(Warning, there are some minor spoilers within)

Biggest Letdown – Empire: Total War, Creative Assembly

Now don’t get me wrong, Empire isn’t a terrible game and certainly isn’t the worst game to come out this year nor is it the worst game I’ve played this year but given the standard of the previous Total War games, Empire just didn’t live up to expectations. The Total War series is one of my favorite series of all time, ever since the original Shogun: Total War and Empire promised all that was in previous installations plus a larger world map, a more recent time period, multiplayer campaigns and naval combat.

Really, only two of those really impact the gameplay; multiplayer campaigns which didn’t make it into the final release and are only being patched in now and naval combat which makes the only real bright spot in this installment. While the time period is interesting and fairly unique in the realm of video games, and although mainly my fault for failing to research the game properly, I was expecting Empire to heavily involve the Napoleonic era (an era which they announced recently will be the focus of the next Total War game in 2010) and was quite disappointed when it failed to do so.

That being said, Empire would still be a good game if not for the multitude of bugs and issues that crippled the game to the point it was nearly unplayable; the largest issue being in the case of the AI which was too stupid and buggy to provide any sort of interesting challenge (and given the removal of multiplayer campaigns, the AI was the only challenge in the campaign) which effectively killed the game.

While I haven’t venture back into the game since about a week after I bought it, I’ve heard much of the issues and bugs have since been corrected and as mentioned above, Creative Assembly have finally gotten around to implementing multiplayer campaigns, but the disappointment of the game’s initial release has left too sour a taste for me to get back into the game.

So now that Creative Assembly have worked the kinks out and fixed the issues I eagerly await Napoleon: Total War, hoping that it becomes the game I expected Empire to be (though I’ll probably hold off from buying it on opening day this time).

Overshadowed/Poorly Timed Game of the Year – Assassins Creed 2, Ubisoft Montreal

What do I mean by overshadowed/Poorly Timed? Well, this goes to games that would be game of the year contenders if not for a better game or games in a similar style being released before, or around the same time of, that game. In this case, Assassins Creed 2 is a great game, but my GOTY runner up not only did everything Assassins Creed 2 does (and in most cases, does them better) but was also released 4 months earlier.

As anyone who played the original Assassins Creed can attest, the core mechanics not involving combat were generally well designed and combined well with the level design of the medieval holy lands to provide a great gameplay experience… for a couple of hours. Unfortunately after a couple of hours, you’ve played all the game has to offer and the story wasn’t interesting enough on its own merits to compel people to continue playing the game.

Thankfully, Ubisoft recognized most of their faults from the first game and even more importantly, they actively set about fixing most of them. First, and most importantly, Assassins Creed 2 is far, far less repetitive than its predecessor (though much of the side-quest stuff is still annoyingly repetitive – but unfortunately this is the case with most games where side quests and collectable items are often thrown in as an afterthought, rather than creatively challenging the player in unusual ways not suited to the main quests) and as I found out, you can actually play through the entire game without boring yourself to death.

Breaking up the mindless repetition alone, while a huge step in the right direction, is not the only improvement on the first game; the combat system has also received a nice upgrade, with each weapon in Ezio’s arsenal not only having its own strengths and weaknesses, but also varying in use and strength depending on the opponent and although such a weapon hierarchy certainly isn’t new ground for video games; it makes a huge difference to what was a very bland and uninspired combat system in the original. The story is also a lot more interesting this time around, and more fluidly integrated between the “current day” of Desmond and Ezio’s time, rather than the Desmond scenes thrown in randomly as what seemed to be the case in the first Assassins Creed.

Unfortunately,  the often lauded free-running mechanics still maintain a strange ability to be both completely perfect, and absolute rubbish depending on the circumstances and whether you have to think about them or not. It is easy to flawlessly run a mile across the top of numerous buildings in pursuit of a thief as your mind is focused on not losing them. However, the times the game are most infuriating and needlessly frustrating are when Ubisoft has relied solely on these mechanics for game progression, making the game feel like a poorly constructed platformer rather than a well constructed action-rpg.

Ultimately though, Assassins Creed 2 is still one of the best games to come out this year and would be my runner up for game of the year if Rocksteady hadn’t beaten them to punch with a noticeably superior game, in a similar style to AC2 , and released months earlier.

