#319 Tomb Raider

Posted: 25th December 2011 by Mulholland in Games
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4

110th played so far

Genre: Action
Platform: PC/Playstation/Sega Saturn
Year of Release: 1996
Developer: Core Design
Publisher: Eidos Interactive

Merry Christmas sports fans Pong and Beyond readers!

No, we are not doing a write-up on Christmas Day as we have been busy with presents, dinner and I have been personally been busy thinking of ways to teach combustion to a Year 9 class. The world really is our oyster when in this edition we take a look at the beginnings of the much-beloved Tomb Raider franchise.

This game holds some personal memories since it was in fact the first game that I was scared of! That’s right the T-Rex in level three used to scare the bejesus out of me… so much so that my mum actually played this game and got rather addicted. I bring this fact up to her everytime she gives me a dissaproving look when I have spent money on second-hand games rather than shirts for my placement. If it was not for the cheap multi-packs at M&S I would not have been able to buy a copy of UFC 2009 Undisputed. Merry Christmas y’all.

Our Thoughts

One of the reasons I remember this game, in the interest of full disclosure, was the existence of a patch called ‘Nude raider‘. It did to Lara Croft what the name implies, and was of course of immense interest to the group of 12 and 13 year olds I was a part of. Not that our parents knew, but we were… curious. (This of course only applied to the PC version, which I played back then. This time we played the PS1 installment) It sounds lame now – a texture swap and no details at all, but was just a bit too interesting at the time. Well the guys at Core Designs were asking for it and later gave the public what they wanted even though Lara Croft pre-Legends always looked a bit off.

Speaking of which, upon replaying this I was so dissapointed at how dated the game has become in terms of graphics and controls. The idea of a game like Tomb Raider not being able to make use of analog controls is completely ludicrous and as such it took us a while to get to grips with moving her around. Also the way they chose to set out the controls (with the jump function not occupying the six o’clock position) did lead to some confusion when I was suddenly being attacked by bears. Bears which I knew were coming since I both watched and actually the first few levels being played so many times when I was six. Animal lovers might want to avoid this game, the number of dead bears and wolves that are in the areas you explore when you’re done is surprisingly large.

The controls feel experimental – there is no set scheme yet, because everyone is still working that out, and it would take more time to establish what button is ok, jump or any of the other recurring functions you have in these games. I was happy we could play the tutorial first before we got into this… even though this tutorial didn’t cover shooting at all, leaving us confused for a bit. Shooting controls not mapped onto the shoulder buttons? That felt incredibly wrong as did an inability to aim… but you couldn’t do that with most action games of that era so it really is by-the-by. The truth is that if it wasn’t for the fact that we both had memories tied into this game we would not end up being as positive as we are about to be.

The thing is that despite the annoying controls and the really blocky graphics it is still rather compelling. The puzzles still feel smart and the large non-linear nature of a lot of the levels do feel like a breath of fresh air when you consider how linear a lot of action games are nowadays. The only huge obstacle to a truly enjoyable afternoon of relic snatching and Atlantis exploration can be resolved when I eventually pick up a copy of the Anniversary retweak. That’s the one thing games of this era do well that is lost nowadays. There isn’t a story to follow, no walking from point A to B. You can explore huge temples and caves with several secrets to find (and items there that help you) and you’re left to your own devices to figure out where to go. Nothing helpful, no hints or clues. Just walk around and see where you end up. There is a storyline involving mutants and relics but there is much more fun being had to finding the secret stashes of shotgun shells randomly hidden in apparently abandoned temples. Oh, I’m sure there is a story… it’s just not thrust in your face at every turn, making sure you remember it all. No room for our Metal Gear Solid-style fifteen minute cutscenes. It doesn’t all have to make sense or fit together, just be fun. The only thing you wish for there sometimes is that it wouldn’t take two minutes to get the game to toggle a switch for you, as you don’t get to the exact right spot to be allowed to do so.

Still, it is backed up with a score that works well to this day. The theme music itself is so nuanced and beautifully produced that it couldn’t help but bring back plenty of memories. The same goes with the incidental pieces of music which, although not used that often, still punctuate the gameplay rather nicely. You actually get a more rousing piece of music when you get closer to the end of the level, with its sort-of closing battles, as well as at some other tense moments. Because this suddenly becomes more obvious, it immediately gets you to sit up straight and pay attention.

The sound effects, at the same time, don’t work as well.  This doesn’t always matter – probably shouldn’t – but some of them sounded too familiar and, to be honest, too fake. Too loud or too inappropriate – when climbing some tutorial gym class type objects, it sounded more like a hammer hitting wood when Lara moved from one side to the other. The one that really struck me was the near-orgasm she has every time you use a medi-pack. I don’t know if it’s heroin she is pumping to get herself through the expedition but it certainly is not baby aspirin.

Although this apparently wasn’t intended, Lara has become a major gaming sex symbol, and that’s something they had already set her up for in this game. The story goes that her creator, when trying to render the model, accidentally increased her breast size by some 20%. People saw this, and apparently that was the last bit that was missing to make her be a viable protagonist… I really do not know how much I believe that story but it’s a cute way to explain her proportions. It’s too good a story not to mention.

