A recount of the first half of 2010 – May and June

May: Super Street Fighter IV, Dead Space, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, de Blob, Perfect Dark.

Okay, so the next two months were pretty busy for me gaming-wise – which probably wasn’t such a great decision considering I had exams in June but whatevs. First up was Super Street Fighter IV. I’ll start this off by admitting that when I was younger I was a Mortal Kombat kid, since those were the only fighting games my uncles had (a lot of my childhood gaming sessions were spent with those guys). The first time I really started giving the former a crack was late last year with Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, and I’ve been a little hooked since. That aside, SSFIV is a great update to the original Street Fighter IV since it features extra characters (both new and old), extra online modes, new ultra moves and the inclusion of rival battles. Along with the addition of rival battles are animated introductions in arcade mode for each individual character (which I personally believe are rather lackluster and don’t really have any point). Other than that the game is practically the same to its prequel, which isn’t a bad thing at all – both games sport a beautiful art-style that make them look like water-painted anime. One of the only problems I have with the game(s) is that though the animations look great and transition seamlessly, the characters’ movements and controls are considerably slower than the original 2D arcade games which threw me off a bit after having just come from SSF2THDR. Perhaps “problem” was too strong of a word for it, but it’s definitely something to remember when adjusting between the two series. Regardless, this game is an absolute blast and I highly recommend it to any fighting fan.

Dead Space is another one of those I-hated-at-first-but-later-fell-in-love-with games. The first time I played it was in November of 2008 when I was house-sitting, so it was played on a 50-inch rear-projection flat screen TV and was displayed in standard-def widescreen. Playing on that kind of kit makes the game look butt-ugly and with the tank controls (which I’ll come back to soon) it was a real deal-breaker for me. However when I saw the game going for around $30 at my local EB, I figured it was worth another shot especially since I’m back at home and now have an HD set with surround sound. And holy crap I loved it this time! The game is incredibly ambient, the atmosphere is tense and the visuals are breathtaking. Contrary to my statement earlier about controls, I somehow managed to enjoy them this time also, however it’s disappointing that horror games seem to disregard the ability to run and shoot at the same time. If I were in situations like the protagonists in these games, I sure as hell wouldn’t be moving so slow or stopping to aim and I don’t see why they should either. That aside this is only the second horror game I’ve found myself being completely involved in, this first being Silicon Knights’ Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem for the GameCube. And it’s practically for the same reason – the setting(s), the atmosphere, the cinematic sequences and the story. Absolutely can not wait for Dead Space 2! (look to my upcoming E3 thoughts for more on that)

Ah Oblivion… I want to like you, but I just find you way too boring. Don’t get me wrong, I respect Bethesda’s work very much (I really enjoyed Fallout 3) but I can just never engulf myself in open-world fantasy adventures (like World of Warcraft). There’s just something about these kinds of games that give me no real purpose to pursue the story/quests. Perhaps it’s the overwhelming nature of open-world fantasy games – pick your race, then your class, attributes, and now you’re off to explore this incredibly vast world at your leisure. If there’s no real urgency to continue playing, then why does it matter what I do or who I help? Oh the world is doomed? Okay, let me just sort through twenty fetch quests of finding peoples’ belongings so I can finally come across one that has to do with saving the world. See I think what I liked about Fallout 3 over Oblivion is that for the most part I wasn’t trying to save civilisation – it was slowly getting by without me – I was just trying to find my father. It gives me a much clearer purpose for helping others because most of them were more desperate than I was. Going from that it makes the Fallout story much more personal and makes me care more about the world because I am slowly shaping the way it’s being rebuilt, without really noticing it. In Oblivion the world is established, therefore the kingdom already has its share of civilians and warriors to look after themselves – why do they need me? I don’t know, this argument makes sense in my head but probably isn’t coming out very well so instead we’ll move on to…

