You know that a console has well and truly gone retro when you see its games turning up in Oxfam. Mega Drive and SNES games have been in such shops for years but PS1 and PS2 games have started turning up, in my local Oxfam at least, at pretty much the same time.
My local Oxfam only sells books/music/DVDs/games and the type of knick-knacks that you get for Christmas and before you've got the wrapping off you're wondering what the charity store holiday opening times are. No clothes are sold, meaning it is sorely lacking in the fusty 'old clothes and cabbage' smell that you often get in charity stores (and pre-GAME takeover branches of Gamestation).
I often pop in there to have a look at the books and I generally also cast my eyes over the games. Most of the games for sale are PC games, which do not interest me (I 'only' have a Mac) but earlier this year I did pick up an unboxed (but with instructions) copy of Starwing on SNES for a couple of quid. I'd seen a couple of 'supermarket' PS2 games in there in the past - the type of low-cost shovelware that never gets coverage from magazines and websites but are heavily featured in your local Budgen's (or similar store), for kids to pester their (non-gaming, presumably) parents into buying. I often wonder if there are any hidden gems in these types of games and wish a magazine or website would get a batch of them to playtest. After all, Global Defense Force/Earth Defense Force 2017 were both ultra low budget games in Japan and they are both excellent. I have a sneaking suspicion that the UK supermarket games are irretrievably crap though. Anyway, I digress.
I popped into my local Oxfam while on a turkey hunt on 23 December. We'd not been able to get out to the shops before then due to the snow and were facing the possibility of Turkey Twizzlers (with all the trimmings) for Christmas lunch, so I'd ventured out in snow shoes to bag me a bird. Before tackling the horrors of Waitrose two days before Christmas I thought I'd have a browse in Oxfam and found that they'd had a game donation. I picked up mint copies of Rollcage and Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis on PS1, both well-received back in the day, for £1.99 and 99p respectively. I probably had GAME's policy of not accepting part-exchange on imported games to thank for also picking up a US copy of Wipeout Pure on PSP for a fiver.
They had other decent games there too, including the superb Sniper Elite on PS2 for a couple of quid (I have it on Xbox).
So, it seems that the charity-store-donation definition of 'retro' (as good a definition as I can think of) currently has retro starting at least at PS1 and possibly at PS2. Cheap gaming and charitable works - what's not to like?
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
NGamer Mario Magnets!
This month's NGamer magazine includes a whole bunch of New Super Mario Bros Wii magnets (and a Nintendo 2010 year planner, if that floats your boat). I don't think I'm NGamer's target market (in fact, I think I am old enough to be the target audience's Dad) but I am a sucker for a magazine freebie. My favourite freebie of all-time was a Nintendo pack of cards from, I think, the Official Nintendo Magazine, which had a different old-skool Nintendo character on each card. I used them as flash cards to teach my then 2-year old daughter the Nintendo pantheon. Well, you've got to start them somewhere.
Anyway, the magnets allow you to recreate 2D platforming fun on any metallic flat surface. The magnets aren't that strong, so they wouldn't be any good at fixing one thing to another thing but that's hardly the point, is it?
Here is our effort -
Anyway, the magnets allow you to recreate 2D platforming fun on any metallic flat surface. The magnets aren't that strong, so they wouldn't be any good at fixing one thing to another thing but that's hardly the point, is it?
Here is our effort -
Friday, 18 December 2009
Happy Birthday, Playstation
The first week of December saw the 15th anniversary of the release of the original Playstation (in Japan, anyway). The cynic in me (who is, essentially, me) thinks that the coverage that this milestone received was thanks to overactive marketing executives taking a break from the coke to try to drum up some Playstation column inches. "Hmm" think the readers of the marketing-generated copy "Sony Playstation. I had one of those back in the 'day'. I wonder what Sony are doing now? Number three you say? What does that do?".
So, showing that I'm a sucker for a good manufactured news item as much as the next man (which is why I always steer clear of the Daily Express), here's my Playstation personal retrospective. Actually the 'next man' is sat on the train seat next to me as I hammer this out on my Blogpress iPhone App, reading the Financial Times with a serious look on his face. I doubt he would be suckered by the marketeers. He'd probably scoff at it and want to know Sony's financial results. Killjoy. Anyway.......
I first played the Playstation in early 1996, when a friend brought his sparkly new console to my student house before a West Ham game (I lived within walking distance of the Boleyn Ground) and we marvelled at FIFA 1996 ("wow, the commentary uses player names - that's creative midfielder Ian Bishop!" and Destruction Derby. Neither have aged well (particularly FIFA 1996, which wasn't even that good - 3D sheen and commentary aside - at the time) but I could see the potential.
The clincher that this was something special, for me, came with Resident Evil. Another friend had bought one and I went over to his flat, had a go and my mind was well and truly blown. I'd heard from friends before that this was a scary game and scoffed at them - as if a game could scare you! And then the dogs jumped through the window. And then the second set of dogs jumped through the next window. Actually, I thought (screamed) a game could scare you. We played the game between us that night, switching the joypad every so often, until 5am in the morning (I had to get up for work at 7am). One of my most memorable gaming experiences ever.
Soon after, I persuaded my older brother, with whom I was living at the time, to buy one. They were still about ￡200-￡250 then I think and you'd need another pad and a memory card before you even thought about buying games - all well outside of my budget back then. By some silver-tongued trick of mine, I managed to persuade him, with faultless logic, that the best place to situate the console was, actually, in my room (placed, for reasons I can't quite remember, on an upturned washing up bowl).
I finally got my own machine in late 1997 (there was a price drop to ￡125) and gave my brother his one back (he seemed grateful enough). That grey wonder still works today (though you have to balance it on its side these days). Will my 360 or my PS3 still be on this side of the veil in 2021 (the year, not 8:21 this evening, though I see your point)? I'm on my second 360 (I know others have had far more than that) and - touch wood - no problems so far but I can't see it still running Bioshock two decades on. My Wii will probably survive though - the reason soldiers have insufficient body armour in Afghanistan is that Nintendo make their consoles out of the stuff.
Other fan-led retrospectives, particularly Game Central's Inbox feature last weekend, have, in the main, praised the machine and its effect on the gaming landscape (a landscape that would have suffered from 'pop-up', I'm sure). The thing is, I remember in the mid-nineties that Sony were on the wrong end of the kind of pelters from hardcore gamers that the Wii gets these days. Earnest letters were written to Edge (are there any other kind?) about how Sony was destroying gaming with their 'cool' console, pandering to clubbers, getting on the cover of trendy non-gaming magazines, abstract TV ads ('I have conquered worlds', anyone?) and generally appealing to the mainstream. Mom & Pop concerns like Sega & Nintendo, the fanboys said, who actually cared about gaming (so not profit, then) were being kicked to the kerb by this upstart and gaming was doomed.
I thought this was cobblers at the time and still do. Some of my favourite games of all time were on the Playstation - Vagrant Story, Vandal Hearts, FFVII, Resident Evil 2 - and it was home to a broad church of different types of game (certainly more so than any of the current gen consoles are). I think it was because Sega/Nintendo fanboys were so set in their own little two-sided confrontational universe (like the CIA when the Soviet Union was more than just a fashion motif) that any attempt to muscle in on that was bound to short-out their minds. Coupled with the fact that change is never welcomed by some quarters.
The thing is, a lot of the core gamers that are around now cut their teeth on the Playstation - without it, gaming may well have died, or at least not been the multi-billion dollar industry it is now. I'm sure there are those that would think that this would have been a good thing but then I'm sure there were cavemen that thought 'fire' was an advance that they could do without and that mammoth tasted quite OK raw, thanks very much. Personally, here's to cooked games.
So, showing that I'm a sucker for a good manufactured news item as much as the next man (which is why I always steer clear of the Daily Express), here's my Playstation personal retrospective. Actually the 'next man' is sat on the train seat next to me as I hammer this out on my Blogpress iPhone App, reading the Financial Times with a serious look on his face. I doubt he would be suckered by the marketeers. He'd probably scoff at it and want to know Sony's financial results. Killjoy. Anyway.......
I first played the Playstation in early 1996, when a friend brought his sparkly new console to my student house before a West Ham game (I lived within walking distance of the Boleyn Ground) and we marvelled at FIFA 1996 ("wow, the commentary uses player names - that's creative midfielder Ian Bishop!" and Destruction Derby. Neither have aged well (particularly FIFA 1996, which wasn't even that good - 3D sheen and commentary aside - at the time) but I could see the potential.
The clincher that this was something special, for me, came with Resident Evil. Another friend had bought one and I went over to his flat, had a go and my mind was well and truly blown. I'd heard from friends before that this was a scary game and scoffed at them - as if a game could scare you! And then the dogs jumped through the window. And then the second set of dogs jumped through the next window. Actually, I thought (screamed) a game could scare you. We played the game between us that night, switching the joypad every so often, until 5am in the morning (I had to get up for work at 7am). One of my most memorable gaming experiences ever.
Soon after, I persuaded my older brother, with whom I was living at the time, to buy one. They were still about ￡200-￡250 then I think and you'd need another pad and a memory card before you even thought about buying games - all well outside of my budget back then. By some silver-tongued trick of mine, I managed to persuade him, with faultless logic, that the best place to situate the console was, actually, in my room (placed, for reasons I can't quite remember, on an upturned washing up bowl).
I finally got my own machine in late 1997 (there was a price drop to ￡125) and gave my brother his one back (he seemed grateful enough). That grey wonder still works today (though you have to balance it on its side these days). Will my 360 or my PS3 still be on this side of the veil in 2021 (the year, not 8:21 this evening, though I see your point)? I'm on my second 360 (I know others have had far more than that) and - touch wood - no problems so far but I can't see it still running Bioshock two decades on. My Wii will probably survive though - the reason soldiers have insufficient body armour in Afghanistan is that Nintendo make their consoles out of the stuff.
Other fan-led retrospectives, particularly Game Central's Inbox feature last weekend, have, in the main, praised the machine and its effect on the gaming landscape (a landscape that would have suffered from 'pop-up', I'm sure). The thing is, I remember in the mid-nineties that Sony were on the wrong end of the kind of pelters from hardcore gamers that the Wii gets these days. Earnest letters were written to Edge (are there any other kind?) about how Sony was destroying gaming with their 'cool' console, pandering to clubbers, getting on the cover of trendy non-gaming magazines, abstract TV ads ('I have conquered worlds', anyone?) and generally appealing to the mainstream. Mom & Pop concerns like Sega & Nintendo, the fanboys said, who actually cared about gaming (so not profit, then) were being kicked to the kerb by this upstart and gaming was doomed.
