2010: The Year That Was

2010 was a great year for gamers. Ripe with quality titles right from the get-go, there was a wealth of enjoyment to be spent across all platforms. It also marked the official launch of the Motion Control War with Microsoft’s Kinect and Sony’s Move entering the battlefield with guns blazing high – the quality of titles might have been considered less than stellar, there was at least a lot of support from many high profile publishers and developers for both controllers. Though there were many cases to be cheered, the year wasn’t without loss; there were layoffs, studios were shut down and more lawsuits than you could waggle a Wiimote at. Let’s start with how the year kicked off.

In the beginning…
The year started with a bang. Starting mere days after the New Year Bayonetta and Darksiders were released, soon followed by Army of Two: The 40th Day, MAG, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle and Mass Effect 2. And this was just in January. What makes this significant is that this particular time of the year usually sees very limited releases due to it being the post-holiday season.

February also saw a massive launch line-up with titles like Bioshock 2, Dante’s Inferno, Aliens vs. Predator reboot, and Heavy Rain. And then there was March – Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III, Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver, Just Cause 2, Red Steel 2, WarioWare: DIY… Phew. To put it simply, if you love games, chances are you spent a lot of money on them for the first half of 2010 with little disappointment.

Mass Effect 2 saw huge success throughout the year, being a contender for (if not the) Game of the Year of 2010 by many publications.

The year of sequels.
Whether you like it or not, franchises have become a huge part of the games industry. 2010 was rife with continuities and spin-offs, thankfully with only a low number of them not matching the standard of their originals. Here’s a quick list of some of the sequels released last year:

• Super Mario Galaxy 2
• Army of Two: The 40th Day
• Bioshock 2
• Mafia 2
• No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle
• Crackdown 2
• StarCraft 2
• Metroid: Other M
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Mass Effect 2
• Gran Turismo 5
• Final Fantasy XIII
• Sid Meier’s Civilization V
• Dead Rising 2
• Puzzle Quest 2
• Sin & Punishment: Star Successor
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• Splinter Cell: Conviction
• Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver
• God of War III
• Monster Hunter Tri
• Super Street Fighter IV
• Lost Planet 2
• Puzzle Quest IX
• Supreme Commander 2
• Skate 3
• Scribblenauts 2
• Donkey Kong Country Returns
• Various sports titles
• Plus more.

Resurgence of traditional arcade and platforming games.
Another abundant group of games to come out were platforming (yay!!) and arcade titles. Many independent (and some large) developers managed to gain massive amounts of attention and praise to themselves with a myriad of great titles that harkened back to fun, traditional gameplay. We saw the rise of games such as Limbo - an atmospherically sombre platformer of a boy trapped in purgatory among the childhood nightmares of dark horrors and death; Pacman Championship Edition DX – the hyper-addictive spiritual successor to 2007’s Pacman Champion Edition, with all-new bullet-time and ghost-conga-line-eating mechanics; Super Meat Boy – a frustratingly brilliant homage to uber-hard sidescrolling platformers of the 1980s & 90s; Donkey Kong Country Returns – another nod to classic sidescrollers, this time featuring fully-rendered 3D graphics and an all-new adventure starring Donkey and Diddy, from the folks that brought us the Metroid Prime trilogy Retro Studios; and Angry Birds – one of the biggest mainstream successes of 2010 where you fling wingless birds at fortified structures to demolish them and exact revenge on the pigs that ate your eggs (and it’s a smartphone game!).

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game was a great sidescrolling beat ‘em up inspired by classic brawlers like River City Ransom.

Unfortunately, not everything was lollipops and rainbows. Though Sonic Team made their first real attempt at recapturing what made the world’s fastest hedgehog a landmark series in the 90s, Sonic 4: Episode 1 didn’t quite cut it. The nice aesthetics and great soundtrack just weren’t enough to draw attention away from how un-Sonic the game felt – no player momentum, often frustrating level design and an abrupt, unnecessarily difficult end-boss fight left a sour taste in many gamers’ mouths. Which brings me to my next bolded heading…

Disappointments.
Sonic 4 aside, there were some rather large disappointments in the industry over the last year. Let’s run down some of the bigger ones:

• Krome Studios sees a drastic reduction.
  Australia’s largest game development company saw the close of many of its studios across the country. Founded in 1999 Krome has developed titles for most major consoles over the last couple of generations and is most famous for its Ty the Tasmanian Tiger games. Unfortunately financial crises forced the company to close their Adelaide (once called Ratbag Games with its staff being acquired in 2005 by Krome after closure from previous owner Midway) and Melbourne branches, followed by layoffs at their Brisbane establishments. Though most reports say Krome has been shut down, it’s been purported that they are still functioning as a developer, albeit with very limited staff.
  