This is too influential a game to have not made the list. Tomb Raider is a classic, and Lara Croft possibly the first large video game celebrity. This game is just a little bit better in a remake, where controls and graphics are closer to modern standards.

Final Thoughts

Okay so we tend to be harsher on older games than newer games, we are aware of this and are sorry. There are some games (such as Super Metroid  and DoDonPachi) that have a retro graphics style that can be appreciated whereas the gaming world’s early attempts at 3D will always fall slightly flatter since they have aged worse (yes Perfect Dark no matter how I like you the graphics will always make you look off).

Still, we had fun playing this both now and back then and in the end isn’t that what really matters?

#595 Lumines

Posted: 21st December 2011 by Mulholland in Games
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4

109th played so far
Genre: Puzzle
Platform: PSP
Year of Release: 2004
Developer: Q Entertainment
Publisher: Bandai, Ubisoft

It’s been a long time coming but we have finally gotten around to writing up our first PSP game. We bought this together about four months ago and it has taken some time before we got around to writing up one of the games. It doesn’t help that many of the games that we got for it are puzzles and we have only just gotten past the point of needing to write one up.

If you can cast your minds back about a year ago when we played Meteos I made a mention of how much I was looking forward to play this music-puzzle-mindmelting game with giant lips that flash on the screen to distract you… I wish that last one was not so scary.

Our Thoughts

This game clearly can’t be anything but a puzzle game, with its dropping of blocks, although the influence of music on this game is undeniable. As I was playing this game on my/our snazzy new second-hand PSP I could not stop thinking of the Kinect game Child of Eden which attempted to create the feeling of synesthesia. Whilst you are moving the colourful blocks into a position where you can create squares, which explode in a colourful fashion, your moves directly affect the sampling in the music.

Each level features different music, a colour change and a new level of distracting background visuals. All of these really blend together in an audovisual mix that can get stuck in your head and, while not directly affecting gameplay (other than its distractions) do become part of the experience of the game. If you play this game for a very long time you are very likely to get a headache since it can get a tad overwhelming with all the flashing music and repetitive club-style music. In 20-30 minute stretches though it works a treat. Add to this that, despite being addictive, the game also gets fairly repetitive, making a single game a treat, but the difficulty of setting up the combinations to empty the game when it gets larger gets tiring – it feels like enough after a longer game of fifteen to twenty minutes. Yet you will find yourself coming back to it quite soon after to try and beat your previous score.

There is also a rather nifty puzzle mode which is a great way to bide your time until you feel up to tackling the marathon single-player again. Where nifty in part means difficult, as you have to use randomly created blocks to create a figure, starting with some basic forms, working up to such things as dogs and giraffes. It is not necessarily difficult per se but it does require a lot of planning a few bricks ahead. Tetris and chess masters are likely to find it a doddle… the rest of us just get angry when we are unable to make an infinity symbol out of the squares.

On a whole, the puzzle itself is fairly simple – drop blocks and arrange them into larger squares, to be destroyed when the beat reaches you. That doesn’t describe the rest of the experience though, which adds in music and visuals to create an experience that transcends the gameplay in the game. It’s a simple premise which has been placed in an environment that can make it rather challenging.

Final Thoughts

We have not heard the last of Lumines since it will be back sometime soon with it’s semi-sequel Lumines Live. How is it any different? We’ll find out one day.

#497 Burnout 2: Point of Impact

Posted: 17th December 2011 by Mulholland in Games
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2

108th played so far

Genre: Driving
Platform: Gamecube/PS2/Xbox
Year of Release: 2002
Developer: Criterion Games
Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment

A racing game? Yeah. A sequel to another one. What does it advertise as its own special feature? High risk racing. Crashes. This isn’t about bashing cars out of the way to get past… although breaking them might be a good alternative.

From a company known mostly for its 3D rendering engine, we get this racer featuring plenty of impacts. So how much of a racer does that make it?

Our Thoughts

You know why this game is better than most of the driving games I have ever played? It actually rewards you for amazing cinematic style crashes.  In fact, it even encourages you to make a petrol tanker to swerve into a bus… that could quite possibly be containing school children.  The game certainly loves its crashes. So much in fact that one of its modes – the most interesting one, in fact – is simply to create the biggest crash you can. Don’t worry we tried all the modes (honest) but we were disproportionally preoccupied with the crash modes. Needless to say, it’s awesome.

Before we go into that, let’s just quickly mention those other modes. You see, for most of it, these are just the usual racing modes – single race, campaign, training. You can gain a turbo type mode by doing such dangerous things as driving on the wrong side of the road, barely avoiding crashes and doing long jumps. When you get it and use it all the way through, you get burnout, as the title implies, which makes you a bit less destructible and a bit faster for a bit longer. A nice idea, fun to play, but the racing itself isn’t much enhanced by this, in part because the crashes reduce your gauge, and you crash easily in this game. Very easily.

They are all well and good but they are dwarved in comparison to the epicness that is the crash mode. The book itself points out it is the beauty of this mode’s destructive capabilities which got this game onto the list. During this mode you are given a scenario with a pre-determined vehicle AI on the roads, it is your task to cause the maximum amount of damage out of one collision. The difficulty varies wildly between the levels but it never detracts from the fun. Even when you clinch a gold medal there is always some fun in creating even more havoc and mayhem. There are just so many options, and always another car, school bus or fuel truck to add to the crash.

