A Facebook game finally sucked me in. A bunch of people at work started playing it, and they practically forced me to join. But it’s actually quite fun! It’s like Starcraft meets Cityville. And in an office environment, it’s exactly what it was meant to be, a social game. Sort of like having an ongoing board game you play whenever you have a minute. Never thought the day would come I played a Facebook game…
For those who don’t know, E3 stands for Electronic Entertainment Expo, and for gamers it’s like Xmas. For people in the industry, it’s also the time of year when you get to see the landscape ahead. What trends are popping up, what is the competition coming out with, and what new hardware will we be developing on? This year is no different, and as a gamer, and someone in the industry, I have my fair share of excitement and anxiety!
First off, here’s the games that stood out:
BioShock Infinite:
The Darkness II:
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Battlefield 3
Far Cry 3
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
Tomb Raider
Halo 4
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Ninja Gaiden 3
Hitman: Absolution
Darksiders II
Prey 2
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
Batman: Arkham City
Mass Effect 3
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
Twisted Metal
Saints Row The Third
Dead Island
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
Motion Sports Adrenaline
Also, I found this to be awesome, and a great deal for 499$!
PS3 3DTV Bundle
And let’s not forget Nintendo. Everyone was waiting for their conference because Nintendo had confirmed they’d be unveiling their next console, tentatively called Wii 2. Nintendo’s conference came, and for the first 80% it was fluff. A few new games, nothing amazing or even worth putting in this list. Then they announced the console:
Wii U
So that was the bulk of E3. I missed a few things, but got the major stuff. It was a great E3, and I was really happy with the focus on the hardcore gamer crowd. The past few years have been all about the casual gamer. As someone who works at a studio that makes casual games, I have nothing against them, but it was nice to see my main gaming interests being served at E3 this year. E3 is still going on so I’m sure some cool gameplay footage is coming and some informative interviews, but the bulk of the announcements have been made. I’m super jealous of my friends there this year. One of these days I’ll make it down there!
Nerdgasm to follow:
So when I first got Rift it was just cause Chad was pestering me to try it, and I figured I was pretty bored on the weekends anyway since Ryan moved so I’d give it a shot. I did not expect to get into it much, I thought I was done with MMOs.
Wrong. I am hooked to this game. It feels like the first game to do MMOs RIGHT since WoW. And it’s learned from WoW and other MMOs along the way. It has the best of WoW, Warhammer, Aion, etc all in one with beautiful graphics. And it does a few new things really well. The fact that you can have 3 “roles” and re-spec on the fly out of combat is great. And the rifts are awesome. Rifts open up throughout the world and they’re like mini raids / public quests.
It was a free-play weekend so Chad and I convinced Brett and Linda to give it a shot and they’re now seriously considering picking it up too. Over the weekend we all played together and it was a ton of fun. Facetime on iPhone is an awesome addition to gaming together!
It just seems everyone is at a weird time in life where they have a lot of free time. Chad doesn’t do much on weekends other then spend time with Olga, Brett and Linda are biding their time until they move to Vancouver, and I have a lot of free time on weekends now that Ryan has moved. It lets us play without any guilt!
Today Chad and I did our first instance. It was hands down the coolest instance I’ve done in an MMO to date. It starts in summer and as you progress the seasons change. At the end you’re climbing a mountain in an insane blizzard where you can barely see in front of you, adding to the epic feeling and sense of confusion. Incredibly well done instance, and it was only the first.
The world is beautifully done and the graphics are amazing. The game feels amazingly polished and balanced, especially when you consider it just came out and from a no-name studio! There’s always something to do as well. Plus my friends are playing. Not just close personal friends, but friends from BioWare and Longtail play too. I think I’ll be playing this game for a while… In fact, I’m considering getting a new PC next month to run it better. My PC is 5 years old, it’s been time for a new one for a while, and I can afford it. But it’ll have to wait until after I pay for my wisdom teeth coming out and then my plane tickets to and from Winnipeg for my Dad’s wedding.
It’s exciting to be into an MMO again. Forgot how fun they can be.
Nerdgasm over.
So after my crazy crunch hours earlier this month I suddenly found myself with a lot of free time. I was used to the bustle of always having something to work on, so looked for something to fill all this new free time with. I found Minecraft. I’d been hearing about the game for months, but never understood the appeal. It was only 15$ so I decided to give it a shot.
I quickly understood why this little indie game has sold over a million copies. I’ve been a proponent of emergent gameplay for ages. And this game is just that. Emergent gameplay is when the fun of a game is generated by the user and not scripted by the developers. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE a well written single player game. Hell, I’ve worked on a few I’m very proud of (so go buy Dragon Age Origins, and pre-order Dragon Age 2! Wink wink). But there’s something exciting about emergent gameplay. When something happens in a game and you know it wasn’t “meant” to happen, it becomes uniquely yours.
The idea behind Minecraft is simple, but genius. The world is procedurally generated, so no 2 people get the same level. It starts out as complete wilderness. Hills, lakes, cliffs, beaches, etc. And the game is infinite. If you were to walk in a straight line forever, the game would just keep generating new content. All in a charming blocky aesthetic, as though the nostalgic era of 8 bit were given a third dimension, and nothing else.
