I.Eat.Games.

Skyrim Reviewed

2011-11-10T05:34:00.000-08:00

It wasn’t until I ascended the frigid 7000 steps of the Throat of the World and made my way to the doorstep of High Hrothgar that I finally took a moment for myself. I stood there, gazing over the region atop the tallest mountain in the land thinking of my travels. I’d already ventured through several of the best dungeons Bethesda has ever made, looted relics from antiquated treasure chests, fiercely battled dragons and even visited a freezing Norse castle. But it wasn’t until this particular moment where from my rugged snowy perspective it hit me that Skyrim is a game that takes its time to show you all of it's riches. It’s an utterly fantastic experience that’s marred by only a few missteps.

A Gorgeously Crafted World

Skyrim is the best looking open world game I’ve ever played on a console, mostly due to the care Bethesda paid to the minute details--it’s mind numbing! Look closely you’ll find a frosty haze blowing over the ridged mountains, individual branches dancing in the wind and even skeletons bursting into pieces going clickety-clack all over the ground. One of my personal favorites? The small crystals that form around your equipment--complete with a chilly crackling sound--as ice spells are cast your way.

The world of Skyrim breaths and seems to organically live an unscripted life and things will go on despite your presence. As I roamed around I always felt that something great was happening both in front and behind me. It made me believe that I could turn a corner and anything could happen.

The larger, more grander things are great too. Not once did I find two similar looking rock formations. The mountain ranges are particularly jaw-dropping, in fact I bet I could identify most of them by their unique formations. All the major cities have their own look and feel about them, supporting diverse cultures within those walls. I got a sense that some cities are older than others, and built from different regional materials by different masters. The variety and realism helps build an identity for each location, and it works.

With as much attention as Bethesda paid to the details I was surprised to find tracks weren’t left in the snow. There were no fancy water effect on the screen, for instance walking under a waterfall left no drips and rain seems to never hit me. A few rare textures looked a bit too smeared. In some of the ice caves I found highly pixelated wall textures.

A screenshot of some of the rough and rarely found textures in Skyrim (Xbox 360, captured with my iPhone 4S).

Character models moved away from Oblivion’s caricature-esque aesthetic and are now slightly more realistic. Generally they’re good enough and certainly not ugly, but in some cases the character models looked a little generic. In fact in some cases they looked like they might belong in a Gothic game instead of The Elder Scrolls game. Thankfully there is enough diversity that rarely did I find the same two people walking around (though I did scratch my head that the exact same kids seem to be running around the cities).

Honestly these things hardly matter as Skyrim is just so good looking and these minor faults are easy to overlook.

The Norse Gods Cheer You On

Without giving away too much, Skyrim opens up at a higher pace than previous Elder Scrolls games. I didn't think it was particularly great but it’s a fairly fun start . The scripted sequences look a little dated. NPC movement is distractingly stiff and they still awkwardly turn on a dime. It hardly matters though because once the game opened up, I quickly forgot all about that.

The leveling process in Skyrim is more enjoyable and rewarding than Oblivion’s, and that is thanks in part to the new perk system borrowed from Fallout 3. As I progressed and refined my skills, I felt markedly more capable and powerful. Enemies who easily overpowered me early on in the game were killed with one shout as I neared the end of the game. One of my favorite moments when leveling up is the sounds of the Norse cheering you on as you progress.

The autosave system now utilizes 3 slots, just in case you get yourself into a bind. It’s a good system too as it saves after sleeping, waiting, loading, fast-travels and immediately after you slay a dragon. Still I highly recommend creating 5 of your own save slots and rotating through those as well. I ran into a particularly nasty bug that halted my progression through the main quest line. After contacting Bethesda I was informed that this was a known issue and a patch was on the way. That (day-1) patch is now available and has indeed addressed the issue--but beware.

Some random gameplay notes: It’s never disclosed in the manual or the tutorial but the player can pick up items by pressing and holding the A or X button. The lockpicking mechanic is just like the one found in Fallout 3, and investing in perks is actually worthwhile. There are books laying around everywhere and some do a good job of foreshadow encounters you may have and others bump up your skill level. The kill-cam from Fallout 3 has made it’s way into the game and yes it still can miss some of the action. There are treasure maps too, much like the ones found in Red Dead Redemption that even include crude draws leading to hidden booty. Gone are the item caps and vendor’s now have money pools that refresh every 24 hours. The amount seems to be directly tied to the player’s level.

Underneath the sheen of new technology and a revamped interface, I could still feel Skyrim’s roots deeply tied to Oblivion. Heavy melee attacks still feel powerfully slow like they could crush a truck. Spell casting feels even more mystical thanks to new animations and dual-wielding. Archery is now a viable option and blocking melee attack still feels you are in an automobile accident. So much fun with so many ways to kill.

Though the overall experience has been streamlined, and improvements have been made across the board, I don’t think Skyrim is going to bring in many new players to the series. The world is about the same size as Oblivion but it’s now more densely packed with an (almost) overwhelming amount of things to do.

Found this guy sleeping under his bed. Must have heard a dragon! (Xbox 360, captured with my iPhone 4S)

A New Way To Interface

Let’s just get this out of the way--functionally the new mapping system is leagues above the one found in Oblivion! It does everything it should, and even marks dungeons you’ve already cleared so there’s no confusion. Imagine Google Maps filled with dragons and castles.

The rest of the interface has also been completely overhauled to make things more accessible. Although it works fairly well and the simplicity grew on me it’s not as great as I hoped. For example, early on in the game I had a hard time determining which weapons were single-handed versus double-handed because it isn’t not specified anywhere in the interface. I eventually realized one-handed weapons are displayed vertically and two-handed weapons diagonally.

The new favorites system is well done as it pauses the action to allow quick access to your custom built list. Access favorites by pressing either up or down on the D-Pad. It’s a waste that both buttons do the same thing where as left and right can be bound to different items or abilities.

The quest log has been greatly improved as main quests and larger side-quests are clearly displayed, noted and easily viewable including bullet-points for specific tasks. The smaller quests--like item deliveries or bandit contracts--are all grouped into one smaller area and also displayed as bullet-point. No more scrolling!

Floating at a table, drinking some mead...like you do. (Xbox 360, captured with my iPhone 4S)

Skyrim is in dire need of a character page. Not just so we can marvel at how awesome our character looks in our hard-to-obtain loot (like in Oblivion) but so we can make sure every item slot is filled. I know it sounds nuts but there were a few times where I found myself bootless or shirtless because a quest stripped me of my clothes or I just plain forgot to equip. Unfortunately the game lacks the ability to directly compare two inventory items. Instead Skyrim only focused against what I was wearing.

I think the ability to save weapon/armor sets would be helpful. One of the characters I played was a Mage/Thief hybrid. During various missions I was required to use their specialty garb and re-equiping head to toe was a drag.

In terms of Guild progression and standings, Oblivion made it easy by placing all the relevant information on one page. It was quick, concise and I knew my ranking in each guild. I was stunned to see Skyrim has nothing of the sort! At times I found myself confused as to where I stood within each faction because they have endless contracts to acquire. I missed collecting accolades like trophies.

Quest markers have been improved. The player can now see the objective marker through walls and in some cases it helped me find those nasty, little, obscure quest items. There is a chance some players might find this less challenging and it could diminishes those serendipitous moments.

Overall I do wish the game exposed more of the low-level character stuff. Experience points and money are often awarded for completing quests but only money is ever shown to the player. Details regarding experience points are nowhere to be found in the Skill menu where the bulk of your information resides. There is a meter to show one’s progression within a level so you can get an idea where you stand, but there are no numbers associated with it. I found myself wanting more granularity with character statistics.

Sure the new interface is more functional--particularly the map--but gone is the ability to sort items in your inventory. Oblivion’s interface was overflowing with character with it’s sliding metal latches and parchment-looking backgrounds. Unfortunately I found Skyrim’s new minimalistic interface not only missing some much needed features, but also lacking personality. What a stark contrast from the beautiful world of Skyrim--boring and lifeless.

New Dungeons, New Puzzles and Some Repeating

One of the best things about Skyrim is wonderful dungeon design. All are excitingly unique, interesting to explore, filled with more puzzles and traps, and bubbling over with atmosphere. It’s all there! The crackling of the rocky walls dirt particles sprinkled through beams of sunlight dusting over you and the dreary drip of water in the background. These dungeons are a testamite to Bethesda’s hard work to improve the dungeon exploring experience.

I believe the addition of more traps was a wise move because I found myself walking more slowly through the dungeons, and I suspect this was intentional in design. One of my favorite things about the new designs is that all the dungeons I visited now do a good job of looping the player back to the entrance. Rigged treasure chests now have visible traps giving the player the opportunity to disarm using the lockpicking skill. The puzzle elements are a nice touch but they lack variety to keep it interesting. Remember the demo that we’ve all seen of the claw and the door puzzle? Well unfortunately it’s recycled many many times. Does it really matter though? Incorporating puzzles is still a welcome change.

Big Dragons And Shouting It Out

Yes these are literal shouts. Once you learn the words you obtain some cool and use abilities. Shouts can be unlocked using the souls of dragons and can then be leveled up 3 times. It’s a great addition to the game. I constantly used them regardless of my character class. I found no overwhelmingly powerful shout so I bounced around using various ones.

The Dragons in the Skyrim add a wonderful and exciting variable to those who roam the region. To me they never once felt scripted or predictable. Watching a dragon off in the distance swoop down and turn the plains into his playground was astonishingly cool. At one point in the game I was attacked by a dragon in one of the larger cities and complete chaos ensued. Guards quickly took out their bows and civilians ran for cover, but when all was said and done several people were fried to a crisp. It was just so cool to see that kind of interaction on an AI level, and it reminded me of the fun I use to have with Doom. Afterward, once the dragon was slain, NPCs gathered around the Dragon carcase and remarked how in all their years they’d never seen such a thing.

An interesting note is the Dragons’ skeletons remain persistent to the world, so even after you’ve completely looted their bodies the bones remain forever. It’s cool in theory but it did eventually lead to some silly situations. In one instance, every time I entered a city where I killed a dragon the body would randomly fall from the sky and land in different parts of town. This happened constantly and not a single NPC would take notice of it after the initial slaying. Another time a dragon died right in the middle of town and NPCs would walk right through the colossal skeleton.

The Dragon who's bones kept falling from the Sky in Whiterun. (Xbox 360, captured with my iPhone 4S)

There were moments when I heard a really loud roar over my head and as I looked up a dragon was swooping down for me--it was intense! I found the dragons a thrill to fight, particularly near the beginning of the game but once I reached a higher level (around level 30) they hardly posed a threat. Regardless of this and a few bugs these immense flying beast were a sight to behold and add a great element of surprise to the fighting.

Jobs, Horses, Sidekicks and Traveling

There is more to do in Skyrim than in previous Elderscrolls games. Dungeons and mountain sides are more abundant with ore which needs to be collected with a pickaxe. You can then head back to town and smelt the ore to make bars for crating weapons, armor and jewelry. You can chop wood, enchant, cook, finally put leather hides to good use and much more.

The horse riding experience is so much better as the animals are much much easier to control. Horses feel like they belong in the world and really get you around quickly. The controls don’t feel as authentic as the ones found in Red Dead Redemption, but they are close. I do wish there was a way to set the horses to a passive mode because yes my friends they attack enemies. Too many times I found myself scrambling to save my horses from certain death thus distracting me from the real fight. A few times my horse even attacked a dragon (hilarious!) And boy does this game need the ability to whistle for your horse--but at least they can swim now!

Sidekicks act as mules like in Fallout 3 and will automatically use the better, more applicable equipment that they carry. There were a few moments where my sidekick got in the way, and what made it frustrating is the fact that they were unmovable--who’s the Dragonborn here?! Also fair warning to horse riders, sidekicks do not hop along for the ride and are rather slow to follow. They often get stuck on trees and such.

Another travel option is the carriage. For a few gold pieces you can travel to any city in Skyrim, even if you’ve not visited it yet. Though I didn't use the carriage at all in my initial playthrough, I found myself using it a lot in my second.

Conclusion

Jeremy Soule provides an amazing aural landscape with his compositions. When the action picks up the deep bombastic tones of the Norse gods take over. Then when the action subsides it subtly flows over to a winter daydream. I know it sounds cheesy to say but I felt like the score spun it's own tale. I have no doubt this score will leave it’s mark on players much like the one in Oblivion. It truly is it’s own character in the game.

With Skyrim it’s clear to me that Bethesda has managed to bring everything together more cohesively than any of their previous games. The graphics are phenomenal, the sounds brought me farther into the experience, the combat is balanced and a ton of fun and the level progression is rewarding. I feel like this is the Elder Scrolls game we’ve always wanted Bethesda to make.

Rage Reviewed

2011-10-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about id Software is how self-aware they are about their place in the industry. They fully realize their ability to craft graphically stunning worlds is unmatched, and they're even hip to how critics feel about their ability to tell stories--or the lack thereof--and it seemingly doesn’t concern them. This has been id Softwares modus operandi since Wolfenstein, all the way up to Doom 3. And hey, I thought Doom 3 was a lot of fun. It definitely provided enough entertainment for my $50, but that game was also released 7 years ago. The video game landscape--along with my personal preferences--has changed quite a bit. Though I love love LOVE me a gorgeous looking game, these days I need a little more than that. My praise for the creative spirit in a video game has risen over that of technical execution, and this is just one of the many reasons why I didn't fall in love with Rage.

But before we get into it, let's get some specifics out of the way. I played Rage on the Playstation 3 (this also means I have no idea how well the game performs on the PC or Xbox 360). There was an 8GB mandatory installation that took 18 minutes and 43 seconds to complete. My total game time came out to be 13 hours and 15 minutes, and that’s with completing most side-missions. According to my TV the game was running at 720P and--unfortunately, due to some tearing--it appears V-Sync has been disabled.

A MUSEUM OF RAGE--YOU CAN LOOK BUT NOT TOUCH

First and foremost, Rage--running at its much touted 60 frames per second--is simply glorious to watch in action. It is one of, if not, the most impressive graphical achievement in console gaming today. Mind you I do say that with slight hesitation because it’s not flawless. There were some rare moments of screen tearing, and this normally happened to me during highly intense combat sequences. But the single biggest issue is that some fairly egregious texture pop-in takes place throughout the entire game, and it can be really distracting too! Despite these issues, Rage still had many moments were it smacked me across the face with something stunning and, for at least a few moments, I had to stop to take it all in.

AN "OPEN" WORLD THAT'S CLOSED FOR BUSINESS

Technically speaking Rage is an open-world game, and indeed it allowed me to explore at my leisure, there just seemed to be little point to it. The world is surprisingly small, and...barren (hoho). The few, narrow roads that line the landscape come across as nothing more than hallways that led me to my next destination. Only having a few smallish open areas for arena-type battles weren't enough to make up for that fact either. There was no sense of discovery for me, and in a world that looks this good that's criminal. It's SO disappointing!

The encounters with patrolling bandits did kept things interesting for a few hours but after a while the whole process ran a little long in the tooth. Eventually I found myself driving around these encounters to avoid all vehicle combat because it just wasn't rewarding enough. There are no experience points to be earn by killing them, the bandit bounties are marginally worthwhile, and frankly these encounters are just not as fun as the first-person segments--why not move on, right?

