#378 Half-Life

Posted: 30th January 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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5

119th played so far

Genre: First Person Shooter
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 1998
Developer: Valve
Publisher: Sierra Entertainment

 Oh, Half-Life, how happy I am to see you again. Imagine me, over a decade ago, seeing this game played over at my cousin’s place, and having some tries. Amazed at the graphics. Marvelling at the options. It was brilliant. Two years later, having some disposable income, I got the Half-Life Generation box, containing this game and a few more – the one we’re now using to play this. Happiness all together. Then I got other games and this game ended up on the ‘need to play further’ list.

And now there’s the blog. And this ended up on there – of course it is, Half-Life is, as we’ll see down the line, a classic that features so much. But at the same time… does that magnificent introduction still live up? Do the NPCs still seem as alive? Are those corridors still as long as they always were?

Our Thoughts

While I’d be hard pressed to call Half-Life the granddaddy of FPS games – games like Doom and Quake got there far earlier, and Half-Life clearly owes a debt to them – it’s hard to not look at this game and see how it comes back to influence many different games. It’s like Grand Theft Auto 3 – not the first sandbox game, but it changed the landscape forever. It’s not the grandfather of the modern FPS, but it’s certainly the milkman the child resembles more than the official heritage.  Whilst the image of computer games going into town on each other is one that will undoubtedly shape tonight’s nightmares it is a fairly apt description. In ecology we talk about ‘cornerstone species’ without which the entire ecosystem would collapse. In a similar fashion it is doubtful that we would be playing the games we do now if it was not for Half Life. The ripples of it’s influence can be seen in games such as Fallout 3 and arguabley the Halo franchise

After you’ve played the Hazard Course – the in-character (though not in-game) tutorial that I understand we might reference when Portal comes around – the game itself starts with what must be an iconic monorail/train/tram ride that actually reminded us of the similar setting we saw in Far Cry 2 a while ago. It is done far better here than in Far Cry 2, here it was a showcase with meaningful information… in the other game it was just annoying. This, at the time, was purely to show off the graphics, as well as the impressive (though at this point on rails) scripting.

Although you actually get to move later, part of this continues – your first ten minutes consist of you moving around your part of the complex, interacting with people and making your way to the experiment chamber.

After the happenings there, the game takes off. You jump around, kill aliens and find your way through the complex to figure out the plot and prevent the alien invasion. The amazing thing here is that there’s no real cutscenes to tell you this, no text screens, voice overs or dialogs. All of this can be learned from the comments made by characters you meet on the way and learn from. There are some impressive feats of scripting here. It is also a good point to mention the man of the hour himself theoretical physicist Dr. Gordon Freeman; proof positive that geeks can kick ass with a crowbar.

The graphics of the game are of its time. Dated – good at the time, but the amount of time put into showing off seems over the top at this point. Character animation is off, with the faces looking scary rather than pleasant (especially when they mouth out the beeps when they use the keypad), as if there had earlier been an invasion of zombies who took over all the staff in the complex.

Aside from that though, the game stays fun. Challenging, with a lot of reliance on you finding your own way, but fun to try to find your way around.

Final Thoughts

This game has been done later, and better. But it’s clearly a game that influenced many games after it, and it arguably did a lot of things better than they did afterwards.  In the end, even though it’s not always an impressive game any longer, it is still a very good game.

#871 Wipeout HD

Posted: 26th January 2012 by Mulholland in Games
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1

118th played so far

Genre: Racing
Platform: Playstation 3
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: SCE Studio Liverpool
Publisher: SCEE

Remember when PSN broke down and people had their credit card numbers stolen? Good times, good times… anyway. As a holder of a PSN account so that I could register trophies on a former housemates PS3 I was eligable for the Welcome Back pack when I actually bought my Playstation 3 all those months ago.

Usually I am not one for downloading games from online stores (unless we are talking about Humble Indie Bundles) but seeing that they were up for grabs for free I figured why not. Since I already had bought Infamous and LittleBigPlanet I settled on getting this and the Ratchet and Clank game episode that was on offer.

Our Thoughts

Now I have always been a fan of the futuristic racing genre and growing up was far more of a Wipeout kid rather than an F-Zero one (despite my soft spot for F-Zero GX) so I did wonder how an HD release of this would build upon the games I remember renting from Blockbusters all those years ago. For me, any release since Wipeout 2097 would be an improvement on what I’ve seen of this series.