There is no tutorial what-so-ever, and the player is dropped alone in this wilderness to figure things out. It isn’t long before the player realizes he can dig up blocks, and place them elsewhere. Essentially the world is built of lego and the player can rearrange the pieces however he sees fit. At night enemies come out so he has to build a shelter to survive the nights.
Soon after the player realizes the game has a crafting system, and 2 of 1 block and 1 of another can create a new block with new properties. Many of these blocks can only be found deep underground. If the player digs deep enough he can find intricate cave systems with underground lakes, lavaflow, etc. He ventures down into these depths to collect rare blocks to create a cooler world back up on the surface!
And from here the player is able to create all kinds of structures, limited (almost) only by his imagination. I’m sure many of you have seen the amazing things that can be created in Minecraft, including recreations of major world landmarks, or entire levels from other games. If not, I suggest simply typing in Minecraft at Youtube.
I had a lot of fun with it, but I found the one thing lacking was sharing. Emergent gameplay leads to amazing creations and amazing stories, and these are the kinds of things people want to share. So I looked into multiplayer. Long story short, for such a simple game, hosting a server is rather hard on a typical machine. But I found server hosts for as little as 15$ a month, so I figured I’d give it a shot and paid to have a hosted server. It’s less than I paid for WoW for months, and this was a lot of fun.
I convinced Chad and Brett to give it a shot, and soon we were on every night, building structures and showing them to each other. Over time our structures began to merge together into a community of sorts.
I made a wooden house circling a mountain, with a bridge to a cliff with a farm on top of it. I made a water-themed night-club (built into a cliff behind a waterfall) too! Chad is making a huge rooftop atrium with trees in it, and Brett made a tower that nearly blocks out the sun. Super fun. Like being a kid again, with a new set of lego!
A fantastic game I’m quite addicted to, and love logging on to build, and check out what my friends have built. If you’re looking for a creative outlet, a new game, or just want to understand what all the hype is about, I strongly suggest picking it up. Like I said, it’s only 15$. And if you do get it, contact me for my server address and come join us!
I just beat Dante’s Inferno, and figured I was getting a bit behind on my game reviews. It’s looking like I’ll be back at BioWare in about a month, so it’s no time to start letting my QA mind get rusty.
Upon starting Dante’s Inferno I was immediately drawn in. The idea of getting to explore the Christian hell through a game based on 19th century poetry was pretty intriguing. I may be atheist, but the concepts have always been there, and I’ve always found religion interesting. So to spend 10 or so hours exploring the depths of hell first hand was quite interesting. I’m sure the actual experience would be less enjoyable.
It’s no secret Dante’s Inferno is a God Of War clone, of which there are so many. But it’s one of the best ones yet. Sadly, it still doesn’t reach the level of awesome that is God Of War. It copies it too closely, without topping it in almost any way. There are a few exceptions though, things Dante’s Inferno did better than God Of War, or most other games in general.
I already mentioned my interest in the subject matter, which for the most part is explored quite well. I really enjoyed the level aesthetics. It has the 9 rings of hell, so how the designers decided to convey, for example, wrath differently from lust, was quite creative.
The musical score to this game also definitely deserves mention. I don’t think a score could have more accurately captured the utter hopelessness and awe that is hell.
The game was far from perfect though. The fact that it is a God Of War ripoff without adding much new is a bad place to start. It is significantly less gory than God Of War, which is one of the franchise’s best traits. It can get quite repetitive, and more than once I found myself quite frustrated…
I actually enjoyed the game a fair amount, but when a game is so clearly a ripoff of another franchise, it’s hard not to compare it. While on its own Dante’s Inferno is a solid game, definitely worth playing, you won’t be able to avoid comparing it to God Of War, which will leave you disappointed more often than not.
It’s not widely known, but Bioshock was heavily influenced by the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It’s no coincidence that there is a character named Atlas. Nor is it chance that there is a character named Andrew Ryan, which sounds a lot like Ayn Rand. And the fact that it’s in the 50’s is an homage to the industrial revolution setting in which Atlas Shrugged takes place. I’d read and loved Atlas Shrugged, so when Bioshock was announced I was intrigued. I wondered how it would handle some of the tougher subject matter of the book. It was predictably much more shallow than the themes of the book, but that is to be expected. Bioshock was, at its core, still a game. So instead of lecturing the player for hours at a time on the philosophy of Objectivism, it was meant to be fun with an interesting backdrop. And it succeeded.
The first Bioshock was possibly the biggest advancement in first-person gaming narrative since Half-Life. With its moral choices and gameplay consequences, its philosophical underpinnings, and its perfect use of the environment to create an atmosphere and consequently tell a story, it was a gem among the first person genre, which had grown stale with grizzled space marines. It was a mature take on the first person genre, showing it was possible for a shooter to be more than mindless shooting. People were thinking while they played. It was loved by critics and audiences alike.
Its story was pretty self-contained, so no one expected a sequel. And then one was announced. How would they justify a sequel after the first wrapped up so nicely?