de Blob. Aussie developer Blue Tongue Entertainment really did a top-notch job of creating a fun, vibrant platformer out of this title. The game takes place in Chroma City – a town that celebrates its colourful lifestyle and jazz/fusion/funk music. However the INKT Corporation ends up invading the city and removing any and all forms of colour, leaving shades of black and white. Working against this hostile take-over is a small team of blob-like creatures who operate as a band of vigilantes, calling themselves the “Colour Underground”. Blob (the titular protagonist) arrives on the scene to save them from being captured and put into sort of concentration camps, then works to restore colour to this once vibrant town.
What I love about this game is how its three main elements – music, colour and story – all work to complement each other. Painting the now-dreary buildings progresses the background music to more lively and upbeat tunes, to the point that when you’ve painted most of the area you’re in including its central park and rescued the citizens (called Raydians), they hold they’re own little concert to celebrate as you continue to restore life to the setting. There’s also a lot of nice little challenges to complete as you go along to keep the game not-so repetitive, such as collecting a certain amount of paint to colour a particularly important structure for points or to timed challenges remove INKT propaganda from billboards and replace it with art. It’s an interesting mix of child and adult themes; in terms of children they get to restore colour to a now monotonous looking city, and for adults the story involves pushing back at an invading dictatorship and sort-of slavery (much like what has happened in certain countries/cities around the world). It’s a fun little game that’ll have you grooving along to some really funky tunes.

Aaaaand then there was Perfect Dark for Xbox Live Arcade. It’s basically just a port of the original Nintendo 64 game by Rare with improved graphics and now it finally works without the framerate dipping to something like ten frames per second when more than two enemies are in the room. Why it took them ten years to release an improvement is beyond me, but hey it’s finally out.

 

June: Mirror’s Edge, ModNation Racers, Red Dead Redemption.

Remember how earlier I said there are a lot of games that I hated then eventually loved? Well, Mirror’s Edge was the complete opposite. Since playing the demo almost two years ago I was always interested in giving the full game a try. I’d read reviews that placed the game between “good” and “okay”, but in my honest opinion, good lord this is one hell of a frustrating piece of work. I luckily managed to pick it up for a mere $10 at a Dick Smith store, and rightfully so – the idea is good, the art style is great but the level design and controls show almost no mercy. The first few levels hook you in with very open and obvious paths to follow, which is how most games should start off, however by the end you feel as though you’ve lost any sort of freedom whatsoever. I’ll give you an example; at the beginning of the game Mercury (or Merc for short, he’s the voice in your ear giving you objectives and information) gives you a warning along the lines of if you come across enemies, don’t engage them; run away. Well… In the second half of the game, the developers decided to make that practically impossible, especially in the last couple of levels where you’re constantly fighting off soldiers. Also, since it’s a first-person platformer, you can’t really see or judge yourself in relation to the game’s environment. As in, you will try to hide behind cover but get shot and die a lot; you will fall off a building/platform and die a lot; or you will try jumping to a ledge but miss and die a lot. The game sports a bunch of great ideas, however the execution just gets worse and worse. Like I stated once on either Facebook or Twitter, Mirror’s Edge is like a post-1994 Sonic the Hedgehog game – you think the game is all about running and jumping, but instead it’s just full of obstructions and awkward platform design.

It’s no secret that I’m a kart racer fan (I grew up with Mario Kart 64, and DS is my favourite racer) so it was a no-brainer for me to pick up ModNation Racers. United Games Front did a fantastic job of crafting the same amount of fun Nintendo does, and adding an easy-to-use level and character (called Mods) editor. ModNation is just pure kart-racing hysteria, allowing players to race at incredible speeds through some ridiculously detailed courses. Very rarely have I come across framerate slumps or screen-tearing, which is quite the feat considering the amount of craziness often occurring all at once. I only have two problems with the gameplay – the overly sensitive default steering controls and the often cheap AI rubber-banding. In quite a lot of circumstances I found myself happily maintaining 1st or 2nd place until towards the end of a race when out of nowhere I am barraged with missiles or other weapons leaving me to finish 5th or 6th. I’m all for challenge, but to have it all of a sudden near the end of a race is just too cheap. However as annoying as that can be, I still find myself enjoying the races despite having to restart. Also, since the game is geared toward community involvement under the Play Create Share motto, you can bet that there is an astronomical amount of content that has been been by many players around the world. Already I’ve downloaded a few re-created levels from various Mario Kart games and they all look almost identical to the originals. As with the amount of Mods, there are many characters spanning a host of different games, movies, television shows and cartoons/anime. So if you’re like me and lack imagination when it comes to level design, don’t feel discouraged about not taking advantage of the track editor since there are thousands of other people out there who have you covered. Plus the cut-scenes add a nice layer of story and humour – especially the banter between the two television hosts of the racing tournament. An absolute must-have for any kart racing fan!

