The games I am looking forward to, and why...

There are quite a few games I am looking forward to, and here's what I want to see.  Two blogs in one night you lucky lucky people

Gears of War 3:
I am a huge Gears of War fan, having played the original on the PC (a much better version than the 360) I bought my 360 specifically to play Gears 2, I had no interest in Microsoft's ludicrously unreliable console prior to that.  The two games so far are wonderfully well done, and some of the all time best shooters.  As such I am not really looking for any big changes for 3, and basically want a continuation of the story.  The story and writing is something very fashionable to complain about, people like to crticise it, it is badly written, badly thought out etc.  I strongly disagree, I think it is very well written for the very simple reason that it conveys exactly what it needs to to be inkeeping with the tone of the game.  Gears of War is about large men with large guns having fun chainsawing stuff, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  As such the writing needs to reflect that ethos, if all the cast spoke like they were in a shakespeare production, or like Hercule Poirot, it would be ridiculous.  Also, we have different genres for good reason, not every game needs or benefits from a plot like metal gear solid, convoluted and deep does not automatically make something better.  I enjoy rom coms, and I enjoy bizarre films like a scanner darkly, and very clever films like fight club or the usual suspects, that does not mean that Notting Hill needs some sort of Keyser Soze figure.  Likewise Gears of War would not benefit from being written by the guys behind Myst.
Gears of War is about lots of over the top action and awesome fun, and the writing reflects that.  The story is interesting and provides ample motivation for moving the plot along, which is exactly what you want it to do.  As such I feel it is pitched at exactly the right level.
What I would really like to see is a tightening up of one or two basics, not a change, but a tweak.  One is cover, I have mentioned several times before that the cover in gears of war can feel a little unnatural, artificially placed for the benefit of the shootout.  It needs to take a look at my beloved Vanquish, which feels very organic, like you are taking cover in whatever is to hand.  It blends with the setting well too, the colours work, the textures mix, and so on.  Gears does sometimes suffer from chest high grey walls on red ground, with everything looking quite smooth and neat, including the rubble, all placed a little too deliberately.
All in all I can't wait for this game, and was gutted when it got so badly postponed, damn you microsoft.

so hawt

Killzone 3:
Another of my favourite shooters awaiting its' third installment.  I never played the original, but love 2.  It is sci fi, but also dark, gritty and brutal.  There is a wonderful mix of the futuristic ISA in their clean high tech ships and guns, against the very world war one feel helghast, with their retro feel of trenches and steam punk industry.  More than any other game for me it really feels like war, the battles are violent and dirty, they create a feeling of desperation and hatred between the sides as you fight for every last inch.  There is nothing in particular I would like to see changed for 3, I had no real criticisms of 2.  The one thing I did find clunky was the controls in certain situations.  Mostly they worked fine, but as I liked to use a sniper rifle, holding one button to stick to cover, another to look over the cover, one to zoom, then one to aim, and one to fire, was actually rather hard to achieve.  Whilst people like to complain about sticky cover systems, they do free up a button and allow very simple means of cool looking motions.  Some way of easing up aiming from cover would be great.  Aside from that, more of the same please.

retro sci fi

FEAR 3:
Yet another shooter I love on game number 3 (at least in official numerics).  I played FEAR a lot and loved it, including the two expansions.  The AI is the best ever made, the atmosphere was excellent, story great.  It never did what you expected and avoided horror cliches, whilst giving you awesome guns to kill clever dudes.  I haven't actually played 2 yet, though I will do before 3, but I have heard that 2 focuses more on the action side.  What I want from 3 therefore is a return to the horror side a bit more.  All I want is a continuation of the great story and atmosphere.

Steel Battalion:
I love mech games, even if they don't love me.  I also love the potential on display behind the Kinect.  So the idea of stomping around controlling a mech, without a pad, is awesome.  I have absolutely no idea how it could possibly work, and I look forward to seeing how they do it.  The people behind the original steel battalion are obviously mech freaks too, given their original peripheral, so I have high hopes they will make a proper hard core mech game, that feels great.  So long as it doesn't turn out to be Mech Party, I will be happy.

the original was deep...

On the subject of Kinect, I am very intrigued by news of a Kinect Gears of War.  Like Steel Battalion, I have no clue how that could possibly work, but I have strong faith in the awesome Cliffy B that work it would.  I do not think he would be willing to put out a sub par Epic game just to make a Kinect cash in, I feel Epic must see a real possibility here, and I can't wait to see what happens.

