Swabbleflange

Drive

2011-10-02T22:43:00.001+01:00

I saw a film that I liked so much I'm writing about it. How about that.

In the hands of a Brett Ratner or a Louis Letterier, and headlined by a go-to low-budget action star, Drive would be just another in the endless pile of merely competent, brainless action thrillers populating many a casual moviewatchers' DVD shelves. Fortunately this is one of those occasions where straight-up B movie fodder is transformed by a bunch of talented individuals into something rather more special, thoughtful, and very possibly timeless. Like getting Scorsese to direct Cape Fear or The Departed... still very much a genre piece, but gaining that particular edge that lifts it higher than any reasonable expectation.

Ryan Gosling plays the never-named 'Driver'. A classic existentialist movie character, a man of few words (at an outside guess I'd say he has less than 50 lines in the film), and ice cool self-confidence - the kind borne out of being extremely capable in his particular line of work, and very sure of his world. Working as a mechanic and stunt driver for the movies, and moonlighting as a getaway driver for hire, he's living the spartan, focused lifestyle of the single-minded professional. He's Léon, or Le Samourai's Jef Costello. That is, until he meets and becomes friendly with a new neighbour (Carey Mulligan) and her young son. Parallel to this is a local crime boss (Albert Brooks), who is fronting the money to start a legitimate racing team with Driver's garage boss and confidant (Bryan Cranston). The plot won't be spoiled in any way here, but needless to say things don't quite continue on this pleasant track.

I think I actually prefer the first half of the film. There's a real tenderness and honesty to the growing friendship / possible relationship that builds not only between Mulligan and Gosling, but also Gosling and the boy. Clearly Driver has come from a murky past, but he's transformed by the pair. Although stoic and often silent, he's perfectly capable of being warm and charming in a genuine way. He even seems to acknowledge to himself that becoming close to these people is a kind of inevitability, something that's beyond control in his finely-structured existence. I found the lengthy set-up of these characters captivating, which of course earns the film every ounce of investment it needs for its subsequent trajectory.

There's a particular defining moment, a simple dialogue exchange that that makes you realise there's something much darker bubbling under this cool surface. It comes out of nowhere and it stood my hair on end. When Driver ultimately has to resort to violence he does so with absolute fearlessness and brutality, but the work done in the first half of the film keeps us with him.

Although it has a standard noirish B-movie plotline, it's the little choices it makes in individual scenes that I love. The overarching story is full of well-worn tropes, but in the moment to moment stuff it confounds expectations every time. A lifetime of film watching has loaded me with a smug self-confidence in second-guessing, but Drive really does its own thing. I don't mean the details of the story... I mean the things it decides to show, or how to show them. How you'd expect a clichéd character to behave, versus how they actually do in this film. How you'd expect an action scene to go down, or a car chase. I found it really refreshing.

Drive feels like a movie that Michael Mann or William Friedkin would have made in the 80s (and really the only thing that betrays its contemporary setting is its car models and the use of mobile phones). It's incredibly stylish, but also meaty. LA is shot with searing brightness during the day and given a warm glow at night, favourably comparable to To Live and Die In LA, Heat, or Collateral. Great 'city' movies. The full widescreen frame is never wasted and there are some truly beautiful compositions and visual moments. But the visual slickness is easily matched by a clutch of excellent performances and an emotional core. It also has a killer synth soundtrack (another thing that could place it bang in the 80s).

Sometimes you're watching a new movie and you know it's going to be one of those that's going to cement a spot in that often-maligned category of cult classic. One of those relatively low-key movies that just endures - the kind that people light up about when you remind them it exists ten, twenty years down the line.

It's cool, to put it simply. It's a really goddamned cool movie.

The more things change...

2011-01-05T23:08:00.003Z

Flicking through issue one of Edge magazine, from 1993. A handful of 'visionaries' predict the near future:

"In about five years CD-ROM is going to absorb entertainment, education and information. There's a growing palate of what I call enabling technology, which allows the consumer to think of himself as the artist." - Peter Gabriel

Bang on, really. This very blog is a prime example of someone using enabling technology to broadcast every tired little thought he has to the world.

"Games aren't going to be played by the 13 year-old shut away in his room; they're going to be connective, interactive. I forsee a day when you go to a movie theatre, there's about 300 people there, and between you, you all play the movie. From your seats, you control what happens. The technology is here today..." - Mark Lewis (then president of Electronic Arts)

OK, people play games together over the internets, but individually they're mostly still 13 year-old boys (mentally or physically) shut away in their rooms. And I think he was predicting Heavy Rain, which is probably as good a story as you're going to get with 300 writers.

"Within a few years from now, we'll start to see cable and satellite direct broadcast games where you select from a menu of games and it'll constantly download new parts of the game into your machine while you're playing." - Jez San

Jez is right on the money here. Perhaps only just starting with streaming content from the likes of OnLive and Blizzard, but Steam and console download services fit the bill for online browsing and purchasing.

"Telephone and cable companies will lay the information super highway and it will be one of the greatest technological developments of the 20th century. but someone will still have to fill up the highway. It won't be a new entertainment form, but a more sophisticated version of what exists now." - George Lucas

Pull over, I'm going to be sick.

...And from the reviews section, the concluding lines from the review of Super Mario All-Stars on the SNES:

"There's one thing bad about it; if the best cart around is a compilation of old eight-bit games, it doesn't say much about the standard of new games, does it?"

Oh snap.

Bergmarathon: Dollar

2011-01-03T20:38:00.007Z

Ingrid Bergman is my favourite 'Classic Hollywood' actress, but it occurred to me there are a bunch of films from her pre-Hollywood days that I haven't seen. I've decided to rectify this by making my way through her career (as much as I can) and offering up my usual half-baked thoughts.

Dollar (1938) Gustaf Molander

A fast-talking drama/comedy of manners, Dollar concerns the relationships of a trio of wealthy Swedish couples. The hook is that everyone in this setup seems to lust after someone other than their own spouse, and quite openly. While nothing untoward actually appears to have happened there's still a great deal of flirting and jealousy creating tensions within the group. Everything comes to a head when they find themselves under the harsh gaze of an American millionairess while on a skiing trip.

I really enjoyed this film a lot. It's brisk at 74 minutes, and the snappy dialogue and general vitality of the performers keeps things rattling along. Although everyone on show gets a decent amount of screen time Bergman is clearly the center of attention, playing a somewhat bitchy role with obvious relish. Elsa Burnett gets the bulk of the comedy, playing the overbearing and meddlesome American (referred to as Ms. Dollar for her wealth). Ultimately it's a story about being open and honest with your feelings and there is a genuine romantic heart to the film, with everything being resolved happily in the end.

Top Ten of 2010 - Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

2010-12-21T17:26:00.013Z

Twelve years in the waiting and seven in the making, Blizzard finally let the world in on its continuing saga of the war between the Terran, Zerg and Protoss. Undoubtedly one of the most eagerly anticipated sequels in gaming history, and one with an almost impossible expectation to live up to.

What Blizzard did to pull off the resounding success that is Starcraft II, is 'simply' polish it to gleaming brilliance. Starcraft is probably most famous among RTS fans for its almost perfect balance, which is without doubt a major factor in its continued popularity. A legitimate sport has been made of the game as a consequence of it. Starcraft II doesn't mess very much with the formula in terms of the makeup of the various factions. What it does do is wrap the package in phenomenally high production values and offer a multiplayer component that is second to none.

Back to the game itself for a bit though. The storyline picks up a few years after Brood War left off, with the Queen of Blades and her Zerg swarm vanished without trace, the Protoss retreating from the spotlight and Jim Raynor leading a rag-tag rebel group intent on taking down treacherous emperor Arcturus Mengsk. Raynor gets involved in a race to uncover ancient artifacts, which also brings the Zerg and Protoss back into the action. A fateful encounter between Raynor and former human 'Ghost' Sarah Kerrigan - now the corrupted and dreaded Queen of Blades - seems inevitable.

The presentation of the story in Starcraft II is done via the modest 'hub world' of Raynor's battlecruiser. Between missions you can move around the ship, talk to key crew members to advance their own stories, unlock bonus missions, and research and upgrade equipment. The heavy 'rednecks in space' feel of the original game is in full effect, but while the characters are somewhat stereotypical, the quality of the acting and visual design is top-notch.

Many RTS series are trying to find ways to push the genre forwards from the simple base-building of old. With its Dawn of War and Company of Heroes series, Relic is focusing down onto small groups of units under direct control and individual character progression, merging the genre into more of an RTS/RPG hybrid. Supreme Commander is going the other way, offering action on an unprecedented scale. Blizzard on the other hand keep the campaign mode of SCII fresh by pretty much never repeating themselves. I can't recall any two missions in the game where all I did was build a base and an army, and march it across the map to wipe out my opponent.

There are stealth missions involving single characters or small groups, there is a train robbery mission, there's one in which rising and falling molten lava reveals and hides parts of the map in turn. There's a mission where the entire map is being consumed with fire, forcing you to keep uprooting your base and units and re-establishing them. Another where you have to defend a base during a day/night cycle, completing objectives across the map during the day, while the night part brings overwhelming hordes of creatures to bear on you. The range of things to do in the campaign mode means that it never for one moment feels repetitive or stale. On top of that there's an element of branching structure, where certain missions (and eventual technologies) are available or not depending on your decisions and dealings with major characters.

Optionally through the missions are secondary objectives that bring you rewards in the shape of points to spend on Zerg and Protoss research. Money is also rewarded for successful missions, and this can also be spent on upgrades to your units, vehicles and buildings. You can't simply afford everything, so choices have to be made on where to spend these resources.

The storyline wraps up the chapter very nicely, while obviously paving the way for the next instalment - Heart of the Swarm - in 2012, telling the Zerg side of things. It may not be the greatest story ever told but it's done with such warmth, humour and style that it's totally compelling. However, the campaign is only half of the package of Starcraft II.

Once you're done following the story it's time to jump online and pit yourself against other people on Battle.net

Now, we all know Blizzard have a long and celebrated history with their devotion to the online side of their games. Notwithstanding the behemoth that is World of Warcraft, they have continued to refine and support Starcraft and Diablo II for over a decade. Still patching and tweaking things after all this time. Their relaunched Battle.net service brings everything together for their three core series, and it's a really slick piece of work.

You can jump right in against other players and fight your way up the rankings, but first it's best to play a series of unranked matches that determines whereabouts you should start when you do go competitive. Battle.net takes all the stats from your games and figures out who you ought to be playing against, skill-wise. As long as people aren't hustling the system you should mostly get matched against a fair competitor. Starcraft II online is thrilling stuff, and while I'm certainly not very good at it I still enjoy it immensely. The replay functionality is very helpful here, not only for your own mistakes but also to see just how others play the game. Battle.net also keeps track of crazy numbers of stats for the truly dedicated.

If you have friends on Battle.net it's also a great social game to boot. Lobbies of players can spectate on matches, chatting in their own channel and viewing the action freely or from the point of view of any player. They also have access to information such as current construction, unit breakdown, economy, and even how many actions per minute the players are performing. Blizzard have done as good a job as possible to maintain the spectator sport feel of Starcraft online play.

I'm an unrepentent and unapologetic Blizzard fanboy. I love the games they make and I love the way they go about making them, from visual design to company philosophy. Yes we have to wait for years, but I'll take their "Ready when it's ready" approach over any rush to a release date, especially when they deliver a game of this calibre. Not only my favourite of the year by quite a margin, it's right up there with the best I've ever played.

Top Ten of 2010 - Mass Effect 2

2010-12-21T15:54:00.005Z

Mass Effect was released just a little too late to be included in my all-time top 100, where it would have secured a high spot. ME2 improves on the original in almost every way.

For starters the overhauled engine is so much better you wouldn't believe the two were related. On PC it's much less of an issue, but the difference between ME1 and 2 on Xbox 360 is night and day. It's not just visual though... in every facet of the sequel Bioware stepped up and delivered the goods. In some quarters the streamlining of the interface was regarded as dumbing down, moving the game closer to an action adventure than an RPG. In reality it removes a lot of cumbersome and frankly unenjoyable busywork and lets the player focus on the thrilling story and enormously improved combat.

Mass Effect as a whole is totally irresistable to a space opera fan, and through both games it really feels like you're an integral part of this complex, expanding story. In true Bioware tradition there are tough choices to be made that significantly impact the subsequent path of the story, and beyond that there are dozens of callbacks to minor incidents from the first game (importing a character from ME1 is an absolute must). All this of course adds huge replay value. The choice to put instant Paragon and Renegade actions on a mouse click without ever telling you exactly what will happen is a brilliant move as well, with often surprising and hilarious results.

