learn the physics of the game purely from video frames in the training data without any explicit hard-coded rules,” the researchers write. This includes inferring behaviors like Mario falling when he runs off the edge of a cliff (with believable gravity) and (usually) halting Mario’s forward motion when he’s adjacent to an obstacle, the researchers write.

    While MarioVGG was focused on simulating Mario’s movements, the researchers found that the system could effectively hallucinate new obstacles for Mario as the video scrolls through an imagined level. These obstacles “are coherent with the graphical language of the game,” the researchers write, but can’t currently be influenced by user prompts (e.g., put a pit in front of Mario and make him jump over it).

    Just Make It Up

    Like all probabilistic AI models, though, MarioVGG has a frustrating tendency to sometimes give completely unuseful results. Sometimes that means just ignoring user input prompts (“we observe that the input action text is not obeyed all the time,” the researchers write). Other times, it means hallucinating obvious visual glitches: Mario sometimes lands inside obstacles, runs through obstacles and enemies, flashes different colors, shrinks/grows from frame to frame, or disappears completely for multiple frames before reappearing.

    One particularly absurd video shared by the researchers shows Mario falling through the bridge, becoming a Cheep-Cheep, then flying back up through the bridges and transforming into Mario again. That’s the kind of thing we’d expect to see from a Wonder Flower, not an AI video of the original Super Mario Bros.

    The researchers surmise that training for longer on “more diverse gameplay data” could help with these significant problems and help their model simulate more than just running and jumping inexorably to the right. Still, MarioVGG stands as a fun proof of concept that even limited training data and algorithms can create some decent starting models of basic games.

    This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.

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  • ‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ and How ‘DEI’ Became Gamergate 2.0’s Rallying Cry

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    On May 16, the gaming and entertainment news site Dexerto tweeted an image from the forthcoming game Assassin’s Creed Shadows featuring one of its protagonists, the Black samurai Yasuke, in a fighting pose. Across scores of replies, some voiced optimism, others fatigue with Assassin’s Creed’s now 14-game-long run, and a very vocal few expressed frustration and anger that a Black person was at the center of the narrative.

    “Gonna pass on the DEI games,” wrote one blue-check X user, referencing the acronym for diversity, equity, and inclusion. “Why Wokeism?” asked another. Comments full of racist and sexist language filled the thread.

    A more articulate undercurrent of these reactionaries, across many online forums, had a more specific set of complaints. Some alleged the race of the real Yasuke was never known, others that he wasn’t a samurai but a retainer, and another claimed he was never in combat.

    These were all fairly elaborate conclusions to draw about a guy from 1581 who’s been depicted as a samurai in Japanese media many times, including in the 2017 video game Nioh and Samurai Warriors 5 in 2021, as well as his own animated series on Netflix.

    They also may have been the last bit of armchair history we got on Yasuke if the conversation hadn’t been sustained by a set of accounts looking to build yet another front in the online culture war, fueling what some have been calling Gamergate 2.0. Whereas the Gamergate of 2014 focused on trying to drown out feminist voices, and the voices of women of color, in gaming culture, this second incarnation seems focused on pushing back against diversity in games of all kinds. Yasuke just stepped in their path.

    The resurgence of the Gamergate moniker came earlier this year in reaction to the work of Sweet Baby. Staff at the small consultancy received a wave of harassment this spring stemming from misinformation and conspiracy theories claiming the company was a BlackRock-backed outfit trying to force diversity into games. (It’s not affiliated with BlackRock and merely advises on characters and storylines.) As the controversy around Assassin’s Creed Shadows intensified, several posts mentioned Sweet Baby, even though company CEO Kim Belair says the firm didn’t work on the game.

    “I think it just comes with the post-Gamergate (late-Gamergate?) territory,” Belair wrote in an email to WIRED. “To a certain kind of person, largely trolls, we’re synonymous with their idea of ‘wokeness in games’ or a vague idea of ‘DEI,’ but it’s ultimately reflective of the overall misinformation that fuels this campaign.”