Army of Two: 3
As far as co-op shooters go, Army of Two:40th day is the best by a country mile, and the ending was very cool.  As such I really hope there is another one in the not too distant future, continuing the tale of Salem and Rios in all their fist bumping glory.

Battlefield Bad Company 3:
I think the bad company squad are great characters, funny and interesting, getting into crazy situations and scraping through.  The game mechanics are brilliant too, blowing up buildings always rocks.  As such everything is there for a great sequel.  My only concern is the BC2 ending, **spoiler** Russians invade america.  It was stupid in MW2, it was every bit as stupid in BC2.  I am hoping they can do something with this story, BC1 worked because it was like the film 3 Kings, a few soldiers trying to get rich quick without anyone noticing.  BC2 had them as almost accidental heroes, trying to keep up with events beyond their control, it is great stuff.  An invasion though seriously risks that humour and personal involvement.  MW2 ruined itself by trying to do a Russian invasion seriously, and failed completely, BC3 can only succeed by maintaining the same irreverance and believable-ness that the previous two have had, it will have to keep the squad relatable and human and humorous in amongst the give gritty battle.

Dragon Age 2:
Origins was totally awesome, I have played it through multiple times and loved every minute.  I know very little about 2, but one thing that does concern me is the loss of so much character choice.  The character creation process of Origins was excellent, and the choice of race is an RPG staple.  I am not saying that making you play as a human is bad, or wont work, it could do fine, but I hope it is not an indication of a wider scaling back of the RPG elements in favour of a more instant action game.  Looking at some of the criticisms of Origins, like its' pace, I disagree with many of them, and I hope that 2 remains true to its' RPG roots and doesn't lose too much depth in favour of twitchy kill animations.

So, what are you looking forward to and why?

The week in gaming 04/12/10

So this week I have been able to play a few different games, and here's what I thought.
CoD Black Ops:
This is ok, it is decent fare but really nothing special.  The story is probably the best yet, but then doing a better story than previous CoD games is like doing better than Silvio Berlusconi in an anti sleaze contest, anyone can do it.  The gameplay works by and large, but the missions can be pretty tedious, a constant grind checkpoint to checkpoint, and is also significantly harder than Modern Warfare 1 or 2.  It has one glaring fault, and that is auto failing you for utterly ridiculous things you couldn't have guessed, forcing you to replay sections until you win through trial and error, which kills off any possible cinematic moment.  For example there are a number of sections where you must flee for your life, from police or an avalanche, yet you can only run for a few seconds, which leaves you stumbling along after your AI allies like an obese asthmatic, alternating every few seconds between running and walking.  At one point I failed a mission for not staying with my team when I was stood literally right beside them, another section where you are guiding people on the ground from a high altitude blackbird saw me fail because I didn't press a button to make my allies on the ground hide when enemies approached.  Now I would have thought that special forces operatives on a stealth mission would know to hide when there were enemies around, especially when your character actually tells them to hide.   But you have to press a button to make it happen, making you feel like you are controlling a group of rather stupid robots.  Other stupid game moments include automatically swapping your equipped weapon for a knife so you can silently kill some guards, even though you carry a knife at all times on top of all your other weapons.  It is an ok game, but frustration and bad design decisions so far have prevented it becoming anything special.  Like Modern Warfare 2 it is a very clear example of a game focusing almost exclusively on multiplayer, and handing you a basic, incomplete single player mode.  It is rather a shame that CoD has gone this way, given that people raved about the single player campaigns of the first few games, and their large set pieces.  Now the single player has become generic and stupid, tacked on in favour of a multiplayer game.  Maybe it is time for CoD to abandon the single player pretence and focus on releasing multiplayer only titles.

what is it with FPS' and crossbows on snow levels? not even very practical in that type of weather

Trials HD Thrills pack:
Trials HD is one of the best arcade games you can get, and if you don't have it yet, pick it up ASAP, you wont be disappointed.  Part racer, part physics puzzle, it is one of those games that frustrates you in a way that leaves you determined to keep going and beat just this one more level, sucking up hours of your time.  It is fun, amazingly well made, and with the second dlc out now, has a huge number of levels to tax your brain and reflexes, absolute arcade gold.