Runner Up Game of the Year – Batman: Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady Studios

Arkham Asylum is one of those games that come along every now and then and really have no business being blockbuster titles; a licensed title developed by a no-name studio whose only previous release was, by all accounts, an instantly forgettable and rather generic first person shooter and yet it turns out to be the second greatest game this year.

First and foremost, the combat system is so amazingly fluid and as strange as it sounds; it really feels like you flow through the melee, leaving a trail of broken and battered henchman in your wake and Rocksteady have done a brilliant job of making the combat simple yet engaging and barely repetitive. Furthermore, you really feel like Batman rather than the Superman who typically inhabits these types of games; bullets actually hurt you and standing in front of an armed goon will quickly result in a dead Batman.

That’s not to say the game is based purely on the combat, in fact much of the game is sneaking around and exploring the game environments via Batman’s arsenal of tools such as the grappling hook and line gun, solving the Riddler’s hidden puzzles and brain teasers as you go along. In fact, much of the more interesting sections of the game involve little to no combat, especially much of the Scarecrow and medical facility sections.

Which brings me to another highlight; the use of the Batman license, especially Arkham Asylum itself and the villains incarcerated there, are so well fleshed out and developed throughout the game. Events such as the aforementioned Riddler’s gradual mental breakdown as you solve his riddles, to the freaky 4^th-wall breaking scenes with the Scarecrow are brilliantly brought to life and highlight how well the Batman license can be applied to a game as opposed to other mediums. Oh, and also my favorite portrayal of the Joker ever (sorry Heath). Even with the wealth of development through the game’s storyline there is even more in extra unlockables/collectables ranging from tapes of psychiatric evaluation of the main villains to profiles and trivia on characters that don’t even appear in the game itself.

It’s also worth noting how well stealth aspects are implemented in Arkham Asylum; most noticeably the sneaking around on high catwalks and gargoyle statues as well as the hit and run attacks that make Batman who he is. While the game does occasionally abuse these mechanics to construct boss-like challenges, even these segments are usually well implemented with only one such moment I can remember as being exceptionally frustrating.

All in all, Arkham Asylum is one of the greatest games of all time and arguably the greatest licensed game not involving Riddick for a long time, lets hope Rocksteady can further develop and improve on what they’ve done here with its recently announced sequel.

Game of the Year – Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware

So… where to begin? Well, Dragon Age is far and away the best game to come out this year and easily one of the top games to be released this decade. Billed as the spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate games (2 of my favorite games of all time), and over 5 years in the making, Dragon Age had huge standards to live up to. Thankfully, Bioware have kept their streak of 0 bad games alive as Dragon Age has live up to those standards at its worst, and far exceeded them at its best.

The best place to start I guess would be the immense volume of content available inside the game – I’ve spent the better part of 60 hours in Ferelden (finishing the main story just once) and feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the world. As always, Bioware have just done a superb job of bringing the world to life, not only the major characters and areas but even areas so minor they don’t even appear in the game are so well realized with more backstory than many games put into their main characters.

Backstory is nice, but backstory alone is meaningless without development and that’s always been where Bioware has set themselves apart from other developers with similar games and rich backstories; their character development. Very few games do a good job of naturally evolving and developing their characters; usually you can really notice that they’re way too rigid and structured rather than feeling natural and fluid. Furthermore, the interaction between all of your supporting characters actually has a huge impact on the gameplay as well as the story; disappointing or feuding with another party member can cause them to leave you or even have them try and kill you, whereas encouraging and being friendly to them can lead to strong friendships, or even relationships.

Still, all this story and character development wouldn’t produce a Game of the Year if not supported by the strong, though uninspired, combat of Dragon Age. The influences of past Bioware RPGs such Knights of the Old Republic and the Baldur’s Gate series are clear and anyone familiar with any of these games quickly find themselves at home, as little has changed over time. Far and away the largest change is the addition of a FFXII-like system of managing your party member’s actions when you’re not controlling as you can set abilities for them to do depending on certain parameters/circumstances (i.e. healing anyone whose HP drops below 25%) which, although I’d prefer a decent AI system, is well implemented and fits the rest of the gameplay quite well.

