tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64749025398269872392024-03-05T07:01:24.861+00:00Three-Headed MonkeyJoe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-89201594726095546092013-07-03T23:04:00.001+01:002013-07-03T23:04:36.950+01:00One Piece Mansion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7PnHpBgPzKeTXmbmZ2e7hTLLrh8gbc5kFEFw7nhGU1HS58Mf9NKJbeqC9bxEqHgsGjakCEY-4OwZ2VZx7dGiU1hsyZQsC5LkKVwveThYTiHDftuVrpQpaXCMxHs4kWl5khZ7-EaQVjKyZ/s800/one+piece+mansion.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7PnHpBgPzKeTXmbmZ2e7hTLLrh8gbc5kFEFw7nhGU1HS58Mf9NKJbeqC9bxEqHgsGjakCEY-4OwZ2VZx7dGiU1hsyZQsC5LkKVwveThYTiHDftuVrpQpaXCMxHs4kWl5khZ7-EaQVjKyZ/s400/one+piece+mansion.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Why do we play stressful games? I find this sort of question
is both easy to answer and still a bit puzzling. Of course stress can help to give
a sense of accomplishment to completing a game's challenges - giving the player
adrenaline enough to feel as if they've <i>just
made it</i>, just managed to get through and time everything perfectly. But it still
seems strange to me to fill one's
past-time with, not just adrenaline, but irritation, frustration, and sometimes
breathless moments of panic. <i>One Piece
Mansion</i>, a PS1 oddity I recently found in a 2nd hand games shop, seems to
courts this type of stress like it were the essence of life. <i>One Piece Mansion</i> (which strangely has
no affiliation with the Manga and anime series <i>One Piece</i>) is a puzzle/management game which, to all intents and
purposes, is driving me mad. </div>
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The game centres around the blindingly original concept of
managing a block of flats in which the tenants' happiness must be maintained in
order to gain more rent. In this respect the game reminds me quite a bit of the
<i>Theme</i> games - Theme Park, Hospital,
Aquarium - but with a much more rudimentary, puzzle based mechanic. When a
level starts the player character, Polpo - a kind of devilish looking child
landlord -, has several tenants already living there. When more tenants become
available the player has to build more rooms and gain more money by introducing
more tenants. There are however two issues to obstruct Polpo's success. </div>
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The first and most understandable one is also that which gives
the game it's most interesting dynamic, that is: not all tenants are good
cohabiters. Tenants can either radiate good energy - such as the character
Al-Chan whose "smile makes everyone happy" - which is represented by
green arrows, or they can radiate bad energy - such as Garchanko: "the
rumble of his gigantic body stresses out the people around him" - which is
represented by red arrows. Some of the tenants change depending on their stress
levels, as with Drimmi, a character whose stress level determines whether he
radiates good or bad energy. The role of the player is to make sure that the
tenants don't get too stressed out. This has to be achieved through management
of where each resident lives and constantly moving people around is key to
making sure that they don't get too stressed out and leave (or, in fact, blow
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The great thing about this idea is that, for a puzzle game,
it really communicates a sense of community spirit. While of course the player wants
all their tenants to be like Al-Chan, "the sweat-heart", the game forces
you to accommodate for all their different personalities; each one just as
important as the others. So when you find Garchanko getting pissed off at some
other noisy housemate you can't simply let them move out, you have to look out
for their interests too. Even if they might be unpopular within the block as a
whole. It's all actually rather beautiful....</div>
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The second obstruction to Polpo's financial and societal success are (as you've
probably guessed) an evil race of alien criminals known as Sector 5. They turn
up every now and then and it's up to Polpo to evict them. But how does one
evict an evil race of criminal aliens? Cleverly the game reverses the one thing
you're been trying to avoid all along: you must piss the aliens off so much
that they can take it no more and have to move out/blow up. It's a great idea -
that a game's central mechanic is used for both good and bad. This is also
where those annoying, loud, obnoxious flatmates really come in handy. Surround
the aliens with them - while keeping them happy - and you easily flush out the
smaller alien invaders. </div>
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<o:p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Al-Chan </td></tr>
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However the game quickly piles on the tension and
multitasking becomes mandatory to stay on top of all your tenants' needs and
anxieties. The invading aliens also have the annoying habit of leaving their
rooms to pester/set fire to the other occupants' rooms. When this happens the player
has to switch to 'Security' mode and actually control Polpo around the block in
order to scare the aliens back to their rooms and put out any fires they may
have started. This therefore requires the player to keep an eye out for these dramatic
moments while also keeping eye on the macro level of the entire flat. </div>
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A couple of levels in and it becomes one of the most hectic
puzzles games I've ever played. Strangely however there are also moments of
quietness to the gameplay. If you've dealt with all the current aliens and
everyone's doing fine you can sit back and enjoy the cute - if somewhat low-res
(even for the PS1) - animations of each of the game's numerous characters. But
soon enough the aliens are back and Polpo's world becomes a stressful mixture
of shifting residents and running frantically to send the aliens back to their
rooms! It's all pretty comical really. But at the centre of the game is a
really intuitive look at communities through the mechanics of a puzzle game.
The idea is to keep everyone happy - even if they're wildly annoying. Because
of course, as it is in real communities, these are the guys you need when
aliens invade. </div>
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<o:p> </o:p>This game is therefore stressful but not un-thoughtful. It
delivers the kind of multitasking which you can feel making your brain stronger.
There are moments where, amidst the chaos, you just have to take a second and
think - right, what do I have to do here. The more I think about the game the
more it reminds me of <i>Theme Hospital</i>.
This also comes across in the way the game balances these management puzzles
with idiosyncratic characters and animations. The game also includes an
'Endless Mode', which, while it can seriously eat your evenings, seems to lack
the stress/release structure of the main campaign and generally always ends in
a tornado of exploding tenants. <i>One Piece
Mansion </i>is a brilliant and pretty unique little puzzle game which, if we
lived in a perfect world of peace, love and serenity, would be re-released on
tablets - it would suit it so well! But as we don't, if you've got a PS1 or 2,
and a couple of pounds to spare, I would definitely recommend it. </div>
Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-72772857916058643352013-06-14T10:37:00.004+01:002013-06-14T10:37:52.150+01:00Ico on the big screen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69A_C_tnZAnsjZ_BUCGzZWFnnJShP_El5ZxkF1ftKizksOlj9n2iiyaMoqkZ1umcFrlc41Qy1XWO7Agt2aSb-gpBR8APbBmuUbOtDAeYxVaz0NZHylgLH-8qZBsAsNaSkqHq3JZ_VaqP0/s1600/ico_windmill.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg69A_C_tnZAnsjZ_BUCGzZWFnnJShP_El5ZxkF1ftKizksOlj9n2iiyaMoqkZ1umcFrlc41Qy1XWO7Agt2aSb-gpBR8APbBmuUbOtDAeYxVaz0NZHylgLH-8qZBsAsNaSkqHq3JZ_VaqP0/s400/ico_windmill.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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This is hardly worthy of any mention really but I love it when games crop up in everyday places, it acts as a sort of validation that games are brilliant artifacts. It also allows me to show off my game spotting skills! This one wasn't too hard and in many ways is a bit of an unfortunate cliche in the Games/Art discussion. It's <i>Ico </i>of course! A brilliant game which I haven't really played all that much, but it's the one which always comes up in many peoples' lists of Best Games.<br />
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It appears all too briefly in the film <i>Vanishing Waves. </i>The film was so-so, but was enjoyable as a kind of David Lynch-esque sci-fi thriller. The main concept for the story involved the technology to sync a comatose mind with a waking one, allowing the doctors (or whoever these guys were??) to enter the patient's brainhole and revive them. So, main-character man sets off on the inward journey into the patients mind. It's a great idea which leads to some interesting imagery and spooky build-ups (ala Lynch) but it's morally questionable central protagonist and overally serious approach to the material left me feeling a bit distracted. HOWEVER, a game! Look, its Ico!<br />
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The inclusion of games in films as cultural references - like you would see with a book or piece of music - shows the potential (which we all know already) for games to communicate ideas as well as any other cultural work. In this case the film's narrative of 'Man goes into magical to rescue Girl' is mirrored in the narrative of Ico which similarly see's a boy rescuing a girl from some mysterious castle/dream-realm.<br />
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So there we go - a game in a film! Marvelous!Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-34078409774637671892013-06-07T00:54:00.001+01:002013-06-07T00:55:04.046+01:00What I've Been Playing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiw2cnMO3PpSXkogYFN7271lodwHDuAO_pFN6TsUsI1MLHozOYvIcG1GazTg2vmiYqwvg1Ar5DwPdnkLxQ3SYO46pxnMtsBntwUMQibzhyphenhyphentnkep2OVmEO9HXzBcswoQT78Gc3eyKnplRvY/s1600/resi4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiw2cnMO3PpSXkogYFN7271lodwHDuAO_pFN6TsUsI1MLHozOYvIcG1GazTg2vmiYqwvg1Ar5DwPdnkLxQ3SYO46pxnMtsBntwUMQibzhyphenhyphentnkep2OVmEO9HXzBcswoQT78Gc3eyKnplRvY/s640/resi4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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There is of course only a limited number summers one
experiences before life finally turns in upon itself, forcing itself from the
present into the half-existent past. Therefore, it would seem more pertinent to
be out there experiencing what many of us name Life and not instead be turning
in slow circles in order to shoot Eastern European scary-humans before they
grab you and start shouting! Also massive Eastern European chainsaw guys! And
weird magicians or something! I've been playing <i>Resident Evil 4</i> which is making me want it to be winter again. </div>
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A couple of years ago people started to complain about the scarcity
of colour in recent (or current-gen)
games such as <i>Gears of War</i>, <i>Resistance,</i> or <i>Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise</i>: they clearly have never played <i>RE4</i>. This game is all kinds of brown.
It's also grey sometimes. But mostly brown. Of course this is great for the
game, which sets itself in the brownest corner of what I imagine is the Racoon
City equivalent of the Białowieża Forest in Europe. A
grim forest (in <i>RE4</i>) whose trees
don't so much sprout leaves as more twigs. In fact it's a very twiggy game -
maybe a contender for most twigs in a game. While this fits the game's schlocky
Lovecraftian horror plot, it does leave the environments looking very mushy and
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But it's nothing that you don't quickly forget, or just
accept, as the rest of the game is very engrossing. But yes, very schlocky. It
reminds me a little bit of a film I recently watched called <i>The Shrine</i>, which had an equally silly
story of Eastern European cultists (what is it with those guys? jees). The
setting and plot do however make a change from the
sci-fi-urban-zombie-apocalypse of the first three games; giving the sense of
this being a contained narrative, mostly free from the usual convolution. In
many ways this game foreshadows the culturally specific horror which would
cause the series problems in <i>RE5</i>,
channelling fears of the primeval, isolated culture, but here it feels a lot more
comfortable - compared to the rabid, spear wielding African menace of <i>RE5</i> - this kind of Eastern European community
being a more traditional setting of the horror story (Count Dracula and all
that jazz). </div>
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Game play wise I love <i>RE4</i>.
Whenever I play a <i>RE</i> game I always
start by bemoaning the controls but end up loving them - they make being
proficient at the simplest manoeuvre (such as turning around) incredibly satisfying.
This does sometimes frustrate, in the boss battles especially, but weirdly -
and completely incongruous to the story - this becomes part of the game's
challenge. How do I manoeuvre Leon so that he doesn't just stand there and die?
Frustrating? Yes, but ultimately satisfying. It also makes playing any other
game which actually allows you to move like a capable human feel like a gift
from the gods. </div>
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So I've been loving <i>RE4</i>.
As well as this I've been playing another revered classic, this time of the RPG
genre. <i>A Link To The Past</i> might well
be the most well designed game ever made. For me it perfectly captures the fairy
tale, fantasy children's epic. The land is full of surprises and secrets, and
really rewards exploration and experimentation.</div>
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It's also one of those games which, when playing it again,
still feels fresh in my mind from when I played it years ago. There have been a
few puzzles though which I seemed to have forgotten and as such, similar to <i>The
Secret of Monkey Island</i>, leave me feeling like a handfed moron. Why am I so
quick to jump for the walkthrough? It's a real struggle to make myself experiment
and try stuff out instead of just giving up and looking on youtube - especially
since I'm playing the game on my laptop! </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1C0ldhq4MVtRQKcTrExYHCs8hHkpRFWbU_dolgLiekCP647U5UPt2v9w_tPLWT623EUjB6Iog436ydvUavW7GnobiUowlwlKT_ipu0fLOXbG3zvYSzzHH0ZM9yj0ah5TKErUDciR-zWQN/s1600/A-Link-to-the-Past.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1C0ldhq4MVtRQKcTrExYHCs8hHkpRFWbU_dolgLiekCP647U5UPt2v9w_tPLWT623EUjB6Iog436ydvUavW7GnobiUowlwlKT_ipu0fLOXbG3zvYSzzHH0ZM9yj0ah5TKErUDciR-zWQN/s400/A-Link-to-the-Past.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Oh well, I'm far less patient then I was as a child. I also
think that <i>A Link To The Past </i>might
be something of a Summer Game, if there is such a thing. It's so bright and
light hearted - yet deep enough to keep you genuinely interested. </div>
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Alongside these electronic computer games I've also been
playing a bit of Backgammon. What better way to pass the time with a friend on
a lazy, sunny afternoon? I sometimes find it a bit frustrating due to the fact
that luck can really alter the outcome of a game, but if you're feeling in a
relaxed mood and don't worry too much if your opponent getting all the bloody
doubles! Well yeah, it's fun and can be pretty strategic. Also I'm shit at
Chess so what else is there? Polish guys with chainsaws! </div>
Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-24652686517784598512013-06-06T12:44:00.001+01:002013-06-06T12:50:09.238+01:00Screenshot Appropriation: Illusion City by Cameo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you ever find yourself with an insatiable addiction to
looking at pictures of art then I would, without thought or hesitation, suggest
that you sign up to Tumblr. Search for the tag #art and the bottom falls out of
your browser, revealing an endless scrolling tunnel in which time is compressed
and the stars drift at an uncomfortable speed. (As I write this I notice cobwebs
have formed at my window.) Which is to say, in a much simpler way, Tumblr has heaps
of art on it. Lots of it is amazing and it's one of the reasons I use Tumblr almost
every day to pass the time. Every now and then however you come across an
artist whose posts you really look forward to seeing and whose work you notice
progress and change over time. One artist which I have followed for a while and
whose work and posts have continued to interest me is a girl/guy (not actually
sure...) named Cameos and whose blog is called <a href="http://cameos.tumblr.com/">Illusion City</a>.</div>
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Their work courts that strange 80s/90s sleazy non-sense
which we saw filtering through <i>Hotline
Miami</i> last year. Lots of palm trees, hazy cityscapes, partly dressed young women and strangely
disingenuous phrases. Also, similar to the work of some <a href="http://vimeo.com/45044198">recent </a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvoSf9CUkTE" target="">musicians</a>, these
images, for me, seem to take quite a bit from the superficiality of commercial
imagery. This leaves some of them feeling eerily vacant - like images from <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8JqMawqDCc">Policenauts</a> </i>divorced from their original
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I asked the artist whether the images were their own and
they answered that some were but that they take some from screen shots of old
PC98 games, though I think that a lot of them are collages of some kind. I love
the feelings of foreignness (I promised myself I wouldn't say 'otherness') which
comes from Japanese popular culture and these images use those feelings to create an eerie, sleazy,
neon hued image of a just-passed moment in time.<br />
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Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-63209175819391004292013-05-14T22:43:00.000+01:002013-05-14T22:51:45.356+01:00Infinite Possibility... a couple of criticisms<br />
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Such was the presence of Ken Levine throughout the marketing
truncheon of Irrational's <i>Bioshock
Infinite</i> that I was a little surprised not to be greeted by his muscular
<a href="http://media.edge-online.com/wp-content/uploads/edgeonline/2013/03/Levine.jpg" target="_blank">face</a> finally introducing me to the finished game. The numerous interviews with
Levine were, for those who had eagerly followed the game's development, the
main inroad into the vivid imagery which Irrational was putting out. It
certainly looked like a striking game; but, for me, it was Levine's suggestions
of how those visuals would function within a narrative that really excited me. His descriptions of the game's radical
imagination; of how the character relationships would develop depth and
significance with the player; of the game's unique perception of history, of
reality. All of these ideas simmered in the endless interviews with Levine -
acting like a one man sales team, showing a sincere passion for his product as
nothing short of an incredibly important work. And, in a way, that is what <i>Infinite </i>is: important. </div>
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While playing through <i>Infinite
</i>I was surprised, on the usual rounds of games websites, by the amount of
critical praise that the game was receiving. Not just from the mandatory review
score of 8+, but in terms of critics truly expressing something close to
gratitude towards the game. Kieron Gillen's <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/06/about-a-girl-assorted-thoughts-on-bioshock-infinite/" target="_blank">article</a> draws close to calling <i>Infinite</i> poetic, while Robert Florence
goes all <a href="http://effingarcade.tumblr.com/post/46952849768/on-bioshock-infinite" target="_blank">dewy eyed</a>, writing: "the true wonder of <i>Bioshock Infinite</i> is that it speaks to all of us on a personal