As for Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption… I don’t know. I appreciate the idea of a sandbox Western and have had fun with a lot of the missions thus far but (please excuse the obviousness of this statement) it’s just so barren. It’s something that I didn’t take into consideration when anticipating this game. In GTA IV Liberty City felt alive, pulsating with things that always caught your eye no matter what you were doing or where you were going. But since RDR is set in a desert there’s just nothing to really look at or even really feel like you were anywhere until you reach the next town – which could be anything between a one to eight minute (probably even longer if you die on the way) horse ride. Speaking of horse riding, I also found the horse mechanics to be slightly off-putting especially when riding off-road and you come to slight mounds or ditches to then have your horse stop entirely. I just don’t remember having those types of problems in something like Zelda: Twilight Princess for example, but perhaps there just weren’t any of those types of obstacles in the way – I don’t really remember. Also, you can’t swim. Walking into water on either on foot or horse will result in death rather than achieving buoyancy. The story seems interesting (despite being the cliché guy-tries-to-make-new-life-for-himself-but-gets-caught-up-in-more-turmoil template) and the graphics and locales - though barren - are stunning. I’m not hugely far into this game (just a handful of missions into Mexico) so perhaps things will get better and I’ll come to appreciate it more. At least I hope so.

 

So that’s covered most of my gaming experiences over the last six months. Next entry: E3!

A recount of the first half of 2010 – March and April

March: Plants vs Zombies, Beat it!, Pokémon: Soul Silver.

This month was mostly spent playing portable games. Plants vs Zombies is yet another great game from developer PopCap Games (the same folks who made Peggle). I bought the iPhone version since I don’t really play PC games anymore, and it’s just so much fun. The idea is simple; protect your home with defensive plants to fend of waves of zombies. It’s another simplistic tower defense game, but the humour and surprisingly vast amount of defensive options are enough to make this game feel completely fresh. It’s also surprisingly long, making the $3.99AU charge well worth the price.

Beat It! by Glu is an absolutely fantastic new take on music/rhythm games, and is my personal favourite in the genre thus far. It features the two things I love about video game music culture – 8-bit art and electronic tunes. The point of the game is completely different to most music games; instead of pushing buttons in time with some sort of on-screen representation to allow the song to progress, you listen to the tune and try to transcribe an exact copy including all of its instrumentation. Having studied music in school and university, I can tell you that this is a thousand times more preferable than sitting in an aural class (which I hated, by the way). If it’s not enough to just play through the game’s single-player mode, you can opt to write your own tracks using the in-game editor. And if that’s not enough, you can share your beats with or download new ones from others through Facebook via share mode. The game is equipped with a great amount of content plus a community to strengthen its replayability. The app was worth the price when I bought it for $4.99AU, but now it’s available for a mere $1.19. If you’re a musician and/or you love music games in general, do yourself a great favour and nab this one.

Then there was Pokémon: Soul Silver. Everyone knows when the next installments of the Pokémon universe get released, everyone pays attention. Pokémon Silver from 2000 was my most favourite in the franchise, since it introduced me to my favourite Pokémon Totodile and Lugia (fun fact: I named one of my cats Lugia), however this is not the only reason. I remember my mind being absolutely blown upon collecting all eight Johto gym badges, and then being sent back to freakin’ Kanto to collect the original eight badges again with an entirely new storyline! For those who for some reason never played a Pokémon game before, this was huge considering in Red/Blue/Yellow the journey was long enough to sustain about thirty to thirty-five hours of just completing one region. I’d been anticipating SS since buying Pearl back in Christmas of ‘07 when I was getting back into the Pocket Monster universe, and this re-make definitely does not disappoint. If I was to list every new feature of Soul Silver this blog entry would last forever, so if you do want to know I suggest running a Google search for a real review and have a good read. However, I will talk about the inclusion of the Pokéwalker, which is basically a Pokémon pedometre. You can upload a captured monster to the device via infrared on the top of the game cartridge to level it up by walking/exercising. I love this feature since I used to walk to the train station everyday (a good 1.5 kilometres), and not only does it help to gain experience but you can also find items and catch more critters. As I mentioned earlier, Silver was my favourite entry in the Pokémon franchise; but Soul Silver easily takes the cake now.

 

April: Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, God of War Collection.