It is a pity that there is not a way to create some flaming wreckage as you watch the petrol tanker tip over… but I guess they needed to leave something for the threequel. The graphics aren’t that great – there’s no big explosions and cars breaking apart. They look more wrecked, but are generally sturdy and don’t do much more than that. The fun is more in the amount of crashes than the individual graphics. It also has a pretty impressive physics engine for a driving game. Something that belongs in a game favouring crashes.

I know it’s simple, I know it’s short, but that’s how it works. The racing in this game is simple enough. It’s all about the crashes. That’s what you’ll want to play this for, that’s what we played it for. It’s also what we loved it for.

Final Thoughts

We’re sorry for the short review – not much worth your money. To be honest, we probably didn’t play the other modes too much. We didn’t really want to, to be fair. We wanted to crash cars. More cars. Destroy millions of dollars by crashing cars. Crash crash crash.

I’m sorry. We’re just a tad obsessed this time. We hope you understand. Why don’t you crash a few cars too. In the game. Not in real life. We don’t do it in real life. Crash cars, that is. We do play games in which we do it.

Boom

#740 Microsoft Flight Simulator X

Posted: 13th December 2011 by Mulholland in Games
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1

107th played so far

Genre: Flight Simulator
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2006
Developer:  Microsoft
Publisher: Microsoft

And now for something COMPLETELY different.

We have been playing a lot of games with guns recently (since to be fair many games have an affinity for guns or at least some form of weapon) so today’s game is as far away as possible from these ‘violent’ games and tries to emulate a job which requires an insane amount of lessons.

In total there are 8 flight simulator games on the list and after a light skim it appears that this is the purest of them all. Time to don your Pan Am style outfits because this is Microsoft Flight Simulator X.

Our Thoughts

Let me add to the above that, despite what you might hope from the TV show, this is really just about flying planes, although several large passenger jets are included. A scary prospect when you consider our flying skills… The fact that it took you a lot of crashes to learn how to make a left turn really did make nervous at the prospect of an Airplane-style scenario ever occurring. Then again I managed to crash into a hot air balloon which is as stationary a target as you are likely to get when flying. The controls being stepwise, rather than returning to neutral automatically, when using the keyboard (like we did) did not help. After I got the hang of that, though, the little flying experience I had (one ‘lesson’ as part of a very fun day out at work during which I got to sit in the pilot seat for about fifteen minutes while the teacher did most of the work) did help a bit in finding my way around. Still needed the easier settings though. What may have helped in the long-run is if we actually owned a joystick rather than relying on the mouse and arrow keys.

I have to say though; before playing this I thought landing would be the hardest thing to do but no… it was taxiing! Absolutely, and I think we might need to look at getting one. Taxiing is marred by the similar issue with controls, which is fairly counter-intuitive compared to other vehicle games, making it take time. Even so, from experience, I do know it’s actually that difficult. My only experience involves sticky-tape, cardboard strips and imagination… never tried taxiing as I was too happy making swooshy noises. As I noticed surprisingly recently. Hey! I was getting stressed at the prospect of crashing in-game… it’s not my fault that I got so into it that I started screaming a little bit. It was a surprisingly immersive experience.

The game is simply ‘fly a plane around’, and it’s surprisingly good at making you do so and getting you excited over it, taking off and landing at your preferred airports, taxiing around, and more of that. It sounds boring, I know, but it works incredibly well. This is even despite the fairly lacklustre graphics. Then again since you basically have the freedom to basically where wherever you wish this is a very impressive undertaking by Microsoft. If you have the will and the patience you could fly your plane from Helsinki to Canberra… but it will mean you spend over a day doing so. Actually, not entirely… the game has a speed up time option, meaning you can set it to just go fast and leave the PC when you’ve got your plane set to fly in the right direction. But why do that if you want to play? Especially if you set the weather conditions to random or (more interestingly) to use actual weather readings taken from the internet. You would come back from a Parks and Recreation marathon to find your plane has faceplanted into a coral reef. Even so, despite that, for shorter flights or just random trips around an airport, it can be a great game. Especially if you have the proper scenery installed and fly over, for example, London, recognising the landmarks and seeing the places where you’ve walked before. Or the place where you were dragged to see 10,000 BC on the big screen.

Now, as said, this is an immersive simulation that’s a lot of fun to play around with. It doesn’t look the best, but plays well and feels incredibly accurate… the help file even has a separate section for “when you’re already a pilot”. But to make it last a bit longer, Microsoft added another feature for this iterations of the series: Missions. Aside from being used as tutorials, these feature tasks for you to undertake – fly from X to Y via Z – to test out your abilities and give you a goal when playing. There are also timed missions and one where you have to make an emergency diversion due to there being a critically ill passenger on your plane. Reminds me of a storyline fit for Pan Am (which by the time of publishing will have probably been cancelled).

This may not be the most engaging of games, but it certainly feels like a strong and probably vaguely accurate simulation, and that alone makes it engaging enough that, where we expected to play this for about half an hour each, we actually played this for nearly as long as the previously discussed Max Payne 2, which feels like an incredible accomplishment.

