I suppose warning lights should have come on in my brain when:
1) We didn't hear anything about Singularity at this years E3
2) It was quietly released a couple of days ago with no adverts, previews or pre-release hype at all. When that happens, it's likely that the publishers know the game is shit and they're trying to slip it to the punters before the press notice.
But whatever, I thought, I'm not paying for it, I may as well see what it's like.
Singularity is... a fantastic example of everything that's wrong with games.
For example, your character doesn't talk. This *has* worked in the past, notably with Portal & COD4: Modern Warfare but it's usually a lazy device used by games who are trying to cover up the fact that they don't have a plot.
Then there's the plot.
The Russians invented an awesome piece of weapons tech back in the 50s. It exploded and the Island has been sealed off since then. Sixty years later the US military decide they want to know what that was all about so they send in two helicopters full of troops. Onto Russian Soil.
I'm pretty sure that's technically an invasion...
Anyhoo, the helicopter is stuck by a mysterious device, you black out and wake up on a pier (gaming cliche #332, used by every unoriginal game since Half Life). Then there are some generic zombie monsters and gameplay which is very, very like FEAR but not as good. Then the Russian Military turn up.
It's at this point that I have to talk about the gameplay a little bit. Apart from one thing, which I'll come to in a moment, there's nothing especially wrong with the gameplay, it's just that it's highly generic. Everything's instantly familiar. There was something slightly wrong, though, so at one point when me and my AI buddy were outnumbered 30:1 by the Russian Military, I stopped shooting at them and just watched.
They were all spraying our hiding spot with bullets but they were all bouncing off the window frames to create cinematic ricochets.
Now, even ignoring the fact that I was so disengaged with the game after half an hour of gameplay I chose to see how the underlying mechanics of the game worked, it's not a good sign when the game has the AI purposely try to not kill you.
Then you and your mate get captured and the EVIL RUSSIAN VILLAIN turns up (not so much a gaming cliche but a callback to bad films form the 1970's and 80's - that's worse than a gaming cliche - that's something the entire world accepts is cliched). Incidentally, we know this Russian is evil because he's wearing a huge fur coat and spits when your buddy mentions the Geneva convention.
Yeah, I'm not even going to bother analysing that any further.
It turns out, by the way, that the Russians are there to grab a time manipulating device, which you then get their hands on.
The more astute of you will now be wondering: "So this Island's been unoccupied for 60 years and yet the Russian Military chose to come and get the device... now. Just when there HAPPENS to be a US military expedition to the island."
Seriously, the plot is so contrived and rubbish that it makes the incredibly shoddy gameplay look half decent.
The time manipulation stuff doesn't really work either. You're supposed to be able to age or revert anything using your magical glove so if you see a ladder that's broken, you simply reverse time around the ladder so it reverts to a state when it wasn't broken.
The problem is, that's a mechanic that's clearly open for abuse so they limit it to only working on very specific things. I couldn't, for example, reverse time on a caved in tunnel to when the tunnel was no longer caved in.
As I understand it (I never actually played it) this was the problem Red Faction had - they wanted to make everything destructible but you can't make *everything* destructible so they put a load of really arbitrary and annoying restrictions in there.
This is understandable but it's not handled with any of the skill that the portals are in Portal. The places you can place the portals in Valves masterpiece are really rather limited but it feels natural - it all makes sense.
Not here, though.
So yes, Singularity is really, really bad in every quantifiable way. I'd like to give them marks for effort but I'm not sure I can even do that. The graphics are quite nice I suppose. There's a really nice bit *right* at the start when you're approaching the island and you fly past the remains of a Soviet Statue - which is just a hand holding a sickle poking out of the sea. That was quite nice.
There we go, ended on a positive note.
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Assassins Creed 2
So I've finally gotten around to playing the PC versions of Assassins Creed 2. And I don't think it's very good. The reasons for this are very closely linked to the first game so let's briefly recap on what was good/bad about AC1:
GOOD!:
The free running.
It felt original, smooth and great fun.
The swordplay
Assassins Creed 1 is one of the only games where melee combat is implemented well. Mainly because the most effective strategy is countering your opponents moves and choosing when to attack.
The cities all felt very different
From the sandy uniform rooftops of Jerusalem to the raggedy decaying stone of Acre, you could always tell where you were just by looking around you. Each of the four cities had real personality.
You felt like an assassin
You did little that wasn't involved with killing people. You always knew what you were doing: Hunting down and killing nine Templar's who were trying to take over the region. There was a fair amount of faffing about but it was assassin related faffing about like killing archers or grilling informants.
BAD!
The plot
Was pretty damn terrible. Especially the main character, who was an unlikable prick for 70% of the game. There also wasn't an ending.
Unskippable cutscenes
Grrr.
Ok, so the sequel.
My thoughts on the sequel have moved about a lot so I'll present them in a list:
1) The improvements to the swordplay are a mixed bag.
It's nice to have more weapons but the swordplay itself is gimped somewhat. In AC1 you could chain your sword strokes to create a one hit kill finishing move. You can still do this in AC2 but they've either changed the way you do it without telling me or it's much, much harder to do this time around. As a result, the swordplay feels a lot less precise and brutal than it did in AC1.
2) The cities all feel exactly the same
Apart from Venice, which is filled with fucking canals. In case you hadn't guessed, canals are the anathema to free running. An odd choice for a game where free running is one of the main selling points.
3) The plot is rubbish
I've been playing for roughly ten hours now and I couldn't really tell you what's been going on. I've killed some Italian noblemen/Templar's but I'm not really sure why or what I'm supposed to be preventing them from doing. At least in AC1 I knew that the merchant I killed was hording food and overcharging the people etc. There's none of this in AC2, just generic interchangeable fat rich/old sinister people.
4) You barely spend any time out of the animus
Granted, when you do they're some of the best bits in the game but I'm 80% of the way through the game and have been outside the animus precisely twice. Including the prologue, which shouldn't really count. I can't help thinking this is a tragic waste of one of the most intriguing (albeit very badly handled) elements of AC1
5) There's so much faffing about
In AC1 you lived in an assassin city, met other assassins constantly and generally got the impression that you were a cog in a massive machine. In AC2, you're the only assassin in the game apart from your uncle, who doesn't do anything.
As a result of this, you have to do a *lot* of side quests. These weren't too bad for the first few cities but things came to a head in Venice.
In Ubisofts defence, they've clearly spent a lot of time working on Venice. It looks very pretty. The problem is, they want you to spend as much time there as possible so you hook up with a group of thieves there who insist on you doing a shitload of recognisance before every mission, essentially tripling the prep needed for every assassination.
An example:
Some minor spoilers follow.
You have to kill a guy hosting a party at the Venice carnival. He's hosting a private invite only party. You can't sneak in, you can't pickpocket a guest to get an invite.
You have to win one.
You win one by competing in four tasks at some sort of fait thing. You have to feel up a lot of girls to get some ribbons, win two rooftop races and beat up some guys in a boxing ring.
After that, you get cheated out of winning the invite anyway.
So you go and pickpocket the guy who won it. Why the fuck didn't you do that in the first place?
There's then a lot of stuff where you try and remain undetected at the party which is half excellent, half gameplay padding bollocks.
To finish off, I found that my target was hosting the party from his boat. So I swam out and stabbed him in the back.
So, to recap, I killed the guy by swimming out into the canal (which was unguarded) climbing onto the boat (by killing one guard) and stabbing the guy in the back. I didn't even need to sneak into that cunting party...
This isn't an isolated example either. There are innumerable sequences where you have to escort an NPC through one of the four cities (at walking pace, naturally). If this sounds boring, it fucking is. In some of these boring escort quests, they're attacked by guards but I'm not really sure that improves things.
Oh, and from a narrative point of view, it's annoying when you character is given *constant* opportunities to knock off the five main baddies (he meets the uber baddie about six times, by my count, and has three definite opportunities to assassinate him) and he doesn't because he has to FIND OUT WHAT THEY'RE PLANNING.
I hate call bullshit but AC2 is set in the 19th century. You know what will happen if you just kill them before they can enact their plans? Nothing. Sure, you won't find out what their plans were but no buildings will blow up, no documents will get emailed to lawyers, they'll just die.
So, to sum up. Assassins Creed 2 does improve in some areas over the original. The main character is very slightly better and there are some nice new weapons to play with. On the other hand, there's even more arbitrary game lengthening bullshit this time around, the fighting's a bit gimped, the plot is still rubbish, the free running in the last half of the game is always being interrupted by canals, the game is far too long, there's no sense of danger, it's too easy and it's got no-where near as much character as the first one.
Wow, I didn't realise how many things had annoyed me about AC2 until I'd put them all in a list.
I'm gonna go play something else...
GOOD!:
The free running.
It felt original, smooth and great fun.
The swordplay
Assassins Creed 1 is one of the only games where melee combat is implemented well. Mainly because the most effective strategy is countering your opponents moves and choosing when to attack.
The cities all felt very different
From the sandy uniform rooftops of Jerusalem to the raggedy decaying stone of Acre, you could always tell where you were just by looking around you. Each of the four cities had real personality.
You felt like an assassin
You did little that wasn't involved with killing people. You always knew what you were doing: Hunting down and killing nine Templar's who were trying to take over the region. There was a fair amount of faffing about but it was assassin related faffing about like killing archers or grilling informants.
BAD!
The plot
Was pretty damn terrible. Especially the main character, who was an unlikable prick for 70% of the game. There also wasn't an ending.
Unskippable cutscenes
Grrr.
Ok, so the sequel.
My thoughts on the sequel have moved about a lot so I'll present them in a list:
1) The improvements to the swordplay are a mixed bag.
It's nice to have more weapons but the swordplay itself is gimped somewhat. In AC1 you could chain your sword strokes to create a one hit kill finishing move. You can still do this in AC2 but they've either changed the way you do it without telling me or it's much, much harder to do this time around. As a result, the swordplay feels a lot less precise and brutal than it did in AC1.
2) The cities all feel exactly the same
Apart from Venice, which is filled with fucking canals. In case you hadn't guessed, canals are the anathema to free running. An odd choice for a game where free running is one of the main selling points.
3) The plot is rubbish
I've been playing for roughly ten hours now and I couldn't really tell you what's been going on. I've killed some Italian noblemen/Templar's but I'm not really sure why or what I'm supposed to be preventing them from doing. At least in AC1 I knew that the merchant I killed was hording food and overcharging the people etc. There's none of this in AC2, just generic interchangeable fat rich/old sinister people.
4) You barely spend any time out of the animus
Granted, when you do they're some of the best bits in the game but I'm 80% of the way through the game and have been outside the animus precisely twice. Including the prologue, which shouldn't really count. I can't help thinking this is a tragic waste of one of the most intriguing (albeit very badly handled) elements of AC1
5) There's so much faffing about
In AC1 you lived in an assassin city, met other assassins constantly and generally got the impression that you were a cog in a massive machine. In AC2, you're the only assassin in the game apart from your uncle, who doesn't do anything.
As a result of this, you have to do a *lot* of side quests. These weren't too bad for the first few cities but things came to a head in Venice.
In Ubisofts defence, they've clearly spent a lot of time working on Venice. It looks very pretty. The problem is, they want you to spend as much time there as possible so you hook up with a group of thieves there who insist on you doing a shitload of recognisance before every mission, essentially tripling the prep needed for every assassination.
An example:
Some minor spoilers follow.
You have to kill a guy hosting a party at the Venice carnival. He's hosting a private invite only party. You can't sneak in, you can't pickpocket a guest to get an invite.
You have to win one.
You win one by competing in four tasks at some sort of fait thing. You have to feel up a lot of girls to get some ribbons, win two rooftop races and beat up some guys in a boxing ring.
After that, you get cheated out of winning the invite anyway.
So you go and pickpocket the guy who won it. Why the fuck didn't you do that in the first place?
There's then a lot of stuff where you try and remain undetected at the party which is half excellent, half gameplay padding bollocks.
To finish off, I found that my target was hosting the party from his boat. So I swam out and stabbed him in the back.
So, to recap, I killed the guy by swimming out into the canal (which was unguarded) climbing onto the boat (by killing one guard) and stabbing the guy in the back. I didn't even need to sneak into that cunting party...
This isn't an isolated example either. There are innumerable sequences where you have to escort an NPC through one of the four cities (at walking pace, naturally). If this sounds boring, it fucking is. In some of these boring escort quests, they're attacked by guards but I'm not really sure that improves things.
Oh, and from a narrative point of view, it's annoying when you character is given *constant* opportunities to knock off the five main baddies (he meets the uber baddie about six times, by my count, and has three definite opportunities to assassinate him) and he doesn't because he has to FIND OUT WHAT THEY'RE PLANNING.
I hate call bullshit but AC2 is set in the 19th century. You know what will happen if you just kill them before they can enact their plans? Nothing. Sure, you won't find out what their plans were but no buildings will blow up, no documents will get emailed to lawyers, they'll just die.
So, to sum up. Assassins Creed 2 does improve in some areas over the original. The main character is very slightly better and there are some nice new weapons to play with. On the other hand, there's even more arbitrary game lengthening bullshit this time around, the fighting's a bit gimped, the plot is still rubbish, the free running in the last half of the game is always being interrupted by canals, the game is far too long, there's no sense of danger, it's too easy and it's got no-where near as much character as the first one.
Wow, I didn't realise how many things had annoyed me about AC2 until I'd put them all in a list.
I'm gonna go play something else...