level, about so many true and painful and beautiful things". And yet,
despite admiring both of these critics, I personally found myself entirely
unconvinced by the game. And, while I can see how <i>Infinite</i> might be all these things to Gillen and Florence; how it
might just be that shimmering inspiration behind Levine's marketing binge, for
me it was, more than anything else, problematic. </div>
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<i>Infinite </i>undeniably<i> </i>displays a level of visual flare which
is beyond commendable; comparable, as Gillen insightfully notes, to the musical
film and theatre. It is a truly grandiose statement of what a team of game
developers can <i>display</i>. But, for me, <i>Infinite</i> entirely fails to translate its
infinite imaginings into anything succinct. Not that it doesn't try, but the inconsistency
- and I'm not talking specifically about alternate realities here - which comes
from drawing so heartily from this abundant well of ideas is a price the game
eventually has to pay. I'd like to raise just a few problems I had with the game as a whole. </div>
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<b>Mecha-Washington</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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While <i>Infinite's </i>emotional,
character driven story might be the antidote to <i>Bioshock's </i>despairing pedagogy <i>Infinite</i>
is still intent on addressing equally serious issues of racism, nationalism,
and the violence of human endeavour. All of these are interesting and admirable
topics to broach, but the problem for me occurs in the representation of these
issues and their integration into almost everything else in the game. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Like Rapture, Columbia is a theatre of grotesquery - an
imagined world in which a belief system is pushed to its absurd, and in these
cases extremely violent, conclusion. Columbia directly references the absurd
theatricality of turn-of-the-century American culture; the side-show, carnival
quality of U.S. nationalist posturing. For example, the enemy type known as The
Motorized Patriot makes a comical - even Simpsons-esque - stab at satirizing
these ideals. As a mechanical exponent of Official American History displayed
in Columbia's museums, The Patriot is pushed to the absurd conclusion of
donning a Gatling gun and shooting the living stripes out of those opposed to
its pre-recorded spiel.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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What complicates these mechanical caricatures in particular is
the way that they change function all too quickly in the game. They initially
exist in the same reality as The Hall of Heroes: a level in the game dedicated
to examining how history can be turned into a set of images and sets. The
infamous Battle of Wounded Knee becomes a diorama of terrifying, boogeymen
native Americans - a culture without depth, just violence; the stuff of bedtime
stories to scare children. The Patriot exists as a manifestation or a turning
inward of this approach to history: if the native Americans exist as boogeymen
what does that make the culture which usurped them? Gun toting robotic George Washingtons,
that's what! </div>
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Once you've exited the Hall of Heroes, and the statement
made in that environment by the game, these satirical Motorized Patriots then
become a staple troop-type for the remainder of the game. Out of that context
the initial satirisation, which criticises the falsity of official History, feels
like it becomes trivialised into a mechanic of the shooter mode of play. The
Motorized Patriot ends up first and foremost one threat to the character's life
(or wallet - <i>more on this later</i>) in a
menagerie of other threats. It's an essential overuse of the idea. "More
Patriots!" Elizabeth shouts in the game's final showdown. Yes, more of
them, and this time they're not here to satirise. By the end of the game I felt
like these enemies had as much to say about nationalist societies as <i>Wolfenstein 3D'</i>s mechanized Hilter. </div>
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One thing to be said for <i>Bioshock's
</i>admittedly limited line-up of
baddies is that they represented something which was key to what the game's
story was trying to say about violence; they were of course the citizens of
Rapture, everyday folks like you or I - murderous and wild. Combat therefore
became a savage struggle between these manic individuals and yourself (the player)
for the game's resources and it wasn't a particularly difficult leap to
question what differentiated yourself and them.</div>
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<i>Infinite </i>on the
other hand confuses matters by increasing the number of enemies into an assortment
of citizens, police, rebels, Motorized Patriots, 'Firemen', crow-people and
boss-like 'Handymen' - divided into two factions, either the Columbian forces
or the rebel Vox Populi. In all honesty I found it hard to remember which faction
I was fighting at any one time (which of course could be a comment of the
confusion of such revolutions - but I can't help wonder if that really was the
intention). Just like the idea of a Motorized Patriot as a satire of American
History, the principle of a cohesive society in disarray becomes diluted by the
combat which (partly to the game's credit) becomes increasing intense and
confusing. If the everyday Splicer was you or I, who, we could ask, are all
these guys? <i>Bioshock</i>, for some, might
have served as an example of how conceptual and narrative ideas can be
pervasive in a game's very mechanics (that is, shooting lots of people), <i>Infinite</i>, in my opinion, serves as the
opposite. The central ideas about nationalism or rebellion, a society in
revolt, feel lost to the combat, which is perhaps more fun than <i>Bioshock</i>'s but lacks the same sense of
purpose. </div>
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<i><b>"It was their
hands which built this city, Father. But where do the hands belong in your
scheme?" <o:p></o:p></b></i></div>
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<i><b>"In their proper place, the depth." </b><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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One of the most striking things for me when playing <i>Infinite </i>was its<i> </i>narrative of revolution which sees Columbia's capitalist elite working
their proletariat population into desperation and finally violent revolt. I
found it very interesting that <i>Infinite's
</i>narrative and<i> </i>imagery appeared to
make several references to the German silent science-fiction film <i>Metropolis</i>. </div>
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The game's depictions of its struggling underclass especially
recalls the theatricality of <i>Metropolis'</i>
industrial imagery. The Finkton level especially serves as a strong example of
this. When you first come across the working class population they are working
to the rhythm of a giant clock, much like the workers in <i>Metropolis</i>. The eventual rise of the underclass in the form of the
Vox Populi similarly echoes the misguided revolution lead by the film's own mechanical villain - the robotic version
of the film's eventual heroine Maria. To me both stories share a message of non-violence.
Both the violence against the working class enacted by the society's elite and
the eventual violence of the proletariat revolution are shown to be immoral or
incorrect to a stable society. Therefore in both the film and the game, unfettered
capitalism and unfettered revolutionary action (both shown as forms of
violence) are equally wrong. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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It seems strange to me then that Booker's only punishment
for violent action is a few pennies extracted from his wallet. Not only does
this seem strangely reminiscent of Sonic's inexplicable ring stash, but surely it
doesn't say much for game's comments on capitalism and violence. Fail to enact
the precise death of all your enemies without losing your own health and the
game charges you a small sum of money. How this fits into the game's narrative
of oppression seems opaque. It possibly serves as another satirical remark
against the medium - that games can only ever threaten you with point deduction
- or perhaps the players' preferential awareness of points over the death of
virtual representations of fellow humans. Either way I don't buy it. Booker's
eventual martyrdom suggests that there is a price to be paid for violence - but
it's not one the player has to pay, rather the character of Booker. </div>
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In any case <i>Infinite </i>follows
<i>Metropolis </i>precisely enough to
present an entirely moot ending. The revelation that Columbia - and all actions
therein - are only one of a multitudinous array of other narratives and
possibilities surely serves to negate the entire thing. In <i>Metropolis </i>the ending brings the both the working class and the
upper elite together, ending with the message that they should work better
together; essentially leaving the fictional society's vertical structure
intact; the workers are still workers, the elite still elite. The film finally
shows no other option. In <i>Infinite</i>
Booker's death stops Comstock but does nothing for the issue as a whole.
Violence remains, especially within the actions of the central character - for
whom have we seen enact the most violence throughout the game? What option
therefore do the proletariat have besides violence? To my mind the game ignores
such questions in favour of pursuing Booker's own personal redemption, or defensively
exploding into a meta-narrative/pseudo-sci-fi notion of alternate realities and
narratives.</div>
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Like <i>Metropolis,
Infinite </i>seems to me to be a great theatrical work of display. Grand
settings, impeccable visual design but ultimately uninterested in exploring the
complexity of its central issue. This must surely have something to do with
economic factors; both are big budget, high concept pieces which must pull in a
high revenue. And I am aware that in criticising these two pieces of
entertainment I am no doubt doing a disservice to their <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/duncanjharris/" target="_blank">essential artistry</a>. However,
while revolution, nationalism, capitalism and violence are heavy subjects, and
while it is clearly admirable that a computer game might approach these issues
with such artistic confidence as <i>Infinite
</i>does, I can't help feeling that it fails to say anything interesting or
clear about them. And crucially it is the game's central mechanics - that is
the first-person combat side of things - which problematise most of the issues that it
tries to address. This is a significant issue for a game which hopes to say
something important through the specific medium of gaming and interaction.</div>
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I have no doubt missed many of the things which make <i>Inifinite </i>a great game. I also realise
that many people would completely disagree with what I have argued. I would certainly
like to hear more about the connection between the game's alternate reality
ending and the central narrative of revolution (similarly the link between
personal fatherhood and the nationalist society - links to Nazism etc.).What <i>is </i>undeniably great about <i>Infinite </i>is that it can open up
questions about play, narrative and interactivity, all of which are extremely interesting. This, if
anything, is what makes this game so important - not for its ultimate success
but for its intention. </div>
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Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-89783851050005383352013-01-23T12:03:00.003+00:002013-01-23T12:21:32.905+00:00Hmmm... More Treasury Adventuring? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.robitstudios.com/storage/post-images/teaser_2.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1358887675638" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://www.robitstudios.com/storage/post-images/teaser_2.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1358887675638" width="504" /></a></div>
<br />
So, over the past few days on Twitter Stephan Orlando of Robit Studios - responsible for the excellent, and very much free, <i>Treasure Adventure Game - </i>has been teasing an announcement coming this week. I sometimes wonder why these people can't just tell us without having to stretch these things out but in this case I'm becoming just a bit excited.<br />
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All there is to go on at the moment is the above picture which Robit Studios posted on their <a href="http://www.robitstudios.com/" target="_blank">home page</a> which to me suggests, quite plainly, that Orlando has been working on a sequel to <i>TAG. </i>There's the familiar hat and map as well as the sea view outside the window - oh and it says "Treasure Adventure". I suppose the only question here is whether it will be a "Game". Anyway, I can't wait to hear what Orlando has to tell us.<br />
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I'm a big fan of the first game, which was something of a cross between <i>La Mulana</i> and <i>Wind Waker, </i>with a really great story and cast of weird characters. Exploration and puzzle solving are two of my favourite things to do when immersed in a virtual world and <i>TAG </i>provided both. <i>Treasure Adventure Game </i>is still available for free from Robit Studios <a href="http://www.robitstudios.com/treasure-adventure-game/" target="_blank">website</a> and I would urge anyone who hasn't played it to give it a shot.<br />
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Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-57077509225426439862013-01-22T11:24:00.001+00:002013-01-22T11:25:28.097+00:00Proteus to be released 30th Jan <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbfAJK9Xiik87KS2Xi0R8NG8jKVBkyMPCyHskiaAqUvUpjYEAyfmUlYFFspHg2LXi-9-vTRqbay_5XYfjLlp9Wgu3MRgk4PrszN_2H7ucgSpIQ9HxfO7uAmPBFgTR1qhJCGd4Rz8dRYxNN/s1600/Proteus-beta7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbfAJK9Xiik87KS2Xi0R8NG8jKVBkyMPCyHskiaAqUvUpjYEAyfmUlYFFspHg2LXi-9-vTRqbay_5XYfjLlp9Wgu3MRgk4PrszN_2H7ucgSpIQ9HxfO7uAmPBFgTR1qhJCGd4Rz8dRYxNN/s640/Proteus-beta7.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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It says it all in the title really, but it's great news! Ed Key and David Kanaga's game <i>Proteus </i>will be available on Steam and through the game's <a href="http://www.visitproteus.com/" target="_blank">website</a>. Priced at $7.50, which makes it around £5, its a smashing deal as well! From what I've played of the game it's beautiful and very exciting [read my thoughts about it <a href="http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2012/08/01/proteus-hands-on/" target="_blank">here</a>] and I can't wait to play it as a finished piece. <i>Proteus </i>ahoy!Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-65218377193945970602013-01-21T00:01:00.000+00:002013-01-22T01:04:45.077+00:00Top Five Games of Twenty Twelve <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCfG6h7OP2dibbrxWpR7njiduvfFMjiKLZXhfHs6AjjoFC_ep6jJ6E2ukN00trNGh7-hnukYF_6SDl6tC8DvKcqJwNsJd7nfWBLXuklTpc75Mph4acq6sKw2d41lB9zVJGmoxYIbjs95-3/s1600/woop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCfG6h7OP2dibbrxWpR7njiduvfFMjiKLZXhfHs6AjjoFC_ep6jJ6E2ukN00trNGh7-hnukYF_6SDl6tC8DvKcqJwNsJd7nfWBLXuklTpc75Mph4acq6sKw2d41lB9zVJGmoxYIbjs95-3/s1600/woop.jpg" /></a></div>
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Argh! is what I think when I look back on new game releases
in 2012. What have I played? Why haven't I played all these other games? I
could make a far more encompassing list of all the new games I was meant to
play, should have played, and was this close to playing, than that of the
meagre number I did actually play enough to say, however arbitrarily, 'I have
played this and I liked it very much.' New games be damned, is what I think,
before hunching over and feeling like I've missed out on everything. Well,
anyway, out of that meagre crew of games I really, really, actually played this
year I've pulled together a list of 5 which were my favourite - in a very specific
order of magnificence! [And all imfho of course] Here they are: </div>
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<b>5. Legend of Grimrock</b></div>
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I am terrified of dungeons. Not real dungeons of course
(which in my experience have only ever housed wax figures), but those dungeons which, in their gaming form, represent all that makes me feel inept, small and
pathetically crap. Dungeon Master I most certainly amn't. And then <i>Legend of Grimrock</i> appears and, possibly
thanks to having a few more years under my belt, I've gained access to all those
dark crevices which my dullish child brain kept me from exploring. </div>
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<i>Grimrock</i> is a
dark, winding, morbid labyrinth. Claustrophobic not only in space but movement;
beguiling in its stringency as well as its freshness. Enemies are terrifying,
but it's the puzzles which make this game so exciting and atmospheric. What is <i>Grimrock</i>? It is a deep dark puzzle. It
is also appropriately describable as a survival RPG. And in this respect <i>Legend of Grimrock</i> gives you a feeling of
character development which no other RPG this year has. </div>
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Starting with nothing (you are a group of prisoners flung
into the labyrinth) you use sparingly all that you find along the way. Health
is a constant worry while scrounging around a room looking for that last rock
you threw really gives you an impression of the rag-tag band that you are. And
then, when you've pulled all your resources and brain power together; when you've
managed to descend further than this dark maze had you believe you ever could,
a murmur from the darkness... a Goromorg emerges. </div>
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<b>4. FTL: Faster Than Light </b><o:p></o:p></div>
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What can I say about <i>FTL</i>
which hasn't already been said a thousand times? RPS pretty much hit the nail
on the head with their <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/ftl-faster-than-light/" target="_blank">series of articles</a> on the game, but that won't stop me
from prattling on, Oh no!</div>
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<i>FTL</i> is superb! A
kind of short-form RPG which - like <i>Grimrock</i>
- serves to recall some of the exhilaration which comes from difficulty and
stress. Perpetually called a rogue-like-like, <i>FTL</i> is a series of rooms, events and battles in the guise of a sci-fi
quest (you know, it's like a rogue-like). Randomly generated baddies, shops and
events mean that, though success is sometimes down to luck, you are always
trying to make the best of what you are given. </div>
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Crew fatalities are likely, victory is far from an
inevitability - this is like <i>The Wrath of
Kahn </i>as RPG! And what's really great is that this calamitous space epic takes
place in one sitting. And so it is, in fact, only one of many mini-epics. The
next has you struggling with a single crew member due to an early mishap. In
the next encounter with pirates she perishes in a fire. Next time, victory,
thanks in part to the help of an insectoid race. <i>FTL</i> allows for numerous narratives; each one unique and each one born
from struggle. </div>
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<b>3. Dishonored</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Wait, this order of magnificence thing is all over the
place. Anyway, where were we? Dunwall is the place and murder the game. Or not.