And that is the one fatal flaw with Bioshock 2. The gameplay is still fantastic; it’s still the brilliant mix of FPS and RPG, shooting things and searching desks for loot. The combat is still varied and interesting; mixing plasmids and ammo types, hacking computers and bots, and using the environment to out-think the enemies is still all as fun as it was in the first, with a few added goodies. And it’s even great to continue to explore Rapture, the underwater city in which Andrew Ryan attempted to create his utopia free from the meddling hands of government regulation or religious judgment. But at the end of it all, you can’t help but feel like the story was tacked on. It has its moments, and it manages to be it’s own story, not just borrowing momentum from the first, but it also feels like it doesn’t know where it’s going. By the time the story ended I’d already forgotten most of it.
Bioshock 2 is a AAA game with fantastic gameplay and combat, and exploring more of Rapture is itself reason enough to play it. But it never manages to escape the shadow of the original Bioshock, and doesn’t manage to do a single thing significantly better. In the end, it’s really just more of the same. But when that “same” is one of the best first person shooters of the decade, that still makes for a great game, just not a revolutionary one.
Gamespot did got a hands-on preview of Dragon Age Awakening and did a write-up on it. Check it out!
I beat Bayonetta last night. I’d had several people tell me it was a must-play game. And I know I’ll catch flak from those people, but I gotta say, I did not like this game… I’ll readily admit I’m clearly a minority here. Bayonetta is sitting at 91 on Metacritic, and the people who recommended the game to me are people I normally agree with on games. That being said… No. Did not like this game.
It’s tough to review a game when you know, when it comes down to it, it just wasn’t your type of game. I can (and will) list all the reasons I didn’t like it, but that’s not going to change the fact that everyone else did.
So, to the list!
First of all, it’s no secret Bayonetta is meant to be over-the-top. It’s overtly sexual to the point of mimicking 60’s sexploitation films. The story is the epitome of self-important, confusing Japanese writing. But it’s all done unapologetically, so I can forgive it that. I like when a medium takes its failures and emphasizes them as a stylistic choice, turning it into something fun instead of shameful. But if the game acknowledges the story as ridiculous why is half the game spent in wordy cutscenes? That’s a LOT of time devoted to a throw-away story. Especially when said cutscenes are constantly breaking the flow of the game.
The formula became painfully transparent to me early in the game. Fight an easy battle or 2, get a nonsensical 5 minute cutscene, fight some new elaborate monster. Wash, rinse, repeat. You never really get into the action for more than a few minutes before another painful cutscene interrupts. To make matters worse, Bayonetta herself is constantly commenting that the enemies will never shut up, it’s like she hates the game she’s in as much as I do.
And that brings me to what I’m sure will be the most controversial criticism. I did not find the combat that great. It was just a Devil May Cry clone. Yes, it may even have perfected it, but Devil May Cry is almost 10 years old now, and it’s charm wore out a long time ago for me.
Bayonetta prides itself on its Witch Time mechanic, and this was one of the things I liked the least about the game. Dodge at the last second and time slows down, giving you a major advantage over enemies. Sadly it reduced the combat to a one-trick pony, the game was much too dependent on it, to the point that half the enemies can ONLY be damaged when in witch time. The other thing I really didn’t like was that you only get witch time if you dodge at the LAST second. So you’re rewarded for having slow reflexes. If you dodge early enough that the enemy isn’t even close to damaging you, you get no advantage. So you have to fight your intuition and stay in harm’s way until the last second, then dodge. I was so unimpressed with the mechanic I would have preferred to just play without it. But as I said, half the enemies require you to be in witch time to damage them, so I was forced to stand and WAIT for them to attack me, just to dodge.
Another major issue I had with the game was I found it offensive. And not in the way you might expect. I had no issue with the sexual innuendo throughout the game. I found the game offensive to my senses. It was too much; the game was a seizure waiting to happen. It was digital vomit. Everything that could possibly happen was happening. All at once. Over and over and over. At 10,000 RPM. To some of the most grating J-Pop music I’d ever heard in my life. The game really managed to annoy me. It reminded me of visiting someone who has kids and lets them sit in the living room watching their neurotic shows with the volume at 11.
It often felt the game was deliberately avoiding fun to instead be a chore. The fact that it counts your continues and judges your score based on that was often discouraging, especially when you consider the amount of quick-time events. One missed button and you have to use a continue. Then when you use a continue, far too often the auto-save was at the worst possible moment. So after using one continue, you push start and you’re loaded mid-combat and suddenly have a split second to dodge an attack or lose half your health, even though you had no idea that’s where the auto-save had been. Now you’re down 2 continues, which costs you in-game currency to boost your stats.
Half the time the camera is in such a position you have no idea an attack is coming, and can’t dodge it, which is especially game-breaking considering its dependency on the witch-time mechanic. The level design was painfully linear, and always nonsensical. Climbing a building only to find it’s a pillar supporting a village. Sure why not? Giant bouncing metal balls in a town square? Um ok… Levers that rotate entire buildings… WTF?
By the time I reached the final stretch of the game, I was literally just pressing buttons to end the game. I just wanted it to be over. And it was as if the game knew this, and was using my desperation against me, as its one final insult. After 3 fake endings I was ready to openly break into tears. What would it take for this to end!? Throw the boss into THE SUN?
…
Bayonetta, to me, will be remembered as some sort of mathematical proof that less is more. Riding a motorcycle up a giant tentacle may sound cool, but need I remind anyone of Ninja Blade?
