Seen Akira? Seen that bit where Tetsuo starts devouring the planet? Okay, well, this is kind of like that, but a lot less terrifying and a lot more humorous.
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It’s been a busy weekend. Friday afternoon, after catching around 2–3 hours sleep following a night shift, I carried my weary frame along to the Eurogamer Expo.
It wasn’t too bad. I got to play a few games myself but mostly ended up waiting and watching others at the booths. I also took the opportunity to listen to Mark Morris and Chris Delay, they of indie developer Introversion, talk about the problems they encountered in getting Darwinia+ onto XBLA. It was great to hear them talk, both funny and interesting, and I wish them all the best when it finally releases.
One game I’m retiscent to talk about is Heavy Rain. I watched people play the demo on the floor of the Expo, but, unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to play it myself. It’s my only real regret, to be honest, that I missed out on that. I have been criticising the game, perhaps unfairly. I’m trying to keep an open mind about the game, and to that end I have ignored most of the press and hype that’s being created around it. What I will say is this: it does have the appearance of a point-and-click adventure game married to some QTE action sequences, and I think that the narrative – somewhat of an unknown quantity at this moment – will have to be something quite special in order to compensate. Personally, I think the game looks to represent a retrograde step in terms of storytelling – but that’s just my opinion, and there’s every chance I could be wrong in that.
I’ve pretty much finished with Beautiful Katamari now, having finished the main game and completed as many achievements I can be bothered to get. I would have considered buying it, but then I saw the accusations surrounding the DLC – i.e., that Bandai had intentionally locked additional content on the disc and the “DLC” consisted of nothing more than an unlock key. Great job, guys, because you just lost yourselves a sale. A shame, really, since I really dig the tone and play-style of the game. Too bad Bandai decided to puke all over it with their corporate greed. (Sigh.)
Anyway, with that out the way, I’ve moved onto Batman: Arkum Asylum. Now that’s a high quality product! It really is such a well crafted, well designed game – and it knows its limits, which is important. To be quite honest, I’m too tired right now to go into massive detail, but I’d have no hesitation recommending it. It’s probably one of the best, if not the best, comic book superhero game I’ve played.
Last weekend Robert Bowling, Creative Strategist for Infinity Ward, casually dropped a large, megaton-sized bombshell on the PC gaming community: Modern Warfare 2 – sequel to 2007’s critically acclaimed, best-selling hit – won’t have dedicated servers or mod support built-in.
Since then, e-petitions have been signed, journalists have tweeted, and other industry figures have weighed in. Public opinion seems to be split into two camps: most are outraged; others are nonplussed. Meanwhile, Bowling has attempted to calm the waves of discontent through a blog post, defending Infinity Ward’s decision and reassuring the PC community that this is, in fact, a step forward.
Tom Bramwell, editor of Eurogamer.net, had this to say in response:
IW man’s blog about why IWNet is a good thing suggests he doesn’t understand why the concept so upset people in the first place.
And this is the point. The heart of the issue doesn’t lie in a list of pros and cons; it lies in a philosophy – a set of principles that have been at the core of the PC gaming experience for as long as it’s been alive.
Got a cold, so I won’t be up to much this weekend. I will probably be attempting to finish off Halo Wars while starting Red Faction: Guerrilla on the 360. I’ll also be going back to Empire: Total War, since I’m kind of curious to see what all the updates inbetween have done to the game. I’ll also be watching The Lookout, which supposedly showcases rising-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s talents as a Proper Serious Actor in Hollywood. (I kid. If anything, Brick did that for him in 2005.)
I’m just going to say a quick few things about Halo Wars. I rented the game to see how well Ensemble succeeded in making a traditional RTS game for a console. The answer is that it’s pretty functional and, in the majority of times, works fairly well. However, when you need swift, nimble movement, when you need to select troops on an individual basis quickly and efficiently, the game can’t accomodate that. If only they’d hid this flaw better, but they actually created a level where you do have to be able to do this, and when the pathfinding fails and you aren’t able to react in time – through no fault of your own, but the controls – it’s a bit of downer.
Halo Wars is fun, and the presentation is really excellent, and Ensemble should be commended for their strong efforts, but this isn’t the game to revolutionise RTSs on a console.
Oh, and Peep Show was excellent last night. Best yet for the series.