Perhaps only a little bit of murder. Perhaps none at all. Either way <a href="http://3headedmonkeygames.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/imagining-dunwall.html" target="_blank">Dunwall </a>is
full of violence. This somewhat cartoonish world of industrious politics is all
about death. It wafts down the dripping alleyways and shrouds the city's
rooftops even as the sun blanches them a magnificent white. </div>
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Wealth founded on aggressive and cruel resource gathering; aristocrats bathing in
brothels as miscellaneous corpses are slung into dried river beds; decadent parties
thrown while the poor struggle to hold back the encroachment of a shambling plague.
The imagery of <i>Dishonored</i> is strong
and sometimes remarkably shocking. And for this reason I found the game
outstanding.</div>
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That said there is much criticism which could be levelled at
<i>Dishonored</i>. Most notably, and much
like <i>Bioshock </i>before it, the narrative
suggests freedom only to end in a disappointingly weak summation of your
actions. But in spite of the weak narrative the game does offer real freedom in
the form of level to level gameplay. Here the player is given a remarkable
breadth of choice in dealing with a given assassination. It may be a short game
but <i>Dishonored</i> makes up for this in
the depth of level design. Oh, and <i>Blink</i>.
Possibly the best game mechanic this year. </div>
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<b>2. Hotline Miami</b></div>
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Sheesh! I'm fucking sweating and buzzing and its 2:30 am and
how am I supposed to get to sleep like this. Ok. Click. Fuck. That one guy that
one guy! Ok.</div>
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'Hotline Miami is one hell of a drug', is what I would say
if I was all cool and into drugs and so forth. It's not like drugs - it's like an
amazing game. Or, actually, it <i>is</i> an
amazing game! But one which makes you buzz your bloody tits off. Its
infuriating and addictive and confusing and restless and horrible and
intriguing and has fucking amazing music! </div>
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<i><a href="http://3headedmonkeygames.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/twitching-on-floor-hotline-miami.html" target="_blank">Hotline Miami</a></i> is
minuet actions and hair's breadth decision and its drenched in a rotten neon
light. It <i>is</i> a bit like drugs. Or it
would be if those drugs were engineered by Gasper Noé and if he had a fixation on <i>Alien Breed</i>. </div>
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<i>Hotline Miami</i> is
by quite a margin the most physically engrossing game I've played this year. </div>
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<b>1. Dark Scavenger </b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Ok ok, so... I know what you're thinking, <i>Dark Scavenger</i> is not the best game
released this year. And of course you're partly right (you always are, damn
you!), but there's something it has on its side. There's a magic here, not of nostalgia
per se, but of childish fun - of unbridled imagination. It's telling that one
reason I love this game is that I like the pictures. </div>
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<i><a href="http://3headedmonkeygames.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/review-dark-scavenger.html" target="_blank">Dark Scavenger</a></i> is
an amazing conglomeration of ideas which slowly, over the course of its
narrative, develop into a game of surprising depth and sensitivity - evoking
themes of violence, power, friendship and drunkenness. And yet the story is
never rigidly trained towards such evocations. If anything it remains playful
throughout and, compared to a game such as the heavy handed <i>Spec Ops: The Line</i> - which, I should
say, is also one of the most admirable releases this year -, manages to suggest
ideas above and beyond the supposed station of an indie sci-fi RPG while still
being both genuinely fun and funny - and with nary a hint heavy-handedness. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiGwXwJ-paICC5VwVluwvpO0FliPCd1NPGvIqOl9ExPBuYZS10FKuBG_hFDqTcgdqpyVll9TIu2nlYUnEgRYH3cR38aJl9jj5zpRSvawisRg5brlPrYKlvikZtIqhbW2uq561NtNjtnREc/s1600/Three-Enemy-Attack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiGwXwJ-paICC5VwVluwvpO0FliPCd1NPGvIqOl9ExPBuYZS10FKuBG_hFDqTcgdqpyVll9TIu2nlYUnEgRYH3cR38aJl9jj5zpRSvawisRg5brlPrYKlvikZtIqhbW2uq561NtNjtnREc/s640/Three-Enemy-Attack.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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And so, even when I'm reading the last words of a dying
friend; even when I realise the inevitable corruptive nature of power; even
then I can still say, without cynicism, that I like the pictures. I like the
way when a character falls over their image is turned on its side. It can be
utterly silly, crude, absurd and surreal; its combat mechanic is exciting and addictive
- also giving the game opportunity for numerous playthroughs - and the dialogue
is almost perfect. But gushing is of course not much fun to read, so I'll just
say I love it. I absolutely love it. </div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So,
there we are. <i>Dark Scavenger</i> has love
on its side. And you can't beat that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-5231050132554003182013-01-16T14:24:00.001+00:002013-01-16T14:24:40.174+00:00My name is Guybrush Threepwood...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Ah! Someone, somewhere has seen fit to turn the the The Secret of Monkey Island's sword fighting/insult throwing into a <a href="http://www.int33h.com/test/mi/" target="_blank">playable browser game</a>. It's just as enjoyable/torturous as I remember. Perfect. Now you can remember all the correct answers before you're able to use them!<br />
<br />Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-64523676380502163272013-01-13T20:11:00.001+00:002013-01-21T01:49:12.399+00:00SLAVE OF GOD <br />
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<i>Slave of God</i> is a free
game whose unique visual presence seems to have inspired a few big games
websites to comment on it. Most notably RPS had an excellent <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/01/04/slave-of-god-review/" target="_blank">guest article</a>
written by Cara Ellison, who described the game in experiential terms as a kind
of expressionist depiction of a night club. This is pretty spot on and
therefore I would urge anyone interested in the game to first of all <a href="http://www.increpare.com/2012/12/slave-of-god/" target="_blank">play it</a> and
then read Ellison's article. And then, if the day seems to be leaving you with
nothing else, there's always me and this. Hi! </div>
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<i>Slave of God</i> is an
experimental short which not only excites through the immediacy of its visual
flare but also by its focus to provide a singular experience of a specific place
and environment. Comparable perhaps to what <i>Proteus</i>
is also doing, <i>Slave of God</i> has
picked a specific environment and developed its visual and audio style to
provide a contained sensory experience. A nightclub. Dance music, lights, colours,
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The mixture here of expressive displays of colour, light and
music with the simple pixel forms of early computer gaming is what seems
immediately appealing to me. The uniform dancing figures are like Picasso's Three
Dancers digitised by a degraded, malfunctioning holodeck; silent individuals
line the dance floor - completely still, enrapt by the dancers, or devoid of
code. Bouncers also stand silently by, expressive in their simplicity - stocky,
mute and potentially aggressive. The game therefore doesn't so much present a
story as a familiar world of archetypes: the quiet one who sits alone, the
bouncer, the energetic dancers, the DJ, the bar staff. Each archetype fills
their place - disconcertingly silent, rigid and repetitive. </div>
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This place of solid, rhythmic archetypes is given fluidity
through the game's use of colour. Eurogamer simply went for <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-01-03-increpares-tripping-balls-simulator-slave-of-god-is-one-hallucination-dose-of-wtf" target="_blank">"trippingballs simulator"</a> which, to be fair, does no disservice. The inebriating
colours of a heavy acid trip are one the way of describing the game's twisting
visuals, however, the strangeness doesn't so much simply simulate
"tripping balls" as celebrate the whole club experience as one of wilful
disorientation and the pleasure of sensory excess. </div>
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The simple series of events which form the game's short
narrative draw on the almost instinctive nature of dancing and 'going out'. It's
the oldest story in the book (being meets other being, buys drinks, trips the
fuck out...), but <i>Slave of God</i> tells
it successfully almost entirely thanks to the hypnotic regularity of the
players actions. </div>
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You move into the club unaware of there being a 'story' so
much as compelled to <i>do </i>something -
this is a game after all. Seeing other humans - simple representations - you are
drawn towards them and as you get closer even your attraction is visualised
into a simple yet hypnotic set of lines telling you: here! Then love - or
something, a signifier. A drink. Follow your nose...where's the bar? Look at
the walls...there's the toilet. I know that symbol. </div>
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While the game's visuals are understandably confusing for
the player, the game itself - the game's narrative so to speak - talks in simple,
familiar terms: just look for the symbol. In this respect <i>Slave of God</i> speaks directly of computer games and their ability to
be both very simple and yet utterly compelling and communicative. </div>
Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-67655559568729277062012-12-27T21:18:00.002+00:002012-12-27T21:21:14.745+00:00Thirty Flights of Loving<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLmaVmUHQUB-4hoKZ3N-YdySgXHdiyGfh63cvX-bdfiOMhPECcUr1NMYdf0n-VzdTnOxIsHlKiz2-eFPziedm0Zi7CvC7wJzbOP-A5iK_TiPX1jjJHXTaf4UxJsliWgzshZobzykpjmwdK/s1600/Thirty-Flights-of-Loving-Screenshot-Wallpaper-Floating-Dancers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLmaVmUHQUB-4hoKZ3N-YdySgXHdiyGfh63cvX-bdfiOMhPECcUr1NMYdf0n-VzdTnOxIsHlKiz2-eFPziedm0Zi7CvC7wJzbOP-A5iK_TiPX1jjJHXTaf4UxJsliWgzshZobzykpjmwdK/s640/Thirty-Flights-of-Loving-Screenshot-Wallpaper-Floating-Dancers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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When playing Brendon Chung's short game Thirty Flights of
Loving I can't help but be reminded of the sporadic energy which seemed to
enthuse the early films of Jean-Luc Godard. A florescent mixture of ideas,
influences and oblique storytelling propels this short into a dream-like
state which crosses in an out of playful parody, postmodernist tangles and
artful themes of memory, love and loss. In equal measures it plays out as a
heist, a love story and a dream. Yet at its heart Thirty Flights of Loving remains
a fun and inventive piece of interactive fiction. </div>
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So what exactly is all this? A story really. A short story.
Told from the perspective of one of three protagonists the events unfold
non-linearly; reflecting, repeating and skewing a series of events into what
can only be assumed is some kind of dream or collapsing memory. And yet it's
best not to assume at all and instead engage with the story in your own way.
The lack of dialogue or direct address throughout the game allows the player to
appreciate the events, settings and characters free from the dramatic
constraints of a more straightforward approach. </div>
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Here is essentially where the game's interactivity occurs: in
deciphering the story. This, understandably, will irritate some players. As has
been mentioned by a far more experienced writer than this one, Thirty Flights
of Loving essentially races you to the end - each moment feels like the player
is being shuttled towards the inevitable. Not that this is particularly unusual
or 'wrong' for a game to do, but here it can feel like you're merely watching
the strange events unfold without truly engaging with them. Like a dream
perhaps. </div>
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And yet by stripping away the more game-y mechanics of his
last entry in this series-of-sorts - Gravity Bone (I would suggest playing it
before Thirty Flights) - Chung has distilled the overall strangeness into an
excitingly singular piece of storytelling. Fun, frantic, weird and utterly
unique this game stays in the mind far beyond the brief time it takes to play. </div>
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Thirty Flights of Loving is available from Blendo Games for
$5, Gravity Bone is available for free. <a href="http://blendogames.com/thirtyflightsofloving/">http://blendogames.com/thirtyflightsofloving/</a></div>
Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-84340920750321138212012-11-23T15:20:00.003+00:002012-11-23T15:21:21.626+00:00Imagining Dunwall <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYu1JrDvxTVe08We28Rp1vShzQ_JD3GvuecJsRA165heBJoBTZUhE3CYULPoIow9ys8zniRCfQvrSElHaXSme_c551Iohzwvqp2YZQZJ8Cg5KVoKwaqqGibolOaXgVbnD0uFwVYRm82q1p/s1600/Dunwall_art_work.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYu1JrDvxTVe08We28Rp1vShzQ_JD3GvuecJsRA165heBJoBTZUhE3CYULPoIow9ys8zniRCfQvrSElHaXSme_c551Iohzwvqp2YZQZJ8Cg5KVoKwaqqGibolOaXgVbnD0uFwVYRm82q1p/s1600/Dunwall_art_work.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i>Dishonored</i> is a
game. Most of us who play computer games regularly (and even those that don't)
are most likely aware of this. It's a game which gives the player control of a
character with the ability to knife people, teleport, possess living beings and
peek at a bathing lady - amongst other things. It has also been widely praised for its breadth
of player freedom; not so much in terms of critical narrative choices (though
there are a few of those too) but within the gameplay itself. Much like it's spiritual
forefathers <i>Deus Ex</i> and <i>Thief</i>, <i>Dishonored</i> lets the player make gameplay decisions for themselves.