I thought this was cobblers at the time and still do. Some of my favourite games of all time were on the Playstation - Vagrant Story, Vandal Hearts, FFVII, Resident Evil 2 - and it was home to a broad church of different types of game (certainly more so than any of the current gen consoles are). I think it was because Sega/Nintendo fanboys were so set in their own little two-sided confrontational universe (like the CIA when the Soviet Union was more than just a fashion motif) that any attempt to muscle in on that was bound to short-out their minds. Coupled with the fact that change is never welcomed by some quarters.
The thing is, a lot of the core gamers that are around now cut their teeth on the Playstation - without it, gaming may well have died, or at least not been the multi-billion dollar industry it is now. I'm sure there are those that would think that this would have been a good thing but then I'm sure there were cavemen that thought 'fire' was an advance that they could do without and that mammoth tasted quite OK raw, thanks very much. Personally, here's to cooked games.
Monday, 14 December 2009
Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 - teaser trailer
Batman: Arkham Asylum is my favourite game this year - excellent use of the licence, great gameplay, combat, graphics, voice acting. Other than a couple of suspect boss battles (though the one with Scarecrow balanced some of that suspicion out, I feel), there isn't a thing that I would change about the game.
Given the maths of the industry go something like - videogame + success = videogame 2: The sequel - it is no surprise that there's another game coming. A bit surprising, possibly, that news of it has come so soon after the first game came out (it was released in the UK at the end of August) but welcome nonetheless.
A teaser trailer was released today, at the Video Game (I always say 'videogame' but each to their own) Awards. As a rule, I'm not that interested in previews/trailers, particularly a gameplay-free one like this but for Batman, I'll make an exception (like the one I made for Fable 3). It suggests that the game will be set in Gotham City proper, rather than in the eponymous Asylum of the first game. Joker and Harley Quinn are there again, an easy choice to make, given Joker is the most charismatic and well-known bat-villain but I'd have liked to see another one, personally. Not that it will stop me buying it though - I am being seduced by the coolness already.
Given the maths of the industry go something like - videogame + success = videogame 2: The sequel - it is no surprise that there's another game coming. A bit surprising, possibly, that news of it has come so soon after the first game came out (it was released in the UK at the end of August) but welcome nonetheless.
A teaser trailer was released today, at the Video Game (I always say 'videogame' but each to their own) Awards. As a rule, I'm not that interested in previews/trailers, particularly a gameplay-free one like this but for Batman, I'll make an exception (like the one I made for Fable 3). It suggests that the game will be set in Gotham City proper, rather than in the eponymous Asylum of the first game. Joker and Harley Quinn are there again, an easy choice to make, given Joker is the most charismatic and well-known bat-villain but I'd have liked to see another one, personally. Not that it will stop me buying it though - I am being seduced by the coolness already.
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Wii Sports Resort - review
The first Wii Sports game was a curio, designed to ease gamers (and, as it turned out, non-gamers) into the waggle-waggle nonsense that controls most Wii games. It would be harsh to call it a collection of tech demos (that was Wii Play) but it would also be overly praising to call it a proper game. As it came bundled with the console, I don't think anyone felt hard done by but would I have bought it had it been a boxed game sitting on Amazon's virtual shelf alongside the Wii when I bought the console? About as likely as I would have bought (or got my Mum and step-father to buy, rather) the free games bundled with my Spectrum in 1983 (something to do with population graphs of foxes and rabbits)?
That's not to say I didn't enjoy Wii Sports, I did - a lot. I very rarely played it on my own, only with my daughter - 5-and-a-half when I first bought the machine - and, on a few occasions, with the type of non-gaming relatives that Ant & Dec rustle up for their Wii TV ads. I liked the baseball, golf and bowling, the tennis was OK and the boxing was a bit hit-and-miss (pun very much intended) and some of the mini games were good (target golf rocks) but overall it didn't offer much as a videogame experience.
Fast forward two years or so and, in time-honoured videogame fashion, the sequel has rolled up. Rather than a simple retread, the game this time round is bundled with a motion sensor doo-hickey (a technical term) that better measures the motion of the Wii Remote when the sensor end is not directly pointed at the TV/motion bar. [EDIT (thanks Warren!)] The Motion Plus can detect movement on a 1-to-1 basis. which the vanilla Wii Remote could not, meaning the Motion Plus should offer a deeper gameplay experience.
And I think it does. The additional scope that the Motion Plus gives allows there to be more - and more varied - games. Twelve different types this time but some of those hide different variations that, effectively, amount to different games. For example, 'Swordplay', one of the twelve game types, hides a 1-on-1 fight on a podium, a two-player vegetable/fruit/assorted tuht first-to-ten slashathon and a one-player 'take them all on, one by one' fight, the only link between the three being the holding of a sword.
All the games and game types are set on Wuhu Island, a sporting-themed tropical resort (think Center Parcs in the South Pacific). I've read that Nintendo think of the island as a character in itself and anticipate it returning in future games. I'm not sure about that but I did think, as I was flying around the island on 'Island Flyover', a single player plane-based search 'em up, that I'd quite fancy driving around the island on a few Mario Kart tracks.
In all these types of mini game collections, there tends to be some games that you play more than others and that's what I've found with Wii Sports Resort. I've played a lot of Swordplay (my daughter is strangely attracted to whacking my Mii was a sword) and also wakeboarding, dogfight (not part of an Essex simulator but a two player aeroplane duel over Wuhu Island) and table tennis. All of these very much rely upon the Motion Plus as even minute adjustments of the Remote have (and need to have) an onscreen effect (I've noticed this most in Dogfighting, flying your plane by gentle adjustments of your wrist).
Bowling and golf both make a return and both are improved. I'm not sure if it is the Motion Plus that makes bowling better but it certainly plays more accurately (bowling is probably the only 'sport' included in either game that I have played much in the real world) than in the first game. Golf has definitely been improved with the new tech though - your backswing is now important and you can put backspin on the ball, handy for those tricky approach shots/wild slashes from the rough. I've only ever played pitch and putt golf in the real world but it now seems a better model of the golfing experience. Not in a Tiger Woods sense, although the Motion Plus would no doubt help should 'apres golf' be on the menu for Tiger Woods PGA Tour All-Play 2011.
Wii Sports Resort is now being bundled with the Wii (along with the first game), so all new owners, like my in-laws, get to view both games side by side. I wonder if those new owners will do more than scratch the surface of the old game, given how superior Wii Sports Resort is. That has been the case with my in-laws, who've barely played Wii Sports in the face of their growing addiction to Wii Sports Resort. I said above that I wouldn't have bought Wii Sports had it been a boxed game but I did buy Wii Sports Resort (and an extra Motion Plus) and it has been well worth it. Highly recommended, particularly if you have children.
That's not to say I didn't enjoy Wii Sports, I did - a lot. I very rarely played it on my own, only with my daughter - 5-and-a-half when I first bought the machine - and, on a few occasions, with the type of non-gaming relatives that Ant & Dec rustle up for their Wii TV ads. I liked the baseball, golf and bowling, the tennis was OK and the boxing was a bit hit-and-miss (pun very much intended) and some of the mini games were good (target golf rocks) but overall it didn't offer much as a videogame experience.
Fast forward two years or so and, in time-honoured videogame fashion, the sequel has rolled up. Rather than a simple retread, the game this time round is bundled with a motion sensor doo-hickey (a technical term) that better measures the motion of the Wii Remote when the sensor end is not directly pointed at the TV/motion bar. [EDIT (thanks Warren!)] The Motion Plus can detect movement on a 1-to-1 basis. which the vanilla Wii Remote could not, meaning the Motion Plus should offer a deeper gameplay experience.
And I think it does. The additional scope that the Motion Plus gives allows there to be more - and more varied - games. Twelve different types this time but some of those hide different variations that, effectively, amount to different games. For example, 'Swordplay', one of the twelve game types, hides a 1-on-1 fight on a podium, a two-player vegetable/fruit/assorted tuht first-to-ten slashathon and a one-player 'take them all on, one by one' fight, the only link between the three being the holding of a sword.
All the games and game types are set on Wuhu Island, a sporting-themed tropical resort (think Center Parcs in the South Pacific). I've read that Nintendo think of the island as a character in itself and anticipate it returning in future games. I'm not sure about that but I did think, as I was flying around the island on 'Island Flyover', a single player plane-based search 'em up, that I'd quite fancy driving around the island on a few Mario Kart tracks.
In all these types of mini game collections, there tends to be some games that you play more than others and that's what I've found with Wii Sports Resort. I've played a lot of Swordplay (my daughter is strangely attracted to whacking my Mii was a sword) and also wakeboarding, dogfight (not part of an Essex simulator but a two player aeroplane duel over Wuhu Island) and table tennis. All of these very much rely upon the Motion Plus as even minute adjustments of the Remote have (and need to have) an onscreen effect (I've noticed this most in Dogfighting, flying your plane by gentle adjustments of your wrist).
Bowling and golf both make a return and both are improved. I'm not sure if it is the Motion Plus that makes bowling better but it certainly plays more accurately (bowling is probably the only 'sport' included in either game that I have played much in the real world) than in the first game. Golf has definitely been improved with the new tech though - your backswing is now important and you can put backspin on the ball, handy for those tricky approach shots/wild slashes from the rough. I've only ever played pitch and putt golf in the real world but it now seems a better model of the golfing experience. Not in a Tiger Woods sense, although the Motion Plus would no doubt help should 'apres golf' be on the menu for Tiger Woods PGA Tour All-Play 2011.
Wii Sports Resort is now being bundled with the Wii (along with the first game), so all new owners, like my in-laws, get to view both games side by side. I wonder if those new owners will do more than scratch the surface of the old game, given how superior Wii Sports Resort is. That has been the case with my in-laws, who've barely played Wii Sports in the face of their growing addiction to Wii Sports Resort. I said above that I wouldn't have bought Wii Sports had it been a boxed game but I did buy Wii Sports Resort (and an extra Motion Plus) and it has been well worth it. Highly recommended, particularly if you have children.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Drink is the Curse of the Blogging Classes
Yesterday was my work Christmas lunch and, as is customary at these functions, I had far too much to drink. Not entirely my fault - no-one seated near me was drinking white wine and I don't drink red - but it wasn't as if a gun was being held to my head to drink it (the only thing being held to my head was a regularly-refilled glass of white). So far, so festive, then. But what, I hear you ask does that have to do with videogames?