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Drunk review of Max Payne 2
-Note: I was originally doing this as a video but didn't in the end. Basically I wanted to review a game purely for how it was to get drunk to-
Chosing a game to get drunk to is a long and complex process and one I solved by falling back on an old favourite – Max Payne 2.
The reason I chose Max Payne 2 is it comprises of the optimum balance of the two elements needed for drunken gaming: fun action sequences and lots of cut scenes to continue the drinking in.
I’ve previously considered Max Payne 2 the ideal game to get drunk to but I haven’t tried this in over a year so I thought I’d dust it off and share the experience with an unsuspecting public.
To replicate this experience, you will need vodka, mixers, glasses, Max Payne 2 cds (CDs! OLD SCHOOL!), giant Princess Liea Headphones because your girlfriend is asleep and A CAN DO ATTITUDE.
The install process took eight minutes and forty two seconds, during which I was able to consume 42 mililitres of Vodka. Your results may vary.
It was nesecerry to spend thirty seconds setting up my graphics settings but if you’ve engaged in rigorour pre-drinking, this may not be nesecerry.
I picked Max Payne 2 because there are plenty of cut scenes and story sections where you can catch up on valuable drinking time denied you by the need to shoot people in the face during the action sequences. It seems that attention spans have decreased significantly since Max Payne 2 was first released, though, because it seemed to me that the number of cut scenes had tripled since I’d last played it. Whatever, though, more drinking for me.
I hit a major problem with this game, though. The first few levels are, not to put too find a point on it, shit. Max Payne 2 comes from the era when every FPS was an entirely corridor based affair but for the first few sections they’re such badly designed levels and you’re given such little ammo that I found myself dying constantly and for highly unconvincing reasons.
Thankfully, things pick up after half an hour or so, after roughly 200 mililitres of vodka had been consumed.
If you haven’t played Max Payne 2... I won’t even both explaining the plot. Suffice to say that it was considered one of the best games ever made back in 2003 but a lot has changed since then in gameplay tastes. I’m hoping most of you will have played it, though, and are watching this review simply for instructional purposes regarding how ideal it is to get drunk to.
The answer is... It’s not ideal but it does the job.
The problem with many modern games is they’re so focused on GAMEPLAY GAMEPLAY GAMEPLAY that they don’t give the player a chance to relax and you need time to relax to drink in. Max Payne 2 gives ample oppertunity for drinkage but the game does have several problems which sulley the experience slightly.
For a start, there aren’t any quicksaves so when you trip over your own feet in a drunken stupor you can get sent back unceremoniously to the start of the level. It also pulls one of the great old school gaming dick moves of not giving you any decent weapons until you’ve been playing for an hour and a half.
For me, the game doesnt’ realy kick in until the second hour of play and by then you’d hopefully be too drunk to properly appreciate it.
Aside from Mass Effect 2, there aren’t any modern games I’d recomend getting drunk to over Max Payne 2, which is an issue. Of the classic drinking games like Vapire Bloodlines and KOTOR, I’d say that Max Payne 2 is still the best, sadly, it’s not quite as good to pulverise your brain with as it was.
Monday, 1 March 2010
The Void
I read a review of The Void on Eurogamer. The conclusion was basically that The Void is a brilliant game... it's just practically impossible to make any headway.
I get what they mean.
So basically, The Void is set in a world between life and death. You have died but are *just* clinging onto enough life to have another shot. I say life, I mean Colour - the currency of The Void.
You need colour for pretty much everything - movement, combat, creating more colour- even survival in certain places.
I'm not really explaining this very well...
Okay. So The Void has a massive hub thing - this is the titular void. You can travel around this and visit certain locations where you will find plot bits, friendly colours, enemy sanctuaries and gardens filled with dead trees you can infuse with Colour in order to create an awesome garden thing which will then give you more Colour down the line.
There's a lot more to it than that but that's the basis of it.
The Void is deeply, deeply unfair. You need to spend a lot of Colour to get anything done and even surviving past the first chapter is a massive challenge.
For once, I think this is actually a good thing. The whole atmosphere is based around the idea of one tiny glimmer of hope in the midst of despair and nothingness. A few crucial mistakes will cripple you and you'll find yourself unable to recover. If such a place as The Void exists, this is pretty much exactly what it'll be like.
The graphics are fucking beautiful - especially the contrast between the greys and browns of The Void against the stunning pastells of Colour. The Voice acting is serene and, whilst occasionally dodgy, generally pretty solid. The gameplay is.... interesting. Mostly pretty good, if very unfair, but there are moments of extreme dodginess.
There's nothing else in the world like The Void. It's... in many ways a horrible game that will punish you for making the smallest mistake, but this is part of the charm. It all builds to an oppressive and horrible atmosphere where even the smallest moment of solace and respite is to be treasured. It's basically Goth: The Videogame.
I find it hard to recommend The Void, even though it's unique, artistically briliant and generally pretty damned innovative. It's just so fucking hard... I haven't come anywhere near to completing it and I've just given up in the hope of finding something more fun to play. If you can commit to your games and fancy trying something new I'd really recommend trying it, just be prepared for frustration...
I get what they mean.
So basically, The Void is set in a world between life and death. You have died but are *just* clinging onto enough life to have another shot. I say life, I mean Colour - the currency of The Void.
You need colour for pretty much everything - movement, combat, creating more colour- even survival in certain places.
I'm not really explaining this very well...
Okay. So The Void has a massive hub thing - this is the titular void. You can travel around this and visit certain locations where you will find plot bits, friendly colours, enemy sanctuaries and gardens filled with dead trees you can infuse with Colour in order to create an awesome garden thing which will then give you more Colour down the line.
There's a lot more to it than that but that's the basis of it.
The Void is deeply, deeply unfair. You need to spend a lot of Colour to get anything done and even surviving past the first chapter is a massive challenge.
For once, I think this is actually a good thing. The whole atmosphere is based around the idea of one tiny glimmer of hope in the midst of despair and nothingness. A few crucial mistakes will cripple you and you'll find yourself unable to recover. If such a place as The Void exists, this is pretty much exactly what it'll be like.
The graphics are fucking beautiful - especially the contrast between the greys and browns of The Void against the stunning pastells of Colour. The Voice acting is serene and, whilst occasionally dodgy, generally pretty solid. The gameplay is.... interesting. Mostly pretty good, if very unfair, but there are moments of extreme dodginess.
There's nothing else in the world like The Void. It's... in many ways a horrible game that will punish you for making the smallest mistake, but this is part of the charm. It all builds to an oppressive and horrible atmosphere where even the smallest moment of solace and respite is to be treasured. It's basically Goth: The Videogame.
I find it hard to recommend The Void, even though it's unique, artistically briliant and generally pretty damned innovative. It's just so fucking hard... I haven't come anywhere near to completing it and I've just given up in the hope of finding something more fun to play. If you can commit to your games and fancy trying something new I'd really recommend trying it, just be prepared for frustration...
What went wrong with AVP 3
So it's two weeks after AVP 3 was released onto the intertubes. Two weeks after everyone looked at it and thought:
"...is this it?"
They were working on that game for two years. We got a very short, very generic single player campaign which I consider to be nothing but a waste of bandwidth. Everything else in the game is lifted straight from AVP 2, with the exception of the co-op survival mode. Which is pretty rubbish.
The only fun game modes are Infestation - where everyone starts off as a marine, one person is randomly selected to be an alien and every marine killed turns to a xenomorph. There's also Team Species deathmatch, which is fairly amusing.
There are many vids and articles on the internets going on and on about what's wrong with AVP 3 so I won't go on about it. To sumerise:
1) The single player is shit
2) Marines can block the aliens attacks which is as stupid and game breaking as it sounds
3) The predators are gimped
4) The focus jump system for the predators is a good idea, but it's broken
5) It's worse than the original AVP, let alone AVP 2
6) The multiplayer server system is broken
We should have all been somewhat suspicious in the lead up to AVP 3's release. Why? Well, all the articles were comparing it to the original AVP, not AVP 2. I know that's because both 1 & 3 were done by Rebellion but why is that a good thing. I've looked at the list of games they've developed and it's a sorry sight. Aside from the original AVP, their games range from bad to utterly terrible.
I wasn't even really a fan of AVP when it first came out. Sure, it was okay but it got completely eclipsed when Monolith released AVP 2.
So how did AVP 3 end up in this sorry state?
1) Rebellion tried to re-invent the wheel
This blocking stuff is ridiculous. To sumerise, Rebellion tried to impliment a melee combat system, politely ignoring that fact that this has only ever worked in ONE fps before. There is no reason for this to be there at all. If a predator or an alien gets close to a marine, that marine should be dead, no questions asked. The whole point of the humans is that they're deadly at long range but vulnerable up close.
You could just about post-rationalise this stupid decision regarding scraps between the predator and alien if you'd forgotten that the reason the predator/alien scraps worked so well in AVP 2 was that the predators almost never engaged in close combat. I spent all my time in AVP 2 as a pred using the Speargun to kill marines and the pistol to kill aliens. I kept my distance, knowing that if an alien got close to me, I was dead.
In changing the predator from a ranged fighter to a close range fighter by removing their weapons (you can pick weapons up but they're gimped and you can only carry one at a time) Rebellion essentially created one ranged character - the marine - one close combat fighter - the alien - and a bullshit hybrid that was as effective as neither.
2) At the same time, they hardly changed anything
It's really odd, this. Rebellion changed things that didn't need changing - like the melee system and introduced a lot of stuff that didn't really work - like focus jumping but they didn't really change the game.
The single player is the same series of cliches plagued by every aliens/predator itteration since Aliens. The stories are these:
Marines - Aliens and predators are scrapping. They kill all of your friends before you get to them, forcing you to fight on your own. There is an evil corperation trying to profit from the alien technology. Somehow.
Alien - you are a captured alien. You escape. You eat people.
Predator - humans are dicking around with your mayan temple. You kill shit.
I'm begining to wonder if it's possible to do an Aliens story without having a bullshit generic evil corperation capture an alien queen and perform experiments on her offspring. The number of times this has happened in this universe seem endless and it *never ends well for anyone*. You'd think the corperation would have noticed some sort of pattern.
The multiplayer shows a similar lack of originality. All the good bits are lifted straight from AVP 2 - and these are hampered slightly by the fact that the game is just that bit worse, despite being made nine years later.
I'd like to give Rebellion points for trying but I'm not entirely convinced that they even tried very hard. I didn't see any evidence of real effort anywhere. There were no briliant weapons, there were no incredible levels which spoke of hundreds of hours spent in designing and playtesting...
So yes. I'm going to re-install AVP 2 and play that with my friends over Hamachi. Fuck you Rebellion, Fuck you Sega.
"...is this it?"
They were working on that game for two years. We got a very short, very generic single player campaign which I consider to be nothing but a waste of bandwidth. Everything else in the game is lifted straight from AVP 2, with the exception of the co-op survival mode. Which is pretty rubbish.
The only fun game modes are Infestation - where everyone starts off as a marine, one person is randomly selected to be an alien and every marine killed turns to a xenomorph. There's also Team Species deathmatch, which is fairly amusing.
There are many vids and articles on the internets going on and on about what's wrong with AVP 3 so I won't go on about it. To sumerise:
1) The single player is shit
2) Marines can block the aliens attacks which is as stupid and game breaking as it sounds
3) The predators are gimped
4) The focus jump system for the predators is a good idea, but it's broken
5) It's worse than the original AVP, let alone AVP 2
6) The multiplayer server system is broken
We should have all been somewhat suspicious in the lead up to AVP 3's release. Why? Well, all the articles were comparing it to the original AVP, not AVP 2. I know that's because both 1 & 3 were done by Rebellion but why is that a good thing. I've looked at the list of games they've developed and it's a sorry sight. Aside from the original AVP, their games range from bad to utterly terrible.
I wasn't even really a fan of AVP when it first came out. Sure, it was okay but it got completely eclipsed when Monolith released AVP 2.
So how did AVP 3 end up in this sorry state?
1) Rebellion tried to re-invent the wheel
This blocking stuff is ridiculous. To sumerise, Rebellion tried to impliment a melee combat system, politely ignoring that fact that this has only ever worked in ONE fps before. There is no reason for this to be there at all. If a predator or an alien gets close to a marine, that marine should be dead, no questions asked. The whole point of the humans is that they're deadly at long range but vulnerable up close.
You could just about post-rationalise this stupid decision regarding scraps between the predator and alien if you'd forgotten that the reason the predator/alien scraps worked so well in AVP 2 was that the predators almost never engaged in close combat. I spent all my time in AVP 2 as a pred using the Speargun to kill marines and the pistol to kill aliens. I kept my distance, knowing that if an alien got close to me, I was dead.
In changing the predator from a ranged fighter to a close range fighter by removing their weapons (you can pick weapons up but they're gimped and you can only carry one at a time) Rebellion essentially created one ranged character - the marine - one close combat fighter - the alien - and a bullshit hybrid that was as effective as neither.
2) At the same time, they hardly changed anything
It's really odd, this. Rebellion changed things that didn't need changing - like the melee system and introduced a lot of stuff that didn't really work - like focus jumping but they didn't really change the game.
The single player is the same series of cliches plagued by every aliens/predator itteration since Aliens. The stories are these:
Marines - Aliens and predators are scrapping. They kill all of your friends before you get to them, forcing you to fight on your own. There is an evil corperation trying to profit from the alien technology. Somehow.
Alien - you are a captured alien. You escape. You eat people.
Predator - humans are dicking around with your mayan temple. You kill shit.