Final Thoughts

Sorry for the Pan Am obsession but since we started watching it the same weekend that we played this game it seemed like a truly happy coincidence.

It’s actually really great to be playing something that is so different that a year into making the blog actually makes you think twice about what makes a good computer game.

#571 Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

Posted: 9th December 2011 by Jeroen in Games
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2

106th played so far

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: PC/PS2/XBox
Year of Release: 2003
Developer: Remedy Entertainment and Rockstar Vienna
Publisher: 3D Realms

In the previous installment of this series, we learned that Max Payne became an undercover agent, was accused of a murder he didn’t commit (although in the course of the game, he commited a fair few before and after this one), got chased by cops and caught up in shady dealings, but in the end saved the day. As it should be.

A few years later, the sequel to the game came out, which is what we’re playing now. Max Payne is a detective once again, and gets caught up in all sorts of shady mafia dealings. The game mostly continues the previous gameplay mechanics and general aesthetics… how has it moved on?

Our Thoughts

So here we are 11 games later and we are back in the warm noir bosom of Rockstar’s Max Payne. Not much has changed in terms of overall gameplay but boy does everything feel very different from the original.

The game starts off a bit vague, with you waking up in a hospital, having partial amnesia and trying to figure out what went on as bits of dialogue from Max’s part play (including a quite nice callback to the start of the first game). Soon, however, you get involved in busting up a gang’s dealings, which is where we go back to the Max Payne loner against the world type shoot ’em up gameplay.

It isn’t all just gunslinging however. There is a level where a lucid dream is the focus which is followed by plenty of balcony hopping and scaffolding climbing. Also this is the first time, for me anyway, that the trademark Rockstar humour was allowed to shine through in between the noir musings and espionage. A scene that is at the forefront of my mind involves an overheard discussion in a police station where a man pleads his innocence after he was found burying piece is of his wife and her lover in his garden. Apparently it was all a set up…

While Rockstar’s involvement was mostly in the port, their cooperation in the game was obvious here, and the writing certainly feels improved over the first game. The general trends of writing and story are still there, with the same themes and inner monologues, but it expands to not just be critical plot scenes, but also a lot of background material – the aforementioned conversation, but also phonecalls and innocents you encounter. Aside from adding a bit more humour to an otherwise dark game, it also adds more life to the world. While it’s still as linear as the first game, with plenty of locked doors, it makes the world seem a bit more alive and a bit more realistic.

It also feels a whole lot more unstable which aptly reflects the psychology of the central character. An entire level is set in an abandoned funhouse where instead of there being enemies to fight the point is exploration of the building and of the character. The fact that a funhouse containing elements of a mental asylum would be a very bad idea just adds to the fun.

The events of the first game clearly aided Max’s instability, which is further emphasized by the unordered way the story is told in – we start in a hospital, jump back a few years, go back a bit further, and it takes some time to mentally work out the crinkles and tie all the threads together. Even so, while the characters have gotten a lot less balanced, the game itself has become sturdier than its predecessor. First of all, the graphics have improved a lot. Where Max had only a single expression in the previous game, he can now show several different emotions and looks better while doing so. The environments look a bit better and are a bit less repetitive from before, making it a bit less likely you’ll get lost.

As we mentioned earlier the gameplay has not actually changed much but it has been incredibly well polished. No longer are jumps from beam to beam a leap of faith that relied too heavily on luck as well as aim, now you feel far more in control of your movement. Shooting feels a bit more solid, with you getting more guns (and hence options) earlier on, making it easier to adjust your style.

In the end, it’s hard to say anything new about the game without referring back to our earlier Max Payne discussion. This is a sequel to the first game, using what’s there and improving the things it has, with better controls, graphics, bullet time and so on. It’s not as groundbreaking at the first game, but if it wasn’t for the story (where knowing the first game certainly helps), this would be the game you could just as well start with.

Final Thoughts

This isn’t as much of a landmark game as the first Max Payne was, it relies far too much on the first game for that to be true. But when playing, this is the superior entry, improving on all aspects on the game, making it more playable and more fun. It takes a bit more of an investment to understand it, but it’s certainly worth that time.

Max Payne 3 is expected to be released soon, but without much involvement of the team that worked on the first two entries in the game, so don’t hold your breath for that just yet. That’s okay so far however, if you can look past the graphics, both older games are still great shooters, the sort of games you’d want to play.

#686 Gears of War

Posted: 5th December 2011 by Mulholland in Games
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3

105th played so far

Genre: Shoot ’em Up
Platform: Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Epic Games
Publisher: Microsoft

I know not how interested anyone is in our personal gaming histories… but this is a gaming blog so to hell with that I’ll divulge the personal information.

The choice between 360 and Wii was a big moment in my gaming life. The fact of the matter is that I knew I would be getting one of them for Christmas and the likes of Viva Pinata and Dead Rising meant it won out. However, the first game I actually received for it was Gears of War seeing that it was a bundle deal. This meant that it also game with optional stickers (which I did not use) and a faceplate (which I also did not use) to commemorate this package deal… and then I got rid of it because I was at that moment unable to stomach shooters where enemies can pounce on you.

Yes, this is one of those cases where, years later, I rebought a game since I finally felt like I was able to play it. Was it worth the rebuy? We’ll reveal all… right about now.