Vanquish
I said last week this is probably going to be my absolute favourite shooter.  This week I have to say, yes, yes it is.  Very very strong contender for game of the year, this shooter is the perfect bridge between careful cover use and hectic gunplay.  It is one of those titles whose simplicity belies its' depth and is a great blend of gritty shooter and arcade action, giving you a score for each level, statues to find and shoot, and some genuinely varied weaponry, it is a game you can keep coming back to.  I have tried the first unlockable challenge facing off against waves of enemies, and it gets very hard very fast, but just like Trials HD, it is frustrating in that great 'one more go' way.  The graphical style is beautiful, the characters are interesting, and the story is very solid.  There is enough plot to make you want to know what is going on, and how things will turn out, without it getting in the way of you sliding around very fast shooting robots in their big sensor-y faces.

Assassin's Creed 2:
I completed this game shortly after it came out, and traded it in for something else, as my lack of regular employment has lead to me sacrificing games in order to keep up to date.  But I had a gift card to spend so I picked it up again second hand to have another run through prior to hopefully getting Brotherhood for Christmas.  It is a great game, and stands up well to replaying.  Even with other new games unfinished, I have found myself playing this quite a bit again, meandering round the various locations and assassinating random guards for the hell of it.  Also, punching minstrels in the face never gets old.

"so I killed this one dude, and he was like this big! honestly!"

Mass Effect 2:
Another game I completed this summer, I returned to space to player Lair of the Shadow Broker.  I am on my second play through of mass effect 2, using the same character, putting me at a tasty level 30.  The game is so big that you can play it through a few times without getting bored.In   ME1 I romanced Liara, because there is nothing better in life than a hot blue alien space lesbian, and in ME2 I stayed true to that relationship, leading to a scene near the end with Shepherd alone in her room staring forlornly at Liara's photo.  As such I was looking forward to getting her back in the team and resuming that relationship.  The dlc is great stuff, plenty of content, some wonderful banter between Shepherd and Liara, a variety of missions, and more space sex.  I was slightly disappointed that liara doesn't become a permanent squad member, but all in all I thoroughly enjoyed it.

So then, there are my views, what have you all been playing?  Getting anything for Christmas?

The week in gaming 26/11/10

So, time for another gaming update on what I have been playing.
Valkyria Chronicles
Finally got round to finishing this this week.  I got to the final mission more than a month ago, but it is rather like a boss fight, and doesn't require all that much strategy, so I got annoyed and left it.  But I came back and finished it off, to a great ending.  It has a real feel good finish and is beautifully animated.  Also, once you finish you can play the game again keeping your high level characters, which is a lot of fun.  Still incredibly annoyed that the sequels are on PSP, I really want to play 2 and 3, but I refuse to pay £200+ for a handheld.  It has given me a desire to return to some other alternative strategy games too, like Fire Emblem and Advance Wars.

Call of Duty:  Black Ops
I received this for my birthday yesterday, so haven't played it all that much, but got a few hours in.  It feels more dramatic than MW2, instead of being one soldier in an army, like the opening MW2 missions, you are one guy in a small group doing ludicrous things.  It is about as stealthy and discreet as a sledgehammer, black ops really sounds like it ought to be a splinter cell style game, but it is more serious sam than anything.  If you want to single handedly win the Vietnam war, this is the game for you.  There are explosions and bullets flying everywhere, it gets pretty crazy.  I have also found it to be a lot more of a grind compared to earlier Call of Duty games.  It has the standard issue of your AI team mates being utterly useful, but some missions really do feel like you are desperately trying to reach the next checkpoint, to manage that extra step forward and it can feel like a bit of a chore.  You try sections again and again, hoping for that one go where you manage to get everyone, maybe your allies actually get a kill, so you can push into the next room and die over and over again there too.  I am a veteran of shooters, but this feels much harder than others, and a bit more arbitrary too, you get little help sometimes with regard what you are actually trying to do, and I appear to have been killed on numerous occasions by enemies behind me.

All in all, it is good, but not brilliant, and can be very frustrating.  The story feels very disjointed and random too with your character leaping around memories.  It is moments of brilliance separated by periods of tedious grind.

Vanquish
I need to play more of this game.  This could well be my all time favourite shooter.  It is a brilliant combination of cover based and none cover based shooters.  One major issue with cover games like Gears of War is that because you need cover for every fight, the placement of walls can feel very artificial, they feel like they have been put there deliberately to shelter you, rather than feeling natural.  Vanquish gets around this by using one simple method.  The cover can be anything from something you stand behind, to something you lie behind.  The widely varying size makes it feel much more realistic, like you are diving behind anything close by, rather than moving from one preset chest high wall to the next.  Enemies die fast enough that firing from cover never feels like slow target shooting, and there are enough enemies to keep you busy and mindful of your surroundings.