There's some astonishing performance work going on too. While there are always moments of iffy animation they are completely overshadowed by the quality of movement and expression in cutscenes. The writing and characterizations are also uniformly excellent (in particular the Asari character Samara blows my mind with her realism and performance), and the extent to which Bioware has gone regarding relevant dialogue depending on your characters is very impressive. It's a game with really no poor dramatic qualities to speak of. Structure-wise, where ME1 was an epic quest with a strong story thread, ME2 is more a sequence of short adventures with an overarching main plot - different but no less accomplished.

I seem to be alone in lamenting the loss of the planetary exploration aspect, which to me was a big part of feeling like I was truly 'out there' in the unknown reaches of the galaxy. I also seem to be alone in enjoying the planet scanning and mining aspect that they added in its stead (though even I admit that's not quite so addictive on multiple playthroughs).

Bioware have fashioned a compelling universe to play around in. It may borrow heavily from established sources but it has enough of a unique identity to stand on its own. Where a lot of game series slog through unwelcome sequels of decreasing value, here the proposed trilogy doesn't feel like enough. I really didn't think anything would beat Mass Effect 2 for me this year...

Top Ten of 2010 - Civilization V

2010-12-21T15:22:00.004Z

The venerable Civilization series continues to refine and move forwards, ideas coming and going, and small but welcome visual upgrades marking each new instalment. I've loved Civ since my Amiga struggled to handle it almost 20 years ago, and while I've always been generally rubbish at it, it nevertheless keeps me enthralled and addicted with its legendary 'One more turn' gameplay, and of course the basic fulfilment of watching my empire grow.

Civilization V is actually very pleasing to look at, with nice effects and animations and a new terrain model that allows features to blend in more seamlessly with one another, giving more of a natural feel to the landscape while still being easy to read. As ever, my main enjoyment of playing these games is just seeing everything expand and improve, dipping into the Civilopedia for a bit of light history now and then. Aside from being a strategy game, Civilization encompasses a few interests of mine (ancient history, culture and the progress of technology), and while obviously only being on a very superficial level it still feels like I'm involved in something fascinating and educational - only the teacher is really cool.

From the changes, without going into boring specific details I'm most happy with the streamlined interface they've evolved from the console outing Revolution, the addition of City-States to mix things up nicely alongside the full-blown civilizations, and the decision to have only one military unit per tile (I always found stacked military units clumsy to deal with). Everything feels... cleaner. It's still incredibly difficult to get anything other than a military victory over the AI on harder difficulties though.

It feels like faint praise when really that's not the way I intend it, but Civ is like a comfy pair of slippers. I find it wonderfully relaxing. Winter especially benefits from a good long session huddled at the PC with snacks and coffee, click-click-clicking those turns away.

Top Ten of 2010 - Super Meat Boy

2010-12-21T13:02:00.004Z

Another title in the list that wears its retro credentials on its sleeve, Super Meat Boy is a ferociously challenging platformer that demands every last drop of skill from the player.

The main thing about SMB is that it should be maddening. It should be throw-the-controller frustrating... but it's not. There's something about the presentation that's so goofy and cheerful that continual failure only raises laughs instead of ire. There's also a deep respect for the game itself. The control is so perfectly pitched and the levels so cleverly designed that not only are you sure that next time you'll crack it, you feel you owe it to the game to succeed. SMB doesn't cheat the player. It's hard but totally fair, and for the most part every failed attempt only serves to refine your sequence through a level. The first tricky jump becomes second nature as you focus on the second, and so on. Often you get your first look at a level and think "No way". But then you do it. You may do it after 100 attempts - but you do it. The satisfaction is unequalled.

And to be honest, as an oldschool arcade gamer it's nice to know you've still got it.

Top Ten of 2010 - Pac-Man Championship Edition DX

2010-12-19T21:39:00.006Z

The original Pac-Man Championship Edition featured in my all-time top 100, and a little over three years later the follow-up has arrived to take its place, refining, expanding and improving the modern classic in every way (Pac-Man CE is even included wholesale as a mode in this version).

It retains the neon look of the original - already firmly established as a perfect visual choice for such an update - and once again focuses on timed score attacks rather than the more endurance-run nature of the Pac-Man of old. The new key factor is the 'Ghost Train'. Most ghosts now sleep in positions on the maze, and only wake when Pac-Man moves past them. When that happens they follow him determinedly, building to a line of up to 30 in the train. By eating a power pill Pac-Man can turn on the train and munch through it in a spectacularly satisfying fashion, speeding up as he goes while the sound effects increase in pitch. So, the core of the gameplay is to figure the most efficient path through each dot pattern, making sure to pick up all the ghosts on the maze as you go.

When pulled off successfully this becomes a beautifully flowing sequence, and the dot patterns and ghost layouts have obviously been painstakingly designed to that end. A perfectly executed set of patterns will always see a power pill appear, the resultant chomp through the ghost train giving a massive points boost before the maze resets for the next run. The flies in the ointment for the player are the handful of free ghosts that move about the maze, and the fact that the speed of the game increases as the points increase. At high levels Pac-Man becomes incredibly fast, requiring lightning reflexes and forward-planning if the patterns are to be maintained.

When things become a little too much - an error in movement or a bit of bad luck with the free ghosts - the player has a limited number of bombs they can use. A bomb blows away any ghosts directly next to Pac-Man, and sends the current train to the ghost box in the centre. The game also features a nifty 'bullet time' moment when a ghost gets too close, giving the player an essential extra moment to act. Lives aren't really a factor (unless you're incredibly incompetent you'll never run out before the timer does). It's all about chasing the score.

The original Pac-Man template is a piece of game design perfection. A few clever and well-considered tweaks to the formula were all that was needed to keep it not only relevant after thirty years, but absolutely essential for anyone with a true love of videogames in their purest form.

Top Ten of 2010 - Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

2010-12-18T19:43:00.004Z

When Crystal Dynamics announced GoL as a downloadable, isometric instalment of their Tomb Raider series it left a lot of people highly dubious and somewhat alarmed. Closer inspection however proved that the name Tomb Raider was absent, and this was clearly going to be some kind of standalone experiment with no impact or connection to the mainline Tomb Raider saga.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light of course went on to become arguably the finest Tomb Raider game yet, with the possible exception of Anniversary.

Guardian of Light takes the form of a twin-stick shooter married to a heavy puzzler and collect-em-up. In doing so, Crystal Dynamics finally - maybe accidentally - found the perfect action template for its heroines' adventures. Combat (by far the weakest element of traditional Tomb Raiders) is no longer a confusion of wonky targeting and spastic camerawork. Teeming waves of enemies come from all sides, punctuated with thrilling but refreshingly fair boss fights. It's effortless, intense and enjoyable. It's Smash TV with puzzles.

Speaking of which, GoL doesn't scrimp on the brain requirements either. Puzzles range from perfunctory, immediately-obvious efforts to level-spanning head-scratchers. However, as with all the best game puzzles a little experimentation and logical thinking should get you through without the need to reach for GameFAQs. I got stuck a couple of times, went away and came back to look at things anew and almost immediately cracked it. It balances things just right, as bogging the player down too much at any point would be a serious flaw in such an energetic and fast-flowing game.

Replayability comes in the form of challenges. Score targets for the levels, collecting 'red skulls' hidden throughout the game, speed runs and finally individual goals regarding boss fights or dexterity. Weapons can be unlocked and enhanced with the powers of found artifacts, and Lara herself can benefit from the effects of certain items. A nice, albeit very light action-RPG element.

The game looks great. While it obviously lacks that profound sense of being in ancient, cavernous spaces that the Tomb Raider games evoke, a broad range of textures, lighting, physics and particle effects really bring the world to life. Control is smooth and intuitive and it's generous with autosaves. You can sit and play through the whole thing in a few hours, or nibble away at it piece by piece, either way suits.

Much grumbling was done about the game not releasing with a proposed co-op mode. This followed later and while I understand co-op seems to be some sort of essential make-or-break for contemporary gamers it really doesn't sway me one way or the other. I found GoL to be an enormously enjoyable single-player experience, and I would welcome many more instalments in this particular treatment of Lara Croft's adventures.

Top Ten of 2010 - Final Fantasy XIII

2010-12-16T22:09:00.005Z

I'm sure this isn't going to be a particularly acquiescent appearance in the list, but since politics and the opinion of the masses doesn't matter to me one bit I can go ahead and state that Final Fantasy XIII is one of my favourites in the series, possibly even taking the number two slot after XII.

Let's face it: Japanese RPG stories are almost always rubbish, and the characters barely anything more than the thinnest of sketches. Random encounters are an unwelcome relic of the past, and most turn-based combat systems are dull and needlessly lengthy. What keeps you playing them is the stat/gear levelling compulsion. So, make a JRPG with a story so baffling you give up even trying to follow it, but give it a combat system so dynamic, intense and fun it won't even matter.

Oh, and make it staggeringly beautiful to boot.

And by golly is FFXIII beautiful. Frequently on my journey through the game I'd just stand still and gaze around the environments I was in. Environments that only became more impressive as the story moved on. I loved being in this world and because it was so filled with eye candy I didn't even care about the ultra-linear progression, or the slow feed of the whys and wherefores of the tale. To match the visuals it has a superb soundtrack, one that deviates quite significantly from the expected FF norms. Even now just thinking back on some of the sights and sounds of this game I get a warm feeling.

However, what really kept me focused and utterly addicted throughout a 55-hour completion time was that combat system. Sure early on you can get away with hitting X on everything, but a) that's boring, and b) you won't learn anything for later, when pressing X won't get you very far at all. Soon enough you're juggling strategies constantly, micromanaging a particular technique here, whipping out an item there, and the game does not stop to let you ponder a move. Later boss fights are tremendously intense and satisfying, and even lesser encounters are made hugely enjoyable by the stagger/juggle system, which puts the combat more into the mold of a Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. It's no idle addition that you're scored for speed after every fight... employ ill-thought out tactics and you may not only score lowly, you may lose altogether. There's a special satisfaction upon finding the right combination and timing of attacks for a particular enemy, cutting a ten-minute encounter down to thirty seconds.

The next step for Final Fantasy is going to be very interesting indeed, either for its continued push through the boundaries of expectation, or its defeated retreat into tried and trusted norms. Either way, FFXIII stands as a pivotal moment where a genuine chance was taken, and in the most conservative of genres that's merit enough.

Top Ten of 2010 - Red Dead Redemption

2010-12-15T12:25:00.006Z

I'm not a fan of the Grand Theft Auto games, largely for their story and character content but also for the fact that if you drop me into a sandbox world where I don't care much about the story I tend to just wander about a bit then get bored. I had no intention of even checking it out until a friend told me it was a free roaming open-world game. Red Dead Redemption makes my list purely because of its world.

Content-wise RDR falls down in a few places. Spending such a large amount of time in the world naturally sees you repeating many incidental encounters (though it was a long time before I simply started shooting first when faced with another ambush), and I could have done with a lot more in terms of 'ambient challenges'. But the story is the focus of the game that Rockstar wanted to make. It's just a pity that almost everything about the story feels like a wasted opportunity.

John Marston is supposedly a fearsome man with a violent past, and although admittedly he's trying to get away from that, circumstances put him in a situation that calls upon his particular expertise. The problem is that he never really gets to show it. Marston is pushed around from pillar to post by a succession of completely despicable characters, whom you feel Marston ought to put a bullet through without a second thought. He goes along with whatever busywork they need doing - often at odds with his own character - in the service of his own ultimate goal. So the storyline betrays the character you're initially very excited about being in the shoes of, and keeps you rolling along with a series of repetitive 'Go here, kill these guys' missions. Indeed, in my desire to unlock the third and final area of the map I decided to plough through a large chunk of the Nuevo Paraiso missions in one sitting, which nearly put me off the game for good (I can see how it would become tiresome for anyone playing the game for the story, rather than despite it).

Perhaps the most disappointing thing is the climax of the story, because it's so good, and kind of shames the laziness of everything that has gone before it. Rockstar bravely lets the player settle into an almost idyllic civilian life, completely cranking down the pace of the action, which makes the end of Marston's story all the more affecting when it comes.

All that sounds like a game-killer, and quite honestly it would be were the game not so completely captivating in every other way.