Questions such as: "How shall I infiltrate this building?" and:
"Do I want to kill all these people?" are important and actually
answerable by the player. In this respect <i>Dishonored</i>
recalls the playgrounds of late nineties, early 2000s PC gaming; it is a toy
box in which the player can use the toys any way they wish. So there is <i>Dishonored</i>:<i> </i>very much<i> </i>a game. And
then there is Dunwall. <br />
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Whether or not you engage with <i>Dishonored</i>'s oddly detached plot of betrayal and revenge it's hard
to ignore the setting. Dunwall: the city: the other side of the game. <i>Dishonored</i>, like many successful games
before it, not only gives the player a set of mechanics and tools to play with
but ideas and images as well. The player is given a chance to play, not only
with the given interface of the game (be it mouse and keyboard or <i>joy</i> sorry game pad), but with their own
imagination too. What's interesting here though is how <i>Dishonored</i> goes to lengths to actively recommends this. </div>
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From the off the game drenches it's player in lore and suggested
geography. A dying whale being shipped in, hoisted to a gargantuan vessel,
slipping along in the horizon; a rising, gothic building marking the players
entry into the troubled city; the mention of another land. Corvo - the player's
character - is said to be on his way back from an extended trip to some unknown
(to the player) location. There is also mention of black magic and Dunwall's
need for "help with the rat plague". These three subjects are threads
which the narrative picks up and become mechanics in the game - the fact that
Corvo has been absent allows his enemies to plot what becomes the narrative's catalyst; the 'black magic' turns
out to be that which gives the player their Assassin Powers!; and the rats not
only exist as a integral mechanic to play but also supposedly serve as
signifiers of the degradation the player's actions - but significantly none of
these elements are concluded by the narrative. Instead they work as a series of
catalysts for the imagination as well as the game's plot. </div>
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Two of the things suggested in this passage point towards
Dunwall as an imaginable society within a wider continent. Dunwall itself, though
clearly at no odds about dumping half its citizenry into open graves, seems haunted
by its own impending collapse. From the formalist, hyper-industrial
representation of Tower Bridge to the decadent delusion of Lady Boyle's Last
Party there is the suggestion of a once flourishing city which thrived thanks
to its ruthless exploitation of its immediate resources - be they whale or
citizen. This of course draws direct parallels with London - a city which also
possibly thrived thanks to its own ruthless delusion - but also immediately
connects Dunwall with the surrounding world. </div>
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The most powerful resource - and supposedly that which gives
Dunwall its power - is Whale Oil. The presence
of whaling as a major source of power not only develops its own mythos but also
delineates travel. Dunwall is a city which must travel and explore the seas to
exist. We see - in the introductory passage - the returning whaling ship. "Where
has it been?" we might ask. What has its crew experienced? Are they happy
to return with the dying whale hoisted to their ship? Or are they weary to
return to this oppressive city? </div>
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Corvo's own travels are just as provocative. His mission has
been to search for outside help with the crippling rat plague. Therefore,
despite all the displays of power and Imperialism, the city is suffering and
must look to the outside world in order to survive. The world in which Dunwall
exists is therefore more than just a well of resources - it has (or it is suggested
to have) other powerful cities, other states which no doubt have their own
cultures, their own methods of gathering resources and their own civilians
which may or may not be exploited. However any further exploration of this
outside world is limited either to written extracts which scatter Dunwall or
the player's own imagination and wanderlust. After reading about the island
Serkonos I'm left only to imagine what such a place might be like; or the
continent of Pandyssian which lies untouched by the machines of Gristol. These
places - which hold so much mystery - in many respects don't really exist in
the game, yet their presence (for me at least) is felt throughout. <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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One way the game increased this desire for information
strongly recalls a similar method used in the design of <i>Half-Life 2 - </i>namely in-game maps. When travelling through Valve's
dystopian landscape certain settlements reveal tactical maps which show you the
territory surrounding City-17. I spent a good few minutes each time I ran across
one of these maps looking at how everything fit together. <i>Dishonored </i>employs this same principle of in-game maps (possibly a
little too verbatim), bringing the world surrounding Dunwall into picture we
build of the city itself. Cleverly it is only at the end of the game when the
player is given the widest view of The Isles. As the narrative closes around
it's personal story of one guy killing (or not) lots of people, we see the wider
world and perhaps, if we're finally feeling thoughtful after murdering so many,
think about the role this singular place has within the world as a whole. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPjSBhc2FUO_6R_q9cduwvLrEakiVX_vd4yIwlfBIg5I_BtkVuP5rftL0gHJJH0z90apz4zpKponYkODjRG6L0x9siQ4e0KKo7diz0BZpshbF04bNx-pusnYSbbDXanlkUTdU8hWcE8A6r/s1600/dishonored3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPjSBhc2FUO_6R_q9cduwvLrEakiVX_vd4yIwlfBIg5I_BtkVuP5rftL0gHJJH0z90apz4zpKponYkODjRG6L0x9siQ4e0KKo7diz0BZpshbF04bNx-pusnYSbbDXanlkUTdU8hWcE8A6r/s640/dishonored3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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'Black Magic' is deployed in a similar way. Introduced to
the player - via some guy possibly from <i>Street
Fighter</i> - as simply a mechanic (Assassin Powers!), the mythos which
surrounds these abilities builds gradually as the game progresses. Runes and
bone charms, which are found in each level via The Heart (more on this later), draw
the player closer to the cultish underworld of witches and the supernatural. There
are shrines devoted to the runes and strong suggestions that people hear the Outsider (<i>Street Fighter</i>) in their dreams. Feeling
somewhat like Lovecraft's narrator in <i>Call
of Cthulhu -</i> rifling<i> </i>through
notes and interviews trying to unravel the mystery of the Cthulhu cult - the
game only gives you hints towards what could possibly lie behind this magic and
strange behaviour leaving the player to investigate as much as they wish. Even
coming into contact with Daud, a fellow assassin (and possibly the game's
antagonist?) with the same powers as you, hardly reveals much. The cult of the
Outsider therefore feels of incredible importance whilst also lying in the
background. Like the wider world surrounding Dunwall, the details of this
mysterious cult are pretty much left up to the player's imagination. </div>
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All this conjecture is distilled in the game's most offbeat
mechanic, The Heart. A mechanical beating heart endowed with a woman's spirit which
not only shows Corvo where runes and bone charms are hidden in each level but
also talks to him. When triggered The Heart tells you about your current
location or if pointed at a target will reveal information about them. This
mechanic which serves no gameplay function rather seems to exist to encourage
the player's imagination. We are told about the atrocities and secrets of Dunwall
- even of its rather dullard city watch - making us aware of an underlying
reality behind the gameplay. Therefore, if we wish, we can spend time, away
from the game, thinking about the implications of Dunwall's deterioration upon
its population, from civilian to shambling guard. While this sort of engagement
with a game is of course accessible without the mechanism of The Heart, its
inclusion points towards the developers desire for the player to be aware of
the world around its narrative. </div>
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While there are many games which engage the player's
imagination in a similar way to <i>Dishonored</i>
- recently games such as <i>Bioshock</i> and
<i>Dark Souls</i> - the way that this game implements
story strands and game mechanics seems unique. Though <i>Dishonored </i>as a computer game may seem surprisingly succinct, its fictional
world stretches out into a murky horizon. But this isn't exactly <i>Lost</i>. Instead <i>Dishonored</i> gives its players ideas to run with; a spectacle of imagery and suggestion once all the blood
splatters have dried up. In fact the player might feels something akin to
Dunwall's average citizen - adrift in a world of violence and unreachable lands
of mystery we can only imagine. </div>
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Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-18126658527540977552012-11-01T16:50:00.003+00:002012-11-01T16:51:13.132+00:00Review: Deadlight<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Ira2uuLj6kJJgZiTeK3ZA6XG2TK_iJJr9DAwuVSx6iG1DPctZYTmQxZINsM5NhXIR9ymNvhmL-mqy66i7mTVXPg34cHH689W3HXcC-DteQ2aceKPXHXiEvoy-R7d9CRPj8cNKq9vzs-N/s1600/2216834-deadlight_cut1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Ira2uuLj6kJJgZiTeK3ZA6XG2TK_iJJr9DAwuVSx6iG1DPctZYTmQxZINsM5NhXIR9ymNvhmL-mqy66i7mTVXPg34cHH689W3HXcC-DteQ2aceKPXHXiEvoy-R7d9CRPj8cNKq9vzs-N/s640/2216834-deadlight_cut1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Here Lies a review I wrote for Critical Gamer about the XBLA (and now available on PC) game Deadlight. Its a mix bag of a game and though I remember shouting bad words at the T.V. quite a few times while playing it I also believe it to be a pretty unique vision of the inevitable zombie apocalypse. Visually stunning and quite scary/tense in places. Check out my thoughts after le break. </i><br />
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Zombies are such a popular
subject these days that its even becoming a cliché to mention how popular they
are. Therefore it's probably best to stop going on about clichés and just treat
the zombie game as if it were a genre in itself; I mean would we complain if a
racing game had cars in it? The point really is that zombie games can be quite
different from one another despite having that same common, flesh-eating
factor. Deadlight, a side-scrolling platforming game, and the first game for
Tequila Works (a Spanish studio with some very experienced developers
involved), diverges from the rest of the horde in several ways. Tequila takes a
stripped down side-scrolling puzzle-platformer approach, making survival and
jumping your main concerns within this beautifully ruined setting.
Unfortunately the trail and error approach of Deadlight's traps and puzzles
coupled with a few other issues can leave it feeling needlessly frustrating in
certain sections despite the game's overall sense of style. </div>
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Deadlight tells the story of
one man's desperate struggle to find his wife and child amidst an apocalyptic
vision of zombie hell. It also tells the story of a player's desperate struggle
to stop themselves exploding with frustration after listening to the same piece
of audio twenty times before dying again, and again. Its a hard issue to
approach, seeing as difficulty is so often what maintains a game's longevity,
however it's possible in certain circumstances to criticise it and here it <i>can</i>
feel detrimental to the experience. I say 'can' because on the one hand
difficulty is essential to Deadlight's very traditional approach to the
subject. </div>
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There's no voodoo here but
the zombies are of the shuffling variety and, while this gives the player more
chance to take a pot shot or two, running away is often the best method of
survival. The game begins by dropping the player into a desperate situation
where Randell Wayne, the protagonist, has lost the party of survivors he was
travelling with to find his wife and daughter. Setting off to search the ruins
of Seattle, Randy picks up a variety of weapons including axes, revolvers and
even a sling shot. However this descent into hell delivers very few bullets and
often leaves you very little time to use them. </div>
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Ammunition is therefore a
resource which you spend only in the worst case scenario – even in comparison
to survival horror classics such as Resident Evil or Silent Hill, Deadlight
feels particularly miserly. But this makes every encounter with the shambling
dead threatening and exciting. The sparse 'stamina' given to you for melee
attacks also forces you to think carefully about each individual blow you make.
Combat is therefore never a gung-ho activity, but due to the tension created
through your relative weakness each small victory feels like a satisfying
achievement in the face of over whelming odds. Therefore avoiding combat is an
important part of the game's platforming sections. There are some great
sections where managing the position of your enemy through 'taunts' lets you
strategise a way across an open space. </div>
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Other sections invoke modern
games such as Trine or Limbo in their use of puzzles, with one slightly offbeat
chapter sees you navigating an underground labyrinth of traps.
Others feel more like classic adventure game Another World, where you have to
run, jump, vault and shoot very precisely to make it out alive. These sections
can be great fun but they also require quite a bit of trail and error to master
– as was the case with both game mentioned above. Unfortunately Deadlight
frustrates this trial and error system through its often clunky, unresponsive
controls (“I was pressing A!!”) and its check pointing system which at times
leaves you repeating the same audio or visual clip over and over and over again
– causing narrative events to quickly loose all meaning. Games such as Limbo
made trail and error fun by quickly placing the player right back into the
puzzle, ready for you to jump straight in. Deadlight frustrates this system by
turning quick repetitions into slow cinematic moments which begin to lose all
meaning after their twentieth iteration. </div>
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The sometimes clunky
controls are probably the worst offenders in this respect. At times Randy
simply ignores commands as if he'd just given up - leaving the player
dumbfounded, having to replay the section again. At other times the game feels
too lenient. Some jumps, which were noticeably just short of target, cause the
player to clip onto a ledge – as if instead of making the jump you simply reached
a 'zone' surrounding it. This of course doesn't ruin the whole experience but
it does make the otherwise slick presentation feel slightly clumsy and
undermines the more meaningful difficulty found in the combat.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDdooTInrromOTL6Ty8r8Vf-S1Hrccb_YPG942iYj5fYhb25rLShAIb3L6k39F06iTDxFDiDzJzTBbfi8KM1riU-8wm9fLDpNuRWfJPgCW-x6me1zUC7bfQWyLOToj5g1EVH7hUUoXKL33/s1600/screenlg1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="359" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDdooTInrromOTL6Ty8r8Vf-S1Hrccb_YPG942iYj5fYhb25rLShAIb3L6k39F06iTDxFDiDzJzTBbfi8KM1riU-8wm9fLDpNuRWfJPgCW-x6me1zUC7bfQWyLOToj5g1EVH7hUUoXKL33/s640/screenlg1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Its a shame because visually
Deadlight is an exemplary piece of apocalyptic art. The depth of field given to
the scenery is at times breathtaking in its ruin. Seattle looks like it's
really been through the mill. Littered high-ways, rubble-filled apartment
blocks, dripping sewers; hope is noticeably vacant throughout. The shadowed
foreground also works well with the game's themes and narrative – shadowing
everything in a darkness and de-humanising the remaining population.
Unfortunately that same narrative is also a little weak. The story is the same
old zombie theme of reaching the 'safe-house', while the humans become just as
dangerous as the dead. Characters are also never fully developed, with the
exception of Randy who simply plays the rugged every-man with a heart of gold. </div>
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Visually Deadlight is
stunning, with the weighty combat giving the experience a sense of
vulnerability and desperation. Regrettably too often the platforming, which
makes up a majority of the game, feels clumsy and at times frustrating –
deadening the impact of certain locations and events. That said Deadlight is a
very worth while entry into the zombie cannon and any fans of the subject
shouldn't think twice about giving this slice of despair a go.</div>
Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-7700404134326710532012-11-01T16:30:00.001+00:002012-11-01T16:54:25.779+00:00A little bit of Halloween - HOME<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgka5L_Xlmx6AcF9-YnWLpzcbpJLn7pF4I8TTnUqNO99V3NJyaMpdawInjqo_bXD5b1YVW8e-s_Y-eNY5kyeML6-eNE6rRLZhmZBuKA6cw6PvAvU611wcNm1dMWkHGJ41gHzmG17vOu9cV/s1600/GreatMoonHoax.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgka5L_Xlmx6AcF9-YnWLpzcbpJLn7pF4I8TTnUqNO99V3NJyaMpdawInjqo_bXD5b1YVW8e-s_Y-eNY5kyeML6-eNE6rRLZhmZBuKA6cw6PvAvU611wcNm1dMWkHGJ41gHzmG17vOu9cV/s640/GreatMoonHoax.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This represents Halloween</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Halloween past without much of a mention in my house. I've
never been one to celebrate the "holiday"/festival (or whatever it is)
but less so this year I seem to have completely missed it. There were no trick
or treaters tentatively knocking on my door, nor did I watch any scary movies
in an attempt to celebrate the wonderful feeling of being scared. I did
however, without real forethought, end up playing a game.</div>
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The <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/sale/halloweensale_2012" target="_blank">Steam Halloween sale</a> saw a few really great deals but my
purchases were pretty limited. The only game I bought which I really wanted to
play was <i>Vampire: The Masquerade -
Bloodlines </i>a game which I missed when it was first released. I also bought <i>Closure </i>- a puzzle based platform game
with what looks like quite an inventive conceit - and <i>Home. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><a href="http://homehorror.com/" target="_blank">Home</a> </i>was 99p,
which is part of the reason I bought it. I initially knew very little about
this game apart from being aware of its existence and that it looked a bit like
<i>Lone Survivor </i>(which it doesn't really). So anyway, last night
after going to bed (candle in hand as my dressing gown brushed the steps and my
night cap sort of wobbled - maybe because a ghostly draft had wafted past) I
sat in bed, switched on my laptop and played <i>Home. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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It was a brooding, sort of unnerving experience which
reminded me of those scary stories we were told on Scouts camp. This is
possibly a criticism. To be honest I found that I could easily guess the
outcome of my first playthrough but, like
those camp fire stories which inescapably lead to some horrifying conclusion, the
scariest thing about it is the build up. The slow incremental steps which
slowly, rhythmically hammer the nail into the coffin. The clues which leave you
feeling more and more drawn to the inevitable. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-haQBvDKbdEPHOc-6skJ3b3rS4YB-5pcMQ4LMUdgTmc76OlM0uJhH4ZG-VnNW8sNZoAte1Pq7vi2shhFbE2AnqFTnABcJd2e6jhooH1aNxV33wufKzl9wwYcrisde-93-61PtnAn6JFxP/s1600/news-home.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-haQBvDKbdEPHOc-6skJ3b3rS4YB-5pcMQ4LMUdgTmc76OlM0uJhH4ZG-VnNW8sNZoAte1Pq7vi2shhFbE2AnqFTnABcJd2e6jhooH1aNxV33wufKzl9wwYcrisde-93-61PtnAn6JFxP/s640/news-home.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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This is kind of the best and worst thing about <i>Home</i>. It is obvious - like so many tales
of terror - and therefore slightly underwhelming. But it is also tense, slow
and has that same rhythm which characterises the ghost story. </div>
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"And then he walked through the door, and in the draw
he finds....<i>a key</i>." </div>
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Each movement in the game is charged with this rhythmic
tension. It's really the only thing propelling the story. There are no real
puzzles as such just things you have to do to progress (finding <i>the key</i> is a repeated motif) but even as
the story leads you closer and closer to the obvious you're more and more
intrigued as to how it will play out. </div>
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The game also feels like it really understands interactive
horror. From the <i>Resident Evil</i>-esque
doors to the <i>Silent Hill </i>style
self-searching there is a deliberate pace which develops the game's prevailing
dread. </div>
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Though the game felt very short there were several things
which would warrant a second playthrough. There was a safe I didn't open, a
door I don't think I unlocked. There is also a strange ambiguity (again <i>Silent Hill</i>-ish) which make me want to
have another look. I imagine some might say it suffers due to its somewhat clichéd
story, but the rhythms of the telling and the eventual ambiguity which lingers
(if a little weakly) make this, for me at least, a very precise bit of creepy
interactive story-telling. </div>
Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-25304207475104177402012-10-26T12:56:00.001+01:002012-10-26T12:58:59.545+01:00Twitching on the Floor: Hotline Miami<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCRXeX-D3Z3Uu3O0n0O5EDxeD9PKdRTtC7d1JRCeh0z2XbXOkePFvmKU85bybAdlSakrtBM1i6ylz4WNJiBpfyf2UB_olH9eRaHlTCo6gkBWJksKElhlGin0EJZ7TABvgVuvZ8FL9Wv1-9/s1600/Hotline_Miami_8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCRXeX-D3Z3Uu3O0n0O5EDxeD9PKdRTtC7d1JRCeh0z2XbXOkePFvmKU85bybAdlSakrtBM1i6ylz4WNJiBpfyf2UB_olH9eRaHlTCo6gkBWJksKElhlGin0EJZ7TABvgVuvZ8FL9Wv1-9/s640/Hotline_Miami_8.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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My eyes sting and my hands hang claw-like over the mouse and
keyboard. I have spent the last three or so hours hunched over my glowing
laptop dispensing quick precise death. Or at least for part of the time. The
rest has been taken up with frantic gasps between badly aimed gun shots,
misplaced punches, and strange backward movements which more often than not have
left me leaking florescent red stuff over some indistinguishable hotel
lobby. </div>
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It's hard to tell how many times I've died in <i>Hotline Miami</i>. But for all my failed
attacks and spilt blood I've also managed to successfully traverse the nine
levels which I've so far played and this in itself feels like an achievement. Like
several other games in recent years who have courted serious difficulty
tempered by satisfying gameplay, <i>Hotline
Miami </i>achieves its addictiveness through the quick, unhindered movement
from death to life. As quickly as you fall in these neon halls you promptly get
up again, ready to replay and replay until you either get the level perfectly
right or stumble upon a bit of savage luck. </div>
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Amidst all this dying and respawning, <i>HLM </i>'s real achievement is the pervasive sense of tension which is
applied to all aspects of the game. Every movement is a tense, quick action;
every wait charged with potential - the almost comically quick attack. And when
you aren't murdering criminals, in the game's perfectly brief downtime, the
florid 80s aesthetics work to extend you're violence into some kind of
recurring hallucination. It captures something of that sleazy, neon, coked-up brutality
which <i>must</i> have happened somewhere in
the 80s. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-gltxRcMErheuM3pOXmV_GLVYARebhgh3759CKbVh0gRXF8guF6SsPscGGr1cLpU9v-SsGRG9T1LmpFaWg-wzWCNo-6BtFuB6v94fa3PPIQ2viT5mEOtzM1oAlXPBGLw5UMXxeuTD7eOx/s1600/hotline-miami-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-gltxRcMErheuM3pOXmV_GLVYARebhgh3759CKbVh0gRXF8guF6SsPscGGr1cLpU9v-SsGRG9T1LmpFaWg-wzWCNo-6BtFuB6v94fa3PPIQ2viT5mEOtzM1oAlXPBGLw5UMXxeuTD7eOx/s640/hotline-miami-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Tom Bramwell's excellent review for Eurogamer expressed this
well, drawing attention to how it works as a whole piece - unable to achieve its
effect without any one of its individual elements. In many ways this is clearly
true of the game. I feel like I've been snorting grotty lines of cut coke
because of the adrenaline procured from the horrifyingly tense combat along
with the gritty/glitzy dichotomy associated with the 1980s. However, I can't
help but feel that this enveloping sensation somewhat papers over some quite
glaring problems with the game. </div>
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The most obtrusive problem is that the AI is rubbish. Enemies
often respond quickly and brutally to any sound you make (even when you're not
making any sound!). This is perfectly fine as it forces you to be very clever
with your attacks and makes stealth one of the best ways to complete levels.