I beat this game a while ago, so it’s not as fresh in my mind as I’d like, but I felt it merited a review.
Darksiders has a really original premise. You are one of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. You are summoned to earth to bring about the end of humanity, but you quickly realize something isn’t right. Before long you are accused of starting the apocalypse and dooming humanity before its time. The other 3 horsemen weren’t there, no one admits to summoning you, so why did you jump the gun? The rest of the game is finding who framed you for the end of the world. The story from there, sadly, only serves as a device to propel you forward, but the premise itself is pretty cool.
I really enjoyed Darksiders. It was the perfect blend of old and new. I played the game with a simultaneous sense of nostalgia and wonder. It has been called a mashup of the God Of War and Legend Of Zelda series, and I’ll agree with that 100%. And that’s a great thing.
Legend of Zelda was known for it’s fantastic dungeons, filled with puzzles and boss fights that would tend to make use of all the techniques you learned within that dungeon. God Of War was known for its combat and it’s gory mature nature. So a dark mature Legend Of Zelda? Yes please.
And it did both elements perfectly. The puzzles are challenging and rewarding, and some of them are especially creative. The combat, while simple, was fun and rewarding. And the guys at THQ really knew how to balance the two. Whenever you’re getting worn out from the combat you run into a new puzzle to solve. And when you’re beginning to get mentally exhausted from solving that puzzle, on the other side is a fresh horde of enemies to mindlessly slice through.
The mix really shined when combined together though. Each boss was a mini puzzle in its own right. Using the techniques you’d learned and used to reach this far, you had to find a creative way to use them to take down the boss. From targeting multiple targets with your glaive, to using portals to gain vertical momentum to get on top of a towering boss, to making use of your new grappling hook to reach a teleporting boss too fast to reach any other way, it was more than button mashing combat.
Joe Madeira is the man responsible for the fantastic art style in Darksiders. With a history in comic book art, it really shows in the game. Hand-painted textures and slightly out of proportion levels and characters create a unique cartoony but dark look that really add to the experience. I especially loved the fact that each dungeon had a “theme” like the videogames of old. One dungeon is overgrown with plants and trees, while another is a desolate desert. It brought back memories of Mega Man 2, with each level having a distinct feel. It may be an old gimmick, but it’s one I’ve missed and was glad to see return, especially in the hands of such a capable artist.
That game has some fantastic voice acting as well. Mark Hamil lends his insane voice to The Watcher, and while it’s a little too similar to his Joker voice, it’s still always great to hear how creepy he can sound.
Darksiders was one of the best games I’ve played in a while. It was the kind of game I could bunker down and make a night of playing. Rewarding puzzles, fun combat, old-fashioned bosses, a variety of environments and gameplay mechanics, combined with a mature art-style and some classic design choices made for a truly enjoyable experience. Very easy to recommend.
I beat The Saboteur tonight, and keeping with my “review every game” plan to help keep my QA skills intact, here goes!
The Saboteur puts you in 1940’s nazi-occupied France. You play in the role of Sean Devlin, a race-car driver who has no interest in politics or war. But of course, that would not be much of a game. Well, a racing game maybe…
Events lead Sean to become wrapped up in a Parisian rebellion. His hideout is a boudoir of sorts, complete with topless women. From here the game opens up, letting the player progress missions at his own pace.
By the end of the game I had a fairly high opinion of the game, but it didn’t start that way. Open-world games have been done to death, and unless it introduces something revolutionary, or perfects one of the old staples, it feels like the same-old. Saboteur did neither.
Open-world games often suffer from the major design flaw of punishing the player for having fun. Ever since the days of GTA3 the open-world game shows points on the map to reach, but the player rarely gets there without succumbing to the temptation to blow something up, beat someone up or steal something. And as soon as he does, he is funneled down from the infinite possibilities of an open world to the repetitive process of escaping the cops. So to make any progress the player has to restrain his desire to do any of those things. He has to refrain from having fun… This is a fundamental flaw I’ve seen with open-world gaming since day 1, and sadly Saboteur is not the one to fix it.
Granted the gunplay and cover system are better than most open-world games, but at the beginning it really suffered as a result of the lack of innovation. So much so that I put it down and instead beat Mass Effect 2 first. When I did come back to Saboteur it began to grow on me. Despite the many flaws that come with an open-world game, I found it easy to just sit down and have fun.
Paris has a charm that comes across in this game. And I have to hand it to Pandemic for creating a Paris that felt cliché in all the right ways, pushing some of gaming’s limits along the way. The topless women and chain-smoking lead characters were refreshing.
Allow me a moment to rant. Gaming tends to get politicized too often. Games are constantly portrayed in the media as some sort of role model that let the youth of our generation down. I don’t think gaming is about youth anymore. The kids who got Nintendos for Christmas now have kids of their own. And as the market grew up, so did the product. I’m a strong believer in gaming as art, I feel it’s the natural progression of a new story-telling medium. And history has shown us nothing stands in the way of art more than censorship.
So yes, it’s refreshing to see topless women and smoking lead characters, just like it was refreshing when our controllable avatars started dropping F-Bombs.