One things that was immediately apparent early on was the wonderful design of the landscape. Unfortunately the rocky structures and hills are littered with invisible walls. Perhaps I’ve played too much Fallout New Vegas, but I really wanted to explore those magnificent looking mountains to see if I could find a random cave--not happening.

Included in the game is a mini-map to help you get around the wasteland, and it’s a big help too. Whenever a new mission is acquired a marker will pointing you in the right direction, but what would have been even more helpful is if there was an overworld map too. If you’re like me and want something like that then you’ll have to go to the manual because it’s located there--what?

SOLID GAMEPLAY MECHANICS GO BOOM

The first time I used ironsight with one of the Rage weapons it became immediately clear that the shooting would feel solid. Guns in this game, like no other, appear to have a real weight to them with just the right amount of kick. There are not a ton of weapons (a la Borderlands), but I found the arsenal to be interesting and large enough to kill whatever crossed me path. The Wingstick was, without a doubt, the most fun to use in combat. I was always sure to carry a ton of them with me, because it was such a blast to play with. Later on in the game you unlock the ability to make an Advanced Wingstick, with the ability to hit multiple enemies. Yes, loved this, more of it please!

Each weapon has 4 possible ammo types, all fairly unique and cool looking when fired. There are minor upgrades (think laser sights, additional damage, etc) to purchase for weapons from a local vendors, but they're typical. Unfortunately Engineering only allows you to craft ammo and not parts for the weapons themselves, so you're essentially stuck with the same weapons throughout the entire game (save one, and that's found near the end).

A few hours into the game I was offered the option to choose a specific type of wardrobe (or class). The first options was a Wastelander, where I could look like a local and receive discounts on cash purchases. The second was a Roughneck, who has increased armor. The last was the Fabricator who has enhanced Engineering capabilities. I choose the Fabricator, but it was never really clear just how beneficial it was to my Engineering ability, and no one ever alluded to the fact that I was now someone who was crafty. Without that or perhaps class specific missions it felt like a missed opportunity to pull me into the world.

Side-missions were fine overall, but some would lead to the exact same spot more then once. In one instance I was told to clear out some mutants in the sewers--and so I did--and an hour later someone else wanted me to track down some bandit...in the same sewers. Thankfully this wasn't a very common theme throughout the game, but it’s worth mentioning. These side-missions varied from finding a relative to helping someone kill some other guys uncle to assisting someone named Stanley deliver mail. The later consist of delivering packages within a given time frame to various mailboxes that are sprinkled throughout the wasteland. Fun for a few hours, but ultimately forgettable.

One of my favorite mechanics in the game is the defibrillator mini-game. If you go down, you’re offered the chance to revive yourself by playing a little rhythm mini-game. If you’re successful you’ll not only revive yourself but you’ll send out a shock-wave that stuns the enemies surrounding you. The defibrillator recharges about every 20 minutes, so it’s not something you can abuse. It’s an original concept that’s useful, fun and engaging.

One of the more enjoyable things in Rage is Engineering. You will be able to construct a bunch of items with all the junk you collect throughout the wasteland. Things like Sentry bots, additional ammo and Wingsticks, health packs and more. It’s a fun, rewarding system to use. Throughout the game you’ll come across a few locked doors here and there. These doors are only accessible with a Lockgrinder, which can only be obtained through Engineering.

DRAB VEHICLE ACTION IS DRAB

The introduction of vehicles of Rage wasn’t a bad idea, but it’s unfortunate id decided to focus so much attention on them. Sure driving around the wasteland completing the Stunt jump challenges is fun for a bit, but again, it feels a little pointless after a while.

The racing action held within the cities consists of speed runs, missile challenges, mini-gun challenges and arenas battles. Competing and winning in these challenges award race flags, and this currency is the only way you can purchase upgrades for your vehicle. It was an ok time, but again after a few races I was ready to move on to ids far superior first-person segments. I’m still sitting here, tripping out that id Software made a racing game.

“THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING IS THE WORLD CANNOT BE TOUCHED, ONLY FELT”

I wouldn’t call it completely fair to say id hasn’t provide an emotional experience with Rage. Sure the story is a bit boring and the characters are shallow, but the other parts--the running and gunning--evoked a raw intensity from me. Make no mistake with this review--Rage is a pretty fun video game--but it's hard not to step back and be disappointed. This was id Software's time to really shine with something special. Rage should have been a game that completely blew me away, and it didn't.

I’ll never forget the moment the game ended, because it was one of the few transitional moments in gaming where I honestly felt blinded sided. I sat there, stunned with controller in hand, under the impression I was entering the final act, but it all suddenly just ended. It was utterly anticlimactic, uneventful and ultimately a bitter pill to swallow. It could be one of the worst endings I’ve ever seen in a video game, yes it’s that bad.

With Rage it’s become apparent to me that not only has id Software's position in the industry changed, but I now realize they refuse to grow with the rest of us.

44 Reasons My Only Friend Is A Man-Chicken

2011-01-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

Welcome back everyone! I hope your holidays were filled with hearty feasts and tons of back-slapping. Me? Oh my back is very sore. Hey who wants do a list?!

So there I sat on New Years Day toying around with the idea of throwing together a "ZOMG I'M AWESOME!" post, but I decided on something a little more constructive--a complete list of all the video games I completed in 2010. I mean, it should have the same affect right?

Now to be clear, this list is comprised of games I completed to their fullest extent. I'm talking rolling credits here folks. As an added bonus I've also included a brief one-sentence review for each title. Before we begin I must let you know that I'm an avid Left 4 Dead 2 player (as in I've put in over 350 hours in 2010). I also returned to World of Warcraft in December thanks to the release of Cataclysm, so now my life is especially pathetic.

Oh well, let's get the show on the road yo...

Alan Wake - A unique thriller with some pretty unnerving moments, excellently paced, and combat that can run a bit long in the tooth towards the end.

Alan Wake: The Signal - A short but interesting experience for the fans of the series.

Alan Wake: The Writer - More interesting and revealing than The Signal, built for fans of the narrative.

Assassin's Creed 2 (x1 PC, x1 Xbox 360) - Though the economy is essentially broken I found this game to be a total blast, but at times for me the challenge lied in the controls and not the enemies.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood - I really enjoyed this game quite a bit. It's even more refined and has more goodies to chase than it's predecessor. It also allows you to control a brotherhood of assassin's--what's not to love? (Oops! Just broke my one-sentence rule. Oh heck let's do one more for fun!) Blah blah blah.

Bioshock 2 (x1 PC, x1 Xbox 360)- It was impossible for this game to live up to expectations, but if you just sit back and accept the game for what it's trying to do then you'll find a solid game here with combat mechanics that rivals the original.

Blur - Good fun for roughly 75% of the game. It's suppose to be some kind of modern or adult version of Mario Kart but it ran out of steam towards the end.

Civilization 5 - Binary crack. Next?

Crackdown 2 - Uuuugh! The first Crackdown is one of my favorite games of this generation, so I really wanted to love this game. Surprisingly it's less entertaining (how is this even possible Microsoft?) and almost became a chore to complete.

Dante's Inferno - Pulsating vagina's and babies oozing out of breasts, and that's just the third level. It didn't do enough gameplay-wise to make me even enjoy it.

Darksiders - Once I got past the banality of the first hour, I actually learned to appreciate Darksiders quite a bit.

Dead Nation - A fun, isometric coop zombie shooter where shit blows up real good!

Dead Rising 2 - I enjoyed this sequel much more than the first but it's wonky controls still annoyed me.

Deathspank - A strange and amusingly written game that's inspired by MMO mechanics. Unfortunately the whole thing got a little stale despite it all.

Dragon Age: Origins (x1 PC/x1 Console) - It seems to borrow a bit too much from the Lord of the Rings in both the narrative and aesthetic sense, but I loved the gameplay--video games!

Dragon Age: Awakenings - Weird, fun and with lots of foggy scenes and slimy, spiked things to fight.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - A peculiar game with stunningly well made cutscenes, outstanding voiceover work and visuals that seem to remind us that browns aren't the only colors fit for video games. However the gameplay mechanics need a bit more variety.

Fable 3 (x2) - Though I've played through this game twice and found it to be fairly fun I was still highly annoyed by some of the obtuse design decisions. Plus this game has possibly the worst map system ever created in a video game ever.

Fallout: New Vegas - With some big shoes to fill, I found FNV to be surprisingly rad--buggy--but rad!

God of War 3 - Too bloody, too gorgeous, too impressively jaunty, too many plot holes and ultimately too awesome to pass up for PS3 owners.

God of War Ghost of Sparta - Simply one of the best PSP games around, but a stark reminder of why I'm not a fan of the PSP.

Halo: Reach - Easily the best single player Halo campaign to date. Though it's coupled with a robust mulitplayer model I still lost interest after a week (I realize 75% of you are now leaving this blog).

Heavy Rain - A step forward in long video game drama, a step backwards in voice acting, a step forward in quick time interaction, a step backwards in reducing that whole uncanny valley effect but a step forward in graphical fidelity. Plus it was fun.

Just Cause 2 - A (real!) open world game where the protagonist has a grappling hook, a parachute and must destroy a bunch of things for money--I mean come ON! This is easily one of my most favorite games of 2010.

Kayne and Lynch 2: Dog Days - Dirty, slimy, bloody and stripped clean--not only does this describe the protagonist of the game but it this pretty much describes how I felt after playing the game.

King's Bounty Armored Princess - I just adore this whole series, and Armored Princess does a nice job of building on the King's Bounty experience.

Kirby's Epic Yarn - If you told me a year ago that I would enjoy a Kirby game more than a Metroid game I would have slapped you (probably with my shoe too), but that's actually the case now. It's a really fun game, don't let the looks of it fool you.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light - A decidedly good game with some excellent coop puzzle elements.

Limbo - I really love that Limbo tries to tell a story that's completely left up for interpretation without arrogance, but most importantly at the end of the day it never loses sight of what it is--a well made video game.

Mafia 2 - I had a love first game, so I was anticipating the sequel immensely. Unfortunately the "window shopping only" design within the city only teased me until frustration set in. A gorgeously designed metropolis that lacks any significant amount of interesting interactivity is incoherent in today's market.

Mass Effect 2 (x2 Xbox 360, x1 PC) - A better looking game than the first, much more to do than the first, a larger cast than the first, but the narrative is far less interesting and goes essentially nowhere--loved it enough to play it three times but in the end it's just not as epic as the first.

Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond - An interesting idea that falls very very flat.

Plants vs Zombies - I've played this ridiculously addictive game on just about every platform--so, yea, great times.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - There's a reason the word forgotten is in the title.

Puzzle Quest 2 - An improvement over the first and I couldn't put it down.

Red Dead Redemption - A spaghetti western with something to say, if you pay close attention and listen then you'll realize it's the best game of 2010.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare - Leave it up to Rockstar to prove me wrong! After this DLC was announced I scoffed at the zomibfication of yet another game, but it turned out to be a fun and wacky add-on.

Resident Evil 5 - Tank controls that didn't annoy, and ultimately lead to a lot of fun. I think we've reached a point with the series where it's in need to take a serious look at itself.

Singularity - Enjoyable enough to play all the way through, but in the end was forgettable enough that I had to check to be sure it came out this year. :(

Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions - Surprisingly fun with a ton of variety, but a little to modulated with all the different Spider-mans you control.

Splinter Cell Conviction - I really appreciate what they were going for with it's minimalistic approach but I was hoping for something as powerful as Chaos Theory, heck I would've taken something half as interesting.

Split Second Velocity - I love arcade racers and this beautiful game had enough going for it that I deemed it my favorite racer of 2010.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - An incredible amount of variety in gameplay mechanics and a ton of fun to play--and I know this is going to sound crazy--but I found it to be a tad too long.

Supreme Commander 2 - I'm a sucker for an RTS games that resembles Total Annihilation, but even then the boredom began to set in at the 15 minute mark.

The Partials! Here is a list of the games I spent a considerable amount of time with (usually 5+ hours or so) but didn't completed in time to make this list.

Metro 2033
Monster Hunter Tri
Final Fantasy 13
Army of Two: The 40th Day
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Gothic 4
Costume Quest
Bayonetta
Joe Danger
Metal of Honor
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
Need For Speed: Hot Persuit
Vanquish
Dead to Rights: Retribution
3D Dot Game Heroes
Skate 3
Lost Planet 2
Dragon Quest 9
ModNation Racers
Alpha Protocol
Naughty Bear
Starcraft 2
Metroid Other M
Amnesia: The Dark Decent
Castlenavia Lord of Shadows
DJ Hero 2
Vanquish
Pac-man Championship Edition DX
Gran Turismo 5
Epic Mickey
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Bejewled 2 Blitz

Fable 3 Interview: Peter Molyneux

2010-07-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

Sitting down to interview Peter Molyneux is an experience that's not unlike the Fable series itself--it's whimsical, charming and a little all over the place.

So with the very limited amount of time of 20 minutes I sat down with him and we talked about Fable 3. We discussed the new crafting system, how to marrying well, how Fable 2 was a little bit like DOS and how you just might get mobbed being a King.

Read on...

It appears that crafting--in its own unique way--has made its way into the Fable series with 3. Can you elaborate a bit on the weapon morphing concept?
Well, I really love the idea of crafting. I think it's a really lovely idea, especially in RPGs, so we thought 'why not let players craft their own swords?' So we initially thought we would give you some kind of Blacksmithing mini-game or we would let you find different things like augmentations, but it was all a bit messy.

Then we thought 'hang on a second! Why cant we change this sword so that it's reflective of how you fight.' So as you're fighting, your sword will start to physically change. For instance the curvature of the blade is now dictated by how many times you've performed a specific action in battle, the notches in the blade represent how many times you've died using it, and the brightness of the glow of the sword indicates how many innocent or evil people you've killed. We've got about 88,000 combinations of things going on here and we mix in your Gamescore as well. It's really quite unique.

So, as you're doing this--as you're crafting your sword--you're unlocking abilities too. There are a lot of finishing and special moves that can be unlocked.

Also you're free, at any time, to actually sell that sword on line. You can trade it too!

In previous Fable games the player was often rewarded for exploring places like hidden caves and such with Legendary weapons. Are you pulling that stuff out of the game now that this new crafting system is being implemented into the game?
No that's a different type of sword, these legendary weapons, and they actually have everything these morphing type of swords have too. The thing is, they have an additional quest associated with them and when you successfully complete these little quests the sword gets even better.

But back to these other swords. These swords are crafted by you! They will have your Gamertag in their names, and if you grind it out then you can make some really superb swords.

Ok, just to be clear--all the swords are malleable including the Legendary swords, but these Legendary swords have these, sort of, side quests associated with them?
Yes. The Legendary swords have these side collectibles associated with them, something like killing 50 goblins or something of the sort. So yes, you know, the players will still have lots of things to find. By the way, this whole idea of crafting and morphing applies to Hammers, Guns, Swords, Rifles and Gauntlets in Fable 3.

Where will the player store and manage all their stuff ?
Well we've got this place called The Sanctuary and it's a replacement for pressing the Start button.

Pressing the Start button in Fable 2 brought up a 2D list of things and it was kind of like going back to DOS. It would list 200 clothing items or 450 swords, and we thought to ourselves 'Why does the pause button always have to do the same thing? Why can't we just teleport the player to another place in the world.' So when you press the Start button, very quickly, it just teleports you to The Sanctuary.