What really sets this game apart is the fact that any time you are bored of shooting from behind a wall and need a change, you can dive out, slide along the floor at high speed, and gun down Russian robots in slow motion.  What this means is that you can alternate between careful cover  based shooting, and high speed arcade fun any time you like, both options work really well.  This gives the game significant depth and mileage over games that rely on one or the other.  It is like Devil May Cry meets Gears of War.

Everything about the game oozes style, it is beautiful to look at, it flows very naturally.  The environments are varied, as are the actions needed in various sections, from running gauntlets of fire, to wide city squares, to cargo trains.  These are regularly interspersed with larger min boss type battles which do a great job of further breaking up missions.  The cut scenes are kept short and are well written, the characters various and interesting, which means you spend the majority of your time actually playing, not just watching.  There are very few loads too, making it feel like you can just play the game start to finish with almost no interruption.

I cannot recommend this enough to any shooter fan out there.

Review scores in gaming

Today I want to talk about something that comes hand in hand with games, and that is, as the title cunningly informs you, review scores.  This will not be a blog with answers, but of questions for the viewers at home.

yes you at home

Reviews can be very useful, we all know games are expensive, wherever you live.  Whether you buy five a year or fifty, you don't want to buy a bad game, you want to enjoy the experience.  So if you are looking to spend your hard earned dollars/pounds/euros/human skulls/rocks, reviews can help you spend intelligently.  The problem of course is that the process is wholly subjective, and very personal.
IGN is a huge site, with a great many readers, no doubt many thousands, and is certainly the largest gaming website I am aware of, and the most prominent.  Yet each game receives a score based on the opinion of one individual, and that score gets added to the database, and seen across the world.  Even with the best will in the world, you will not agree with everyone, and this being the internet, someone will probably even get angry, maybe their cat just spontaneously combusted or something, I hate it when that happens.  This could give the reviewer a huge influence on the success of a game, one viewpoint could inform many thousands of potential buyers.

One thing I find interesting when reading reviews concerns sequels.  For this example I shall require the assistance of Fallout 3, and Fallout New Vegas.  Fallout 3 received a very impressive score of 9.6, New Vegas 8.5.  This intrigues me.  In my opinion, New Vegas offers a much deeper experience, and this is down to basic mechanics.  The game allows you to focus on different skills much more than 3 if you want a pacifist option for example.  The crafting is far more involved, allowing you to make food, medicines, recycle ammo and so on.  This is compared to the Fallout 3 crafting of weapons, which felt incredibly tacked on and shallow to me, like an idea they never bothered developing.  New Vegas' faction system gives a more involved relationship with the setting than the basic karma meter of 3.  Now I hope that pretty much everyone would agree with me there, the very well received mechanics of 3 have been improved and expanded on, and successfully so, in New Vegas.  Yet despite this, the game got a significantly lower score.

you gave me how much?

So then, my first question for you.  How objective should a reviewer try to be?  I for example would consider the above mentioned changes to be fairly objectively better.  So, that leaves story, setting, and characters.  Now these are going to be highly subjective, and different for everyone.  So then, should a reviewer focus more on the mechanics, and less on the stuff that is open to personal preference?  Did you prefer the DC ruins, or the Mojave wasteland, and does your decision affect the actual quality of the game, or just your personal view?  let me know

make it high, or I will come for you

Now on to my next point.  There is one thing that really annoys me in reviews, and that is complaints that things haven't changed.  Step up Assassin's Creed 2, and Brotherhood.  Assassin's Creed 2 received 9.2, Brotherhood an 8.  Now, if you read through the review, the majority of it is complaints that they haven't really added anything to the game.  Now, my question is, should they?  I loved AC2, I am perfectly happy with more of the same, I do not feel that 'more of the same' is an objectively a bad situation.  Brotherhood changes the setting, continues the story, adds more items, and more characters.  Isn't that enough?  What is unclear in the review is how much the reviewer has knocked down the score because of the lack of new stuff, and how much is because they didn't like other changes.  Also, we don't know of course what the reviewer would have scored AC2 as, should you try and have the same reviewer follow a series in order to maintain continuity?

the fate of low score reviewers

9.2 to 8 is a big drop, and the phrase, 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' springs to mind.  So my next question for you lovely folk is: if a game has the same mechanics as its predecessor, can it/should it, be given a lower score?  I am more of the view point that if a game is worth one score, and the sequel doesn't change anything, then it ought to get the same score.  I do not believe that familiarity makes a game worse.  What if someone didn't play the original?  The sequel will be as new and exciting to them, as the original was to the reviewer.
So basically, what I want to know from you all is simple, how much of the reviewer's personal preference should be included in the review?  Obviously none of us are perfect, our opinions will always colour what we do, and personal opinion cannot be left out entirely, but should we give it free reign, or try to retain a degree of professional objectivity?