I'm begining to wonder if it's possible to do an Aliens story without having a bullshit generic evil corperation capture an alien queen and perform experiments on her offspring. The number of times this has happened in this universe seem endless and it *never ends well for anyone*. You'd think the corperation would have noticed some sort of pattern.
The multiplayer shows a similar lack of originality. All the good bits are lifted straight from AVP 2 - and these are hampered slightly by the fact that the game is just that bit worse, despite being made nine years later.
I'd like to give Rebellion points for trying but I'm not entirely convinced that they even tried very hard. I didn't see any evidence of real effort anywhere. There were no briliant weapons, there were no incredible levels which spoke of hundreds of hours spent in designing and playtesting...
So yes. I'm going to re-install AVP 2 and play that with my friends over Hamachi. Fuck you Rebellion, Fuck you Sega.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Daybreakers
The trailer for Daybreakers intrigued me. I've never seen anything to do with vampires before where they have been anything other than a secret minority preying on humans. This has been done very well and sometimes done very very badly. But anything that bucks this trend has to be worth a look, right?
Well, in the world of Daybreakers, humans make up less than 5% of the population. The population of what, we're never told but it's assumed they mean the world. The problem with this is obvious, there's not enough blood to go around.
I'll get the actual film out of the way quite quickly: It's not very good. Other than the nice premise it lacks any real soul. It's too slow, the acting is... pretty dodgy and the plot isn't as clever as it thinks it is. It's not exactly bad but it's definitely not something you should go out of your way to see. In my opinion.
I still find myself intrigued by the concept though. Sadly, it's not really a concept that can stand up to extended viewing.
Vampires taking their place in society *can* work. That whole tension was one of the only good things about True Blood (which I think was fantastic, apart from the main characters, who were universally uninteresting) but when the blood starts running out...
Well, let me tell you what would happen if the blood started running out.
If the entire world (or 95% of the real world) has turned into vampires, there would be nothing to be done. Other than use animal blood but that's besides the point.
I think, though, things would never get that far. Let's say, for example. there's an outbreak in America or Russia or China or any of the countries that are slightly dubious about the research they conduct with viruses or biological warfare or whatever. The point there is all of those countries are industrialised.
If the virus spreads to the point where people at the top of the various pyramids get infected, you know what will happen? They'll control the spread of the infection. But not in the way you're thinking.
They'll control it so it doesn't spread outside the industrialised countries. The vampires in Daybreakers are thinking but amoral individuals who chose who they feed on and, therefore, infect.
So what would they do? They'd leave Africa untouched, as well as the other fucked up bits of the world. They would, essentially, do what they've been doing for the last 500 years - fucking over bits of the world that are less fortunate than them for their own gain.
There would undoubtedly be vampires in these countries but they'd be the ones in the government or in organised crime, involved in trafficking.
What I'm essentially saying is:
Imagine the scene. The president of the US, congress and the senate meet. They discuss distributing the virus to Africa.
"Shall we spread the joy of imortality?"
"What? For free?"
I may sound like I'm banging this drum pretty hard but I can't help but think this would have been a much more interesting film if it was set in a country which has much more ethnic tension than the USA - South Africa would be good, Australia would be interesting. The problem is, films in America tend to be about America and... they tend to kind of assume that the rest of the world is behaving more or less like they are. Which is just plain wrong.
But yes, once I'd thought of that I couldn't even enjoy the premise.
Ah well.
Well, in the world of Daybreakers, humans make up less than 5% of the population. The population of what, we're never told but it's assumed they mean the world. The problem with this is obvious, there's not enough blood to go around.
I'll get the actual film out of the way quite quickly: It's not very good. Other than the nice premise it lacks any real soul. It's too slow, the acting is... pretty dodgy and the plot isn't as clever as it thinks it is. It's not exactly bad but it's definitely not something you should go out of your way to see. In my opinion.
I still find myself intrigued by the concept though. Sadly, it's not really a concept that can stand up to extended viewing.
Vampires taking their place in society *can* work. That whole tension was one of the only good things about True Blood (which I think was fantastic, apart from the main characters, who were universally uninteresting) but when the blood starts running out...
Well, let me tell you what would happen if the blood started running out.
If the entire world (or 95% of the real world) has turned into vampires, there would be nothing to be done. Other than use animal blood but that's besides the point.
I think, though, things would never get that far. Let's say, for example. there's an outbreak in America or Russia or China or any of the countries that are slightly dubious about the research they conduct with viruses or biological warfare or whatever. The point there is all of those countries are industrialised.
If the virus spreads to the point where people at the top of the various pyramids get infected, you know what will happen? They'll control the spread of the infection. But not in the way you're thinking.
They'll control it so it doesn't spread outside the industrialised countries. The vampires in Daybreakers are thinking but amoral individuals who chose who they feed on and, therefore, infect.
So what would they do? They'd leave Africa untouched, as well as the other fucked up bits of the world. They would, essentially, do what they've been doing for the last 500 years - fucking over bits of the world that are less fortunate than them for their own gain.
There would undoubtedly be vampires in these countries but they'd be the ones in the government or in organised crime, involved in trafficking.
What I'm essentially saying is:
Imagine the scene. The president of the US, congress and the senate meet. They discuss distributing the virus to Africa.
"Shall we spread the joy of imortality?"
"What? For free?"
I may sound like I'm banging this drum pretty hard but I can't help but think this would have been a much more interesting film if it was set in a country which has much more ethnic tension than the USA - South Africa would be good, Australia would be interesting. The problem is, films in America tend to be about America and... they tend to kind of assume that the rest of the world is behaving more or less like they are. Which is just plain wrong.
But yes, once I'd thought of that I couldn't even enjoy the premise.
Ah well.
Friday, 8 January 2010
The rebirth of adventure games
The world and its dog seem to have reached the conclusion that Ghostbusters: The Video Game had a decent enough story but had terrible gameplay. I don't want to come across as smug here but I thought that was incredibly obvious from the moment such a game was announced. How could I make such a potentially unfair prediction? Well, in the ghostbusters films, there were no sections where they had to capture 10 wandering spirits in order to unlock a door which would lead to a boss battle where they had to hide behind a table and then shoot a stupidly oversized boss in the weak point.
The Ghostbusters films were all about character, story & humour and there is only one genre which can successfully incorporate all three of these elements and still have half decent gameplay: Adventure Games.
What evidence do I have for this? Well, even if you ignore the new Monkey Island & Sam and Max games from Telltale, I have an example from history for you.
Discworld.
Like Ghostbusters, it's a series based around humour, character and story. Like Ghostbusters, there are no sections where Commander Vimes has to arrest 10 pickpockets before he unlocks the mission where he chases a dwarf on the back of SGT. Detritus. Unlike Ghostbusters, there have been three Discworld games, all of which have been (to a greater or lesser extent) good.
I'm quite happy to claim that you could make a passable adventure game out of most franchises that would usually be considered impossible to adapt to gaming. William Gibson's Neuromancer, for instance. Steven Sodoberg's Solaris. Doctor Who. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Anything where story is the focus can be adapted, to a greater or lesser extent.
I'd actually really like to play a Doctor Who adventure game.
Previously, it's been said that there isn't an audience for such things but Telltale Games have quite comprehensively shown that's not true. The resurection of the Monkey Island franchise has been rabidly popular and, perhaps more impressively, it's proved to be one of the most thought provoking and moving game experiences I've ever had.
I can't go into too much detail, because of spoilers, but in the five episode series, the main character essentially has a tonne of metaphorical shit dropped on him episode by episode. There's a lot of humour to be found in these situations but it all comes to a head in episode five where the humour is mixed with a deeply felt melancholy. The entire gameplay environment changes - the colours used are less bright, the voice acting becomes more subdued... the entire game seems to slow...
And if you think games are too logical and ordered to properly capture something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I just have to point you in the direction of The Path.
There is a problem with what I'm saying, though. Making a good adventure game is *incredibly* hard. This is mainly because by far the most important part of an adventure game is the story and dialogue. As I'm sure you all know, these factors are usually amongst the last to be added to the game, and are usually the single aspect that receive the least attention.
Then there's the problem of gameplay. If the plot and so on flop, all you have left to fall back on are the puzzles, which are never really good enough to justify it. Adventure games aren't like Far Cry 2, where it doesn't matter that the plot is balls because you always have shooting Africans to fall back on.
That and, even taking into account that adventure games are cheap to produce and distribute (because they don't need anything like top of the line graphics) they still represent a significant financial risk.
But adventure games are on the way back and, thanks to digital distribution, they're making more money than ever before.
Here's hoping that some time in the not too distant future, companies like Telltale have the pull to attract really big licenses like The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. Hell, maybe they can do another Discworld game.
Man, that'd be awesome.
The Ghostbusters films were all about character, story & humour and there is only one genre which can successfully incorporate all three of these elements and still have half decent gameplay: Adventure Games.
What evidence do I have for this? Well, even if you ignore the new Monkey Island & Sam and Max games from Telltale, I have an example from history for you.
Discworld.
Like Ghostbusters, it's a series based around humour, character and story. Like Ghostbusters, there are no sections where Commander Vimes has to arrest 10 pickpockets before he unlocks the mission where he chases a dwarf on the back of SGT. Detritus. Unlike Ghostbusters, there have been three Discworld games, all of which have been (to a greater or lesser extent) good.
I'm quite happy to claim that you could make a passable adventure game out of most franchises that would usually be considered impossible to adapt to gaming. William Gibson's Neuromancer, for instance. Steven Sodoberg's Solaris. Doctor Who. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Anything where story is the focus can be adapted, to a greater or lesser extent.
I'd actually really like to play a Doctor Who adventure game.
Previously, it's been said that there isn't an audience for such things but Telltale Games have quite comprehensively shown that's not true. The resurection of the Monkey Island franchise has been rabidly popular and, perhaps more impressively, it's proved to be one of the most thought provoking and moving game experiences I've ever had.
I can't go into too much detail, because of spoilers, but in the five episode series, the main character essentially has a tonne of metaphorical shit dropped on him episode by episode. There's a lot of humour to be found in these situations but it all comes to a head in episode five where the humour is mixed with a deeply felt melancholy. The entire gameplay environment changes - the colours used are less bright, the voice acting becomes more subdued... the entire game seems to slow...
And if you think games are too logical and ordered to properly capture something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I just have to point you in the direction of The Path.
There is a problem with what I'm saying, though. Making a good adventure game is *incredibly* hard. This is mainly because by far the most important part of an adventure game is the story and dialogue. As I'm sure you all know, these factors are usually amongst the last to be added to the game, and are usually the single aspect that receive the least attention.
Then there's the problem of gameplay. If the plot and so on flop, all you have left to fall back on are the puzzles, which are never really good enough to justify it. Adventure games aren't like Far Cry 2, where it doesn't matter that the plot is balls because you always have shooting Africans to fall back on.
That and, even taking into account that adventure games are cheap to produce and distribute (because they don't need anything like top of the line graphics) they still represent a significant financial risk.
But adventure games are on the way back and, thanks to digital distribution, they're making more money than ever before.
Here's hoping that some time in the not too distant future, companies like Telltale have the pull to attract really big licenses like The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. Hell, maybe they can do another Discworld game.
Man, that'd be awesome.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
2009 in Film
So Avatar had its first day in cinemas today and I couldn't care less. Not only that, I don't know anyone who does actually care. Yes, the fact that it's James Cameron making it does raise an eyebrow but the plot is the same standard Technology vs A Natural Way of Life which has been done so many times it's impossible to count.
Avatar kind of sums up this year. It's been a really shit year. Granted, any year was going to look terrible after 2008. 2008 was a cracking year. We had The Dark Knight, Iron Man & Wall-E, all 10/10 films. We also had breezy fun films like Hancock, Tropic Thunder, The Sontum of Quolace and Eagle Eye.
So I thought I'd go through the films I've seen this year, from best to worst.
Zombieland (10/10)
I re-watched Zombieland recently and it is still utterly fantastic. It's such a fresh take on the genre. It makes you feel good to watch it - and that's pretty damned rare in a film. The action scenes are good, the characters are briliant and it has a marvelous sense of humour. This years only 10/10 film.
The Men Who Stare at Goats (9/10)
Some briliant performances from Ewan McGregor & George Cloony make this a hilarious film with a lot of heart and a fucking briliant final act. It's a *little* bit long in places and I'm not sure how well it'd stand up to re watching but definitely one of the more original films this year.
Moon (9/10)
Moon is my Clever Film Of The Year. Watching the trailer, you'd be forgiven for thinking you can map out the entire plot of the film just from that. Oh no you can't. Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey are absolutely fucking briliant as well. And it's a British film, which is cool. It is very slow paced though.
500 Days of Summer (8/10)
Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt prove that they're fucking briliant actors. 500 Days is a briliant feel good film... an epic love story that does a pretty good job of showing what it's like to actually be in love. It's not as good as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but that's not really saying much.
Up (8/10)
I was expecting a reasonable film and got a really heart warming story about the importance of following your dreams whilst at the same time being realistic. It also has a dog. The dog is awesome. Not as good as Bolt but still awesome. It's all a conspiracy to make me want a dog.
Push (7/10)
Push is inventive, briliantly directed and realised. It's very flawed, though. There's no real ending, some of the plot moves don't make much sense and whilst there is a kick arse action scene at the end, it still leaves you feeling a bit unfullfilled. It's definitely worth seeing, though. It's basically the X-Men but... good.