• Over-hyped games.
  It happens every year, and though they most often than not turn out to be fine games, they also fall short of their ambition and hype. The bigger offenders being Sonic 4: Episode 1, Medal of Honour, Fallout: New Vegas, Gran Turismo 5, The Force Unleashed 2, Fable III, Epic Mickey and (if you’ve been following my blog) Final Fantasy XIII. Also, to anticipate any heat for the mention of GT5, let me just say this: any game that boasts a six year development cycle with constant delays for refinement yet has absolute minimal crash damage (like, merely a small cluster of pixels after a head-on collision), long load times despite an hour-long install, cockpit view with only a handful of cars out of its catalogue of 1000 and the fact it barely looks better than its 2004 predecessor on on the PS2 is most definitely over-hyped.
  
• More layoffs.
  Unfortunately Australia wasn’t the only country to be affected with developer layoffs. Other large companies like EA, 2K Games and Activision let go of portions of its staff across a number of their development studios. The most notable of which being…
  
• The Activision vs. Jason West & Frank Zampella fiasco.
  Though this isn’t really much of a gaming disappointment, it was definitely one of the bigger stories of the year. Infinity Ward’s (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, 2) higher ups Frank Zampella and Jason West were fired by parent company Activision in March, supposedly right before they were to receive their royalties from the release of Modern Warfare 2, one of the most anticipated games of 2009. It was claimed by IW that Activision sent security into their offices to quiet and intimidate staff while West and Zampella were under questioning. According to Activision, the two heads of IW were intentionally having quiet meetings with their competing publisher EA, thus expelled them for insubordination. Since then the duo have filed a lawsuit against Activision for their lack of royalties and are now working for EA. Activision however is still publishing Call of Duty games, with their most recent offering Black Ops (developed by Treyarch) becoming the fastest grossing game of all time, making over $1 billion by the end of the year following its November 9 release.
  
• Still no R18+ classification in Australia… Yet.
  It’s been a problem for Aussie gamers for many years now, but never before has the issue seen this much attention nor have we ever been this close to attaining it. With Michael Atkinson (the once most vocal opposer on the matter) stepping down as Attorney-General of South Australia following the SA elections earlier in the year, gamers were more motivated than ever to have this issue brought to the public eye. Two of Austarlia’s biggest video game retailers, GAME and EB Games, hosted nation-wide petitions in-store to get the public to understand the importance of this matter. No R18 rating for games means violent titles (such as Grand Theft Auto IV, God of War III, Call of Duty series) are being rated at the MA15+ level despite being restricted to adults everywhere else in the world. With numerous news stories being televised across the country and many news/blog posts being posted online, tripled with the huge response from petitions (GAME claiming to have received over 89,000; the largest response to a “wet signature” petition the country has ever seen), on December 10 the subject was discussed at the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. However following a highly tense waiting period that day the issue was declared non-conclusive for now. Though this may seem another step backward, it was also declared that a draft of a refined classification system will be drawn and presented for the next SCAG meeting. What does this mean? It means that by end of the next SCAG meeting in March, we could finally have a balanced ratings system for games.

Gamers4Croydon were a South Australian political party rallying against Michael Atkinson as the Member for Croydon. They didn’t win, but they definitely made their point and contributed to pushing the R18+ debate as a public issue.

Nintendo strikes back with a vengeance at E3.
As it turns out, having bad E3 press conferences for a few years in a row can work out to your advantage – it gives you the chance to stock up on the big guns then let lead fly. At 2010’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, after a rocky start with technical difficulties while showing off the next Zelda’s new gameplay mechanics, Nintendo’s press conference was nothing short of a spectacle. Zelda, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Golden Sun, GoldenEye, Dragon Quest… Then there was the 3DS and its own enormous list of upcoming titles. With Nintendo pulling out all the stops with most of its biggest franchises laying waste to consumers’ wallets over the next year, one can’t help but beg the question: what’s to come at next year’s E3? At this point we can only speculate, but here’s hoping to a new home console – one with HD support and un-embarrassing online service. Oh and user names.