In my early opinions, I was disappointed with the strange balance in the difficulty of the game; for much of the game the easy difficulty was far too easy but the “normal” difficulty was far too jumpy (i.e. one fight would be so easy you didn’t even need to be at the computer, then the next against the same opponent would be next to impossible). Thankfully, a patch was released not long after the game’s release which solves this; the normal difficulty is now very playable and less random spikes in challenge.

I could go on for ages, but I don’t want this to turn into a huge piece; the main thing to know is that Dragon Age is by far the best game to come out this year; and unless you have some deep hatred of RPGs, it’s a game no-one should miss.

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t quite as dramatic as that, but the end result is certainly the same; I’ve used my DS for the grand total of one full battery charge since I bought my iPhone.

How do I know this? I can’t find my DS charger and I haven’t had any real desire to look for it….

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not as though the DS has a lack of good games, it’s quite the opposite in fact as some of my favorite games in recent memory are on the DS; Advance Wars Dual Strike and Days of Ruin, The World Ends With You, both Professor Layton games, The Phoenix Wright games, Castlevanias and Pokemon are all fantastic games, and this is just off the top of my head. Nor is because the DS is inconvenient to carry around; it fits in most pockets and my bag even has a iPod “holster” the DS fits snuggly in (and strangely enough, an iPod doesn’t really fit in it well) that ensures it’s with me for most journeys.

It’s because the iPhone, in spite of Apple’s dislike of video game, can provide practically all the portable gaming I need in my life. While it cannot compete toe to toe with the DS purely on its gaming credentials, the fact the iPhone can provide something close to the level of enjoyment afforded by my DS while also doing so many other things, means my DS has languished in my bag collecting dust.

I mean, just looking at the names I listed above, only The World Ends With You provides a gameplay experience that I honestly can’t see being replicated on the iPhone; every other game’s gameplay on that list could be, or has already been replicated for the iPhone albeit lacking the depth of a DS game (though at only a fraction of the price, or even occasionally at no cost, who could complain about that). While TWEWY is far from the only DS game that isn’t replicable on the iPhone, the fact remains that for (usually) $5 or less I can get an experience that’s close to the quality of a $70 DS game without needing to carry around a separate device (as I pretty much always have my phone on me anyway).

Every now and then I’m sure a game will come alone that will make me dust the old DS off, but for the most part, my iPhone has killed the DS.

I don’t have a copy of Modern Warfare 2 and there’s a good reason for that; I haven’t gotten around to downloading it yet. The only reason I’m bothering to even download it is because the singleplayer sounds good as always…. for the whole 5 hours it lasts. However, having tried it on someone else’s machine, the multiplayer is unplayable, and I wouldn’t pay anything close to full retail price for a 5 hour  game not named Portal, let alone pay the higher than normal price you’re asking.

But it didn’t have to be this way.

Just 6 months ago I was a day one sale; I even considered pre-ordering it which something I almost never do, and now I’m glad I didn’t. I spent hours playing Call of Duty 4, and regard it is as probably my favorite multiplayer FPS game not produced by Valve. I skipped Treyarch’s World at War imposter, a game which was only really notable for its Nazi Zombie game mode, and waited with anticipation for your next masterpiece.

Then shit hit the fan.

No dedicated servers? Many consider CoD4 as one of the best examples of multiplayer gaming, and especially competitive gaming, a feat that would be impossible without dedicated servers. This change of heart was completely unexpected, but honestly wasn’t a deal breaker for me, as long as you include good matchmaking support.

Only 18 players per game? Sure, that’s half as many players as COD4 allowed, and almost a quarter of COD2, but as long as the maps are balanced for that number of players it shouldn’t really be an issue either.

No mod support? Sure, I can understand if this wasn’t a high priority in the development of the game, but you’ve managed to include mod tools for every other Call of Duty game you’ve developed. Hopefully you’ll just add this later, though I won’t hold my breath.

No developer console? I haven’t heard a good explanation for why you omitted a developer console, but I guess with no dedicated servers, a developer console is kind of useless most of the time anyway.

No lean? ……….Wait, what? Now you’re just ripping out features for the sake of pissing PC gamers off. I mean, why on Earth would the ability to lean be omitted when it’s been present in every game you’ve ever made? It’s not like it takes a lot of resources to include, or requires the whole game to be rebalanced around it. Though, again, not a major issue by itself.