The Good, The Bad, The Wierd (7/10)
TG, TB, TW takes every western ever made and updates them in a kick arse, very silly manner. The acting and directing are top notch, the story is silly but entertaining - it may well be too long but it's still definitely worth seeing.
Slumdog Milionaire (7/10)
It's Danny Boyle, so this film was always going to be good. I was a little disapointed, though. I was hoping for something... more. Ah well.
Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (7/10)
Another very fun comedy - a time travel film that actually makes sense, who would have thunk it?
The Hangover (7/10)
The Hangover takes the standard amnesia/road movie comedy format and does it... pretty close to perfectly. It loses out to the Harold and Kumar films in terms of sheer surreality but it's still very good.
Crank 2 (6/10)
Five words can sum up Crank 2: "Not as good as Crank". Yes, it has the same hyper-kinetic style as Crank and is still pretty goddamn hilarious but a lot of the impact is lost in making a sequel. It's also a little too surreal for its own good. The constant flashbacks and wierd sections get confusing. Still fun, though.
Let The Right One In (6/10)
This is one of those films which is briliant but I didn't especially enjoy watching. Everyone involved did a fantastic job, there's no doubt about it, but it never really grabbed me. I'd definitely recomend it to anyone who hasn't seen it though.
Gamer (6/10)
Gamer is what Crank 2 should have been. Surreal, action packed and awesome - but Gamer gets the balance right. It's much better than Crank 2. Why doesn't it score higher then? Well, the problem is that Gamer has Gerard Butler in the lead role and he's just not as good as Jason Statham. Sorry.
Cirque Du Freak (6/10)
Cirque Du Freak is in many, many ways a bad film. The plot is entirely predicatable, there's nothing really tying the film together and generally it feels a bit meh. I liked it, though. There was something basically original about it that made it feel fresh. Someone frisbees a gravestone at someone else, for Thor's sake.
Watchmen (5/10)
Now, I loved watchmen when it first came out but on the re-watch I found many problems. Length is one. Watchmen is telling far too many stories. The story of Dr Manhatten, the Ozymandius arc, Silk Specter 2 & Nite Owl, Rorscarch... not to mention the numerous sub-sub plots. Most of the elements of Watchmen are briliant but it's just *too fucking long*. Watchmen needed to be made by someone who wasn't so in love with the original - that way they could have cut some of the less good bits.
Triangle (5/10)
It's well done but it doesn't make any fucking sense. Seriously, it's infuriating. It's really predictable but annoyingly abtuse at the same time.
Bruno (4/10)
Bruno has moments of briliant satire and moments of awesome stupidity. It was so cringe worthy and so embarrasing I couldn't say I enjoyed it at all. If you like this sort of thing, it's utterly briliant, though.
9 (3/10)
9 is one of those briliant films where if the main character hadn't gotten involved, life would have been much better for everyone concerned. The plot is entirely predictable, the characters are steriotypes... the design work may be very good but that kind of works against the film. 9 doesn't know if it wants to be a kids film or an adults film. It's too dark for one and too simplistic for the other. I hope the artists go on to do great things whilst the writer never gets near anything else.
Inglorious Bastards (2/10)
Inglorious has a briliant opening scene. Then it all falls apart. I get that it's supposed to be a hyper styalised version of World War 2, but seriously, who introduces Hitler like this? Subtlety? Have you heard of it, Quinten? Every character in Inglorious is seen through the eyes of a blue blooded American. It has Eli Roth skipping around a field hitting nazis in the head with a baseball bat whilst whooping like the most horrible frat boy you could hope not to meet. Seriously, this is an all american depiction of World War 2. To the point where these ten fictional americans succeed in killing hitler and ending the war three years early. So basically, what Quinten is saying is, if ten Americans had gotten involved in World War 2 earlier, the whole mess would have been sorted out much sooner.
Terminator 4 (1/10)
I honsetly thought I was watching a transformers film at points in T4. It's so fucking stupid I don't have the words for it. It has a 100 foot tall terminator that has terminators on motor bikes in its shins. It's the wrost sort of action film imaginable - dumb, unimaginative, CGI riddled and utterly lacking in any soul.
Public Enemies (1/10)
Remember when Johnny Depp used to be good? It was a while ago wasn't it... Public Enemies could have been quite good if the writers had bothered to create some characters to go along with the wizzy camera work. Sadly, the characters aren't even 2-d, most of them are completely absent. The means the plot has no impact and as the film stretches into its third hour, I got so bored I walked out.
A Serious Man (0/10)
I honestly have nothing good to say about this film. It was boredom in a can. Nothing fuckin happened. At all. There was NO PLOT. NOTHING HAPPENED. I can't put this strongly enough, seriously. NOTHING HAPPENED FOR THE ENTIRE FUCKING FILM. Nothing. Nada. Zip. NOTHING. I've never been this bored in the cinema, before, and I've been to see Munich. It astonishes me that this film's been getting 5/5 reviews from Empire & The AV Club... did they see a different film to me or something?
I think what my little list says is: It's been a good year for the smaller films like Moon and the comedies but we've had no decent action flicks bar Zombieland. Bah.
Avatar kind of sums up this year. It's been a really shit year. Granted, any year was going to look terrible after 2008. 2008 was a cracking year. We had The Dark Knight, Iron Man & Wall-E, all 10/10 films. We also had breezy fun films like Hancock, Tropic Thunder, The Sontum of Quolace and Eagle Eye.
So I thought I'd go through the films I've seen this year, from best to worst.
Zombieland (10/10)
I re-watched Zombieland recently and it is still utterly fantastic. It's such a fresh take on the genre. It makes you feel good to watch it - and that's pretty damned rare in a film. The action scenes are good, the characters are briliant and it has a marvelous sense of humour. This years only 10/10 film.
The Men Who Stare at Goats (9/10)
Some briliant performances from Ewan McGregor & George Cloony make this a hilarious film with a lot of heart and a fucking briliant final act. It's a *little* bit long in places and I'm not sure how well it'd stand up to re watching but definitely one of the more original films this year.
Moon (9/10)
Moon is my Clever Film Of The Year. Watching the trailer, you'd be forgiven for thinking you can map out the entire plot of the film just from that. Oh no you can't. Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey are absolutely fucking briliant as well. And it's a British film, which is cool. It is very slow paced though.
500 Days of Summer (8/10)
Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt prove that they're fucking briliant actors. 500 Days is a briliant feel good film... an epic love story that does a pretty good job of showing what it's like to actually be in love. It's not as good as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but that's not really saying much.
Up (8/10)
I was expecting a reasonable film and got a really heart warming story about the importance of following your dreams whilst at the same time being realistic. It also has a dog. The dog is awesome. Not as good as Bolt but still awesome. It's all a conspiracy to make me want a dog.
Push (7/10)
Push is inventive, briliantly directed and realised. It's very flawed, though. There's no real ending, some of the plot moves don't make much sense and whilst there is a kick arse action scene at the end, it still leaves you feeling a bit unfullfilled. It's definitely worth seeing, though. It's basically the X-Men but... good.
The Good, The Bad, The Wierd (7/10)
TG, TB, TW takes every western ever made and updates them in a kick arse, very silly manner. The acting and directing are top notch, the story is silly but entertaining - it may well be too long but it's still definitely worth seeing.
Slumdog Milionaire (7/10)
It's Danny Boyle, so this film was always going to be good. I was a little disapointed, though. I was hoping for something... more. Ah well.
Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (7/10)
Another very fun comedy - a time travel film that actually makes sense, who would have thunk it?
The Hangover (7/10)
The Hangover takes the standard amnesia/road movie comedy format and does it... pretty close to perfectly. It loses out to the Harold and Kumar films in terms of sheer surreality but it's still very good.
Crank 2 (6/10)
Five words can sum up Crank 2: "Not as good as Crank". Yes, it has the same hyper-kinetic style as Crank and is still pretty goddamn hilarious but a lot of the impact is lost in making a sequel. It's also a little too surreal for its own good. The constant flashbacks and wierd sections get confusing. Still fun, though.
Let The Right One In (6/10)
This is one of those films which is briliant but I didn't especially enjoy watching. Everyone involved did a fantastic job, there's no doubt about it, but it never really grabbed me. I'd definitely recomend it to anyone who hasn't seen it though.
Gamer (6/10)
Gamer is what Crank 2 should have been. Surreal, action packed and awesome - but Gamer gets the balance right. It's much better than Crank 2. Why doesn't it score higher then? Well, the problem is that Gamer has Gerard Butler in the lead role and he's just not as good as Jason Statham. Sorry.
Cirque Du Freak (6/10)
Cirque Du Freak is in many, many ways a bad film. The plot is entirely predicatable, there's nothing really tying the film together and generally it feels a bit meh. I liked it, though. There was something basically original about it that made it feel fresh. Someone frisbees a gravestone at someone else, for Thor's sake.
Watchmen (5/10)
Now, I loved watchmen when it first came out but on the re-watch I found many problems. Length is one. Watchmen is telling far too many stories. The story of Dr Manhatten, the Ozymandius arc, Silk Specter 2 & Nite Owl, Rorscarch... not to mention the numerous sub-sub plots. Most of the elements of Watchmen are briliant but it's just *too fucking long*. Watchmen needed to be made by someone who wasn't so in love with the original - that way they could have cut some of the less good bits.
Triangle (5/10)
It's well done but it doesn't make any fucking sense. Seriously, it's infuriating. It's really predictable but annoyingly abtuse at the same time.
Bruno (4/10)
Bruno has moments of briliant satire and moments of awesome stupidity. It was so cringe worthy and so embarrasing I couldn't say I enjoyed it at all. If you like this sort of thing, it's utterly briliant, though.
9 (3/10)
9 is one of those briliant films where if the main character hadn't gotten involved, life would have been much better for everyone concerned. The plot is entirely predictable, the characters are steriotypes... the design work may be very good but that kind of works against the film. 9 doesn't know if it wants to be a kids film or an adults film. It's too dark for one and too simplistic for the other. I hope the artists go on to do great things whilst the writer never gets near anything else.
Inglorious Bastards (2/10)
Inglorious has a briliant opening scene. Then it all falls apart. I get that it's supposed to be a hyper styalised version of World War 2, but seriously, who introduces Hitler like this? Subtlety? Have you heard of it, Quinten? Every character in Inglorious is seen through the eyes of a blue blooded American. It has Eli Roth skipping around a field hitting nazis in the head with a baseball bat whilst whooping like the most horrible frat boy you could hope not to meet. Seriously, this is an all american depiction of World War 2. To the point where these ten fictional americans succeed in killing hitler and ending the war three years early. So basically, what Quinten is saying is, if ten Americans had gotten involved in World War 2 earlier, the whole mess would have been sorted out much sooner.
Terminator 4 (1/10)
I honsetly thought I was watching a transformers film at points in T4. It's so fucking stupid I don't have the words for it. It has a 100 foot tall terminator that has terminators on motor bikes in its shins. It's the wrost sort of action film imaginable - dumb, unimaginative, CGI riddled and utterly lacking in any soul.
Public Enemies (1/10)
Remember when Johnny Depp used to be good? It was a while ago wasn't it... Public Enemies could have been quite good if the writers had bothered to create some characters to go along with the wizzy camera work. Sadly, the characters aren't even 2-d, most of them are completely absent. The means the plot has no impact and as the film stretches into its third hour, I got so bored I walked out.
A Serious Man (0/10)
I honestly have nothing good to say about this film. It was boredom in a can. Nothing fuckin happened. At all. There was NO PLOT. NOTHING HAPPENED. I can't put this strongly enough, seriously. NOTHING HAPPENED FOR THE ENTIRE FUCKING FILM. Nothing. Nada. Zip. NOTHING. I've never been this bored in the cinema, before, and I've been to see Munich. It astonishes me that this film's been getting 5/5 reviews from Empire & The AV Club... did they see a different film to me or something?
I think what my little list says is: It's been a good year for the smaller films like Moon and the comedies but we've had no decent action flicks bar Zombieland. Bah.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Cover Versions
I've blogged about cover versions before, specifically Goldfinger's version of 99 Luftbaloons and Orange's take on Karma Chameleon.
I have, however, found the king of all covers.
It's a piano version of Sweet Child of Mine - it's currently featured on a John Lewis advert.
This song encapsulates what I love about cover versions. It takes something many people love (including myself) and puts a different spin on it. In this case, it takes a kick arse yet beautiful song and turns it to something.... delightful. It's absolutely fucking lovely to listen to. It helps that the singer is clearly a very talented woman.
I'm coming round to the idea of seeing cover versions as an art form in and of themselves. The aforementioned covers of the punk songs are a great example of good songs being updated for modern tastes in music. Dope have done this with Billy Idol, as have the Muderdolls. These versions are successful adaptations to suit a generation raised by Cradle of Filth.
Even subtle improvements can make a brilliant cover. Take Scarling's version of Creep. It's pretty much identical to the original - a little heavier in places yes, but broadly similar. The crucial difference, though, is the singer. Radiohead's singer always sounds like a moaning tosser. Taking him out of the song and replacing him with someone who can actually sing improves it immeasurably. Johnny Cash did exactly this with a cover of NiN's Hurt
The best covers, though, are the ones that change the song musically, possibly to a different genre. The version of Sweet Child of Mine is a brilliant example. Another is Bear McCreary's version of All Along the Watchtower.