The problem occurs when enemies inexplicably do nothing. </div>
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One tactic which I've really enjoyed using in the later
levels - whose rooms are just too difficult for me to clear intelligently - is
finding a decent corner in a room with a good angle on the door and simply
gunning down the enemies from there. This of course needs a bit of gun
management as each weapon has a finite amount of ammo but it seems to work
quite well most of the time. The problem is when no one hears you! Trying to
get their attention when you're being stealthy is frustratingly easy but when
you're being blatantly loud they appear to know instinctively to stay on their
determined patrol paths. This could well be a clever bit of programming (and if
so, compliments to them) but I get the feeling it's not. It's also not unlikely
to have your enemies simply walk over a dead comrade without batting an eye
while another time they will search for you rigorously. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_GPy6-N655kIubukndkpdiNYfTi-xmFUUBnNJG3xeRKDrASb4AyXLq8sUBAFcpJVBG7GH_ZKmLGvswbWfmL8Xdtas7wRJ2FGdr9sybssuaX_u4fY1EdrE1yLz3SQWp4HMM1jAD1y3Za0y/s1600/hotline-miami.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_GPy6-N655kIubukndkpdiNYfTi-xmFUUBnNJG3xeRKDrASb4AyXLq8sUBAFcpJVBG7GH_ZKmLGvswbWfmL8Xdtas7wRJ2FGdr9sybssuaX_u4fY1EdrE1yLz3SQWp4HMM1jAD1y3Za0y/s640/hotline-miami.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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This all adds a level of unpredictability to the game which no
doubt adds to the games distinctiveness and arguably its charm. But in a game
which challenges the player to use precise and considered actions, these
niggles often really add unwanted
frustration. You could easily argue that it's just part of the game's brutality
but I feel like that's a bit of a copout in a game which works best when you
victories and defeats mostly come from personal considerations or mistakes. To
my mind it's a fair criticism of an otherwise brilliant game. </div>
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So far <i>Hotline Miami </i>has
left me shaking: clammy handed and heart pounding. It's no doubt one of the fiercest
and most twitchy game I've played in a while, but one whose style matches and perfectly
complements this gameplay. This isn't a violent gore-fest in the traditional
sense. There is measure and power behind the twitch controls and the violence:
sometimes precise, sometimes frenzied. It's made me feel stressed, desperate,
powerful, intelligent, brutal and satisfied - but also empty. At those moments
when everything is done; when the rooms are cleared of all virtual life, there
is a moment where all the adrenaline slowly fades and you walk back through the
remnant scenes of the level's violence. It's kind of profound - until it all
starts over again and then all that matters is killing. </div>
Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-9904019918933644142012-10-22T23:14:00.001+01:002012-10-22T23:15:23.399+01:00Horrible Murdery Game Out Tomorrow <br />
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</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkgP42F_57K7wyevcq4UgDG30-zooSrFaZdIH44tQBcw8xJ9XuOfQFt9GcYipSvKKAZDim5JMqYFZF29tVWlSAUzVAPnTxiglLBXYCF3mmvA69ixEK-i_zaFntqqxGYMZN94nVtsmv39RZ/s1600/450-300ppg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkgP42F_57K7wyevcq4UgDG30-zooSrFaZdIH44tQBcw8xJ9XuOfQFt9GcYipSvKKAZDim5JMqYFZF29tVWlSAUzVAPnTxiglLBXYCF3mmvA69ixEK-i_zaFntqqxGYMZN94nVtsmv39RZ/s400/450-300ppg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Sooo.... <i>Hotline Miami</i>
is out tomorrow and, though there's loads of other important, life maintaining work
to be done, I'm really looking forward to spending the evening bludgeoning and
being bludgeoned within a sleazy 80s neon malaise (bloody remains apparently
spewed over a post-modern hotel interior).</div>
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I played a demo of the game several months ago at Rezzed in
Brighton where it was very popular among the attendees. It's got an old-school <i>GTA </i>vibe - it reminds me of that guilty, slightly
grotesque feeling I got when committing top-down machine gun rampages in my
early teens; knowing mum would be genuinely disturbed at my apparent blood lust
- yet it's retrograde aesthetic never betrays the gameplay which, as the cues
at Rezzed demonstrated, is superbly tight. </div>
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As with the recent trend towards seriously hard games, the
demo of <i>Hotline Miami</i> seemed to exist
within the magical valley between frustration and love. Requiring a good memory
and a quick trigger finger each level needed quite a bit of strategy in order
to brutally murder each of the levels' equally murderous foes. And so I died
quite a bit when I was playing it at Rezzed, but as with games such as <i>Super Meat Boy </i>and <i>Canabalt </i>death is quickly forgotten and life - though forever spilt
in florescent pools - is quick to return to the player. With each death you
restart the level, seething, though excitedly ready to wreak skull crushing vengeance
upon that guy behind the second door. </div>
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It's a magical, grizzly, sleazy sport and I'm really looking
forward to getting my hands on the full game. Be sure to look out for future posts.
<i>Hotline Miami </i>is out tomorrow. <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/DqpZMsZBdNQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-89441005451123921852012-10-21T00:42:00.000+01:002012-10-21T00:56:32.628+01:00Torchlight et al : A Haphazzard Defense of Genre Refinement<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1sl9dVDEhK_9nsrnBnm2Uou0l2EGPGQWBYNwMoWZg0YMkWyq1_ZG7gWrY3Rog6jDiDRKfHrNq5DS6_458d6Qg4Wdn1WyjQTCXBX2vOYTg8a1WIX9bENxDQNbFZSmynM9oukvbfLYX68Iq/s1600/diablo2palsorc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1sl9dVDEhK_9nsrnBnm2Uou0l2EGPGQWBYNwMoWZg0YMkWyq1_ZG7gWrY3Rog6jDiDRKfHrNq5DS6_458d6Qg4Wdn1WyjQTCXBX2vOYTg8a1WIX9bENxDQNbFZSmynM9oukvbfLYX68Iq/s1600/diablo2palsorc.jpg" /></a></div>
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I posted a review a
couple of weeks ago on Critical Gamer for Runic Games' RPG sequel <i><a href="http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2012/10/04/torchlight-ii-review/" target="_blank">Torchlight II</a></i>. As the review attests it's
a superb action RPG in the vein of <i>Diablo
</i>etc. Despite the much aggrandised looting I actually found the most
exciting and enjoyable aspect of the game to be the combat. This was mostly
down to two things: </div>
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1) lots and lots of enemies</div>
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2) variety of enemy attack patterns. </div>
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So a lot of the time
during combat I was a bit lost amidst the flashing colours; which also left my
puny laptop struggling for breath. But I never felt like my many, many deaths
were unfair; my mortality only ever recalled thanks to me taking my eyes off
the <i>Diablo</i> style health-bubble-thing
for too long. It was a lesson quickly learnt - though also one surprisingly
easy to forget when being pummelled by masses of tentacley djinni-beings. </div>
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However my interest post-reviewing <i>Torchlight II </i>was the high regard I found myself slapping all over
this game. Looking further afield to other reviewers I also found the same was
true of them - all of which earned <i>Tl2</i> a (all hail the) Metacritic score of 88% (the
exact same score as<i> Diablo 3</i> - weird,
no?). Just as importantly I also found that when reading these reviews they
almost always stated that the game does very little which feels particularly <i>new</i>. </div>
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John Walker, of Rock, Paper, Shotgun, wrote: "It's
perfect at being something we already know. It really makes no effort to take
the genre anywhere new." While IGN's Charles Onyett concluded:
"Torchlight II doesn't do anything radically new, but does everything
incredibly well." And Game Spot: "Torchlight II doesn't innovate and
it doesn't surprise..." You get the idea. These reviewers, and several
others - this one included -, concluded that the game manages to achieve
greatness not through innovation but refinement of its genre's mechanics. This
is nothing new in the history of computer games, especially considering most publishers'
fondness for tried and tested formulas, but what fascinates me about <i>Tl2 </i>is that it almost entirely gets away
with it. </div>
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Not that it shouldn't, it's an amazing game, but many other
games have become synonymous with fan-rage (if also a little bit of
record-breaking-sales) due to an equal lack of innovation. I am of course
talking about those pithy little <i>Call of
Duty</i> games. But innovation-deficiency isn't always so maligned. Turning to the
<i>Fifa</i> series<i> </i>or, for that matter, the regal <i>Dragon
Quest </i>series its apparent that these games, like <i>Tl2</i>, more than deserve the praise they get for their playability
and refinement of their original mechanics. But they also lead us to an
interesting question. What is the best approach to developing a computer game
within a genre? Is it best to innovate or refine? </div>
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As a lover of games I find myself conflicted. I generally prefer
games which, even to the detriment of the gameplay, choose experimentation as
their raison d'être.
I love <i>Deadly Premonition</i> for its
ambition and experimentation with mechanics and story-telling, but as a game -
as a functional game - it's a bit like a split tennis ball. And yet despite
these problems with pioneering ambition, I have generally believed that these
are the games which progress the industry in terms of mechanics, aesthetics,
and story-telling. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib87LYkdvoLpfeI3sf8UihzLhPq8M2d4Wc5mXBsZQLKam6zIfNTo8NDtdI_8K3QRHZXbzHkXVm2M1ApNX4fzHmdPiJzMWAl146AAKsJOv9ID1AiB_DHzuUMXeuDwzlzFV2Uqu-WQ0KKM-k/s1600/d4fa96a00b1b109fea2ec75340665ec0_lightbox.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib87LYkdvoLpfeI3sf8UihzLhPq8M2d4Wc5mXBsZQLKam6zIfNTo8NDtdI_8K3QRHZXbzHkXVm2M1ApNX4fzHmdPiJzMWAl146AAKsJOv9ID1AiB_DHzuUMXeuDwzlzFV2Uqu-WQ0KKM-k/s640/d4fa96a00b1b109fea2ec75340665ec0_lightbox.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>However!</i> I think I
might be doing a disservice to games such as <i>Tl2 </i>and <i>Dragon Quest</i> when
I see innovation as somehow "better". What the <i>Torchlight </i>games did (and do) is to approach the genre of Action
RPG and try to refine it so that the experience becomes more playable and more
enjoyable. Though it might seem a bit of a truism to say it but this approach
is arguably just as important to the development of computer games as
innovation. While <i>Tl2 </i>doesn't provide
us with any particularly original mechanics it does slightly change the mechanics
of the genre, providing a specific take on that approach to interaction. Runic seem
to be refining and subtly changing the mechanics to fit what they believe (I
imagine) to be the best way of running an ARPG.</div>
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In this respect the game develops the genre as a functional
means of playing. If a cricket bat is a means of playing cricket, its development
as a tool is one in which it becomes better and more refined as a means to do
that. Similarly, games such as <i>Torchlight,
Dungeon Siege </i>and of course <i>Diablo 3 </i>work
very tightly within the structures of the genre to make the tools better; to
make the game more playable. There is certainly a sense that within such games
there is very little elaboration upon these mechanics but the incremental
changes are important to our experience. The skills tree, for instance, can be
quite different and therefore have a certain impact on how we play the game. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf7-3xW8G9bXcoS8iAKe6WdLjq7KcZspVZIDm8CvOYkeSQIey4LukHixbmudakM7veeTggRoO5X-kRGRlA72pcJ8trGPY03R1ip-t6_kk5cOzUpaSPlnu8YWmKoYI2qB-7gJv14Xp23r3U/s1600/468px-E002.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf7-3xW8G9bXcoS8iAKe6WdLjq7KcZspVZIDm8CvOYkeSQIey4LukHixbmudakM7veeTggRoO5X-kRGRlA72pcJ8trGPY03R1ip-t6_kk5cOzUpaSPlnu8YWmKoYI2qB-7gJv14Xp23r3U/s320/468px-E002.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Torchlight 2</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Comparing the skills available in <i>Diablo 2 </i>and <i>Torchlight 2 </i>we
can see that the two are quite different. In <i>Tl2 </i>unlocking one skill doesn't lead to the unlocking of the next,
instead providing a level based progression which allows for, I believe,
greater experimentation and focus on the part of the player's chosen approach.
It is important to state that in many ways these changes are not better or
worse but instead provide a slightly different take on the ARPG.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTKGQZwlHLC_wdP3kxBsVhQjLi_-MKwM7iKHaOHBU11iKO6L3e6HmUGkY9oxNTaJ_aepX55ZBcv8ZZliE_AMDnMEi0P9MS4k4_VIBfQ3InX0aK7NK27jlc3qaKYqOuWdiIKBR5RUxcIbU/s1600/15300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbTKGQZwlHLC_wdP3kxBsVhQjLi_-MKwM7iKHaOHBU11iKO6L3e6HmUGkY9oxNTaJ_aepX55ZBcv8ZZliE_AMDnMEi0P9MS4k4_VIBfQ3InX0aK7NK27jlc3qaKYqOuWdiIKBR5RUxcIbU/s320/15300.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Diablo 2</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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These decision, which may seem small, become the developers'
expression - their decision as to what element works; how to better implement a
mechanic. Creativity (mechanically speaking - of course <i>Tl2 </i>looks great too) here lies within these small decisions and it
must be admired that a team would work so closely with a set of staple
mechanics in order to subtly change them, or, in their mind I imagine, advance
and improve them.</div>
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<i>Therefore!</i> Should
we even really be including criticisms along the lines of 'same old thing'?