Does that make this game art? No, of course not. Art is more than just doing something because you can. None the less, beating the next layer of censorship is a step in the right direction. Sadly this game squanders it sometimes. While yes, it was refreshing to have an uncompromised vision of cliché Paris with the beautiful women, and the judgmental chain-smokers, it often felt immature. Some of the sexual innuendo between Sean and the female lead felt downright sophomoric.
While on the topic of art though, the visual art-style was among the best I’ve ever seen in a game. Paris starts in black-and-white. The only colour you see is the red of nazi propaganda and your own blood, or the blue of the rebel’s tell-tale turtlenecks. But as you progress through the game you “inspire the people of Paris” and colour returns to those areas. It’s purely aesthetic but really adds to the feeling of oppression in monochrome, then the sense of liberation as colour is restored. I’ve written before about how colour returning to the game-world is a reversal of the norm, and one I approve of.
The story in The Saboteur has its highs and lows. It feels uneven at times, not sure where it’s going. But the parts it does right, it really does right. For example, the main enemy in the game, a car-racing nazi named Dierker, was an enemy I could really hate. And towards the end of the game he delivered a retrospective line that actually sent chills down my spine.
The game suffers from small hiccups like path-finding issues and level streaming failures, but these are not the things I will remember about the game. It had some truly memorable moments that made the rougher areas worth bearing.
Pandemic Studios was closed shortly after the completion of this game, and it has been called their “Swan song”. While flawed, I think they can be proud of their final effort as a team and the fact that they left on a high note.
So to keep my QA mind sharp I’ve decided to write a review of every game I play… And I just beat BioWare’s own Mass Effect 2. Skip this review to avoid spoilers, though I’ll do my best not to include any.
I suppose people will see me as biased, but it was honestly one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. I wasn’t a huge fan of Mass Effect 1, probably because by the time I played it it was pretty outdated, and I’m a shooter fan at heart, and the combat was all determined by hidden dice-rolls. I liked the story, but even then it didn’t blow me away. Mass Effect 2 improved on literally every area. The combat was fun and visceral. Instead of the distraction from the story it was in the first, it added to the story in Mass Effect 2. You really felt like you were fighting for something. All the fun of a real shooter, all the story of a fantastic movie or novel.
The thing that really struck me as unique in this game though, was the mature themes. Early in the game it was established the final mission was a suicide mission. We were not expected to survive. And it’s been marketed as such, making it very clear one of the many endings includes everyone dying. So as I traveled across the galaxy collecting new friends and catching up with old ones, it was always lingering in the back of my head, that I was recruiting these people for what would likely be their final mission. And as I earned their loyalty through missions for each follower, I got to know the characters more. I helped them face their demons so they could face their deaths with a sound mind. And I got to know just what they’d each be leaving behind.
Watching the characters each deal with their mortality in their own way, was an experience I’d never had in a game. Gaming has taught us to think of in-game death as a mere obstacle. Revive them with the potion, or use a continue, collect a 1-up. But in this game, their deaths were always hanging in the air, as something final and unforgiving, and it created a sense of tension throughout.
By the time I went on the suicide mission, I was incredibly invested in these characters. As we pushed our way forward I was hoping I’d done everything I had to do to keep them all alive, and anxiously awaiting the moment when I found out I hadn’t. As one character nearly died, only to be saved at the last second, I honestly had an emotional investment in the character, I knew exactly what they’d be leaving behind if they died, and I didn’t want to see their story end there. Few games have managed to make me care like that, and I’m proud to say everyone lived in my playthrough.
The other thing I loved in the game was the uneasy alliance between Shepard and crew and the mysterious and morally ambiguous Cerburus group. I’m doing my best not to include any spoilers, so I’ll just say the game perfectly manages to keep you asking yourself if the ends justify the means, and I was quite happy with the way the game wrapped it up (or didn’t, depending on the choices you make through the game). Not to mention The Illusive Man is one of the coolest characters in a game ever, voiced perfectly by Martin Sheen.
And choices. Dragon Age was all about choices as well, it’s sort of a BioWare staple. But this was the first BioWare game where choices from the first game CARRY OVER into the second by importing the savegame. My friend and I compared Mass Effect stories after we both beat it, and the differences were staggering. Choices we’d made in the first game had drastically changed our experiences in Mass Effect 2, and neither version felt like the “real” one. They both felt legitimate. Just different. Even in conversations, the responses you choose and the following reactions always feel fluid. It never feels like a conversation is “collapsing” back to the default path.
This is the only game I know to tackle this kind of subject matter. Generally from a sci-fi opera you expect it to be “fight some big bad guy who wants to destroy the galaxy and save the day”, and to be fair Mass Effect 2 has its share of that, but it takes a back seat to the much more present threat of death. It focuses on characters, their development, and how each of them face their own demons and the realization of their own mortality. I can’t relate to some space hero saving the galaxy from aliens, it’s a fun age-old literary device, but nothing that really reaches to me. I can, however, relate to a character who has regrets, and wants to right them before it’s too late. Who can’t relate to something like that?
One of the best games I’ve ever played. In my top 3 of all time, easily. If you are any sort of gamer, you owe it to yourself to play this, even if you haven’t played the first (and ESPECIALLY if you have).
I just played a game that had the same effect on me as a really well done short film. Flash games are becoming a genre of their own, and I’m really starting to dig some of the more artistic ones. I posted the game Small Worlds a while ago, and this is another one that shows what games can be when you loosen up the definition a little.
