My Gaming Week - 1-7 Jan 2010

Hey! Dipped in and out of a few games this week – nothing grabbed me for more than a few hours. It’s the new year, and I’m hovering at the moment, waiting to swoop in for the kill when a game really grabs me .

The MAG (Massive Action Game) beta, currently in progress on Playstation 3, gives us the chance to experience exactly how revolutionary it feels to play a multiplayer shooter on a 64-player map. Let’s pretend for a moment this wasn’t possible a decade ago on PCs. Let’s pretend we haven’t played an MMO where thousands can interact daily. No real surprises here – the game plays like a direct port of Battlefield 2 (2005), and it scratches the same itch that surely every gamer has had recently scratched by Modern Warfare 2 (2009). Apparently at higher levels it allows 256 players in the same map at once, but I fail to see how this will really make any difference. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun, but I won’t be paying for the privilege when the full game launches – indeed I’m not sure I would play the game if it was free.

A much more appealing experience with Punch-Out (2009) on the Wii, a game that got great reviews in mid-2009 but I notice is conspicuously absent from most GOTY lists. The reason probably is that it is so slavish to the gameplay of the Punch-Out games in the 80s that it actually fails to carve out its own space in the gaming zeitgeist. Great fun for an hour or two simply because of the nicely animated and genuinely funny characters – I fail to see how anybody could fail to enjoy it, but at the same time it’s hard to imagine how anybody could love it either.

A quick romp through the Dante’s Inferno demo (pictured), which has been cruelly dismissed as a God Of War clone, when in fact it’s a very servicable Bayonetta clone instead . The fidelity on some of the cut-scenes here is absolutely astonishing, and the gameplay is lively hack and slash fun. I’m a big fan of developer Visceral’s recent games – there’s a hint of genuine artistic ambition to their stuff, here indicated by their apparent slavish deference to the source material. I’m just not sure that putting ‘The Game of the book by Danta Alighieri’ is going to have the queues forming around the block. And the game is too generic and senseless to have any genuine high-brow potential. A weird mix.

No such problems with Army Of Two: The 40th Day – the demo for this is not only extensive, but absolutely riveting, played out during a missile attack destroying a whole city around you. It’s co-op Gears Of War with our old friend Nolan North and a bunch of interesting twists on third-person gameplay. The idea is to promote ideas like taking hostages, tieing up people instead of killing them, drawing fire while the other player flanks, and sticking some moral choices into the mix as well. It looks like a total mash-up, but one with lots of little details that appeal. I’m officially ‘bored of shooters’ but I’m very impressed with this regardless.

On a completely different level to these efforts is Indigo Prophecy AKA Fahrenheit (2005), which I bought in the Steam sale in order to get an idea of what David Cage made before Heavy Rain (coming out on the PS3 in the Spring). Despite a story it is impossible not to be indifferent to, this adventure game is absolutely slavish to its idea of ‘the game as movie’ and is a totally singular experience because of it. It’s a game I would love to pull apart just to see how the interactive movie was mapped out. There’s a slight feeling that there was a more interesting story to be found here if only you’d done that thing differently 45 minutes ago. It makes me excited to see Heavy Rain, not for the bog-standard B-movie script, but for the development of this feeling of being in the moment and making genuine choices.

 
I think I’m years late in being drawn into the tower defence game. but a stint on Crystal Defenders (2009) on the PS3 over Christmas had me completely hooked – it’s not much good as a game but I decided to go for the hardest gold trophy or bust and it game me a real Christmas challenge. But this week I finally caught up with Fieldrunners (2008) on the Iphone and it’s had me sketching layout designs on paper for my towers, and it feels like a geometric maths problem as much as just a hypnotic one-more-go experience. I love games that appeal to the intellect as well as the senses, and I expect to sink countless more hours into the game.

A leftfield pick on Brainy Gamer’s Games Of 2009 confab had me trying out Saira, which is a delightful PC indie platformer that has a friendly semi-amateur look to it, but seems to play out over a much larger and more involved story than these explorathons usually contain. It elevates would could be an utterly forgettable little game into something more with little puzzles, fragments of story, and a small sense of freedom with interplanetary travel. I’m pondering the full purchase.

And I also dipped into Cryostasis, a 2009 GOTY pick on PC from Dave Snider, and I am thoroughly impressed so far. It has a totally vivid, blurry, expressive visual style which I am sure would put off the usual texture-quality-whore shooter crowd. It also has a slow pace and scores highly on atmosphere – that’s another huge group of gamers switching off. It plays a bit like an art-house version of Condemned so far, with similar melee fighting and horror movie scares. I love the idea that you replay the final moments of the dead bodies you encounter in order to save their lives. I like games that play like a one-off experience, and this is definitely one of those.

Next week I’m intending to plough through Assassin’s Creed 2 (my next rental). I’m expecting to hate The Saboteur. I’m going to finish Indigo Prophecy and Cryostasis. I’m going to replay BioShock to play along with the Vintage Game Club.
 