I'm a sucker for a Western, you see, and RDR gave me the opportunity to exist in an incredibly well-realised chunk of the Old West. I poured close to 50 hours into a game I could have burned through in less than 20, simply because I spent so much time enjoying the scenery, the hunting and gathering, and the hugely fun and rewarding treasure hunts (I remarked many times that they could keep adding treasure maps to the game as downloadable content and I'd lap them up). I only pushed the story forward in order to open up more areas to explore. It's a genuinely beautiful game - I'd pull up my horse and spend time watching the sun set behind the mesas of Nuevo Paraiso (the game's Monument Valley analogue), or just spend hours of gametime walking about in the wilderness, swinging the camera around for the best views (and looking out for the game's fearsome cougars).

Mechanically the game is rock solid (pun probably intended). The guns feel weighty and have a great action, and the horse riding is a whole lot of fun. Hunting bears in a stormy forest at night became an experience on a par with the best survival horror. Add to that a very well considered multiplayer component and you have a gameworld that's a pleasure to drop in and spend a significant amount of time with.

So, a Rockstar open-world sandbox game with a fairly rubbish story and unlikeable cast managed to become one of my favourites of the year. I really am a sucker for a Western.

Top Ten of 2010 - Hydorah

2010-12-14T20:33:00.004Z

Three years in the making, Hydorah is a true labour of love for retro-inspired creator Locomalito and music collaborator Gryzor87. Locomalito's game design philosophy makes for joyful reading for any oldschool fan, and Hydorah encompasses everything about it beautifully.

Heavily inspired by classic horizontal 'memorization' shmups - most notably the Gradius series - Hydorah casts the player as pilot of a lone fighter, battling waves of an alien menace before facing a boss at the end of each stage. Enemies drop items that automatically upgrade the ship along the way, from speed boosts to main weapon power. Special weapons with limited uses can also be collected, and are selected prior to each level. There is also a small branching structure along the route to the final stage for added replayability.

The level of care and attention that has gone into the visuals of Hydorah is gobsmacking for a one-man effort. Beautifully designed pixel art that instantly transports you back to the arcades of the mid-80s. Smooth, detailed animations and wonderfully varied environments. Simply put, if this game was in an arcade in the 80s it could stand proudly alongside a Gradius II or R-Type. Equal respect goes to the music, while not being the expected chiptune accompaniment to the retro visuals it's nevertheless a superb synth soundtrack that fits the action perfectly.

The game is challenging, but like all the finest memorization shmups you learn it section by section and (unless you're having a particularly bad day) you inch a little further with each session. Indeed, when an in-development demo was released a while back it did prove brutally difficult, mainly down to unforgiving hitboxes. Criticisms were taken onboard and the final product addressed all the issues.

Oh, and this game is FREE. Anyone with even the most modest PC can download it, plug in a pad and experience one of the finest traditional shmups in recent years. So, what are you waiting for?

Top Ten of 2010 - Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

2010-12-14T14:23:00.006Z

To tie in with one of the best films of the year (shame on you for not seeing it), rather than take the obvious lazy route of 3rd-person action adventure/collect 'em up, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World - The Video Game takes the form of an old-school scrolling brawler. Entirely appropriate considering the film and the comic it's based on chart the adventures of a loser-ish videogame obsessed slacker who just happens to be the best fighter in his province. In order to win the right to date his new flame, Scott has to defeat her seven evil exes in battle. Cue several levels of scrolling mayhem capped with boss fights.

What makes this more interesting than countless Final Fight wannabes is the progression system of the characters. From an initial selection of four, your choice starts the game slow, weak and lacking in moves. Here's the point at which casual attention turns elsewhere, because expectation says that the game should be played through, Double Dragon style in one sitting. That's not the way this works. SPvtW:tV also mixes in RPG elements that are crucial to successfully completing the game. As you make your way through the stages you acquire money and experience. Money is used to increase your stats such as strength, speed and HP, and experience levels you up to unlock a variety of moves. The idea is to play over and over, pushing forwards a little more each time as you're able to. It is simply impossible to take a starting character and beat the game from the off.

Happily, what this means is that you will finish the game despite its first appearance as soul-crushingly difficult. Yes, you may have to level up until you're so ridiculously overpowered you can't lose, but you still have to put in the effort to get there. Mostly it's very fun to do so. There are some niggles, largely due to the sometimes slapdash feel it has. It's unfair in all the ways brawlers are (getting stuck in a loop of knock down / recover in time to be knocked down again is always fun), it's rough around the edges in terms of the interface, and it can be dangerously buggy if you're unlucky.

Everything else shines though. The visuals (directed by pixel art maestro Paul Robertson) are beautiful evocations of 16-bit glories, and chiptune legends Anamanaguchi provide one of the videogame soundtracks of the year. Considering its nature it's ironically a really good game to relax to as well. I often fire it up just to 'grind' through the lower levels and accumulate some cash (at this point the enemies are no kind of threat).

Despite its flaws, technical shortcomings and initially offputting difficulty, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World proved to be a bit of a gem for those of us prone to misty-eyed reminiscences of pixels and chiptunes gone by.

Predators

2010-08-06T19:39:00.009+01:00

Haha, no. Not those kind of Predators. Though a trawl through the history of The Predator in videogames might be interesting, if only for the fact that I'd have to point out that Aliens Vs Predator on the Jaguar was, in fact, utterly rubbish even when it was new.

Back on track... I'm one of those insufferable bores that thinks the Amiga was the greatest gift to home computing and computer games. You may have heard of us - desperately clinging onto copies of Amiga Format well into the late 90s, mumbling things about multitasking and BOBs and how Monkey Island 2 was perfectly playable even with a single disc drive thankyouverymuch.

As I'm occasionally wont to do, I've spent a couple of days off wallowing in nostalgia. The result of which is that I've recorded and uploaded one of my favourite old megademos to Youtube, amazed that it doesn't seem to be there already. Just the interesting bits, mind - there are a few sections that don't lend themselves too well to simply watching (a couple of games and interactive things).

ENJOY.

Limbo

2010-07-24T18:54:00.002+01:00

It seems that once again I find myself the dissenting voice among the choir.

XBLA's 'Summer of Arcade 2010' continued with the release of this long-in-development indie darling. A game whose specifics were kept under wraps for a long time, and one that maintains a veil of secrecy amongst its players. That spoiler-saving attitude is fairly essential for a game that relies heavily on an element of surprise and mystery.

Unfortunately that element of surprise is what kills it for me.

Limbo is built around a mechanic of unavoidable instant death, a series of puzzles and traps to be overcome by trial and error. Checkpoints are scattered liberally - literally before every event, every new encounter in the landscape. Die, learn, overcome, move on, die, learn, repeat.

The stark black and white visuals and minimalist sound design conjure up an imposing, gloomy atmosphere. It reminds me a lot of Knytt - a mostly empty landscape peppered with incident. Most of all it completely nails the feeling of lonely exploration. If only it were a game more attuned to rewarding rather than punishing the player.

For me, Limbo fails as a gaming experience because it constantly pulls you out of its own carefully constructed atmospheric space. That eerie, prickly feeling is totally undermined by the fact that you're restarting checkpoints over and over again. Any good faith built up by the presentation is utterly destroyed by frustration. Frustration at not even being able to forsee most instances of failure. Most importantly this results in a complete lack of satisfaction or feeling of accomplishment on solving any of its puzzles.

It's beautiful but it's simply not fun.

Game Room ~ Road Fighter

2010-04-02T21:12:00.010+01:00

Last week Microsoft launched its repackaged attempt to bring the golden age of arcades to the home and contemporary gamers. Krome studios have been tasked with a 3-year project to emulate a large number of classic (and of course not-so-classic) arcade titles for play on the Xbox 360 and PC. The service launched with a selection of 30 games, plucked from the vaults of Atari, Konami and Intellivision. Mana from heaven for gamers such as myself? Read on!

Upon loading you're presented with an empty arcade space to fill with purchased cabinets. 240 Moonbucks to play on a single platform, or 400 to play on either. There's also the option to pay for individual credits, but only a wealthy lunatic would go there. Various themes, decorations and props can be placed to clutter the whole thing up, with more unlocked as you reach goals within each game and 'level yourself up'. Your arcade becomes populated with the avatars of your Xbox Live friends. Or randomly-generated nobodies if you choose to play on PC.

Classy.

The real draw of this whole shebang is of course highscores. Microsoft's previous abortive attempt to bring the competitive spirit of classic arcades to Live stuttered and failed amid a lack of support and an unintuitive scoreboard system. Game Room does a sterling job of this part. Each game has score tables for friends and world rankings, while a handy news menu keeps you up to date with the triumphs of your rivals. Replays can be saved and uploaded, and specific challenges sent out.

This is exactly what I'd always wanted Live Arcade to be about, and indeed I've spent the past week engaged in furious highscore battles with my friends list.

On the technical side there's been a lot of grumbling from certain quarters about the accuracy of the emulation, with MAME being touted as the yardstick with which to measure. Let's never forget though that MAME itself is a work in progress, and is constantly being tweaked and changed. If someone is running Game Room side-by-side with a genuine cab and pointing out the differences then fair game. Otherwise, shut up and play.

On the subject of game pricing... there's a sense in the gaming community that old stuff shouldn't hold much value. I've been guilty of this myself sometimes. Where to draw the line though? For me, Gravitar is worth every... point... of 240 points, whereas I may baulk at being charged anything for Adventure on the 2600. Isn't that like saying I wouldn't want to buy a Blu-ray of an old film, just because it's old - regardless of any restoration work that had to be done? Sure, I can play all this stuff for free on MAME, but I like to think that given the opportunity to legitimately pay for a working version of an old game I'll take it. If keeping these titles alive in the face of endless military shooters means I have to cough up some dollars, I can live with that.

By the way, Game Room is exclusively about arcades as far as I'm concerned. You won't find any 2600s or Megadrives or whatever comes later bolted onto cabinets in my arcade.

Game Room nicely recreates the sights and sounds - though thankfully not the smells - of the old arcade scene. Only without bigger boys stealing your credits, or one guy staking an immovable claim to your favourite cabinet.

Road Fighter

I immediately gunned for Gravitar, Lunar Lander, Asteroids and Tempest, then I started looking at the other offerings. To say that this unassuming Konami title has taken me by surprise is an understatement. It's grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and refused to let go. It's absolutely tremendous.

I like me some top-down racing action. There's something really good about the feel of a road scrolling smoothly along beneath your vehicle, dodging and weaving through opponents. Road Fighter is a simple beast: you have a limited amount of fuel with which to clear several stages, all the time avoiding rivals and obstacles, and collecting bonuses. Crashing depletes your fuel gauge and when it's empty it's game over. Other road users range from harmless slow-moving traffic to dangerous drivers that actively try to shunt you into the barriers. Water, oil slicks and roadworks are thrown into the mix for good measure.

Taking a hit isn't neccessarily the end of the road though - steering into the skid can recover control before a crash, losing just a few seconds rather than a precious chunk of fuel. Stay clean for long enough and bonuses make an appearance - a jet plane, train and Konami Man himself. Bonus fuel cars can be driven into to add a little to the reserves, and serve as a stacking points bonus if you hit each one without a crash.

Road Fighter completely embodies the just one more go spirit of a great arcade game. Simple controls, colourfully attractive visuals and twitchy gameplay that begs to be mastered.

Final Fantasy XIII

2010-04-02T18:54:00.007+01:00

Here's a thing: I spent a chunk of the evening earlier writing out an entry on Final Fantasy XIII, which I recently completed. As it went on, the points about it I wanted to make just got mired deeper and deeper into defending it against it's many vociferous detractors, and I couldn't be bothered any more. My intention to write positively about the game had been poisoned by the need to win hearts and minds.

So, here's my potted version:

Final Fantasy XIII is one of the best JRPGs I've ever played. At this moment I'm quite happy to say it's my favourite in the series after XII. It was a streamlined, action-packed, eye-popping experience that was more purely fun to play than almost any RPG I've tried. I loved the world, liked the characters, found the pacing to be perfect (I literally never tired of it or felt it dragged), and revelled in the gloriously entertaining combat system. It was a bold experiment that - for me - completely paid off.

Check it out. You might like it, you might hate it. I only ask that you go in without preconceptions or expectations of what you think a Final Fantasy should be.

Heavy Rain

2010-02-28T23:26:00.009Z

Heavy Rain is not a good videogame.

By almost all measures of videogame critique it falls way short. The controls are unresponsive and often abstract, the animation is stiff and awkward, 'gameplay' - nebulous term as it is anyway - amounts to nothing more than going through the motions of a scene until the opportunity to move on presents itself. Most of the time these sections deal in activities so mundane the only result is patience-trying tedium. You cannot fail, the plot moves on regardless.

This would be fine if the game were striding boldly into new arenas of storytelling. That, at least, would be something worthy of praise. Unfortunately Heavy Rain is hampered on these fronts by the dramatic quality of a made-for-cable thriller starring C-list actors delivering C-list performances, and a ludicrous plot shot full of holes.