So, yes, we have this chamber with some rooms attached to it. One room has anything to do with your clothes, another room has anything to do with your treasure and another has anything to do with your weapons.

At this point Peter runs into the weapon chamber where two gauntlets lie, and with a big grin on his face puts them both on...

For instance, look at these two gauntlets. You can wear these two gauntlets at the same time. The first one is a Force Gauntlet and it allows you to push things away with your left hand. On the right hand here, we'll put on a Fireball Gauntlet so that, now, when you cast a spell you'll get a combination of pushing and fire. You can also have a combination of pushing and ice if you like. If you had the combination of ice and fire then they would cancel each other out. This way you're weaving these spells together.

See, this gauntlet is level 1 and that gauntlet is level 5 and that will vary the amount of power you get. I really really love that! I love the feeling of 'Hey I'll try to mix these two things together'.

Does the one-button combat remain the same?
Well, we've got one button combat but it's more interesting. For instance, one attack button can be the same as a combination of two other buttons. We can say 'Right, let's swing our sword and shoot our gun. We can say swing your sword and cast magic. We can say shoot your gun and cast magic.'

So now we've got one-button combat and I think a lot of casual players will just focus on it--they'll just keep pressing this one button. Then they're the core players who will really, strategically use it. The problem is, the core say 'what reward do I get for doing combat well'. My answer is, the weapons will now level themselves up.

So there is a lot more leveling up in Fable 3. It's not just happening on the GUI side. It's more focused on making and changing things, which you can do over and over again. It's also another way to earn money, because as you level up a weapon it becomes more valuable to sell. There is a lot of some really cool work being done here!

You say the weapons in Fable 3 will change their appearance as you level them up. So let's say you focus on fighting in one particular style and you love your weapon, and then later on you switch to another style changing it's appearance unfavorably. I'm curious if it's possible to go back to the sword design that you originally liked?
Its just like the morphing system that we have applied to our hero. If you start going down one path it'll start changing the sword, but you can bring it back too. You might have to work a little harder to bring it back though.

What's so cool about all this is that the name of the sword changes with your gamertag integrated into it, and it will always be known as that too. So you will be able to sell it and watch it on-line to see what other people do with it.

It's a really really cool system!

From the development side, changing what the different buttons do has lead us down this route of crafting your own weapons. It's lead to the player feeling like they're getting more powerful, this thing that you're holding in your hand is getting more powerful--I think it's just really really cool.

Is there any kind of visual indicator in terms of the weapon level-up process?
Yes when your sword levels-up, the player will have this sort of Greyskull moment and they will see their sword change.

You know, it's interesting that everything in the game is based on a scale of one-to-five. We didn't want these sort of complex systems in Fable 3. So, for instance, you can have a one-to-five sword, one-to-five hammer, one-to-five in jobs, the muscles in your arms--everything is one-to-five.

Let's say I've progressed my sword up to level 5 and then I put it up on the marketplace, would I be able to buy back my own sword?
Absolutely! Also, you can have someone come into your world--yes there is coop in the game--and you can give them your sword. They can use it, and then give it back to you and it will still be called your sword.

Do I have to give it to the person I'm playing with or is it possible for them to steal it?
No, there is no stealing.

But back to the coop stuff--we actually changed it an enormous amount. The part where your friend comes in, they're now their own hero and not a stupid henchman like they were in Fable 2. They come in with their dog and free to go off running around while you do your things. They're not tied to your camera now. The coop is really cool now.

You can even--and it's quite bizarre--but you can even bring someone in, get married, have sex and have children. If you want to enter a business relationship, you will be able to do that as well. Want to buy a house together? You can!

I talked about leveling up, well you can level your house from one-to-five now too.

We've tried to take all the raw gameplay stuff and really improve it without making is super-complex. There was a lot of leveling up in the previous Fable games and it was all about moving afar, from here to there and it wasn't very exciting. Now when you level up you get that big reward. I think that's a huge improvement.

In the original Fable the Guild Hall was the hub for everything and I really missed that quite a bit in Fable 2. There was a sense of home, or at least a place to be when you wernt out questing. So, in Fable 3, The Sanctuary looks a lot like the Guild Hall--is it back?
Yes it's back. The Sanctuary is indeed your hub. It has this map system we call a "Living Map" where you can zoom into the towns and see the people of the community walking about--it's alive.

You'll also be able to buy houses from the Living Map. It's a lot more detailed than the map in Fable 2 where it wasn't really a map. It's just so much more helpful, especially when you rule. Half way through Fable 3 you're going to become a king and this map is going to be very useful.

Ok, so let's talk pacing. Are you guys going to be more aggressive in your push to get the player through the narrative now that you've got this dramatic change half-way through the game, or are you still going to let players do whatever they want?
For me when a game is nagging me to do something in particular, and I all want to do is something else, I just hate it! I hate when quest givers are like "Go to the woods! Go to the woods! Don't forget to go the woods!" "Well shut the FUCK UP! I know where the woods are! I don't want to go to the woods. Why are you telling me to go to the woods?" So, you know, if you go up to a quest giver in Fable 3 you can tell them to shut up and give me the quest. That way you can move on, and if you don't want to accept the quest then you just walk away. I think that's really really cool.

Now if you go to The Sanctuary, there is this John Cleese character, and he's the butler in the game. He's there to help you be the best you can possibly be, so every once in a while he'll prompt you on occasions when the AI think you're really not doing anything, but he doesn't pester you.

When you become King is there going to be a completely different interface?
You know, here's the thing about us talking about being king--it's a MASSIVE spoiler. I don't really want to get into the experience of being king.

Listen, the only thing I've said is that there is this beautiful mechanic. See, you're a revolutionary, and you're going to lead this rebellion and you've got to get people to follow you. Once you do that you're going to assault the castle. You're ready to take on this evil--king Logan.

On the way through this you're going to have to make promises to people. For instance the mayor in one of the smaller communities will say, "That king Logan is rotten! He stopped giving us money and now our people arnt able to do the things they want to do. If we promise to support you, will you promise to give us 200,000 gold? If you do, then our community will support you." So, of course you do it! So you make all the promises on your journey and when you become king, you will have to decide if you're going to deliver on these promises, but guess what? You're not going to have all the resources to do it.

Actually, the follow mechanic--the idea of getting people to follow you--is unified across the whole game. It replaces experience. What's so cool is that you can grind and get a bunch of people to like you and follow you, or you can do the big quest to make these promises. So there is this great replacement of experience. You get followers for being good in combat, you get followers for making friends, you get follows for marrying well! If you marry well, you get a whole new bunch of followers and that will make you more powerful. That, in turn, makes the revolution more powerful!

Can you define "marrying well"?
Well, if you marry someone from the slums, she's not going to have much influence, and that will effect you and your followers.

I know there hasn't been any armor in the Fable series and I'm curious if there will be any in Fable 3?
You know, we're not fans of armor. It's just about weapons in Fable, and you know, your clothing is important too. As a king, if you don't walk out in some sort of disguise people will mob you, but no armor--we're just not fans of it. For me, armor is just like...it just doesn't make sense, in a way. It's just another confusion in combat.

As the interview wrapped up I informed Peter that my wife is a HUGE Fable fan and was bursting at the seams to read this interview. It was at this point Peter smiled, put his arm over my shoulders and informed me that I could get her name into Fable 3 through a pre-order program they're working on.

Charming and whimsical.

E3 Interview - Deus Ex: Human Revolution

2010-06-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

After seeing a particularly impressive 20 minute demonstration of Deus Ex: Human Revolution at this years E3 I was given the opportunity to sit down for about 15 minutes and interview two gentlemen from Eidos-Montreal--the Producer David Anfossi and Lead Game Designer Jean-Francois Dugas. I think it went well and fans of the series will be pleased with most of their answers. First I would like to comment briefly on what I saw in the demonstration.

If Eidos-Monteal continues to head in the direction they're headed right now with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, then I think there is a good chance we're going to get a real sequel/prequel to the original games. It looked and sounded like a Deus Ex game. The only real issue I had with it was that some of the character models looked a bit antiquated, and they were animated poorly. In contrast, some of the others characters looked great--so I don't know if some of the work was perhaps placeholder art, but I've got to speak to what I saw and how it looked. I'll let you decide if you're going to faith in the studio. We were told that the build we saw was pre-alpha, so it's obvious that the game has a ways to go in term of development.

...anyway, let's get on with the interview!

Let's being with the RPG aspects of the game. How deep can we expect the game to go?
So the RPG component is very important to us because this is where you control the flow of the game. It's not only about the features but it's also about making sure that the player has the right tools to play the game one way or another. If he wants to use brute force and be very aggressive then he has the tools to do that, if he wants to be very sneaky and low key then he has the tools to do that too.

But in terms of the component obviously you can talk to people and try to convince them of certain things, and you can try to buy some stuff as well.

In terms of the economy we have two layers. We have the money system that allows you to buy equipment, weapon upgrades or even to modify confrontations. We also have the economy of the experience points that you can earn from stealth, fighting or hacking and stuff like that. Basically with the augmentations that you buy, you can unlock the ability with those augmentations and XP points. So all those elements together help create the character that suits your play style.

Also we have a lot of choices that have consequences as you play through the game. You will meet characters, and depending on how you deal with them, there might be some consequences later on in the game. Things like that.

I know it's a stretch to ask but can you elaborate a little bit on the plot? There was some discussion in the demo about how Human Revolution is being developed on a more "human level". Also, how effective will these choices be? Can they effect things on a global level?
Well we don't want to spoil anything at this point but I will say that you play as Adam Jensen who works for a Detroit-based biotech company called Sarif Industries. Early on in the game you have no augmentations at all. During a course of events you're badly injured and forced to use augmentations to save your life. As Adam comes back from the grave he begins to investigate those events, who might have been involved and also the reasons behind the attack.
In terms of what we meant by "human level", we're trying to build a game where you meet characters that have--including your own--shade of grey. There are no characters that are super-good or super-evil. It's more about "why do these people do what they do?" We're trying to explore the motivations and the actions of the character as opposed to just saying "oh, we're against this or against that". We want to know where they're coming from and things like that. This is why we say it plays out more on a human level, because it touches on themes that we can relate.

How do some of the moral choices, like killing characters, effect the game?
This is part of the roleplaying aspect of the game. We want the players to question who Adam Jensen is and leave it up to the player to discover those things. We want to give the player freedom of discovery. As you play the game, a lot of things you do will have some kind of effect and will even change the ending.

Are there plans to have a multiplayer component?
Deus Ex Human Revolution is a single player game. That's the tradition of the franchise. When we brought the game back from the dead--and it's not an easy task--we didn't want to split the team up and have them working all over the place. We don't want to make a game with average components. We want to make sure we're recreating the single-player experience the best way that we can. We decided to focus everything we've got on the single-player experience. Now speaking in terms of future plans for online stuff and DLC--we're not talking about that right now. Let me say this: We want to make sure the the Deus Ex name stays alive!

Is the game going to resemble the experience of Deus Ex 1 where you can complete the entire game without killing someone?
Yes...well, mostly. There're exceptions with the boss battles. You must kill those characters for the story to progress. For the rest of the game you can go from the beginning of the levels all the way to the end without killing someone. You might stun some people, sneak around them or you just might pretend you're John Rambo! *big laugh*

...so you have to kill the bosses? There isn't an option to incapacitate them or something along those lines?
You have to kill them.

Can you talk about the characters (NPCs) you will encounter in the game?
In terms of main characters there actually are quit a few. I think we're currently sitting somewhere around 12? I don't want to get too much into those numbers because things of course may change, but there're quite a lot of characters that you're going to meet.

What's important to us is that they all feel natural, useful and are interesting for the player to interact with. Some of these characters might have a secret that you're interested in, some of them might open an alternate paths for you to go down, or some might even be a blackmarket dealers--those kinds of people. We want your experience with the NPCs to be rewarding and meaningful.

Can you talk about the game world? There appears to be product brands that have been created for the game, for instance in the bar there is the number 6. I noticed that there were hexagons in several places too, including on Adams forehead. Can you elaborate on this?
What's so funny to us is that there are some things we do in the game that are done on purpose, and then there are things that are basically just random. The fans, like you, sometimes notice things and go crazy with it all. They come up with all these deep explanations and they honestly have no correlation to our original design and we're just like "Yeah! That's awesome!"

See, when we started building this game, in terms of the art direction, we really wanted to come up with our own flavor. So when we started our research we discovered a lot of sketches from Leonardo Davinci and it inspired us to jump back to the renaissance era. We started to look at all his work and we realized that it was a really momentous time for human beings. People were discovering these amazing things about the human body. I mean, people were dying from the black death and doing these really strange things to their bodies, and I think it was a time when we really questioned ourselves.

So with the technology of today, we're starting to see computers integrated into our body. So the transformation is already happening and we think it's the next big step in our evolution. It's not happening in 2027, it's happening today in 2010.

So, basically we saw all these geometrical form and patterns so we decided to integrate them into the game. You'll see them in the advertisements, the architecture, floor designs and many other aspects of the game.

Are there going to be different Ammo types in the game?
Yes there will be different ammo types, but it's not going to be different per weapon though.

In terms of Eidos-Montreals design philosophy for the game, I would like to be very clear here for the sake of the fans: In Human Revolution you're going to be put in a gigantic box--the level--and then you're going to be given a start and end point, where there will be several different routes to get to that end point, correct?
Absolutely! In the demo we showed you today there were five different ways to get through that particular level. For all of maps in Human Revolution, the ability to have multiple solutions are at the heart of the experience. Everywhere you go there are at least two ways, and more to progress…always always always.

Now, no one has mention the Playstation Move or other motion control devices yet. Since this is a big theme at the show this year I have to ask--are there plans to incorporate this kind of technology into the game?
We have 130 people working on the game today and we're too far along into production to even consider that kind of technology. This is a really big game when you consider all the side quests, perhaps somewhere around 30 hours of gameplay, and we just don't have the resources to incorporate those kinds of things at this point.

You have all these paths and multiple endings, and considering Deus Ex Human Revolution is a prequel, I'm curious how you can have multiple endings when the story has already been told?We see Human Revolution as a sort of reboot of the franchise, so we're essentially approaching it as a new IP. It's a series that is appreciated by a very strong but small group of people, but really a lot of people don't even know what Deus Ex is these days. So we're really trying to develop a new protagonist along with a bunch of new characters. You won't have to be familiar with the original games to appreciate Human Revolution, but there are going to be some connections in there for those that are familiar with the lore.

Are there going to be any characters from any of the previous Deus Ex games that will appear in Human Revolutions?
I'm so sorry, I don't speak english anymore!

Will Sheldon Pacotti, the writer from Deus Ex 1, be involved with Human Revolution in any capacity?
Yes! We have 4 writers on the team right now and Sheldon has been a consultant. He's there to make sure everything is lining up correctly.

Can you talk a little bit about inspirations for the team in terms of developing the future in Human Revolutions and its aesthetic?
Yes! So, obviously Blade Runner is an inspiration. We're not hiding that or any of the other inspirations because they're just so...awesome. You will see them in there, but we're trying to create our own feel along with it. We wanted to make you see things you've ever seen before. There are places in the game that have these old looking buildings, but then they will have some technological device attached to it. We tried to imagine and anticipate what Detroit might look like in the future. So with the double-decker city you can see we went a little crazy with the design, but I think it's a game that's instantly fun because of that. We want it to sit in reality, but also in fantasy too. For us we also wanted to have fun making it all--that's important to the team.