The motion control war has officially begun.
For almost four years Nintendo held the monopoly in motion controlled gaming (though the PS3 had its offering since launch with SixAxis, but… come on). That all changed with the inevitable releases of Sony’s and Microsoft’s controllers Move and Kinect, respectively. What makes this so important is now that motion input for each console is different, simply porting a motion game between each platform is going to (read: should) take more effort, thus hopefully leading to more innovative and exclusive gameplay. Though the current releases so for have proven to be relatively average (bar Kinect’s Dance Central), they are of course launch titles, and as everyone knows in the gaming world the first wave of software for any console shouldn’t dictate the quality of the hardware. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s coming in 2011.

Last year was great, and this year’s shaping up to be the same if not better.
With the holiday season now finished and Nintendo’s 3DS just over the horizon (supposedly being released worldwide by March 31st), what does 2011 have in store? For Nintendo fans there’s the aforementioned 3DS and its gale of releases, plus The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Pokemon Black/White and Okamiden for DS. PS3 owners are in luck with a slew of exclusive games such as LittleBigPlanet 2 and Mass Effect 2 in just a couple of weeks, SOCOM, Killzone 3, Twisted Metal, inFamous 2, DC Universe Online, Resistance 3, ICO & Shadow of the Colossus HD remakes, The Last Guardian, Yakuza 4, and Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Lastly Xbots have Gears of War 3, XCOM, Forza 3, plus multiplatform titles like Batman: Arkham City, Mass Effect 3, RAGE, Crysis 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dead Space 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Dragon Age 2, FEAR 3, Portal 2, Bulletstorm, de Blob 2 and finally after thirteen years of development, Duke Nukem Forever.

Golly gosh. It’s a good time to be a gamer!

Paradigm Shift: The Joys and Sorrows of Casual Gaming

Gaming has come a very long way since its original offerings in many different ways including technology, design and social standing. In terms of consumer gaming, it is arguably the youngest industry in the entertainment market and is still trying to establish itself today. Up until perhaps this generation of consoles (beginning with the US release of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in 2005) gaming was mostly seen as a toy by the mainstream – a plaything usually enjoyed by younger people. To help change this perception, while Microsoft and Sony were fighting for High Definition dominance with the 360 and Playstation 3 to appeal to the mass market, Nintendo decided to opt for standard definition graphics and motion controls. It was upon this reveal that a new market of gamers became ever more prevalent  – casual gamers.

Casual gamers by general definition are people who mostly game either minimally, socially or on-the-go to pass time. Up ‘til now gaming was something of a niche activity; a hobby dominated by a demographic dubbed “hardcore gamers”. With the introduction of motion controls and Nintendo’s push for the attention of non-gamers, the market for video games grew exponentially to being one of, if not the most profitable entertainment industry today. However given the successes of Nintendo with their current target audience, Apple’s iPhone App Store, and the recent release of Sony’s Playstation Move and Microsoft’s Kinect motion controllers, there have been repercussions.

Almost synonymous with the term “casual games” is the word “shovelware”. Shovelware games are often games that have limited funding, development time or development attention that the outcome is a product that usually results in frustrating gameplay, generic level design and low production values. To put it bluntly, they’re bad games made for quick cash. Before casual gaming shovelware was mostly reserved for licensed games – titles based on movies, cartoons or television shows that require a particular license to develop for (which are still around today). Since licensed games are usually aimed to be released alongside the release of its theatrical counterpart, more often than not they are given to smaller development studios with a very limited development schedule. Obviously, the solution to avoiding these games is to not buy them, correct? Unfortunately because the mainstream consumer does not pay close attention to games and/or read critical reviews to differentiate between a good and a bad game, shovelware (especially attached to a licensed name) manages to profit enough to cycle more mundane products.

The image that brought gaming to the mainstream.

Another term that crops up with casual games is “streamlining”. Often this can be worrying for core gamers since streamlining usually affects gameplay. The biggest offender in recent memory is Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIII. For the longest time the Final Fantasy series was considered one of the most hardcore JRPG (Japanese Role-Playing Game) franchises in the industry. Mostly featuring turn-based battle systems, stat tracking to manage your characters in combat and lenghty storylines JRPGs could be considered quite a daunting experience for non-gamers. Square Enix attempted to rectify this by substantially lowering the micro-management of battles, side quests and freedom of manueverability (no joke, outside of battles and cutscenes for the first twenty hours all you do is walk forward). Though this game wasn’t specifically targeted towards non-gamers, it was made to be more “accessible” for a broader audience.