I know that this is liable to be proven wrong by comments but there are few successful racing franchises that make use of weapons. There is a reason for this seeing that most racing series, such as Burnout and Gran Turismo, strive to reach some element of realism unlike weapons-based racers like Mario Kart and the often overlooked Crash Team Racing. The Wipeout series, being set between 30-150 years in the future has none of these limitations. Granted there appears to be little chance, based on current scientific progress, of there being hover racing by the 2040s but SCEE have dreams and I respect that. In that sense the setting for this game plays a huge part. Sure, racing is racing, no matter where you go, but the futuristic hover-cars, gravity-defying tracks and weird environments makes the use of weapons somehow more credible than a straightforward Formula One based game. Even if in the future, weapons are actually less likely to be allowed, not more… although I suppose we have better safety options at that time than we do now, with remote racing and… yeah, it’s like a video game. But I digress…

Anyway, there is a lot to recommend this as a racer. I would have to say that the multi-player lacks a little polish compared to the Campaign mode but I think we really have been spoilt by Mario Kart games in that respect. The multi-player consists of simple, straight-forward races, which iis actually only one of a few racing options of the Campaign mode, but (thanks to split screen) with less information available to you as a player, meaning it feels a lot harder to respond during the fast racing the game gives you – you need every second you need to get there on time. The split screen makes that harder.

One thing that needs to lauded is the graphics. The makers of the game were not playing around when they inserted HD into the title since the results are outstanding. Lookswise this really now seems to be the game that F-Zero always aimed to be but were always constricted by the technical specifications by Nintendo. Being a Sony game there is little compromise made here in terms of how well this plays on the console. The loading times are nearly non-existent, the music is crisp and suitably futuristic and it just looks beautiful. One thing to note here in particular are the tracks. They create true vistas, with cities stretching into the distances and many flashing futuristic seeming billboards. It’s stuff that, yes, we have seen before, but it plays so amazingly well, it’s just brilliant.

There is one main issue with this game, and that falls into the same problem-hole as Twin Snakes, is that this is effectively the culmination of two games worth of mateiral. The soundtrack, tracks and vehicles have basically been lifted from the PSP games Wipeout Pure and Wipeout Pulse. This is not too much of a problem for us seeing how this is just so well polished and accomplished but I can see how this would provide a headache for Wipeout fans.

Final Thoughts

Okay, so we once again played a game out of order but really who cares.

It is so often the case where a game is style over substance but this is really not the case. To be honest the earlier Wipeout games may now suffer in comparison but that’s a problem for future blog.

#864 Saints Row 2

Posted: 22nd January 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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6

117th played so far

Genre: Adventure/Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: PC/PS3/Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: Volition, Inc.
Publisher: THQ

Right, although this is really Peter’s pick for a game, I’m writing the intro. Now that means I don’t know as much of the game as he would, beyond what I’ve seen while playing. The problem is that, well, Peter’s already addicted. More in that in the proper writeup, obviously.

Saints Row 2 is another sandbox game. This time you’re a gangster who just escaped from jail. I know you’re all shouting GTA now, but bear with us a bit longer.

You see, there’s a few things that set this apart. Mostly it’s the lack of realism – you’ll be throwing stop signs further than humanly possible, and survive impossible falls. Second is what feels like a sense of fun and chaos – possibly best explained by a side quest that takes you on a ride on a septic tank as you lower the property values in several neighbourhoods.

Our Thoughts

Okay, I am addicted. This blog doesn’t always lead to games that peak my interest. In fact there are games on the horizon that make me groan at the very prospect. Then there are the games that have been in my ‘itching to play’ pile such as future 1001 games BlazBlue Calamity Trigger and this game which I got when I bought my PS3 and been wanting to test drive ever since. This is not helped, I think, by last night – we had a quick look through our box of games we own and have coming up, with some appropriate sorting, leading to some pleasant discussion on what we’d want to play next… Don’t worry, most games we agreed on.

We recently tackled another open world game in the form of Far Cry 2 and where that excelled in its realism this one delights in being delightfully immature. I would be lying if I did not say that if it was not for Grand Theft Auto games Vice City and San Andreas since it owes a tremendous of amount of it’s gameplay to these giants. In fact there are some improvements that Saints Row 2 has made such as mini-games related to tagging and that awkward moment when you hijack a car and there is someone left in the passenger seat… it happens to the best of us.

It’s worth emphasizing this immaturity. It’s a good thing here, as (as is referenced in our book) it makes an actually quite harsh world far easier to deal with. I’m not sure I would have felt as comfortable with the violence and so on without that slight wink.

