A few week ago I lugged my PC up to Birmingham so the lovely chaps at Sega Hardlight could set it up to run the game we're working on. Apart from scaring the hell out of me (tower unit in a suitcase, wrapped in binliners, in the rain) and reminding me how long it's been since I went to a LAN party, it was eye opening for the producer's reaction on seeing my desktop. Apparently I play an awful lot of games.
A lot of that is down to my messy desktop (there's a reason I have a work laptop) and tendency to buy games cheap just to take a look. Many of the games installed on my PC I never got more than half an hour into. This said, I may not play as much as I did when I was 13, and the further I delve into the games industry the less time I have to play (ie the less time I'm prepared to spend staring at a computer screen); but still, I work hard to play the big stuff that everyone references, and the little stuff that inspires me to do new things. Here's some of the stuff I've played recently, in case you might also like to do so, and because you can tell a lot about a person from the games they play.
The Darkness II - I was asked how the campaign for Digital Extreme's shooter came across the other day, and I think I said something like, "This is what happens if you give a writer a bit of time and budget." To say that The Darkness II's writing or story are strong is to miss the point a little; what's really going on here is that if you're making a narrative driven shooter you should do it like this. Aside from the gameplay (which is fun and polished, reminiscent in style even of Arkham) what stands out here is how much the story is weaved into the gameplay. It reminds me of Uncharted in that respect: it's not that this is an especially smart piece of work, it's just that it has the confidence and freedom to make you an inmate in a make-believe insane asylum, or to give you a two minute scene where you dance with your dead lover. These are interesting things.
Polish: 2 out of 2
Tilt: 2 out of 2
1916: The Unknown War - This one grabbed my attention. It's an indie demo (it actually reminds me a little of Penumbra's) in which you navigate an abandoned trench in WW1, while being hunted by robot dinosaurs and looking for the ladder out. Presented in B&W and with a claustrophobic head bob and level design, it's taught and terrifying. I wish it wasn't written in German, but there you go. Word is a commercial game is on the way, consider that one tipped.Polish: 1 out of 2
Tilt: 1 out of 2Gotham City Imposters - This was on Steam for not very much so I figured why not. It's the latest in a string of mediocre-to-good, budget online shooters (see Monday Night Combat, Bloody Good Time or Hei$t), and it's towards the mediocre end. It promises fun and innovation, but delivers something rather cynical (a tendency, I suppose, work for hire stalwarts Monolith could sometimes be labelled with [though definitely not always]). Aside from the varied selection of navigational tools (cape, hookshot, roller skates) that genuinely mix things up, the rest is just shooting people with guns. The progress system is ripped straight out of Assassin's Creed (and probably half a dozen others), yet lacks that game's depth. The matchmaking system doesn't trust you to choose your own server, but cannot itself be trusted to find you a game anytime this year. Try one of the others.
Polish: 1 out of 2
Tilt: 1 out of 2
Batman: Arkham Asylum - Just about one of the best games I've ever played. The writing is nothing outstanding, the format is not wildly different from its predecessor, but good lord is this a sound piece of entertainment. It's the combat system that really draws me in: it absolutely nails the three tenets of a great brawler: the controls are simple, yet there's massive tactical depth, and it makes you look super cool. I don't remember the last brawler I played to the end (or, really, at all). Not every game has to do something new, provided it does it with this level of confidence and fun.
Polish: 2 out of 2
Tilt: 1 out of 2
Polish: 1 out of 2
Tilt: 1 out of 2
Played any of these? Got any thoughts? Does this kind of content spark debate, or am I just being self-indulgent?
ReplyDeleteWhile we're on it, if you never played the 1986 version you might like to check out the free online version of Alter Ego (linked to int he text). At the very least, it features some entertaining lines.
"You are a baby. A furry man walks past you. What do you do?"
- Grab the furry man's head
"You put your hands around the furry man's neck and he says something that sounds like 'Wooof!' He tastes salty."
Having just finished The Darkness 2 I agree 100% with your views on it. Whilst the story isn't amazing DE have handled it with such confidence that it must be experienced. The later end of the second act going into the third was really my highlight, I found myself absorbed completely.
ReplyDeleteAlthough on reflection the whole thing makes me feel a little sad it's taken this long for shooters to be bold enough to weave the narrative into the game play. This may be my cynicism, but there haven't been a great deal of examples recently and I don't believe this will be the start of a new trend.
It is cool, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI do think and hope shooters are gradually moving in this direction; it takes a few games like the Darkness 2 to establish that there's a market, but let's cross our fingers.
Incidentally, that desktop grab in the header is actually an accidental first screenshot of the game I'm working on. It is, fortunately, entirely uninformative, being as it is a close up shot of the far-far-away birds that glide over the level. I just loved how they spawn as a tight pack that flies directly over the play area, but in debug mode they're able to leave the geometry behind and once no one's looking they naturally begin spreading out, presumably to infinity.
Now you mentioned that I'm going to leak the details to Kotaku, it'll have gone viral by the morning.
ReplyDeleteIt's a topic that I've seen come up before, about how few games many other game developers play, though there are many exceptions. Picking up useful things from both the big budget and small indie experimental games is obviously probably the best way, though I wonder how that balance is weighted for most developers - and I'm not trying to make a leading suggestion there.
ReplyDeleteCould you remind what the definition of 'tilt' is you're using? I remember the post that introduced that but can't instantly intuit it from just the word. It's an innovation score isn't it?
Interesting to hear your take on The Darkness 2 - heard positive buzz despite not playing, but wasn't sure how it'd measure up to your eyes. Finished playing the forerunner Batman: Arkham Asylum last night - not sure I'll pick up Arkham City. I enjoyed it and getting to know a place and seeing it develop and having the same dead guys you killed before still lying there definitely adds something but I'd rather seek out some different worlds in the meantime. Dear Esther is my other recent play and was a memorable and and utterly beautiful experience.
Yep, tilt = innovation.
ReplyDeletehttp://tom-jubert.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-review-format-worth-writing-home.html
Defo check out the Darkness 2. Esther is on my list.
Re: Arkham Asylum. You're right that the brawling was pretty stylish, but I just couldn't take the game seriously at all. Watching the oversized lug of a Batman avatar executing 'stealth' moves was comical, and the duct work and man-sized gargoyles (throughout the *interior*) gave me the impression that all of Arkham is a playground designed to make Batman look as cool as possible. Which of course, is exactly what it is, but I would have preferred to have been able to maintain more of a suspension of disbelief. As it was, the only way for me to play the game was to pretend that Batman had paid off the Joker to set up this whole scenario for him to play the hero in. The forever-smirk on the Batman avatar's face just served to constantly confirm this theory.
ReplyDeleteSo, yeah. Good combat. As a way to use game mechanics in service is portraying a believable world -- utter fail.
Agreed. I didn't have so much of a problem with the player model itself (and isn't it interesting how calling it an 'avatar', rather than just 'Batman', makes you think more critically) - Batman's constantly reimagined, and it pales in comparison to the bizarrely brutish exagerations in DC Universe.
ReplyDeleteBut the world, sure, puts far more focus on excuses for gameplay than on actual dramatic involvement. This, as is probably clear, is something I'm prepared to look past when it's otherwise so successful.
Well, I played it for a fair bit. Half for the cape-flying, and half just so I would have a better position to complain from, so... mission accomplished. 8)
ReplyDelete