Some could also argue that New Super Mario Bros Wii’s streamlining negatively affected the gameplay with its additions of Bubble Mode and Super Guide. When playing in multiplayer anyone having problems overcoming a particular point may press A and enter bubble mode, which renders the player invulnerable to damage though removing control. In order for the player to return to action they must shake the Wiimote to draw closer to another player and have that player collide with the bubble to free them. If abused, bubble mode potentially leaves the challenge to just one player while all others are free to float about the stage. Super guide on the other hand can only be accessed once a player fails to complete a stage eight times. Upon this, a green “!” box will appear and when activated shifts control of the player to the computer to complete the stage – the player can jump back into control however by pressing the + button on the Wiimote. Both of these features are completely optional (and the first only being available during multiplayer), but are still often brought up in debates about NSMBW’s difficulty.

Streamlining isn’t always a terrible thing, however. Games like Mass Effect 2 benefitted from this process immensely in terms of inventory and special ability management. Mass Effect had a mostly cumbersome menu and loot system to the point where it eventually became annoying having to manage all the non-usable items and weapons that weren’t compatible with your character’s class or squad mates. Other titles that were streamlined for the better include Super Mario Galaxy 2, Assassin’s Creed II, Halo Wars and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

 
Waggle for everything. Waggle in precision. Waggle your body!

A growing trend of trying to attract non-gamers is the use and, a lot of the time, misuse of motion controls. At the unveiling of the Wii Remote concept a lot of gamers were confused as whether this would be a good or bad thing. During Nintendo’s press conference at the 2006 E3 people were amazed at what motion controls could mean for the gaming industry, especially from the first impression of Wii Sports Tennis. Instead of the precise 1:1 control of the Wiimote that was initially speculated, gamers were treated with waggle-filled titles that left our hopes diminished. During the first couple of years after the Wii’s launch there was an abundance of mini-game compilations that were just rehashes of the same ideas. Since then there has been a surge of refining and redefining of motion controls beginning with Nintendo’s Wii Motion Plus peripheral to add precision to the Wii Remote, and the launches of Sony’s Move and Microsoft’s Kinect. Even a huge amount of today’s mobile phones feature some form of motion detection, whether it be gyroscopes or accelerometers.

Another control method popular among casual games is touch-screen controls. Many more games have been praised in their sense of control with touch-screens than motion however in the case of some of today’s smart phones such as the iPhone, systems without button input often lead to some unresponsive or problematic experiences. The Nintendo DS’s launch in 2004 paved the way for touch-screen based gaming with its dual screen layout. With its top screen being a normal LCD monitor and its bottom being touch-sensitive the DS has seen enormous success with puzzle, action, strategy and first-person games. With two screens players were able to enjoy touch-sensitive gameplay mechanics without much screen obstruction since all systems are recommended for the use of a stylus. Apple’s iPhone, however recently seeing enormous success, still often struggles to find un-hindered gaming due to its utilisation of single-screen multi-touch technology sans stylus/button control. In terms of puzzle and racing games, more often than not the iPhone shines in its control since the players’ fingers aren’t constantly covering the screen. However in terms of shooting, fighting and adventure games it is often a nuisance and gains critical feedback. This is also evident in other smartphones that only utilise touch-screen control.

 
The lack of buttons on mobile devices can often prove problematic for gaming.

Though one highly praised feature pioneered by the iPhone is its App Store – an in-built, inexpensive, mobile digital distribution platform for games, utilities and other programs. This completely revolutionised digital distribution in 2008 since it offered ease of distribution for developers with a 70%/30% revenue share (the latter being Apple’s income), iTunes store browsing, and on-the-go purchasing and downloading via your cellular network. Though at first the App Store was more directed to distributing programs for iPhones, it soon broke the device through to being a legitimate handheld gaming contender against the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.

The video game industry has seen a massive turn-around in the last half-decade. Usually in that time we would just have a change in console hardware, but now we have seen a major shift in audience and control methods. New control methods such as the Wii Remote, Move Controller and Kinect are only the bare bones of motion gaming’s potential. With Nintendo regularly leading the charge in gaming innovation first with D-pad control, 4 player gaming, analogue sticks, motion controls and next year glasses-free 3D gaming with their new handheld, the 3DS, it’ll be interesting to see what they will come up with for their next home console. Let’s just hope they don’t put us hardcore gamers in the backseat this time, yeah?

Super Meat Boy

Video games have come a long way since the old-school sidescrolling platform games of yore. Most games these days are developed to be more streamlined, more forgiving towards players. We live comfortably selecting our difficulty setting and knowing that we’ll reach the end of the game. If that’s the kind of game you’re looking for, then it’s doubtful you will find it here. Super Meat Boy is one of the most unforgiving and infuriating games I have played in recent memory. And I love it.