The thing is, those cheap thrillers are often highly watchable. Maybe for the wrong reasons, but nevertheless - when time is ticking down and Frank Stallone, Don Swayze and Zeppo Clooney are closing in on their man, you're clutching the edge of your seat and munching on popcorn all the same. Of course, you've also spent the film laying on comedy commentary and pointing out every duff moment for laughs. Heavy Rain entertains immensely in the same way. Probably not what self-proclaimed writing genius and videogame auteur David Cage had in mind.

There's a lot of talk out there about how groundbreaking this is, how important it is. Did anyone play Fahrenheit? Did people conveniently forget that developers like Bioware and Bethesda have been spinning yarns where the actions of the player have far-reaching, game-altering consequences for years? What's more, games like Mass Effect and Fallout 3 offer significantly richer writing and 'digital acting' than Heavy Rain ever manages. It may feature *glimpses* of truly photorealistic characters (in the right light, from the right angle), but toss in some robotic animation and a trip through Uncanny Valley and it immediately falls apart. Plus the fact that the decades-old output of Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls effortlessly trumps it in the script department.

As my good friend Johnny Beatdown remarked:

"if you're claiming that your story is the most important thing to happen in videogaming, that story had better be pretty damn good."

The lineage of Heavy Rain comes from text adventures, through point-and-clickers, mixed in with laserdisc games and FMV-driven 'interactive movies' from the heady days of the mid-90s, and of course Cage's own Fahrenheit. Videogame creators desperately trying to present a more traditionally dramatic experience, elevating videogame narrative to something more worthy, maybe something to sit alongside the best that literature and cinema could offer. Only with the twist that you were in control, manipulating the story and characters to fashion a unique kind of adventure.

I've spoken on this before. My unashamedly alarmist attitude towards this encroaching notion that videogames can only truly be accepted as art - or even a respected entertainment medium - if they strive to emulate the cinematic experience. I'm sorry, but I want my games to be games. What's more, I want them to be good games. Is that too much to ask? Changing a baby's nappy or scrambling some eggs may be something that my characters would do, but performing them via a series of button prompts will never be something that I want to do.

Heavy Rain does a couple of things very right, but only by default due to its nature as a videogame. What I mean is, it does deliver some genuinely pulse-pounding QTE moments thanks to the player's foreknowledge that it's entirely possible to lose any of the characters at any point. This lends certain scenes a true sense of urgency and desperation. I will happily admit to finding one particular sequence almost unbearably tense. Also, it presents some tough ethical choices that reverberate throughout the narrative. But, like I said - you can't lose as such, you can just end up at a very bleak conclusion. Even that isn't necessarily wrong. The ending of Seven isn't necessarily wrong, and indeed Cage has commented that players should really only go through the game once, accepting the consequences of their actions and having whatever they come out the other end with as their own experience of the game.

Maybe because he knows that if you do play it multiple times the cracks start to show. Inconsistencies in the plot where the game isn't clever enough to adapt to things the player's characters have experienced or missed, for example. I'm aware of how impractical it must be to cover every possibility, to provide alternate paths for every decision (and on this point the designers of Mass Effect 3 must be in some kind of flowchart hell right about now), but if you can't do it don't do a half-arsed job of it anyway and hope people put the flaws down to stuff they missed.

Heavy Rain does have multiple possible endings, and gamers being gamers will generally try to see every single one of them. It's going to be a hard slog, though. This entry comes across as incredibly damning, but I did value my experience at the very least and I will play it again. If I seem like I'm raging against the game it's only because I'm feeling like the majority of mainstream opinion is misguided - they're using the wrong tools to judge it. Allow me to kick back a little.

Which brings me full circle to the statement that Heavy Rain is not a good videogame. It's an occasionally thrilling, very flawed, badly acted, often wonky-looking interactive movie which is very little fun to play, but nevertheless is kind of worth playing. Certainly worth talking about.

If only to know the enemy.

Top Ten of 2009 - Gravity Crash

2009-12-19T20:18:00.003Z

Okay look, if you know me and you know videogames, you know this is on the list. I've gone over my love for this type of game many times before, and Gravity Crash is basically what happens if developers look into my head and pull out a blueprint for the kind of game I most like to play.

Perfunctory description: You carefully pilot a spacecraft through treacherous cave systems collecting gems and picking up fuel and stranded comrades, while fighting against enemy ships, gun emplacements and the occasional boss, and taking out specific targets in the environment.

Check: Glowing vectors. Chippy soundtrack. Smooth and precise control.

If this seems like I'm willing to give a free pass to any game of this type... it's true. However, Gravity Crash happily sits among the best examples of the genre. Its only omission is some kind of tractoring mechanic as in Thrust or Solar Jetman - that kind of interplay tends to engage me the most. Still, there is plenty of variety in the challenges as it is, and the built-in level editor ensures an unlimited amount of new ones.

This game tussled with the two fighters below it, but in the end it's not even a fair fight. The judge is biased.

Top Ten of 2009 - The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match

2009-12-18T17:28:00.005Z

I was never lucky/crazy enough to own a Neo Geo AES, so the King of Fighters series mainly existed in a parallel universe I didn't have access to, not until I started dabbling in MAME anyway. Even then, a lack of human opponents and a fearsome hardcore reputation ensured that my occasional forays into it were brief and baffling. It's no fun learning a fighter on your lonesome.

Fate intervened, and a friend steeped in KoF gave me a thorough introduction to the series, explaining characters, chunks of storyline, and most importantly playing techniques. A couple of marathon sessions on '98 and 2002 layed the groundwork, but the release of 2002UM early in the year sealed the deal.

Without passing myself off as someone who knows a great deal about the series - I certainly don't - I can say that 2002UM is basically the best version of KoF out there. Call it a greatest hits, a distillation of everything that works. It's another 'dream match' type of game, like '98. No storyline to speak of, just a whole bunch of characters spoiling for a fight (a mammoth roster ensures that everyone's favourites are accounted for).

To a pixel art fan, the AES-based KoF sprites and artwork still look great and move with enough fluidity to stand alongside their polygonal rivals, and the new splash art strikes a nice balance between classic SNK stylings and a more modern Anime look. I've found the character art to be very hit-and-miss from this series, with some truly scary years in there. With XI, XII and this instalment they seems to have finally hit a stride.

And the gameplay? As you might expect from a fighter that places above SFIV in this list, the action is responsive, crunchy, absolutely rock solid. One thing I really like about these games is the weight behind the hits and the physical feel of the characters on the screen. A lot of fighting game wannabes fail in delivering that very fundamental aspect.

Once again, the two-player arcade experience triumphs. It caters for a quick fix but it can also consume your entire day. It doesn't matter if it's not the most visually flashy kid on the block either, because - hoary cliché be damned - great gameplay is ageless.

Top Ten of 2009 - Street Fighter IV

2009-12-17T20:24:00.003Z

Or, The Cammy and Rose Show

After years of speculation Capcom kicked off an initially promising 'Year of the fighter' with this astonishingly assured piece of work. Since Street Fighter 2 took the world by storm nearly two decades ago the series has branched and evolved into multiple iterations, becoming somewhat arcane for the fighting fan who likes his games quite straightforward: Me. Counters, elaborate combos and -isms were jettisoned in favour of bringing the scrapping back to the accessible immediacy that sunk its teeth into millions of gamers in the early 90s.

The buzz built slowly but surely around the title, positive word-of-mouth spread from preview builds, and lapsed gamers were stirred into enthusiasm once more, fuelled by the memories of mis-spent youth. This was a game you could put in front of someone who hadn't given videogames a second thought since the SNES days, and they'd play through the night.

A few new characters make an appearance, but when it comes to fighters I'm the kind of guy that latches onto a couple of favourites and doesn't budge. I learn a character and pretty much exclusively use them, and in this case it's Cammy. Light, fast, and rangy. Perfect for my in-out playing style. I also have no interest whatsoever in playing strangers online, so all my competitive gaming is done the way it should be: Two players, two sticks, one console, one TV. Favourite characters locked into epic sessions. Rematch rematch rematch. Much punching of shoulders and swearing. Occasional congratulations on particularly admirable wins.

It's not perfect. There are the usual balance issues associated with almost all fighters, and a hair-tearingly cheap end boss. I have issues with the art direction, specifically the character designs. While the ladies manage to escape any serious transgressions, the male characters aren't so lucky. Everyone's had a good thrashing from the ugly stick, particularly a distinctly un-Japanese Ryu. Seriously, this is Capcom we're talking about. Capcom effortlessly spits out iconic, stylish and beautiful character design... so what went wrong here?

Luckily everything else delivers. The stages are bold, colourful and filled with wonderful incidental details that complement the foreground action, and the music is uniformly excellent, particularly the theme for new character C. Viper and the 'Beautiful Bay' location.

My personal tastes in visuals aside, Street Fighter IV turned out to be not only one of the best games of the year, but a truly exemplary arcade fighting game and a damn near perfect two-player experience.

Top Ten of 2009 - PixelJunk Shooter

2009-12-16T21:53:00.003Z

I'm writing less than a week after the launch of this game, which - knee-jerk reaction or not (time will tell) - has thundered into the upper tier of this list.

It's a goddamn twin-stick-cave-flying shooter.

Only it's not.

OK, if you've heard anything about this game you'll probably have heard how woefully inappropriate and almost misleading the name is. The decision on a title was thrown open to a competition, and for better or worse Shooter was chosen by the winner. You'll also probably hear that a more fitting title would be PixelJunk Fluid, or Elements. The reasoning being that this is more about manipulation of fluid-based physics than taking on hordes of enemies with white-hot laser death.

Physics done well in games can be a joy to play around with. Anyone who's played Half-Life 2 probably spent a good deal of time just messing about with the Gravity Gun, and LittleBigPlanet - while deeply flawed as a platform game - provided an incredibly fun and inventive play set. There's a feel to perfectly-pitched physical movements that is immensely satisfying, and PixelJunk Shooter nails it. So we have water, lava, ice, and magnetic liquid metal to manipulate in the service of rescuing stranded miners, solving puzzles, and dealing with hazards and enemies. Lava melts ice, water cools and hardens lava, and so on. There's a definite sequence of progression through each (rather small-scale) level, and it's the solving of this sequence in the most efficient way that makes the game so compulsive.

PixelJunk Shooter employs the very popular flat-coloured Flash style of visual, which I fully admit I'm not much of a fan of. Flash animation almost invariably makes me think of Monty Python, and my head equates that with a kind of half-arsed cheap 'n' cheerful effect. I can get over it with this game though, because the other elements are done so artfully. The music is lovely and the control of the craft is very intuitive and smooth.

Relatively short and very forgiving in its handling of failure, PixelJunk Shooter provides a wonderfully chilled and enjoyable meshing of old-school concepts and modern technology.

Top Ten of 2009 - Ion Assault

2009-12-16T21:31:00.004Z

Preview footage of Ion Assault suggested it would be a fairly traditional twin-stick shooter akin to... well... every other twin-stick shooter out there. When it proved to be something different it critically suffered somewhat for it. Damned if you do, etc.

Whilst it does sometimes get very hectic, Ion Assault is more a game of precise movements and carefully though-out routes. The right stick is used for orientation and aiming rather than simply firing directionally, and the player has to absorb particles to charge their main weapon which can then be released to destroy rocks and enemies in the enclosed arena that each level presents. The movement of the particles forces the player to maneuver a lot - and sometimes put themselves in heightened danger in order to gather enough power to fight with. Destructible pods drop bonus weapons - homing drones, time-stoppers, boosts to the absorbtion power of the ship to name a few - and each set of stages in a level is capped off with a technical and exhausting boss fight.

Now, I'll play any twin-stick shooter. Alongside cave-flying gravity games it's my go-to genre for zone gaming thrills. Still, I was more than pleasantly relieved when Ion Assault confounded my expectations. Aesthetically it completely does it for me - spaceships, funky colours, chippy music, particle effects. Gameplay-wise I find it tough and satisfying. I quickly grew to appreciate and enjoy what it set out to be, rather than disparaging it for not being what I expected.

Top Ten of 2009 - Shatter

2009-12-11T22:15:00.006Z

I'm partial to the odd Breakout clone every now and again, but to be honest if someone makes a really good one there's not much else to do with the basic concept. Thus Batty on the Spectrum sits in my top 100 pretty much unchallenged.