There are so many types of gaming we hear talk of but rarely actually see. Casual games. Games as art. Alternative narratives. Etc. These words are constantly used in the industry, but always in reference to some future concept, just around the corner but never quite reached. But there are such games. When Braid hit the scene, it really opened a lot of people’s eyes to what small games could accomplish. For me personally, it was one of the most artistic games I’d played in years. It used some truly genius narrative mechanics and when I beat it, it left me in wonder and awe the way a rare great movie or book does. It was art, through no stretch of the word.
And so it’s great to see others make it their own personal goal to see these things realized in gaming. Kotaku today, pointed me to a small free browser game called Small Worlds by David Shute. It’s a small game that emerged from a contest to create a short game based on exploration.
I gave it a shot and beat it in 10 minutes. And I really enjoyed it. It’s the very definition of casual, the entire game can be played while leaning back in your chair, with only your middle and index finger. But it’s also ambitious in vision. I won’t spoil anything (the fact that a 10 minute free browser game has anything to spoil is in itself a testament to what this game manages to accomplish within it's limitation), but it’s a game that depends entirely on the player’s sense of wonder and exploration. To learn more about the world around them. To quite literally expand the scope of their understanding (executed perfectly with a ‘fog of war’ mechanic). And there is a story to be extracted through your exploration, but I will leave that to you. It is open to a fair amount of interpretation, but I have my own strong theory. All this set to a somber soundtrack and nostalgic pixel graphics makes for a surreal, enjoyable and surprisingly reflective experience.
As someone with a strong interest in game design, I found this game really showed what a few smart design decisions can do for a game with such limited resources. A pixelated game that lasts 10 minutes, and yet managed to accomplish something rare in gaming.
After all this talk I may be hyping it too far, as much of its charm comes from its subtlety. If you have 15 minutes to spare for a casual game and want to see what a game can manage to do with a few pixels and said 15 minutes, click this link.
For those of you who are not familiar with Yahtzee, he is a game critic who does reviews called “Zero Punctuation” because it’s just one long rant with hardly a breath taken. He tends to be extremely critical, and it’s honestly an honor to have a review by him. And if you’ve seen his other reviews, you’ll be able to tell he actually liked this game!
Mark today as a very significant day in my life. Dragon Age hit shelves today. A year of working hard with a great team has paid off. There is now a fantastic product with my name on it. I’ve never had this sort of professional pride before. The reviews have started coming in, and they’re overwhelmingly positive! Some highlights:
Re-reading what I've written here, I honestly feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what Dragon Age: Origins has to offer, and in a way, I'm glad I'm not able to give too much away. Dragon Age is a spectacular experience from beginning to end, and with an enormous amount of choices to make, cities to visit, dungeons to crawl, NPCs to interact with, treasure to find, quests to complete and crafts to master, I feel pretty confident in saying that Dragon Age: Origins is, without a doubt, one of the most enjoyable and immersive RPG experiences I've had since my Infinity Engine days. BioWare has crafted a spectacular journey with Dragon Age, and an unforgettable fantasy realm that's sure to resonate with fantasy and adventure fans the world over.
This is definitely not the game for those frightened of the idea of micromanaging a game to the point where a large portion of it will be spent in a pause screen. However, as the sort of guy that has lovingly played an Infinity Engine game at least once every year for the past decade, I can think of no higher praise for this throwback than to say that Dragon Age: Origins leaves me feeling fairly confident I won't need to dig out the classics for this ritual next year.
It's the best RPG of the year -- and maybe the best of the HD era.
RPG fans in search of a meaty game with plenty of depth and replayability won't be disappointed with Dragon Age: Origins, a masterfully crafted adventure that offers a lot of bang for your buck.
But for the true RPG gamer, this game is of a level that has never been seen before. It is the new benchmark. The story is rich and engaging, the characters are memorable, and the journey is one that pulls you in, captivates you and compels you to move forward toward the conclusion.
Bioware has managed to update and evolve the formula that made Baldur's Gate 2 a classic, creating an engaging, rich, and solidly fantastic universe that feels consistently coherent and credible. Dragon Age is a triumph that shows, among other things, how the core values of the traditional roleplaying genre are still valid, managing to include a complete and versatile combat system that welcomes new players and will challenge veterans, with difficult encounters where tactics are the key to victory. Overall, it's a really special RPG, which truly deserves to be called "epic".
Incredible storytelling, great characters, and exciting battles are just a few of the things that make this fantasy role-playing game so extraordinary. Possibly the best authentic RPG of the decade.
This is the most enormously detailed game world I've experienced, its history stretching back thousands of years, its cultures vivid, beautiful and flawed, the battles enormous, the humour superb. Roleplaying games now have a great deal to live up to.
Dragon Age: Origins is a brave and brutal return to form for PC fantasy roleplaying - bettering nearest rival The Witcher through both its combat and the innate lovability of so many of its characters...With Dragon Age: Origins BioWare have secured their position as masters of the RPG art. [Christmas 2009, p.68]
Dragon Age: Origins is much more than a game – it’s the glorious revisiting of Bioware’s past and a look at where they are going in the future.
