Mar 25 0 comments
PS3, culture

Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain

The bar has been raised.

There’s been a lot of discussion on Heavy Rain. It’s deserving of all the talk.

Heavy Rain proves that A) you can actually do movie style, down to earth drama in videogames, and that B) the videogame part of the equation is valuable.

I have often wondered why there are no adventure games where you would “solve problems” by making decisions and talking with people instead of hunting for suitable items. This is the way you usually solve problems in the real life and by extension, in movies. Heavy Rain proves that it’s possible. You can do meaningful human drama without any fantasy crutches. It’s still a story about a Hollywood-style serial killer, but I can see that Heavy Rain’s character-based drama could work with any type of drama you might expect from the movies. In itself, this is a major breakthrough for videogames.

Some have said that Heavy Rain could just do without the player controls, as it can feel like you’re just going through the motions of “controlling” the characters. First, this is false as the story can and does take different turns based on your actions and second, it’s all in your head. If you decide that this is something you’re not interested in, well, then changing the baby’s diaper or sitting at a table, depressed, are unlikely to provide you with anything you might enjoy. If you do buy into the drama and go under the skin of the lead characters, you’ll find a very, very engaging experience. I found the many tense scenes in Heavy Rain far more engaging, more exciting, more scary than anything I can recall from other games.

Going through the motions of controlling these often very mundane things the characters do, like turning door knobs, brushing your teeth, deciding to take another drink, and so on, really makes you relate to the characters and immerse (yes, there’s that word) yourself in the story. This makes the admittedly very barebones, if competently told, Hollywood story much more interesting than what it would be, seen as a movie.

Also the whole notion of “movie-like” games has been now validated. Done properly, cinematography rules work in a game context. No other game has taken these nearly as close to heart as Heavy Rain, and it’s much better for it. Lots of points for the courage to throw videogame plot exposition conventions out of the window, as well. The story often cuts to a new scene without lingering and lets the audience fill in the blanks. It all feels very natural.

Heavy Rain is one of the very few games I would call mature. Can I please have more? I am only worried that we have to wait until Quantic Dream’s next game before we see the envelope pushed even further. I hope that the sales convince publishers that more mature games for increasingly mature audiences are warranted.

Mar 24 0 comments
PSP

Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny

Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny

Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny

Fighting games on handheld consoles are something of a weird combination. Obviously the big problem is that unless there happens to be a PSP-player with the same game in the same room (and that room isn’t an airline cabin), I will be playing against the computer. Playing fighters against the computer is never ideal, and in many cases it can downright spoil the game due to cheap AI.

Yet I’ve put more hours into Tekken: Dark Resurrection (warning: clumsy and hilarious Flash site) and now Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny than their big-screen incarnations, much as I love Soul Calibur IV. Leaving out long flights, what makes me come back to these games?

I think it’s a combination of very quick, very short games which keeps me distracted when I’m not up for a more involved game and the character creation mode, shared by both of these PSP fighters. I spend probably more time in character creation than actually fighting. It’s a creative challenge, really – can I make this character look better just by changing the colors of his equipment? Can I make this hair work? I realize it’s dress-up, playing with dolls, really. In this PSP version, the character creation does not affect the way the character plays, so you can try out different looks without crippling your game, which was a problem in Soul Calibur IV.

It helps that Soul Calibur is really an excellent game. I’ve found several favorite characters in each instalment of the series, and the way how differently the characters play really keeps it fresh. The PSP version works just as well as the big-screen versions and I actually find the mechanics somewhat improved from Soul Calibur IV (I couldn’t tell how, exactly, they just feel better). Also, no ridiculous Star Wars characters this time around. Kratos from God Of War series is a very good fit in the character roster, even if he feels a bit cheap.

Mar 20 0 comments
PC

Mount & Blade

Mount & Blade

Mount & Blade

I only got to know Mount & Blade when it was on sale on Impulse recently. What a fresh experience!

This is something you can only do on a PC. Having created a character, you find yourself sitting on a horse in a wide, green world with a blade in your hand. It’s the beginning of the last millennia or thereabouts. Off you go. There is no handholding save for a training field where you’re explained the controls. Very quickly you’ll find yourself with a warband. I felt like Xena the Warrior Princess, charging with my men into the sunset.

It is a roleplaying game in a very true sense, even though there is very little prescribed story. Everything that happens is dynamic. Even though the quests you’re given quickly begin to repeat themselves, you’re constantly thinking about your place in the world and the various factions. You’re trying to amass wealth, men and influence. The men you hire often begin to complain about each other to you and you need to play judge in their quarrels.