Shatter isn't a threat to that game, because it takes the 'bat and ball' framework and twists it in all kinds of ways, resulting in a quite unique experience. Vertical, horizontal and circular levels - the latter restricting the player to a lower-third section, end-of-stage bosses that require quite a bit of precise and strategic play, and a push/pull mechanic that allows the player to draw in energy from the remains of destroyed blocks or influence the flightpath of their projectiles. Blocks don't simply sit waiting to be taken out either, and once hit entire sections of the formations will fall towards the player, forcing judicious use of every trick at their disposal and making things frequently quite overwhelming.

Thanks to all these extra features Shatter sometimes feels more like a hybrid of shooter and puzzle game. You have to think about much more than simply losing your 'ball', and the busier levels and especially the bosses become a tense back-and-forth of pushing/pulling, dodging, shielding and occasionally unleashing your collected energy in a barrage of destruction. Lives can fall away quickly during particularly chaotic moments - especially if you're enough of a gambler to fire out two or three projectiles at a time (each counting as a life).

Shatter plays wonderfully and is very addictive, but the icing on the cake is the soundtrack. Videogame electronica at its very, very best. In fact the soundtrack is without question my favourite album of this year and is probably responsible for a good 50% of my enjoyment in playing the game. That's not a strike against the gameplay though, as anyone who knows me knows how much importance I place on the music of videogames.

Top Ten of 2009 - Torchlight

2009-12-11T16:03:00.004Z

From the guys that brought you Diablo - a game just like Diablo.

That might seem a little dismissive were it not for the fact that no-one makes Diablo clones quite as well as the guys that made Diablo. It's what they're good at and they know it. The path to Torchlight has been somewhat torcherous* but fledgling studio Runic Games delivered the goods on a light, fast-moving, loot-heavy action RPG that managed to sate the hunger for Diablo III - at least for a little while.

'Diablo Clone' sums it up more pertinently than would be legally comfortable in other circumstances, but I'm assuming it's all good buddies between Runic and Blizzard. So, we have a structure and layout mashed together from the first two Diablos - one town, one dungeon of many levels, unidentified objects, town portals, health and mana potions, skill trees, sidequests, and an art style heavily reminiscent of Warcraft. Oh, and a soundtrack from the Diablo composer that pretty much is the Diablo soundtrack.

But hey - it's all good because that's kind of what we wanted, and Torchlight kept me entertained for a couple of dozen hours. Not bad at all for a £15 effort from a small studio. It's biggest Achilles' heel in longevity terms is the absence of multiplayer, and after about 20 levels the grind of solo loot gathering does begin to set in quite sharply. However, mod tools were made available shortly after launch and good work is being done by dedicated fans already, so there's ample reason to revisit the town of Torchlight in future.

*sorry.

Top Ten of 2009 - The Beatles: Rock Band

2009-12-07T19:10:00.004Z

The peripheral-based rhythm action genre burned incredibly brightly for me for a couple of years, and the zenith of it could never be anything less than a title charting the career of one of my favourite bands, featuring songs I'd grown up on and telling an inspiring, irresistable musical story.

Presentation is key here and anything less than total respect for the material simply wouldn't do. Guitar Hero: Metallica showed the world how to churn out a glorified track pack and charge a premium for it, whereas TB:RB feels crafted with care from the outset. It's a bona-fide standalone title that takes the polish of previous Rock Band titles and mixes in a few new elements - most notably a full vocal harmony - resulting in a worthy tribute and a dream come true for fake instrument wielding Beatles fans.

Perhaps the harshest criticism I could level at the game would be the lack of challenge, but even that in a rhythm action title is a moot point. It's all about playing and replaying purely for fun, a couple of hours of euphoric multiplayer here and there. It seemed a sure bet to woo the casual market and storm the charts, but unfortunately EA's woeful marketing put paid to that.

After this it felt like there was nowhere else to go. I'd gotten everything I could out of the genre and it was time to put aside the endless iterations and weekly DLC. Returning to vanilla Rock Band didn't hold the appeal it once did, and I realised the dream was over. But what a beautiful dream it was, and what a note to end on.

Top Ten of 2009 - Blast Off

2009-12-05T22:00:00.007Z

I hadn't really given much thought to my PSP for most of its life. Mainly it was just something I had, that I occasionally played about with but generally regarded as a bit of a dead-end, games-wise. I'd paid even less attention to the minis lineup of downloadable games, believing some common consensus that they had little to offer and were regarded as something of an afterthought even by Sony itself.

Recently though, I've been finding an awful lot to like in that modestly-produced library (if this weren't strictly a list of new games from this year the sterling conversions of the Amiga classics Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies would be included).

Blast Off presents a simple scenario: Astronauts are stranded in space, and the player has a rocket ready to launch with a limited amount of fuel in which to rescue them. The problem here is the presence of planets, asteroids and black holes - each exerting their various gravitational forces on the ship. Veer too close or choose the wrong angle - or indeed run out of fuel - and it's curtains. Skillful maneuvering and constant correction of thrust is required to navigate the obstacles, often using the pull of gravity to slingshot out to targets before heading for the safety of the warp gate home.

Each level has a minimum number of astronauts to rescue before the gate will open, with anything above that falling into the realm of bonus points. The levels are scored on that, plus remaining fuel and the astronauts' precious air. Beating the game minimally can be done quite quickly, but it's the prospect of those highscores and 100% completions that promise to bring the player back time and again. Things get quite fiendish towards the end, with multiple objects following intertwined orbits. Here the game manages to balance fun and frustration perfectly - in failure you're always certain the next attempt will be a success.

So we're dealing with spaceships, gravity and delicate controls. A simple setup, unfussy front-end and the very essence of one-more-go portable gameplay. It's handheld nirvana, quite frankly.

Blast Off takes me back. Back to the immediate thrills and fun of the arcade, back to the homebrewed sensibility of 8-bit computer games. And it cost about the same as a cup of coffee.

Top Ten of 2009 - Resident Evil 5

2009-12-03T15:05:00.010Z

"Sheva, I see a list... and we're in it!"

Here's a nice non-controversial choice to kick off my favourite games of 2009. I suppose I should start with the caveat that I give to anyone who asks about it: Play it in co-op with a friend.

I don't like Resident Evil 4. Yes, I'm the person out there that doesn't like it. The controls, the viewpoint, the setting... I've tried many, many times to 'click' with the game and sometimes I've almost convinced myself I've enjoyed it, but it's simply not to be. More than anything I want to like it because it's Resident Evil. I love the series, I love the characters. Unfortunately when it comes down to it I just don't like the way it plays.

Resi 5 looked to be much the same for me. Only the addition of what many considered to be a hindrance - the co-op focus - raised it from being another series footnote I took a pass on, to being one of my most enjoyable modern gaming experiences.

Resident Evil 5 is not a horror game. Sure, there are a few spine-tingly moments but they are more to do with the panic of running low on ammo and being cornered. There is never that sense of foreboding that certainly came with the first two games in the series. No, this is pretty much a straight-up action game. Puzzles are kept to an elementary minimum. There is little to no backtracking. Enemies come in fast-moving hordes and you absolutely must work together to prevail against them.

It's that co-operative element that for me makes the game shine. The moment-to-moment tactics that have to be decided and acted on, watching each other's backs, sharing out resources. Moving through a location with SWAT-like efficiency, covering doors, clearing out rooms. All the time piecing together the convoluted history of Umbrella, Albert Wesker's part in it, and the fate of an old friend. The game is punctuated with some quite impressive boss battles - some erring on the side of frustration as often happens with these things, but as with all good boss battles the way to victory can be worked out piece by piece in the moment, strategies adapting until the eureka moment presents itself.

It's visually very impressive, often stunning. The texture range and quality is enormous, and there are moments that feel truly photorealistic, particularly towards the end with some eye-popping lighting. The character work in particular felt unrivalled at the time. Perhaps only succeeded by the likes of Uncharted 2. These characters feel alive, with totally believable expressions and body language.

I'm currently replaying it on the PC in single-player mode, and yes, some of the downsides to that defiantly co-op focus have reared their heads from time to time - specifically the actions of the now AI-controlled partner, but regardless of this I'm enjoying it again. Perhaps because I'd already been primed to forgive its faults by the multiplayer experience. It's not perfect by any means, but it manages to sit somewhere towards the top end of the pantheon of Resident Evil titles.

Capcom took a risk trying to move the series into fresh territory, and I think for the most part it pays off. Certainly Code: Veronica and "0" proved that the classic concept was outstaying its welcome, and it's highly unlikely that the giddy heights of Resident Evil 2 would be scaled again without a major overhaul.

I think they're stepping in the right direction.

Redirection

2009-11-26T20:15:00.005Z

My blog is 'holding a pose' at the moment, but allow me to pimp a friend's project:

http://johnnybeatdown.blogspot.com/

100 games that are worth writing something about, be it good or bad. A work in progress, and very entertaining. Check it out!

Yellow Rose

2009-10-24T19:03:00.005+01:00

I've been working on this for the past month or so, and I tried a bit of experimenting with Flemish layering techniques. I'm happy with how it turned out. It's got a kind of grungy look to it, which I really took a liking to as I worked more and more. Painting leaves is hard work! I had to find a fine line between going insanely detailed and losing my mind, and giving just enough of a hint of the fine details to achieve a high level of realism.

This was a lot of fun and very rewarding, so I'll probably do some more flowers in the near future.

Ingrid Bergman

2009-06-24T20:38:00.002+01:00

Audrey Hepburn

2009-06-13T23:12:00.002+01:00

Art mojo in full flow, everything else can get stuffed.

Except Rock band! Iron Maiden 12-track pack. Bliss.

It's Hedley!

2009-05-27T00:09:00.005+01:00

I drew something!

OK, so... gaming hasn't quite taken a complete backseat. I've actually played a whole bunch of things in the past several months. The main thing that happened I guess is that I discovered the greatness of motion sickness wristbands which - while not 100% effective on everything I've tried - at least allowed me to comfortably play or finish several games that I've always wanted to check out.

Call of Duty 4 - The biggie. A game I've always been envious to hear about. Well, I'm very happy to report that this was completely successful. I hammered through it in about 4 days and it most certainly lived up to my expectations.

Portal - I was able to finish this, one of the previous worst offenders. Yes, it's great.

Gears of War - Another very acute sickness-inducer. Funnily enough on being able to play it comfortably I found it to be incredibly boring and repetitive. Ah well.

I was able to finish off Uncharted, check out plenty of Bioshock, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, more Half-Life 2 (until realizing I find it very dull), and complete Resident Evil 5 in co-op with a friend. More indepth stuff on some of those later.

Bullet points to round off this half-arsed effort of a post:

I think Rock Band may well be my all-time favourite game
Street Fighter IV is amazing, but not as fun as The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited match
Resident Evil 5 is more fun than Resident Evil 4
Realization of own Star Trek fandom
There are a great many things in life that I actually don't like as much as I like to think I do

Three months?

2009-01-19T19:15:00.003Z

How did that happen?

Er... I'm almost ready to write some stuff. So much gaming has happened since my last entry that it's going to take a whole bunch of entries to cover. Unfortunately this isn't the first of those entries. This is just me defibrillating the blog.

Folklore

2008-10-17T19:52:00.009+01:00

I completed the Playstation 3 game Folklore earlier today, after a couple of days of fairly intense play. I've had it since the start of the year, but other things got in the way of me getting really stuck into it, and a silly bit of impatience and poor planning made me fall out with it for a while. I'm extremely glad I came back to it because it's become my favourite game on the system, and really one of my favourite gaming experiences overall.

The game is played through the stories of two characters, brought by circumstance to the sleepy Irish village of Doolin. Ellen, a young girl searching for her mother whom she believed died when she was a child, and Keats, a hard-bitten skeptical reporter looking into a murder story with supernatural overtones. Ellen and Keats are both drawn into the Netherworld, becoming crucial players and pawns in a power stuggle between the Faeries. At the same time, Ellen uncovers the truth behind her own past, and the dark secrets of the villagers are brought to light.

Folklore plays out in two distinct sections. The Doolin parts, where Ellen and Keats talk to the villagers, prompting memories and leads surrounding the mysteries of the place, and the Netherworld parts, where they engage in combat with a wide variety of Folks - creatures of myth and legend, spread over several different realms each culminating in an epic battle with the resident Folklore - the 'boss monster' of the realm.

The hook is that in order to fight against the Folks, Ellen and Keats have to collect Folks to use as weapons. There are over 100 individual Folks in the various realms, with particular strengths and weaknesses, and it's the exploitation of these that forms the backbone of the combat system. In order to add a Folk to their arsenal, Ellen and Keats must deal enough damage to it that it becomes weakened enough for them to absord its Id. This is done in a variety of ways using the SIXAXIS motion-sensing controller. Most basically, after holding R1 to ensnare the Id, the controller is flicked upwards, pulling the Id out of the Folk and into the players' collection. Other Folks require the controller to be shaken, carefully balanced, or rocked from side to side. Sometimes timing comes into play as well, and sometimes a combination of these actions is required.