The key to creating a great sandbox game is having a world that is big and varied enough to explore. This is a challenge when it is in a distinctly urban setting so there needs to be plenty of side-quests, unlockable and diversions to make the exploration worth while… and in my time playing this for the blog I barely played any of the missions because I was so easily distracted by carnage, mayham and an erotic minigame involving the analog sticks (I felt mildly soiled after playing that game).

Another nice part here is the large amount of customization available. The character’s looks are more customizable than I have seen in so many other games and the options to change your clothing and hideout make the options infinitely more interesting. It’s impressive and I’m already looking forward to spending a lot of time playing with it.

One issue I have with the game are the somewhat lackluster graphics. I am told that a big reason for this is that the game should look cartoony… but when I compare the game to Far Cry 2, which came out in the same year, they really just look bad. Style or not, it feels like a little bit more could have been done with them and felt a bit worse after playing that game.

One problem with this game though is GTA IV… and the fact that no matter how great Saints Row 2 does things it still pales in comparison in every single way. Graphics, Sound, Script and Controls are all sad casualties of the phenomenon of a game that raises a genre’s bar so much higher. In a way it’s like how I felt about Prototype after playing inFamous. Okay this is really downplaying how much I loved the game because it is a whole lot. It is unfair to compare games to those that rank amongst your all time favourites (probably why no sports game has ever thrilled me the way SSX Tricky did) but when they base themselves so much on  franchise it would be bad reviewing not to make the comparison.

Final Thoughts

Another open world game, another reason that we should have covered Body Harvest by now… I really need to dig out the N64 and get onto eBay.

#947 One-Dot Enemies

Posted: 18th January 2012 by Mulholland in Games
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3

116th played so far

Genre: Action
Platform: iPhone
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Kenji Eno
Publisher: Studio-Kura

Today is going to be a bit of a short one since, with the exception of Little Computer People, this has very little for us to cover.

Sorry if this seems lazy but… here’s One-Dot Enemies.

Our Thoughts

Look, we had to cover it one day, we had to do an iPhone game, and to be honest, we were bored and playing around, so here’s One-Dot Enemies.

What’s it about? You’ve got a white screen (minus any dirt on your iPhone’s screen… it can be a bugger to clean sometimes). Dots move around on it, almost like bugs. There’s the occasional powerup that creates more dots. When you touch a dot, it explodes in a small colourful skull. That’s all you do. Oh, and you can flush them afterwards.

And you know what? It’s fun. It’s nothing big. It’s not something to keep playing a lot. But I am sadistic enough to enjoy squashing of what feels like small annoying pesty bugs. And the sound effects and responses you get are just about big enough to be fun – just about enough to be worth it, especially when you manage a nice combination.

I have nothing to add to this… please do not look at the man behind the curtain an’ all that.

Final Thoughts

Yeah, it’s a simple game. But it’s good enough to keep this simple soul entertained for ten minutes. Sometimes that’s all you need.

#834 Far Cry 2

Posted: 14th January 2012 by Mulholland in Games
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2

115th played so far

Genre: First Person Shooter
Platform: PC, Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft

Remember when we played a lot of shooting games in a row and then suddenly it all went quiet for a month on that front? Well the shooter is back and it is in the form of Far Cry 2.

Normally we would try to play games in chronological order (at my insistence because it’s the only way we can watch a franchise develop) but since this is a borrowed game there is a bit of a ticking clock in terms of how long we have to play it. Also, in a strange turn of events Far Cry and Far Cry 2 were made by completely different developers… who knew.

Our Thoughts

Some games are very difficult to describe, others are known so well everyone already knows what we’re talking about… and then there’s a game like this, where we mention two names, link them, and assume you all have a good idea of what we’re talking about. So here goes…

Far Cry 2 is a combination of the later Grand Theft Auto games and Metal Gear Solid 3. In a way, it feels like GTA 3  or later in a jungle setting, where you need to work as much on surviving in the environment.  In some ways I can see where you are coming from but it doesn’t really take into account the amazing freedom that you feel in this game. Apart from with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas… I cannot wait to play that again.

The story itself is interesting as well, in that it features some branching and, aside from this being an open world game, the story allows you to side with either of the two warring factions in your quest to find and kill the Jackal, the weapon merchant who seemed to have started the mess. Some of this branching isn’t even voluntary – the place in town where you end up fainting when playing through one of the first areas determines the first batch of quests you have to play.