But it all comes back to the mount, and the blade. The thing that keeps you on edge is the thrill of mounted combat. This is an experience I haven’t got anywhere else. Because of its realism, you need to be very mindful of all the opponents, which is no easy task in massed melee with hundreds of combatants. You pick a target a suitable distance off, enough for you to get to a good speed, line up your enemy, draw your sword (or bow, or lance, or large blunt object) and head towards him, keeping an eye on your escape vector – you wouldn’t want to stop in the middle of a group of enemies. And then you turn around and head back. It makes each strike a very involved, calculated affair, somewhat like a turnbased strategy game, except in realtime and heated combat. It’s something of a physics game, really, where you’re trying to apply as much mass onto the tip of your blade as you can, meeting your foe at precisely the apex.

When my mount was shot from below me for the first time, I became absolutely terrified. It was horrible to be on foot in the middle of these fifty-odd mounted fighters. I was quickly overwhelmed and imprisoned. (I managed to escape some days later.)

The base game looks rather pedestrian, but runs well even on a laptop. It is easily expanded and enhanced with free mods. I recommend the colorful textures pack.

Feb 21 0 comments
PC

Shadowgrounds

Shadowgrounds

Shadowgrounds

Oh Steam, you are good to me. Most of the time, I forget I’m playing on a PC. Until you refuse to go into offline mode or some such nonsense. But you bring me cheap games and keep them updated and available without fishing for DVDs.

On this week? Frozenbyte’s Shadowgrounds (2005) and its sequel, Shadowgrounds Survivor (2007). They’re great fun for a level at a time, although the delightfully old school, top down alien massacre gets old in long sessions. In many ways, it feels like it’s Doom 3, viewed from the top. (This is a good thing.) The character design and writing can be cringe-worthy, but you take it in stride – it actually adds to the whole old school charm it has.

Old school it may be, but it looks really nice technically and plays smoothly. The action is very well paced, as the player can pretty much control how directly he wants to tackle the levels. Exploration is always rewarded, but always a risk, as well. You’re getting new toys all the time and deciding how to spend your weapon upgrade points adds some needed mid-term goals.

It’s a refreshing game, something I think it would’ve been fun to develop. We need more unpretentious, unapologetically fun titles like this.

Jan 21 0 comments
Freeware, PC

New PC playgrounds

Crysis

Crysis

My four year old graphics card died yesterday. I proceeded to pick up the cheapest “gaming card” I could get off the shelf, which is what I’ve always done. (Tom’s Hardware consulting.) That meant an Nvidia Geforce 250GS at 130€. It’s my first GPU which needs a separate power supply.

Not a PC hardware issue without complications, but this was a very smooth upgrade nonetheless. I didn’t even have to install any drivers as I was already using a GPU from the same family. For some obscure reason, the upgrade did cause my external HDD to disappear. I had to disable Firewire in the Windows device manager for the thing to come up again. Or maybe it was reassigning all the drive letters after C: that did the trick. Don’t ask me why, I don’t even care. Lucky that I don’t need Firewire for anything.

All other components being equal, including the ageing AM2 socketed Athlon 64 X2 processor, the new GPU really breathed life on my PC. I dug out a bunch of games I haven’t been able to properly appreciate until now.

Crysis runs smoothly on medium settings and looks gorgeous. I played it some ways with my old setup, but it was ugly and painful. I am going to check out the recently released Crysis total conversion mod based on the Battletech universe, Mechwarrior Living Legends. Speaking of which, we’re still waiting for the free release of Mechwarrior 4.

Empire Total War now runs enjoyably. It seems more of a processor-hog than Crysis, but it’s still nice-looking and entirely playable.

I am going to re-install Need For Speed Undercover, it always struck me as something I’d like to play more of and the added eye-candy is probably all the excuse I need.

I am looking forward to enjoying more of Company Of Heroes, now with higher settings. It already looked good, I expect it to look phenomenal now, despite being a rather old title by now.

Jan 01 0 comments
DS, PC, PS3, PSP, XBLA, Xbox 360, blog, culture, miniatures, tabletop games

The best of 2009

My 10 best games of 2009

My 10 best games of 2009

For the most of 2009 I spent my gaming time playing games from 2008 – Far Cry 2, Fable II, Rock Band 2, lots of cheap PSP & DS titles, Company Of Heroes, Dawn Of War (the first one) – but I thought it could be fun to put together a list of what was the best 2009 had to offer. For future reference, see.