Okay, so let me start this off by saying that even though I have begun, but never finished, many Final Fantasy games before I still had a lot of respect for the franchise and for Square Enix. That’s right – had. Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most boring and ridiculously repetitive games I have ever played. I don’t care what any FF loyalist says – to play through twenty to twenty-five hours of absolute linear garbage just to get the “good bit” where the world finally opens up is just plain ludicrous. The reason why I’d never managed to complete a previous game was because I eventually no longer found myself engaged in the story/characters/gameplay after perhaps 80% of the journey. In FFIV I gave up because I took a break for a few weeks and found myself no longer connected to what’s happened; in FFVII I hadn’t leveled up my party quite enough to defeat a boss (don’t remember which one anymore); and in FFX I actually reached the final boss Sin, but by this point was completely drained of effort to even bother trying to finish. And despite all this I was still fond of the experiences and stories of all of these games for some reason. Perhaps the gamer inside of me just wanted to like these games because everyone else did. I don’t know where I’m going with all of this, so I’ll bring it back to the case in point – FFXIII had me bored since the first hour of gameplay, and I’ve managed to pull myself through nineteen hours into the excruciatingly dull and non-sensical adventure (just finished attaining Sazh’s Eidolon). Also, for those of you who might flame me for calling it non-sensical, here’s a short list of things that have not made any sense to me so far, with me filling in some blanks using the power of assumption:

- Why is Lightning such a bitch? [‘coz she was born a bitch]
- Why is Hope such a pussy? [‘coz his Dad is rich]
- Who the hell is Snow? [some douchey surfy guy in a trench coat who leads some resistance against some faction for some reason]
- Who the hell is Sazh? [a black guy with two guns. He also lets a bird live in his afro]
- Who the hell is Fang? [some chick with an Aussie accent]
- Who the hell is Vanille? [jailbait with an Aussie accent]

These are things that should have been cleared up within an hour or two of introducing each character. If there’s supposed to be some sort of plot-twist in relation to the backgrounds of each character that’s fine, but I would at least like to know their agendas for either their personality or role in the game, and why the hell I should even care about them for that matter. Also, battles have been re-designed to control badly. An RPG should utilise a fair amount of strategy to overcome your opponents – this game hardly does that. I can tell you now this’ll probably be my final Fantasy hurrrrr.

On a total up-swing on the topic of character development, understanding, caring and interaction, Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain is a great thriller based around emotional engagement and intense action. What surprised me the most about this title is the use of quicktime events felt incredibly fluid and natural. Having followed this game for quite a while leading up to its release and watching various videos of gameplay, merely observing the action packed moments are enough to make you feel almost intimidated to play it due to the quicktime controls. However if you played this game for perhaps just an hour you no longer find yourself even thinking about having to push and hold a combination of buttons – you find yourself just doing it instinctively. Also the amount of choices, mistakes and possibilities of killing off certain characters is quite daunting considering the impact it has on the story and endings you’ll create. One of my complaints about the game is that controlling your characters’ movements make you feel like a tank almost like the Resident Evil games. Though unlike the RE games you’re not forced to run-away from hordes of undead so the movements can be overlooked. This game was great while it lasted.

Lastly this brings us to the God of War Collection. The collection consists of the first two GoW titles for the PS2 with the inclusion of trophies (up to a Platinum for each game) and high definition up-scaling. Despite having some of those “ugh” moments that most action-adventure titles (I’m talking more about the puzzles and the spiked spinning columns in Hades in GoW 1) the game makes up for it in gorgeously vast locales that still look great even by today’s standards. Also even though the combat is quite shallow (face it, it’s mostly just button-mashing) it’s still satisfying taking down the larger foes like Minotaurs, Cyclopes and Medusa demons. And then there’s boss-battles… Good God (no pun intended). These fights are incredibly epic, especially the moments you engage in quicktime events to ultimately smite them. I personally found the storylines to be well thought-out and entertaining, however the same can’t be said about the protagonist Kratos. Sure he’s been ultimately betrayed by the Gods of Olympus and sure he’s seeking revenge against them, but after all he is human. There just isn’t enough to show it. Though with a game that’s all about kicking ass and doing it in epic fashion, the fact Kratos sounds like a disgruntled case of testosterone (oh wait…) is a small downer compared to an ultimately fun series of games.

 

Next update: May, June and my thoughts on E3.