Are we looking at releases for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3?
That is correct.

Did you have to make any concessions between any of the platforms?
None.

Is the PC version of the game going to be mouse-driven?
Absolutely!

Positively?
Yes. Unless something happens that I cannot predict.

Will there be gamepad support in the PC release?
I'm sure there will be. When we did the initial control layout we planned on including gamepad support.

There has been some controversy about a particular screenshot that was released which includes a poster in it saying "Wanted For Mass Murder" and it had a picture of George Bush. This was in fun, I'm sure?That was concept art that was meant to be viewed internally at our studio only, but unfortunately it was released publicly. Sometimes the artists go crazy and have fun with their concept art and it's meant to amuse us--you know, just to have fun. It's hard to manage everything when you're working with such a large group and sometimes things slip through. It was, in no way, meant to be a political statement!

Thanks for your time guys and good luck!
Thanks!

I.Shoot.Games.

2010-06-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

I have this wonderfully talented crony who goes by the name of Kate. Not only does she share my passion for video games, but additionally she is a very gifted photographer. So this year I invited her to attended E3 with me to capture some shots from the showroom floor for my coverage. Once she was turned loose she managing to not only capture the essence of the show, but frankly I think she's done it on an artistic level that no one else has (this includes professional outlets like IGN or 1UP.)

Though her composition is obviously strong, to me it boils down to the way she captured the shows broad use of colors. More than anything it really drives home the feeling of E3. It's interesting because when I was at the show I was in a state of sensory overload, from the larger than life visuals, thunderous sounds (hello EA!) and even the sometimes awful smell. But it wasn't until I was in the comfort of my office looking at her photos that I was struck with how vibrate the showroom floor was.

So head on over to I.Shoot.Games to see the rest of the 79 glorious photos in a larger format.

E3: I Ate Lots'o Games

2010-06-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

Yes this is definitive proof that I completely geeked out when Peter Molyneux gave me a demonstration of Fable 3. Can you blame me? Who can deny the guys whimsical charm? Clearly not I. :)

The real reason for this update is to let you know that I've returned from E3 and was fortunate enough to see and play some really great (and awful) games. The list includes Portal 2, Golden Eye 007, Legend of Zelda: The Skyward Sword, Rage, Fallout: New Vegas, Brink, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, The First Templar, Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar, Rune Factory 3: A Fantasy Harvest Moon, Dungeon Siege 3, Conduit 2, Vanquish, Fable 3, Gears of War 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Final Fantasy XIV, Rock Band 3, Pixeljunk Shooter 2, XCOM, Mafia 2, a bunch of Kintect games and more.

Since I'm just one dude it's going to take me some time, so I'll be posting my impressions of some of my favorites over the next couple of days so be sure to check back!

Review: Alan Wake

2010-05-18T06:53:00.000-07:00

Long ago Alan Wake was supposed to show up and be a star on the Xbox 360--but it didn’t arrived and we all moved on. Years later most were still mystified by its premise. Hell, the day I sat down and pressed the start button I still didn’t know what to expect. I presumed it was going to be an open-world, survival-horror game with an investigative spin to it.

I was wrong.

It turns out Alan Wake, at its core, is a very compelling third-person horror shooter coupled with very little adventure or investigative components to it—who knew? Yes there are some very minor puzzle elements to it like seeking out power generators to safely light paths or pushing aside large obstructing objects but that’s about as far as it goes. Missing are the strangely inaccessible door puzzles or inscrutable artifacts tucked behind false walls. It seems to take pride in achieving this, and with style, more than anything else.

The Alan Wake experience is actually very focused on funneling you through a very specific and well crafted experience. This became readily apparent as I began the game navigating through the beautiful and intricately constructed town of Bright Falls. As night fell, I was abruptly introduced to the main antagonist—the “Taken.” As they crept towards me their shadowy armor fiercely protected them forcing me to use a light source to defuse it. Once exposed, I still needed to finish them off with my firearm. The Taken (who usually emit a sinister howl deep within the woods before appearing) eerily stalked me like some kind of demon zombie but unfortunately without much variety. At hour 6 you might find yourself growing a bit tired of fending off the same creatures over and over. Ultimately it hurts the game a bit.

The combat system initially felt refreshingly unique to me. I think Remedy did a tremendous job of amassing a system that created intense action while raising tension. By design the flashlight shines everywhere you look—that is to say—its direction is tied directly to your right analog stick (and cleverly creates your reticule too) with two methods of operation. Standard mode (used to illuminate your path without draining its battery) does very little damage to the Takens shadow armor. The second mode is more focally penetrating and does drain the battery while boosting intensity. This mode slows the pace of the Taken drastically while burning off their armor at a much faster rate.

Alan Wake’s interesting--and slightly confusing--narrative untangles at a nice pace through several episodes—much like a TV show. The beginning of each episode starts with a “previously on Alan Wake” montage that really helps keep the important details in for the player. I found myself reminded of things I had forgotten. The plot finds a nice balance between exploration and action. They’re poised between pieces of a manuscript that are littered throughout the game world, encounters with the Taken and pre-rendered cut scenes.

Unfortunately, it’s the pre-rendered cut scenes that are the most damaging to the experience. Not only are they muddied by a low resolution but they also appear to be constructed of assets from an earlier build. Lip synching is so far off it looks conceivably like a completely different team constructed it. They look antiquated compared to the spectacularly scripted in-game sequences. I don’t understand why Remedy insisted on using them to unravel the games mostly interesting story bits. My only guess is that they ran out of time or money or both.

There has been some discussion amongst the community about the technical limitations of Alan Wake, but I’m here to say that--in the end--it’s a gorgeous game. Remedy has constructed environments that are filled with an eerie personality woven through an environment similar to the Twin Peaks series. So compelling are the environments that it is difficult not to stop every once in a while to admire their work.

Nighttime is when you really get a sense that this game becomes what it should—creepy. As darkness encroaches, when the fog begin to roll in, as the wind howls through the dancing tress it’ll hit you--the forest just might be alive and coming for you. The stage is set for the real star of the game to make an appearance--the lighting system. The lighting in Alan Wake is absolutely stunning and is comparable to the water in Bioshock. That is to say--it's a character in the game.

Once I finished my experience in Bright Falls I sat back and reflected, “this just might be what it would be like if Valve made a third-person horror shooter?” Sure, that might be a bit hyperbolic of me to say but I just really love this game! I think it's an experience most should have.

If you’re a fan of a high quality single-player experience that lasts roughly 10 hours with no multiplayer experience to speak of then get this game.

Halo Reach Picture Contest: Make Me Laugh!

2010-05-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

Last week Microsoft graciously offered me some Halo Reach Multiplayer codes to participate in the beta. I highly considered offering them to friends and family (as the Microsoft's Program title intended) but I decided to give them out to a certain group of people who I knew would appreciate them more--my followers on Twitter. Most of the codes were given out via general video game trivia, however three of those codes were given away through a photo contest.

The requirements were simple enough--be goofy, make me laugh and have "I.Eat.Games." visibly written on a piece of paper to prove authenticity. I gave the gang 4 hours so there was enough time for the creative types.

The results were unexpectedly spectacular and incredibly hilarious. When submissions rolled in I had no idea that so many people would literally put to use my blogs name--I.Eat.Games..

The following three pictures are the winners. They made me laugh more than the others and were rewarded with a Reach beta code.

I found this submission hilarious because he was willing to publicly bathe in a bird bath of humiliation, but also the look of shame on his face locked it in for me. All for a video game. He later informed me that he actually managed to break the bird bath immediately after taking the photo. It was worth it.

I found this submission adorably amusing because the subject's sense of humor center around one whom I'm a fan of--Groucho Marx.

This submission made me laugh more than any other, and I love the addition "and they hurt".

Here are the rest of the submissions--enjoy!

What did you think? Leave me a post here letting me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Just Cause 2 Interview: Peter Johansson and Fredrik Larsson

2010-04-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

Developed by Avalanche Studios, Just Cause 2 finds Mr Rico Rodriguez returning to a much better, bulkier game world. Having unlimited access to a grapple hook, a parachute and a massive arsenal of death in a beautiful open-world is essentially a dream come true for most gamers.

To sweeten the pot this open-world goes out of its way to pat you on the back for all the destruction you cause. It's a lot of fun, but I came away with some questions that needed to be answered.

So I asked: What other Easter-eggs exist beyond the Lost island reference? Were fully destructible structures ever considered? Will Just Cause 2 ever end up on the Wii? How does the Heat system really work? Why on earth can't we purchase multiple items from the Black Market? I posed these and many more questions to Avalanche Studios.

Let's start with with Game Designer Peter Johansson:

What're the plans for Just Cause 2 DLC , and will any of it contain new islands?
There are plenty of DLC planned but unfortunately I cannot go into details of future DLC at the moment, sorry.

Will any of the DLC be free, if not what will it cost?
The first DLC item was released in all territories early April free of charge as a thank you to the community for their support of the game. We’ll continuously release more DLC at a very low cost and there may even be more free items available in the future.

Rockstar experienced less-than-expected sales with their DLC for Grand Theft Auto 4. Some believe this is due to the original games enormous amount of inconsumable content. Given the relative size of Just Case 2 are there worries with the planned DLC performing similarly at Avalanche Studios?
Many of the coming DLC items for Just Cause 2 are tools that, for a very low price, immediately give you new ways to play around and experiment in the game world. So the DLC adds a new dimension to the core gameplay which makes it very accessible regardless of if you’ve already finished the story or not.

Besides the island dedicated to the TV show Lost I’m curious if there are any more hidden areas in the game you care to reveal or hint towards?
There are lots of hidden things to discover if you explore Panau and keep your eyes peeled. Hot air balloons, mechanical shark and, if you look hard enough, a bubble gun.

How is the game performing in the US in terms of sales?
I don’t have any sales numbers yet, but we’re very happy about the positive reception we’ve got from reviewers and the community so far.

In regards to the narrative, the game seems to walk the line between being serious and comedic--was this planned from the beginning or was it intended to lean more towards another direction?
Just Cause 2 allows you to do some insane over the top stunts. You have an unlimited amount of parachutes and a grappling hook that defies gravity simply because it makes the game more fun to play. At the same time, the theme of the story is quite serious in nature and some of the things that you can do in the game are really quite violent. Therefore, we felt that the overall tone of the game needed to be playful or it could all just end up being in bad taste.

Is any of the voice acting in the game meant to be humorous or ironic?
Yes, it’s meant to be lighthearted to fit in with the overall tone of the game.

Has work begun on Just Cause 3?
We have a lot of ideas for a sequel but nothing has been decided yet.

If Just Cause 3 is in the works, are there plans to include local and/or one-line coop?
There are no firm decisions yet about a sequel so naturally I can’t go into any details.

Were fully destructible buildings ever considered for the game?
Yes, we did some prototyping of it and our engine supports it but it was a bit too late to get it into the game since it also needs to fit into the logic of everything else that’s destructible. You also need to handle buildings that play an important part in missions etc. It’s something that really needs to be integrated into the design from the start.

Are there ever plans to bring Just Cause 2 to the Wii in any form?
There are no plans for that at the moment.

What's the theory--in terms of gameplay challenges for the player--behind the hybrid health system? Why combine both the regeneration and health pack mechanics instead of sticking to one?
In Just Cause 2 most enemies fire quick projectile attacks at you (i.e. bullets) and the accuracy of those attacks depends on your actions. If you stay exposed for too long, move or stand still then there’s always going to be a certain amount of randomness to it regardless of how well you play. Therefore a recharging system is suitable to ensure there’s a “shield” for those random hits and to give you time to react if your combat tactics arn’t up to scratch.

A fully recharging system usually punishes you very quickly with death since that forces you to stay on your toes at all times and constantly play tactically. Frequent deaths like that would be very frustrating in an open world game the size of Just Cause 2, so that’s why we opted for a hybrid system where instead of dying, you receive permanent damage that can only be recharged by health packs. That way combat can still be tactical and challenging, but not as hardcore or demanding as a pure shooter where each scenario can be directed in detail.

What was the biggest challenge for the team in terms of gameplay design?
I’d say that the biggest game design challenges when creating a non-linear open-world game the size of Just Cause 2 is to create a structure for the progression of the story, missions and rewards for the player.

Just Cause 2 already appears to have a fairly large fanbase due to its wacky departure from reality in terms of gameplay. For example falling 3000 feet without a parachute and suddenly using the grappling hook 50 feet above ground to pull yourself to safety. It's incredibly wacky, fun and rewarding trick to pull off! The first time I fully upgraded the Assault Rifle I expected it to shoot mini-missiles but nothing of the sort happened. It left me wondering why the weapons and vehicles don’t seem to follow suit.
We wanted the weapons to retain their basic properties even after upgrading, to keep the game balanced. But there’s a possibility for something like this for DLC.

Why doesn't Rico have the ability to grab on to ledges? In some cases it seems it would make it easier to navigate close quarter combat and environments.
It’s always a balancing act to decide where to spend development resources. A ledge grab system in such a large and varied game world as in Just Cause 2 is not a small undertaking, just consider the amount of QA required. And since Rico has the ability to traverse any object anyway with the grappling hook it was decided that those resources were better spent elsewhere.

Why is this process of purchasing items from the Black Market sandwiched in between two cut scenes? Why can’t we purchase multiple items at once?
I agree it would be nice to be able to purchase multiple items but unfortunately we couldn't implement it in time. It’s not simply a GUI issue, you must also consider where the items end up in the game world.

Was there ever an upgrade path considered for the grappling hook and parachute?
Yes, upgrading the grappling hook was considered but, again, it comes down to resources and time and how this would affect the overall balance of the game.

Have you had a chance to check out any of the community made mods like the Bolo patch? What are your thoughts on what they’ve added to the game?
Just Cause 2 has been a labor of love for us and all we want is for gamers everywhere to have fun with it so we really like the mods.

Can you explain in detail how the Heat system works? What conditions must be met to trip an alert? How does the meter cool?
Heat is triggered when you do certain actions that are considered hostile by the military, for example sabotaging their property or if you’re discovered in a restricted area. Heat starts to cool down if the military hasn’t seen you for a while.

The ability to run seems to be fairly ineffective. Was this designed specifically to not compete with the grapple system in any way?
The sprint is a bit quicker than the normal run but it’s mostly useful for very short distances. The grappling hook is always more effective if you want to get to anything that’s further away than about 20 meters.

How come some cutscenes can be skipped and some can't?
The Avalanche Engine constantly streams resources in and out of memory to enable the player to seamlessly navigate through the huge and detailed game world without interruption for loading. So when a cutscene is running, the engine streams resources for the next location and that’s why it can’t be skipped before loading is finished.

The other night I spent almost 2 hours trying to track down the final item in one of the larger cities to completely liberate it--it was exhaustive. I'm curious if it was ever considered by the team to assist the player in tracking down some of the more difficult items?
Resource items can be tracked by using the signal strength indicator in the upper left corner of the screen but there isn’t a similar system for other activities that count towards completion. There’s the military logo on items that can be sabotaged, but I agree they can sometimes be easy to miss in the larger locations.

A few systems to assist the player with this was considered, for example marking them out on the map or listing them in the database for each location so you know what to look for but that unfortunately couldn’t be implemented in time for release.