Despite all these ridiculous omissions, I still wanted to believe you were doing this for a good reason, and that these decisions would pay off and produce a game at least equal to the first Modern Warfare, or even the first Call of Duty game. But it hasn’t. Modern Warfare 2 is essentially a backhand to the face of PC gamers; a backhand that wouldn’t hurt nearly as bad if it didn’t come from Infinity Ward.

We, the PC gamers, supported you.

In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say we made you who you are.

Remember Call of Duty? No, not the one with the words “Modern” and “Warfare” behind it, I mean the Call of Duty, the original one, numero uno, the one that actually made World War 2 an enjoyable setting for a video game again.

No?

Well, it’s only been 6 years but I guess a lot has happened; I mean back then we didn’t even have World of Warcraft, I can barely recall such a dark age.

But surely you remember its sequel; Call of Duty 2? Everything you accomplished in the first game was refined and honed into the greatest World War 2 FPS of all time and we loved it. In fact the disk is still sitting in my desk as I write this, a reminder of the good times I had playing online with my friends and up to 63 other players on almost lag-free dedicated servers.

Then came Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (COD3 having been developed by Treyarch for consoles only), we were skeptical at first, but the change of setting worked brilliantly and while I consider COD2 the better game, we loved COD4 and again, jumped on board with open arms.

But we weren’t the only ones who fell in love with COD4; 360 and PS3 owners also bought the game in droves and all you saw were dollar signs. So now that two years have passed and the time has rolled around for a new installment, those dollar signs were still in your head and obviously you were more than happy to kick us to the curb in the name of profit.

Remember when I said the lack of dedicated servers wasn’t a big deal if you have proper matchmaking? Did you even try? As it stands, the game is practically unplayable online in Australia unless you’re only playing with friends in the same area as without dedicated servers, there’s just too much lag.

All the matchmaking needs to do is match up people from similar regions so that they have the best possible ping but it doesn’t seem like it even tries, as I never managed to join a match that was even close to playable on a T1 connection. Seriously, I’ve played much smoother games of Counter Strike on dial up in a time when most of you were working at 2015.

Because of this I have no idea if your game is even balanced for the size of the levels or the amount of players. As I’ve discovered, it’s impossible to take in the design of the game when you’re stumbling around the map like a German at Oktoberfest.

Honestly, at this point I just stopped. Even if you included developer console, mod support and the ability to lean, it wouldn’t make a difference. Modern Warfare2‘s online play doesn’t work. Full stop. End of story. It is broken.

But there is a silver lining. It’s been just a week and already people have hacked in a way to play on dedicated servers, patched in a developer console, and have almost finished adding in lean controls.

In spite of your efforts, I’m determined to enjoy this game’s multiplayer; but I’m simply not going to pay you for a product that requires random internet users to tear it apart and put it back together in a playable format.

Sincerely,

Chris

P.S. I know in about a month you’ll pull out a dozen figures about how piracy is why the game is bombing on PC and X many people have downloaded it illegally and Y many people are playing it online with pirated serials and blah blah blah. Piracy is the symptom, not the cause. Make a game that works and we will buy it, after all I’ve bought every other game you’ve ever made.

Bioware’s latest RPG masterpiece is finally upon us, and it’s obvious that they’ve made the most of the 6 years they’ve spent developing it (that’s right, for those unaware, Dragon Age was announced well before Mass Effect yet has only beaten Mass Effect’s sequel to stores by a couple of months).

Obviously a game with such a long development time has some huge expectations… expectations I stayed away from by distancing myself from as much of the previews and trailers as possible so that I could stay out of the hype and just enjoy the game, rather than being concerned with whether it met my expectations. But you know what; I don’t think it would have mattered as the game is, in a word, “brilliant”, though far from perfect. In fact, perhaps “difficult” is more appropriate as it seems to be the first thing that pops into mind when I talk to people about Dragon Age.

More after the jump.

Killing is a bloody, but jovial business

Of course, I  haven’t finished the game yet (In fact, with around 20 hours played I’m only 22% complete according to the in-game meter) and there’s still plenty of time for my opinion on some of these things to change so don’t take these thoughts to be the final word on the game. That being said, so far I’m really enjoying the game in a where-did-the-past-6-hours-go kind of way.