A recount of the first half of 2010 – The New Year

Wow, okay, so far this year has had a butt-load of great games. I’ll do my best to give my thoughts on everything I’ve played (includes games from previous years that I’d only gotten recently) up ‘til now:

January: Bayonetta, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Assassin’s Creed, Shadow Complex, ‘Splosion Man.

I really enjoyed Bayonetta. I’m not usually into frantic 3rd person action games, let alone the crazily over-the-top Japanese ones, but holy crap this game was fun. Apart from the over-use of Bayonetta’s sexuality at times and the rather statically boring cut-scenes, this game had me completely engaged. Though you can pretty much just button-mash your way through, provided you stick some well-timed dodges in between, the game controlled like a breeze and the amount of combos/moves were close to overwhelming. Also, the storyline was interesting despite being utterly confusing.

I was skeptical about Arkham Asylum. The game received great reviews from all over, but I’ve never been a fan of stealth titles (I can’t stand playing the MGS games the “right way” – I’m the type of douche who just runs and guns). However this game absolutely blew me away! Not only did I utilise the stealth mechanics when necessary, but I also used them at every opportunity. This game made you feel like an absolute bad-ass hiding in the darkest corners of a room, hanging from a gargoyle waiting to prey upon the next wave of Joker’s hulking thugs. Also the level design of the island itself was brilliant – Arkham is perhaps only a square kilometre in diametre, but the amount of places and content was so cleverly crafted together that the setting seemed almost real. There’s also incredibly fluid fighting mechanics – despite the characters looking like bulked up masses of meat, none of the characters ever felt so heavy. Oh, and Kevin Conroy voicing Batman? Hells yeah! Literally my only gripe with this title is the use of generic Unreal Engine lighting effects. But that’s probably a different blog-post for another time…

As for Assassin’s Creed… Meh. I appreciate the effort put in to try something new, and in regards to character animation and interaction, it was impressive. However I found the stealth mechanics too cumbersome, the enemy AI cheap (running down an open street makes dudes want to kill you. WTF?), and the mission objectives were far too repetitive. On an up-side though, I do enjoy a ridiculous religious conspiracy, so there is that.

On the downloadable front, Epic Games’ Shadow Complex and Twisted Pixel’s ‘Splosion Man on Xbox Live Arcade are two fantastic and radically different takes on the side-scrolling platformer genre. Shadow Complex pays homage to classic 2D action-adventure games like Metroid and Castlevania. And does it well.
Much the same can be said of ‘Splosion Man, though I like to affectionately think of it as more the love-child of the classic 2D Sonic and Super Mario games. This game features demanding platforming skills and pattern memory, at a much faster pace. Also it’s hilarious.

February: Mass Effect 2, Shatter, Super Stardust HD.

If you follow video games at all, then you may have heard about this little game named Mass Effect 2, made by some garage developer called BioWare. This game easily took up most of my entire month. On my first play through, it took roughly 30 hours to complete the campaign, and that’s including a minimal amount of side-quests. Major improvements have been made since the first including a streamlined inventory system, smoother framerates and significantly less texture pop-ins. Also the game sports the ability to carry over information from your save file of the previous game such as choices and character customisation to expand upon your tale within the Mass Effect universe. Then there’s the story. My goodness… The only way I can describe it is epic. If you thought that of the original game, then you’re in for a real treat with the sequel. Also if you haven’t bought ME2 then get off your ass and do it now.

Again on the downloadable side are Shatter and Super Stardust HD attainable via the Playstation Network. Both titles are great examples of modern arcade style games. Shatter works like the classic Break Out which is pretty much a single-player version of Pong, however instead of just returning the ball you destroy blocks for points. The real kicker in this though is the suck (L1/2) and blow (R1/2) mechanics, which vary the control you have over the ball’s trajectory and are critical for success.
Super Stardust HD is a top-down shooter that works like the XBLA classic Geometry Wars, in which the left analogue stick controls your movement and the right analogue stick controls the direction of your fire. What sets this apart from GW (and in my opinion, far above) is that Stardust is set on a 3D spherical field, rather than a 2D rectangular grid, and utilises real-time destruction on the asteroid models. The asteroids crumble from the exact point you fire at them, causing rubble to fly in all directions that you must clean after. Though this game gets rather crazy and hectic from all the debris, followed by the inclusion of enemies, completing a single stage feels incredibly satisfying and always leaves you wanting more.

On my next update, March and April.