Sony’s official mouthpiece, PlayStation.blog – that’s the one where Sony actually lets the people behind the games tell it straight and resists the urge to wrap up all the info in PR bullshit – has a first set of deets on a new IP called Rat Race.

First things first: this is not a game adaptation of the bloody awful 2001 movie of the same name. It’s a comedy adventure game, downloadable this winter from PSN, that is actually taking a nudge from modern comedy culture by being set in an office, just like, err, The Office. This is a highly original setting for gaming; although sometimes F.E.A.R did feel like you were playing the entire game in a long sprawling series of office cubicles.

Assuming that Rat Race can succeed in its efforts to actually be funny – it is using writing and voice talents from a the likes of Late Night with Conan O’Brien, My Name Is Earl, Saturday Night Live, South Park, Flight of the Conchords, Sex and the City, Ugly Betty and Comedy Central so take from that what you will – its next biggest potential obstacle is its decision to use an episodic distribution model.

At one time, when full blown game downloads had just started being used legitimately and not solely for piracy, Episodic Gaming was heralded as the future of gaming. With the cost of game development soaring, regular and, most importantly, short episodes were seen as a way for the little developers to get their games out without getting stomped on by all ones backed by massively rich publishing houses.

This hasn’t really happened. There are a few success stories, like Tell Tale Games’ Sam & Max series and the two Half-Life episodes, but there are still very few episodic games out there or even in the planning stages that aren’t based on an already very well established IP – future examples include the planned Xbox 360 GTA episodes and the rumoured Halo episode project.

Episodic gaming has had its share of casualties, such as the doomed SiN Episodes that failed to even make it past its first instalment. The problem that really undermines the episodic gaming model is that for it to work, the games need to be released with some semblance of regularity and on time, which is something that games development is not well known for. Not only that, but there’s an issue of wrapping up a satisfactory amount of gameplay and narrative elements into an amount of game time far shorter than what we’re normally used to [insert obvious Heavenly Sword joke].

For all the risks though, Sony might have managed to get one over on Xbox Live, which is always refreshing. Although there are episodes in the pipeline for a couple of Xbox titles, these are as previously mentioned, just additions to existing IPs and not striking out in their own direction. Rat Race has an original concept behind it and one that might well fit into an episodic model far better than a bog-standard shooter.

Here’s what Greg Easley, co-founder and president of Super-Ego Games had to say about it: “Our goal is to give you the feeling of “playing” inside an episode of your favorite TV show. Sometimes we describe Rat Race as an interactive sitcom, but that doesn’t do it justice. There’s more to the experience than funny dialogue. Along the way you’ll sneak, sprint, solve puzzles, eavesdrop, steal, and even “neutralize” that lab monkey.”

This is why I’m worried about the comedy aspects. Neutralising a monkey might have been funny, right up until you put it in quotation marks. Then it just sounds lame. Unless that’s some kind euphemism.

Source
PlayStation.blog

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