Well, I generally draft my posts on the BlogPress iPhone app, which is great for utilising small snippets of time, like a train commute, episode of X-Factor or a boring meeting, for something constructive like drafting a post. And yes I am aware of the irony of equating 'videogame blog post' with 'something constructive'. Yesterday morning I missed my train by two flights of stairs and had to get on a slow one instead. I'd already half drafted a post on a great videogame love of mine, pinball games, covering various games from Pinball on the Spectrum to Pinball FX on XBLA and spent the 40-minute train journey completing it. Or, should I say, nearly completing it. I'd hacked out a pretty much completed first draft but I generally like to read my posts through a few times, changing stuff here and and there and generally doing what I think F Scott Fitzgerald used to call 'fannying around with the words', so I didn't publish (you can publish direct from the app).
This morning when I awoke my Blogpress app wasn't on the front page of my iPhone - I must have deleted it last night. I think I'd accidentally put it into 'wobble' mode when carrying it and then inadvertently deleted Blogpress, along with iDracula (which is a bit duff, to be honest), Flixster and Instapaper. Bugger. I've uploaded them all again from my iTunes account but the data (my pinball post and a very early draft of one on digital downloads) is lost for ever, like Charlize Theron's chances of ever working for FIFA again after last week's World Cup draw.
I've tried to start it again but I find drafting something that I've already written and then lost due to an IT error very difficult, as I try to remember exactly what the lost document was like, rather than writing directly about the actual subject. I might return to writing about pinball again eventually but I'm giving up on it for now and turning to write about Wii Sports Resort instead. Here's a quick precis of the pinball one, if you're interested - pinball is good, Pinball FX is great, ball physics are hard to get right and I suck at pinball.
Well, I generally draft my posts on the BlogPress iPhone app, which is great for utilising small snippets of time, like a train commute, episode of X-Factor or a boring meeting, for something constructive like drafting a post. And yes I am aware of the irony of equating 'videogame blog post' with 'something constructive'. Yesterday morning I missed my train by two flights of stairs and had to get on a slow one instead. I'd already half drafted a post on a great videogame love of mine, pinball games, covering various games from Pinball on the Spectrum to Pinball FX on XBLA and spent the 40-minute train journey completing it. Or, should I say, nearly completing it. I'd hacked out a pretty much completed first draft but I generally like to read my posts through a few times, changing stuff here and and there and generally doing what I think F Scott Fitzgerald used to call 'fannying around with the words', so I didn't publish (you can publish direct from the app).
This morning when I awoke my Blogpress app wasn't on the front page of my iPhone - I must have deleted it last night. I think I'd accidentally put it into 'wobble' mode when carrying it and then inadvertently deleted Blogpress, along with iDracula (which is a bit duff, to be honest), Flixster and Instapaper. Bugger. I've uploaded them all again from my iTunes account but the data (my pinball post and a very early draft of one on digital downloads) is lost for ever, like Charlize Theron's chances of ever working for FIFA again after last week's World Cup draw.
I've tried to start it again but I find drafting something that I've already written and then lost due to an IT error very difficult, as I try to remember exactly what the lost document was like, rather than writing directly about the actual subject. I might return to writing about pinball again eventually but I'm giving up on it for now and turning to write about Wii Sports Resort instead. Here's a quick precis of the pinball one, if you're interested - pinball is good, Pinball FX is great, ball physics are hard to get right and I suck at pinball.
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Half-an-hour heroes
As I've got older, the amount of time that I have to play games has gone down in inverse proportion to the amount of money that I have to spend on them. I remember paying, in pre-Internet shopping days, £45 each for Die Hard Trilogy and Warhammer Shadow of the Horned Rat, two of the first games that I owned on the original Playstation. At the time, the cost of each game amounted to nearly a third of my weekly take home pay and consequently I could not buy very many games. In those far off days though, I had far more time to play the games and played those that I had (even demos) to death finding gaming time was not a problem.
Jumping forward to the present day, a better job, a family, less gaming time, the Internet (and www.gamestracker.com) has led me to amass what CPC6128 on the www.nowgamer.com/forum (feel free to pop in - we're friendly) has termed a 'Pile of Shame'. An embarrassingly large number of uncompleted, unstarted or even unopened games that I have not yet had the time to play.
To try to work down my 'PoS', I've taken to drastic action (well, not as drastic as quitting my job or not seeing my family but you know what I mean). When I play a game for the first time now, if it doesn't grab my attention in that first sitting I seldom persevere and go back for more but instead move on to the next game in the pile. It needn't only be the half an hour (of gaming time) of the title of this post (though it has been in the past) - that was just a nice piece of alliteration. But it does apply to the first long session on a game pulled from the pile.
This policy wasn't a conscious decision on my part. It happened for the first time following a reasonably long session on a game fresh from my PoS. The game was MadWorld on the Wii - OK-ish, highly stylised but ultimately shallow and empty. When I next came to play a game, I couldn't be bothered to continue with MadWorld but instead picked another game from my PoS, the more satisfying (but by no means great, though certainly fun) Mercenaries 2.
Since then, I've played three more half-an-hour heroes - Bionic Commando, where I couldn't get on with central mechanic of the game, the hook-arm thing; Street Fighter IV, which I fully appreciate is a great game but I just don't get on with beat 'em ups (other than Powerstone) and Eat Lead, which is just not very good*. I doubt that I will ever pick up any of these games again (feel free to plead on their behalf in my comments section though).
I suppose this might seem a bit harsh and I might even be missing out on some decent gaming experiences. However I only have a finite time to play games and if a game can't persuade me back for a second sitting after an hour or so, I don't want to 'risk' more of my gaming time on it.
*I appreciate that one man's meat is another man's PeTA direct action campaign, so I feel dutybound to point readers in the direction of 24 Hour Gamer's latest post, as he quite liked Eat Lead -
http://24hourgamer.blogspot.com He's quite convincing - maybe I will try it again........
Jumping forward to the present day, a better job, a family, less gaming time, the Internet (and www.gamestracker.com) has led me to amass what CPC6128 on the www.nowgamer.com/forum (feel free to pop in - we're friendly) has termed a 'Pile of Shame'. An embarrassingly large number of uncompleted, unstarted or even unopened games that I have not yet had the time to play.
To try to work down my 'PoS', I've taken to drastic action (well, not as drastic as quitting my job or not seeing my family but you know what I mean). When I play a game for the first time now, if it doesn't grab my attention in that first sitting I seldom persevere and go back for more but instead move on to the next game in the pile. It needn't only be the half an hour (of gaming time) of the title of this post (though it has been in the past) - that was just a nice piece of alliteration. But it does apply to the first long session on a game pulled from the pile.
This policy wasn't a conscious decision on my part. It happened for the first time following a reasonably long session on a game fresh from my PoS. The game was MadWorld on the Wii - OK-ish, highly stylised but ultimately shallow and empty. When I next came to play a game, I couldn't be bothered to continue with MadWorld but instead picked another game from my PoS, the more satisfying (but by no means great, though certainly fun) Mercenaries 2.
Since then, I've played three more half-an-hour heroes - Bionic Commando, where I couldn't get on with central mechanic of the game, the hook-arm thing; Street Fighter IV, which I fully appreciate is a great game but I just don't get on with beat 'em ups (other than Powerstone) and Eat Lead, which is just not very good*. I doubt that I will ever pick up any of these games again (feel free to plead on their behalf in my comments section though).
I suppose this might seem a bit harsh and I might even be missing out on some decent gaming experiences. However I only have a finite time to play games and if a game can't persuade me back for a second sitting after an hour or so, I don't want to 'risk' more of my gaming time on it.
*I appreciate that one man's meat is another man's PeTA direct action campaign, so I feel dutybound to point readers in the direction of 24 Hour Gamer's latest post, as he quite liked Eat Lead -
http://24hourgamer.blogspot.com He's quite convincing - maybe I will try it again........
Monday, 30 November 2009
Casual gamers into core gamers
There's a theory that the 'new gamers' that Nintendo are bringing to the gaming market, those consumers that had never gamed before Dr Kawashima or Wii Sports, can be weaned onto 'proper' games. That if they knew about Zelda or Advance Wars they would cast aside their Sudoku and Rabbids. David Jenkins, editor of Gamecentral on Teletext, said as much on an edition of the much-missed Games Night on the slightly-missed xleague.tv satellite channel.
I've only got anecdotal evidence to the contrary but this is my experience. My mother-in-law received a DS for Christmas last year from her dog (don't ask). She's in her sixties and, to my knowledge, had never gamed prior to having a go on my daughter's DS a few months before her dog's purchase. Along with her DS she also received two games (from the dog, her budgie or her husband), Dr Kawashima's Brain Training and Sight Training and has avidly played them both since Christmas.
Over the summer, I decided to put the theory that these types of games can lead less experienced gamers towards 'proper' games. I own - and love - Professor Layton and the Curious Village and I thought that this would be a good choice of 'proper' game to lend to my mother-in-law, as it has the trappings of a real game but is essentially a series of unconnected logic problems. I knew that my mother-in-law liked sudoku puzzles and similar, so Layton seemed a good fit for her potential gaming habits (and a cracking game to boot).
The next time I saw her, she cursed me (not literally - she's not a witch or anything) for giving her Layton, as she could not get on with it at all. The 'gamey-ness' of Layton's story and structure meant that she could not enjoy, or even get to, the kernel of the game, the puzzles. If you didn't have to traipse around a village chatting to weirdoes to get your puzzles but instead the game just lined up ten puzzles a day and was called Dr Layton's Puzzle Training I truly think she would have lapped it up.
I'm not going to try to extrapolate this experience across the whole of gaming but I think that the sales figures for traditional games compared to the new gaming experiences typified by Brain Training tell their own tale. Whether Nintendo's market strategy this generation will backfire next generation when those non-gamers they targeted this time around do not see the need to upgrade to improve their gaming experiences (casual games hardly tax the hardware) only time will tell.
And my mother-in-law? She's just bought a Wii....
I've only got anecdotal evidence to the contrary but this is my experience. My mother-in-law received a DS for Christmas last year from her dog (don't ask). She's in her sixties and, to my knowledge, had never gamed prior to having a go on my daughter's DS a few months before her dog's purchase. Along with her DS she also received two games (from the dog, her budgie or her husband), Dr Kawashima's Brain Training and Sight Training and has avidly played them both since Christmas.
Over the summer, I decided to put the theory that these types of games can lead less experienced gamers towards 'proper' games. I own - and love - Professor Layton and the Curious Village and I thought that this would be a good choice of 'proper' game to lend to my mother-in-law, as it has the trappings of a real game but is essentially a series of unconnected logic problems. I knew that my mother-in-law liked sudoku puzzles and similar, so Layton seemed a good fit for her potential gaming habits (and a cracking game to boot).