Since I was the main player of this game it falls to me to talk about gameplay but to be honest I want to wax lyrical about the sheer freedom I felt when playing this game. After i got through the lengthy tutorial section I boarded a random bus and went to some far flung corner of the map and this world feels absolutely massive. Honestly it is the first time since GTA:SA where I felt that I could just climb into a car and drive and drive and drive for ages and I would still be exploring new territory. Well I would have it is wasn’t for the regular guard checkpoints and enemy vehicles that kept running me off the road.

The gameplay itself works well but I am not completely won over on the gun controls, also I would like to personally hurt the makers of Bioshock since they made it acceptable to use injections in the wrist in a game. I am not squeamish personally, I mean as a teacher I have to dissect body parts, but it was not the most pleasant way to heal… and do not get me started on having to press a button to bring up a GPS… it would have been far more user friendly to have the normal map in the corner. Still, this game had some great ideas for driving controls.

The game itself looks wonderful as well, as I suppose we can expect from a 2008 game. There are a lot of different environments with very little seemingly repeating. You can wander through far deserts or make your way through dense jungles, eventually finding a gorgeous waterfall into a lake. I wouldn’t use the word life-like – it’s not that close – but it certainly looks lovely.

One of the things that’s missing from the illusion, though, is wildlife. There are humans around, of course, with their settlements, and plenty of lovely different plants (a lot of them destructible, thanks to your machete), but despite the distant bird calls, you never see them moving around. No snakes sliding through the bushes, no furry things darting away, not even a bird high in the sky where you can’t reach it. This makes the world seem rather empty and static, while the game plays like it shouldn’t be. What makes the absence of wildlife all the more noticeable is that when you arrive into town you pass some people who are walking along with their farm animals. This did make me wonder whether this game would take a leaf out of the Destroy All Humans handbook and allow for some light cattle-mutilation or at least hitch a ride on a marauding giraffe… but no… something for the sequel set in *looks up* Antarctica… so if there are killable penguins I predict an angry phone call from the RSPB.

Even more of a reason this lack is annoying is that I wonder what they could have done with the AI. The AI for humans is very good – it’s clear we’ve taken some great steps forward here, with the characters responding to your actions, seeking you out, or ducking away. We found some scared in the corner of their hideout at one point, while at another it at least seemed like the foe was trying to hide under the car. It’s just a pity that the eyes of some of the characters resembled cue balls.

All in all, despite the occasional omission, the game plays incredibly well and is a lot of fun. It’s beautiful and seems to have a great story – even though we’ve barely had a chance to explore it, I know I want to learn more.

Final Thoughts

This is so annoying. We have so many games on the ‘to play’ list and now this has been added to my Amazon Wishlist for later. CURSE YOU 1001 LIST!

#119 Defender of the Crown

Posted: 10th January 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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1

114th played so far

Genre: Strategy
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1986
Developer: Kellyn Beck
Publisher: Cinemaware

Here’s a bit of a blast from the past for me. You see, Defender of the Crown is one of those games I played lots on the NES (borrowing it several times) and one of the games I finished several times over – it was fast and simple enough for that.

The story is simple. You’re a Saxon lord and you have to work together with other Saxon lords to drive the Normans out of medieval England, conquering their territories and so on. In the mean time, to accomplish that cause you go on raids, joust in tournaments and rescue damsels in distress. All very honourable and knightly.

Our Thoughts

As a teacher I have to stick my factual hat on and greatly shout out against the abominable use of English history in this game. While I will happily acknowledge the existence of Robin of Locksley (I mean he must have in some form even if he was nowhere near the heroic outlaw Kevin Costner would have us believe he was) but what the hell is going on about this assassinated king and a stolen crown. Also, this game would like to lead us to believe that the Saxons were able to drive out the Normans… well have a look at the current British royal family and you will see this storyline is a load of rot. When you look at other games like this, this seems a bit of a mild complaint though – if in Civilization you can invent Horseback Riding and Pottery before the Wheel, a few wrong names is a fairly small thing. Even so, changing a few names around could have been better. On the other hand, perhaps you’re supposed to root for the Saxons, to create an alternative history.

The historical inaccuracies aside, as well as the existence of an enemy whose name literally translates as ‘head of beef’, I really did enjoy this game… and I did not expect to.