I have not played many of the big hitters of 2009 so there’s bound to be holes, but these days, gaming is too big a pastime for one man to wholly take in with his free time (and income). Major omissions include Halo: ODST, Modern Warfare 2, Resident Evil 5 and Dragon Age: Origins, to name a few.

My ten best games of 2009:

  1. Space Hulk (board game)
  2. Batman: Arkham Asylum. I haven’t written about Rocksteady’s phenomenal take on Batman (because I’ve been too busy playing it), but it ranks as one of my all-time favorite games. Play it.
  3. Demon’s Souls
  4. GTA Chinatown Wars (DS)
  5. Shadow Complex
  6. Torchlight. I’ve been playing this for most of the holidays, it’s crazy good. Too bad about the lack of variety and the still missing multiplayer.
  7. Killzone 2
  8. Plants Vs Zombies. This Popcap title stole a ridiculous amount of time this year. Probably the best value for money all year.
  9. Street Fighter IV
  10. Rock Band Unplugged

I’m surprised by how many “small” games there are – mobile games and cheap PC games. Remarkably, the only one I was looking forward to before it hit was Killzone 2, the rest of these have been more or less very happy surprises.

Dec 23 2 comments
PS3

Demon’s Souls

Demon's Souls

Demon's Souls

I picked up Demon’s Souls for the PlayStation 3 from the friendly guys over at GameStop Santa Monica while visiting LA a month ago. It’s the only game I was looking forward to import, because I reckon it’ll be a while before it sees a European release, if ever. I have since put in more time into it than with many games I’m already done with (20+ hours), and I have barely scratched the surface.

Demon’s Souls is a third person action roleplaying game. You portray a brave warrior who wonders into a demon-infested land and attempts to purge it. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Nethack and other roguelikes in its uncompromising handling of the player and the need to very carefully tread a little bit further into the darkness on subsequent goes, after you’ve died quickly and messily upon stepping into something you’re not familiar with. I am really surprised at how well it’s been received, considering that it really goes out of its way to shove off newcomers.

In addition to Nethack, it reminds me of the phenomenal original Xbox title Otogi, although it isn’t as beautiful or over the top. There’s the structure of exploring new monster-inhabited lands and revisiting them to uncover secrets and the variety of foes and play styles you need to explore to be victorious. This is not surprising considering that they’re both From Software titles.

The game is all about making you work for it. Most likely you will die upon finding something new. When you die, you respawn at the beginning of the level as a phantom with only half of your health bar. You lose all your accumulated souls – combined experience points and currency, gained by slaying demons – upon death. If you manage to reach your bloodstain before dying again, in your weakened state, you’ll regain the souls you lost. You only get your body and your full health bar back upon vanquishing a greater demon boss. The outcome is that you spend the majority of your game as a phantom. If you do manage to play with your body intact, another player can invade your game and kill you, taking your souls!

The whole online aspect of the game is draconian, utterly foreign in how hard it is to understand how it works. Under certain circumstances, you can invite other players into your game to help you out. Under other circumstances, you can invade the games of others to hunt them down. You can also leave messages to other players to help them out in their games, warning them of traps and notifying them of treasures… or leading them astray with lies. The initially most intriguing aspect is touching the bloodstains of other players, which then plays back their last seconds before their death as ghostly apparitions in your world.

Despite bracing myself for a challenge, I was initially frustrated with the game, because over twelve hours, I just couldn’t make progress beyond level 1-2. I died something like 50-100 times. I begun to wonder that either this is way too hardcore for me or I’m doing something really wrong. It turned out I shouldn’t have picked the character class of Knight I initially went with, foolishly thinking it would be a safe, straightforward choice. I read some FAQs and message boards and discovered the Royal class, dubbed the “unofficial ‘easy’ mode”. This is so true I can’t emphasize it enough. After restarting as a Royal, I breezed through the first three levels in 90 minutes, dying only twice. (This is because he has a very useful magic attack and a ring to regenerate magic points with.)

Very soon after that, things turned hard again. You need to understand that the game’s five worlds are not supposed to be tackled linearly. You dip your feet into 3-1, discover that it kills you within a minute, and try 4-1 on for a size. You discover some great loot there, barely hanging onto your life, and figure out a way to take on 3-1 with your newfound abilities. It continues to go back and forth like that – you wander into the unknown, find something new, and think of a way it could help you elsewhere. Loot has never felt so good as with Demon’s Souls.