So, I just watched Vicky Christina Barcelona, and it’s surprisingly good. Penelope Cruz is amazing in it and won a well deserved supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal as the batshit crazy Maria Elena; likewise, Javier Bardem exudes sensuality and an emotional intensity as Juan Antonio Gonzalo. Woody Allen weaves actually a quite complex narrative involving two American tourists – the Vicky and Christina of the title – who have very different ideas of love and whose philosophies are thereupon shaped by a chance encounter with the magnetic, sexy, Juan.
From Mid-September, US viewers have been treated to several new seasons of award-winning television. Americans are knee deep in high quality drama, with House, Mad Men and Heroes back on screens, while Curb Your Enthusiasm and How I Met Your Mother are filling out the comedy space. Meanwhile, in the UK, we have Peep Show and… well, that’s about all I can think of at the moment.
It’s interesting to note that all of the series I’ve mentioned that are now playing in America are, at the very least, on their third or fourth run. Whereas in the UK we tend to stick to six or twelve episode series with a general shelf-life of two to three series max, the US generally favours eighteen to twenty-four episode seasons, with a show going on until it’s milked bone dry by the networks. This all leads to my point of “season fatigue”, something US shows often fall foul of while UK shows avoid – and the subject of today’s sermon.
TV, TV and more TV!
The last month has seen the release of new seasons for a lot of great American television shows, and I aim to give some of my thoughts as to what’s out there – what’s hot and what’s not [steady now, beginning to sound like the E! network – Ed.] – this weekend.
Hopefully I’ll also have watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), so I’ll be able to share some thoughts on that, too. Once again, Woody Allen makes a film, casts some beautiful young women and, this time, writes in a scene where they indulge in some lesbian schexy-ness (or so I am informed). Woody Allen: pervert? Genius? Creepy genius? Creepy asshole genius? Probably all of the above and then some more. I can hardly say it matters all that much, though – just as long as he makes a good film and doesn’t waste my time with too much dribble-y, neurotic, ramble-y whining. (God knows, he’s made plenty of the films riding the coattails of that schtick.)
I’ve also decided to a new feature to the blog called Off the Cuff, which has already featured in a form some might better know as Impressions. The only difference here is that Off the Cuff is worded worse, probably contains more typos and grammatical errors, and is very, very probably likely to express views I will later renounce in a court of law, in front of a man wearing a paper mache mask with an eagle’s head painted on, while standing there semi-nude.
Goo goo ga-joob indeed, and I hope everyone has peaceful, playful week.
Off the Cuff is a new segment I’ve dedicated to in depth (and hasty!) critical analysis of anything I’m interested in. Essentially, it’s just like my Impressions posts but, hopefully, more focused and more definitive. These are to serve as micro-reviews in space of my full length features, and they are written almost immediately, with little editing or drafting. It’s probably not the best way of writing a review of… well, pretty much anything, but I don’t have that much time at the moment and sometimes I just want to express an opinion, to get it out there as fast as possible. At least this way I get to write more regularly.
I’ve really been up to so much it’s difficult to know where to start. I finished Bionic Commando in a matter of a couple of days, and it’s okay. The gameplay and swinging mechanic generally work well, which is good since it’s pretty much essential to what a Bionic Commando game should be.
There’s also a lot holding the game back. Surprisingly, one of those things is how quite charmless it is, especially in light of Rearmed. The tone is that grungy, faux-mature aesthetic that isn’t ridiculous enough to laugh at, so it just ends up appearing as ugly. There are also a couple of gameplay contrivances, one being invisible barriers, preventing you from exploring too much, in the form “radiation” zones– problem is, if you wonder too far out too fast you end up dead, again, and again, and again. The story and everything about it is also just total balls, and the characters are ALL unappealing, each and everyone unreservedly taking the opportunity to throw out some very crap dialogue.
One of the things they did get right, though, is the music, which sounds awesome. And the game is fun, when you aren’t falling to your death over and over. The in-game challenges that also double up as achievements are a very cool way of getting the player to experiment with their arsenal of moves and weapons, and it’s really very compelling. The graphics are also impressive, as are the set-pieces.
Still, it’s way too short, and, once again, GRIN have made a game that shows potential and a general understanding of what makes gameplay work, but it’s still too rough around the edges and short (did I already mention that?) for it to be worth anything over ten pounds. Nevertheless, a weekend rent is definitely the best bet here.