When you are presented with a strategy game from the eighties with the name Defender of The Crown I can hope you can understand the knot of dread in my stomach since I really was not a fan of Dune II. However, the moment the quaint music began to play I was well on the course to being won over. As said, I’ve played this before, and I was expecting a few negative surprises compared to my memory. Luckily I remembered how crap NES graphics were…

Okay, the graphics are fairly basic in many of the scenes but the gameplay is so delightfully easy to pick up (except for the aiming system when storming the castle but I think that was more down to us not reading the instruction manual or having a PC that’s simply too fast) that I can see exactly why this has become available on the iOS since a touchscreen would really bring so much to the jousting and fencing mini games as well as some cool map navigation. It would also have allowed for a graphics update. Still, it didn’t feel like much was needed there – they’re very effective and look nice enough, and yeah, a higher resolution would be nice, but it’s far from unplayable.

It’s worth mentioning the sounds a bit more. They are the usual beeps of games of the area, but they work! There’s a song of sorts in there you wanted to hum along to and it creates a wonderful atmosphere. It’s far more enjoyable than what you’d expect from the era.

However, there are some definite issues with the AI in this game. There are many times when you are able to take over territories and that’s all hunky dory but in one turn you are able to buy new soldiers, take over land, hold a tournament or raid a castle. You can only do one thing per turn and therefore there is a definite cap on how many soldiers you can buy since you really do want to have a large area of influence. Then suddenly you get attacked by an opponent who not only has many territories but also six times the number of soldiers that you have…I did the calculation and it appears that whilst we get one move per turn they get about two. Still, this really ramps up the difficulty level of the game and that is not always a bad thing.

In a way, the big theme of the game, in gameplay, is a war of attrition. Get the larger army, make sure it stays so, until the smaller armies are defeated, so you can get more income and get bigger armies… It really is a matter of getting there first. The difference in AI, and the additional skill a human brings in (especially during the action sequences) seem to need to make up for it.

Final Thoughts

 Strategy games have moved on quite a bit since this game was released, with using one army to control a territory almost being the domain of board games nowadays and per-unit control, such as seen in Dune II, being more common. Still, if anything, that makes this game simpler and easier to play.

It was a lovely game back in the day, as said I lost a lot of time to it in the past. But with it still holding up these days, it has more or less become a casual game that can be played on phones or is downloadable. And even those games can be brilliant.

#258 Tekken

Posted: 6th January 2012 by Mulholland in Games
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3

113th played so far

Genre: Fighting
Platform: Arcade, Playstation
Year of Release: 1994
Developer: Namco
Publisher: Namco

Ah Tekken, you were the franchise that started my love for the humble beat ’em up game. Technically Tekken 2 is the game that got me into them… but since this is where the whole thing began I guess I can see why this is on the list.

In a genre which was pretty much dominated by Street Fighter and newcomer Virtua Fighter it took a big game to make a mark and Namco’s Tekken was he game to do so.

Our Thoughts

If I am being completely honest… as much as I am a fan of the Tekken franchise I really do question the placing of this game on the 1001 list. Whilst I do not question its place in gaming history as the beginning of a major franchise it is curious that this made it whereas Tekken 2 did not. I mean the first Street Fighter game to make it onto the list was Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting and in the same vein SoulCalibur II makes it onto the list whereas the previous two releases in the franchise (that were equally acclaimed) were missed out. It is one of the many inconsistencies of this list which (at time of writing this) seem unlikely to be righted in the near future. I don’t mean to start off all negative but as a self-proclaimed fan of nineties beat ’em ups it just all just felt a little bit off. At the same time, I’m not as much of a fighting game fan (having mostly played these sort of games to play with others, rather than just to play these) and for me, it just felt underwhelming.

Anyway, being the first in a very successful series it established a lot of what has made Tekken a household name and later led to one of the best fighting games in gaming history. Firstly there is the variety in fighting styles which is something that has been truly expanded on in later additions. Everyone knows Yoshimitsu since he crops up in any game Namco can think of (even Anna Kournikova’s Smash Court Tennis)  and the fact that he is some sort of weird mechanical ninja mutant beetle alien with a kickass green sword. Then there is the assassin Nina Williams equipped with her ‘fighting swan’ move, the Bruce Lee rip-off Marshall Law (I see what they did there!) and the apparent devil-incarnate Kazuya Mishima. Care and attention has been paid to every character here to make sure they are all fighters with unique characteristics and this is pulled off better here than in Virtua Fighter.

When played in comparison to modern fighters, however, this has really not held up as well as Tekken 3. We are not just talking in terms of graphics where the 3D looks chunky beyond belief and the sound which is a little bit off but gameplay too. The joy of a fighter is quick reaction times married with a complex movelist and interesting characters… this just feels incredibly sluggish compared to its comtemporaries which is a real shame. Possibly my first comment about the game while playing was ‘This is slow’. Now, this should, I suppose, be a good thing for me, as I don’t have the reflexes Peter does… but no, it doesn’t. It makes the whole thing feel dragged out and slow and not really something I wanted to investigate much further.