Our Thoughts

One question you asked a few times while playing the game was why anyone would want to live on this planet. I think it must have been their adeptness at the mass production of sofas and comfortable chairs. I swear they must have been growing on trees on this alien planet. What my good chum is trying to convey in a humourous fashion *cough* is that the interiors of most of the buildings look like they have been furnished from the same Ikea catalogue.

Rather a small point when we consider this is one of the biggest selling games in the history of the Xbox 360 and has hugely influenced how cover-based shooters have been produced in the last five years. In fact there are some games released later, such as Killzone 2, which really could take more of a leaf from this well-thumbed book. In fact, for my money, there is only one game that is more influential in terms of cover based shooters and that is the game that introduced it as a core gaming mechanic (also known as Kill Switch; a game we will cover one day). I guess one of the major reasons cover works so well here is that, aside from it being absolutely necessary to survive, it’s easy to use it. The game seeks it out for you most of the time with a single (A) button press, bringing you close and allowing you to lean out to fire. Other games did that later as well… but it seems that this started here. Or was at least a game to really do it well. At the same time, enemies make frustratingly good use of the cover as well, and while not being unbeatable, can be timeconsuming to take out because of this.

One thing that I also loved about the cover controls is that it was incredibly versatile and there was always a small graphic in the bottom centre of the screen letting you know whether you are about to cover, roll or jump over a barrier. It’s small but it makes the experience of being under fire a little less annoying. The game is actually incredibly helpful, always showing a graphic when you can do a ‘special’ action, whether it’s pressing a button, kicking a door in, or taking one of several cover actions. It doesn’t feel like handholding, though, just clarification. It’s always nice to know that you are about to pick up a frag grenade instead of diving headlong into a ditch. But not as adventurous.

To come back to earlier, it took us looking up the game’s Wikipedia entry to figure out what was actually going on in the game. We knew we were there dropped on an alien plant, trying to survive and kill enemies, but why we were there and so on wasn’t as clear. Even when we found out it was an alien planet humans colonized where the alien life was under the planet surface and came out later to drive us humans out, it didn’t explain why we’d want to be there or what else was going on. Then again it didn’t really matter that Gears of War did not have an incredibly complex storyline, since to be honest shooters that have then (Halo, Perfect Dark etc) can feel a little bit weighter down by them. Instead Gears of War is free to indulge the player in some great cover-shooting with a gun that doubles as a chainsaw. Yeah, that was a surprise first time we noticed that. Awesome though. Some of the set-pieces also feel reminiscent of sci-fi and horror franchises. The entire second act comes with the caveat of ‘stay out of the shadows’ and it worked spectacularly well. It even worked in the penultimate chapter where you are having to drive a vehicle in the dead of night armed only with a pulsing UV-emitting searchlight to take out the monsters. There were several parts where (playing coop) we were shouting at each other to hurry to make it past the next section, with that leaving us replaying some sections simply by going a bit too far off the recommended path.

We played the game in coop mode – obviously, to make sure we both got the most out of the game, and because it’s really good fun. The split screen obviously has a few annoyances when playing, as it always does, but overall the game works well playing together – it felt right, with us helping each other out, and reviving each other when we ‘die’, instead of having to replay a section. Co-op modes all have their inherant difficulties and to be fair we should have attempted the campaign mode on solo as well… but there are two of us and there are not as many opportunities to play together as you would first think. So we jumped at the chance to spend our blogtime co-operating rather than an equal share of watching and playing. We will be doing the same when we get to the likes of Halo 3 so I apologise(ish) in advance. Even so, I don’t think any of the criticism we have about the game would be resolved in solo, while game design felt good enough that it would work in single player mode, where co-op helps, but isn’t required. Or lack of criticism if we’re being honest.

This will certainly be a game that is being added to both of our “to complete later” piles; a rarity for one of us. And even better, it’s a game we’ll probably love finishing together, making it that little better for both of us.

Final Thoughts

I guess we never directly answered the question of whether it was worth the re-buy… well you can decide for yourself. Bring on the sequel!

#522 Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

Posted: 1st December 2011 by Mulholland in Games
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3

104th played so far

Genre: Platform
Platform: Playstation 2
Year of Release: 2003
Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
Publisher: Sony

There are many, many different platform gaming mascots out there. We’ve got the famous plumbers and blue hedgehogs, as well as dogs and birds, worms and space babes. In the future we’ll get more strange humans, robots and more mascots from this genre we’ll be discussing. Not just yet, however.

Today, we’re talking about a raccoon, master thief and book collector. Well, just one book, but it’s an important one for him… if he wants to learn new tricks. He’s joined by a pig and turtle in chasing down other criminals who stole part of this book. Why? Well, that’s what one does. In the mean time, he’s chased by a foxy police officer (trust me on this) who wants to arrest him. He is still, after all, a criminal himself.

He has to jump, climb and kill other similar animals as he does so… Does it work, though?