Well, yes, if that is important to the game. But, as with most angles of
criticism, I think it must be important to determine the role of the work. When playing <i>Tl2 </i>I
never felt like the game was meant to provide dramatic innovation, and in some
respects it thrived in the gaming portion of my brain <i>because it lacked innovation</i>. What was great about the game was its
subtle yet decisive way it approached the tried and tested ARPG formula. If it
had included a serious form of innovation - I don't know, like...a talking
hippo - (actually that's shit isn't it?) - then it no doubt would have
functioned remarkably differently. This, again (again!), is rather obvious but
what I'm driving at (remarkably efficiently I might add), is that games which
choose to refine, choose to use an established rule set which they believe can
be improved, however slight that improvement may be, then that is how we should
regard their work. The question I suppose is how well do they achieve that?</div>
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So, to sum up, I found myself after playing <i>Tl2 </i>once again in love with games which
simply play incredibly well. It is a position which I'm sure the vast majority of
gamers happily occupy but it's one which I've never given its due (not that it needs
it from me). So: Here's to great games which have no desire to drastically
innovate their given genre! hip-hip Hooray!</div>
Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-28059775019396221432012-08-29T15:03:00.001+01:002012-08-30T01:01:24.632+01:00Book Review: Tom Bissell, Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnvwIjyYu2cwjDl42Sqg8pZbb4CuQ6KUJLueHaprmEdyWND2725G81Z4OAnL_hwTbB8arE4douY6DF5V04Nc9oprzgMTBfI6A18D0mjMkbj-_xJLI1WVGfOdEQIc0e8MZOhd8Une8u7GfN/s1600/ExtraLives+MWC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnvwIjyYu2cwjDl42Sqg8pZbb4CuQ6KUJLueHaprmEdyWND2725G81Z4OAnL_hwTbB8arE4douY6DF5V04Nc9oprzgMTBfI6A18D0mjMkbj-_xJLI1WVGfOdEQIc0e8MZOhd8Une8u7GfN/s200/ExtraLives+MWC.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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The subtitle to Tom Bissell's book is so ambitiously vague that
it at first appears like something of a moot point when approaching the
cultural history of computer gaming. The lengthy issue of <i>Why Video Games Matter </i>could possibly be segmented and approached
in a veritable spiral of niches and areas of study - culture, technology, art, to
begin with - without ever having to propose to your reader: This is <i>why </i>videogames matter. Such ambitions
therefore seem admirably grand for such a modestly sized book. And yet when
first starting the book it instantly becomes clear that such ambitions - or at
least perceived ambitions - were never really intended. </div>
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Bissell's approach is enormously more accessible. It may
seem like a criticism to stress that when one starts to read a book with such
an ambitious subtitle to essentially disregard
it - as if it were, perhaps, simply a superficial addition - but in this
case Bissell's book is more than its subtitle (as, well, most books are), and
in fact approaches the subject in a refreshingly experiential and, in Bissell's
own words, an "eccentric and, at times, starkly personal" way. He asks
many questions of what games can achieve in terms of representation,
interactivity, personal struggle and as a business but never comes to any solid
or confident conclusions. Instead the book is more like a dissection of why
games matter to Bissell himself - with regular and insightful tangents into the
wider spectrum of Western culture. </div>
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This experiential approach lends itself well to videogaming
- the actual act of which is perhaps more directly evident than say the act of
reading a book - and Bissell revels
in this fact. Videogames here are not insular pieces of work but aspects of
life; of everyday existence and important emotional states. Each chapter forms its discussion around episodes of Bissell's life, starting with missing Barrack
Obama's election in favour of playing <i>Fallout
3</i> and ending with a rather gloomy chapter on cocaine addiction and <i>GTA IV</i>. </div>
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These anecdotal accounts often effortlessly dovetail into serious
discussions surrounding narrative games. His comical explication of how <i>Fallout 3</i>'s setting and narrative
betrays a certain dissonance which is present in many games, draws the
conclusion: </div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Games have grown immensely sophisticated in any number of
ways while at the same time remaining stubbornly attached to aspects of
traditional narrative for which they have shown little feeling. Too many games
insist on telling stories in a manner in which some facility with plot and
character is fundamental to - and often even detrimental of - successful
storytelling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Similarly, his discussions with Jonathan Blow (creator of <i>Braid</i>) and Clint Hocking (<i>Farcry 2, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory</i>)
provide several excellent moments of real theoretical insight. When discussing <i>Braid </i>and the popular insistence on
naturalism in computer graphics, Bissell writes with clarity that, "many
forgot that naturalism is not the pinnacle but rather a stage of
representation."</div>
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It is the marriage of theoretical discussion with the
personal, anecdotal accounts of playing computer games which is the books
greatest strength. The chapter on <i>Resident
Evil</i> is a perfect example of how Bissell manages to make comical and entirely
relatable material - such as the wonky and strangely frustrating experience of
playing the game - also chime with ideas
about game narrative and critical appraisal. <i>Resident Evil</i>, described as a "brilliantly conceived game of uncompromising
stupidity", also presents a paradigm
for Bissell's central understanding of computer games; that they presently
exists between these two positions of being both brilliant and yet dreadful,
exciting yet clumsy. </div>
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Unfortunately this great strength of balancing anecdote with theory too often tipped in
favour of the anecdote. The chapter on <i>GTA
IV</i> is one example where reading of how Bissell apparently squandered literary
fellowships in order to snort coke and play computer games is both horribly
dismal (for those hard working writers who've spent many hours applying for
such fellowships) and betrays a lack of any real argument or direction.
Concluding that <i>GTA IV </i>is a bit like
cocaine hints at notions of the destructive power of gaming but Bissell seems too
strapped for either space or time to really make the leap or do the research.
Instead the chapter rounds off with a meaningless comparison between his life
and <i>GTA IV</i>'s central character, Nico (they'd
both been through a lot - though whether fictional hardships and grams of
cocaine can really be equated is questionable). </div>
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In this respect <i>Extra
Lives </i>falls under the same duplicity which Bissell witnesses in
narrative games. At times the book is insightful, wonderfully written and
accessible and yet at other times it can be frustrating and even slightly disposable. He skirts round issues such as violence and yet gives pages to his
adoration of Cliff Bleszinski; gives several paragraphs to graphic representation yet fills a chapter with coke stories. Bissell captures the duality of approaching games seriously - that they can be both
exciting and yet silly - and gives
us an account which describes this disconnect skilfully, though not without falling
foul of the same dilemma itself.</div>
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Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-71433293027764914692012-07-21T00:03:00.002+01:002012-07-21T00:05:28.259+01:00GOTW: Alan Wake<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Throughout the strange, unbalanced thread of </span><i style="background-color: white;">Alan Wake's</i><span style="background-color: white;"> narrative, the writer, who
gives the game its name, is mockingly referred to as, among others, Stephan
King, Raymond Chandler and, most strangely, James Joyce. Personally I felt more
like Garth Marenghi, but it's Stephan King, and his supernatural thrillers,
whose presence is most heavily felt throughout. </span><i style="background-color: white;">Alan Wake </i><span style="background-color: white;">exists in that same liminal place inhabited by many of
King's novels - where trashy fiction can be both utter nonsense and kind of
important; kind of profound - well, at the very least genuinely enjoyable. </span><i style="background-color: white;">Alan Wake </i><span style="background-color: white;">gets away with a great deal
because it seems to know this; it's trashy nature slips into the game as a
whole, leaving memories behind which skitter between pure joy, genuine scares,
ham-fisted acting, awful smiles and a few large holes in which moments of the
game just disappeared into shear ordinariness. But, as with </span><i style="background-color: white;">Deadly Premonition </i><span style="background-color: white;">- </span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">the cracked-out Japanese brother to the more straight-faced
Wake - the game's faults and instability help it to become endearing. It's a
bit messy, but when it hits the mark it does so incredibly well and the messiness
only helps to underline the moments of quality. </span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></div>
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One reason for <i>Alan
Wake's </i>strange balancing of its narrative - as well as its detailed environments
- is that it was originally developed by Remedy as an open-world, sandbox game.
Understandably the game's strong narrative propulsion would have been toned down in an open-world, but
clearly Remedy's love of narrative won out. Director Oskari Hakkinen recently
told Edge Magazine that the sandbox design "simply didn't fit with our
story-driven focus". The remnants of this design are still apparent in <i>Wake. </i>The town feels very much like <i>Deadly Premonition's </i>Greendale - with a
cafe, petrol station, police department and so on. Driving sequences also have
an uncanny <i>GTA-</i>meets-<i>Deadly Premonition </i>feel to them, with
the opportunity to change your car by simply stealing another (all of which, in
good <i>DP</i> style, are atrocious to
drive). </div>
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However, in the finished game, environments are only ever best described as semi-open (ajar, perhaps).
There are always areas to explore; buildings to investigate for light-giving
loot; nooks and caves to search, but the player is still directed and
exploration is only ever allowed within corridor of narrative events. It's
closet comparison in my mind is environments such as <i>Half-Life 2</i>'s Highway 17 or, perhaps stylistically more fitting, <i>Silent Hill 2</i>, in which the player is
allowed to explore, get lost, and find interesting areas and objects off the
beaten track. </div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Unfortunately the radical change in level design did leave
the game lacking in certain areas. The beginning portion of the game feels like
its undecided - having the player visit different places and people, which are
never fully developed, as if they were missions in a sandbox game. While the
open environments allowed Remedy to "make reference to things that could
be seen in the distance and so foreshadow events", there are many areas
which feel quite disjointed. The trailer park, the cafe, the police station -
it's often hard to tell where these sites exist in relation to each other. We
see the town when we begin the game and again at the end, but we never engage
fully with it - never do we have a chance to get our bearings and understand
these places as a unified whole.</span></div>
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However once the game finds its feet these open designs
become integral to level structure. Later levels such as the farm and the power
station use foregrounding incredibly well. This is achieved through defined and
visibly present goals - such as the 'well-lit-room' which glows on the horizon,
or the farm house moodily rising out of the low, murky fields surrounding it.
These levels also utilise great pacing in their design - with environments
causing the levels to open out then contract into smaller spaces. The farm
level for instance has the player working his/her way across cliffs with the
farm below to the right. They reach a shack - then drive down at a faster pace
to the farm. This momentum is then halted when Wake and Barry (the ever
irritating though strangely endearing side kick) reach the outer parameter of
the farm - the gothic structure looming in the open fields. Here you work
through tight buildings, then in the open encounter a larger enemy before
backtracking a little way to free Barry. Together you then leg it across the
fields towards the level's magnificent finale. By moving between visually open environments,
such as the cliff and the fields, to the tight, dark, claustrophobic spaces of buildings,
Alan Wake manages to create suspense and tension in its very level design. </div>
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The story itself is suitably confusing and ridiculous,
taking reference from King's sci-fi thrillers as well as TV shows such as The
Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. I won't risk ruining the garbled mystery for
those who haven't played it but to its credit I was genuinely hooked at times -
and by the end I was still enthralled by the game's world. The relationship
between the two writers in the game (Wake and Thomas Zane) is fascinating and
never really concluded. Unfortunately Wake is the only character which really sticks
out - ok, I'll give you Barry, but it's for all the wrong reasons. Unlike <i>DP</i> which fills its textually bland
landscape with expertly weird and interesting characters, <i>Wake </i>only gets about halfway there. None of the characters get
enough screen time and we're left, like with the town, not fully understanding
them as developed individuals. <br />
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It's therefore Alan himself who kind of makes the whole game.
Like Max Payne before him, Wake encompasses a whole cliché so well he instantly
becomes etched into your memory. Wake oozes that New York, city slicker, self-obsessed
90s pop-writer cliché so well - even appearing on a late-night American chat
show! Like Max, Alan is built within a defined cliché, but he also has character
- the note perfect script allows Wake to be both obnoxious as well as
vulnerable; self-obsessed as well as caring. Walking the line between an over
written cliché and a genuinely engaging character Alan Wake sums up the game
perfectly while the other characters linger in the background. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
There is much to <i>Alan
Wake </i>which feels unfinished or imperfect, but as a whole its schlocky
narrative and beautifully clichéd writing give the game its drive, while the
level design, thanks to the radical change in the game's structure, at times
provides impeccable pacing. It's not always the case - there are moments where
the game feels repetitive and I couldn't help wondering whether an open world <i>Wake</i> would play better. But overall I
would say it's one of the most enjoyable narrative games I've played in a good
while. We can only hope that Wake never stops having his self-indulgent,
incredibly entertaining, psychological episodes. </div>Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-83823147853820436612012-07-08T20:52:00.000+01:002012-07-16T17:23:32.654+01:00Gaming Report: June<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgleRtQUruBbvrE6bf7dcpDBwRWvAj9qPq5bx0U5KZ4G2PDDKgMhEZzwymaI226kGWdrpuEO7-wEOOSETtYOibckLuPdSI_VQzg7tn6ls8pJnCzhp0oxmrauq9DOLRbUkccsqAXnENAcl/s1600/Proteus-beta3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgleRtQUruBbvrE6bf7dcpDBwRWvAj9qPq5bx0U5KZ4G2PDDKgMhEZzwymaI226kGWdrpuEO7-wEOOSETtYOibckLuPdSI_VQzg7tn6ls8pJnCzhp0oxmrauq9DOLRbUkccsqAXnENAcl/s640/Proteus-beta3.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A screenshot from <i>Proteus, </i>showing at Rezzed</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic;">Hello, hello! So, just a few updates on a couple of reviews I've written recently and a coming plug for a few further articles. U</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic;">nfortunately</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic;"> I've recently fallen victim to a very slow case of the internet so I haven't managed to play that many new games - so if the head of BT is reading this: Sort it out! I've been trying to download Resonance for bloody ages now. Ok, sorry I'll be quiet....</span><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Or not. Anyway, irritating internet speeds aside, and despite what I just said, I have actually been playing quite a few games this month. First of all some plugs for reviews gone out this June. <i>Ys Origin</i> was actually released right at the end of May, but I got my review up after the release date in June. Its a really playable hack and slash like the other later Ys games and, as with <i>Oath in Felghana</i> which I'd covered a few months before, its well worth any action RPG-fan's money. Not quite as good as <i>Oath </i>in my opinion, but still an incredibly fun game. The review is posted on Rhythm Circus, here's the link:<br />
<a href="http://www.rhythmcircus.co.uk/uncategorized/ys-origins/">http://www.rhythmcircus.co.uk/uncategorized/ys-origins/</a><br />
<br />
Secondly, and discounting my review of <i>Dark Scavenger</i>, which I've reposted below (another really great game), I've just this weekend had a review of <i>Spec Ops: The Line</i> posted on Critical Gamer. Another very good game. <i>The Line</i> however is incredibly interesting, but mostly due to its story and character rather than gameplay and definitely requires further discussion. Anyway, here's the link: <a href="http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2012/07/06/spec-ops-the-line-review/">http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2012/07/06/spec-ops-the-line-review/</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHvbso25UpAUG03uqjv4eZEJsdUqnTIFyWmhhyCvutZYT1Lwx7HSeZoi8J_TPzGY5MSmpSmeHFcZp-FsLPKg25cAuezx3N-BK-L0ACA2rTARQ9E9UvucVdtxdNCdbB6G5yXbDpwgpzG5Vz/s1600/spec-ops-the-line.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHvbso25UpAUG03uqjv4eZEJsdUqnTIFyWmhhyCvutZYT1Lwx7HSeZoi8J_TPzGY5MSmpSmeHFcZp-FsLPKg25cAuezx3N-BK-L0ACA2rTARQ9E9UvucVdtxdNCdbB6G5yXbDpwgpzG5Vz/s400/spec-ops-the-line.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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[A little note: I thought the score of 7/10 was correct as the game is quite generic in some cases and the gameplay is not particularly exciting but, if your (if anyone is) reading this, I strongly urge you to buy and play this game. Its story, script and setting are all pretty incredible and unique. I just wish they'd done more with it and not relied on endless shooting.]<br />
<br />
You'll be pleased to know we're nearing the end of the plugging, just one more thing.<br />
This Saturday I attended Rezzed, the PC gaming convention set up by Eurogamer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. The show had several big games including <i>Farcry 3, Aliens </i>and <i>Boarderlands 2 </i>as well as a whole bunch of really great looking indie titles, including the serene explore-em-up <i>Proteus, </i>pictured above. My coverage of the day will shortly be going up on <a href="http://www.rhythmcircus.co.uk/">Riddim Circus</a>, so keep a look out and I will no-doubt pester here once it's posted, along with some further thoughts up here on Three Headed Monkey. Overall though the day went really well, I enjoyed many of the games they had on show and the talks were very interesting indeed. Hopefully a more detailed summary to come....hopefully...<br />
<br />
In terms of games I'm currently playing the most interesting has been <i>Alan Wake,</i> which I've been meaning to play for quite a while. Similar to <i>The Line</i>, <i>Alan Wake</i>'s gameplay is a bit repetitive and simply requires you to shoot the life out of numerous very generic looking people. However, the story and script are really charming and fun. Riffing on the sort of trashy spook fiction you'd find in an airport WH Smiths, the story is both notably cheesy and actually a little bit scary.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqJlDkHR_L2hvCN719PTDc34W_Gzeol_kOedTSBbd7_Qxsy5ftriLgSVkTKa1TqbnYaDHFHmcvV9jkY5E64KtEB5XnEhSWWRjl9T2KARFIVxzuXS0quSNk9ziGvZK2bnnTX8CuKy61-mDJ/s1600/AlanWake_07_Fight_720p.png.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqJlDkHR_L2hvCN719PTDc34W_Gzeol_kOedTSBbd7_Qxsy5ftriLgSVkTKa1TqbnYaDHFHmcvV9jkY5E64KtEB5XnEhSWWRjl9T2KARFIVxzuXS0quSNk9ziGvZK2bnnTX8CuKy61-mDJ/s400/AlanWake_07_Fight_720p.png.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I've just completed the third chapter which has introduced possessed objects - meaning that you have to defend you're self against flying pipes and so on. Cheesy but incredibly good fun! Also, the game has an uncanny similarity to <i>Deadly Premonition</i> which is <a href="http://3headedmonkeygames.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/greenvale-revisited.html">one of my favorite games</a> for the 360. Seeing as <i>DP </i>was in development for nearly 300 years I'm thinking that<i> </i>Remedy may have been trying to make a Western (mechanically and graphically superior) equivalent of Access Games' shlcoky masterpiece (especially considering the original principle was for <i>Wake </i>to be a sand-box game too). That said <i>Alan Wake</i> was also in production for several lifetimes too, so it doesn't seem fair to pass judgement without further research. Maybe its just another unexplained mystery!<br />
<br />Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-3059365129967614472012-07-02T22:37:00.000+01:002012-07-02T22:37:11.522+01:00Review: Dark Scavenger<br />
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<a href="http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q481/jobojobe/DarkScavengertitle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q481/jobojobe/DarkScavengertitle.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i>Here's a review of the game Dark Scavenger which was originally published on <a href="http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/2012/06/11/dark-scavenger-review/">Critical Gamer</a> earlier this month. Dark Scavenger is made and released by Psydra Games via their website: <a href="http://www.darkscavenger.com/" style="background-color: white;">http://www.darkscavenger.com/</a> Check it out. </i></div>
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Remember when games
required the player to use their imagination? When places, characters
and whole narrative worlds could be grown from paragraphs of white
text on a monitor? When rudimentary representations were merely
springboards for the player's desire to experience new imaginative
universes? Gamers of a certain age will still be able to fully
recall, and may even still play, primitive graphical and text based
adventure games but for many others (this reviewer included) such
experiences remain vague childhood memories. Psydra Game's
adveture-RPG Dark Scavengers feels like a much needed exercise in
hypnotic regression; an excavation of all those obscure, childhood
adventures of the imagination which many of us lost amidst years of
graphical realism and beautifully rendered interactive worlds.