The graphics themselves aren’t nice, but that’s excusable as an age sort of thing. More annoying however is the semi-3D it tries to create. I know, it’s supposed to look pretty and impressive, but the random changes of plane – where your 3D background rotates so it seems like you’re fighting in a different direction in the arena. Thing is, it still is a fully 2D game, just with a momentary change in a cutscene sort of thing, making it gaudy rather than impressive. Same with the inexplicable ‘look at the game from above’ function that seems to have no other purpose. Look, nice, but I’ll agree with Peter. You can do better. You have. This just isn’t as good.

Final Thoughts

Some bridges once crossed should not be revisited. I heard this in a poem once and it really sums up how I feel about this. The nostalgia factor is absent since the far superior Tekken 2 has a place in my heart and as such I am viewing this game with far more of a modern bias than I would care too.

I would say more but I am now in desperate need of another more modern fighting game to vent the disapointment.

2011: List Predictions

Posted: 3rd January 2012 by Mulholland in Uncategorized
1

Whenever we pick up a gaming magazine and have a flick through the reviews and previews there is a consistent thought that “if the list was redrafted would this make it?” It has been over a year since we started this blog and many gamers appear to agree that 2011 may have been one of, if not the, best year gaming has ever seen.

Since we have just entered a new calendar year (happy Belated New Year readers) it is one of those tropes of blogging to do some form of round-up so here are twenty predictions for games from 2011 that we think would make it onto the list.

This list is made up of entries we both agreed on, moving it down from about 30 entries based on personal agreement… and because some of those weren’t as strong.

Downloadables

 

One thing that has been rapidly increasing in recent years is the market for downloadable games on places like XBLA and PSN. Despite the PSN hacking fiasco earlier this year things have been great for online transactions.

Taking the obvious out first one sure-fire game for the list is the incredibly addictive Minecraft. This does feel like a cheat seeing how it has been in beta for a long time but since it was only completely launched in November of 2011 it still counts.

If nothing else, the addiction some of our friends have to it (and I remember a rather vivid conversation about this on a very cold Christmas night), it seems inevitable… and it seems fun enough for it.

Aside from this there are three other downloadable games that we both agreed would make it onto the list. The games From Dust, Bastion and Stacking are all likely to make the list because not only were they acclaimed but they also stood out from other games released this year.

Portables

Well it was a big year for portables since we saw the worldwide release of the 3DS as well as Japanese launch of the PS Vita. Due to this fact a game that would be an essential addition to the list is one of the top rated games on the 3DS; Mario Kart 7. In fact, looking at the current list of otherwise fairly inadequate releases for the 3DS, I must say the platform has been fairly disappointing so far. I’ll admit – the otherwise brilliant Ocarina of Time just isn’t my sort of game… Honorable mention though, although it’s really too old for the list now.

iOS also continued to grow and grow with an increasingly large array of gaming apps available to the world. Granted it was released late in the year but I would not bet against the graphically beautiful Infinite Blade II.

Replacers

2011 saw the release of a lot of acclaimed sequels and whilst there are some we think will be simply added to the list (more on that later) here are some we think will replace their earlier counterparts.

LittleBigPlanet 2 and The Witcher II we think will go on to replace their earlier counterparts still leaving one entry from each series making an appearance on a future list. However Pokémon, Call of Duty and the vs. Capcom games have multiple entries on the list so they will probably be taking one for the team with, in order, Black & White, Modern Warfare 3 and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom.

Sequels

I actually cannot get over how many successful sequels and threequels emerged this year. Valve continued their run of amazing games with the much lauded Portal 2 which we recently acquired for free from Steam during their Christmas promotion (score!).

I would then start to go on about Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Arkham City, Skyrim or Skyward Sword but it would sound clichéd and this post is getting rather long.

Originals

To round off our list of twenty games there are some multi-platform games that could get a nod next time they draft a list. One of them is Catherine which has yet to be released in Europe but has been on my wishlist for about a year and will continue to be so until I find a copy.

Bulletstorm, L.A. Noire and Child of Eden are all also dead certs for future lists.

Other games that didn’t even make it to the twenty include the likes of Ms. ‘Splosion Man, Xenoblade Chronicles, King of Fighters XIII, Battlefield 3, RAGE, Dirt 3, Total War: Shogun 2 and Amazing Breaker. So yes, it has been a great year and there are many games we didn’t get to mention. May 2012 be even greater!