Without any doubt, Dragon Age accomplishes the mission… To deliver the best story-driven RPGs in the world.
Bioware’s achievements in all this are incredible. It cannot be stressed enough at the depth of the universe they have conjured. Every corner you look, there is a sense of age, of something old. Entire mythologies for multiple cultures have been brewed up, entire religions mapped out in their own belief systems, history that stretches back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Cities look lived in, worn – majestic and squalid places that spill with times gone by and a sense of place. The castles look like they have been there for centuries, and truly, there is an uncertain sense that they have been. That Ferelden and its inhabitants were waiting patiently in the wings for all this time, waiting for their chance to shine. Well, like the Grey Wardens, their time has come. Let us unite then, and in the words of an old friend: We shall show those cursed Darkspawn our hearts – and then show them theirs.
You don’t need a thousand words to make you fall in love with Dragon Age: Origins. It has everything that is sought by the most jaded fans of the genre: at least 60 hours of adventuring, colorful, lively characters, flexible combat system, complex situations and quests, dialogues that are pleasant to read and even more pleasant to listen to… Dragon Age, like a good storyteller, captivates within minutes. It doesn’t rush the story, relishes in small details, goes into ornate lyrical digressions, and maintains the intrigue, keeping you at the edge of your seat.
After logging over a hundred hours on Dragon Age: Origins, I still want to continue playing. I want to unearth more of its secrets, to better know its characters, to see how the decisions I make can impact its world, and yes, to see more of its endings. I can't think of a better recommendation than that.
In addition to capturing the joy of battle, Dragon Age also provides an engrossing backdrop for the action. Even more than Mass Effect, the nation of Ferelden feels like a fully realized setting with its own history, conflicts, and power groups. This is one of the main reasons the game is so addicting; completing quests isn’t just about grinding experience and amassing loot – it actually feels like you have an impact on the world.
Incredibly deep and expansive, Dragon Age: Origins is one of those titles that can easily swallow up dozens of hours of play and keep you coming back for more. The fact that BioWare chose to include downloadable content, including a new character and side quest, on launch day proves that they have an extensive plan for supporting the game. Couple that with the fact that each character can be developed in radically different ways, and you have an adventure that earns its own place among BioWare's expansive RPG collection. This is the kind of adventure that fantasy RPG fans have been hoping that BioWare would deliver – a game with a ton of re-playability and an incredibly vivid world that is the start of an impressive franchise.
And for good measure, a video review:
And here’s a few excerpts from some written reviews that had no concrete rating system (so no %):
It satisfied on the basic level of simple pleasures, like slurping a spaghetti noodle.
Perhaps the biggest testament to Dragon Age: Origins is the fact that after more than 40 hours of play time, I found myself contemplating my next character as the credits rolled, working out in my head what I would do differently the next time around. During the busy fall video game release season, when my response to completing even the most enjoyable games is "next," it takes an extremely compelling title for me to want to go again. Dragon Age: Origins is exactly that sort of title.
So clearly the game is being well-received! And now I can finally show people a screenshot of my name in the credits! Along with the amazing QA team I worked with, many of whom have become good friends over the past year. Click the pic to see a fullscreen version!
It’s been a surreal experience, and I’m honored to have been a part of it. Hopefully this isn’t the last game from Bioware with my name in the credits, because this team is truly amazing. Today was the release party, which was great. I’ll post more about that later though. Go out and buy yourselves a copy of Dragon Age: Origins today!!! (And if I find out you pirated it, we’re no longer friends!)
I leave you with the newly released trailer announcing 30 Seconds To Mars’ exclusive song released with Dragon Age!
We’ve started giving out review copies of Dragon Age and the first review just came in, 90%! Read the review!
SPOILER ALERT – If you haven’t beaten this game, do not read this.
Colin lent me the new Prince of Persia for 360 a while ago and I just beat it. I was very pleasantly surprised. I was expecting a generic platformer game, but was quite surprised at what I ended up with. Gameplay-wise, it kind of was just a generic platformer, though a fun one. But there were several design choices that were unconventional that really worked.
First off, at the beginning of the game the Prince stumbles into a desert with a giant tree in the middle, which you learn is there to trap an ancient demon. The Prince meets Elika and finds out her father is in the process of a deal with the demon. He succeeds and the lush lands are destroyed and made dark and depressing. The goal of the game is to go area to area healing it, which involves turning it from cold steel and stone to sun, grass and butterflies. So the game starts dark and depressing, and gets progressively sunnier. This is the reverse of what I’ve come to expect from games. Usually the first few levels are sunny and grassy, then the shit hits the fan and it gets progressively more dark and depressing. I understand this is to establish that “the gloves are off”, but I’d always find myself missing those first few levels that put me in such a good mood. In Prince of Persia, as the game progressed and I healed more of the lands, it got sunnier and happier, and gave the game a very optimistic feel which was very refreshing. It made me want to keep playing.