Once a Folk is captured it can be assigned to one of the four face buttons and summoned at will (limited by an energy reserve). The Folk pops out, performs its particular action, then disappears. Folks can be strengthened by repeated use, by absorbing a certain number of the same type, or by using specific items on them. Throughout each realm the player will find pages of a picture book relating to the Folks of the realm and the Folklore. Here in pictorial form are clues to which Folks should be used on which for the best results. Most are self-explanatory; seeing a Folk that is water-based usually leads to the conclusion that a fire-based Folk would be good to tackle it with. However, there are some non-elemental Folks, and some that require charming to coax out their Id, for example.

Collecting and 'levelling up' the Folks becomes quite addictive in itself, and there's certainly a satisfaction in snaring a particularly slippery one. In fact, I found the combat as a whole to be very fun and engaging. While the game is a little on the easy side it does demand quite a bit of quick thinking and it keeps you on your toes - especially when you are faced with numerous Folks of different types. Costumes come into play with regard to the magical cloaks that Ellen wears. As she progresses through she acquires a variety of different outfits, each with specific properties (usually elemental protection). Some of these are found easily enough, but a couple do take rather more effort.

Perhaps a contentious issue is the fact that the game has to be played through by both Ellen and Keats, and they tread much the same ground. The Folks they collect and their particular attacks are often unique, and sub-boss encounters are different (as well as each characters' perspective on the unfolding story), but it is potentially offputting to essentially repeat each chapter. However, I found that by playing through exclusively as Ellen until the story paths merged, then taking Keats to the same point, I was removed enough from Ellen's experience in the early parts of the game for it not to feel stale with Keats. That, and the experience gained by Ellen in terms of what to expect in the realms made Keats' journey very swift.

Visually the game is a real treat. A lot of care and attention has gone into fashioning the Faery realms, each one very distinct. The use of colour and range of texture is breathtaking, and incidental animations abound. You really have to get in close and analyze things to see the seams, but it's a triumph of imaginative design over poly count. Away from the dazzle of the Nether Realms, Doolin itself is attractively rendered in its own way, particularly at night. It's undoubtedly one of the most visually appealing games I've ever played.

The visual beauty of the game is matched by a score that runs from haunting piano pieces to weird carnival nightmare music, and appropriately dramatic pieces to accompany the Folklore encounters.

After that there's the subject matter, and Folklore is right up my street in that regard. Myths and legends, folklore, and a murder mystery. What more could I ask for? The translation and vocal performances are well above average, and while the story concerns itself with enough flashbacks and half-glimpsed memories to befuddle you a lot of the time, by the end it comes together quite neatly.

It says enough about a game these days that not only will I finish it, but I will buy all the downloadable content available (extra quests to undertake in both Doolin and the Netherworld, and alternative constumes), but I will also go out of my way to collect everything in it.

Of course, being something of a hidden gem the game failed commercially if not critically (though some were very harsh in their criticisms). Maybe it's simply a hard sell, being very much a fanciful fairy tale on a system currently dominated by more hardline action titles. I would urge anyone to at least give it a try though, because if it does click it has the power to captivate and delight, and the journey into this Netherworld is well worth taking.

More Yakuza, Please!

2008-09-29T22:34:00.004+01:00

I've been so wrapped up in Yakuza I completely forgot to come and post any progress thoughts. I finished it last night, but firstly let me get God of War out of the way:

I got fed up with it and moved on.

Right! Now that's sorted, onto Yakuza. Every once in a while a game comes along that's not particularly brilliant in any way, and maybe even has more than a few rough edges, but it does something right enough that it sticks with you, or the sum of its parts far exceeds the individual pieces. That's Yakuza, which has become firmly one of my all-time favourite games.

A bold statement, that, but in the same way that Tomb Raider Anniversary completely took me by surprise, this is a game that I didn't care about until forces conspired to have me playing it at a time when I was really looking for something fresh. It appeals to the brawler/beat 'em up fan in me, as well as the RPG fan. It's an action game you can take entirely at your own pace. You can spend hours just messing about away from the main plot, and it helps that the world - however much a microcosm it is - is so meticulously detailed and lively. The game has that very difficult to achieve sense of place. In most games - even ones with hugely detailed and varied environments - I never feel like I'm part of the gameworld. I feel disconnected from the action. Not so much that I can't become engaged in things, but I'm not 'drawn in'.

Yakuza joins games like Phantasy Star Online, Tomb Raider Anniversary, Mass Effect, Dungeon Master, Final Fantasy VII, and Metal Gear Solid in totally pulling me in. Everything about the environments, the characters, the sound design gives me the feeling that I've spent time in that world. I felt like a hidden documentary camera accompanying Kazuma Kiryu throughout his story.

And it's a pretty good story, too. Nothing groundbreaking, but just a good solid crime thriller with a colourful cast, a few twists, and an immensely cool main character. As I mentioned before it's got a few clunky moments (particularly camera issues during the indoor fights), but this can all be overlooked because it's such a blast to play. I would have liked an original language option, as the lip-synching issues can be a bit iffy at times, but overall the voice work is good if a little spirited.

It also does what GTA continually fails to do, which is to provide me with a meaty action game in a contemporary setting with plenty of depth and extra stuff, and marry it to a cast of characters I can actually care about and like. You even get saddled with a kid for most of the plot and amazingly she's not annoying at all. That in itself is a miracle.

The prospect of the PS3 being put to work on this world is incredibly enticing, and I know the wait after finishing the second one will be agonizing.

Late to the party - Yakuza and God of War

2008-09-14T18:50:00.003+01:00

First a quick note on Too Human... I've put about 28 hours into it over the past couple of weeks, and while it was very enjoyable for that time, it's very apparent to me that I won't be spending the kind of time with it that I did with PSO. It's flawed and frustrating in a number of ways, but not enough to prevent it being a worthwhile and fun experience. However, the compulsion to grind for loot that I expected to be there after the buzz of clearing the campaign a couple of times has failed to materialize, and I can't see myself returning to it much in future. I will certainly still be keen on playing the sequels should they ever appear, but for now it remains a decent 30-hour dollop of entertainment.

The curious thing it did though, was to launch me into a craving for third-person action / adventure games. Specifically ones where you thrash your way through tons of enemies. After a fun enough time spent with Viking and Conan I found myself with God of War, a game that has managed to pass me by completely. Oh, I knew of it, knew it's solid critical reputation and commercial success, yet despite my strong fascination with mythology and history I never even bothered to try it until now.

Suffice to say I'm a bit angry at myself for that. I really need to give more things a chance rather than slavishly sticking to a handful of known quantities. If I'd never tried Tomb Raider Anniversary out of boredom I wouldn't be excitedly anticipating Underworld as one of my potential games of the year right now.

Back to GoW though. It's magnificent visually and aurally, and the controls are just the right side of loose, forgiving enough with an auto-lock without being sloppy. Combat can be immense fun, and there's plenty of variety and scale in the environments to keep things fresh. My only criticism of it is that sometimes the combat can become frustrating, especially when fighting multiple enemies that repeatedly knock you over, or that won't allow you to finish off combos as they simply go through their attack animations regardless. It's relentlessly entertaining in every other way, with a few rudimentary puzzles here and there to break up the action. I've already got my hands on the sequel - and now I have a genuine must-buy for the PS3 when the third one surfaces.

Speaking of things finally surfacing... Yakuza 2 just came out in the US, and I think it's out in the UK this week. I had tried the first one not long ago, and while I was enjoying it I didn't get far because the PS3 backwards compatibility wasn't up to scratch on it. The colours were very washed-out for one thing. I gave up on it and forgot about it for a while.

The release of the sequel and the announcement of a third instalment on its way for PS3 compelled me to order a US copy of the first to play on my PS2 (I don't own a PAL PS2). I'm only a couple of hours in but I'm completely in love with it. It does go out of its way to earn the Mature rating, with copious and amusing amounts of swearing, but the story is already gripping and the recreation of the location is very immersive (though of course to me it could be anywhere, I just mean that it feels alive). The main character controls a bit clunkily, and the combat system takes a bit of adjusting to. You really have to keep in minds its shortcomings when fighting. Despite that, it is a lot of fun and I never get tired of being interrupted in the street by some punk cruising for a bruising. At one point I was using a sofa as a weapon, swinging it around with aplomb. By all accounts the game gets sillier as it goes on. I can't wait, and I've already ordered the sequel.

Getting Emotional

2008-08-21T15:02:00.004+01:00

I'm making my way through the documentary series 'Rise of the Videogame', and having just come off the second episode I'm a little wound up about a topic that often grates with me; the notion that the ultimate goal of videogames is to become like movies. That and the hoary old chestnut of whether a videogame can make you cry.

Gaming in general has a chip on its shoulder about squaring up to its rivals in entertainment. Films, music and literature are all comfortably considered art forms, and have proven themselves perfectly capable of eliciting a wide range of emotions in their audiences. For some reason a large chunk of the videogame industry, its commentators and consumers believe that gaming is a lesser entity for so far lacking the kind of narrative and characterization that we take for granted in a well-made film. I think this is a gross misjudgement of the true strengths of videogaming. For me its strengths lie in the fact that videogames can be something completely different in presentation and experience and goals. Beating highscores, solving puzzles, strategic planning, reflex and hand-to-eye co-ordination challenges... these are the things that videogames can provide in a completely unique fashion. These are the reasons I play videogames.

More than anything I need the challenge and satisfaction of playing. I don't see a game without a story as a negative thing at all, because a good one will stand on its own merits as offering a particular interactive experience. The background narrative and drip-fed storyline of Braid is completely disposable to me, but the thrill and sense of achievement on solving each puzzle is something that no other medium can bring me. Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 has no story or characters, unless you count the base levels of 'shape must destroy other shapes', yet it's the best game I've played all year and is a huge critical success. People still want games like that if they're good.

This is not to say that there's no place at all for stories in videogames. I like a good story as much as anyone, and in an adventure game I like to have characters I can empathise with and care about. I can enjoy an action adventure like Mass Effect a great deal, and I can be drawn into the world and characters of Final Fantasy XII. These things are fine in their own ways, I just don't think they make the games any more worthwhile than, say, Pac-Man, and I don't think they should be held up as the one true evolution of the medium. I hate the notion of equating an abstract arcade game as somehow a relic of a best-forgotten past. I think if we do that we move further and further away from the greatest strengths and possibilities of videogames.

That really would make me cry.

Space Firebird

2008-08-20T20:50:00.002+01:00

Last night I stumbled upon something in MAME that gave me a true warm and fuzzy feeling and a powerful blast of nostalgia.

Whenever anyone would ask what the first videogame I played was, I'd cast my mind back to hazy memories of an arcade cabinet in the chip shop at the end of my street. Looking back all I ever remembered was that it was a colourful Galaxians-style effort, and put it down to being either Galaxians itself, or one of the multitude of clones and similar efforts in that style.

Usually when I fire up MAME I rattle through a well-worn roster of favourites, but recently I've been randomly delving into all kinds of things. With Galaga Legions turning up on Live Arcade I was in the mood for some very old-school shooting. From the moment I loaded up Space Firebird I was overcome with a wave of recognition. It was the sound effects that did it. This is the game I messed about with so many times back when I was 5 or 6 years old. It's a standard of the day; ship at the bottom of the screen, enemy formations flying around and divebombing. You have a shield - activated once per life - that lets you fly up the screen invulnerable, wrapping round to the bottom, and the base line curves upwards towards the edges.

I spent quite some time with it, and I'm happy to report that it still plays a very decent game.

Phases of interest

2008-08-07T01:53:00.002+01:00

Hmm. A lot came out of E3 that I didn't write about yet, and a couple of games came out that I've been spending a lot of time with.

Tomb Raider Underworld was nicely revealed in some gameplay footage and a prerendered trailer. My appetite for it continues healthily, I'm just hoping it will hit the more solitary exploration aspect of the series rather than the more action-focused stuff. I enjoyed Legend a great deal, but a large factor was specifically the parts where Lara was on her own in the depths of some ancient cave or ruin. Popping back into civilization kind of breaks the atmosphere for me.

Dark Void came out of nowhere and looks wonderful. A real Rocketeer vibe, lovely designs and palette. It's highly doubtful I'll be able to play it, being a very Gears of War inspired action game. As always though, I will give it a shot.