Take this cover of I Touch Myself. The original was a breezy, catchy romance song. Very good in its own way, brilliantly used in a certain spy spoof. The version by the... the cover version (I'm dyslexic, I really can't spell their name) though is fucking masterful. It takes a bit of breezy fun and turns it into something... darker, more obsessive. It's odd this song. My reaction to it is slightly different every time. Sometimes I think it's creepy, sometimes I think it's really sexual. Genius.
Granted, covers can go horribly wrong. When I think of shit covers, I think of Madona's version of American Pie, which takes a good (if not great) song and makes it incredibly fucking bland and soulless.
The thing is, that's giving covers a bad name. It's pop music. Pop music is supposed to be bland and horrible and pointless. That's what it's there for. There hasn't been a decent pop song in the last ten years that I can think of.
So I say thank the musical gods for cover versions. They can make a good song better, they can make a bad song good, they can take a great song and put a new spin on it, they can take a great song and make it utterly shit. And this is a good thing, without experimentation none of these songs would have been made.
I think it takes a lot of bravery to make some of these cover versions... a lot of them are really established songs in their own right - like Green Day's version of the Bobby Fuller Four's classic I Fought The Law (If you thought The Clash did the original, get the fuck out) and Social Distortion's version of Ring of Fire. To take classic songs and change them, make them your own is... egotistical but brave. If it works, you've created something fantastic.
So that's what I think. I'm going to leave you with possibly the best cover created - Sonic Clang's version of E1M1 from Doom.
I have, however, found the king of all covers.
It's a piano version of Sweet Child of Mine - it's currently featured on a John Lewis advert.
This song encapsulates what I love about cover versions. It takes something many people love (including myself) and puts a different spin on it. In this case, it takes a kick arse yet beautiful song and turns it to something.... delightful. It's absolutely fucking lovely to listen to. It helps that the singer is clearly a very talented woman.
I'm coming round to the idea of seeing cover versions as an art form in and of themselves. The aforementioned covers of the punk songs are a great example of good songs being updated for modern tastes in music. Dope have done this with Billy Idol, as have the Muderdolls. These versions are successful adaptations to suit a generation raised by Cradle of Filth.
Even subtle improvements can make a brilliant cover. Take Scarling's version of Creep. It's pretty much identical to the original - a little heavier in places yes, but broadly similar. The crucial difference, though, is the singer. Radiohead's singer always sounds like a moaning tosser. Taking him out of the song and replacing him with someone who can actually sing improves it immeasurably. Johnny Cash did exactly this with a cover of NiN's Hurt
The best covers, though, are the ones that change the song musically, possibly to a different genre. The version of Sweet Child of Mine is a brilliant example. Another is Bear McCreary's version of All Along the Watchtower.
Take this cover of I Touch Myself. The original was a breezy, catchy romance song. Very good in its own way, brilliantly used in a certain spy spoof. The version by the... the cover version (I'm dyslexic, I really can't spell their name) though is fucking masterful. It takes a bit of breezy fun and turns it into something... darker, more obsessive. It's odd this song. My reaction to it is slightly different every time. Sometimes I think it's creepy, sometimes I think it's really sexual. Genius.
Granted, covers can go horribly wrong. When I think of shit covers, I think of Madona's version of American Pie, which takes a good (if not great) song and makes it incredibly fucking bland and soulless.
The thing is, that's giving covers a bad name. It's pop music. Pop music is supposed to be bland and horrible and pointless. That's what it's there for. There hasn't been a decent pop song in the last ten years that I can think of.
So I say thank the musical gods for cover versions. They can make a good song better, they can make a bad song good, they can take a great song and put a new spin on it, they can take a great song and make it utterly shit. And this is a good thing, without experimentation none of these songs would have been made.
I think it takes a lot of bravery to make some of these cover versions... a lot of them are really established songs in their own right - like Green Day's version of the Bobby Fuller Four's classic I Fought The Law (If you thought The Clash did the original, get the fuck out) and Social Distortion's version of Ring of Fire. To take classic songs and change them, make them your own is... egotistical but brave. If it works, you've created something fantastic.
So that's what I think. I'm going to leave you with possibly the best cover created - Sonic Clang's version of E1M1 from Doom.
What I have been playing
Holy shit, I haven't updated this blog in ages. Work. Mental.
Excuses, excuses. Anyway. I refuse to turn into Christopher Livingstone so UPDATE TIME:
LEFT 4 DEAD 2
The officail verdict has been out on this one for a while so I won't bore you all with my thoughts. Suffice to say: It improves on the original in every way I could think of. It even includes several things that dramatically improve the gameplay (dismembering zombies etc) which I thought would be mere gimicks.
Valve did good.
And there's DLC coming in the new year - which sounds fecking awesome.
Modern Warfare 2
...
This one is less clear cut.
Put it this way, I fucking hate Modern Warfare 2.
This section is going to contain severe spoilers.
Okay, so alarm bells started ringing for me when, in the intro sequence, they say that the baddie from the first game - Zakayev - is now heralded as a hero by the Russian people...
Okay...
I thought the point of the first game that Zakayev was leading a fanatical group of Russians who had the support of some of the populace but, crucially, were not officailly sanctioned or anything. Hence why the Russian gov't gives Price the abort codes at the end of MW1.
Anyway, minor glitch, I thought.
We start with a fucking excelent level in an ice storm. You infiltrate a base, plant explosives and generally sneak your way around in the best traditions of MW 1. The ending where you escape on snow mobiles is a little silly but whatever.
There are then a couple of... reasonable but very scripted levels. Warning sign number two was that the SAS were no longer referred to as the SAS but as "task force 141". Or, if you prefer, this.
There's then the notorious airport level.
I actually liked the airport level. It's nice to see standard FPS staples like blasting everything that moves subverted. It was well designed and fairly disturbing - in a good way.
Then things go extremely fucking wrong.
Russia invades the united states.
It's such a stupid move for any game to make, I can't even begin to start talking about what's wrong with it. If I had to pick just one reason, it's that MW 2 at this point starts following the plot of Patriots: A Nation Under Fire - a game I had to review when I was working for a games review site.
It boggles the mind how Infinity Ward can have produced one of the most mature and politically aware games ever - Modern Warfare 1, can produce something which is a cross between Team America World Police and Patriots.
There are other things wrong with it - the levels are far too linear, the characters are 2-d, it's too difficult, the cinematic sections are fucking stupid and the new gimicks they bring in - like the riot shield - are crow barred in at every available oppertunity.
Modern Warfare 2 is a terrible, terrible game. The multiplayer may make up for it but it's the sort of multiplayer I really hate anyway. I played some of the multiplayer in MW 1 and was far from impressed.
Dirt 2
I'm not really sure why I bought this. Codemasters make very good racing games, admittedly, but I never finished Dirt 1 or Grid because they suffered from what practically every racing game suffers from. Viz: when you reach the half way point, the developers have run out of ideas for tracks so you have to visit the same ones again but you have to do six laps round them instead of two. This gets annoying very quickly.
Dirt 2 is very good, though. It's incredibly good looking (possibly the best looking game I've ever seen) and its gameplay has that magical quality to it that all briliant racing games have. For the first month or so.
It does have a very appealing front end to it and it is very, very polished. I don't feel bad about the £30 I spent on it but I am dreading the day I suddenly find I'm not interested in it any more.
Excuses, excuses. Anyway. I refuse to turn into Christopher Livingstone so UPDATE TIME:
LEFT 4 DEAD 2
The officail verdict has been out on this one for a while so I won't bore you all with my thoughts. Suffice to say: It improves on the original in every way I could think of. It even includes several things that dramatically improve the gameplay (dismembering zombies etc) which I thought would be mere gimicks.
Valve did good.
And there's DLC coming in the new year - which sounds fecking awesome.
Modern Warfare 2
...
This one is less clear cut.
Put it this way, I fucking hate Modern Warfare 2.
This section is going to contain severe spoilers.
Okay, so alarm bells started ringing for me when, in the intro sequence, they say that the baddie from the first game - Zakayev - is now heralded as a hero by the Russian people...
Okay...
I thought the point of the first game that Zakayev was leading a fanatical group of Russians who had the support of some of the populace but, crucially, were not officailly sanctioned or anything. Hence why the Russian gov't gives Price the abort codes at the end of MW1.
Anyway, minor glitch, I thought.
We start with a fucking excelent level in an ice storm. You infiltrate a base, plant explosives and generally sneak your way around in the best traditions of MW 1. The ending where you escape on snow mobiles is a little silly but whatever.
There are then a couple of... reasonable but very scripted levels. Warning sign number two was that the SAS were no longer referred to as the SAS but as "task force 141". Or, if you prefer, this.
There's then the notorious airport level.
I actually liked the airport level. It's nice to see standard FPS staples like blasting everything that moves subverted. It was well designed and fairly disturbing - in a good way.
Then things go extremely fucking wrong.
Russia invades the united states.
It's such a stupid move for any game to make, I can't even begin to start talking about what's wrong with it. If I had to pick just one reason, it's that MW 2 at this point starts following the plot of Patriots: A Nation Under Fire - a game I had to review when I was working for a games review site.
It boggles the mind how Infinity Ward can have produced one of the most mature and politically aware games ever - Modern Warfare 1, can produce something which is a cross between Team America World Police and Patriots.
There are other things wrong with it - the levels are far too linear, the characters are 2-d, it's too difficult, the cinematic sections are fucking stupid and the new gimicks they bring in - like the riot shield - are crow barred in at every available oppertunity.
Modern Warfare 2 is a terrible, terrible game. The multiplayer may make up for it but it's the sort of multiplayer I really hate anyway. I played some of the multiplayer in MW 1 and was far from impressed.
Dirt 2
I'm not really sure why I bought this. Codemasters make very good racing games, admittedly, but I never finished Dirt 1 or Grid because they suffered from what practically every racing game suffers from. Viz: when you reach the half way point, the developers have run out of ideas for tracks so you have to visit the same ones again but you have to do six laps round them instead of two. This gets annoying very quickly.
Dirt 2 is very good, though. It's incredibly good looking (possibly the best looking game I've ever seen) and its gameplay has that magical quality to it that all briliant racing games have. For the first month or so.
It does have a very appealing front end to it and it is very, very polished. I don't feel bad about the £30 I spent on it but I am dreading the day I suddenly find I'm not interested in it any more.
Friday, 20 November 2009
Further Dragon Age thinkings
So I've been playing more Dragon Age along with Borderlands and Left 4 Dead 2, which I may blog a bit about later. Not tonight though.
I think I've played enough to come to a conclusion, now.
I don't like it.
Here's the thing:
Almost everything about it is really, really good. Particularly the characters, sub plots and so on. Even the main quest isn't massively horrible, despite my initial misgivings. It's certainly far superior to the one in Oblivion, for instance.
No, my one problem that has persisted with Dragon Age is simply that it takes so fucking long to get anything done. This is mainly down to the dungeon crawling. I really think that if this game didn't have any dungeon crawling at all (and by dungeon crawling, I mean encounters with enemies that aren't strictly relevant to any of the plots) then it would be about half the length it currently is.
This is a major problem because, unlike every other non-bioware RPG I've played, there are no ways to avoid the dungeon crawling. In games like Deus Ex or Bloodlines you could skip most of the incredibly tedious sections with judicious use of certain skills. Not here, though.
This means that half the game is really enjoyable, the other half is exactly like playing an MMO. And I don't like MMOs. I don't like them at-fucking-all.
There is an annoying side line to this problem - the character interaction is quite stop/starty.
I was getting fairly heavilly invested in Morrigan with my mage character. It had gotten to the point where my character and hers were... well. In love isn't quite the right phrase but whatever. They were bumping pelvises.*
Anyway, we were at that stage and... we got stuck. I couldn't proceed. There were no more dialogue options. The only thing I could do was break up with her. After some casting around, I found I had to do a few more massive, main plot grind quests before I could move on with her.
GAH.
Everything in this damn game seems to be tied into the grind quests. There doesn't seem to be a way to enjoy it without the damn things constantly popping up to annoy you.
Having said that, I may just have another play through to try and have a more interesting chat with some of the other characters. I feel I've got all the playtime I can stomach out of my current one.
The problem with that is I really don't fancy investing the 20 or so hours it will take to get the characters into a state where I can have some meaningful conversations with them. I'm torn. On the one hand I want to know what they have to say, on the other hand, I really, really, really don't want to go through those *fucking* opening levels again. Or any of the other grind quests for that matter.
Maybe I should just wiki their stories.
Possibly.
This is why I think people who complain about Portal being too short are idiots. A game being too short is rarely a bad thing. A game being too long can kill it stone dead. In my opinion, that's what's happened here.
*
Entertaining side note:
In the Morrigan/Player sex scene, Morrigan actually wears more underwear than she does for the rest of the game. A bra appears from somewhere. Anyone else think that Bioware have been burnt by the Mass Effect sex "scandal" and are pathetically trying to compensate? Seriously, it was the most ridiculous sex scene I'd ever seen.
I think I've played enough to come to a conclusion, now.
I don't like it.
Here's the thing:
Almost everything about it is really, really good. Particularly the characters, sub plots and so on. Even the main quest isn't massively horrible, despite my initial misgivings. It's certainly far superior to the one in Oblivion, for instance.
No, my one problem that has persisted with Dragon Age is simply that it takes so fucking long to get anything done. This is mainly down to the dungeon crawling. I really think that if this game didn't have any dungeon crawling at all (and by dungeon crawling, I mean encounters with enemies that aren't strictly relevant to any of the plots) then it would be about half the length it currently is.