No updates this weekend seeing as I’ll be busy. Hopefully I’ll have some time on Monday to write something or maybe next weekend.
Weekend Impressions: Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal; Halo: ODST; Gran Torino; and demos galore!
I finally finished Bad Company this weekend and am now suitably happy about my gamerscore to move on (sad, I know). So, leaving that in my wake, I’ve played a little of the Forza 3 and Wolfenstein demos as well as ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, an XBLA title. ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE is yet another game about maiming zombies (those guys really need some political representation) and plays like yet another dual-stick shooter. It looks okay, but this sort of thing is getting pretty old now. Besides, they totally messed up with how the chainsaw weapon handles – and, as anyone knows, if you include a chainsaw in your zombie game then it must be both fun to use and look cool. The chainsaw in ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE fails on both counts; hence, they can forget the 800 MS points.
Wolfenstein felt pretty underwhelming, and although I probably will play through the game at some point, it looks like it’s only worth a rental. It’s hard to pin down exactly what doesn’t gel, but I think that they went in the wrong direction with the Veil powers, and the tone of the game feels sort of off. whatever it is, it plays out more like any number of generic shooters than a Wolfenstein game. Shame.
I’ve never played a Forza title before so I came to Forza 3 with little idea of what to expect, other than it being a driving sim analagous to GT. I played through the demo track twice with two different cars and, yes, it looks good; nonetheless, it feels devoid of any sense of real speed or excitement and, in short, it’s a bit boring. That said, I think it may just be the case that game is not for me. I have no interest in cars, tuning, paint jobs and all that jazz. I like racing and crashing into things and blue skies and an awesome soundtrack behind it all.
And here we come to another series of games I really should have played by now but haven’t. I’ve just started Halo: ODST’s singleplayer campaign and it’s shaping up nicely. I’m still sort of transitioning to the controls, my last Halo game I played having been the original on the Xbox, but I like it so far. I haven’t even tried the multiplayer disk yet or the Firefight mode, so those are things to look forward to. Whatever some people might say, I think that the game probably represents a good deal for those without all the Halo 3 multiplayer map packs, and I have it on fairly good authority that the Firefight mode is pretty cool. Besides, even if the main campaign is short, if it’s enjoyable enough then people will play through it again, alone or together in online co-op, on the harder difficulty settings. My thoughts, at the moment, are sort of apathetic, though. I missed out on the Halo buzz that came with the second and third sequels, so I really don’t have much attachment to this universe unlike other people. Also, and this may be me, Bungie seem to make their level designs a little too “boxy” for my taste – artificial and inorganic. It was the same thing in the original Halo and I’m half surprised it’s the same in ODST. It’s an aesthetic thing more than anything else, but if you compare ODST’s New Mombasa with Half-Life 2’s City 17 then the former looks like a bit of a joke.
I managed to grab Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal for free during Telltale’s “Talk Like A Pirate Day” celebrations. It’s an amusing diversion and I’m sure that fans of either the series or of point-and-click games will enjoy it. I actually found myself quite getting into it until I got completely stuck and had to look at GameFAQs for the solution. And here in lies the problem with this genre: as soon as you get stuck, it stops being fun and becomes a case of randomly clicking at shit; no longer is it a test of logic and intelligence but a pointless exercise of trial and error. It doesn’t help that in these cases the solution is often so nonsensically convoluted that you’d only really stumble on it by luck. I should point out here that it’s not that I’m hating on Monkey Island specifically, but I think that it’s unacceptable that there is no mechanic in place to help the player when this happens. Jesus, just a hint button would be nice or some feedback from Guybrush. I don’t find it suprising that point-and-clicks fell by the wayside because it’s clear to me that they never evolved at all, and that which doesn’t evolve dies (profound insight indeed).
Lastly, I got around to watching Gran Torino last night – a film I’ve been looking forward to since I saw the trailer with Clint Eastwood growling at people to get off his lawn. Having now seen it, my conclusion is that it only just about works because of Clint Eastwood’s presence, because of his acting history and what we associate about him. The character he plays is a racist, xenophobic asshole, and it’s only because it’s Clint that the character is just about made likable. But, really, the script is so cliched, uninspired and predictable and not even Clint’s aura can hide that. The truth is, if it were any other actor the film would be crap. Actually, you know what word comes to mind, right now, thinking about it? Lazy. And way too easy.