Our Thoughts

So… Whereabouts in the mascot ranking is Sly Cooper for you? I am not sure how ethical it is to have a thief as a major mascot to be perfectly honest. However, since this game’s sales were affected by fellow Playstation mascots Rachet & Clank and Jak and Daxter then I have to rank Sly Cooper on the low side. Also, it does not help that they have only made 3 games in the last 8 years whereas many other franchises would have made 5+. I guess that’s what you get for being the studio that brought out Infamous. A game that oddly enough seemed to have taken a few cues from the Sly Cooper series, in its jumping and swinging around levels.

Sucker Punch Studios have not made many games but in terms of quality output they really should be held in decent artistic regard. Playing Sly Racoon (as it is known in Europe) has really made me miss pure 3D platforming. It has become so incorporated in many recent action games (including the likes of Infamous, Uncharted and Prototype) that trying to make a physical release of a pure platformer is rather a gamble… unless you’re Nintendo whereby you can still find original twists (such as Super Mario Galaxy or Kirby’s Epic Yarn).

It seems like too simple when you consider the additional options gamers expect or seem to expect nowadays. If the genre is anywhere, it seems to have moved to the current generation of handheld with Mario, Ratchet & Clank and Jak & Daxter all having recent examples of this. There is joy in simplicity though.  Absolutely.

True this game is not heavy on the bells and whistles but when it tries something it does it very well. It really is the basic ‘make it through the level and find a few macguffins on the way for 100% completion’, but it works by making that very playable and fun. For a platformer that is knocking on ten years old I am so incredibly impressed about how well the graphics have held up. True I could go on about how fluid and natural the controls are and how games makers should use as an exemplar of how to make a platformer flow as naturally as a symphony (how poetic) but it is the look of the game that is impressive.

We’ve discussed what graphics age better, and the cartoony look of this game work in their advantage, and it especially does so in this game. Yeah, they could have been a bit more polished here and there, but they work very well. True, the HD revamp of the Sly trilogy (with Move integration, ooh er) will look gorgeous but all it will be is a quick go at the graphics with sandpaper. The soundtrack also stands out with the game successfully creating the feel of a children’s show in a film noir setting. The crazy characters so well for this as well to be fair with a clockwork owl and a nerdy tortoise being amongst the game’s menagerie. All this culminates in a game that is equally appealing across all age brackets.

If there’s one bigger criticism I’d have to give, it’s the minigames. Every section has its own minigame with its own separate, non-platform goal, mechanics, rules and controls. While this is an okay idea, you can tell they haven’t focused as much on this as they have on polishing the platforming, and it shows – to your own annoyance. Their controls are awkward and rely more on luck at times than the skill needed to play the game. This was definitely the case with the driving minigame in the second world which got so incredibly irritating since it was so badly controlled. To have a proper driving minigame, you either need to have proper speed differences (in some way) so you can get ahead, even if just for a little while, or have enough room and chances to overtake the opponent, and be overtaken. The minigame offered few speed boosts (and most of them cost you as much time as they need you) and the cars were too big and awkward to control to overtake.

The first, based on diving, was more a personal annoyance, where your direction of move was controlled completely seperate from your direction of shooting, in what didn’t feel intuitive to me at all. Again the whole “I’m a console, you’re a PC” idea reared it’s little inbred tentacle. Or rather, I rarely used a joystick for playing games until about a year ago… which is true. Mouse and WSAD!

Final Thoughts

Good, solid 3D platforming. Good characters – with an actually useful sidekick leading you from mission control, whose snark greatly aids the game. Yeah, the minigames are annoying, but in the end it does all work together.

The remastered version is out now, and having played this, that edition moved onto our wishlist to get at some point. It’s just that good… simply that, nothing more.

#597 Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

Posted: 27th November 2011 by Mulholland in Games
Tags: , , , ,
3

103rd played so far

Genre: Action
Platform: Gamecube
Year of Release: 2004
Developer: Silicon Knights, Konami
Publisher: Konami

In the course of this blog we always enjoy debating whether or not a particular game belongs on the list but we were in complete agreement about this one: a resounding no.

We are so adament about this because today’s game, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, is in fact a remake of the first Metal Gear Solid game which we tackled back in March. There are a number of remakes on the list and there are also games which have received remakes… but the fact that both have a place on this list is astonishing…  because of this fact it has more to prove than other games.

Our Thoughts

This will be a relatively short post. Simple reason why: Read our post on Metal Gear Solid, the first game. This is a remake, with better graphics, expanded cutscenes (which, for the Metal Gear Solid series, is not a good thing…) and some updates, but more or less the same gameplay and designs. As mentioned in our introduction this is one of the more questionable entrants onto our list since it flies in the face of the book’s initial mission to select the essential 1001 games. When I think of all the great titles that missed out on a place because of an original and it’s remake it does make me wonder how often they proofread the list’s final draft. It really feels lazy… yeah, there might be a point in including a remake if the game is notably different with a lot of changes, but despite that this still seems to be the only full remake. Even more so, while others are technically remakes, there are plenty of changes. Here, the changes seem to only be cosmetic. Well not purely cosmetic to be fair. An updated radar isn’t that much of a change, making the first person view options the only real update I noticed. They also revamped the AI of the enemies… but yes to be fair most of the changes are not exactly ground shattering. In fact some have said that it has ruined the challenge of the game. I applaud the first-person mode since the shooting mechanics in the original really did leave a lot to be desired. However, when this was being played it did make me think of Metal Gear Solid 2 and just how much better it was. The reason for that is that, despite everything, this is still the original game, with its annoying random pits, same cutscenes and other flaws. Is it better than the original? Yeah, absolutely, else this wouldn’t be a good remake, now would it? Does it offer anything new enough to make it worth being a seperate entry on the list? No, it’s just not different enough for that.