This is a major problem because, unlike every other non-bioware RPG I've played, there are no ways to avoid the dungeon crawling. In games like Deus Ex or Bloodlines you could skip most of the incredibly tedious sections with judicious use of certain skills. Not here, though.
This means that half the game is really enjoyable, the other half is exactly like playing an MMO. And I don't like MMOs. I don't like them at-fucking-all.
There is an annoying side line to this problem - the character interaction is quite stop/starty.
I was getting fairly heavilly invested in Morrigan with my mage character. It had gotten to the point where my character and hers were... well. In love isn't quite the right phrase but whatever. They were bumping pelvises.*
Anyway, we were at that stage and... we got stuck. I couldn't proceed. There were no more dialogue options. The only thing I could do was break up with her. After some casting around, I found I had to do a few more massive, main plot grind quests before I could move on with her.
GAH.
Everything in this damn game seems to be tied into the grind quests. There doesn't seem to be a way to enjoy it without the damn things constantly popping up to annoy you.
Having said that, I may just have another play through to try and have a more interesting chat with some of the other characters. I feel I've got all the playtime I can stomach out of my current one.
The problem with that is I really don't fancy investing the 20 or so hours it will take to get the characters into a state where I can have some meaningful conversations with them. I'm torn. On the one hand I want to know what they have to say, on the other hand, I really, really, really don't want to go through those *fucking* opening levels again. Or any of the other grind quests for that matter.
Maybe I should just wiki their stories.
Possibly.
This is why I think people who complain about Portal being too short are idiots. A game being too short is rarely a bad thing. A game being too long can kill it stone dead. In my opinion, that's what's happened here.
*
Entertaining side note:
In the Morrigan/Player sex scene, Morrigan actually wears more underwear than she does for the rest of the game. A bra appears from somewhere. Anyone else think that Bioware have been burnt by the Mass Effect sex "scandal" and are pathetically trying to compensate? Seriously, it was the most ridiculous sex scene I'd ever seen.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age.
Origins.
I have swayed between loving this game and hating it so many times over the past week that I honestly don't know what to think any more.
Let's go through it.
Marvelous!
Gritty Origin Stories
I've played through three of the six origin stories and they all have a real depth to them. There's real human emotion and the definite feeling that the world of Dragon Age is brutal and unforgiving. The Dwarven Noble origin especially is a world where avarise and honour are ever present and constantly vying for a place in your characters mind.
Shoddy!
Contrived Origin Stories
Sadly, at the end of every origin story, you have to join the Grey Wardens (the jedis) so the main plot can start moving. This can can be fantastic (as in the Dwarven Noble origin) but when I played through as a mage, he just turned up and Deus Ex Machina'd me out of a ridiculously contrived crisis.
Marvelous!
The Combat
The combat is very well done - it's an updated version of KOTOR's system with many more options like swords and shields, seperate skill trees for duel weapons & two handed greatswords. It's also the first RPG I've played where it's the most fun to play as a mage.
Shoddy!
The Grind
So I've liberated a castle from undead creatures and have been sent off to go and get a sacred thing to cure some chap who needs curing. I then found this cure was in a Cathedral. I cleared out the Cathedral, fully expecting the cure to be somewhere therin. It wasn't. It wasn't in the catacombs under the cathedral either. It was in the natural tunnels at the end of the catacombs. Each of these bloody areas was absolutely fucking massive. There is a line between making levels a decent length and game-expanding padding. Dragon Age can't even see this fucking line it's so far past it.
Marvelous!
The Characters
Are all briliantly scripted and acted. You're also given genuine moral dilemas which your NPC mates will help you with.
Shoddy!
The main story
I blogged earlier about how fantasy is usually shite because the villains lack complex motivation. That's especially true in Dragon Age. There's some sort of horde of evil thingies that is coming to kill everyone. Despite the fact that they are wiping entire towns off the map, you have to go around convincing everyone to help you fight them. This is bullshit. These guys know it's unite or perish, so why is it so fucking hard to convince them? Thankfully the sub plots and complex characters you come across during each exercise in painfully slow diplomacy are interesting enough to make you forget the fucking stupid reason why you're there but it keeps popping back up and biting you on the nose like a rake in the grass with a snake attatched to it.
Overall!
I've restarted Dragon Age three times without really getting that far into it. This is because I kept finding that there were much better ways of doing what I was currently doing. The problem was, every time I did this, I had to go through the same bullshit grind quests again. Thinking about having to go through that bloody cathedral level again actually makes me slightly deppressed.
The problem is, Dragon Age is half briliant. And half shit. If it wasn't as grindy, if it wasn't so fucking massive it would be a classic, there's not doubt about that. That said, I will stick with it because when it's good, it's marvelous. Time will tell what side of the fence I fall on.
Origins.
I have swayed between loving this game and hating it so many times over the past week that I honestly don't know what to think any more.
Let's go through it.
Marvelous!
Gritty Origin Stories
I've played through three of the six origin stories and they all have a real depth to them. There's real human emotion and the definite feeling that the world of Dragon Age is brutal and unforgiving. The Dwarven Noble origin especially is a world where avarise and honour are ever present and constantly vying for a place in your characters mind.
Shoddy!
Contrived Origin Stories
Sadly, at the end of every origin story, you have to join the Grey Wardens (the jedis) so the main plot can start moving. This can can be fantastic (as in the Dwarven Noble origin) but when I played through as a mage, he just turned up and Deus Ex Machina'd me out of a ridiculously contrived crisis.
Marvelous!
The Combat
The combat is very well done - it's an updated version of KOTOR's system with many more options like swords and shields, seperate skill trees for duel weapons & two handed greatswords. It's also the first RPG I've played where it's the most fun to play as a mage.
Shoddy!
The Grind
So I've liberated a castle from undead creatures and have been sent off to go and get a sacred thing to cure some chap who needs curing. I then found this cure was in a Cathedral. I cleared out the Cathedral, fully expecting the cure to be somewhere therin. It wasn't. It wasn't in the catacombs under the cathedral either. It was in the natural tunnels at the end of the catacombs. Each of these bloody areas was absolutely fucking massive. There is a line between making levels a decent length and game-expanding padding. Dragon Age can't even see this fucking line it's so far past it.
Marvelous!
The Characters
Are all briliantly scripted and acted. You're also given genuine moral dilemas which your NPC mates will help you with.
Shoddy!
The main story
I blogged earlier about how fantasy is usually shite because the villains lack complex motivation. That's especially true in Dragon Age. There's some sort of horde of evil thingies that is coming to kill everyone. Despite the fact that they are wiping entire towns off the map, you have to go around convincing everyone to help you fight them. This is bullshit. These guys know it's unite or perish, so why is it so fucking hard to convince them? Thankfully the sub plots and complex characters you come across during each exercise in painfully slow diplomacy are interesting enough to make you forget the fucking stupid reason why you're there but it keeps popping back up and biting you on the nose like a rake in the grass with a snake attatched to it.
Overall!
I've restarted Dragon Age three times without really getting that far into it. This is because I kept finding that there were much better ways of doing what I was currently doing. The problem was, every time I did this, I had to go through the same bullshit grind quests again. Thinking about having to go through that bloody cathedral level again actually makes me slightly deppressed.
The problem is, Dragon Age is half briliant. And half shit. If it wasn't as grindy, if it wasn't so fucking massive it would be a classic, there's not doubt about that. That said, I will stick with it because when it's good, it's marvelous. Time will tell what side of the fence I fall on.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Expert Left 4 Dead
Difficulty in games is a bit of an odd one.
One of my big problems with single player games is- enemy AI will never, ever be as good as a human. It can be better - so much better. You can program an AI opponent to, as soon as you see it, instantly target your head and release the precise number of shots to kill you. This wouldn't be any fun, though.
Sadly, to prevent this, most developers do two things:
1) Have the AI only notice you under certain conditions - which is fair.
2) Have the AI aim for your body, not your head.
This second one is a problem as, in games like the original FEAR - you can get so good at the game that you will get hit, but because the AI goes for body shots and you go for head shots, they cease to be challenging after a while.
Left 4 Dead doesn't have this problem as zombies are melee attack only. Duh. Consequently, the difficulty is influenced by different things.
These are:
1) How much damage the zombies do
2) How many zombies there are
3) How many special infected spawn, and how clever they are
4) What kit you get
5) How much friendly fire damage you take
I'm writing this because I've been playing the Left 4 Dead 2 demo on expert... it's really interesting.
I had a great run with three human allies. We got right to the crescendo event with no deaths. I think we would have made it to the end had the server spazed out during the event and thrown us all out.
Gr.
But anyway. What I noticed was this: When your team is *really* good, nothing can touch you. We all knew what we were doing - when to crouch, when to stand, when to attack and when to retreat - when to bunch up and when to spread out... It was an absolute joy to be in that team. I always like being in teams when everyone else is almost exactly at your skill level.
Anyway, it was during this when I got a real insight into what makes Expert so fantastic to play on - and, really, why it's a fairly realistic depiction of a zombie holocaust.
We played through the first map- we all barely took any damage. We got half way through the second map with no incapacitates. Then something happened.
I had been feeling slightly jittery for most of the second map. You have to *really* concentrate on expert. Shooting your friend, especially with a Tier 2 weapon like the assault rifle is usually an instant take down so you *can't* friendly fire. To this end, when I get jittery, I keep my finger off the left mouse button until I have actively made the decision to fire. I find this works.
Anyway, I had noticed my movements getting sharper, less precise etc. My team mates started getting the same thing. There were several friendly fire incidents and I shot a boomer out of instinct when I could have just pushed him away.
This all pointed to one thing: We were doing far more damage to each other than the infected were doing.
I think this is exactly what would happen in a real life scenario. You and three friends have assault rifles, you get fairly far but... say you hear a footfall behind you that you weren't expecting, or a noise startles you. You whirl around and pull the trigger with your gun pointing at the only thing in your field of view that's moving - your mate.
So yeah. I thought that was interesting.
I am determined to play more rounds on expert. It's really damn fun, if very frustrating. I think the Left 4 Dead 2 maps may have been designed with the higher difficulties in mind... but yes. I should be in bed. Work tomorrow.
And Borderlands! Borderlands is out tomorrow! Hopefully it won't be shit!
One of my big problems with single player games is- enemy AI will never, ever be as good as a human. It can be better - so much better. You can program an AI opponent to, as soon as you see it, instantly target your head and release the precise number of shots to kill you. This wouldn't be any fun, though.
Sadly, to prevent this, most developers do two things:
1) Have the AI only notice you under certain conditions - which is fair.
2) Have the AI aim for your body, not your head.
This second one is a problem as, in games like the original FEAR - you can get so good at the game that you will get hit, but because the AI goes for body shots and you go for head shots, they cease to be challenging after a while.
Left 4 Dead doesn't have this problem as zombies are melee attack only. Duh. Consequently, the difficulty is influenced by different things.
These are:
1) How much damage the zombies do
2) How many zombies there are
3) How many special infected spawn, and how clever they are
4) What kit you get
5) How much friendly fire damage you take
I'm writing this because I've been playing the Left 4 Dead 2 demo on expert... it's really interesting.
I had a great run with three human allies. We got right to the crescendo event with no deaths. I think we would have made it to the end had the server spazed out during the event and thrown us all out.
Gr.
But anyway. What I noticed was this: When your team is *really* good, nothing can touch you. We all knew what we were doing - when to crouch, when to stand, when to attack and when to retreat - when to bunch up and when to spread out... It was an absolute joy to be in that team. I always like being in teams when everyone else is almost exactly at your skill level.
Anyway, it was during this when I got a real insight into what makes Expert so fantastic to play on - and, really, why it's a fairly realistic depiction of a zombie holocaust.
We played through the first map- we all barely took any damage. We got half way through the second map with no incapacitates. Then something happened.
I had been feeling slightly jittery for most of the second map. You have to *really* concentrate on expert. Shooting your friend, especially with a Tier 2 weapon like the assault rifle is usually an instant take down so you *can't* friendly fire. To this end, when I get jittery, I keep my finger off the left mouse button until I have actively made the decision to fire. I find this works.
Anyway, I had noticed my movements getting sharper, less precise etc. My team mates started getting the same thing. There were several friendly fire incidents and I shot a boomer out of instinct when I could have just pushed him away.
This all pointed to one thing: We were doing far more damage to each other than the infected were doing.
I think this is exactly what would happen in a real life scenario. You and three friends have assault rifles, you get fairly far but... say you hear a footfall behind you that you weren't expecting, or a noise startles you. You whirl around and pull the trigger with your gun pointing at the only thing in your field of view that's moving - your mate.
So yeah. I thought that was interesting.
I am determined to play more rounds on expert. It's really damn fun, if very frustrating. I think the Left 4 Dead 2 maps may have been designed with the higher difficulties in mind... but yes. I should be in bed. Work tomorrow.
And Borderlands! Borderlands is out tomorrow! Hopefully it won't be shit!
Left 4 Dead 2 demo impressions
It may have been delayed five times (count em) but the Left 4 Dead 2 demo is finally with us.
First things first, the big reason why I've grown somewhat weary of Left 4 Dead is the limited weapon selection. When all's said and done, there are only three decent weapons - the uzi, the M4 and the auto shotgun. The pump action shotgun is okay but a bit meh and the sniper rifle is totally useless in almost all circumstances.
Things start off well in Left 4 Dead 2.
There are three basic weapons:
1) Uzi
which behaves very like the Uzi in L4D1 but is a bit more spray 'n pray. The rate of fire is increased at the cost of accuracy.