Dragon Age satisfied on all counts. Not the least of which was the revelation that the camera is entirely controllable, and the whole game can be played top-down, and can be paused at any time. Just how RPGs should be!

Enough future stuff though. Right now I'm playing a whole load of Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2. It's everything the first game was but more, and better in every way. Really a perfect sequel. I mean, I'm a built-in audience for this kind of thing anyway. Twin-stick shooter with glowing vector graphics? Right there you have a textbook description of what I think a videogame should be. My favourite modes are easily Pacifism and King, while Waves is an exercise in addictive frustration. You know a game is doing all kinds of things right when upon losing you curse only yourself, and instead of reaching for the power button you dive straight back in.

GWRE2 kickstarted me back into arcade game mode, and I got back into Super Stardust HD, Everyday Shooter, my old MAME favourites, and I bought Soul Calibur 4. Time spent in SC4 customizing characters is significantly larger than time spent actually playing. I've realised I don't like the game that much, I'm just fuelled by great memories of its dreamcast ancestor.

Braid came out on XBLA today, and while I've been following its development since the early whispers by the time it got here I wasn't even sure I was interested - in the sense that I didn't feel I was in arty platformer mode. A few minutes with the trial version put that to rest and I wasted no time in buying the full game. I'll refrain from weighing in with tiresome Games Are Art commentary and just say that it's an absolutely wonderful piece of work, one that takes a core idea and runs further and more imaginitively with it than anything else has. It has the purest sense of satisfaction from videogame puzzle solving. Not stumbling upon the answer by trial and error, but reading the screen layout, thinking about the relationships and behaviours of everything, and having that moment of realisation.

All that brings me to my main topic; my ever-shifting focus of videogaming interests. I go through chunks of time that can span from a week or so to many months where I'm only interested in playing particular types of games. A few years back I spent a couple of years playing pretty much nothing but scrolling shoot 'em ups. The first half of this year I spent deeply entrenched in computer RPGs.

The thing is, I never seem to be able to mix it up. I completely lose interest in one genre when I'm playing another. As I said above, GW put me back into the mindset of wanting to play fast, short, highscore-centric games. Not neccessarily just shoot 'em ups, but platformers, beat 'em ups, racers... anything that can be done in a quick session, or played over and over again in a session. After a solid week of GW2 and Soul Calibur 4 I tried to go back and make further progress in Neverwinter Nights 2, and found myself immediately bored and disinterested. This is a game I was overwhelmingly enthusiastic about not two weeks ago. I'm looking at the collection of vintage RPGs I've been collecting and thinking I'm wasted a great deal of money.

Luckily, I know from experience that I'll cycle back round to them eventually, and they'll be there waiting when I do. I just find it odd how my mindset so completely changes on these things. Part of it is me feeling generally listless at the moment. I don't feel too motivated or interested in anything (I still have not seen The Dark Knight for example). I want videogames to be something I pick up and play for a few minutes occasionally, not something I have to dedicate vast amounts of time to. I'm very much drawn back to XBLA and PSN stuff, and the indie scene. I think it might have been Mass Effect that pulled me out of that last year, so I guess the thing to do it this time will be Dragon Age. Too Human - although a cinematic action RPG experience - is much more on the side of arcade action than an epic undertaking. in my current frame of mind about gaming it sounds just about perfect.

The Thin End of E3

2008-07-14T23:35:00.004+01:00

Well, I don't normally just comment on videogame news, but this year there are actually a bunch of things showing at E3 that I care about. Also, I've just come off a session with the Too Human demo, and I'm beaming about that.

First up, Too Human. I've been clinging onto a belief that this game - despite the general negativity and naysayers surrounding it - would scratch a particular itch I have. The PSO itch. While it's not quite that, it's certainly scratching an itch I never knew I had. It's kind of a cross between a Diablo-style hack and slash and a twin-stick shooter, weird as that sounds. It works, though. The demo is a little rough around the edges but it is a demo after all. Graphical polish is the last pass a game gets before it ships out. The core gameplay is solid, and I can imagine it getting very intense as things progress. In the demo you are limited to a single character type and a small number of upgrades and abilities. There's even a story in there, and given the soft spot I have for mythology I'll probably lap it up (you'll find a female character named Freya in pretty much any RPG party I've made).

Day one purchase on that one, then.

Dragon Age has finally begun a steady leak of information. After four years of lurking on the Bioware message boards there's finally something to speak about, though the reveal was less a grand unveiling and more a stumbling drunkenly into view - an announcement of the official site opening that yielded nothing but another announcement that a trailer was coming. The trailer showed a pretty uninspiring battle cutscene. Luckily it's been followed up now by some ingame shots, and the first thought that popped into my head was that it looks like The Temple of Elemental Evil. This is a Very Good Thing. Apparently combat can take place in a tactical overhead view, while the majority of exploration is from a more traditional over-the-shoulder third-person perspective. Mass Effect worked for me in that regard so I'm fine with that.

One thing I'm not so fine with is Bethesda FPS-ing Fallout into oblivion *chuckle* Even if it turns out to be a worthy successor to the originals, it's doubtful I'll be able to play it. Unfortunately the presentation didn't show much in the way or movement in the third-person mode, so I'll have to wait and see. Also, the VATS combat animation cutaway seems incredibly wonky and jarring.

Tomb Raider Underworld media will be hitting the end of the week. A teaser trailer is on the cards, though that could mean anything. Worst case is 20 seconds of logos followed by 20 seconds of Lara Croft looking determined and mysterious, followed by 20 seconds of fade out and release date. I really want to see some gameplay footage though.

Oops, I almost forgot about Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2. Today is a happy day.

Neverwinter Nights, how I love thee...

2008-07-07T23:31:00.002+01:00

Linu Lo'neral: I am Linu Lo'neral, an elven priestess of Sehaine Moonbow. I was hoping to meet you, but I figured I missed you while I was changing my clothes.

Me: Changing your clothes?

Linu: Oh, when I came in here a waitress spilled some drinks.

Me: She soaked your clothes?

Linu: Well... no. I bumped into her and when the drinks crashed down I leapt backwards into a dwarf, knocking over his ale and stew.

Me: So that messed you up?

Linu: Um, no, the food and drinks landed on the floor, but the dwarf crashed into a halforc, causing the knife he was eating with to slice open his cheek. That's when the brawl started.

Me: And you wrecked your outfit in the brawl?

Linu: I managed to stay out of the brawl, hiding under a table and feeling awfully guilty. When the fight was over I felt I should help clean up the mess.

Me: So you got dirty cleaning up?

Linu: No, I wore an apron and managed to stay pretty clean. Then I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and slipped in a mud puddle. So I had to go change.

Me: Why didn't you just tell me you slipped in a puddle from the start?

Linu: I... I didn't want you to think I was clumsy.

Metal Gear Solid 4

2008-06-27T00:44:00.010+01:00

I finished MGS4 a short while ago. I haven't mentioned anything about it yet because I wanted to get an overall feel for the experience, especially since my opinion on the game has changed so drastically over the course of the past couple of weeks. Coming off my first session I was convinced I wouldn't be able to play it due to the amount of movement in the camera (neccessary movement in order to check and negotiate your environment constantly). That was somewhat disappointing to say the least. Luckily the constant positive feedback I was getting about it from various people encouraged me to try it again, and lo and behold - either I got used to it or something about it changed, but I didn't have a problem since.

As I've mentioned previously, I'm a huge fan of the original MGS (its high placement in my top 100 is testament to that), but the subsequent instalments on the home systems never quite gripped me the same way. However, finishing MGS2 was a hollow experience - not, as you might expect, because of Raiden. I didn't mind the character at all. It was more my feeling cheated by what I saw as a lazy retread story and a largely bland location. Looking back on it I did have plenty of fun in small doses, but I can't shake the overall disappointment.

MGS3 I've just never been able to get into. I've tried both the original and the Subsistence versions, and never gotten more than a few hours into it. I think I just lost the patience for stealth gameplay, and losing patience in MGS3 almost invariably leads to a frustrating death.

In MGS4 you're given enough backup in terms of equipment to take the game on in your own style. Sneaking or guns blazing are both viable options. Early on I found myself trying to take the stealth route, but in the end I found it much more satisfying to play as an action game... mostly (there are a few occasions where that isn't an option).

The game is heavily weighted towards cutscenes, which is a given for an MGS title. I don't have a problem with this, as I'm heavily invested in these returning characters and their story. What it did was bring about a curious state of mind while playing, though. I found the opening sections of the game fairly unengaging. Something about the location maybe, but it came off as another military shooter. Something I have absolutely no interest in. I found myself wanting to skip the gameplay sections to get to the cutscenes, and every time I was given control of Snake it became almost a chore. There are a few clever moments, but on the whole I felt that the opening act was quite lacking.

Luckily it picks up quite splendidly in act two, and continues to build from there. Act four in particular is magnificent. At some points I found myself gobsmacked by what I was seeing onscreen - it's a real technical tour de force, possibly the most visually impressive game I've ever played in fact. It's not all in the big moments though, there's something particularly impressive about the facial rendering on the characters; it's managed to leapfrog the uncanny valley and present a cast of totally believable digital actors. Not quite perfectly real, but rendered with such flair and attention to detail that they become genuine personalities.

The big moments are out in force too, though, and it's here that my main gripes about the game are to be found. There are few things as deflating in a videogame as being treated to a tremendously exciting cutscene full of action, then being given control in order to perform a rudimentary task. There are occasions where, between scripted events, you are given control of Snake and simply have to run down some stairs, or turn a corner. On the flip side you do get to perform some pretty thrilling sections, but they are few in a game of (for me) around 15 hours. I have to admit that what kept me interested in playing through was the story, and that did live up to my expectations as a sometime fan of the saga.

Having said that, I think there is more 'game' to be found in there, and subsequent plays will turn up more interesting and fun ways to interact. Playing it stealthily for example, or going for a no-kills game. Also, I barely scratched the surface of the equipment side of things, or seeing what I could do with Metal Gear Mk.II - a small robot companion that can stealth, knock out enemies and interface with equipment. I was only ever reminded of its existence when it turned up in cutscenes. I replayed the Playstation game many times, refining my game until I could tackle it on the hardest difficulty with a good rating. I'm not so sure this one will tempt me to do the same but it will certainly get another play or two.

Spoilery bit:

Surprisingly, the game actually does tie up the whole story and give satisfying conclusions for all the major characters. I suspect a hefty chunk of it is down to retconning, but it works. The biggest impact on me was the return to Shadow Moses. It serves a function in the plot, but it also covers the bases of fan service and being a commentary of one of the themes of the game. The effects of age on the location and on Snake himself, the push forward of technology - which is presented to you in no uncertain terms at a couple of points. Curious how the undoubted highlight of the game should be a chapter harkening back to an older title. Nostalgia obviously plays a part, but there's also a heavy melancholy about it, like revisiting the house you grew up in and finding it derelict.

In dealing with the characters the game stumbles a little on the emotional side, tending towards the overwrought and melodramatic. I tend to find this with Japanese media, so generally I put it down to cultural differences. Everyone has their moment to shine, the game going out of its way in particular in order to win audience favour for Raiden (who, it has to be said, shows up to save the day a little too often).

End of spoilery bit..

Overall MGS4 is an undeniably thrilling experience. One that I can recommend without hesitation to anyone interested in the series. It won't convert you if you don't care for the others, and it certainly won't hold nearly as much appeal for someone for whom this is the first taste of Metal Gear (it won't be completely impenetrable, but so much of it is anchored to knowledge of the past games much would be missed). It houses some definitively 'next gen' moments, and is put together with an unparalleled level of professionalism and passion. An arthouse blockbuster of a videogame.

Quad Cor!

2008-06-17T18:56:00.005+01:00

I've lurched forwards in technology once again, probably for the briefest of periods. My new PC just arrived, it's something of a monster. Basically I'm setting myself up for Spore, Fallout 3, and Dragon Age, but I'm also keen to play the things that I've wanted to for a while but my old PC just couldn't do justice to. Neverwinter Nights 2 and Company of Heroes chiefly.

I bought Mass Effect for it and by golly it's lovely. I mean, the 360 version ties for my game of last year with Virtua Fighter 5, but the tweaks to the PC version really make it shine that little bit more brightly. I'm perpetually cynical about PCs, and even though I bunged the best stuff I could possibly afford into it I still expected some performance issues with such a demanding game. Well, I'm ecstatic to report that it is smooth as butter. Never drops a frame no matter what's going on.

Saturn emulation is perfect as well. I'm currently in the process of installing all the games I care about, to see how they fare with Vista. Touch wood - from what I've read and my experience so far I may just get away with everything working. I don't play a vast amount of Windows games (most of my PC gaming is through DOSbox), but it's looking pretty promising.