Cheers and best wishes.

Hey! Dipped in and out of a few games this week – nothing grabbed me for more than a few hours. It’s the new year, and I’m hovering at the moment, waiting to swoop in for the kill when a game really grabs me .

The MAG (Massive Action Game) beta, currently in progress on Playstation 3, gives us the chance to experience exactly how revolutionary it feels to play a multiplayer shooter on a 64-player map. Let’s pretend for a moment this wasn’t possible a decade ago on PCs. Let’s pretend we haven’t played an MMO where thousands can interact daily. No real surprises here – the game plays like a direct port of Battlefield 2 (2005), and it scratches the same itch that surely every gamer has had recently scratched by Modern Warfare 2 (2009). Apparently at higher levels it allows 256 players in the same map at once, but I fail to see how this will really make any difference. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun, but I won’t be paying for the privilege when the full game launches – indeed I’m not sure I would play the game if it was free.

A much more appealing experience with Punch-Out (2009) on the Wii, a game that got great reviews in mid-2009 but I notice is conspicuously absent from most GOTY lists. The reason probably is that it is so slavish to the gameplay of the Punch-Out games in the 80s that it actually fails to carve out its own space in the gaming zeitgeist. Great fun for an hour or two simply because of the nicely animated and genuinely funny characters – I fail to see how anybody could fail to enjoy it, but at the same time it’s hard to imagine how anybody could love it either.

A quick romp through the Dante’s Inferno demo (pictured), which has been cruelly dismissed as a God Of War clone, when in fact it’s a very servicable Bayonetta clone instead . The fidelity on some of the cut-scenes here is absolutely astonishing, and the gameplay is lively hack and slash fun. I’m a big fan of developer Visceral’s recent games – there’s a hint of genuine artistic ambition to their stuff, here indicated by their apparent slavish deference to the source material. I’m just not sure that putting ‘The Game of the book by Danta Alighieri’ is going to have the queues forming around the block. And the game is too generic and senseless to have any genuine high-brow potential. A weird mix.

No such problems with Army Of Two: The 40th Day – the demo for this is not only extensive, but absolutely riveting, played out during a missile attack destroying a whole city around you. It’s co-op Gears Of War with our old friend Nolan North and a bunch of interesting twists on third-person gameplay. The idea is to promote ideas like taking hostages, tieing up people instead of killing them, drawing fire while the other player flanks, and sticking some moral choices into the mix as well. It looks like a total mash-up, but one with lots of little details that appeal. I’m officially ‘bored of shooters’ but I’m very impressed with this regardless.

On a completely different level to these efforts is Indigo Prophecy AKA Fahrenheit (2005), which I bought in the Steam sale in order to get an idea of what David Cage made before Heavy Rain (coming out on the PS3 in the Spring). Despite a story it is impossible not to be indifferent to, this adventure game is absolutely slavish to its idea of ‘the game as movie’ and is a totally singular experience because of it. It’s a game I would love to pull apart just to see how the interactive movie was mapped out. There’s a slight feeling that there was a more interesting story to be found here if only you’d done that thing differently 45 minutes ago. It makes me excited to see Heavy Rain, not for the bog-standard B-movie script, but for the development of this feeling of being in the moment and making genuine choices.

 
I think I’m years late in being drawn into the tower defence game. but a stint on Crystal Defenders (2009) on the PS3 over Christmas had me completely hooked – it’s not much good as a game but I decided to go for the hardest gold trophy or bust and it game me a real Christmas challenge. But this week I finally caught up with Fieldrunners (2008) on the Iphone and it’s had me sketching layout designs on paper for my towers, and it feels like a geometric maths problem as much as just a hypnotic one-more-go experience. I love games that appeal to the intellect as well as the senses, and I expect to sink countless more hours into the game.

A leftfield pick on Brainy Gamer’s Games Of 2009 confab had me trying out Saira, which is a delightful PC indie platformer that has a friendly semi-amateur look to it, but seems to play out over a much larger and more involved story than these explorathons usually contain. It elevates would could be an utterly forgettable little game into something more with little puzzles, fragments of story, and a small sense of freedom with interplanetary travel. I’m pondering the full purchase.

And I also dipped into Cryostasis, a 2009 GOTY pick on PC from Dave Snider, and I am thoroughly impressed so far. It has a totally vivid, blurry, expressive visual style which I am sure would put off the usual texture-quality-whore shooter crowd. It also has a slow pace and scores highly on atmosphere – that’s another huge group of gamers switching off. It plays a bit like an art-house version of Condemned so far, with similar melee fighting and horror movie scares. I love the idea that you replay the final moments of the dead bodies you encounter in order to save their lives. I like games that play like a one-off experience, and this is definitely one of those.

Next week I’m intending to plough through Assassin’s Creed 2 (my next rental). I’m expecting to hate The Saboteur. I’m going to finish Indigo Prophecy and Cryostasis. I’m going to replay BioShock to play along with the Vintage Game Club.
 
Cheers and best wishes.