    Gamergate was not the first harassment campaign conceived in the bowels of 4chan and its affiliate websites, but it was perhaps their crowning achievement. The attacks against developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu and media critic Anita Sarkeesian, among others, ranged from doxing to rape and death threats. Its tenets and tactics eventually proved valuable in bringing people into the burgeoning alt-right movement. Even Pizzagate and QAnon can, in some ways, be traced back to what was happening with gamers online in 2014.

    “Gamergate was a recruiting ground, a pipeline to leverage the loneliness, discontentment, and alienation of young men—often white young men—into alt-right politics, extremist misogyny, and outright white supremacy and Nazism,” Thirsty Suitors narrative lead Meghna Jayanth told WIRED.

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  • Gamergate’s Aggrieved Men Still Haunt the Internet

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    Ten years ago, a flood of gamers attacked developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu and media critic Anita Sarkeesian. The three were part of a growing chorus of people calling for a more inclusive culture within video games. The attackers doxxed and harassed their targets, doing all they could to stifle the women’s efforts. The incident, which became known as Gamergate, illuminated the toxicity women faced in gaming spaces and beyond.

    Eventually, the harassment faded from the news, but its residue was never fully removed from the internet and public life.

    Gamergate articulated a particular kind of aggrieved masculinity, an anger at losing the power of being the target audience. Since 2014, it has shaped everything from the men’s rights movement to the current iteration of the GOP, outlining what it means to be a man in certain corners of the internet.

    In many ways, says Adrienne Massanari, an associate professor at American University’s school of communications, Gamergate presaged a broader reaction on the right toward real changes happening in American society. Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon latched onto this in 2015, harnessing the power of committed online fandoms to bolster Trump’s campaign.

    Within the community, Gamergate seemingly bifurcated men into distinct camps. Men who came to Sarkeesian’s defense, for example, were dubbed “white knights” and simps. Meanwhile, the people doing the harassing saw themselves as trying to protect the space from the “outside” influences of “social justice warriors,” who threatened to take away the elements that—they felt—made games fun.

    “Even though we know that a bunch of people play games, [the men involved in Gamergate] saw themselves as being the target demographic for games. When that started to shift, the reaction was, of course, anger,” says Massanari. “Now that’s reflected, refracted, and amplified by Trumpism and that kind of far-right strain of Republicanism reacting to demographic and societal shifts toward a more egalitarian society.”

    This same kind of anger and resistance can be seen now in figures like J.D. Vance and Elon Musk, who both decry “woke-ism” in politics and culture broadly. In interviews, Musk has said that he was motivated to purchase X, formerly Twitter, to fight the “woke mind virus” that he says is destroying civilization. The Heritage Foundation’s political road map Project 2025 repeatedly mentions “woke” progressivism as a threat that must be eliminated, particularly by doing away with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in government spaces.

    This connection comes full circle in what’s become “Gamergate 2.0,” a backlash to inclusion efforts where “DEI” is now a catchphrase. Ten years ago, gamers pushed back against critics like Sarkeesian for pointing out that many female characters in games were nothing more than tropes. In 2024, the campaigns are against video game consulting companies such as Sweet Baby for performing what some gamers believe is “forced diversification.” No matter the rallying cry, the reason is the same: Being upset that the characters in video games no longer represent your interests.

    While the politics of masculine grievance aren’t exactly new, says Patrick Rafail, professor of sociology at Tulane University, “the mainstreaming of it is.”

    Although Gamergate came out of a relatively niche subculture, its elements can now be found in influencers like Andrew Tate who have popularized “these very simplistic, archetypal, stereotypical extremes” of masculinity, says Debbie Ging, professor of digital media and gender at Dublin City University. A new era of podcasting, coupled with a rise in short-form video platforms like TikTok, “which are heavily algorithm-driven,” have been significant drivers of this form of rhetoric, Ging says.

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