Don’t get me wrong, the game is most certainly playable. In fact the controls are some of the most balanced I’ve found in a platforming game since the original Super Mario Bros. Super Meat Boy harkens back to a time where gaming was reliant on skill, rather than cinematic experiences. It’s a game that tests your reactions to see if you’re worthy of that 65G achievement bounty.

You play as Meat Boy, an anthropomorphic wad of meat whose girlfriend, Bandage Girl, has been kidnapped by the evil Dr Fetus – a newborn inside a monocle-wearing robot suit. Your objective is simple: save Bandage Girl. The execution however, is not. Super Meat Boy features some of the most robust and well thought-out level design I’ve seen in an old-school platformer. The route to the goal is often obvious at first glance, however it will usually be followed by an “Oh crap…”.

 Old-school game, new-school look.

The first thing people will probably notice of the game is its cartoony charm. Despite the humour being gratuitous and often crass (which suits me juuust fine), it shows personality in its style. The vibrance in colour help overlook the grim outcomes of some of Meat Boys failures – of which there will be many. As Meat Boy runs and clings to walls he leaves a trail of blood on the areas he’s touched, and will remain on the environment until the stage has been cleared. Once a stage is cleared a replay of all your Meat Boys’ efforts will be played immediately afterwards – it’s funny seeing 25+ chunks of meat running and failing simultaneously on one screen. Throughout the game you may encounter warp zones which are usually inspired from classic 8 and 16-bit games and feature a graphical style akin to it. Also I found myself literally laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of the cutscenes. Though there’s no voice acting, it definitely delivers more charm and personality than some recent efforts to include them. *coughMetroidcough*

The controls are minimalist; you run and you jump. In addition to this is a plethora of unlockable characters with unique special abilities such as The Kid from I Wanna Be The Guy’s double-jump and Commander Video from the Bit.Trip series’ hover. Other honourable guest mentions go to Ninja from N+, Tim from Braid, Pink Knight from Castle Crashers, Jill from Mighty Jill Off and Alien from Alien Hominid to name some. Each character has their own distinct feel and you’ll often find that some are better to use for certain stages than others. The characters are unlocked by either finding specific amounts of bandages or completing warp zones, both of which are hidden inside certain stages.

The level design in Super Meat Boy is nothing short of intelligent. There is a supposed total of about 350 unique stages, which I believe to be true since I have only completed around 210 and can still see so many more to even start yet. There are five chapters dedicated to the main game and three unlockable chapters, one being a sort of epilogue featuring Bandage Girl. Alongside the five main chapters are its Dark World parallels; a kind of alternate collection of stages that have been dynamically altered compared to their Light World counterparts. The game does well at easing you into a rhythm during the first couple of chapters with various gameplay techniques and challenges. As the the game goes on you’ll notice a considerable amount of change in terms of difficulty by the final chapter, and it only gets harder from there. For the most part you won’t encounter any enemies until the later chapters; you’ll become much more familiar with environmental perils such as spikes, spinning razors and piles of salt. However once you find your mojo with the environments you’ll find yourself breezing through them. The stages were designed to be beaten in under a minute; most have a target time between 15-30 seconds, though attaining those times will depend on your level of skill.

Poor guy just wanted to smooch.

One of my most notable pleasantries with the game was the soundtrack. Team Meat has put together a great collection of tunes that are both catchy and not annoying (which is important when you end up having to replay some levels a hundred times… literally). Like the rest of Super Meat Boy the music is a hearty nod towards 8-bit and 16-bit music, usually using the same types of sound bites. Each chapter has its own theme that plays throughout every stage, and the Dark World ones are almost remixes of their parallels. The tunes featured in warp zones inspired by classic games are particularly enjoyable to listen to. Also, the sound effects are crisp and add that extra layer of immersion; at first I found Meat Boy’s bloody pitter-pattering footsteps and wall-clinging squish disturbing but soon warmed up to it.

For a downloadable title there is an incredible amount of content here. The game is currently running at 800 Microsoft Points until the 1st of November, from then on being a fixed price of 1200. The game has replayability coming out with the wazoo with competitive leaderboards for people to try their skill at speed runs in over 350 stages. Then there’s collecting bandages and finding warp zones to attain the hidden characters. The game is well worth its 1200 MS point price, and at 800 it’s an absolute steal. Do yourself a favour and at least try out the demo; this is the best XBox Live Arcade game to come out since Castle Crashers.

Score: 10 out of 10

 

(Super Meat Boy will also be released on WiiWare and PC in the near future, though prices are yet to be announced.)

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 – 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.