2) Silenced machine pistol
This is much more accurate but less powerful, it's not rocket science :)
3) Pump action shotgun
As with most pump action shotguns (other than Doom and F.E.A.R) it's a bit shit.
What's nice about these weapons is you get lots of bang for your buck. You carry 700 rounds of ammunition for the machine pistols so you'll rarely find yourself running out of ammo.
Then the advanced weapons come along...
1) Ak 47
This has a 40 round magazine and is very powerful. It has a lovely clackety sound to it as well.
2) M16
Essentially the M4 from L4D1
3) SCAR
A good one, this. You get a 60 round mag but it's locked into three round bursts... makes things very interesting in the extended fire fights
4) Hunting rifle
Same as in L4D1. And it's still totally useless.
5) Sniper rifle
Aaah, now this is more like it. You get a 30 round mag and it's hyper accurate. You may not get the rapid fire capacity of the machine guns, but you hit with every shot. Very fun to play with.
6 & 7) Assault shotguns
There are 2 assault shotguns and I honestly can't tell the difference between them (other than how they look & sound) at this stage. I'll probably learn to appreciate them individually as time goes by.
8) The Magnum
There are standard pistols in the game but you have to chose between them and a melee weapon, which for me isn't much of a competition. The magnum is another matter, though. It's incredibly powerful and extremely accurate. You only get 8 rounds per mag, though... That or melee weapons? Hm...
There are other weapons but those are the ones I've played with so far.
As far as the melee weapons go - half of them are great. I've tried the Machetee (fantastic) the riot stick (a personal favourite) the frying pan (silly) and the electric guitar (very silly).
And, joy of joys, there's a new grenade. A grenade of Boomer Bile. Throw it at a bunch of infected or a tank or something and a load of infected will spawn and attack it. Fucking, fucking briliant.
Valve have really outdone themselves with the weapons... What also helps is-
Weapon pickups are frequent in L4D2 but ammo pickups are not. This means that, practically speaking, you'll either have to drop a briliant weapon for a less good one to maintain ammo - or keep an empty gun and hope like hell there's an ammo pickup soon.
You also don't get all the Tier 2 weapons at once... usually there are only one or two available.
What else can I say?
The new special infected are good - although the uncommon common are more fun I think - in the demo, you get zombie cops in riot gear. You have to knock them down and shoot them in the back where they have no body armour. Adds a very nice element to frantic fire fights.
The new music is very good - nice and rocky.
Having things in day time is no less scary, oddly.
The crescendo event in the demo is utterly amazing.
Dismembering zombies is hillarious. The game is now very bloody - and it's all the better for it. I now kind of get why Australia was having a hissy fit about L4D2 and not L4D1
So yes, I'm gushing slightly - but I do really, really like this game.
In the name of ballance, though, what don't I like?
1) The difficulty settings are STILL not quite right.
Advanced is still a bit too easy and Expert is made even harder, thanks to the crescendo events. I'll be interested to see how Realism mode fits in, though. I'd like to see Expert made slightly less hard and leave Realism to the masochists.
2) There aren't multiple routes through the level.
Well, that's a bit of a lie. There are several short cuts you can find and occasionally these will be blocked off. This isn't a massive problem but it would have been nice to have a bit more freeform gameplay.
3) It's not out until November 17th.
Dammit.
So basically, yes. I think it's a very worthy sequel to L4D1. Definitely worth a purchase :)
First things first, the big reason why I've grown somewhat weary of Left 4 Dead is the limited weapon selection. When all's said and done, there are only three decent weapons - the uzi, the M4 and the auto shotgun. The pump action shotgun is okay but a bit meh and the sniper rifle is totally useless in almost all circumstances.
Things start off well in Left 4 Dead 2.
There are three basic weapons:
1) Uzi
which behaves very like the Uzi in L4D1 but is a bit more spray 'n pray. The rate of fire is increased at the cost of accuracy.
2) Silenced machine pistol
This is much more accurate but less powerful, it's not rocket science :)
3) Pump action shotgun
As with most pump action shotguns (other than Doom and F.E.A.R) it's a bit shit.
What's nice about these weapons is you get lots of bang for your buck. You carry 700 rounds of ammunition for the machine pistols so you'll rarely find yourself running out of ammo.
Then the advanced weapons come along...
1) Ak 47
This has a 40 round magazine and is very powerful. It has a lovely clackety sound to it as well.
2) M16
Essentially the M4 from L4D1
3) SCAR
A good one, this. You get a 60 round mag but it's locked into three round bursts... makes things very interesting in the extended fire fights
4) Hunting rifle
Same as in L4D1. And it's still totally useless.
5) Sniper rifle
Aaah, now this is more like it. You get a 30 round mag and it's hyper accurate. You may not get the rapid fire capacity of the machine guns, but you hit with every shot. Very fun to play with.
6 & 7) Assault shotguns
There are 2 assault shotguns and I honestly can't tell the difference between them (other than how they look & sound) at this stage. I'll probably learn to appreciate them individually as time goes by.
8) The Magnum
There are standard pistols in the game but you have to chose between them and a melee weapon, which for me isn't much of a competition. The magnum is another matter, though. It's incredibly powerful and extremely accurate. You only get 8 rounds per mag, though... That or melee weapons? Hm...
There are other weapons but those are the ones I've played with so far.
As far as the melee weapons go - half of them are great. I've tried the Machetee (fantastic) the riot stick (a personal favourite) the frying pan (silly) and the electric guitar (very silly).
And, joy of joys, there's a new grenade. A grenade of Boomer Bile. Throw it at a bunch of infected or a tank or something and a load of infected will spawn and attack it. Fucking, fucking briliant.
Valve have really outdone themselves with the weapons... What also helps is-
Weapon pickups are frequent in L4D2 but ammo pickups are not. This means that, practically speaking, you'll either have to drop a briliant weapon for a less good one to maintain ammo - or keep an empty gun and hope like hell there's an ammo pickup soon.
You also don't get all the Tier 2 weapons at once... usually there are only one or two available.
What else can I say?
The new special infected are good - although the uncommon common are more fun I think - in the demo, you get zombie cops in riot gear. You have to knock them down and shoot them in the back where they have no body armour. Adds a very nice element to frantic fire fights.
The new music is very good - nice and rocky.
Having things in day time is no less scary, oddly.
The crescendo event in the demo is utterly amazing.
Dismembering zombies is hillarious. The game is now very bloody - and it's all the better for it. I now kind of get why Australia was having a hissy fit about L4D2 and not L4D1
So yes, I'm gushing slightly - but I do really, really like this game.
In the name of ballance, though, what don't I like?
1) The difficulty settings are STILL not quite right.
Advanced is still a bit too easy and Expert is made even harder, thanks to the crescendo events. I'll be interested to see how Realism mode fits in, though. I'd like to see Expert made slightly less hard and leave Realism to the masochists.
2) There aren't multiple routes through the level.
Well, that's a bit of a lie. There are several short cuts you can find and occasionally these will be blocked off. This isn't a massive problem but it would have been nice to have a bit more freeform gameplay.
3) It's not out until November 17th.
Dammit.
So basically, yes. I think it's a very worthy sequel to L4D1. Definitely worth a purchase :)
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
The left 4 dead 2 demo is delayed
So the Left 4 Dead 2 demo is delayed, it should have been out roughly 20 minutes ago and the internets are going into meltdown. People are not happy. I am one of them. Elliot, ony of my buddies, is also one of them. Here is a sample of our recent conversation:
Elliot: ARGHGHHGHGHGHGHGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Disposable: SALFKDHIO{GFIOFSAJIOGFDJIOPSDGFJ(P}SAED
Elliot: ARGHGHGH!
Disposable: |KJfdzhL:KJHJIOLGHJIOSUSVIO:JFOP{jOPadujop{sirufop{j io{fbuoprfivbop{}asifdnp{osabd
Elliot: BLALAALALLALALALALALGGAAHHHHHH!!!!
Disposable: JLIKJ IOE{VFU{IOSADJVNIONUASJOPRDVNJANRFVB{@OANISB }D)~ *+WHQBNE&(UMA(WRUBN£<_($E}N_JB(M)$%(NI)P@*$GHB£(WGVA
I know that everything will be fine in 20 minutes, or tomorrow, or whatever. It just amuses me when the internets go into meltdown over something as simple as this :)
User power. It breaks the internet.
EDIT:
The demo has been delayed until 6am tomorrow morning.
As one user said on the forum:
"Dear valve: AHHHHHHHHHHH! Sincerely, Me. PS. I still love you. Why do you hate me?"
Elliot: ARGHGHHGHGHGHGHGHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Disposable: SALFKDHIO{GFIOFSAJIOGFDJIOPSDGFJ(P}SAED
Elliot: ARGHGHGH!
Disposable: |KJfdzhL:KJHJIOLGHJIOSUSVIO:JFOP{jOPadujop{sirufop{j io{fbuoprfivbop{}asifdnp{osabd
Elliot: BLALAALALLALALALALALGGAAHHHHHH!!!!
Disposable: JLIKJ IOE{VFU{IOSADJVNIONUASJOPRDVNJANRFVB{@OANISB }D)~ *+WHQBNE&(UMA(WRUBN£<_($E}N_JB(M)$%(NI)P@*$GHB£(WGVA
I know that everything will be fine in 20 minutes, or tomorrow, or whatever. It just amuses me when the internets go into meltdown over something as simple as this :)
User power. It breaks the internet.
EDIT:
The demo has been delayed until 6am tomorrow morning.
As one user said on the forum:
"Dear valve: AHHHHHHHHHHH! Sincerely, Me. PS. I still love you. Why do you hate me?"
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Fantasy is shit
Brief Disclaimer:
I'm using the word "fantasy" to describe swords, orcs, magic, elves, epic quests etc. I am aware that some people out there describe this as "High fantasy" and use wikipedia's definition of fantasy as theirs. This definition, briefly, is "Anything with magic in it".
And as Dictionary.com defines magic as, amongst other things:
"Magic, necromancy, sorcery, witchcraft imply producing results through mysterious influences or unexplained powers"
That definition is fucking aweful because it can be argued to include the following:
Lord of the Rings (Gandalf's Staff)
Bioshock (the plasmids)
Star Wars (Jedi Powers)
The Chronicles of Riddick (Judi Dench's telepathy)
The New Battlestar Galactica (Roslin's visions of the future)
Crysis (The aliens and their Ice Ray)
Dawn of War (Psychic powers)
Half Life (portals)
The list is endless, and includes pretty much anything where something doesn't have a very definite scientific explanation. IE, Half Life 2 is a meld of science fiction (because we get an explanation for how the gravity gun works) and fantasy (because it has portals and we don't know how they work, so they're magical.)
One of the important things I learned during my english degree is: Genres are functional. They're descriptive. They're there so we can say that THIS work of art conforms to this, this and this criteria, therefore it's THIS. It's also important to note that works that have multiple features, or features that don't tie it down to a genre... aren't tied down. They remain genreless- which is very important for the progress and evolution of art.
But when the word "fantasy" can be used to describe litterally anything that doesn't take place in the world as we know it - with the modern neutonian physics laws etc... It ceases to be a genre becasue it includes everything from The Bible to Battlestar Galactica.
So I use the word Fantasy to describe "high fantasy" and anyone who sticks with Wikipedia's definition is welcome to it, but be aware that you're not actually describing anything when you use the word. You're just saying that it has some elements in it which aren't fully explainable scientifically.
Wow.
I said that would be a short disclaimer. I thought it would be much shorter than that.
Let's take a short break.
Watch this video of the most awesome man in the world:
Aaaaand we're back.
Right.
So I was playing the Dragon Age: Origins character creator demo and wondered why I hadn't come across a decent fantasy thing in the last... well. Ever.
Actually, that's a lie, The Witcher is fantastic but I'll get to that in a minute.
My thought process was roughly:
Fantasy seems to always boil down to
THE GOOD RACES:
Men
Elves
Dwarves
fighting
THE EVIL RACES:
Orks
Trolls
Dark Wizzards
You never get, for example, elves who betray the humans for power, or whatever, because that would be monumentally stupid... Why? becuase THE EVIL RACES only ever want destruction, there's no complexity to it.
And that got me thinking... Maybe what kills all fantasy isn't the incredibly cliched settings, characters etc. but it's the complete lack of complexity to the stories. Take Dragon Age: Origins. It describes a bunch of monks who turn evil and build an army and start attacking the good races. Why? They're evil and want destruction.
This inevitably boils down to a GOOD ARMY and a BAD ARMY scrapping over the earth and every character has a natural alliance, there is no room for ambiguity or neutrality. It's exactly the same in Lord of the Rings and pretty much every other fantasy game you can think of.
So why is The Witcher different? It's simple, the baddies all have genuine motivation and want something other than wiping all life out that doesn't agree with them. There are elf and dwarf extremists who are resorting to acts of terrorism to make sure they aren't wiped out by a society that considers them third class citizens. I would hapilly side with them. There are an order of knights who are trying to stop this group killing innocent people. I would hapilly side with them. Then there are the magority of the people who just want to be left alone and think that both sides are using questionable methods to achieve their goals. I would very hapily side with them.
This is slightly different for films, I should point out. Films can focus on a very small group of people who are genuinely morally complex (Boromir in Lord Of The Rings, for example) whereas games tend to involve much larger groups of people and the focus is more on stopping the enemy than the fairly insignificant adventures of a small group of people.