Moving on to Lead Programmer Fredrick Larsson:

What was the biggest technical challenge Avalanche Studios faced in developing Just Cause 2?
The biggest technical challenge would be the capitol city of Panau. We have always been good at drawing lots of trees and landscapes but we didn't have the necessary building blocks in our engine to be able to create the city when we started development.

The challenge was much harder than we thought it would be, mainly due to the fact that we couldn't cheat at all since the player is able to reach every surface of the city with the grappling hook.

Many hours of programming and optimization has been put into the city to make it acceptable as far as memory consumption and performance goes, but in the end it feels like it was worth it.

Why is the YouTube system that's present on the PS3 not integrated in the PC and X360 experiences?
The YouTube feature was actually included because Sony included it into their SDK and if it would have been a part of Microsoft’s XDK then we would have included it on the Xbox as well. I really hope that Microsoft includes it in the future because as an avid Xbox gamer I would really like to see that feature on the 360.

Did Avalanche Studios incorporate some kind of procedural shading and/or texture system to create the landscape or was it completely crafted by hand?
The landscape is partially handcrafted and partially procedurally generated. Artists 'paint' the landscape in an editor that we have created for them but instead of painting with colors they paint with heights and types. The type could for example be beach, arctic, desert or jungle and is the basis for how the landscape is generated.

It is not just the textures and shaders that are influenced by the type but also what kind of trees there are going to be and how sparse they are going to be placed, if there are going to be rocks on the ground and much more.

Was there strong debate amongst the team to exclude DX9/Windows XP support?
Actually there was very little debate regarding this decision. We all felt that it would steal too much focus from other features if we were to implement and support both DirectX9 and DirectX10. I am guessing that the reason we for choose DirectX10 is obvious for everybody that has played the game! We would never have been able to make it as beautiful on DirectX9.

The PC version of the game handles many things correctly like offering adjustable sliders for many graphical settings along with proper Xbox 360 controller support, but there is an issue that has cropped up with rebinding the ‘E’ key. Why can’t this be rebounded like other keys? Will that be changed in a future patch?
This is an annoying little bug that unfortunately got through our Q/A processes. If, or maybe rather when, we get to do another patch it will include a fix for this bug.

Interview: Steve Caterson, Sr Producer of God of War 3

2010-03-01T12:03:00.001-08:00

Last Wednesday Sony invited me to attend a God of War 3 event down in LA where I was given the opportunity to interview Senior Producer Steve Caterson and then sit down with the game.

To be clear, I plan on writing up my impressions of the game very soon, but in essence—it looks phenomenal! It’s safe to say that it’s unlike anything I’ve seen before in the genre. I did compare notes with some of the others attending the event and there was much discussion on whether it rivals the visuals of Uncharted 2 and to be honest--it's a completely subjective call. Do you prefer a greek mythological or Indiana Jones-type theme? Personally, I lean a little more towards the greek theatre and prefer the visuals of God of War 3--but more on that later.

In this interview I ask Steve: How many endings does the game have? Does it run at 720P or 1080P? What comprises most of the 35GB on the Blu-Ray disk? Will the God of Wat 3 engine be licensed out? When will we see DLC? Has work begun on the next God of War trilogy? Enjoy!

Note: All pictures were masterfully taken by my zombie-killing friend Kate.

Can you tell us what role you played in the development of God of War 3?
I’m the senior producer, so I’m the guy who is responsible for the entire production of the game. It’s a 120 member team so I kind of oversee them with a lot of help from a lot of talented people. At the end of the day it’s ultimately my responsibility to make sure the game is made and is as good as can be.

Are you rested?
NO! I won’t be that for a while.

What was the day like at Santa Monica Studios when the game went gold?
It went gold Thursday night of last week (02/18/10) and it was a good day! I found out about it Thursday night via email and then the team found out about it Friday afternoon. Unfortunately I was not able to be there because my wife and child were both sick so I was at home, which is fine because they both sacrificed an incredible amount just for me to be there. Everyone was just kind of dazed.

I spoke with Todd Papy (Combat Director) in regards to the God of War 3 tech and he said that the development of it began along side God of War 2. How early did this happen?
It began sort of in the middle.

Tonight Stig Assmussen (Project Lead) said the game had been in development for 3 years, but it sort of seems that it might actually be longer than that. Is that correct?
When we say the tech has been in development since a certain time it really kind of varies. What I mean by varies is that the tech was being developed by one or two guys tootling around with stuff. Towards the end of GoW2 we had, maybe, four or five people total (including an artist) saying ‘ok, we need to get shaders , normal maps and lighting figured out” and those kinds of things. So they basically had a baseline of those kinds of things taken care of before GoW2 was done so that we had a kind of template level to see what it was going to look like. It was essentially like a prototype and then we went from there.

All the tech for all the GoW products have been built upon each other. GoW2 was built on the GoW1 engine, and now GoW3 has been built on the GoW2 engine. See what happened is our tech guys ported the GoW2 engine over to the Playstation 3 right off the bat…

Ah! This is how the God of War Collection happened?

Sort of, yes! But they did that so we had a working engine and then the level designers were able to get right to work. We had Kratos running and jumping at speed, doing all the things he was doing in GoW2, so we were able to say ‘alright, this is a good baseline, let’s get to work’. Our programmers worked hand-in-hand with us and said ‘Ok in 6 months we’ll pull out the PS2 particle system and replace it with the PS3 particle system,and then a few months later we’ll pull out the PS2 collision system and replace it with the PS3 collision system.’

So it was modular in its design so they could pull out parts of the engine?
Yea--well, as much as we hoped! It was the only way to go for us. Due to the scale of the game we had to hit the ground running. We needed all the time possible to make the game, and it was the first PS3 game that our studio was doing. We weren’t given the luxury of doing it in 10 years.

What was the greatest challenge in the development of God of War 3?
Oh man there were so many! The colorful answer is titan gameplay. From a technical, artistic and design standpoint getting all 3 of those to come together to make sure they were all hitting on all cylinders was tough. From a production standpoint is would have to be communication. We went from 50 people working on GoW1, to 80 on GoW2 and then to 120 plus working on GoW3. The communication got exponentially harder.

Where would you say—as you picked up 40 people—most of the people landed? Were the majority of them going to the art depts or were they sprinkled throughout the studio?
You know, they were sort of sprinkled throughout. I would say that the Art department grew the most. We no longer had a model with a texture, but now a model with a texture with a normal map and a shader and lighting. It was more like eight things on a model instead of just one. Our code department also grew some along with animation, cinematics and design but Art grew the most.

Is the game running at 60 frames per second?
The game is running at a variable framerate. It rarely goes below 30 and it tops out at 60.

Is V-sync enabled?
Yes.

Is it 720P or 1080P?
720P native that can scale up to 1080i.

Tearing has become a hot topic in this generation of consoles. Did this affect your approach in the design of the game?
It’s interesting; God of War 2 had some tearing going on with it, but with GoW3 there shouldn’t be any tearing at all and the variable frame rate helps us out with that. We’ve also got some good code in place--that you can’t tell is working--which helps to make sure frame rate drops are gracefully executed. By graceful I mean that you won’t see any tearing.

In some respects—and I know I’m going to get shredded on the boards for saying this—we intentionally slow things down. We want to show you what’s going on in some scenes. A good example is this one huge creature who grabs Kratos and, if we showed that at speed, you would just never even see him. So we say, ‘ok slow the camera down, zoom in—there he is! Doesn’t he look cool?!’ and then we ramp the speed back up and put you back into the action. It’s a pacing thing.

Also, there are some small pauses in the combat that some people thought were slowdown because there were so many guys on screen but it’s intentionally there because it makes the hits feel more impactful.

What’s zipper-tech and what does it do?
It involves a high number of joints and the ability to have them and the vertices remain in sync over all kinds of animations and then to separate accordingly.

For instance, technically, the belly of the centaur is actually split open all the time, but you just can’t tell because everything is nicely tied together and moving along until the animation hits and tells the joints to split.

The God of War 3 Blu-Ray disk is 35GB in size. What’s asset comprises the most space?
Oh gosh that’s a tough one! I think the accurate answer would be the textures. I mean, realistically the documentary is on there and that’s about 2 hours of HD video, but as far as game assets go it’s the textures and then the audio.

Are there any pre-rendered cutscenes in the game?
There are pre-rendered cutscenes but in saying that--they’re made in the game engine.

I would like to make sure people understand the difference here: So there’s real-time where I have control of Kratos and there’s all this stuff happening around me--that’s how we define real-time. We define pre-rendered in that we take the game engine with game assets and put them in a scene. We then shoot the animation through the render (like the trailer we’ve all seen) and then the game spits out frames that we then put together as an mpeg. We don’t have the hi-res CGI videos like the first two games.

Is the God of War 3 engine going to be licensed out or used in other areas by Sony?
It will probably be used internally by Santa Monica Studio, but it comes down to support. If you license the engine out to someone else then it takes the whole team to provide that support--that takes up some serious bandwidth! The only way we would do it is if it was a fire-and-forget (no support) situation.

Also, in my experience in games, people don’t like using other peoples stuff.

Why is that?

I don’t know. It’s very frustrating. I don’t know if it’s a pride thing or people just not being familiar with it. I have an art background and did some level work in the past and after working on something I would hand it off to someone to finish and 3 weeks later I’d come back and would find that they rebuilt the whole thing! I’d ask ‘why’ and they would say something along the lines of “because it’s a piece of crap!” It happens 100% of the time. It’s strange, but it’s rampant.

In regards to the development of GoW3, how did the team come up with the overall vision?
Three years! I think one of the things our studio strives for is to bite off more than we can chew. That’s all everyone did in every department during the first year of development, saying ‘what can I work on tomorrow that’s crazier than what I did today?’ and from a production standpoint its scary as shit! After that year and a half of production it just kind of came down to finishing the project.

What about the moving levels? Was this something that the studio wanted to do earlier in the series but was limited by the technology of the PS2?
A little bit. On God of War 2 we touched on it, but then we ended it saying ‘well, we’re really going to have to do it now’. So when we got to the PS3 we were excited! Right out of the gate we started on the design work. We actually had a prototype called “The Blockman” who literally had blocks for arms and legs and Kratos was running on them.

Each GoW game has had a different director and each one has brought a different vision. What kind of affects has this had on the game?
Oh it’s awesome! I think it’s one of the best ways we could have done it. I don’t want to draw direct comparisons to this, but one of my favorite series of all times was Band of Brothers. I love that series! Each episode is set in the same period with the same characters in the same events, but there were different directors for each episode. When you watch the whole thing and reflect back its like ‘wow, ok so it is a little different’. It’s the same with the GoW series—each guy provided a different perspective.

Does this mean you’re going to become the next director on the series? No Way!

What can we expect in regards to DLC?
We’re working that out now. There are no definitive plans but we’re still experimenting. We’ve got some bandwidth and if Sony tells us to go ahead with it then we will. We’ve got some ideas bouncing around.

Can we expect anything for free? Like arenas?
I hope so! We’ve got some fun ideas that we’re kicking around.

Has work begun on the next God of War trilogy?
Hrm. No. Weeeeeell—hrm, no. We’ve just come off of a huge run and the guys are just happy that I’m not calling them.

It’s been almost 3 years since God of War 2 was released and the genre hasn’t move forward much in terms of gameplay? What is God of War 3 going to do to push things forward?
I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t know if our goal was to necessarily push the genre forward really.

What about Titan gameplay? Is that a push forward?
Yes but I could just take the counter point and say Shadow of Colossus did it too, right? I think our goal was just to do things better than what we had ever done before in the past. That’s really what our goal was. We wanted to top the other two entries in the series and end it on a big note. We wanted the trilogy to wrap up this kind of grand story arc and all the challenges up against it. In the end we just wanted to create a fun product.

I’m honestly not trying to dance around the question, but I don’t recall there ever being discussions about it.

Were there any games you played during the development that helped influence any particular parts of GoW3?
You know you can probably see that there are a lot once you play the game, just like when you played the first one. I think one of the things we did try to do is end the trilogy and harkens back to the first one and its style.

What exactly does that mean?
Well in the first one we got into Krato’s head and saw his past and his torment, but the second one wasn’t so much about Kratos as it was about his environment and how he was just fucking it up. It was just more about the things happening around Kratos.

On GoW3 we tried to go back to the roots of the first one and make it more about Kratos—to get more into his head, more into his motivations and just finish his story.

Is there one ending to the game?
Yes, there is one ending.

Thanks for your time and congratulations!
Thank you very much!

BioShock 2: Letting Go So We Can Move Forward

2010-02-12T11:10:00.001-08:00

BioShock 2 is an interesting game isn't it? It arrives in a very difficult position as it follows in the footsteps of--what some consider to be the best first-person shooters in years--the original BioShock. What's curious though is the group of gamers that heartily embraced the original, wearing it as a shining badge, mightily exclaimed to the world "See! This is what we can have when we marry a compelling narrative with artisan game design!", are now the ones turning their backs to it's sequel. Some are even outright unwilling to listen to the story it wishes to tell.

On the other hand, who can blame them right?

After all how can it be possible for a BioShock sequel to create an equally fascinating experience--that rests in such a unique space--when we've already visited? Truth be told I'm a little bit of a hypocrite as I initially found myself pushing out my chest along side them.

But after putting some thought into my reasoning I soon realized I wasn't giving the game its fair chance--I might be missing out on something! Well I'm happy to say that I come away from completing Bioshock 2 (roughly 12 hours) feeling fulfilled. Certainly I'm a traitor now, right? :) Listen, all I plan to do is write what I feel and hope you get something beneficial out of it.

In short, I've come to the conclusion that BioShock 2 is--through a series of unfortunate missteps--a really good game.

Hold your tomatoes please!

To keep things completely spoiler free I won't go into any of the plot or gameplay revelations, but what I will do is tell you confidently that I found the narrative--and its unraveling--interesting enough to keep me slogging forward. I wanted to know more. It probably goes without saying that I think it's not nearly as interesting as the original though.

By now everyone knows you take control of the very first prototyped Big Daddy, and from that initial moment the game makes it incredibly apparent how massive and powerful you really are. Movement is accented with the pounding of your elephantine feet as you lumber about the corridors. The stoutly swoop of your massive melee attacks as they thud a splicer across the face, or even the deep-chested grunts you let loose when you're attacked in return. It all comes together to help sink in the notion that you're truly a massive beast of sorts.

This doesn't mean you're not susceptible to damage though, or that your perform things any more slowly than other protagonist you might play in other game. What it does do is highlights the greatness of his design. Your colossal heaviness is implied completely by sound and never by tactile feedback. Somewhere in that design comes a certain melancholy with the implication of how cumbersome and confused your life is in Rapture.

For me, the very first hour of the game was slightly awkward and confusing as I walked around. I tried to digest everything Rapture was trying to convey but it proved to be more disturbing. I was in a rut. The musky environments--though of the same in essence of my first experience in Rapture--had changed quite a bit due to the 10 year that had lapsed. There were writings scrawled across the walls that just didn't make sense. Everything was coming together to push me towards feeling claustrophobic (when, in reality, I'm not.)

After a few minutes I realize that perhaps what I was experiencing was completely organic. Were these feelings elicited intentionally by design? Perhaps not, but for me it did slightly augment my experience as it connected me to the protagonist a bit more as I imagine it was likely he was experiencing the same emotions.