Final Thoughts

This is not the first game which will be controversial, we may even have a similar conversatio when we get to Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels which is mainly an extenstion pack for the original Super Mario Bros..

There is another problem with this remake is that there is going to be an HD remake collection of Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear Solid 3 and Peace Walker and the original Metal Gear Solid has been noticibley left out. You can thank Twin Snakes for that one.

#762 God of War II

Posted: 23rd November 2011 by Jeroen in Games
Tags: , , , ,
4

102nd played so far

Genre: Action/Adventure
Platform: Playstation 2
Year of Release: 2007
Developer: SCE Studios Santa Monica
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Sometimes, thanks to the order in which we obtain these games, we have to play them out of order in a series. We’ve seen it before with games like Super Mario 64, where we played it before many of its Mario-related predecessors. We haven’t been able to play Metal Gear Solid in order – although to be honest, that’s just because that way we get it over with. In the end, it doesn’t matter – while we’d be able to judge more progress, we have that issue anyway playing these games out of order.

With some games, it’s more annoying, and with the God of War series, we can say it’s unfortunate we play it out of order. God of War II, which we played, is a near direct sequel to the first game in the series, in story as well as gameplay. While your power gets drained early in the game, there are many references back to the first game. Unfortunately, we don’t own the first (yet) and borrowed this game from Chris, so that’s how the order ended up being what it is.

In this game, you play Kratos. He’s the god of war, having gained this title after killing the previous holder of title (some Ares guy, also known as a chocolate bar). You want to conquer Mount Olympus in order to kill its inhabitants or something like that… it’s mostly about killing big evil god(like) creatures. Yay!

Our Thoughts

Right, let me get this game reference out of the way, as we’ll mention it more often: Bayonetta. In fact, Bayonetta with a muscled painted godly man instead of a skintight catsuit witchy woman and less guns.

Just like how Yahtzee used to use “like God of War but…”as review shorthand we may end up using “like Bayonetta but…” since that was the first game we covered in the blog featuring this form of gameplay. We are not completely ignorant to the fact that God of War predates Bayonetta (well duh) or that this resembles the third-person hack and slashing found in the original Devil May Cry… but this is how the blog apparently works.

To be honest, I think this game agreed with me more than Bayonetta did. It might be experience, it might be personal preference, but I think it’s mostly the lack of many different required button combinations that did it for me. Your basic attacks already work well enough against your massive enemies, even though I don’t know the PS2 controller well enough to handle the quick time events. You are right there for the most part. As you progress in God of War II (since we don’t own the original…yet) more moves are unlocked which require button combinations but you can still get away with the main buttons. However, I do take issue with analogue stick based QTEs… they only work at annoying gamers and serve no extra purpose. Then again I have never seen the point with them at all so this argument is somewhat moot. I suppose it sort of fits in here, being exclamation points in the action, but with how they slip in there, you often don’t get them until the second time playing through the sequence.

That is unless you are very well acquainted with the layout of the buttons then not getting them on the first attempt is embarrassing. I clearly don’t have much PS2 experience. I’m a console, you’re a PC? Sure.

Anyway, this is only a small criticism of a game that, in the end, is simultaneously quite accessible and addictive and at the same time hellishly tough to play. Quite a bit of challenge in this comes not from the action elements – you can often hack and slash your way through, at least on the difficulty levels we played at – but from the puzzles. Getting to the next stage of a battle always makes sense, but you do need to figure it out first.

One prime example of this being the Blade of Olympus, which you get early on, in stages, but obtaining it requires several different combinations of attack that won’t always be immediately obvious. I loved an earlyish puzzle where you need to cross a wire in the head of the Colossus of Rhodes without being hit by the ‘laser beams’ which form the eyes. It isn’t too tricky to work out since the lever is right in front of you but I liked the nifty use of a pendulum.

However, the thing that I loved most about this game was the opportunity to play my way through my own myth.  If we had covered the original God of War game first this would have been some gushing that would have occurred then but… there we are. I have always been a huge fan of Greek mythology to the point that as a seven year old I remember being mildly annoyed by the sheer number of mistakes in Disney’s Hercules. However, I do appreciate a fresh take on mythology and Sony managed to take just the right amount of liberties with the gods and monsters of Greek mythology in order to make a fantastic game which still hits the G-Spot (the G meaning Greek mythology obviously. Obviously.)

Side note: Zeus: Master of Olympus is a great and grossly overlooked game combining excellent city building and mythology… it still plays very well a decade later.

The setting is marvellous, and adds to the feel of the game. You don’t need to know it all (and at times the games give more exposition than I really needed… I know who Prometheus is, thanks), but the names, as obscure as they are sometimes, add a bit extra, and could even be said to give a hint as to what you get. Then again the myths themselves are explained very well in cutscenes so even a complete philistine (sorry) won’t have an excuse about not following the story. Then again it helps if you have played the previous game first… oops.