The floor is yours.

the week in gaming 14/11/10

So, what have I been playing this last week or so?  In fact, the same as before, so without further ado, here are my updated opinions.
Halo Reach:
I completed this today, all in all I really enjoyed it, which was a big surprise for me.  I found the previous games fairly underwhelming, so I was surprised by how much I got into this one.  The pacing is much better than previous games, and the story vastly superior.  Knowing your ultimate fate gives you a real feeling of attachment to your character, especially as you design them yourself.  Previous games have always just been you, master chief, gunning down hordes of covenant, and lacked the same intensity and attachment.  I found the ending a little disappointing, *spoiler* the mac cannon scene was a little bleh, and the epilogue, whilst kinda cool, was over pretty quickly.  For myself, I only managed to kill about three elites, and maybe half a dozen grunts before triggering the video sequence, not the most epic of conclusions.  I would have preferred it if you had been given a bit more health and allowed to make a pile of corpses.  I can kinda understand the low key death, as the last spartan on Reach, a huge death would perhaps be a bit cliche.
Fallout New Vegas:
I have reached level 26, about 30 hours in, and pretty much had enough now.  I haven't quite finished, but the final quests wont unlock.  Some sort of glitch is preventing me from receiving the final quest to side with the NCR and finish the game.  It is a great game, a big improvement over 3, and 30 hours is undoubtedly a great run for any game.  But after 30 hours, I cannot be bothered looking round to see if there is a way to sort it.
Front Mission Evolved:
I am really enjoying this by and large, except for one minor gribble.  I am stuck in a fight with four named characters, all four I have beaten before, but no more than two at a time.  In typical cartoon fashion, after defeating each battle, your character allows them to escape.  If each one had been killed when I first beat them, then I wouldn't be facing this impossible mission now.
Castlevania:  Lords of Shadow
Still really enjoying this, it is an excellent game, and very beautiful.  The combat is brilliant and the puzzles very clever.  The various chapters are diverse and intriguing, from frozen mountains to clockwork towers and foetid swamps.  I recommend people pick this up and give it a go, if you like God of War and its' ilk, you will probably like this a lot.
There is one thing that all these games have thrown up, one issue which continues to annoy me, and that is background chatter from NPC's.  It can add a lot of detail to the game, giving it life and character.  However, if it is badly done, it can really ruin the immersion.  As a case in point, Halo Reach has, as I have said before, some really awful AI.  Bad allied AI makes your squad-mates utterly useless.  I can understand the developers wanting the player to do most of the work , but if you are going to be one member of a squad of genetically modified super warriors, then having the five other members basically doing nothing, really ruins the immersion.  As a case in point *Spoiler Warning* whilst on my way to the pillar of autumn to deliver cortana, Emile keeps saying, 'we must hurry to the autumn, we cannot wait' 'hurry up' and things of that nature, yet the whole time he is repeating this, he doesn't fire a single shot himself, and I cannot help but think that we would get there a whole lot faster if he actually contributed in some fashion.  Likewise at one point there is a mission where you are defending a base entrance, and one of the Noble team shouting 'I am pinned down!' well, yeah, we are defending a static location from hordes of enemies, obviously you are pinned by fire...
Both Castlevania and Front Mission suffer from bosses who shout the usual 'you cannot defeat me' 'I shall destroy you' 'you are worthless' stuff, but they say it over and over again, throughout the entire encounter.  What annoys me about this, is that these comments really do not reflect the battle.  Whether it be a huge vampire daemon, or a well armed mech.  You could be absolutely destroying them, with full health yourself, and them nearly dead, yet they continue to tell you how useless you are, and how they are going to win easily.  Excuse me, but what battle are you watching?  What I think games really need, are more contextual comments, they could be related to the level of health for example.  E.g. if the boss has over half health, they are confident and aggressive, under half, a little more healthy, under a quarter, they ought to be desperate and worried.  If they wanted to be even more complex, the speech could also be tied to your health, so their comments are based upon both their own health, and yours, for example if you are both nearly dead, then the boss goes for 'I'm taking you with me' type comments.  I remember NPC speech and background speech being brought into gaming, and what a difference it makes, but I think they are treated as being rather too throw away and not given enough time.