The difficulty seems like a great place to start actually as it seems to be, by far, the least polished aspect of the game. First and foremost, there are four difficulty levels; Easy, Normal, Hard and Nightmare… but I don’t see any reason for them to include either Hard or Nightmare as even Normal seems nigh impossible at times, and I’ve dropped it back to Easy difficulty more times than I dare to mention on a gaming website. Maybe I’m just terrible at the game, but it doesn’t seem to be a matter of not making the right moves, but just sheer weight of numbers/incoming damage that, unless you get lucky, is just insurmountable.

Pictured: Slightly less blood than your average Dragon Age rat

This isn’t the only problem with the game’s difficulty though and while some fights seems insurmountable, there are just as many that you barely notice the enemy before they’re eliminated. While every fight shouldn’t leave the player on the edge of their seat, they should at least provide some amount of challenge, and such inconsistency in the difficulty of combats makes it really feel like the game’s difficulty was rushed together at the last minute and as such really lacks the polish present in most other aspects of the game.

Another poor design choice that helps compound the difficulty problems is the way they display the party’s health and mana/stamina on the screen; small circular icons in the top left corner of the screen. This in itself isn’t the problem though, the issue is that in the heat of combat, there’s no way to actually see the physical amount, or even the percentage of, the character’s health/mana/stamina without pausing the game and completely breaking immersion by going into their stats page. If you’re constantly pausing and micro-managing all of your characters move-by-move then it’s not as large of a concern, but for a player like me who tries to play it in real-time and enjoys the sense of immersion Bioware have accomplished, it’s rather annoying and disappointing, especially when there is a large empty space in the bottom right of the interface where larger, more detailed info could of been placed.

Now the time is here, for Iron Man to spread fear

Despite this however, the actual gameplay is still really enjoyable and the combat system in particular strikes me as an unusual mix of traditional Baldur’s Gate/KOTOR gameplay spliced with aspects of World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XII, which is hard to explain and sounds really odd in theory, but works really well when put together in the game.  In fact, some aspects such as the system of assigning key strategies to your allies is ripped almost word for word from Final Fantasy XII and works just as well in Dragon Age as it did for Square Enix a few years ago, though is no less intimidating to those unfamiliar with the system (you have a number of slots per character that you can assign certain abilities, attacks or items for them to use depending on certain situations, such as how much health you have or how many enemies are nearby).

Another interesting aspect to the gameplay is how the design team has dealt with the death of characters; they’re not permanently dead and will revive at the end of a battle, but with major debuffs such as “Broken Arm”, which greatly reduces their damage, or “Cracked Skull” which does the same to their Cunning, with these penalties lasting until you return to camp or use an uncommon/expensive “Injury Kit” item. Given how unbalanced the difficulty can seem at times, I think they’ve done a great job with these penalties, making them damaging enough that death is still a major concern, but without making it impossible to continue onwards; a balance that given the difficulty of the game, I’m

glad they got right.

Robocop, is that you?

I find it interesting how much Dragon Age has the feel of an MMORPG to it, despite being a completely singleplayer experience, and it seems odd to me that Bioware haven’t tried to implement at least a 4-player Co-op mode akin to Baldurs Gate as the game would be phenomenal with a whole party of human characters. Truth be told, after playing Dragon Age I’m already psyched up for The Old Republic; Bioware’s Star Wars MMO, because if they can capture the blend of Storytelling and Gameplay from here, I could see myself investing far more time than I’d care to admit into TOR.

Which brings me to what has always been Bioware’s greatest strength; their storytelling, world design and characters. Fereldan really feels like a living, breathing world and I’ve yet to find a named NPC who hasn’t been a well-rounded, fleshed out character; even when I kill them after 2 lines of dialogue. While many of the traditional fantasy tropes are present, Bioware has still done a great job making them interesting and seemingly unique to the world presented in Dragon Age, and as always, the writing in the game is brilliant; especially the little one-liners and background discussion your party members will casually toss around during idle moments. Even outside of the main storyline and sidequests, there is a wealth of background information in the codexes I’ve stumbled across in librarys, or even by examining landmarks such as statues and ruined guard posts. Not only this, but the game itself is incredibly long; I’ve spent nearly 20 hours in the world of Dragon Age and have completed just 16% of the game according to the stat tracker in-game, and with the multiple branching archs, it’s obvious theres a huge amount of replayability aside from the 100+ hours of main gameplay.

