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....
Monday, 30 November 2009
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
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