As I got my bearings I found the gameplay to be more intense and more enjoyable than the original, and this (pleasantly) surprised me. I think the ability to duel wield plasmids and weapons heightened the intensity of the action to a new level. In addition there appeared to be even more splicer attacks coupled with thicker skin and more powerful weapons. Fun!

I really began to feel at home when I mastered the Hypnotize plasmid. At first it has the ability to turns other foes against one another--which in itself is extremely entertaining to watch--but eventually it upgrades to a point where you can recruit splicers by your side for a few minutes--even the bigger guys! At several points in the game I found myself surrounded by two hacked drones and one of my favorite victims--the teleporting, explosive-throwing Houdini Splicers. Sending that party into a room full of splicers and watching the AI try to figure out how to kill itself was so incredibly entertaining!

But what Bioshock 2 doesn't have, unfortunately, is the same quality of architectural level design as the first. The magic that it retained throughout the entire experience just isn't at the same level. Bioshock 1 is defined by two things--it's areas and the characters that inhabit them. Many sections of the game had incredibly unique architectural designs and aesthetics making every section memorable with fascinating points of interest. I fondly look back on certain areas like the Medical Pavilion run by the demented and insane Dr Steinman, Neptune's Bounty, the Farmers Market, or how about Rapture's entertainment center Fort Frolic?

For me, BioShock 2 really only has one area that runs along the same line as those and that's Ryan Amusements. I'll hold off on the details as to why it's so interesting, but let's just say it's a pivotal moment in the game's narrative that truly reveals how arrogant and messed up Ryans practices were, but conjugated by brilliant design.

Unfortunately most of the other levels--including Siren Alley (the Red Light District), which I feel was a sadly missed opportunity--are much too similar in terms of aesthetic and architectural design.

I must point out that this is not to say that the levels are badly designed or even a bore to play through--they're not--but it just brings to light that they're not on par with the original. That whimsical, melancholy of the BioShock spirit is missing.

In terms of plot, once I found out where the narrative was going towards the end of the game--and yes it's revealed why you're a Big Daddy who's as weak and vulnerable as he is--I was hooked. It's certainly not as interesting or inspired as the original game, but I found it really interesting none-the-less.

BioShock 2 is a really fun game, but I think that in order for us hardcore to enjoy what the crafted experience has to offer then we need to come back down to earth a little. We need to realize that BioShock 2 isn't going to have the very best part of BioShock 1--which is the glorious first exposure to Rapture where we bewilderingly travel through it. What BioShock 2 is, though, is an unpretentious attempt to expand on Rapture lore, and you know what? I respect and enjoy it for nicely progressing in the complexity of Rapture. Most importantly I respect it for, overall, being a fun video game to play--because that's what it does best.

Review: Assassin's Creed 2

2010-01-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

From an artistic standpoint, Assassin's Creed 2s architectural structures and the character models that fill them are incredibly well crafted. In my travels to 16th century (virtual) Italy I found the non-organic items were the most eye-catching, and at times they stopped me dead in my tracks so I could admire their beauty. The voice work is performed very naturally by the actors, helping the dialog along to its lofty goal of frequent but tolerable chatter.

The textures and overall graphical fidelity are some of the best this generation of gaming has to offer.

The scope and variation in gameplay is certainly impressive. Like any well made open-world game it allows you to control where you want to go at what pace you desire. AC2, in particular, really encourage you to wander off into its world very early on to collect Feathers in honor of your brother, perform assassinations for additional cash or even find treasure chests that are littered around the cities--it's a lot to take on. In fact, the extra offerings reach almost ludicrous proportions to the point where I would be hard pressed to find a game with more stuff to do (that wasnt developed by Bethesda).

This stuff is all well and good, and there are many reviews out there praising this incredible game from top to bottom. In the end, though, Assassin's Creed 2 has flaws that I feel are worth discussing by the gaming community.

Let’s start with the controls.

I don’t recall the last time I became so boiled over with frustration--and as many times as I did--with a video game's movement mechanic. The running-jumping-climbing automation has become a staple of the Assassin's Creed series and it's a lot of fun--when it works. I love how exhilarating Ubisoft has made the scaling of buildings and the traversing of rooftops—it’s like playing Need For Speed: 16th Century Rooftop Edition! It's fun right? But it's the protagonists (Ezio) inadvertent habit of haphazardly jumping in directions other than the one I point him in. I would usually end up shaking my fist in the air as it lead to my untimely death on the cobblestone streets below (or attracting the attention of unwanted guards who seem to be able to climb as well as I do while dressed in full armor!)

Also, there were more times than I care to remember where Ezio would be climbing up the side of a building and he would suddenly halt--hitting some kind of a virtual wall--when there was clearly a ledge within his grasp. No move, no matter how advanced, would force him to grab these ledges. Eventually I would most likely end up scolding him says "Get your ASS up there"! Yea yea, it's Irrational behavior I know.

Though the game now has an economy I feel that it's, unfortunately, broken. I'm not pretentious enough to consider myself to be any more skilled than your average hardcore gamer, so I don't think I was doing anything unusual here, but I was buying just about everything I wanted and whenever pleased! Whenever I entered a newly discovered city I was able to buy 90% of the items (paintings, weapons, armor) as soon as they became available. Other things were acquired, generally, within an hours time. This is probably due to the massive amounts of side-missions that are available with huge monetary rewards.

But I ask, shouldn’t those rewards have been considerated when items were being priced? I love the fact that all these items are available, but the rewards in particular were too great and too soon (or these powerful items were too cheap--you pick.) It made me realize how much I missed a well paced a game. Pacing that creates a feeling of anticipation for more powerful items. World of Warcraft does the “Carrot-on-a-stick” thing perfectly.

--Slight Spoilers Follow--

I remember when I first discovered I was going to be able to rule over this small town in this game. Oh man, I got very excited jus thinking of all the possibilities. Oh the possibilities people! In the end the ruling consisted of mostly trivial tasks and rewards. Yes there was a small benefit like discounted items in stores, but in the ended it's trivial at best. I really only utilized the perks once or twice because I ended up buying most of my items in other cities since it was more convenient. I felt like the player should be given the option to go even farther with the acquisition of the town.

Imagine if the effects of building and upgrading structures affected the mood of your population. How about funding some kind of annual festival to bring happiness and a sense of community to the town? Perhaps it could have just do something simple like reduce the crime/poverty rates. Though I realize that that's heading down a path of a sim--which is definitely not what AC is about—I think, if implemented casually, could increase the players interest in the town without over complicating things. Keeping it simple, you know? Add a few meters here and there to the already existing city overview UI.

When arriving back in the city after being gone for a few days I initially thought I would have the opportunity to make some important choices in regards politics. Perhaps I would have to determine what to do with someone who was caught stealing from someones home, or even settling a dispute amid two families that cause a new set of missions to open up. Heck, I though for certain I would have to deal with more personal issues like finding a suitable man for the younger sister (I mean, what happened with that story, right?)

--Slight spoilers end--

Despite what I've said here, I want to stress that I really enjoyed Assassin's Creed overall--quite a bit actually! I just don’t seem to adore it like most of the general gaming community and critics.

Yes, "driving" Ezio around the beautiful Italian cities is, at times, as relaxing as my favorite Sunday drive with my lovely wife. Up the California coast we go admiring the gorgeous landscapes, soaking up the sunset in my RX-7...but in this game it's with wobbly tires.

Review - Demon's Souls

2009-11-06T10:33:00.000-08:00

Demon’s Souls is one the most difficult game I’ve played in years and I love it! I find the choices made in its overall design both compelling and fascinating. In an industry where the current trend seems to want to make games easier and more accessible for the masses, it’s nice to see one game proudly stand up and pound its chest challenging gamers alike. It’s a call to arms of sorts for the hardcore.

For those of you who don’t know, the Prince of Persia series was recently “rebooted” to contain mostly simple button presses and thumb-stick gestures to execute “complex” maneuvers. It’s a divisive concept in the gaming community, and though I enjoyed the game quite a bit, I do admit that the trend is starting to bother met. Take Uncharted 2-- even though it's one of my favorite games of the year, the auto correcting jump mechanic had me shaking my head at times because I felt it was removing some of the games inherent gameplay challenges.

Embarrassingly I recall an incident from last year where I was playing Burnout 3 and became so boiled over with frustration I physically twisted and cracked my $50 DualShock 2. I cracked the internal circuit board rendering it completely useless. “Way to go Mark!” I thought, “What are you, 12 years old?!” Clearly this was a stupid and expensive reaction on my part, but I had had it with the game ending crashes caused by bumper tapping. I’m just the type of guy who doesn’t tolerate cheap and unapologetic design tactics in games.

I bring this up for two reasons: First to make it clear that poorly designed games can frustrate me to point of time travel. Secondly, I never once came close to feeling this kind of frustration in regards to Demon’s Souls challenges.

I think for most gamers to really appreciate Demon’s Souls they must make a conscience decision to be up for its back-breaking challenges. At its core, Demon’s Souls is an intensely exhilarating and well crafted experience coupled with unmerciful consequences for dying. But once one is aware of that fact, you will be forced to constantly contemplate your strategies knowing full well that even quickly turning a corner could have dire consequences.

Death in Demon’s Souls (see, even in writing it makes me wince!) has several penalties: It restart you from the very beginning on your current stage, you lose all your currency (souls) and all previously defeated foes will respawn sans bosses. In contrast of a game with a very generous checkpoint system like Batman: Arkham Asylum--checkpoints simply do not exist. I would like to be clear on this because it so very much goes against the grain--there will never be an automatic save made for you, nor is it even possible to manual save the game at your every whim.

Intimidated yet?

Hey, the game is not completely ruthless though. If you return to your fallen corpse without dying then you will be able to recover 100% of your souls. However, if you do die along the way then they will disappear completely leaving you with nothing but your weapons and health. You do have the opportunity to stashed away Demon's Souls, equipment and items with a friendly NPC located in the game’s hub (The Nexus), for safe storage. So if you utilize your resources properly you won’t completely lose everything.

I know it might sound too frustrating to even consider playing, but what Demon’s Souls manages to do is increase the intensity and quality of the experience without it feeling cheap. Almost every time I died in the game it was due to the fact that I wasn’t being careful enough, or frankly I was just practicing improper battle techniques.

So why would someone want to play this game? The only explanation I can give you is my own—Demon’s Souls managed to invoked emotions that I've not felt in a very long time. Its deliberately slow progression made me appreciate seemingly simple acts, but ostensibly were monumental progressions.

If the difficulty of Demon's Souls is at the core of the game’s draw then the boss fights are definitely the cherry on top of that cake. Yes this game has fun boss fights. Sing some praise with me! Though they can be a little outlandish at times, they are mostly radiating with originality and are enjoyable crafted sequences.

Demon’s Souls is a game full of "tough love"—it’s firm, but fair. If you slip up with your hand in the cookie jar even once then you will get it slapped hard! In some instances this means losing hours of your concerted efforts at the flick of the games wrist. Undoubtedly at some point you will dip your head in despair. But once you realize you were the one at fault you will suddenly realize that you're back in the game honing your skills and surpassing the games challenges. It's incredibly rewarding.

I'll never forget playing the game for the first time--it was a 4 hour session that ended with my jaw aching. Later I realized that it was from me gritting my teeth the entire time. I that pretty much sums up my experience with this game.

Still Alive

2009-08-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

I hate to be a typical blogger here that's typically blogging about a lengthy absence from said blog that will only be thwarted by a triumphant return--but what the hell--that's exactly what I'm going to do! God that's a lame intro.

Nevertheless I quickly wanted to let the readers of this blog know that I have some thoughts and impressions coming very soon.

Thanks for the emails, private messages and support--your voices have been heard!

iPhone Gaming: Karma Star

2009-06-12T11:38:00.001-07:00

Karma Star, developed by Majesco Entertainment, is without a doubt the most fascinating and unique game I’ve played on the iPhone. No seriously—I can’t stop playing the darn thing!

It’s a game that takes you through the paces of life in just 8 turns where you compete against 2 other players (represented by either AI or human). Games are over fairly quickly with an average of 8 minutes in length. You compete with 2 other players (AI controller or human) for the highest score. Each player has 5 traits: Health, Mind, People, Love and Money that are rated with a score of 1 through 5. Each turn you’re given the option to either boost a trait, which improves it’s score by 1, or by attacking another player’s identical trait scoring 2 points if you win the battle.

During combat players roll “dice” against one another. The higher rating your trait has, the more dice rolls you will get. For instance if your trait rating is 4 then you will get 4 dice rolls. If the accumulated score from these rolls are higher than your opponents—you win the round!

To really add some variety to the game Majesco has added wildcards. You can choose to play wildcards at the start of your turn, or during combat to influence the game in your favor. Wildcards vary from the helpful “Corruption” which allows you to steal a trait point from another player and “Moxie” which adds +2 to your dice rolls in combat, to the hell Mary type like “Sacrifice” where you can sacrifice 2 traits for an extra turn.

The game also rewards strategic gameplay with bonuses. Bonuses are a bit like the Achievement system on Xbox Live but more practical in nature because they boost your game score. For instance if you steal a wildcard from both players you will receive the “Thief” bonus boosting your score by 1. Or how about the bonus “Bully”, were attacking both players at least once nets you a point. The “Double Major” bonus get you a point if you get 2 of your traits up to level 5.

Karma Star is a game about human nature: Progression, development and conquest, but in a bite size format. With it's short game time and instant replayability it’s a perfect fit for handheld gaming. On top of all of this it's a steal for $1.99!

iTunes Link

E3 Impressions: Mass Effect 2

2009-06-09T07:19:00.000-07:00

Those of you who listen to Played know that I adore the first game--despite it's faults--and have taken Commander Shepard through his paces more than once. Knowning how brilliant and effective Bioware is at creating entertaining experiences, my expectations for Mass Effect 2 were sky high going in to E3.

After getting two hands-off demonstrations I can mightily exclaim that Bioware has done a tremendous job at listening to it's fan base! Their plan is to advanced Mass Effect 2 in every direction possible including--one of my favorite parts of the series--the conversation system.

Being demonstrated on an X360, the first thing I immediately noticed were the graphical improvements. Gone are the annoying pop-in textures, the crosshatched creeping facial shadows, and most importantly--the feeble frame rate. It looks so fantastic in fact that I was forced to ask the project lead, Casey Hudson, if what we were watching was prerendered material. It sounds like a silly thing to ask, mainly because I knew the answer, but I had to be sure (and get it on the record).

The conversations between characters in the original, though interesting enough, mostly took place in rooms with static positions and sometimes drab perspectives. Bioware feels that that was a little too unnatural looking for the series. So in ME2 the perspectives used during conversations are more dynamic, "organic" and just overall more interesitng to watch.

In the demonstration I saw, Shepard was having a conversation with someone in a moving vehicle and the perspectives varied, moving from the back seat to close-ups and then outside of the vehicle. Though it's a small improvement, but it's one of the many little things Bioware is doing to improve the overall experience (and I don't mean to imply that every conversation will use Dutch angles) either, so please don't take it that way.