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But to lump Dark
Scavengers with the label of 'nostalgic' would be unfair. To call it
nostalgic suggests a level of mawkishness which is absent from this
joyfully weird, silly and witty adventure. From the offset it's clear
that this game has a weird and brimming imagination. The game starts
by introducing the player to his three allies which make up his/her
crew. These are: a skeleton who builds weapons, a uncomfotably
friendly green alien who can build you items, and an unspeakable
horror, who can't speak, who summons allies. With the power of these
three aliens the player is then sent to a mysterious planet to find
fuel for their stranded spaceship. In your search for fuel you
quickly become involved in the local alien races ,all of which are in
the process of killing each other.
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The game's world is
deep and convincing even in its weirdness. The races you encounter
each have their own cultures which are developed through encounters
with eccentric characters dotted throughout the game. Such
eccentricity is also evident in Dark Scavengers gameplay which takes
the form of a well constructed hodgepodge of previous genres. The
world itself is actually made up of rectangular rooms placed next to
each other which the player navigates by clicking arrows on the
screen which lead to the next room. When the player enters a room
they are usually met by an enemy which leads to a fight.
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Combat is presented
in a traditional first-person RPGs layout, with the enemies lined up
before the player. The actual mechanics of combat is slightly
different, however, with each of your three shipmates coming into
play, giving you the choice of either choosing a weapon, item or an
ally each turn. Once you've defeated an enemy you are then given an
item which, when you move to the next room, can be given to one of
your shipmates to construct new weapons, items or allies with. Its a
fun system which constantly gives the player something new to play
with and adds an exploratory element to the game's combat.
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Outside of combat
the player can also interact with each room by clicking on particular
objects. This either leads to obtaining an item or sometimes you come
across an enemy or a character to talk to. There are some puzzle and
riddle elements reminiscent of The Hitchhikers Guide text adventure,
but overall the gameplay is kept very simple. What's really great is
the focus on the imaginative nature of the game's encounters. Combat
and communication occurs with a simple, yet beautifully drawn still
image of the character or enemy. There is no animation to speak of
(unless you count the placing of these still characters on the
screen) and therefore the game relies entirely on the descriptive and
expressive power of drawing and writing. These two things work
perfectly. The drawings are reminiscent of old adventure books and
card games while the writing is extraordinarily funny in both wit and
silliness.
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For a game
ultimately built around still images, Dark Scavengers is one of the
most expressive games we've played in along while. Some of the best
moments are when the game has the player 'diving' and 'leaping'
about, dodging enemies or helping friends. The stillness of the
actual image only goes to show the brilliance of the imagination,
achieving, in many ways, more than if the game were a fully rendered
3D experience. This is also helped by the game's excellent sound and
music which, like its art and writing, is both incredibly silly and
wonderfully effective. Overall Dark Scavengers achieves not merely a
nostalgic reminiscence but a full blown TV-drama-recollection of how
computer games,even those lacking animation, can be unbelievably
engaging and imaginative. </div>Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-9036746427947966992012-06-22T20:46:00.000+01:002012-06-22T21:02:09.934+01:00Game/Cultural Issues of the Week<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyzekkVpWrmXXs5H_JRSnKmKnIofPGDaJqAmBFKMXy_6fRe6hdmqjXMwIMx2VV8T1pkONsWEkMz4wxGpoXR_NlGWjIXE7cueQCvUf0Zs3i5aZ_nCEtOsm7aGNgpQfGBTMh0rn3Pj8vzuEh/s1600/lollipop-chainsaw-gdc-2012-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyzekkVpWrmXXs5H_JRSnKmKnIofPGDaJqAmBFKMXy_6fRe6hdmqjXMwIMx2VV8T1pkONsWEkMz4wxGpoXR_NlGWjIXE7cueQCvUf0Zs3i5aZ_nCEtOsm7aGNgpQfGBTMh0rn3Pj8vzuEh/s640/lollipop-chainsaw-gdc-2012-7.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i><br />
<i>This <strike>week </strike>month has been a busy one... excuses abound about why I haven't stayed true to my humble principle of writing more regularly, but, to be completely honest, it doesn't really matter. So I'm going to ignore my own self pity and talk a little about what's been going on in the realm of computer games! What follows is an amorphous mass of writing on the issues of sexism and violence in computer games. Oh god...</i><br />
<br />
It seems that socio-cultural issues spread like wild fire in game journalism. First it was the issue of violence which found itself most cohesively expressed in the demos of E3 - that now much derided convention/colossus of a sales pitch. Much was said about Usher, dubstep and all round disappointment/<a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/06/rps-decides-who-won-e3-2012/">bewilderment</a>, but more importantly there has been a general backlash surrounding the fetishistic insistence on <a href="http://uk.gamespot.com/features/nothings-shocking-6380739/">violence</a> and realism still dominating the big budget game releases. Then this was coupled with some serious criticism coming from journalists apparently finding themselves agasp at gender issues in mainstream computer games, meaning that there has been some really interesting and heated web-debates going on in computer game journalism. <br />
<span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">On <a href="http://1up.com/">1up.com</a>, for instance, there has been a whole series of articles dedicated to the subject of sexism and gender politics, approaching it from several angles but altogether leading to the "astonishing" conclusion that computer games, as a medium of storytelling, is a little immature compared to others. Response from the 1up readership seems to have been negative to put it mildly and I found it slightly worrying to read so many comments expressing a desire to completely ignore the issue altogether (and perhaps ignoring the cultural importance which games have now developed). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJnvtQOAS-Oc7Wuf9xIHscGGK_R-sJ397NxRMJmotBqRthOHczq1u_cKTCnlaIg4j20390znejqwEYvUCB3Btec87zZ0pE-uuCtW-X8mtA0kszKZDdOkfYGYdXxmh7QVLE_x0-GPJW3rWK/s1600/lollipop+chainsaw+sexism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJnvtQOAS-Oc7Wuf9xIHscGGK_R-sJ397NxRMJmotBqRthOHczq1u_cKTCnlaIg4j20390znejqwEYvUCB3Btec87zZ0pE-uuCtW-X8mtA0kszKZDdOkfYGYdXxmh7QVLE_x0-GPJW3rWK/s400/lollipop+chainsaw+sexism.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Costumes for Lollipop Chainsaw - titillation or objectification? Also phallic...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: white;">Bob Mackey's (writer for 1up) review of Grasshopper's <a href="http://www.1up.com/reviews/lollipop-chainsaw-review">Lollipop Chainsaw</a> seemed to be at the epicentre of this feud between journalists and readers, but also diverged from another writer's approach to the game which hinted at an entirely different way of understanding Lollipop's hyper-sexualised teen protagonist. Jim Sterling's article on <a href="http://www.destructoid.com/objectification-and-lollipop-chainsaw-229700.phtml">objectification</a> in Lollipop </span><span style="background-color: white;">(for</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><a href="http://www.destructoid.com/" style="background-color: white;">Destructoid</a><span style="background-color: white;">) </span><span style="background-color: white;">suggested that instead of the girl being the centre of objectification, it was in fact the beheaded</span><span style="background-color: white;"> boyfriend who symbolised the vulnerability and </span><span style="background-color: white;">harassment so often aimed at young women. His position as a helpless, defenseless, tag-along, </span><span style="background-color: white;">satirized the ordinary male/female roles: "The outright </span><i style="background-color: white;">emasculation</i><span style="background-color: white;"> of Nick" Sterling writes, "is certainly terrifying enough for a person who shares his gender, and opens the door to sympathizing with the rest of the trials he faces...It takes reversing the roles for us to see that" </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">However, </span><span style="background-color: white;">I'm not convinced the game entirely gets away with it's often flagrant objectification of the main character. By parodying the position of the male - being completely vulnerable and "emasculated"...that is, physically castrated (along with the rest of his body) - compared to the aggressive, phallus wielding, female lead shows that the game is at least aware of the issue of cliched male/female dynamic in popular culture.Yet the game still maintains the conventional gender roles; only switching them for comic effect. The woman uses what can be considered (and if the writer - as he has claimed on twitter - follows Sterling's gender-centric approach) a massive motorised phallus to penetrate and disembowel hoards of zombies whilst the male, without such a weapon, is weak and comical. It therefore maintains the same language Sterling suggests it satirizes. I.e. the female is only strong because of her masculine qualities while her female attributes are still purposefully objectified. Yet <i>she is</i> presented as loving and caring towards her boy-head-friend, which is important to her character...the game is clearly more complex than Mackey's approach first suggested - whether or not it is entirely successful. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYHBOJpraI9LdnYH5-wfPTlbObrVQ3giCw-FzjJXHvNSLCDPPmiodTUofoXxfAK5NneBpW4NaWL25fadq7XhyphenhyphenEoelaX8PT9bxnt7BeDE50QCm9-ctnhsXRdEXsxrhrzdjSnj3SWylFsOQ6/s1600/Lollipop-Chainsaw-Combat-Unleashed-Trailer_6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYHBOJpraI9LdnYH5-wfPTlbObrVQ3giCw-FzjJXHvNSLCDPPmiodTUofoXxfAK5NneBpW4NaWL25fadq7XhyphenhyphenEoelaX8PT9bxnt7BeDE50QCm9-ctnhsXRdEXsxrhrzdjSnj3SWylFsOQ6/s400/Lollipop-Chainsaw-Combat-Unleashed-Trailer_6.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phall...oh why bother? </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">There is perhaps then a link between these two problems of violence and sexism <i>[this is where it all gets a bit fuzzy/preachy]</i>. The problem of sexism possibly stems from the general language of mainstream computer games. Just as with Lollipop's obsession with massive weapons and evisceration, most games use their interactivity to force overly aggressive acts from the player - all of which is rife with phallic imagery and physco-sexual symbolism. Maybe these aggressively traditional masculine approaches to any and all situations has inadvertently lead to a very aggressive approach to, not only female characters, but the subject of gender altogether. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Anyway, as with most all problems I face in life, one possible answer is Looking Glass Studio's 1998 game, Thief. Yes, I know it's amazing, but why I bring it up is that it approaches violence in a still surprisingly unique way even today. Unlike stealth games such as Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid or Hitman, Thief never necessarily requires the player to fully engage in violence. In fact it's rather frowned upon and generally leads to the player running away like a little girl (oh yeah, sexism, sorry) or being mauled like a rebooted Lara Croft. BUT! What's great is that the game's protagonist, Garrett, who's so rubbish at fighting, is never presented as either weak or emasculated. He is in fact a very masculine character, with a gravely voice and a dry wit, encapsulating that rare character trait of being genuinely 'cool'. The game prizes <i>intelligence over violence</i> and therefore empowers the player through non-cave man or overly sexually symbolic means. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh746R-gB0o4ZY-NsK1RHVBWlRAs3IEf58V1Erw44nIRm3RO9sQdDDdcp7sW_K5CjpPs_HFYbeab6ZRQk5H82fzTWkKzAAXRmtIKLTCu9RrhlF-mNksZnotiXDpYLRac-lEah7OUxo7vlXm/s1600/thief.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh746R-gB0o4ZY-NsK1RHVBWlRAs3IEf58V1Erw44nIRm3RO9sQdDDdcp7sW_K5CjpPs_HFYbeab6ZRQk5H82fzTWkKzAAXRmtIKLTCu9RrhlF-mNksZnotiXDpYLRac-lEah7OUxo7vlXm/s400/thief.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thief... not quite as sexy as Lollipop Chainsaw</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">It is by all accounts a sticky issue. But its allowed me to talk about Thief so I think it's worth consideration. Seriously though games regularly use non-violent means of interaction (more so outside the mainstream, though games like Portal prove that the mainstream is also aware of entirely different approaches - Professor Layton was pretty popular too, wasn't it?) and non-conservative approaches to gender representation, though both still seem to be the go-to form of representation in "AAA" games. Thief and multitudinous other games point the way towards a form of mature game design which has freed itself from the shackles of thuggery and an insistently immature world view.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Yet there is also a danger of treating gamers like they can't make a sophisticated choice of their own. If I want to gun down swaths of </span><a href="http://www.rhythmcircus.co.uk/games/saints-row-the-third/">scantily clad hookers</a><span style="background-color: white;"> then surely I should be allowed - we really don't want mass censorship for a medium which has so often embraced the shocking with such admirable verve. There is also an important differentiation which must be made in the face of criticism towards computer game violence: many games use violence well and it supports the story and is mature and engaging. Also these games are <i>always </i>given age restrictions. And for the mature gamer there is a lot to be said for choice and variety - and, to quote Cliff Bleszinski, "There's room for all styles of games out there. Most games that rely on violence as a selling point and nothing else tend to rightfully fail."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">T</span><span style="background-color: white;">herefore, as with most rational approaches, the answer seems to lie right on the fence. If there was ever a mass censorship movement in computer games' history we might not have games such as Doom, GTA, or The Witcher - all of which are very good computer games <i>because </i>they include of sex and violence. Yet </span><i>fetishistic </i><span style="background-color: white;">violence and sexism is not what we want to represent the mainstream of computer gaming. So, in conclusion, everyone should play Thief....</span>Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-46646829106994791802012-06-06T19:16:00.000+01:002012-06-07T00:25:48.192+01:00Superbrothers: Swords & Sworcery EP<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi49m3XD6XjrmhBdtZj3jTxLb71AztOxwhTW0DqlulgAsuszJnpcIp0MPG9xAq1KkPsG4Bue2mv3JYyO33nE4RBHkf0gIkUzFjwu5LOYnoehAzO-RYcucP-CQ1Q2sJs8MCG3XfuIjV9bxKr/s1600/sworcery2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi49m3XD6XjrmhBdtZj3jTxLb71AztOxwhTW0DqlulgAsuszJnpcIp0MPG9xAq1KkPsG4Bue2mv3JYyO33nE4RBHkf0gIkUzFjwu5LOYnoehAzO-RYcucP-CQ1Q2sJs8MCG3XfuIjV9bxKr/s400/sworcery2.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<i><span style="line-height: 150%;">I've failed this fortnight in writing a 'game of the week', which is a shame because I've actually been playing an awful lot. </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">Unfortunately</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> all this game playing is related to articles so it doesn't seem quite right to use the material elsewhere. The only game which isn't related to an article is The Witcher 2 for 360, which has been fun, but I've only played a few missions so I'm not entirely qualified at the moment to comment. Anyway, here's a review which was previously published by the wonderful website <a href="http://www.criticalgamer.co.uk/">Critical Gamer</a>. Its for Swords & Sworcery for the PC, which is a 'good' game I think. The review is very positive, but be warned that the game, for all its style and uniqueness visually, kind of lacks what the original iOS game had - gameplay. Or at least anything which the average PC gamer would consider had any depth. However the game is lush - so yeah, review over... </span></i><br />
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<a href="http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q481/jobojobe/Sword10-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q481/jobojobe/Sword10-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">The notion that smart phones can be a legitimate
gaming platform has quickly become established in pretty much all spheres of
the gaming industry. Ports of classic games have been coming thick and fast
with everything from Marathon to Monkey Island being given a touch screen
make-over. Simultaneously the mobile platform has produced classics of its own
which likewise have been taken up with relish by the PC market. Superbrothers:
Sword & Sworcery EP, the decidedly left-field release from Capybara Games
and the eponymous Superbrothers, is one such game which has this month been
given a new home on the PC. Yet, while the simple delights of flinging
disgruntled birds across a screen easily translates into the keyboard and mouse