Unforgiving, uncompromising, a harsh lover; this is the most unique game on the PlayStation 3, and right up there with Uncharted on the (short) list of reasons to get a PS3 instead of an Xbox 360.

Dec 17 0 comments
Uncategorized

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

Here’s a sequel I did not expect to see. I really liked the original and I’ve been meaning to go back to it.

It’s great to see that Eidos and Io are ready to go at it again, despite the somewhat lukewarm reception of the original game. We’ll see if they can polish the gameplay and take the narrative even further.

Dec 01 0 comments
DS

Bangai-O Spirits

I could not finish the tutorial of Treasure’s puzzle shooter Bangai-O Spirits without a trip down to GameFAQs.

This is a brutal game. If you do not succeed at a level, you typically die within a couple of seconds, the screen so full of missile fire that your DS chugs along at a sad framerate. Then you hit retry and change one or more of your four weapons to try a new loadout. You take a deep breath and go in again. There are 160 levels and a level editor. You can transfer levels by recording them as music you can play back to another DS’s microphone.

You are a giant robot, although very tiny on the screen, and make your way through small levels of ingenious death traps, wielding plasma missiles and power swords and baseball bats and bouncing balls of death. Ninja robots and buildings fall in your two-dimensional barrage. Then a screen-sized enemy robot closes in and swipes the whole screen in the span of perhaps half a second, whacking you to within an inch of your life. You freeze time and bombard it with plasma missiles, closing in to bounce now stationary enemies at it with your baseball bat. It’s not enough, and you die, and the game laughs at you.

I picked this now rare game up on the same trip to the US west coast as Demon’s Souls (which is pretty much sublime and worth a post in the near future, once I’m in a little deeper). Surely that’s enough self-punishment to buy me some good karma down the road.

Oct 29 6 comments
tabletop games

Space Hulk

Space Hulk - Space Marine Terminator with heavy flamer

Space Hulk - Space Marine Terminator with heavy flamer

I got the gorgeous 20th anniversary release of the Games Workshop classic Space Hulk. The first edition was a huge influence on my life-long interest in gaming, along with the one book I miss more than any other – Rogue Trader. I have now played five games of it and have to wonder why GW ever let it go out of print.

The rules are reset to their original format, although with the addition of the extra rules for new weapons and units (librarians, assault cannons, and so forth). Also from the first edition returns the hourglass, used to measure how much time the Space Marine player has to make his moves. I was worried whether the rules would hold up after all this time and plenty of evolution in board gaming. They hold up, going as far as making me wonder why did we let our games get as complex as they are these days. It may be a simple game, but it has plenty of depth and just the right amount of tactical thinking and risk. Games tend to be full of very close calls and epic moments of heroism and desperation, often just a single turn apart.

The rules are a curious mix of survival horror themed action gaming and unforgiving tactical thinking. The models can’t bypass each other on the tight corridors of the Space Hulk and the Terminators are so clumsy that turning around takes up half of their turn. Often you’ll need to knowingly leave your side or rear open to receive a bigger threat, or willingly sacrifice a Terminator to make way for the more important members of the squad. On the alien Genestealer player’s side, time is not a factor aside from usually playing into his claws. The Genestealer tactics are straightforward, but no less exciting for it. Playing as the Marines could be seen as the “hard” or “veteran” mode compared to the relatively easygoing Stealers, who have both numbers and time on their side.

The components are the best quality I’ve seen to date, absolutely wiping the floor with the competition. The cardboard is very heavy, debossed in a cool way to highlight details. The miniatures are some of the best I’ve seen in any context, although their artistic ambition sometimes gets in the way of actually playing the game, when the miniatures fall over each other in the heat of battle, with the Space Marine player sweating under his time limit. A few counters (which there are plenty of spares of, mind) have lost their topmost layer, being the actual printed information. It’s nothing a dab of glue won’t fix.

It’s still some of the most intense, short games (under an hour) you can find. The two-player setup can get old – at the office it would be nice to be able to play three or four way games – but on the other hand it really keeps things pure and simple, heightening the tension. It was an expensive game at 80€/$100, but a game purchase I am more happy with than anything else I can think of. Especially considering that the same amount of Space Marine Terminators alone would set you back more than the cover price for the whole box, if bought separately.