Uh.. Yeh... No idea whats going on here...

The camera style is, by default, a 3^rd person over-the-shoulder style akin to Gears of War, but can be zoomed out into a more traditional Isometric view in the style of Baldur’s Gate or Neverwinter Nights which, combined with the ability to pause the game on the fly, means that it can be played in the same style as it’s progenitor though, even as a huge BG/NWN fan, I actually find myself playing the game more in over-the-shoulder style. It should also be noted that orientation seems to be a bit funky in the fully-zoomed Isometric view, rendering the WASD movement controls almost useless and essentially forcing you to use the annoying click-to-move controls

Speaking of polish; the game runs incredibly well even with graphic settings cranked up to full. While my PC isn’t top of the range, it is fairly powerful still (2.4ghz Core 2 Duo, 4gb RAM, 260GTX) and I wasn’t expecting to have the game run so well while looking so good, major props to the codemonkeys at Bioware for such great engine work.

More thoughts to come later…

The first game in this series is Ambrosia Software’s little known space combat game; Escape Velocity Nova.

Read the full article after the jump.

I first came across the Escape Velocity series back in my pre-windows days (both of my parents were graphic designers, and both used Apple systems) on a small demo disk I found somewhere, and was instantly hooked. Since those days, the series spawned it’s first sequel (Escape Velocity: Override) and more recently, a third game; Escape Velocity: Nova, which was also the first of the three to be released on Windows (with the original two games now being available through plugins for Nova).

Despite being predominantly an action game, EV:N also boasts a lot of sandbox style exploration and freedom; with a massive universe for the player to explore right from the start of the game (though I wouldn’t recommend attempting it in the starting ship… its a little underpowered and fragile). EV:N is one of the few games where you actually get a lot of freedom (as opposed to marketers telling you the game has a lot freedom) in how you play it; you can immediately join the first military organization you see and serve your nation, or make an honest living hauling freight and trade goods, or even live life on the edge as a Han Solo-style pirate, swooping and stealing cargo from trade ships while avoiding the authorities.

In fact, the game boasts its own, constantly changing, internal economy; each populated planet has numerous goods to trade and a lot of money can be made buying goods where they’re cheap, and selling them we’re they’re valuable. Also, by paying attention to the news, astute players can find planets where major events (such as natural disasters) drive up the price of certain goods, with huge amounts of money to be made.

No matter which role you choose however, combat is likely to ensure at some point and again, theres a lot of freedom to how you deal with enemy attacks; ranging from taking them head-on if you’re in a heavily armed warship, to hiring armed escorts to guard your freighter or, as a last resort, bribing the attacker to spare your life, among many other possibilities. Combat itself is relatively straightforward to manage; ships have both a shield rating (which recharges over time) and armour rating (which must be repaired at ports), and once armour is reduced to zero, the ship is destroyed (though the pilot can escape if an escape pod is purchased).

Offensively, ships can have a mix of standard weaponry which had a limited range, and special weapons which include a range of seeking missiles/torpedoes as well as powerful laser weapons or even  your own attack craft. Again, the sheer amount and variety in upgrades is staggering, and no two ships are the same.

In addition to tall of this, Escape Velocity: Nova boasts depth beyond most major games; with 6 unique major factions (each with their own deep and unique though mutually exclusive storylines) and numerous smaller factions and sidequests (theres around 700 unique missions in all), as well as countless unique ships (as well as numerous models of each ship) to purchase as well as hundreds of upgrades to add your ship of choice. All these alone allow for huge amounts of replayability, but theres also a massive mod support base with hundreds of mods ranging from small additions (such as the ability to repaint your ship) to huge total conversions (such as recreating the Star Trek universe) avaiable to increase the game’s longevity.

All in this one little shareware package where you can try it for free for 30 days… whats not to lose?

Do yourself a favour and go check it out now.