A new option has been added to the conversation system that appears to allow physical interaction with someone. It was basically a prompt--lasting only a few seconds--in the lower left-hand side of the screen to press the left trigger. When used in the demo, Shepard threw a guy out a window! I don’t know if this new prompt is always going to be an aggressive act of violence, but I'm very interested in finding out where they're going to take this addition. The original game did something similar in several instances of the game but it was interpreted through the conversation wheel—it just appears that now those instances have been defined elsewhere.

After the demo I asked the design lead about the inventory system. He wouldn’t give me specifics but he did say that they have completely scrapped the old system, from both the console and the PC versions, and are starting anew. He added that they are going for something much more practical, accessible, and useful.

I moved on to--perhaps the biggest gripe amongst us fans--the optional planetary visits and side quests. He smiled and assured me that every planet will be unique in design which quickly forced me to stopped him and press “every planet?”. Responding with another smile, “yes every planet.” In end of the demo they wrapped things up with a short video showing one off of the new planets and it was the exact opposite of what we're use to seeing in ME1. It was a lush green planet with a massive forest and rolling hills--it was exciting!

Lastly, I asked him if the same composer was returning and he said, unfortunately, that he could not talk about that.

What To Know What I Played At E3? BAM, There It Is...

2009-06-05T09:45:00.001-07:00

I survived the E3 monster my friends! Yes, I'm back and I'm happy to report that I got to get my hands on some really amazing (and not so amazing) games. Here is the list:

Assassin's Creed 2
Uncharted 2
God of War 3
Brutal Legends
Dragon Age: Origins
Mass Effect 2
Heavy Rain
Pixeljunk Shooter
Split/Second
Blur
Prototype
Darksiders
Red Faction: Guerilla
Overlord II
Ghostbusters
Brink
Fallout DLC: Point Lookout
The Conduit
Aliens vs Predator
Batman: Arkham Asylum

I'm working on a write up right now, but I just wanted to check in with you folks and let you know I was alive.

Also, if the title of this entry does make sense then click here.

Stay tuned...

E3, Twitter and Me!

2009-06-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

I am overjoyed, you have no idea! I am fortunate enough to be attending E3 this year. I will be there on all 3 days and the plan is to see and play everything I can get my hands on. Though I'm not doing coverage for any one in particular (besides Played and, of course, this blog) but I will be fully dedicated to updating my twitter feed with my advantures on the showroom floor.

There really nice thing is that I have very few appointments scheduled so my time will be spent playing lots and lots of games. That's a good position to be in don't you think?

Here are the games I plan to check out so far:

Half-Life 2: Episode 3
Assassin's Creed 2
Rage
Alan Wake
Uncharted 2
MAG
God of War 3
New Zelda
New Mario
Crackdown 2!!
APB
Gran Turismo 5
Modern Warfare 2
Brutal Legend
Dragon Age: Origins
Mass Effect 2
Diablo 3
Starcraft 2
Bioshock 2
Trico
Heavy Rain
LA Noire
Dead Rising 2
Forza 3
Star Wars: The Old Republic

Anyone have any further recommendations?

The reality of actually running through the estimated 40,000+ people, I imagine, will be a bit daunting but I'm up for it!

Again, stay tuned to my Twitter for all the action as it will be my only source of information for the next 3 days.

Review: inFAMOUS

2009-05-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

After playing through one of the three islands in inFAMOUS, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what inFAMOUS has to offer. In short--it's the game I've been waiting to play for over 2 years. Ever since Crackdown's release in early 2007 I've been itching for something that's even remotely close to what that over-the-top, explosive world has to offers. Though different games overall it does seem to satiate the same appetite. I love a game with a moral compass, at least when it's put to good use, and inFAMOUS does a pretty decent job of doing that. But to be frank--it's not perfect.

inFAMOUS calls it's moral system "Karma" and it takes form in a three-stage slide scale. The function of the Karma scale is to allow the player to unlock certain abilities, as they progress up it, to unluck and upgrade abilities depending on their moral choices in the game. Being a do-gooder will unlock that allow for more precise attacks, while acts of evil will allow for chaotic, power surging ones. For instance one exclusive evil power allows you the ability to slamming down onto the ground, shooting out electrical charges, in mid-jump.

The people of the city will react accordingly to your persona by cheering you on as you run by and taking your picture if you're a hero, or by gathering around as a mob to boo and hiss as they throw rocks at you. It's a pretty entertaining sight in some respects and it really does help you feel like you're affecting the world around you. It reminds me of the Fable series where people run up to you cheering and clapping over their head, but also, like in Fable, I found myself wanting it to be a little more practical instead of "showy". Assassin's Creed did something relatively similar as well where someone you save--which is effectively what you're doing in inFAMOUS--actually physically restrain the guards as you attempt to escape. I really think Sucker Punch missed at opportunity to innovate and do something special here.

These morality choices are presented to you throughout the main story and then through side missions as well. The side missions consist of two types: Standard ones that are marked on your map in the form of a yellow exclamation point, and then Karma based ones with either a red (evil) or blue (good) circle around it. You will be offered to choose one of these karma-based missions per territorial section and when completing, will wipe out the alternate one off the map.

It just so happens that the single most important aspect of a video game is the one thing Sucker Punch really nailed--the gameplay. It just feels really really good to play! Running, jumping, dashing, climbing, sliding, punching..I mean I could go on and on for days here.

But being able to jump off of the main story’s mission line is an essential element to an open world game and inFAMOUS does this by offering a host of side quests that range anywhere from rescuing some captive civilians from thugs (the Reapers gang) who are escorting them to certain death, to following a ghost to their killers is location. They’re interesting, fun and are repeated a few times throughout the first island (unsure of the second or third island). As you complete these side quests you are rewarded with experience (which is used to unlock more powers and upgrades) and a small “cleansed” segment of the cities territory. These cleansed segments will no long allow Reapers to respawn in their respective area. If you played Viking: Battle for Asgard, it's very similar to that in that, aesthetically speaking, everything becomes a little brighter and happier. It’s a nice and appreciated touch.

Initially one of my concerns about the game was transportation. I think Rockstar created a graceful solution with the Taxi system that was introduced in GTAIV. They essentially act as teleporters for the impatient (ME!), or a "rollercoaster 'o fun" for the vacationers. But that particular system just wouldn’t make sense in inFAMOUS’s world, plus it would rob the game of it's chance to remind you of how much of a badass you really are. After a few hours of playing the game you unlock the ability to slide along power lines and it's just a fast and fun way to get around town. The first time you do it I guarantee you'll exclaim "woooo hooo!" But it really wasn’t until I repaired the cities train system that I stood up cheering for Cole. Once I hopped onto that crazy train (aaall aboooard HAHAHAHAHAH! -Ozzy) I realized that utilizing this system for transportation around the city would allow me to get from one side of the city to the other in no time. The sense of speed when you're on top of one of these things just has to be experienced, and wait until you jump off that thing moving at those speeds. :)

For an open-world game I think the game, graphically speaking, looks great. After reading some comments on various gaming forums I think some people have too high of expectations for the current generations console's rendering power (and the software that drives them). Rendering games like inFAMOUS and GTAIV are extremely taxing on these system's resources. But to me, in the end, it really comes down to the art direction. That's what makes all the difference! It's what separates the good from the bad (pun intended). If I had to pick a better looking game, for comparisions sake, I would probably say GTAIV looking a bit better--mainly because of the impeccable city designs where nothing is copy & pasted. unofrtunately I did notice once or twice that the same building was being used in different locations of the same island, but just flipped around in disguise. For some this is completely trival, but for me it was a bit of a bummer as I had high expectations for the city's design.

I do have a few more gripes.

I adore the animated comic book style panel sequences that move the narrative along, but found the in-game cutscenes to be much lower in quality. It's almost as if they were tacked on at the very end of development. They appears to be less polished and are certainly not at the same level as the rest of the game's offerings. It actually left me wanting more of the well animated storyboarding instead.

The voice and general deign of Cole isn’t too spectacular either. Though I find his overall attire to be pretty cool, his facial design is rather bland. He looks like...well just some dude off of the streets, which I suppose is the point but now that he's got all this power he's not generic--he's special. My point is that I think it would have done some good for the character to have some distinguishing physical marks (of some sort, just please no tattoos) left on him after the incident.

In regards to his voice, it appears to be straight out of the David Hayter school of video game voice acting but with less passion (and grunting). It's dry and dull and does nothing to invoke likability for Cole.

My final complaint might be insignificant to some, but for me it’s a point that is grating. There is a very slight and faint squeaking noise that is made when Cole runs. It's a lame complaint, I'll agree. But there are times when I completely forget about it, and then sudden hear it again! This mainly happens when I've been fighting or watching a cutscene for a while and as I begin running I hear it again. I'm left scratching my head wondering why Sucker Punch left this in the game. What appreciative value does it add to the overall experience?

In the end though the good far outweigh the little gripes I have with inFAMOUS. With incredibly fun gameplay that just feels right, excellent graphics, spectacular music, a huge city to explore, excellent transportation methods, a decent morality system, and wonderful fighting mechanics--this game is absolutely amazing! Buy it now.

Peggle Review (iPhone)

2009-05-26T06:13:00.000-07:00

Peggle for the iPhone and iPod touch sucks--but I don't mean pejoratively. It is litterally sucking up much more of my free time (and battery power) than should be allowed. There are several key reasons this is the definitive version of Peggle for me: It's accessability, the platforms inherent touch screen controls and the overall excellent translation to Apple's platform. It's actually a dangerous prospect for gamers-on-the-run like me because its addiction is like a ninja. It will sneak up on you and take you by surprise!

But not surprisingly, Popcap utilizes the iPhones touch screen interface to control the game really well. The controls are on par with it's mouse driver counterparts on the other platforms thanks to it's three aiming modes: The finger-swipe for broad aiming, a crank located on the right-hand side of the screen for fine-tuning adjustments to aim and finally a double-tap zoom in mode for access to a really percise aiming mode. The combination of these three aiming mechanics really allow for a less frustration expereince and not once have I found them to be clumsy.

In addition to that, Popcap has added a OMG-I-have-a-plane-to-catch fast forward button that allows you to lessen the wait time. It can be used to speed up the wait for that perfect shot, or--not that I would encourage it--you can even use it during the "Ode to Joy" segment if you wish.

Popcap has also included the ability to capture replays for those one-in-a-million shots that you must show off to friends and family. Though I've not exepreinced any performance issues on my iPod touch, I have heard of some performance issues with older hardware. Nothing that would destroy the experience, but it's only fair to mention it for those that are hyper sensetive to those kinds of things.

Much like the original game, Peggle for the iPhone includes 55 levels and only 40 of the 75 Grandmaster challanges that are in the other versions.

With an asking price of $4.99 this game provides a excellent amount of entertainment for iPhone gamers but to be fair it's a little pricey when considering the average price of similar games (Pachingo is $.99) is a 1/5 of the price.

I almost always have my iPod with me and not my DS . That being said, with all the tweaks mentioned above, the pass-the-phone duel mode, and trophy room--this makes it my favorite version of Peggle.

Sacred 2 Stopped Making Me Weep

2009-05-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

Sacred 2 has this way of luring you back for more--even with its faults!

It pleases me to say that after becoming a little bored with the Shadow Warrior--with it's monotonous melee--I decided to create a different character, a Dryad, and give Sacred 2 another shot. It's not that I dislike Sacred 2, it's that it's got so much potentoil and it's first impression was spoiled! Hey, I gotta keep trying, man. I just love these dungeon crawlers ok?

So I headed in another direction and went with a ranged class to see how differently it would play. The Dryad class can use melee weapons like the Shadow Warrior, but really, it's built for ranged combat. I have to say, after playing for several hours, I am really enjoying my time playing the Dryad. Sure, chalk it up to personal preference perhaps but it really feels like this game was built for bows-and-magic on the consoles (not the PC.) Come’on, this is coming from a guy who hated the “push-the-stick” melee in Too Human but loved the Marksmen class--it just feel right.

With the class change I dutifully played a few more hours of the game (roughly 4). Unfortunately with in that time I noticed a few more obtrusive issues with the game. Thankfully none of these are deal breakers, at least not for me. Before I get to those I want to reiterate—I am now enjoying this game! unfortunately It’s not as refined as I would like it to be.

However, with that being said....

I cannot find a way to blacksmith in the field despite obtaining the skill to do so. I've checked around on several forums, asked a few people and it appears that this is a common issue amongst players. It’s a nice skill to have as Blacksmiths just aren’t prevalent in the game.

When browsing the inventory there are two options available to you—“Details” and “Compare”. "Details" allows you to—are you ready for this—see more details about a particular item! "Compare" allows you to....see more details about an item! Yes the problem is--both buttons do the exact same thing. This is another very useful feature that would make life easier when upgrading and selling items. Anyone know what's going on with this?

In my previous post I complained about the act of Looting. I'm happy to report that the "catch all" collection system now feels really good and makes my little pavlovian brain salivate with it's "Cha-ching" sound effects.
Just to note--and not to complaint--gone is the color system the PC version of the game uses to identify power level and importance of items and weapons (a la Word of Warcraft) and replacing it is a star system. It works well and I see no real difference between using the two. I'm wondering if perhaps the change took place to better suite colorblind gamers?

Overall—this game is beginning to win me over and I'm excited about that.

Anyone up for some coop? :)

Sacred 2: First Impression

2009-05-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

Although I was only able to spend about an hour playing the game yesterday, I feel like I have a few noteworthy remarks about the console release of Sacred 2. Take my feedback with a grain of salt but with that being said I'll do my best to describe what I experienced. At the very least this will provide a morsel of information out there about this highly (for some) anticipated game. Also to confess, I've not played the PC version more than about an hour so I'm not overly familiar with the game in it's many iterations--but I do love dungeon crawlers of any kind like Diablo I & II, Titan Quest, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 & 2, and Champions of Norrath.

The installation of the game took as long as any other 360 game--roughly 8 minutes. The installation improved load times significantly. I don't mean to imply that loading levels is non-existent but they do load with in seconds.

I decided to play as a Shadow Warrior and check out how melee is handled in this game. You have the option to choose to play the Light or Dark campaigns and select an applicable deity to worship. The Shadow Warrior begins his saga in a tomb and my initial impressions was "cool, a dungeon! There's bound to be lots of loot around here!" I ran around a bit and everything looked well enough. It certainly wasn’t mind blowing but it definitely looked better than the games I mentioned above. :)

Unfortunately, once outside the tomb the frame rate took a little bit of a hit. Not severe enough to make the game unplayable, but I think people who are really sensitive to a slight drop in frames and tearing will be put off by this. Personally, I thought it was a little annoying--but not annoying enough to ruin the gameplay. If I had to guess I would say it dropped < 30 fps.

The fighting was a little strange for me. I felt a little disconnected when fighting (melee) because you don’t mash a button. It's not similar to the Baldur's Gates or the Champions of Norraths where you hit a button to attack. Instead you hold down the button and direct your attacks towards the enemies. It works--and I imagine it takes some getting use to--but for me I would rather mash on a button and feel more involved with attacking. It felt a little too passive but I am only an hour into the game. I imagine this is a mechanic that will feel more natural (and perhaps for connected?) in time.

Loading up on loot in these games is always something I look forward to--don't we all? In Sacred 2 (console), looting is done automatically when pressing the LB. Again, you feel a little detached when loot is magically transported into your inventory and where's the satisfaction when you don't get the feel of snatching it up? At least you see it on the ground and know you have to pick it up so the process isn't as drastically passive as Too Human where goodies didn’t even fall on the ground but jumped into your inventory. I am sure this sounds totally trivial to a lot of you but for me, I enjoy picking it up and hearing the "clinks", the "clanks" and the "cha-chings" of the gold pieces. For those of you like me, a little thing like that is hugely missed.