The next time I saw her, she cursed me (not literally - she's not a witch or anything) for giving her Layton, as she could not get on with it at all. The 'gamey-ness' of Layton's story and structure meant that she could not enjoy, or even get to, the kernel of the game, the puzzles. If you didn't have to traipse around a village chatting to weirdoes to get your puzzles but instead the game just lined up ten puzzles a day and was called Dr Layton's Puzzle Training I truly think she would have lapped it up.
I'm not going to try to extrapolate this experience across the whole of gaming but I think that the sales figures for traditional games compared to the new gaming experiences typified by Brain Training tell their own tale. Whether Nintendo's market strategy this generation will backfire next generation when those non-gamers they targeted this time around do not see the need to upgrade to improve their gaming experiences (casual games hardly tax the hardware) only time will tell.
And my mother-in-law? She's just bought a Wii....
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Left 4 Dead 2 - first impressions
Time was, I'd buy a new game, rip off the cellophane, ignore the instruction manual and plough several hours into my new purchase. These days, what with being 'grown up', having 'responsibilities' and a pathetic craving for 'sleep', I take my new-purchase gaming where I can find it.
Which brings me on to Left 4 Dead 2. I bought the game on release day (20th November in the UK) but was going away for the weekend for a pre-Christmas visit to relatives, so could not play it until Monday night. And, as it turned out, into Tuesday morning.
My initial impression is that L4D2 is bloody hard! The first game was no walk in the park (other than the bit that was, actually, a walk through a park) but this ratchets the difficulty level up a notch. I've only played through one campaign, 'Dead Center', so far and if that's a sign of things to come, there'll be a few more late nights in my future. The campaign took two and a quarter hours to complete, which is about an hour more than a campaign in the first game would take.
The new infected are both interesting and hard to kill (I hate the Jockey) but, in the player's favour, you are given melée weapons (which rock). The set pieces are a lot more involved than in the first game. In the campaign I played, I had to steal some cola (really) from a store in order to bribe some guy to blow something up and, for evac, had to find fuel cans around a mall, with which to fill up a Nascar-style car. I thoroughly enjoyed these events, which showed more depth than just blasting scores zombies, wave after wave, as in the first game (though I enjoyed that too).
I think that this added layer of complication kills the single player game, as the CPU-controlled characters simply do not have the nous to use the tactics necessary to progress. Hand them a petrol can and they'll just drink the petrol and wear the can as a party hat - they're that dumb. I played with one other real person, with the other two in the party in the hands of the 360 and even then we struggled.
After I've played it some (lots) more, I'll post a full review. Of course, I would have played it some more last night but my 7-year old was still awake at 9pm, my L4D buddy had to work on an important job tender and I was crazy-tired. Responsibilities, eh?
Which brings me on to Left 4 Dead 2. I bought the game on release day (20th November in the UK) but was going away for the weekend for a pre-Christmas visit to relatives, so could not play it until Monday night. And, as it turned out, into Tuesday morning.
My initial impression is that L4D2 is bloody hard! The first game was no walk in the park (other than the bit that was, actually, a walk through a park) but this ratchets the difficulty level up a notch. I've only played through one campaign, 'Dead Center', so far and if that's a sign of things to come, there'll be a few more late nights in my future. The campaign took two and a quarter hours to complete, which is about an hour more than a campaign in the first game would take.
The new infected are both interesting and hard to kill (I hate the Jockey) but, in the player's favour, you are given melée weapons (which rock). The set pieces are a lot more involved than in the first game. In the campaign I played, I had to steal some cola (really) from a store in order to bribe some guy to blow something up and, for evac, had to find fuel cans around a mall, with which to fill up a Nascar-style car. I thoroughly enjoyed these events, which showed more depth than just blasting scores zombies, wave after wave, as in the first game (though I enjoyed that too).
I think that this added layer of complication kills the single player game, as the CPU-controlled characters simply do not have the nous to use the tactics necessary to progress. Hand them a petrol can and they'll just drink the petrol and wear the can as a party hat - they're that dumb. I played with one other real person, with the other two in the party in the hands of the 360 and even then we struggled.
After I've played it some (lots) more, I'll post a full review. Of course, I would have played it some more last night but my 7-year old was still awake at 9pm, my L4D buddy had to work on an important job tender and I was crazy-tired. Responsibilities, eh?
Monday, 23 November 2009
inFamous - review
inFamous is a third-person action-adventure set in Empire City, a New York-style metropolis that is decimated by an explosion in the opening cut scene. This being a videogame, that explosion gives the central character (a courier who was carrying the package that caused the explosion) super electrical powers.
The plot is, frankly, ridiculous and incomprehensible. There's a conspiracy (of course), a secret society (surely not?), a super-powerful weapon that various parties are after (Tolkien has a lot to answer for) and healthy amounts of duplicity (not exactly unexpected). In the final cut scene one of the characters still standing says something along the lines of 'finally I understood' - I wish he or she (no spoilers here) could have shared that knowledge with me!
But to be honest it doesn't matter. In some games, the plot enhances the game (Bioshock) and in some they seem bolted on (Resident Evil 5). inFamous is in the latter camp but I doubt that I would have enjoyed it any more than I did (which was a fair amount), had it been set in Rapture and populated with characters that I cared about.
The game is all about the superpowers. As I have said, they're electricity-based but they are essentially The Force. Force Push is there, as is Force Lightning and the ability to jump around in a superhuman fashion. No lightsabers (the Force is strong in Lucasfilm's lawyers, after all) but this is as good a rendition of Force powers this side of the next KOTOR game. And, in my eyes, there isn't much that couldn't be made better with an injection of the good bits of Star Wars (George Lucas please note).
To recharge these powers, you have to regularly (read: continually) drain electricity from the City - street lamps, generators, power lines, train tracks, cars, even people (if you're evil, that is). This recharge also restores health, which can be handy (if a bit tricky under fire) in the heat of the battle.
As I posted a couple of weeks ago, there are basic good/evil (Light and Dark, if you will) choices to be made. There are also 'good' and 'bad' side missions to undertake, the completion of one locking out the opposing mission in that area. Completion of a set number of these missions unlocks further powers.
Unusually for me I was seduced by the power of the Dark Side. I haven't played the game as a Boy Scout (nor will I) so I don't know what differences there are between the two ways but the effects of the Dark path are as you'd expect. You start to look a bit 'grr', your electrical powers are an evil shade of red (from the menu screen, I noted those that take the path to the Light Side get blue-white virtuous sparks. Each to their own) and, when you get particularly Sith-like, the populace of Empire City start throwing rocks at you like you were Thierry Henry at a Dubliners concert.
Rocks aside, I think playing 'evil' makes the game easier. A fair amount of the game can be completed by mashing the Force Push button, scattering cars, street furniture, petrol stations etc at the bad guys. Unfortunately, that leads to quite a bit of collateral damage to the locals, which ups your evil gauge but you get through the set pieces and ambushes reasonably unscathed. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs though, right? Presumably that tactic, used indiscriminately, wouldn't work with the Light path.
As with Crackdown, the Xbox 360 exclusive that this game most resembles (though it is not as good), your powers increase as you amass the experience gained from offing bad guys and completing missions. And this is where a lot of the fun comes from - when your powers are maxed out, particularly Force Push (as you can tell, a favourite of mine) you can do a lot of damage. Pin wheeling a car by Force Push (it's actually called Shockwave - I just looked it up) into a petrol station and having it explode is most satisfying.
Graphically, it's a mixed bag. Sometimes it's superlative, other times it's glitchy, occasionally letting you fall through, or get caught up in, the scenery. One aspect it does do very well though, is height. I'm scared of heights - when I went to New York, I didn't go above the 2nd floor (3rd if you're American) of any building (Statue of Liberty excepted and that gave me the heebies). Even with this fear - or maybe because of it - I love vertiginous videogames. Several times, when climbing Empire City's taller buildings, clinging to twisted girders or flickering signage, I felt an involuntary twinge of fear - a 'wuh!' moment - and that is testament to how well height (and climbing) was used by the developers.
The story path is fairly linear but there are plenty of experience-boosting side missions for you to undertake. They can get a bit repetitive and I doubt that I completed more than half of the side missions in the game, even though there were advatages to their completion. As you complete side missions, zones of the island become free of bad guys, which in turn makes getting around - there is a lot of backtracking - easier, as there are less people taking pot shots at you. Not enough of an advantage to keep me interested though. And without bad guys, who would I Force Push?
Overall, it's a fun game, if a bit shallow and rough around the edges. I also thought it outstayed its welcome by a few hours and could have been shortened (certainly it didn't interest me enough to want to play it via the 'good' path).
The plot is, frankly, ridiculous and incomprehensible. There's a conspiracy (of course), a secret society (surely not?), a super-powerful weapon that various parties are after (Tolkien has a lot to answer for) and healthy amounts of duplicity (not exactly unexpected). In the final cut scene one of the characters still standing says something along the lines of 'finally I understood' - I wish he or she (no spoilers here) could have shared that knowledge with me!
But to be honest it doesn't matter. In some games, the plot enhances the game (Bioshock) and in some they seem bolted on (Resident Evil 5). inFamous is in the latter camp but I doubt that I would have enjoyed it any more than I did (which was a fair amount), had it been set in Rapture and populated with characters that I cared about.
The game is all about the superpowers. As I have said, they're electricity-based but they are essentially The Force. Force Push is there, as is Force Lightning and the ability to jump around in a superhuman fashion. No lightsabers (the Force is strong in Lucasfilm's lawyers, after all) but this is as good a rendition of Force powers this side of the next KOTOR game. And, in my eyes, there isn't much that couldn't be made better with an injection of the good bits of Star Wars (George Lucas please note).
To recharge these powers, you have to regularly (read: continually) drain electricity from the City - street lamps, generators, power lines, train tracks, cars, even people (if you're evil, that is). This recharge also restores health, which can be handy (if a bit tricky under fire) in the heat of the battle.
As I posted a couple of weeks ago, there are basic good/evil (Light and Dark, if you will) choices to be made. There are also 'good' and 'bad' side missions to undertake, the completion of one locking out the opposing mission in that area. Completion of a set number of these missions unlocks further powers.
Unusually for me I was seduced by the power of the Dark Side. I haven't played the game as a Boy Scout (nor will I) so I don't know what differences there are between the two ways but the effects of the Dark path are as you'd expect. You start to look a bit 'grr', your electrical powers are an evil shade of red (from the menu screen, I noted those that take the path to the Light Side get blue-white virtuous sparks. Each to their own) and, when you get particularly Sith-like, the populace of Empire City start throwing rocks at you like you were Thierry Henry at a Dubliners concert.