]]> http://crhodan.com/2009/06/best-games-youve-never-heard-of-escape-velocity-nova/feed/ 2 http://crhodan.com/2009/06/e3-thoughts-opinions-and-way-too-early-excitement/ http://crhodan.com/2009/06/e3-thoughts-opinions-and-way-too-early-excitement/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:25:10 +0000 Chris Rhodan http://crhodan.com/?p=34 So, E3 was back to its old tricks, stepping out of the shadow of itself that it’s been for the past few years and reverting back into the  far more exciting behemoth it should be.

Quick satire of major announcements and my thoughts on some games from E3 after the jump.

Here’s a quick wrap of each console’s major announcements (warning: snarky cynicism ahead)

Microsoft’s press conference gave us some unexpected sequels,  Old men cashing in on new media, Yet another Halo game…. oh and a device that makes people lose control and flail their bodies around madly*.

Sony followed this up by announcing another handheld to get murdered by the DS juggernaut, A mysterious new non-GTA Rockstar game, another Final Fantasy MMO (that will probably come out before FF XIII) and unveiled their response to the Wii: A motion sensing magic wand.

Nintendo finished the major conferences off by copy and pasting Mario Galaxy, unveiled a (presumably) sexier and bloodier Metroid game, a new Golden Sun game for DS (finally)…. and a new peripheral that checks your pulse (and presumably warns you if you’re dead).

Oh, and Miyamoto also announced that he isnt announing a new Zelda for Wii at E3 this year.

Ok, with that snarky cynicism out of the way.. here’s some actual thoughts about what we saw at E3 this year:

Motion Controllers

First up, what was probably the biggest surprise announcement of E3: Microsoft’s “Natal” prototype. It was pretty obvious that both Microsoft and Sony were developing their own take on the new Motion-Control craze the Wii is thriving on (and don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing it as a fad, its a definite step towards the future of gaming), but I, like many people, were surprised to see Microsoft’s approach to motion control, wasn’t a controller at all but rather, an upgraded version of the PlayStation Eye(toy). While the technology behind it is fascinating and its clearly quite powerful (and the tech demos they had at the show looked fun and showed off it’s power very effectively), I dont see it really being more than an upgraded version of what the Playstation Eye was/is; a fun little attachment with interesting mini-games to enjoy, but completely ignored by main stream games.

Now, that may sound harsh, but theres a good reason for this; tactile feedback (or lack thereof). The reason the Wii controller suceeds so well as a motion controller, is that the user is physically holding the controller and imitating the action you’d actually make with whatever object  it’s meant to be (your imagination can easily fill in the blank slate that is the controller with whatever object it actually is, or if you lack imagination, there are thousands of Wii accessories in the shape of bats, guns, axes, racquets etc), and just as importantly, it applies feedback to the user through rumbling.  This combination gives the user the sensation of actually feeling like they’re doing the action in question, a feat which can’t be simulated through non-physical motion capture devices such as the Playstation Eye or the “Natal”.

Strangely, for a company that this generation seems so out of touch with developers (architecture unnecesarily complicated) and players alike (new PSP that still lacks dual analogs, and priced to rip off consumers), Sony’s option, while looking like a Wii Remote bred with a Magic Wand, apears to be similar in function to the Wii Remote and should please consumers and developers alike. While not revolutionary, as long as they fix the look of it (i.e. make it not look like a magic wand) it should actually suceed (which is more than I can say about the “Natal”), mainly for the reasons I outlined earlier about motion control and feedback.

Games, Games and more Games

Plenty of games were announced and/or showed off over the conference, heres some thoughts on games that impressed me (as a lounge chair enthusiast who wasnt actually at the conference). Bare in mind that I talk more about PC, Xbox360 and Nintendo DS games as theyre the three platforms I currently own.

Modern Warfare 2 (PC/360/PS3): When Infinity Ward announced they were making MW2, I wasn’t sure how to react; while COD4 was an amazing game, I was worried they’d play it safe and just retread the same ground as MW1. Thankfully, they’ve sent a precedent as COD2 much more than a re-tread of COD1 and their showing of the game at E3 removed any doubt from my mind. The snow level they demoed looked phenomenal, especially the whole rock climbing sequence (which looks like a lot of vertigo-inducing fun), and I loved the blizzard-battered Air Base where you couldn’t see more than a few meters in front of you, making it easy to sneak around (or get snuck up on yourself). Now I cant wait for this game… thankfully its coming out this year.