Secondly, the game’s characters were great. Prince has a funny sense of humour, with good voice acting. He meets up with Elika, and the 2 begin to develop a relationship over the course of the game. The use of the L trigger as a conversation button was genius. At any point during play you could push the L-Trigger to talk to Elika, and the dialogue was rarely recycled. Most of the time it wasn’t even in cutscene, just funny banter and flirtations while you played. It really kept the adventure from feeling lonely, which it definitely would have otherwise in such a vast environment. Over the 14 hours or so I put into the game it managed to convince me these 2 characters were getting to know each other, and inevitably falling for one another despite their differences. Even the subtly flirtatious “Heh heh, sorry” as you had to slide past each other while walking down a narrow beam was a nice touch that went a long way. Having a “sidekick” character to drag around in games is usually a inconvenience, and very cumbersome, but they managed to make Elika feel very useful and she never gets in your way.
I knew I liked these design choices, but it wasn’t until the ending of the game that I realized how well executed and purposeful they all were. Again, a reminder, spoiler alert.
To trap the demon Elika has to give her life by putting her soul into a new tree to trap him. As you carry her corpse in your arms, walking down the long hallway exiting the tree temple, the credits roll to the side, without you losing control. A really nice touch. As you place her corpse on an alter, the camera pans up to show the lush lands you’d revived, but it feels like an empty victory.
Many open-world games let you continue to explore once you’ve beaten the game, so when I retained control I assumed it was just doing that. But I soon realized the game might not quite be over yet. Long story short, I worked my way back into the temple and cut down the tree she’d put her soul in, and took it back to her, and revived her. In doing so, as the Prince brings Elika back to life, you see the lands wither and die once more, as the demon again escapes. You just undid everything you accomplished in the last 14 hours. But you realize the accomplishment of the game was the Prince finding someone he’d settle down with, and that is seen to it’s finality. The camera shows the Prince walking away with Elika in his arms while the temple crashes down behind him and the world withers away to darkness once again. Fantastic ending, I thought. After spending 14 hours working towards an ending you thought you could predict, you UNDO it all.
I thought about it and realized this game’s story and theme is essentially the complete opposite of what you normally get. Most games start sunny, things get progressively darker as you approach the seemingly impossible task at the end and finally, against all odds, save the day as you bring peace to the lands. In this game, it starts dark and gets progressively sunnier as the end task seems less daunting, and ends with you, against all odds, sacrificing the lands bringing turmoil and despair. Most games feel very doom-ridden until the last second happy ending, this game was optimistic all the way until the end of the world.
One of the best games of the year for me. It was great to see what happens when a studio decides to go against the conventions of game design, even if only in theme and story, and not so much gameplay.
I’ve heard the DLC Epilogue is fantastic, builds upon the story of the main game. So despite the heavy cost I plan on spending the 800 Microsoft Points and playing through it as well before Colin wants it back!
Check it out! The New York Times wrote an article on the top 10 games you can count on this Holiday Season, and Dragon Age is in there! Also, Aion, the game Chad and I, and many people at work have started playing, is also on the list! A good read!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/arts/television/13schi.html?_r=1
Servers up, everything working. As soon as I got home Chad and I started playing immediately. It was good times.
Anyone on the fence about buying it, or looking for a new MMO to try, something different from the usual fantasy fare, give this game a shot. Chad and I had a great time playing it on Open Beta, and we’ve both deciding we’re definitely picking it up. Really fun!
Ok, I may catch a lot of flak for this, but I beat Mirror’s Edge last night, and have to say… I think this was one of the most over-rated games I’ve ever played. After all the hype from the demo, which for the most part was only bolstered by the retail release, I was expecting to have some fun with it. I bought a copy, along with a few other games, before moving to Edmonton with the hopes of it getting me through the first few lonely months.
3 chapters in and I couldn’t stand it, and put the game down. Months later I’ve decided to come back to it, partially to give it another fair shake, partially to try to get my money’s worth, and partially for the achievement points… I was still not impressed. It had one or two cool parts, and I definitely have to tip my hat to the developers for trying something new. And I think that may be what all the hype is about, the fact that it’s something new. Some are classifying it as a new genre, First-Person Platformer.
I’ll agree with all that. In today’s economy and with the cost to a studio to develop a game, it was very brave of DICE and EA to take a risk on an idea like this, and that has to be applauded. So in that regard, I’m happy it was successful because it shows studios the consumers are still looking for new ideas, but when I bought it I was expecting to have some fun. And I did not.
When I first started my job at Bioware working for QA, my cousin told me one of the downsides to the job was what he called “The Matrix Effect”. Once you’ve seen behind the smoke and mirrors, and know how to spot bugs and design shortcomings, you can’t turn that off. Gaming as a hobby becomes a challenge, since gaming is also a job. And Mirror’s Edge really brought that statement home. The trial and error approach of finding the right way to go, but never being able to truly rule a path out due to the possibility it was just collision detection preventing you from taking what was meant to be the right path after all, the die die die die checkpoint, die die die die game design… Well it felt a lot like troubleshooting. And I get enough of that at work.
When I play a game I have no problems with it being challenging, but it should still be fun. And many games accomplish that. Bionic Commando was great fun, not the perfect game by any means, but it was fun, even though it was quite challenging. Every time I died, it only encouraged me to get back in there and try again, try harder. Mirror’s Edge I just found discouraging. It grated at my soul…
So when Mirror’s Edge 2 comes out, which you can be sure it will after the success of the first, let’s hope DICE doesn’t take the success of the first to mean they shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken. That’s not an approach you can take when you’re building something new, because you can’t break what has yet to work.