#482 Maximo: Ghosts to Glory

Posted: 2nd January 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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1

112th played so far

Genre: Action
Platform: Playstation 2
Year of Release: 2001
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

 So from one knight to another. Today we’re discussing Maximo, a guy who went out on a quest, came back, found his kingdom taken over by an evil chancellor, his princess kidnapped, and tries to get all of that reversed. And then he gets killed. And gets revived by Death and set to fight undead to end this. (Death doesn’t like undead. They’ve slipped away from him).

I’ll admit, there’s a few more twists and turns in that than you’d have in an average game. And with its heritage, it needed it to reach the level required to meet its predecessor. You see, any other more profit-focused company would have marketed this as the game it sort of is: a 3D reimagining of the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series, a game we’ll get to at some point, which moved the genre from platform-based undead avoiding and fighting to 3D action… undead avoiding and fighting. An interesting concept to start with.

Our Thoughts

This is truely a game that is and isn’t like a lot of other games. You see, when Peter asked me to describe the game, having played it before he had a chance to, the closest game I could compare it to that we played before was Sly Cooper, as well as other similar 3D action platformish games (I suppose similar to Mario 64 too, but with less of an adventure/quest bend and more ‘follow the path and discover secret’ parts). I then had a bit of a go and it really reminded me of the Playstation classic MediEvil where the humour has been traded for a steeper difficulty curve and more of a horror feel.  At the same time, it feels different than that. There’s more direct attack action, with a lot of reliance on your swords and destroying hordes of zombies, skeletons and ghosts (and trust me, there are plenty of that). It doesn’t entirely match up with the aforementioned games.

With that said, thematically the game is quite different than those other games. Instead of fun furry characters or happy plumbers, you’re a knight fighting your way through undead-filled environments, investing graveyards, mountains, lava-filled caves and other dark environments. As enemies you mostly encounter skeletons and zombies, either plain up or carrying different weapons and armor. More annoying though are the incidental enemies. This starts with ghosts, and later includes crows (or possibly ravens as a reference to Edgar Allen Poe), stealing your collectibles, as well as strange towers/totem poles who spit boulders at you.

More worrying, however, is what you do with the set pieces you find in the graveyards that litter the levels. They’re strange enough as a setting, of course, though it fits the theme of the game. The glowing tombstones in the game are more sinister. You see, they’re the most likely object you want to smash, as they release spirits you want to capture. Somewhat sinister, but quite interesting, adding a bit of darkness to the game. That, most of all, might be fascinating part about the game. It’s got a quite dark theme, but thanks to the manga art style used, colours and style, it looks quite a bit lighter than that. You’re breaking into tombs and smashing tombstones, but get the feelings it’s just all not that bad. This isn’t helped either by the fact that if you lose enough health, you end up walking around in your boxer shorts. White with red dots, of course.

Back to gameplay then. The game plays okay, but has some places where it hasn’t aged well. The main issue (as so often with these games) is camera control. Unlike the more responsive camera from most other games, the camera in this game is very slow in following you. This means that at every slightly tricky jump, you want to pause for a moment and position yourself and the camera first, or else you’re unlikely to make the jump. Furthermore the controls can be a bit fiddly – if you’re not sure what you’re doing, the camera controls are in the way. Blocking feels counter intuitive. Overall, mostly, it can simply be incredibly difficult to find out what buttons you actually have to press and do so intuitively.

What does not help is the lack of any explanation within game so if you are playing this without the instruction manual there are many things which are hard to work out. How to activate the checkpoints is a prime example of this… at no point does it tell you that you need to double jump then stab the ground to be able to use them. The same goes for the power-ups which are just given as symbols that mean nothing… then suddenly out of the blue you accidentally press a button and you throw your shield at an enemy. In a good way this therefore rewards experimentation… on the flip side it makes sections of the game far more difficult than needed. Also, where the hell are the save points!?

Beyond that, the game is surprisingly tough – even the jumps where the camera cooperates are tricky at times. Some of difficulty when fighting comes from enemies crowding you (a point where the camera gets in your way), but just as often, it’s because of the strategic setup – an enemy using an attack you didn’t expect, or coming from somewhere else than normal. Not just because they sometimes pop up from right underneath your feet, but also because they make use of a height difference or their larger weapons. In many ways the difficulty of the game, the liberal use of zombies and the slightly cartoony graphics is what marks this out as a Capcom game.