Rocks aside, I think playing 'evil' makes the game easier. A fair amount of the game can be completed by mashing the Force Push button, scattering cars, street furniture, petrol stations etc at the bad guys. Unfortunately, that leads to quite a bit of collateral damage to the locals, which ups your evil gauge but you get through the set pieces and ambushes reasonably unscathed. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs though, right? Presumably that tactic, used indiscriminately, wouldn't work with the Light path.
As with Crackdown, the Xbox 360 exclusive that this game most resembles (though it is not as good), your powers increase as you amass the experience gained from offing bad guys and completing missions. And this is where a lot of the fun comes from - when your powers are maxed out, particularly Force Push (as you can tell, a favourite of mine) you can do a lot of damage. Pin wheeling a car by Force Push (it's actually called Shockwave - I just looked it up) into a petrol station and having it explode is most satisfying.
Graphically, it's a mixed bag. Sometimes it's superlative, other times it's glitchy, occasionally letting you fall through, or get caught up in, the scenery. One aspect it does do very well though, is height. I'm scared of heights - when I went to New York, I didn't go above the 2nd floor (3rd if you're American) of any building (Statue of Liberty excepted and that gave me the heebies). Even with this fear - or maybe because of it - I love vertiginous videogames. Several times, when climbing Empire City's taller buildings, clinging to twisted girders or flickering signage, I felt an involuntary twinge of fear - a 'wuh!' moment - and that is testament to how well height (and climbing) was used by the developers.
The story path is fairly linear but there are plenty of experience-boosting side missions for you to undertake. They can get a bit repetitive and I doubt that I completed more than half of the side missions in the game, even though there were advatages to their completion. As you complete side missions, zones of the island become free of bad guys, which in turn makes getting around - there is a lot of backtracking - easier, as there are less people taking pot shots at you. Not enough of an advantage to keep me interested though. And without bad guys, who would I Force Push?
Overall, it's a fun game, if a bit shallow and rough around the edges. I also thought it outstayed its welcome by a few hours and could have been shortened (certainly it didn't interest me enough to want to play it via the 'good' path).
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
How much? No, really, please tell me
As I've mentioned before, supermarkets have taken to giving new release games super discounts in the first week of sale, often bringing the sale price below their cost price. As major (read: hyped) releases sell an enormous amount of copies in that first week (Modern Warfare 2 sold more than one MILLION copies in the UK on its first day alone), supermarkets can drastically increase their customer footfall by doing this. The 'losses' on the games are recouped by the profits on the other puchases made by gamers when in store and everyone's happy.
Except the specialist game retailers.
Left 4 Dead 2 is out this Friday, 20 November (as is Assassin's Creed II). I've pre-ordered through Game and popped in yesterday to see what the retail price will be but the sales assistant said that he didn't know yet. Last weekend, Gamestation told me that they would not know the instore sale price until the afternoon of Thursday 19th but that it would be between £38-£50 (thanks guys).
I don't know if this is standard practice, though I do remember knowing the Fable II price, for which I had similarly pre-ordered, well before release. I think that it may be the case that specialist retailers are being more cagey. If a new game is going to be what I will term 'price bombed' by a supermarket, it doesn't matter what the specialist retailer sells it at, as they can never price match. They could, in fact, add another £5 on their normal new release price (say £45 instead of £40), for as long as supermarkets are price bombing, with little effect on their sales. I think Left 4 Dead 2 (and probably Assassin's Creed II) is too much of a niche title to rouse the supermarkets to this type of behaviour but you can understand the specialist retailers' circumspection.
The market is clearly not working here but I'm not sure how it can be resolved - supermarkets will try to make money, gamers will try to save it and specialist retailers will be left in the middle. A download-only future would end this but, in that event, all of those parties will lose out.
Except the specialist game retailers.
Left 4 Dead 2 is out this Friday, 20 November (as is Assassin's Creed II). I've pre-ordered through Game and popped in yesterday to see what the retail price will be but the sales assistant said that he didn't know yet. Last weekend, Gamestation told me that they would not know the instore sale price until the afternoon of Thursday 19th but that it would be between £38-£50 (thanks guys).
I don't know if this is standard practice, though I do remember knowing the Fable II price, for which I had similarly pre-ordered, well before release. I think that it may be the case that specialist retailers are being more cagey. If a new game is going to be what I will term 'price bombed' by a supermarket, it doesn't matter what the specialist retailer sells it at, as they can never price match. They could, in fact, add another £5 on their normal new release price (say £45 instead of £40), for as long as supermarkets are price bombing, with little effect on their sales. I think Left 4 Dead 2 (and probably Assassin's Creed II) is too much of a niche title to rouse the supermarkets to this type of behaviour but you can understand the specialist retailers' circumspection.
The market is clearly not working here but I'm not sure how it can be resolved - supermarkets will try to make money, gamers will try to save it and specialist retailers will be left in the middle. A download-only future would end this but, in that event, all of those parties will lose out.
Friday, 13 November 2009
Retro corner - Super Mario Kart, a personal view
Super Mario Kart. Three words (hereafter referred to as SMK) that probably stole more hours of my life, over as long a span of time, as any other game.
Picture the scene. November 1993, in a tiny indie game store in Old Bethnal Green Road in the heart of London's East End. Sunken-cheeked crones, pearly kings, tousled-haired urchins and opium-addled drabs littered the street (there may be a degree of poetic licence here but - hey - it's my flashback). The shop was a stone's throw (from a particularly burly urchin, anyway) from my university hall of residence and £25's worth of birthday money was burning a hole in the pocket of my flatmate. He picked up the blue box of SMK, handed over the cash and going to bed at a civilised hour instantly became a thing of the past.
Not an exaggeration - we often played that 'one more Cup' until the dawn chorus was well under way, neither of us wanting to quit as a runner up. If I'd have put the hours into my degree that I put into that cartridge, I might have got a First.
SMK was essentially a horizontal-split-screen two-player game, where 8 Mario-universe characters in go-karts negotiated cartoon-style racing circuits, which featured a number of Mario themes. Two player was undoubtedly the focus of the game - in single player the screen was still split in two, with the lower half taken up with a side-on map, around which the karts raced. This map had no real purpose in the game and it was as if Nintendo had tagged on the single player as an after-thought. Maybe that was another example of Nintendo being ahead of the market?
SMK laid the foundations for all the Mario Karts that were to come in terms of structure. 8 karts (up to 12 by Mario Kart Wii), three cups - in order of difficulty Mushroom, Flower and Star - with Special Cup unlocked when the other three are completed. Each cup had five races, not the four of later versions (a weakness of those later versions, I think). Each race had 5 laps (cut to three now but I think the modern tracks are longer) and each cup had three difficulties, 50cc, 100cc and the unlockable 150cc. And that was pretty much it (well there was Battle Mode but I never really played that).
Written down, it doesn't seem that impressive but, as with all great games, that greatness was borne out by extended play. It was a game that rewarded skill. Unlike, say, the Wii version, you couldn't get a sequence of events that would allow a novice player to beat a veteran. When you were good at this game, you were 15 seconds ahead of the field - no blue shell levellers here.
The powersliding was possibly the best realised in the whole series. You could skim a corner so tightly that, on particular occasions, Lakitu the cloud-dwelling race marshal, could momentarily dance around your screen, convinced that you were in reverse, before you sped off, with a tenth of a second advantage over you opponent and with Lakitu eating strato-nimbulus (possibly).
My flatmate and I quickly built our own SMK lexicon, added to during extended play. 'Bowser poo','onions' (gold coins), 'Yoshi egg' and 'Luigi you cheating flashy bastard' were all used frequently. We even had a Cup victory song - 'Who wants to dance, who wants to sing, who's gonna be the flat Mario Kart King' (to the - mangled - tune of 'Who wants to be the Disco King', by The Wonderstuff). Particularly effective smacktalk when halfway around the final lap of a Cup's fifth race...... Sixteen years, two marriages and three children later, we still sing this song when we meet up and (to?) play SMK.
The game has stood the test of time, in two player anyway. It is probably the only game from that era that I still play regularly. Later versions have been easier - 3 laps instead of 5, respawning item boxes, Cup progression without a top 4 finish, rubber banding, blue bloody shells - but probably more playable for a beginner. I think, in what some might think as heresy, that all things considered, SMK isn't the best all-round version of the game. I love Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart DS and they have, arguably, surpassed the original, in that the single player game is better realised and there's online play. When it comes to local multiplayer though, against a player of a similar skill level, SMK still reigns supreme.
Picture the scene. November 1993, in a tiny indie game store in Old Bethnal Green Road in the heart of London's East End. Sunken-cheeked crones, pearly kings, tousled-haired urchins and opium-addled drabs littered the street (there may be a degree of poetic licence here but - hey - it's my flashback). The shop was a stone's throw (from a particularly burly urchin, anyway) from my university hall of residence and £25's worth of birthday money was burning a hole in the pocket of my flatmate. He picked up the blue box of SMK, handed over the cash and going to bed at a civilised hour instantly became a thing of the past.
Not an exaggeration - we often played that 'one more Cup' until the dawn chorus was well under way, neither of us wanting to quit as a runner up. If I'd have put the hours into my degree that I put into that cartridge, I might have got a First.
SMK was essentially a horizontal-split-screen two-player game, where 8 Mario-universe characters in go-karts negotiated cartoon-style racing circuits, which featured a number of Mario themes. Two player was undoubtedly the focus of the game - in single player the screen was still split in two, with the lower half taken up with a side-on map, around which the karts raced. This map had no real purpose in the game and it was as if Nintendo had tagged on the single player as an after-thought. Maybe that was another example of Nintendo being ahead of the market?
SMK laid the foundations for all the Mario Karts that were to come in terms of structure. 8 karts (up to 12 by Mario Kart Wii), three cups - in order of difficulty Mushroom, Flower and Star - with Special Cup unlocked when the other three are completed. Each cup had five races, not the four of later versions (a weakness of those later versions, I think). Each race had 5 laps (cut to three now but I think the modern tracks are longer) and each cup had three difficulties, 50cc, 100cc and the unlockable 150cc. And that was pretty much it (well there was Battle Mode but I never really played that).
Written down, it doesn't seem that impressive but, as with all great games, that greatness was borne out by extended play. It was a game that rewarded skill. Unlike, say, the Wii version, you couldn't get a sequence of events that would allow a novice player to beat a veteran. When you were good at this game, you were 15 seconds ahead of the field - no blue shell levellers here.