I did notice that weapons, abilities/skills and magic can be bound to any of the 4 face buttons. The LT and RT act as a "shift" key so you can bind up to 8 more items for quick use. It looks really effective and I think it's a smart way to handle diversity in combat methods.

In the inventory, I noticed that comparing items is as easy as pressing a button so it does look like Ascaron made an effort to create as console-friendly game. Again, these are very early impressions of a ginormous game. There are still many many things left for me to see and find and get used to. Knowing some of you are as eager as I am for first-hand impressions of this game on the console -- feel free to ask if you have any questions!

Sacred 2 Is Here!

2009-05-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

Look was showed up on my doorstop today! I'm very interested to see how this game turns out. Though we talked about it on a previous episode of Played--that was the PC version. Will post soon with impressions as their is no embargo on this baby. What do you think? Does Sacred 2 on the consoles have the potential to be as good or better than Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (one of my favoritet console dungeon crawlers)?

Article: I'll Cry When I'm Done Killing

2009-04-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

[Warning: Slight MGS4 spoiler below]

Ask yourself: Can video games be uniquely therapeutic when compared to other entertainment mediums? No other medium matches the catharsis of interaction.

Let’s take the extremely intense button-mashing sequence near the end of Metal Gear Solid 4. You must help the protagonist—Snake—pull his dilapidated body through a fiery corridor before he’s burnt to a crisp. As the clock ticks away, you must furiously mash away to assist him in his agonizingly slow progression to safety. One sweaty hand reaches forward slowly clutching the floor as a leg bends slightly to help push him forward a few inches. Bit by bit the screen glow an ominous red reminding you that death is imminent. Once I completed that particular experience and lived, I dropped my controller to the ground in need of a break! It felt like I ran a mental marathon dealing with all the emotions the sequence evoked. Nervousness, dread, anguish, excitement, and then finally relief were all there and all because of game play. No words or touching dialog to take me here and yet I felt exactly what the game wanted me to feel.

Can video games go the other direction? How about actually consoling the loss of a loved one? According to one man--who’s brother was unfortunately killed in Iraq--they can:

“I was fighting back too. Not from some watered-down, digitalized version of patriotism. I was inflicting retribution on the people and the ideas that had hurt Luis, working through my grief and my rage. It wasn't the real thing; I don't think I could survive twenty-four hours of patrolling the physical, flesh-and-blood Baghdad. But Call of Duty 4 was as close as I could get. By the time I'd reached the end, I felt a visceral sense of relief and satisfaction. And part of me thought: "This one's for you, buddy. Hooah."

"I'll Cry When I'm Done Killing" is an interesting read and I highly recommend it. Thanks goes to SVGL for the link.

The Godfather 2

2009-04-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

Though I love me some 3rd-person shooter action, the original Godfather game bored me to tears. I just couldn't get into it! I know I know, some of you out there really enjoyed this game quite a bit--and I respect that--but it never struck a chord with me despite my several attempts at playing it.

I'm happy to say that The Godfather II is a little bit of a different story...for the most part. To be frank, it's not much to look at, but I found the overall game engaging enough that I was compelled to play it all the way through to the end in roughly 10 hours.

Initially the experience didn’t feel much different from the first as the game (slowly!) introduced all the gameplay mechanics, but in about an hour or so the game began to hit its stride and everything sank in. It turned out this game was deeper--gameplay-wise--than some most other open world games and I found that refreshing as it was unexpected.

The Don View (initiated by hitting the Start button) essentially pulls the game out to a 3D map of the mob world you're trying to take over. Here you will be able to control your game in much greater detail. You'll find yourself inviting people into your family for their beneficial abilities (like lock picking or demolitions), promoting them up the chain (which in-turn grants them additional skills), upgrading their abilities (there are roughly 15 abilities per character ranging from increased health to better aiming), purchase them new weapons and more.

The Don View also offers the ability to delegate tasks for your family by send some of your men to assist in defending a business of yours that's under attack, or bomb an enemies business to cripple a crime ring, or even to attempt to take over another business making it your own. It's a cool system that wasn’t as buggy as I was expecting it to be.

In one instance I was attacking a much needed trucking depot to complete a crime ring that would have added bullet proof vests to my crew. While I was waging war the game notified me that one of my other businesses--a bar--was under attack (the notification helpfully offers to take you to the action via the Don View at a press of a button). No problem--I simply instructed 4 of my thugs to help fortify the defenses at the bar. Once I was done taking over the trucking depo I quickly drove over to the bar to assist and as I arrived I could see my guys laying waste to the other family as they finished up the last few guys. It's a rewarding system that works really well and is easily one of the highlights of the game.

Initially I was worried that I was going to spend more time in the Don View than actually playing the game because I was under the impression that this game might have been part 3rd-person shooter and part RTS--but that was not the case at all. Though you do spend a decent amount of time in the Don View, you really spend the majority of your time running around and attacking other families. Also, it's worth mentioning that the Don View might offer enough options to make some peoples head spin at first as it has a plethora of options. I do feel like it could have been organized a little better or at least consolidated in some ways to make it a little more approachable.

There are three cities throughout the game: New York, Cuba and Florida. You can (and will) visit back and forth by visiting the airport in each city. It sounds like a pain, but the maps are small enough that I found it painless.

Without a doubt the most fun I had with the game was when I was attacking other families businesses cannibalizing them into my own crime rings. These rackets--which normally consist of several businesses--have additional benefits that are exclusive to that string of businesses. For instance one racket will grant you larger ammo clips for your crew. One of the bigger ones spans several cities and offers incendiary bullets doubling the damage of your bullets. It's a nice carrot-on-a-stick until the end of the game.

There are some annoyances in the game worth mentioning (some minor but I’ll let you be the judge). You will use the thumbsticks to navigate the world, but as soon as you enter any menu system--including the Don View--you must switch over to the D-pad--its inconsistence is an annoyance, and what’s further frustrating is that it doesn’t even offer the option to do so. Also, the game expects you to interact with the world by talking with people on the streets who need favors (and boy there are a lot of them), but there isn’t enough variation on the NPCs, their voices and the environment to keep in very interesting. The graphics never go beyond mediocre and are never impressive.

But I think the biggest gripe I have with the game is the severe lack of side missions or alternate activities to participate in. The whole idea of an open world game is to offer the player choice. In Saint’s Row 2 or GTAIV you have so many different activities or side missions at your disposal one could get lost for hours! You can (and in some cases are encouraged) to stray from the main story and get completely lost. That’s the joy of an open world game--you make it your own! Yes I understand that there is a specific story to tell here with The Godfather 2, but the other games I mentioned do as well. I just feel like there was a huge opportunity here to move this game into a more interesting experience than it is and in the end we get a game whose world is nothing more than an empty shell. Perhaps EA is hoping people will get lost in the multiplayer experience? Personally I have no interest in that portion of the game.

Happy 50th (Podcast) Anniversary to Played!

2009-03-12T08:31:00.000-07:00

Come what may, my two co-hosts and I managed to record 50 podcast episodes of Played over the last few years. The anniversary episode went live last night if you're interested in listening to some geeks talk about video games.

It’s a entertaining episode where we announce the winners of the Haiku contest we ran last month. Included is a fun little ditty my co-hosts, Chris Remo, wrote which is comprised of all three winnings submissions. We also chat at length about Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II, Killzone 2, King’s Bounty: The Legend, Fable 2 and Microsoft’s claim that gaming is health for kids (in the UK).

I imagine that it's probably a bit tacky to link to it here on my own blog, but it’s something I’m pretty proud of so please do check it out.

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazzard

2009-03-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

Within minutes of starting Eat Lead you will learn that Matt Hazzard was a big celebrity back in the 80s where he starred in a string of very successful video games. Since then he has unfortunately plummeted off the charts (due to making a Mario Kart type game) and been out of work. Destined for a comeback he is commissioned by "Wally" Wellesley to star in a new, next-generation video game. But not all is as well as it seems—Wally really wants to destroy him.

Allow me to explain: When Wally was a kid he bested every video game he played except for one—Matt Hazzards. Taken as a whole it is actually an intriguing idea for a video game as it leads to an unusual take on breaking the 4th wall.

For instance kicking off the voluntary tutorial leads to Matt Hazzard exclaiming, "Great--an in-game tutorial. God I hate these things!" and “Yeah Yeah! I know how to shoot a damn gun!”

During the beginning of one particular level--in habitual third-person/first-person fashion—the objectives start to appear in the upper right-hand corner. As they pile on they begin to cover the protagonist making him exclaim “Ok! Ok! Can we summarize this or something?” This prompts the list to be consolidated to “Shoot stuff that moves”.

It gets even more clever.

In one particular instance Matt Hazzard has to fight some of the enemies from his first game and they are literally 2-D sprites running around shooting at you. The real clever part is they purposefully become more difficult to hit by turning to their sides, thinning themselves.

But all this great material is simply overshadowed by the real issue--the gameplay. Though it replicates Gears of War in this regard, it fails to be engaging. The weapons have little-to-no kickback and lack any sort of originality. The AI is nonexistent and possibly inferior to the PB&J sandwich I had for lunch today. The quick-time events are slow and far too crude to be entertaining. The game is so unbalanced I completed 75% of a level using melee attacks that—when performed at the right moment--seemingly render you invincible.

It would be a bit trite for me to even mention to the readers of this blog that most video games expect you to slip into the boots of their protagonist. But in Eat Lead it’s just too difficult to do because the games foundation is so weak. It leaves Matt Hazzard to be possibly the most apologetic video game character ever. He consistently looks back at you winking and nudging his way through the levels in hopes that he will distract you from the real issues at hand.

No More Heroes is a similar game in that it’s self-aware (but to a much more mild extent). One of the glaring differences is the protagonist--Travis Touchdown. He is self-assured, hilarious and backed by an extremely robust gameplay model. In contrast I imagine Matt Hazzard would rather crawl out from the TV, sit next to you on the couch and entertain you with his knee-slapping humor. It ultimately makes for an awkward gaming experience that eventually falls prey to the same ridiculous paradigms it sets out to mocks.

King's Bounty: The Legend

2009-03-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

Killzone 2 will astonish you with its deferred rendering engine that utilizes multi-sampled anti-aliasing to produce unbelievable graphical fidelity for a home console. Burnout Paradise will have you sweating at a blistering 60 frames-per-second as you soar over skyscrapers crashing through billboards (queue 80s rock DJ!) Madworlds protagonist, Jack, wants to violently seduce you as he chainsaws his way throughout a blood-spattered--Frank Miller enthused--world justly confirming that it really is a mad mad Madworld he lives in. But recently I was plucked out of the hardcore gaming stratosphere to be reminded that gaming isn’t always about boiling your blood with crazy gameplay antics or pumping your adrenaline over its procedural merit.

King’s Bounty: The Legend is here to say it is ok to slip back to a more classic style of gameplay and focus on strategy while having a good time. It's ironic that I initially found King's Bounty: The Legend to be precisely the game I wasn’t looking for. For the last two years I've been feverishly pushing forward at 180 mph playing everything I can get my hands on. To name a few, I've played through to completion F.E.A.R. 2, Mass Effect (five times), Far Cry 2, Fallout 3 (twice), Dead Space, Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand theft Auto 4 (twice), leveled a Priest to 80 in Warcraft obtaining 4/5 of my Tier 7 gear, and really just about everything else imaginable. I consume games and love every minute of it (hence the name of this blog). But after spending some times with the game I realized I almost missed out on something special and now I'm here to inform my fellow gamers they might be too.

King's Bounty will be instantly familiar to anyone who's played the Hero's of Might and Magic series. That is to say it's a turn-based tactical RPG that takes place in a fantasy setting. You control one of three character classes (Fighter, Paladin or Mage) in real-time, traversing a map overflowing with treasures, monsters, and NPCs. These NPC bestow quests upon you which push you farther and farther into the recesses of the world. Sometimes you'll just fall into a wacky situation--I once chatted up a stump only to discover he ailed of distraught and was in dire need of help. How could one resist!

As you progress through the game your character will gain new abilities through the now ubiquitous skill tree, obtain new weapons and armor from merchants and treasure chests, and venture off to new lands. These lands are segmented by portals that whisk you to-and-fro consisting of super-green grasslands, dank mines, eerie swamps, chilly ice-lands, gloomy forests and scorching dungeons.

The turn-based warfare takes place in a completely separate battle-screen that essentially resembles a chessboard. Though this might sound a bit dowdy, the board is modified throughout the game to vary movement strategies.

I do not remember the last time I played a game that possessed such a vibrant, colorful, hand-drawn palette. When I saw the menu screen for the first time I just sat there staring at the beautifully drawn image analyzing its absurd level of detail. Unfortunately, once in the game, the game loses that level of impressiveness and moves to something more similar to the Warcraft series. But that’s not to say it isn’t a good looking game. Although clearly inspired by Blizzard’s work, there does seem to be just enough of a departure from it to tell the two apart. Overall it is a very visually appealing game.

If there is going to be a downside to King’s Bounty it will probably be that it really does nothing new in this particular genre, and some might perceive it as borrowing heavily from the above mentioned Heroes of Might and Magic series. The interesting twist is that the original King’s Bounty came out in 1991—four years before the Heroes of Might and Magic series. For me personally this was never an issue, but I suspect that this will be a source of contention for some.

The dialog that carries the story can be a bit monotonous at times as its standard fantasy fare. It’s worth noting that the Russian developer, Katauri Interactive, tried to inject some comedic value into the dialog to liven things up.

With King Bounty I realized I was letting a small portion of the gamer in me miss out on something special just because I was caught up in the mix of things. If you’re looking for something to change that up you should give this game a chance--it’s worth your $30.

GTA Phone Calls Have Me Lost and Damned Damned Damned!

2009-03-04T09:21:00.000-08:00

On the whole I would say that the GTAIV: Lost and Damned DLC is a triumph. It offers a respectable amount of debauchery, hog ride'n, Arm Westle'n, F-bomb drop’n and even brings a new-fangled episode of Republican Space Rangers for all of us to enjoy.

Unfortunately there still remains one absurd design choice that drives me to shouting at my TV in I hopes that Sam Houser will take notice--scripted phone calls.

They have got to stop.

Actually the calls wouldn’t be so bad if Niko or Johnny didnt stop running to answer these intrusions. But in regards to this game in particular, I don’t know of anything else more frustrating than the inevitable phone call once you've completed a mission. The likelihood that one is involved in a car chase in GTA involving a insane amount of munitions had got to be high. Not only are there bound to be 37 cop cars hot on your trail, but you are most likely going to be running from your burning charriot thereafter. To have the protagonist suddenly stop running while trying to get away is maddening. It got to the point where I would try to find an alley to run and hide in so Mr Turtle wouldnt get killed. It wouldnt be so bad if the save system was a little more logical, but after a long tedious mission this is the last thing we want to have happen.

I understand Rockstar wants to slow things down a bit so you can focus in on the narratives progression, but there has got to be a better way of handling this.

what's more is the run ability is shared with the hang-up button? How many of you have hanged up on a caller while mashing the run button trying to get away from a burning vehicle?