Splinter Cell: Conviction (PC/360): I haven’t played a Splinter Cell game since the early games of the series, and Conviction wasn’t really on my radar coming into E3, but it came from nowhere and sucked me in. Very much story-driven, Sam Fisher is out for revenge after the death of his daugher, cutting all ties to his organsitation and laws in his pursuit of those responsible. While the game appears very action driven, stealth is still the key in the game, and a lot of little additions to the gameplay make it a lot smoother and enjoyable, most notably the addition of a shilloute to indicate where enemies last saw you. Hopefully they’ll show more of this game off over the next couple of months, as it’s another game I’m already way too excited about (and again, thankfully it comes out this year).

Forza 3 (360): Forza 2 was probably my favourite serious racing game of all time (yes, better than all the Gran Turismo games to date) and I’ve sunk countless hours into the game, so I’m understandably excited for a sequel. While the trailer they showed looked amazing, they haven’t really showed off the gameplay itself, instead focusing on the car painting and video editing features (which are cool, but don’t necessarily appeal to me that much). However, they did discuss a couple of things that got me interested again; a track editor (which I’ll reserve judgement on until I see it) and a rewind button (which could be interesting if implemented well). Mixed anticpation for this one, but it interests me far more than any other racing game at the show .

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS): Nintendo announced a follow up to what is quietly one of the best RPG’s on handheld; Pokemon… err Mario & Luigi Partners in Time. No, I’m not kidding either, PiT (love that abbreviation) was a well designed JRPG that also introduced some real time elements to the turn based combat which sound gimmiky but, when combined with the Mario universe and an ample dosing of humour, made the game extremely enjoyable. As long as Nintendo stick to that formula, this game should be another great RPG on DS.

Golden Sun DS (DS): While the Mario & Luigi RPG series is a quiet achiever, the two previous Golden Sun games are regarded by many (including myself) as the best RPG’s on the Gameboy Advance. While not a lot of the game was shown, practically everyone who played the first two have been waiting years for the next game in the series, and this is definetly one to keep an eye on if you have a DS and enjoy RPG’s.

God of War 3 (PS3): God of War 3 finally had some gameplay shown during E3 and it looked like… more God of War. As a designer, I know I should feel disappointed that (so far) they haven’t really shown much that’s pushed the design of the game forward, but I just can’t. I loved the first two games, and even if the game doesn’t do much different and just looked better and pushed the story forward, it would still be one of the few games (among the likes of MGS4 and Uncharted) that really make me wish I had a PS3.

Assassin’s Creed 2 (PC/360/PS3): The first Assassin’s Creed game, to me, was a tech demo more than anything else. The gameplay fundamentals were there and the engine powering it all was clearly well developed and powerful, it just wasn’t polished and quickly degenerated into doing the exact same things over and over again. The whole time I played the game, I was thinking of how cool the sequel would be, since they had the mechanics in the game, but hadn’t developed them into a fun experience; and here that sequel is. The gameplay demo showed that they were trying to address most of the concerns with the first game, although obviously a demo won’t show if they’ve fixed the endless repetition of the first game, as well introduced the cool new renaissance era setting (and Leonardi da Vinci making devices such as the flying machine for the hero is a cool way of introducing some wacky looking, but interesting designs). Another game that I can’t wait to see more of as the year goes on.

The Last Guardian (PS3): The latest game from the masterful Ico team really let me down ths year. Don’t get me wrong, the trailer was great and all, but it was just an extended version of a trailer that was leaked a week before the show and they had absolutely nothing else to show of the game. I was really hoping we’d see some gameplay (at least video of gameplay if not a demo), but it wasn’t to be this year. This could be the game that finally convinces me to buy a PS3 and I really want to see something more substantial.

Brutal Legend (360/PS3): I think this was a game made almost specifically for me as I love Tim Schafer and I love heavy metal. Aside from the lack of a jump button (Shafer’s reasoning being “No jump because that’s what ruined Van Halen.”), I’ve seen nothing but positive feedback from the game and although I havent had the chance to check out videos of the gameplay, from what I’ve heard it’s incredibly fun. Based on his past works alone, I’d be excited about this game, but given it’s setting and a positive showing, I want this game as soon as possible.

* No offense to Felica Day, I love her work (and I only found that video through her own twitter updates)