The powersliding was possibly the best realised in the whole series. You could skim a corner so tightly that, on particular occasions, Lakitu the cloud-dwelling race marshal, could momentarily dance around your screen, convinced that you were in reverse, before you sped off, with a tenth of a second advantage over you opponent and with Lakitu eating strato-nimbulus (possibly).
My flatmate and I quickly built our own SMK lexicon, added to during extended play. 'Bowser poo','onions' (gold coins), 'Yoshi egg' and 'Luigi you cheating flashy bastard' were all used frequently. We even had a Cup victory song - 'Who wants to dance, who wants to sing, who's gonna be the flat Mario Kart King' (to the - mangled - tune of 'Who wants to be the Disco King', by The Wonderstuff). Particularly effective smacktalk when halfway around the final lap of a Cup's fifth race...... Sixteen years, two marriages and three children later, we still sing this song when we meet up and (to?) play SMK.
The game has stood the test of time, in two player anyway. It is probably the only game from that era that I still play regularly. Later versions have been easier - 3 laps instead of 5, respawning item boxes, Cup progression without a top 4 finish, rubber banding, blue bloody shells - but probably more playable for a beginner. I think, in what some might think as heresy, that all things considered, SMK isn't the best all-round version of the game. I love Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart DS and they have, arguably, surpassed the original, in that the single player game is better realised and there's online play. When it comes to local multiplayer though, against a player of a similar skill level, SMK still reigns supreme.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Curse you Microsoft - you've won, OK!
As I've said before, I'm playing inFamous at the moment. It's, well, 'OK', I suppose - nothing out of this world but it rolls along at its own pace and gives you plenty of toys to play with. In short, somewhat giving away the review that I intend to write when I'm done with it, it's fun - an engaging way to spend your gaming time.
It's just that.......it's a bit longer than I thought it would be. I'm not sure how long I've been playing it (if only Raptr worked with PS3) but it's been a while and it's certainly the most I've played my PS3 since January, when I played through Uncharted. Since then, I've dipped in and out of Little Big Planet and Burn Zombie Burn, I've played a fair few Wii games and spent time on the handhelds (anything to escape the X Factor) but this year I reckon I've spent at least 75% of my gaming time on the 360. I didn't think it would ever bother me but I am concerned that my current gaming isn't increasing my Gamerscore!
When I first got my 360 I can honestly say I didn't care about Achievements. I took quite a low gp yield from my early games - Bioshock, Crackdown, Battle for Middle Earth II and others - as I never gave the Achievements and gamerpoints available a second thought. My disquiet over the time spent with inFamous has made it apparent that now I do, in fact, care about them. And that's made me angry with myself and with Microsoft (though the latter is tinged with a crudging respect at how they've played me).
Hopefully, this self-realisation will be enough to 'scare me straight' and I'll just concentrate on the games from now on. I'm getting Uncharted 2 for Christmas and God of War III and Heavy Rain look the most interesting games on the horizon, so I need to stop thinking about my Gamerscore and go back to thinking like a gamer.
It's just that.......it's a bit longer than I thought it would be. I'm not sure how long I've been playing it (if only Raptr worked with PS3) but it's been a while and it's certainly the most I've played my PS3 since January, when I played through Uncharted. Since then, I've dipped in and out of Little Big Planet and Burn Zombie Burn, I've played a fair few Wii games and spent time on the handhelds (anything to escape the X Factor) but this year I reckon I've spent at least 75% of my gaming time on the 360. I didn't think it would ever bother me but I am concerned that my current gaming isn't increasing my Gamerscore!
When I first got my 360 I can honestly say I didn't care about Achievements. I took quite a low gp yield from my early games - Bioshock, Crackdown, Battle for Middle Earth II and others - as I never gave the Achievements and gamerpoints available a second thought. My disquiet over the time spent with inFamous has made it apparent that now I do, in fact, care about them. And that's made me angry with myself and with Microsoft (though the latter is tinged with a crudging respect at how they've played me).
Hopefully, this self-realisation will be enough to 'scare me straight' and I'll just concentrate on the games from now on. I'm getting Uncharted 2 for Christmas and God of War III and Heavy Rain look the most interesting games on the horizon, so I need to stop thinking about my Gamerscore and go back to thinking like a gamer.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Early Release of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Some 'bricks & mortar' videogame retailers have been selling Modern Warfare 2 before the official release date next week. Charlie Brooker, for one, picked one up and has been tweeting about it on his Twitter feed (@charltonbrooker). I don't know about the legality of what they're doing (though I imagine the publishers will probably turn a blind eye in any event) but I can see why they're doing it.
Supermarkets burned specialist game retailers recently on the FIFA10 and PES10 releases, selling both games, for the first 3-4 days on sale anyway, at less than cost price. Supermarkets do this to get shoppers through the door, as they hope these 'new' customers will buy something else to go with their new videogame, increasing their margins across all their other in-store products to recoup the videogame 'losses'. Rumours that supermarket prices for essential gaming foodstuffs 'Maltesers' and 'Monster Munch', in tandem with the FIFA offer, have yet to be confirmed. This theory worked for me - my internet purchase got delayed in the postal strike, so I picked up a copy in Tesco and while there bought a Halloween costume for my daughter. Curse you Tesco!
I've not seen anything to suggest that Tesco, ASDA et al will do this for Modern Warfare 2 but it is the biggest game release of the year so it would not surprise me if they did. Who can blame specialist game stores for breaking the official release date, getting in early and shifting their shipments of the game to avoid loads of unsold stock come Tuesday, if it's £15 cheaper at ASDA?
Supermarkets burned specialist game retailers recently on the FIFA10 and PES10 releases, selling both games, for the first 3-4 days on sale anyway, at less than cost price. Supermarkets do this to get shoppers through the door, as they hope these 'new' customers will buy something else to go with their new videogame, increasing their margins across all their other in-store products to recoup the videogame 'losses'. Rumours that supermarket prices for essential gaming foodstuffs 'Maltesers' and 'Monster Munch', in tandem with the FIFA offer, have yet to be confirmed. This theory worked for me - my internet purchase got delayed in the postal strike, so I picked up a copy in Tesco and while there bought a Halloween costume for my daughter. Curse you Tesco!
I've not seen anything to suggest that Tesco, ASDA et al will do this for Modern Warfare 2 but it is the biggest game release of the year so it would not surprise me if they did. Who can blame specialist game stores for breaking the official release date, getting in early and shifting their shipments of the game to avoid loads of unsold stock come Tuesday, if it's £15 cheaper at ASDA?
Friday, 6 November 2009
Joe Danger footage from YouTube
I posted last weekend about the excellent 'Joe Danger' game that I had played at the EG Expo. Well, it seems someone else had the wherewithal to video the footage from the Expo and upload it. Follow the link and gaze at the awesomeness.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Fable 3 Concept Art
Some new concept art for Fable 3 was released by Lionhead yesterday http://www.lionhead.com/Fable3/images/bws_industrial.jpg. I don't think anyone should get excited by concept art as it shows little or nothing about the gameplay. However it does offer a good indication of the setting of a game, a relevant point for the Fable series, given 500 years passed between the first two games.
I loved both of the previous Fable games, particularly the last one. Peter Molyneux receives criticism for selling gamers the stars but only delivering the moon but, to extend a metaphor to breaking point, when you're on the ground the moon looks pretty good. In fact, as far as Fable II is concerned, I don't think that there was much over-selling in the preview stage and any flak aimed at Molyneux was more as as a result of his track record than of actual 'missing' content in the finished game.
The concept art, which is of Bowerstone, the main town (maybe now a city) of Albion, suggests an industrial setting, with Victorian-style warehouses lining a river/canal. Maybe an industrial revolution has hit Albion, though one that still required the bearing of swords, judging from the chap in the right-hand corner ? Baseless conjecture, of course but then the Internet is the home city of that isn't it (twinned with the town of Unfounded Rumour)?
Albion often reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Discworld and that series has also radically developed its period setting from when it first started - compare the more traditional fantasy setting of The Colour of Magic with that shown in the later books, Making Money for instance. This has done no harm to Discworld (on the contrary, the books have improved) and hopefully the same will be said of the Albion of Fable
Of course, I might be talking rubbish (wouldn't be the first time) and this could be just a glimpse of the industrial side of Albion that Fable II didn't touch on but I await the next drop from Lionhead's dripfeed of information with interest.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
There is good and bad, in everyone
I'm currently playing inFamous, the PS3-exclusive action adventure. Your character, Cole, for tenuous and borderline silly reasons, gets electrical superpowers following a huge explosion at the start of the game. I'll probably review the game after I've completed it, so won't describe it in great depth here but for now I want to discuss its 'good or evil' dichotomy.
Like several other games in recent years, it asks you to make decisions relating to certain actions, with a 'good' or 'evil' outcome. Last year, this was used to good effect in Fable II and had earlier been used, less effectively, in its predecessor. It was also a staple of the KOTOR series, with its choices between the light and dark side of the Force.
So, a well-established gaming concept. Its execution in inFamous however, seems a retrograde step, certainly compared to Fable II. The choices in inFamous are stark and are either deepest black or Persil white. For example, on the first of the game's three islands (that together form Empire City, the game's setting), quite early on you have to prevent a device from pumping poison into a residential building's water supply. You have two choices - to break the pump, thereby pumping a lot of additional poison into the water, or to turn the pump handle in such a way as the excess poison squirts you in the face, temporarily blinding you. Can you guess which one is the evil choice? Other good/evil choices are similarly pitched.
I'd have liked some shades of grey, something that Fable II was moving towards in certain parts. An ability, perhaps, to force one of the bad guys to turn the pump and have the poison squirted in his face - maybe not what Superman would do in the same situation but probably at least what The Punisher would do. Maybe an option of forcing an innocent bystander to turn the pump? A darker shade of grey, admittedly but still a move away from the game's toggle switch moral choices.
I'm not advocating that all games should be turned into a succession of deep philosophical choices but if a moral compass is to be implemented in a game, I would like more points on it than 'Lone Ranger' and 'moustache-twirling silent movie villain'.
Like several other games in recent years, it asks you to make decisions relating to certain actions, with a 'good' or 'evil' outcome. Last year, this was used to good effect in Fable II and had earlier been used, less effectively, in its predecessor. It was also a staple of the KOTOR series, with its choices between the light and dark side of the Force.