If there’s one things that points to the age of the game, it’s not its graphics or sound – both aren’t fantastic, but hold up reasonable well. The one thing that seems to hold it back are the control, and with that mostly the camera that doesn’t always match. Even so, a good game to play, helped in a large part by its offbeat theme that does a lot to create the right atmosphere.

Final Thoughts

I must admit that this was a game that’s been catching my eye since I saw that it was in the list of games we borrowed (Thanks again Chris!). I’m glad we got a chance to play it too, as it is a game that offers its own nice atmosphere and a good game in the 3D action platforming mold. Difficult, frustratingly so at times, but fun to play.

The real thing that kept this game fun was the theme behind it, the look and feel, the touch of humour and the darkness behind it. It’s a game I can’t imagine working as well if it hadn’t had any of that.

#77 Knight Lore

Posted: 29th December 2011 by Jeroen in Games
Tags: , , ,
3

111th played so far

Genre: Action
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1984
Developer: Ultimate Play the Game
Publisher: Ultimate Play the Game

And so we dive once again into the sea of old games, this time pulling out Knight Lore, one of the hallmark games by Ultimate Play the Game, the predecessor of Rare games, one of those big names we’ve played several games of, with more coming.

Knight Lore details the ongoing life of Sabreman, an adventurer who, in this game, has been cursed with lycanthropy. He has to cure himself by running around the castle finding objects to put in a big cauldron to cure him.

As one of the first isometric platformers, this game has been a big influence – quoted to be one of the most cloned software after Wordstar (at least in this era). At the same time, it looks simple now – walk around and jump. Will it hold up?

Our Thoughts

 (Due to our time becoming a bit more rare, we’ll need to change our writing a bit to make it all possible. Hence the slightly different format for this review. Lesson planning does that to your gaming time.)

This game is clearly showing its age. Not impossible to get past, but from start to finish, I felt I was playing this to play a classic, not because it was a game I’d be enjoying for the ages. I felt myself first switch-off when the instructions misspelt werewolf. As a prospective teacher I think I am in danger of becoming a bit of a grammar Nazi but this bugged me from the get go… so let’s just say I did not exactly have the best start with this game.

Let’s start with gameplay. The concept is fairly basic. You walk around in a castle, wandering from isometric room to isometric room. You have to pick up potion ingredients to cure yourself from your werewulf condition. The only tools at your disposal is that you can jump around and becoming stronger and faster when, every night, you turn into a werewolf. You have 40 days to do so, and those days pass fast. I think it is safe to estimate that you have an absolute maximum of  90 seconds between transformations.

The main problem that I had with this game was the speed of the gameplay and the fact that it change relative to how many sprites there were moving on the screen at any one time/ There are rooms where it is just you and you have 4 doors to choose from. This is all well and good because there is not a severe lag between commanding your character to turn left and him actually doing so. It gets really annoying when on the next screen (possibly) you have a situation with two bubble-like enemies (The Prisoner anyone) pushing chairs around and wanting to smother you and it is so hard to time a jump. The same problem occurs with moving platform rooms where both the lag and perspective make it hard to get from A to B.

The graphics are simple – not just because of the era, but also because the game was made for a fairly low-powered console at the time, the ZX-spectrum. This means that the screens are in a single colour (and yours changes with it). While somewhat pixelly, the graphics do work well beyond this, giving you a good idea of what’s where and what it should be. The only downside is that the perspective is still fairly new for developers, making it clear that controls aren’t quite worked out yet.

What it comes down to for me is that this game has a fairly simple concept, with simple graphics and fairly few twists in mechanics – although richer than you might think at once. What it does though is create a number of puzzles that are tough – at times fiendishly difficult – perfectly suitable for the repeat gameplay to keep bashing your head against. The influences on other games are obvious… even if it takes longer to get into than I, as a spoiled gamer, am used to. You might be tempted to drop it soon, but give it fifteen minutes, and you’re hooked. That’s the strange thing about this game is that it is not an immediate grabber but I did find myself losing more time than I expected. Like many games that we now get on mobile phones I began to have the ‘one more try’ mentality when in fact I probably ended up having another twelve goes.

Final Thoughts

And there we go. In the end, our verdict seems mostly easily summarized as this being a game time has not been kind to. All its flaws – graphics, lag, lack of instruction – are because that’s how things were then and that’s how these games worked. When you play for long enough to get past this, however, there’s a simple and addictive game that would do well on something like an iPhone. Considering its influence and popularity at the time, all I can say is that it’s surprising they haven’t tried yet. Maybe one day… keep an eye out for it!

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