interface of the PC, Swords & Sworcery's task is a little more complicated.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 150%;">
The original iOS game experimented with the
device's touch screen and gyroscopic capabilities bringing this interface right
into the centre of its experience. So does this once uniquely tactile interactive
experience endure without the physicality it championed on the iPhone? Well,
yes, in a word it does. Kind of. First of all the game remains a beautiful
audiovisual piece of work. The pixel graphics are stunningly detailed and the
animation is fluid while both the soundtrack and audio design, written by Jim
Guthrie, help to craft an equally distinctive and memorable counter point to
these visual delights. This incredible audiovisual world created in Sword and
Sworcery is the game's strongest achievement and remains as distinctive as
ever, helped by the increased resolution and sound provided by the home
computer. </div>
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<a href="http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q481/jobojobe/sword-sworcery-forest-640-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q481/jobojobe/sword-sworcery-forest-640-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="line-height: 150%;">
The game's narrative, while it follows many of the
tropes of the fantasy adventure genre, presents itself as purposely nonsensical
and as a result isn't particularly engaging on a narrative level. The script
can be very fun however and even manages to develop a sense of mystery despite
its insistence on obligatory, self-referential jibes. The game's characters are
also enjoyable to interact with thanks to the mechanic of the Megatome, a book
which details the game characters' thoughts in a slyly familiar fashion (okay,
its like Twitter). Designed to reflect the iPhone's primary purpose as a
communication device, this works perfectly well on PC and it still feels
genuinely fresh and original a year later.</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
Unfortunately this feeling of originality doesn't
quite hold up in gameplay. As mentioned above the original iOS release played
with the mobile device's unique capabilities and the move to the more familiar
interface of the PC does feel like a step back. In traditional adventure game
form the player uses the mouse to move their character about and interact with
the world. This very familiar set up is then broken up by bouts of combat and puzzle
solving – that is, Sword and S(w)orcery. Both these mechanics are functional
but its hard not to feel the gaping lack of touch control. The puzzles were
great fun when they required the player to explore the world with their fingers
but when reduced to clicking a cursor any sense of tangible exploration is
lost. Unfortunately these puzzles (as is also the case with combat) are too
simple to really carry themselves without the uniqueness of the iOS interface
and as a result the overall gameplay can feel a little weak. </div>
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
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<div style="line-height: 150%;">
As a visual, auditory adventure Sword &
Sworcery remains unique and at times breathtakingly beautiful. Unfortunately
the gameplay isn't quite as inspiring and does suffer from the change of
interface. That said, the game is cheap and while it may be short it is
something everyone should witness. If you don't have an iPhone then this
essentially gives you a chance to see and hear this charming and imaginative
game. </div>Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-25246372942765100452012-05-30T15:42:00.001+01:002012-06-07T00:26:11.358+01:00Getting to Grips With the Games of Dr. Foddy<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHHqgUcYY6J6_uwPYFN3RigNnncZAOwNODWmoCG9GabrJTLicCCaFeU4Iw23E2dU7qRe-0mQ8sC4h_X3_InQqZLaUcslDEU874D7Kk2uh5fZ1ks6AGGbGK5T2qd-BXheT39ccPoF7u-Gh/s1600/GIRP+walkthrough.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHHqgUcYY6J6_uwPYFN3RigNnncZAOwNODWmoCG9GabrJTLicCCaFeU4Iw23E2dU7qRe-0mQ8sC4h_X3_InQqZLaUcslDEU874D7Kk2uh5fZ1ks6AGGbGK5T2qd-BXheT39ccPoF7u-Gh/s400/GIRP+walkthrough.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I first heard of Bennett Foddy's game <i>QWOP</i> via a 'demotivational' poster posted on one of the many meme
sites I incessantly stared at while writing my dissertation last summer. The
image displayed a picture of Modor with a strangely primitive rendition of a
man falling backwards in a running position; the lower text read 'One does not
simply QWOP into Modor'. After chuckling in a confused and self-conscious way I
quickly typed the word 'QWOP' into Google, hoping for a simple answer to my
apparent internet illiteracy. I then spent the rest of the day struggling to
play <i>QWOP</i>, a game in which the player
has the apparently difficult task of making a man run 100 metres. </div>
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In many ways <i>QWOP</i> is
simply a funny game in which the basic faculty of running - possibly the most
popular and simple modes of transport either in life or represented in computer
games - becomes a task of immense difficulty. The ridiculousness of the actions
on the part of the game's runner as the player tries to negotiate the utterly <i>different</i> controls generally results in either
fits of hilarity or bewildered frustration, or both. Whereas pressing a
directional arrow had sufficed throughout gaming's history, <i>QWOP </i>forces the player to reacquaint
themselves with the human body as a means of propulsion. The Q and W keys are
assigned to the character's thighs while O and P are the calf muscles. Pressing
these keys causes the character to move each muscle and, hopefully, the body
forwards. Whether this occurs in stiff spasmodic jolts or smooth strides is
really down to the player's familiarity with the control scheme and seeing as
it's a scheme which belies all our collective knowledge of 'how games
work' it generally requires a great deal
of practice. <br />
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But with practice comes achievement, however slight, and
thus a sense of satisfaction. If recent games such as <i>Dark Souls </i>have had us all wetting ourselves at the fact that a
game could satisfy through hard work, then <i>QWOP
</i>already had this principle down to its most rudimentary yet enjoyable core.
Moving a character fifteen metres without falling over was, for me, quite an
achievement - and it took a good full day of playing to get even that! When I
achieved this I instantly messaged a friend, only for him to proclaim a high
score of twenty five metres. I spent the rest of the evening trying in vain to
best him. <i>QWOP </i>made running fun and
very challenging. I love Foddy's blurb for the game - which perfectly sums it
up: </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt; line-height: 115%; text-transform: uppercase;">QWOP IS A GAME WHERE YOU DO NOT HAVE SUPERPOWERS, AND YOU DO
NOT GET TO LIVE OUT YOUR FANTASY, BUT INSTEAD YOU NEED TO REGAIN SOMETHING MANY
OF US TAKE FOR GRANTED: THE ABILITY TO WALK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt; line-height: 115%; text-transform: uppercase;"><br /></span></div>
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The game cleverly turns the most familiar and rudimentary of
computer game interactions into a satisfying and incredibly challenging game of
itself, requiring the player to come to terms with an entirely new method of
interaction between keys and on screen action. </div>
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Similarly Foddy's later game <i>GIRP </i>forces the player to reassess player/game interaction with
another very different and challenging control scheme. <i>GIRP </i>puts the player in control of a rock climber who has to scale
a cliff before the sea rises to engulf him. It's a more dramatic setting than <i>QWOP</i>'s challenged athlete and the controls reflect this. The player
is initially confronted with a wall of hoops with which to grip onto and
presumably climb with. Each grip also comes with a letter, by pressing the
letter on the keyboard the game character reaches towards said grip and, if
it's in reach, hangs on until the player lets go of the key. While this may
seem easy enough I was surprised by how tough, both mentally and physically,
this game was.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6mXf5r1wPsMUQvOXCMi0CQxwer2_HhI2JuvGl5bUxgiIOIAlI2-viQ7_kZfFse4iqDGUwnf0e7aZNaNORF2T2llK0PjAfj3wW6w6DHHpOqm61QScNntiFIH7ln_3rWSUMrinp1VLaV2Kc/s1600/qwopw.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6mXf5r1wPsMUQvOXCMi0CQxwer2_HhI2JuvGl5bUxgiIOIAlI2-viQ7_kZfFse4iqDGUwnf0e7aZNaNORF2T2llK0PjAfj3wW6w6DHHpOqm61QScNntiFIH7ln_3rWSUMrinp1VLaV2Kc/s400/qwopw.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One does not simply QWOP 78 metres</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The game manages to produce a new relationship between the
player and the keyboard. I found that to get anywhere I had to spend a lot of
time looking at the keyboard to work out where to press next and to make sure I
didn't inadvertently let the crucial key slip from my grasp. I found it
surprising how often I'd let go of a key without really thinking about it, so
that each time I became more and more focused on which finger was holding down each
key. It felt like I was building a new form of hand-button co-ordination which
I'd never experienced in a game before. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Foddy's other line of work, his day job perhaps, is with the
Programme on Ethics of the New Biosciences at Oxford University. His work
there, which seems to be based on addiction and sport, possibly goes some way
to explain the success of his games. Because, at their core, these games are
addictive. In an interview with <i>Kill
Screen</i> he said: </div>
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<i><span style="background-color: white;">the tricky
thing about games as an art form, compared to other forms of art forms, is
you're giving someone a task and presenting it as a predicament. And that means
they're going to have to expend a certain amount of effort to do it at all</span>.
<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">What appears great about Foddy's games and their addictive
and challenging nature is that this comes from a different place to normal
computer game 'tasks'. Instead of getting the player to solve a time-based or
spatial awareness puzzle, both <i>QWOP </i>and
<i>GIRP </i>require a unique player-button
puzzle to be solved. This isn't just about pressing the button at the right
time, this is pressing the <i>right </i>button
- which can be harder than it sounds when the button is assigned to something
it's never been assigned to before. The challenge in Foddy's games is more
obviously situated in the relationship between the player and the keyboard; by
making the controls incongruous to usual layouts the games turns the 'predicament'
into the control scheme itself and the payoff, the achievement, is getting to
see the correct resultant interaction. Getting the <i>QWOP</i> man running, or even striding, in a remotely naturalistic way
is beautiful - it makes you feel like your skilled, a master! You have earned
control. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
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All games on: <a href="http://www.foddy.net/">http://www.foddy.net/</a> </div>Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6474902539826987239.post-29790118151301804432012-05-18T22:55:00.000+01:002012-06-07T00:26:22.010+01:00Game of the Week: Time Gentlemen, Please!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihbBoSCHS9cEQFaWta4vrh8izE5Aoz2cnPXpVe-xojjpC6pl8U6d2h9Lkr5GgdFkuxHqV9CxTYHe7Raoee6HTb9BXrCYqI_t5MnGNeh4BUsL2XejzL7U836DVe7VwVmzJp_musxLiBK-51/s1600/time4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihbBoSCHS9cEQFaWta4vrh8izE5Aoz2cnPXpVe-xojjpC6pl8U6d2h9Lkr5GgdFkuxHqV9CxTYHe7Raoee6HTb9BXrCYqI_t5MnGNeh4BUsL2XejzL7U836DVe7VwVmzJp_musxLiBK-51/s640/time4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The history of comical pastiche is one of varying success. <i>Family Guy</i>'s parody of <i>Star Wars</i> succeed only in being the most
turgidly boring thing ever created by human minds while films such as <i>The Princess Bride </i>and <i>Chinatown </i>showed that, done properly and
with some intelligence, pastiche can be
as good as those which they lampoon and pay tribute. <i>Spaceballs </i>fits somewhere in the middle I guess. </div>
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</div>
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This week's game, <i>Time
Gentlemen, Please!</i>, developed by Size Five (formally Zombie Cow) Games, who
were responsible for <i>Time Gentlemen's</i>
freeware predecessor <i>Ben There, Dan That</i>,
possibly sits a bit higher than <i>Spaceballs</i>
on the scale of <i>Family Guy </i>(-20) to <i>Chinatown</i> (+ 2,000). Despite what I just
wrote please don't be put off by my comparison to <i>Spaceballs</i> (the scale means nothing!), <i>Time Gentlemen</i> is a genuinely funny game which pays great homage to
the classics of the point-and-click genre while also being a clever and
deserving example of it.</div>
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Being what it is, the game takes a lot of the staple game
mechanics of the point-and-click and uses them for its own gameplay. The player is given
various actions, such as walk, talk, pickup, and an inventory in which items
can be stowed. All the game's puzzles are solved by using specific items with
the game world or by combining items in the inventory to resolve puzzling
situations. It may sound a little dry, especially when written in such an awkward
manner, but what these games so often succeeded in doing was to make these simple mechanics both exceptionally funny and rigorously challenging.
Notoriously point-and-click games partially devolved into using often absurd
and obscure puzzles - leaving the player, in frustrated bafflement, trying all
objects with any possible pixel on the screen. Yet despite this genuine problem
with the genre (especially in its later phases) many players still hail these games as some of the best ever
made.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJS3X8iympgcXlnfZbfAzVv3JyqRW9ioUz5TDsuuzWvBFWfBLr6zbk3z3qPDbAoywoQ0jEr73Q69tkGmGczVqADl_XCTmlU1s8S7vGuRetkgknOTDk7akB_7CmK4tRaNvb9YxQglhYZfy/s1600/2012-05-03_00002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJS3X8iympgcXlnfZbfAzVv3JyqRW9ioUz5TDsuuzWvBFWfBLr6zbk3z3qPDbAoywoQ0jEr73Q69tkGmGczVqADl_XCTmlU1s8S7vGuRetkgknOTDk7akB_7CmK4tRaNvb9YxQglhYZfy/s400/2012-05-03_00002.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Time Gentlemen </i>manages
to deal with these problems a little bit while still not giving in to the
crushing peer pressure of accessibility. The game begins straight after the
events of <i>Ben There, Dan That</i> with
our two protagonists, the game's writers and designer Dan Marshall and Ben
Ward, ruling over an altered England whose population believe Ben and Dan to be
their leaders. Due to the two's negligence the population soon starves to death
leaving Ben and Dan to travel back in time in an attempt to undo the events of
the previous game. At any rate, the Ben and Dan find themselves imprisoned by
Nazi Dinosaurs and the player is then given full reign to puzzle the two out of
this mess of a story.</div>
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While the story and the game's script are
ingeniously/moronically funny (I should mention that in terms of language this
game isn't so much for kids) the game also succeeds in terms of puzzle quality
too. Dan Marshall's recent blog post addressed to Tim Schafer actually kind of
picks up on how <i>Time Gentlemen</i> irons
out the sometimes frustrating aspects of earlier entries in the genre. For
instance puzzles are sometimes sign posted by dialogue from the characters
which gives the player subtle clues (subtler, that is, compared to the
too-tempting-to-not-use hint system in the Special Edition <i>Monkey Island </i>games). There is also the inclusion of a game map so
that travelling from one puzzle-solving destination to the next is easier and
doesn't require the player to spend five minutes walking left (as Marshall so
eloquently puts it "walking around is for idiots"). </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmbRFMcRvyuUBsomL-RBxCVgKyYG8tMRM7LaoUEyWnGbl8bi5mY_TDYFjBkHdhBfiFYePyQhBTtPQA3QbHvcpHCDBjWzmlxVV1cHfRXeTT9xVWYw1pcExr1f2IxmTJf0joi5JYivSWuGI7/s1600/550w_gaming_time_gentlemen_please_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmbRFMcRvyuUBsomL-RBxCVgKyYG8tMRM7LaoUEyWnGbl8bi5mY_TDYFjBkHdhBfiFYePyQhBTtPQA3QbHvcpHCDBjWzmlxVV1cHfRXeTT9xVWYw1pcExr1f2IxmTJf0joi5JYivSWuGI7/s400/550w_gaming_time_gentlemen_please_1.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clever <i>Secret of Monkey Island </i>reference inbound</td></tr>
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<o:p> </o:p>This modern, high-speed, stream-lined, gloriously new
accessibility doesn't impede on the puzzles' quality and as such the game
side-steps feeling either dated or 'dumbed down'. My favourite puzzle mechanic
is the time machine - invented by a cross dressing robot - which allows the
player to age objects in order to solve several puzzles. It's an idea
which fits into the genre remarkably
well yet also feels fresh and free from restricting nostalgia. And I think this
is really where <i>Time Gentlemen </i>succeeds.
It's a homage to a genre past its heyday but it remains authentically fresh and
enjoyable. This isn't a rolling list of in-jokes and tired references (though
there are those too), but rather a (marginally) respectful homage which builds
on the point-and-click while keeping all those things which make the genre so
worth recalling. </div>Joe Byron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01929749296999221601noreply@blogger.com0