So yeah, in fantasy games, developers should really start putting some thought into the motivation for the baddies. Without complex baddies, the heroes can't be complex either. Take the characters from Battlestar Galactica - they'd all be useless in Lord Of The Rings because they'd all be concentrating on the morality of war when what they should be doing is building as big an army as possible because otherwise they'd just get stomped.
I'm using the word "fantasy" to describe swords, orcs, magic, elves, epic quests etc. I am aware that some people out there describe this as "High fantasy" and use wikipedia's definition of fantasy as theirs. This definition, briefly, is "Anything with magic in it".
And as Dictionary.com defines magic as, amongst other things:
"Magic, necromancy, sorcery, witchcraft imply producing results through mysterious influences or unexplained powers"
That definition is fucking aweful because it can be argued to include the following:
Lord of the Rings (Gandalf's Staff)
Bioshock (the plasmids)
Star Wars (Jedi Powers)
The Chronicles of Riddick (Judi Dench's telepathy)
The New Battlestar Galactica (Roslin's visions of the future)
Crysis (The aliens and their Ice Ray)
Dawn of War (Psychic powers)
Half Life (portals)
The list is endless, and includes pretty much anything where something doesn't have a very definite scientific explanation. IE, Half Life 2 is a meld of science fiction (because we get an explanation for how the gravity gun works) and fantasy (because it has portals and we don't know how they work, so they're magical.)
One of the important things I learned during my english degree is: Genres are functional. They're descriptive. They're there so we can say that THIS work of art conforms to this, this and this criteria, therefore it's THIS. It's also important to note that works that have multiple features, or features that don't tie it down to a genre... aren't tied down. They remain genreless- which is very important for the progress and evolution of art.
But when the word "fantasy" can be used to describe litterally anything that doesn't take place in the world as we know it - with the modern neutonian physics laws etc... It ceases to be a genre becasue it includes everything from The Bible to Battlestar Galactica.
So I use the word Fantasy to describe "high fantasy" and anyone who sticks with Wikipedia's definition is welcome to it, but be aware that you're not actually describing anything when you use the word. You're just saying that it has some elements in it which aren't fully explainable scientifically.
Wow.
I said that would be a short disclaimer. I thought it would be much shorter than that.
Let's take a short break.
Watch this video of the most awesome man in the world:
Aaaaand we're back.
Right.
So I was playing the Dragon Age: Origins character creator demo and wondered why I hadn't come across a decent fantasy thing in the last... well. Ever.
Actually, that's a lie, The Witcher is fantastic but I'll get to that in a minute.
My thought process was roughly:
Fantasy seems to always boil down to
THE GOOD RACES:
Men
Elves
Dwarves
fighting
THE EVIL RACES:
Orks
Trolls
Dark Wizzards
You never get, for example, elves who betray the humans for power, or whatever, because that would be monumentally stupid... Why? becuase THE EVIL RACES only ever want destruction, there's no complexity to it.
And that got me thinking... Maybe what kills all fantasy isn't the incredibly cliched settings, characters etc. but it's the complete lack of complexity to the stories. Take Dragon Age: Origins. It describes a bunch of monks who turn evil and build an army and start attacking the good races. Why? They're evil and want destruction.
This inevitably boils down to a GOOD ARMY and a BAD ARMY scrapping over the earth and every character has a natural alliance, there is no room for ambiguity or neutrality. It's exactly the same in Lord of the Rings and pretty much every other fantasy game you can think of.
So why is The Witcher different? It's simple, the baddies all have genuine motivation and want something other than wiping all life out that doesn't agree with them. There are elf and dwarf extremists who are resorting to acts of terrorism to make sure they aren't wiped out by a society that considers them third class citizens. I would hapilly side with them. There are an order of knights who are trying to stop this group killing innocent people. I would hapilly side with them. Then there are the magority of the people who just want to be left alone and think that both sides are using questionable methods to achieve their goals. I would very hapily side with them.
This is slightly different for films, I should point out. Films can focus on a very small group of people who are genuinely morally complex (Boromir in Lord Of The Rings, for example) whereas games tend to involve much larger groups of people and the focus is more on stopping the enemy than the fairly insignificant adventures of a small group of people.
So yeah, in fantasy games, developers should really start putting some thought into the motivation for the baddies. Without complex baddies, the heroes can't be complex either. Take the characters from Battlestar Galactica - they'd all be useless in Lord Of The Rings because they'd all be concentrating on the morality of war when what they should be doing is building as big an army as possible because otherwise they'd just get stomped.
Steam
I buy most of my games on Steam these days, to the point where I'll have lost quite a lot of money is Valve ever go out of business and the servers go offline.
Most of the time, this is because I love having all my games in one place, few DRM/compatability worries, cloud computing and (most importantly) not having to rely on a physical cd to play the damn game.
But I re-encountered something this week that I haven't seen in a while - pre-loading stuff. I'm pre-loading both Borderlands and the Left 4 Dead 2 demo currently.
I really like pre-loading - It's trying to make up for the fact that online distribution can be that little bit less immediate than buying the game from the high street. I also like it because Steam really doesn't need to provide the service - it just feels like one of those things done because Valve want to look after their customers :)
Most of the time, this is because I love having all my games in one place, few DRM/compatability worries, cloud computing and (most importantly) not having to rely on a physical cd to play the damn game.
But I re-encountered something this week that I haven't seen in a while - pre-loading stuff. I'm pre-loading both Borderlands and the Left 4 Dead 2 demo currently.
I really like pre-loading - It's trying to make up for the fact that online distribution can be that little bit less immediate than buying the game from the high street. I also like it because Steam really doesn't need to provide the service - it just feels like one of those things done because Valve want to look after their customers :)
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
November in Gaming
You know how, before a massive Tsunami, the sea retreats from the shore? That's what the games market feels like in the run up to November.
I do understand why big games companies choose to release games only in March and November and pretend the rest of the year doesn't exist - it's because statistically, these are the most popular months. Like most things in life, this makes sense as long as you don't have two brain cells to rub together creating the tiny static discharge of thought. For the purpose of this analogy, the execs who make these decisions don't have two brian cells to rub together.
But whatever, November is almost upon us. For me, this is kind of a relief. Apart from Batman, I have to go back to Febuary to find the last big budget game I was interested in which followed through on all it's promises and that was Dawn of War 2. This means I've been filling my time with crap like Section 8 and indie games.
Admittedly, I do love indie games - I've been getting really into them this year - but there are itches that indie games just can't scratch. So what do we have coming up in November?
Well, not Alpha Protocol. That was supposed to be coming out this month but Sega were dicks and didn't arrange the testing in time. When it got delayed, they looked at what else was coming in November and delayed it till the next financial year. How do I know this? I don't, but I know someone who works for Sega and he says this sort of thing is pretty much par for the course, they're dicks. I'm paraphrasing slightly.
We don't get Mass Effect 2, either. I'm not so worried by that one as, since being thoroughly disillusioned by ME 1 a few months ago, I've mentally written off ME 2 until further evidence presents itself. Like a combat model that isn't totally balls.
Not Splinter Cell Conviction, either. Although, thanks to a complete rebuild, we might at least see that game this century, even if we won't technically see it this decade.
But fuck all that, enough moaning about what we're not getting, what ARE we getting?
October 30th: Borderlands
For the longest time, I haven't known what to think about Borderlands. If it had come out a few months ago whilst I was still heavily into The Witcher, TF 2 and Left 4 Dead, I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought. From that point of view, the marketing scumbags have been quite clever in releasing it just ahead of the rest of the November A-Listers. It gets attention.
I'm cautiously hopeful for Borderlands. We haven't had a decent non-source engine shooter for a while and there are certain aspects of it that definitely do appeal to me. Whether it'll be any good or not is in the hands of the gods, though. The reviews are positive but that never really means anything.
November 6th: Dragon Age: Origins
After finding that I suddenly don't like Jade Empire, KOTOR and Mass Effect, you can imagine I'm extremely skeptical about Dragon Age. Particularly as I think fantasy settings are reserved (with certain exceptions) for developers with no imagination. Sadly, Dragon Age looks like it has the unexciting combat of Jade Empire and the plot of a bad Narnia book. I'm prepared to be proved totally wrong but seeing as this game is by Bioware, who are one of the golden boys of gaming, it'll take more than the inevitable glowing reviews to convince me.
November 10th: Modern Warfare 2
I've been trying not to think about this one as the original was one of my favourite games evarrr and sequals to my favourite games evarrr seem to always turn out shit. With this one, I'm just kind of hoping I'll wake up one day with it ready installed ony my compuer and I can just casually wander over and see if it's any good without building it up too much in my brains.
My main concern is that they'll spend too much time creating massive set pieces and getting you to do things like ride snow mobiles over ice floes rather than have you do what the original did so well - shoot lots and lots of people.
November 18th: Left 4 Dead 2
This one I'm happy to get worked up about as it's Valve, who rarely disappoint. We know exactly what Left 4 Dead 2 will be, so we can all get up an appropriate level of excitement. I'm expecting to get a reasonable amount of milage out of it as I've got 80 hours out of the original (and counting) and the sequel has more content :D
Although Valve seriously need to dump the source engine after this. Seriously. I know they've been updating it but it's five years old. Mind you, so's World of Warcraft and people are still playing that.
November 20th: Assassins Creed 2
Now, this one is good/bad. On the one hand, it looks like the first one but tweaked to remove the annoyances. This is a good thing. Maybe it'll have an actual ending this time.
But there are also things Ubisoft have been proudly showing off like Leonado Da Vinci's flying machine which just look a bit shite... I'm just hoping those things take a back seat to the Parkor and awesome freeflow combat. And that it has an ending. Seriously, Ubisoft.
I do understand why big games companies choose to release games only in March and November and pretend the rest of the year doesn't exist - it's because statistically, these are the most popular months. Like most things in life, this makes sense as long as you don't have two brain cells to rub together creating the tiny static discharge of thought. For the purpose of this analogy, the execs who make these decisions don't have two brian cells to rub together.
But whatever, November is almost upon us. For me, this is kind of a relief. Apart from Batman, I have to go back to Febuary to find the last big budget game I was interested in which followed through on all it's promises and that was Dawn of War 2. This means I've been filling my time with crap like Section 8 and indie games.
Admittedly, I do love indie games - I've been getting really into them this year - but there are itches that indie games just can't scratch. So what do we have coming up in November?
Well, not Alpha Protocol. That was supposed to be coming out this month but Sega were dicks and didn't arrange the testing in time. When it got delayed, they looked at what else was coming in November and delayed it till the next financial year. How do I know this? I don't, but I know someone who works for Sega and he says this sort of thing is pretty much par for the course, they're dicks. I'm paraphrasing slightly.
We don't get Mass Effect 2, either. I'm not so worried by that one as, since being thoroughly disillusioned by ME 1 a few months ago, I've mentally written off ME 2 until further evidence presents itself. Like a combat model that isn't totally balls.
Not Splinter Cell Conviction, either. Although, thanks to a complete rebuild, we might at least see that game this century, even if we won't technically see it this decade.
But fuck all that, enough moaning about what we're not getting, what ARE we getting?
October 30th: Borderlands
For the longest time, I haven't known what to think about Borderlands. If it had come out a few months ago whilst I was still heavily into The Witcher, TF 2 and Left 4 Dead, I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought. From that point of view, the marketing scumbags have been quite clever in releasing it just ahead of the rest of the November A-Listers. It gets attention.
I'm cautiously hopeful for Borderlands. We haven't had a decent non-source engine shooter for a while and there are certain aspects of it that definitely do appeal to me. Whether it'll be any good or not is in the hands of the gods, though. The reviews are positive but that never really means anything.
November 6th: Dragon Age: Origins
After finding that I suddenly don't like Jade Empire, KOTOR and Mass Effect, you can imagine I'm extremely skeptical about Dragon Age. Particularly as I think fantasy settings are reserved (with certain exceptions) for developers with no imagination. Sadly, Dragon Age looks like it has the unexciting combat of Jade Empire and the plot of a bad Narnia book. I'm prepared to be proved totally wrong but seeing as this game is by Bioware, who are one of the golden boys of gaming, it'll take more than the inevitable glowing reviews to convince me.
November 10th: Modern Warfare 2
I've been trying not to think about this one as the original was one of my favourite games evarrr and sequals to my favourite games evarrr seem to always turn out shit. With this one, I'm just kind of hoping I'll wake up one day with it ready installed ony my compuer and I can just casually wander over and see if it's any good without building it up too much in my brains.
My main concern is that they'll spend too much time creating massive set pieces and getting you to do things like ride snow mobiles over ice floes rather than have you do what the original did so well - shoot lots and lots of people.
November 18th: Left 4 Dead 2
This one I'm happy to get worked up about as it's Valve, who rarely disappoint. We know exactly what Left 4 Dead 2 will be, so we can all get up an appropriate level of excitement. I'm expecting to get a reasonable amount of milage out of it as I've got 80 hours out of the original (and counting) and the sequel has more content :D
Although Valve seriously need to dump the source engine after this. Seriously. I know they've been updating it but it's five years old. Mind you, so's World of Warcraft and people are still playing that.
November 20th: Assassins Creed 2
Now, this one is good/bad. On the one hand, it looks like the first one but tweaked to remove the annoyances. This is a good thing. Maybe it'll have an actual ending this time.
But there are also things Ubisoft have been proudly showing off like Leonado Da Vinci's flying machine which just look a bit shite... I'm just hoping those things take a back seat to the Parkor and awesome freeflow combat. And that it has an ending. Seriously, Ubisoft.
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