So, a well-established gaming concept. Its execution in inFamous however, seems a retrograde step, certainly compared to Fable II. The choices in inFamous are stark and are either deepest black or Persil white. For example, on the first of the game's three islands (that together form Empire City, the game's setting), quite early on you have to prevent a device from pumping poison into a residential building's water supply. You have two choices - to break the pump, thereby pumping a lot of additional poison into the water, or to turn the pump handle in such a way as the excess poison squirts you in the face, temporarily blinding you. Can you guess which one is the evil choice? Other good/evil choices are similarly pitched.
I'd have liked some shades of grey, something that Fable II was moving towards in certain parts. An ability, perhaps, to force one of the bad guys to turn the pump and have the poison squirted in his face - maybe not what Superman would do in the same situation but probably at least what The Punisher would do. Maybe an option of forcing an innocent bystander to turn the pump? A darker shade of grey, admittedly but still a move away from the game's toggle switch moral choices.
I'm not advocating that all games should be turned into a succession of deep philosophical choices but if a moral compass is to be implemented in a game, I would like more points on it than 'Lone Ranger' and 'moustache-twirling silent movie villain'.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Wii Games round-up at Eurogamer Expo
The Wii games were the ugly ducklings of the event. Games are, or should be, all about the gameplay but at the Expo the Wii games were in direct comparison with HD PS3 and 360 games and they suffered by this comparison.
I don't play Wii games in public (as you look like an idiot) but I looked at all that were there. The New Super Mario Bros Wii game looked interesting (a 2D Mario game is a novelty for non-handheld console these days and, I suppose, should be applauded.
Wheelspin, the Archer MacLean-developed title looked very fast and good for a Wii game and fills the 'next-gen F-Zero' hole that Nintendo have left.
'Good for a Wii game' has to be the the most damning faint praise that you can think of, incidentally.
I don't play Wii games in public (as you look like an idiot) but I looked at all that were there. The New Super Mario Bros Wii game looked interesting (a 2D Mario game is a novelty for non-handheld console these days and, I suppose, should be applauded.
Wheelspin, the Archer MacLean-developed title looked very fast and good for a Wii game and fills the 'next-gen F-Zero' hole that Nintendo have left.
'Good for a Wii game' has to be the the most damning faint praise that you can think of, incidentally.
Eurogamer Expo, freebies
One of the cool things about going to an event like this, are the opportunities for freebies. Last year, I was given a t-shirt with a retro-style (original) Prince of Persia in mid jump on the front, promoting the revamped PoP game from Ubisoft that came out last Christmas. Nice t-shirt, beautiful game.
This year, I snagged a Left 4 Dead 2 t-shirt
which came in handy, what with it being Halloween the following day. Although I did wonder about the propriety of handing out candy to little kids with a zombie hand pictured on my chest but, hey, they were dressed as vampires, ghosts and werewolves, so I figure we were all in a happy place.
I also got an Army of Two: 40th Day t-shirt -
This year, I snagged a Left 4 Dead 2 t-shirt
which came in handy, what with it being Halloween the following day. Although I did wonder about the propriety of handing out candy to little kids with a zombie hand pictured on my chest but, hey, they were dressed as vampires, ghosts and werewolves, so I figure we were all in a happy place.
I also got an Army of Two: 40th Day t-shirt -
Joe Danger
Evel Knievel. When I was growing up in the seventies, it seemed like he was jumping over buses, canyons, Pepsi vans, cars, every other day of the week. He was a phenomenon - this was a man who filled Wembley Stadium just to watch his, maybe 10-second, jump over 13 buses. He seemed to always crash - he hit one of the buses in the Wembley stunt, breaking his pelvis in the process*. The commentary on that event said that he had broken every bone in his body. Probably hyperbole but, to a 4-year old boy, this was unbelievably cool and the toy manufacturers of the world exploited this with the Evel Knievel stunt cycle - wind a handle on a mount attached to a bike with a doll of Evel attached and then let rip in death-defying recreations. Merry Christmas to me, 1975-style. Trust me, it was a great toy.
Hello Games have tapped into this with their game 'Joe Danger', where the eponymous hero (by the looks of his paunch, having seen better days), traverses (in a sort of 2.5D) a course of jumps, bars (to duck under), diverging paths, shark-filled swimming pools (of course), all the time building a score by chaining the tricks together. Joe travels from right to left through the course, eventually reaching a finish line.
If you've played Trials HD, this probably sounds a bit familiar. However, it is a lot more forgiving. I like Trials HD but it is (for me, anyway) pretty hard. The 'Hard' levels and above are painfully tough. Joe Danger isn't as tough initially. Getting from A to B, in the levels that I played, was certainly achievable. Getting from A to B, collecting all that needs to be collected, chaining tricks while you do so and building your score, on the other hand, is much less so. What it taps into, as Trials HD also does, is the 'one more go' mechanic - I could have stayed at the Hello Games stand at the Expo a lot longer than I did in scratching that particular itch.
Graphically, I think it is best described as looking like a classic era Warner Brothers cartoon. You can imagine Wile E Coyote poking out from behind one of the clapboard 'movie-set' frontage-only houses that line the track. It is certainly a look that works in concert with the style of the game and the gameplay itself - this is not an ultra realistic game (though the mention of shark-filled pools above probably gave that away).
I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Short of buying a stunt cycle from eBay and making a ramp from 10 Ladybird books and a Blue Peter Annual, this is the definitely the way to best relive Evel Knievel memories. At heart this is a great little game, even if you've no memories of the toy (which is good for Hello, as I doubt that aiming at nostalgic 30-something gamers is a successful business model!).
The game comes out in Spring 2010. No platform has yet been announced - one of the developers told me that they hope to do so soon. To me, it looks like a PSN or Xbox Live Arcade game; either format would suit what was, for me, one of the games of the Expo (alongside Heavy Rain).
*Even so, he still walked off the pitch, saying 'I walked in, I want to walk out again' - THAT'S how cool he was
Hello Games have tapped into this with their game 'Joe Danger', where the eponymous hero (by the looks of his paunch, having seen better days), traverses (in a sort of 2.5D) a course of jumps, bars (to duck under), diverging paths, shark-filled swimming pools (of course), all the time building a score by chaining the tricks together. Joe travels from right to left through the course, eventually reaching a finish line.
If you've played Trials HD, this probably sounds a bit familiar. However, it is a lot more forgiving. I like Trials HD but it is (for me, anyway) pretty hard. The 'Hard' levels and above are painfully tough. Joe Danger isn't as tough initially. Getting from A to B, in the levels that I played, was certainly achievable. Getting from A to B, collecting all that needs to be collected, chaining tricks while you do so and building your score, on the other hand, is much less so. What it taps into, as Trials HD also does, is the 'one more go' mechanic - I could have stayed at the Hello Games stand at the Expo a lot longer than I did in scratching that particular itch.
Graphically, I think it is best described as looking like a classic era Warner Brothers cartoon. You can imagine Wile E Coyote poking out from behind one of the clapboard 'movie-set' frontage-only houses that line the track. It is certainly a look that works in concert with the style of the game and the gameplay itself - this is not an ultra realistic game (though the mention of shark-filled pools above probably gave that away).
I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Short of buying a stunt cycle from eBay and making a ramp from 10 Ladybird books and a Blue Peter Annual, this is the definitely the way to best relive Evel Knievel memories. At heart this is a great little game, even if you've no memories of the toy (which is good for Hello, as I doubt that aiming at nostalgic 30-something gamers is a successful business model!).
The game comes out in Spring 2010. No platform has yet been announced - one of the developers told me that they hope to do so soon. To me, it looks like a PSN or Xbox Live Arcade game; either format would suit what was, for me, one of the games of the Expo (alongside Heavy Rain).
*Even so, he still walked off the pitch, saying 'I walked in, I want to walk out again' - THAT'S how cool he was
Saw The Videogame
I had a short look at this game. As you can imagine, it is based around nasty things happening to an onscreen character and the player's attempts to stop said horrible things happening.
I think one of the reasons for the success of the movie franchise is in the 'toe-curling' reflex - of imagining yourself in the character's (uncomfortable) position. That is lost in a videogame, with its not-quite realistic character models - unless the controller is shoved up the player's backside*, needing to be cut out with a scalpel within a time limit, it is just a succession of unpleasant things happening to an onscreen avatar who I don't have much of a connection with.
* biologically speaking, this would only be possible if a Wii version were planned
I think one of the reasons for the success of the movie franchise is in the 'toe-curling' reflex - of imagining yourself in the character's (uncomfortable) position. That is lost in a videogame, with its not-quite realistic character models - unless the controller is shoved up the player's backside*, needing to be cut out with a scalpel within a time limit, it is just a succession of unpleasant things happening to an onscreen avatar who I don't have much of a connection with.
* biologically speaking, this would only be possible if a Wii version were planned
Saturday, 31 October 2009
That's like videogame football!
'That's like videogame football' used to be a criticism levelled against real football by fans, commentators and pundits, when something unlikely, stupid or particularly half-arsed happened on the pitch during a game. I've been playing a lot of FIFA 10 this week and I no longer think that that criticism can be used, validly. Footballers haven't got any more competent, it's just that videogame football isn't like videogame game football any more.
I've just watched the extended highlights of West Ham v Sunderland on Sky Sports Football First. 'That's just like FIFA', I thought to myself several times during the game. Not because of comedy capers on the pitch, though throwing away a 2-0 lead away from home is half-arsed but, as any West Ham fan will tell you, nothing particularly unusual. No, rather the game was bringing home home how well-modelled FIFA is this year - the movement, the tactics, the reactions of players to what teammates are doing, the marshalling of defences, the running off the ball. It's just like real football, without the swearing, spitting and diving. Maybe that's for FIFA 11?
I've just watched the extended highlights of West Ham v Sunderland on Sky Sports Football First. 'That's just like FIFA', I thought to myself several times during the game. Not because of comedy capers on the pitch, though throwing away a 2-0 lead away from home is half-arsed but, as any West Ham fan will tell you, nothing particularly unusual. No, rather the game was bringing home home how well-modelled FIFA is this year - the movement, the tactics, the reactions of players to what teammates are doing, the marshalling of defences, the running off the ball. It's just like real football, without the swearing, spitting and diving. Maybe that's for FIFA 11?
God of War III & Dante's Inferno
Unfortunately for Electronics Arts, the Dante's Inferno PS3s were set up adjacent to the GoW3 ones at the Eurogamer Expo. Dante's Inferno has a similar gameplay mechanic to GoW - use melée weapons to thrash your way through hordes of reasonably weak (individually) enemies with regular, harder, bosses - but suffers in direct comparison.