Add to that a gorgeous design of the creatures you encounter, gigantic gods that look like you expect – strange but like what they represent. This was called the PS2’s swansong by reviewers for a good reason. It was one of the last major releases that on the console and as such were able to really stretch the console. Aside from a slight slowing in the cutscenes every now and then they really were able to get the best out of a redundant console. I can only imagine what the HD makeover for the PS3 looks like. My mouth is actually watering at the prospect. We’ll have to track it down. Another entry in the list of good games we found thanks to this blog. Thanks Chris!

Final Thoughts

I have little to add to this. It’s a gorgeous game, where environment and enemy mix and the game is a combination of battle and puzzle solving. You defeat enemies, but in the end you defeat the bosses just as much with their help as platforms, having them throw you to the next area, and leading you on a path… while killing the insignificant flunkies in the mean time.

It’s fun. It’s fast, furious, at times unexpectedly evil, but mostly it’s just great fun to play – and if we get addicted to it, we’ve done something nice.

Also, happy birthday Pong and Beyond! One year old now, isn’t it beautiful?

#645 Façade

Posted: 19th November 2011 by Jeroen in Games
Tags: , , ,
2

101st played so far

Genre: Interactive Fiction
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2005
Developer: Michael Mates and Andrew Stern
Publisher: N/A

After all that celebrating and big names, we now go to something more experimental. Facade (please ignore the lack of cedilla from now on – while it’s in the name, it’s more work for us to put it in each time… and we still need to play 900 more games!) is an interactive fiction game. You visit a married couple you introduced to each other 10 years ago for a celebration. It turns it’s not, however, a happy marriage.

The big feature of this game is the parser. Rather than putting in short simple phrases, suck as we saw in Zork, you communicate with the game by typing in full sentences – which are the things you say to  Trip and Grace, the friends you meet. You can drive them apart and keep them together – it’s all open.

Our Thoughts

Not too long ago film critic (and one my personal heroes) Roger Ebert came out with a rather controversial diatribe against video games. In his editorial he resigned video games as something that, unlike movies, literature and music, will never reach the realm of art. Whilst there are many games to come on this list which we believe contradicts this statement entirely (such as Flower and The Path) it is time to start our argument with Facade.

This game is truly is a testament to the ingenuity and dedication of its two developers who managed to create something that is one of the most advanced games on this list despite the lack of visual prowess. Yes. True, you might not stick to the one true vision of the creator – games by their nature being more interactive than any other art medium, but that makes the accomplishments in this game even more impressive.

The game itself has a simple concept, and beyond your words, the interaction seems limited, but this is the closest you might get to a reflection of real life. Of course, whether it’s art depends highly on what your definition of art is anyway… If the Alien movie is art, then why isn’t Resident Evil that?

Questions like this have been subject to much scrutiny in recent years since gaming has become a more widespread phenomenon even if many would like to relegate it to the world of geekery (not helped by it’s depictions in other media such as The Big Bang Theory). Not helped by it being the most profitable type of entertainment at this point in time, which opens it up to even more scrutiny from figures in the “art world”.

The fact is that few games have truly tried to effectively capture the human condition and the motives behind our actions. To give games like The Sims their dues they have given it a good stab but Facade is one of the select few that have been able to successfully depict a microcosm of human emotion in an effective and intriguing way that warrants multiple plays due to randomised conversational flashpoints.

In the end, despite the graphics, which look less impressive than many other games, the game is engaging. Repeat plays show you part of the game is mechanic, with the way some items repeat and the game moves between ‘phases’, but even then the character feel real, with plenty of things to say and secrets to reveal. The most impressive thing here is that the game responds to your action. If you agree with Trip, Grace will be less happy, and vice versa, you can flirt with them, but only up to a point, and they’re all too happy to hear what you think of their decorating. The game can also be terminated early if you go in there with the plan to be completely obnoxious or act like a Jehovah’s Witness. The sheer look of horror and disapproval in the eyes of your hosts is priceless. Although even when I tried to be as outrageously flirty as I could, Trip and Grace seemed to take their time in throwing me out that you wonder what they really want… there are several different ways you might have introduced them. It is also interesting how much a bearing your first few sentences make on how the characters treat you; immediately complement Grace and it’s hard to turn her against you later in the game.

Whilst there are some difficulties in the parsing of certain sentences this is so much more advanced than either of us expected and shows how far technology has come in the last few decades. Even if the sentence parsing isn’t perfect, sometimes being silent for a bit longer helps them work things out for themselves.

It’s also interesting that whether you try to help the couple split or reconcile the pay-off of this ‘one act play’ is able to affect you on a very emotional level. Neither Trip nor Grace are particularly blameless individuals but it is their flaws and their griping that makes you take sides to the point that we both talked for a while afterwards about who was to blame for the marriage falling apart.

It is genius since every player will take away something different from their experience. And isn’t that what art is all about?

Final Thoughts

 In the end, this game isn’t about the gameplay – there’s a bit there, but it doesn’t matter much. In the end, this is about the experience, about learning more about these people and keeping them together, or not. Lots of options, and there is no wrong or right. A game worth playing just to experience it.

If you want to play this game yourself, it is available on InteractiveStory.net for free. PC only.

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