GoW3 enjoys much smoother textures and and seems to flow better. It also has a more attractive setting - Hell/Limbo is, as you can imagine, a bit of a downer. Ancient Greece, even when plagued by harpies, chimeras, centaurs and titans, is a prettier sight than the underworld plagued by the restless souls of the damned.
Gameplay-wise, GoW3 follows that of the previous two games -light, heavy and special attacks chained together in insane combos (I chained over a 100 without too much trouble). But the I don't think that anyone thought the third instalment would offer a change of pace, did they - Kratos Kart Racing, anyone?
On the evidence of GoW3 and Heavy Rain, next year could be a big one for the PS3, building on the foundations laid by Uncharted 2.
GoW3 enjoys much smoother textures and and seems to flow better. It also has a more attractive setting - Hell/Limbo is, as you can imagine, a bit of a downer. Ancient Greece, even when plagued by harpies, chimeras, centaurs and titans, is a prettier sight than the underworld plagued by the restless souls of the damned.
Gameplay-wise, GoW3 follows that of the previous two games -light, heavy and special attacks chained together in insane combos (I chained over a 100 without too much trouble). But the I don't think that anyone thought the third instalment would offer a change of pace, did they - Kratos Kart Racing, anyone?
On the evidence of GoW3 and Heavy Rain, next year could be a big one for the PS3, building on the foundations laid by Uncharted 2.
Heavy Rain
I had enjoyed, to a point, Quantic Dream's previous game, Fahrenheit, on the Xbox. My problem with it was that, while the story (other than the last third, when it got a bit silly) was decent, well-directed and acted, the gameplay was a bit lacking. At times it was more like a game of 'Simon' than a videogame.
So I approached Heavy Rain with some trepidation. However, I was very impressed with what I saw the demo at the Expo though.
Two scenarios were shown in the demo, one involving an FBI agent visiting a junkyard as part of an investigation and the other, more interesting, one showed a different, older, detective, Shelby, thwart a stick-up artist in a convenience store.
The former was more conventional - agent investigates yard (albeit with cool toys), questions suspect, rumbles suspect, fights. The latter, however, was far more interesting.
Shleby thought that the shopkeeper, Hassan, held information for his case, based on the murder of Hassan's own son some years before. The still grief-stricken Hassan wouldn't help initially and Shelby looks to depart but first goes to pick an asthma inhaler from the back of the store.
While he searches for the inhaler, Hassan is held up by a stick-up artist and will not give up his hard-earned cash. Shelby moves to the front of the store and his subsequent interactions with the robber can take a number of diverging paths depending on what responses are given. I played it once and saw others play it too and I witnessed a number of different paths through that scene based on the player's/Shelby's responses, making a refreshing change for a videogame. If this level of originality and depth can be carried through the rest of the game, I think it could be one of the best games on PS3.
So I approached Heavy Rain with some trepidation. However, I was very impressed with what I saw the demo at the Expo though.
Two scenarios were shown in the demo, one involving an FBI agent visiting a junkyard as part of an investigation and the other, more interesting, one showed a different, older, detective, Shelby, thwart a stick-up artist in a convenience store.
The former was more conventional - agent investigates yard (albeit with cool toys), questions suspect, rumbles suspect, fights. The latter, however, was far more interesting.
Shleby thought that the shopkeeper, Hassan, held information for his case, based on the murder of Hassan's own son some years before. The still grief-stricken Hassan wouldn't help initially and Shelby looks to depart but first goes to pick an asthma inhaler from the back of the store.
While he searches for the inhaler, Hassan is held up by a stick-up artist and will not give up his hard-earned cash. Shelby moves to the front of the store and his subsequent interactions with the robber can take a number of diverging paths depending on what responses are given. I played it once and saw others play it too and I witnessed a number of different paths through that scene based on the player's/Shelby's responses, making a refreshing change for a videogame. If this level of originality and depth can be carried through the rest of the game, I think it could be one of the best games on PS3.
Friday, 30 October 2009
Eurogamer Expo 2009, London
I went to the Eurogamer Expo in London today. I'd gone to the one last year in Brick Lane - this year's was bigger and better. I was there for four hours and I did not have a chance to sample everything - Battlefield Bad Company 2, MAG and Bayonetta are just three of the games I didn't really get a chance to take in in any depth.
Given how many games have been shunted into 2010 that were expected before Christmas, quite a lot was on show that won't be available in store until the New Year. I'll be posting about some of them over the next few days.
And for the guy that dressed up as Bill, from Left 4 Dead - I salute you!
Given how many games have been shunted into 2010 that were expected before Christmas, quite a lot was on show that won't be available in store until the New Year. I'll be posting about some of them over the next few days.
And for the guy that dressed up as Bill, from Left 4 Dead - I salute you!
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Left 4 Dead 2 demo
I've been playing the Left 4 Dead 2 demo on 360, having pre-ordered the game from Game. They had offered a 7-day exclusivity deal for the demo, before it becomes available for Xbox Live Gold subscribers next week. I think there's a similar deal for PC on Steam.
The demo level (two chapters of a full level) is in the daylight, which is an interesting twist for a zombie game. Even without the darkness, it's a scary game but a different type of scary. Nighttime plays on primal fears of darkness - evolutionarily speaking, a fear of the dark is a good thing, unless you want sabre-toothed tigers in your near (and considerably fore-shortened) future. Daylight is another thing entirely. We live our outdoor lives, for the most part (goths excepted) in the daylight - a game that has zombies wandering around during the day plays on our own personal fears. I mean, who's never thought about the possibility of a zombie apocalypse in their town?
The game itself seems more of the same, which is no bad thing (sorry Internet petitioners). There have, of course, been updates and improvements - new special infected, the daylight, the - yes!! - melée weapons, new items - but the central idea of the main (and only part on the demo) game, for four survivors to escape the undead, remains the same. The controls are also unaltered - if it ain't broke, don't decap it with a shotgun shell.
I'd initially thought that the frame rate had been upped but a quick revisit to the first game indicated that it probably hadn't (both are very smooth). Even though the game is in daylight, you don't see vast panoramas - New Orleans feels claustrophobic and past mid distance, descends into a balmy Louisianan heat haze.
In terms of difficulty, I'd say it is a bit harder than the first game, which was hardly a cakewalk. The new special infected, particularly, add to the difficulty level and there seem to be even more (fantastic) horde moments to 'enjoy'. I couldn't really feel the much-vaunted AI director at play but reckon that will be apparent in the full game that, on the strength of the demo, I will be getting.
The demo level (two chapters of a full level) is in the daylight, which is an interesting twist for a zombie game. Even without the darkness, it's a scary game but a different type of scary. Nighttime plays on primal fears of darkness - evolutionarily speaking, a fear of the dark is a good thing, unless you want sabre-toothed tigers in your near (and considerably fore-shortened) future. Daylight is another thing entirely. We live our outdoor lives, for the most part (goths excepted) in the daylight - a game that has zombies wandering around during the day plays on our own personal fears. I mean, who's never thought about the possibility of a zombie apocalypse in their town?
The game itself seems more of the same, which is no bad thing (sorry Internet petitioners). There have, of course, been updates and improvements - new special infected, the daylight, the - yes!! - melée weapons, new items - but the central idea of the main (and only part on the demo) game, for four survivors to escape the undead, remains the same. The controls are also unaltered - if it ain't broke, don't decap it with a shotgun shell.
I'd initially thought that the frame rate had been upped but a quick revisit to the first game indicated that it probably hadn't (both are very smooth). Even though the game is in daylight, you don't see vast panoramas - New Orleans feels claustrophobic and past mid distance, descends into a balmy Louisianan heat haze.
In terms of difficulty, I'd say it is a bit harder than the first game, which was hardly a cakewalk. The new special infected, particularly, add to the difficulty level and there seem to be even more (fantastic) horde moments to 'enjoy'. I couldn't really feel the much-vaunted AI director at play but reckon that will be apparent in the full game that, on the strength of the demo, I will be getting.
The Economics of Fanboyism
I am fortunate enough to have all the current systems - 360, PS3, Wii, DS and PSP. Well, I say all - Sony and Nintendo will be waiting a long time before I buy the micro-update offered by the PSP-Go and DSi. Even longer than it would take to download a PSP game on the laughable 'broad'band that BT pick my pocket for each month....
All the systems have particular advantages (and great games) and all have certain disadvantages (and clunkers). No one system is 'the best' and fanboyism is a self-defeating position that only makes gaming seem juvenile to outsiders.
Without wanting to get all 'Psych 101', maybe fanboys have a lack of self-esteem and need the validation that having 'the best' will give them (hey, maybe their mothers never said that they loved them). Or maybe it is economic - they can't afford to be a multi-system gamer, so need to belittle the other consoles as they don't want to consider them as options?
I think that last point may be a big reason. When I was kid, I had a ZX Spectrum. I/my parents couldn't afford a Commodore 64 (the BBC was never an option - only the posh kids had those). I took the position that the Spectrum was 'the best' but I enjoyed playing on friends' C64s and would have had one if I could. Economic circumstance made me a fanboy - and if that isn't a telling indictment of Thatcher's Britain, then I don't know what is.
All the systems have particular advantages (and great games) and all have certain disadvantages (and clunkers). No one system is 'the best' and fanboyism is a self-defeating position that only makes gaming seem juvenile to outsiders.
Without wanting to get all 'Psych 101', maybe fanboys have a lack of self-esteem and need the validation that having 'the best' will give them (hey, maybe their mothers never said that they loved them). Or maybe it is economic - they can't afford to be a multi-system gamer, so need to belittle the other consoles as they don't want to consider them as options?
I think that last point may be a big reason. When I was kid, I had a ZX Spectrum. I/my parents couldn't afford a Commodore 64 (the BBC was never an option - only the posh kids had those). I took the position that the Spectrum was 'the best' but I enjoyed playing on friends' C64s and would have had one if I could. Economic circumstance made me a fanboy - and if that isn't a telling indictment of Thatcher's Britain, then I don't know what is.
Monday, 26 October 2009
Intro
This cartoon is from the ever-excellent www.xkcd.com. Sometimes, when you read an item or watch something on TV, you slap your head and think 'That's me!' and that's what I got with this strip. I'm a pretend adult, dealing with important grown up stuff but I continually think that one day I'll be found out. Sooner or later, my boss will point at me and say 'hey, you play videogames, read comics and wear 'Battle of the Planets' t-shirts - you shouldn't be here, get me your parents, you kidult!'.
But videogames have been - and continue to be - an important part of my life. I will be detailing my game-related thoughts on this blog - reviews, game experiences, features. Blather, basically. I hope you enjoy it - I won't grow up without a fight.
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