Anyway, I'm no PC bore so I won't drone on about it. Just had to blog a bit of my happiness.

You wait all year for a game...

2008-06-10T00:47:00.003+01:00

...And four come along at once.

It just struck me that I have four games to buy this week. For someone who generally shies away from new games and has a very short list of potential purchases, I find it painfully amusing that I should be shelling out for a big chunk of them in the space of a week. Mass Effect PC, Civilization Revolution, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Sins of a Solar Empire have all turned up at the same time. A couple of weeks ago I bought Rock Band (which is awesome), and on top of that I just finally ordered a new PC. The current one has served me very well indeed, giving me five years of service this summer, but it really can't hope to handle the stuff I want to be getting into in the coming months.

I've been tinkering about with the demos of Sins and Civilization, and they are both superb. CivRev in particular is a joy; it takes the essential gameplay of Civilization and streamlines out the flab, leaving a very nicely paced strategy game with a genuine sense of fun. Now, I love the main series Civs too, and wouldn't swop them out for this, but as a single-session game when I'm looking for a bit of strategy it's pretty much perfect.

The only unknown quantity is MGS4. I absolutely adore the Playstation original, but other than that I could take or leave the series. 4 is the make-or-break for my PS3, which is currently surviving as a Blu-Ray player. The new PC has a Blu-Ray drive, so if MGS4 doesn't hit a very sweet spot indeed it's bye-bye.

Well, at least after these I don't have to buy anything new until Fallout 3 or Spore. Whichever hits first.

Adventures In Text

2008-06-07T20:18:00.006+01:00

No, this isn't about Roguelikes, it's about actual text adventures - a genre I've traditionally not gotten along with. However, I've just completed a text adventure for the first time and I did rather enjoy the experience, despite a few periods of frustration.

I think everyone around my age who had a home computer in the 80s must have tinkered around with The Hobbit, or The Lord of the Rings (Book One). It seemed mandatory, even if you really weren't interested in the subjects. My experience of them pretty much summed up my experience of every text adventure I tried since; I would wander about aimlessly for a bit, battle against the parser, come up against the first puzzle and give up in bewilderment and frustration (I never got out of the first room in CRL's Frankenstein).

One I remember sticking with for an inordinate amount of time was Rigel's Revenge on the Spectrum. I seem to recall I made a fair amount of progress, but I never finished it. Later as an ST/Amiga owner it became obligatory to try out The Pawn and a few of the subsequent Magnetic Scrolls titles. Always with the same results.

I think my main problem was that I could never quite wrap my head around the concept of an adventure game allowing you to pass a point of no return. Very early on I was introduced to Lucasarts' (then Lucasfilm Games) graphic adventures, and a major feature of them was the fact that you couldn't become irretrievably stuck. You could always go back and get something you missed, and in most of them you could actually never die. Maniac Mansion I think was an exception, though I've personally never played much of it. As far as I remember you had to go really out of your way in Zak McKracken to get to an unwinnable position.

The anomaly here is that around the same time I happily played and completed King's Quest III - a notoriously unforgiving game filled with instant death. With that one I was just thrilled with the setting and the notion of sneaking around to get things done, with the danger of being found out at any moment (the first part of the game has you, as a put-upon wizard's 'apprentice' - though more slave - secretly learning magic and gathering ingredients for spells every time your master leaves the house). It's getting on for 20 years since I played it, but I can only assume there were a lot of failed attempts involved, and a lot of reloading.

So, since then I've really avoided text adventures. Of course the genre died out commercially at the end of the 80s as graphic adventures took the crown for a while, and several years exclusively playing console games didn't exactly keep me up to speed with either the history of the genre or its continued development in the homebrew space. It's always been something that's nagged at me though. I've had a folder on my PC for a couple of years called The Best of Interactive Fiction 1994-2004, which is a huge collection of freeware text adventures and the interpreters to run them. I've never delved into it seriously, but it's there as another one of those things that I fully intend to get round to... at some point.

Indeed, how I initially became enamoured of Infocom and Wishbringer is more to do with my fetish for vintage games and their physical presentation than a desire to actually play them.

Infocom games always came very lavishly packaged. Aside from the game itself there was an abundance of material in the box. Functioning as flavour, background, clues, or just simply cool stuff, each one was made uniquely special by these extras. Booklets, letters, maps, badges, even a scratch-and-sniff card for Leather Goddesses of Phobos... this is the stuff of dreams for a vintage game fan and collector. It's the embodiment of the difference in game packaging between the old and the new. These days it's a disc in a plastic case and - if you're lucky - a little more than a rudimentary pamphlet.

So, I'd been gathering up the old RPGs and regularly browsing places like The Computer Game Museum, and I found my way into the Infocom section. A treasure trove of trinkets indeed. One of my regular ebay sellers had a complete copy of Wishbringer in his store, so I went for it. A few things drew me to Wishbringer over plenty of other choices; it's classed as an introductory level adventure, it was written by Brian Moriarty (who wrote Loom at Lucasarts), and most importantly of all... it came with a glow in the dark stone. Yes, I am quite easily pleased.

Wishbringer concerns the quest of a regular postman (yourself) being tasked with the mission of finding a particular cat for an old lady. Of course that's not entirely the case and nothing is as it seems. You're soon plunged into a twisted otherworld version of your sleepy little village, complete with eldritch vapours in the graveyard, talking platypuses, duelling mailboxes and a militia force consisting of giant boots.

Going with my regime of properly playing the games I own allowed me to get into the mindset required, and possibly the most important thing - making a notated map. This is the absolute key to getting to grips with these games, and it seems such a simple, obvious measure that I'm embarrassed that I never bothered to do it back in the day with my fumblings around The Hobbit and The Pawn. Maybe I would have even cracked Rigel's Revenge if I had bothered to record everything properly. The map and notes are absolutely essential because as I mentioned above - these games are designed to be trial and error. It is very much a part of their nature to allow you to miss vital objects and not be able to return for them, to lose or destroy something you need, to die at the hands of an enemy, to work your way into an inescapable prison.

I restarted a lot. But - having a map and notes meant that I could always return to the same point of progress within minutes. Of course I could save and restore the game at any time, but mostly I'd only be saving a failed attempt anyway. Wishbringer didn't present me with any particularly head-scratching puzzles. It's almost entirely inventory-based. If you have the right item for the thing that needs doing, you'll immediately know what to do. There are a couple of moments of more lateral thinking but on the whole it's very clear. I had to consult online help twice in the game. Firstly because I'd neglected to find a coin before a point of no return (it was in a fountain I'd simply not looked in), and secondly due to a bit of parser wrestling. I'd come to the conclusion that I should try getting a creature out of a pit using a tree branch, but the game wouldn't let me either scoop it up, dig the pit wider, pull the creature with it, or anything else I tried. The solution was to drop the branch in to the pit, at which point the creature would grab into it, then pick up the branch. So really just a semantic conflict.

In the time I've been dabbling about with Wishbringer I've acquired a few more adventures: Stationfall - another Infocom one that comes with a slew of funky stuff - and the Magnetic Scrolls titles The Pawn, The Guild of Thieves, and Jinxter. I'm feeling very confident and inspired to get stuck into them, having learned a thing or two about the quirks and approaches needed for these games from Wishbringer.

Finally, a mention must go to the quality of the writing on show in the game. It ought to go without saying that the quality of a text adventure game would hinge heavily on its text, but it really was a well-crafted and fun experience both ingame and in the supplementary extras. Regardless of this it's clear to see why this genre didn't survive commercially. The satisfaction of a puzzle solved and a story well told just wasn't enough in the face of rapidly advancing graphical games. However, there's something to be said for leaving things to the imagination... I have a vision of a place and its inhabitants in my mind that would no doubt be very different to anyone else's, and that personal touch makes my experience of Wishbringer all the richer.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-05-22T14:44:00.002+01:00

Total satisfaction. I've just returned from the morning showing of the new Indiana Jones film, and I'm completely thrilled with it. It delivered everything I wanted and didn't disappoint me in any way.

To me a new Indiana Jones film is like a new Star Wars film. That's the level of anticipation I had for it going in. I absolutely adore the first three films, the adventure games, and even the novels that were put out in the mid-90s. Indiana Jones instilled in me a curiosity and passion for ancient civilizations and cultures (despite giving a fantasy spin on such things) which I still have to this day. The notion of ancient ruins and mythology, uncharted areas and lost treasures. It's a large part of the reason I took to the newer Tomb Raider games so well - indeed, watching parts of Crystal Skull I was tingling with anticipation for the Tomb Raider Underworld game, which shares a similar setting and style.

Something I'd consciously done with this film was to avoid absolutely anything to do with the story. I'd seen a couple of trailers - the early teaser one and one before Iron Man a couple of weeks ago, but apart form that I've read and discussed nothing. I wanted to go into a long-awaited film completely fresh, and it really made a difference I think. I knew the majority of the cast and a few of their roles, and... that's it.

It really is a love letter to Indy fans and a big indulgence on the team making the film. There are numerous references to previous films visually, in the script and in the score. George Lucas got a nod to his beloved hot rod racing. Ford is charismatic and fun again, everyone else shines - LeBeouf once again showing me he's got a great presence, and Blanchett is, as ever, a bona-fide goddess. Everyone's clearly having a ton of fun, the way it was with Raiders.

The two hours zip by, yet the story is satisfactorily wrapped up. As always with Indy films there's really no flab. Everything propels the plot to the next piece of action, and the slower moments are filled with atmosphere and necessary details. If I have one single criticism it's that a chase scene goes on a little long, but that's pure nitpicking and moments after it ended I was sitting in rapt attention again.

Now I'm in two minds about Indy. Having seen this there's part of me that wishes we'd had one every five years, or even another one between Last Crusade and Crystal Skull. Clearly there's so much that could have been done with this character in a manner reflecting the serial nature of his inspiration. On the other hand, it feels like the time was right to tell a new story - one very suited to its period - and the wait was worth it.

DS Homebrew

2008-05-11T21:11:00.003+01:00

I've just acquired an R4 card for the Nintendo DS. The notorious device (now one of many) that lets you run unlicensed software on the machine - including pirated software, naturally. Funnily enough the piracy side of it holds no interest for me; the reason I got it was for POWDER, Nethack DS, and Lone Wolf DS.

It's fair to say I'm over the moon with it. I've taken to Nethack much more than I ever managed to on the PC (something about the interface on PC always felt clunky and opaque to me), POWDER is just plain lovely. It's as harsh as any Roguelike but is presented in a wonderfully cheery way, with bold, colourful graphics. Lone Wolf is a real treat, and I very much hope the developer continues and translates more of the saga in this form.

There are quite a few homebrew projects bubbling away at various levels of completion. Some very interesting indeed - most especially the Dungeon Master port which is currently in very early alpha build. To be honest though, I feel I've more than justified my investment by having a couple of great Roguelikes on there - games that will hold my attention far longer than any official DS title could ever hope to.

Grand Theft Auto IV

2008-04-28T23:09:00.003+01:00

A few first impressions, and also my viewpoint on the series as a non-fan.

The GTA games are of a type that generally appeals to me in concept as far as gameplay goes, but I've always found something of a turn-off when it came to characters and controls. The 3D ones so far I felt were particularly clunky, and I could never get past that. As for the characters, well, this may sound a bit wet but I do have a genuine problem playing criminally-inclined bad guys in games. I did the Light Side in KotOR, the Paragon path in Mass Effect. Unprovoked viciousness doesn't appeal to me, so a lot of the guilty pleasure in GTA is lost.

This one seems to have fixed a lot of the things I had problems with before. The setting appeals to me (it's essentially New York) and the player character is more of a guy in a tough situation trying to get by. He has a weariness about him, and he certainly doesn't seem to take much pleasure in the dirty business he has to get up to. Not so far, anyway. I'd love for Rockstar to have pulled off a game where the player is confronted harshly with the kind of actions they've traditionally pursued with glee. I have a feeling it won't go that far, but it does certainly appear to be more grounded in reality than previous efforts.

The city is magnificent, and frequently breathtaking in its vistas. The weather plays a large part in that. Golden sunsets are aplenty, and frosty mornings almost chill the screen. The density of detail is amazing. Look closely enough and you'll see plenty of repetition in environments and NPC behaviour, but you do have to be searching for it to notice.

As usual with these kind of 'sandbox' games, I'm more inclined to just exist in the world than get on with progressing the storyline. There's plenty of time-wasting to do, from hanging out with friends to going on dates (and the various activities you can choose to do there), to simply sitting in and soaking up the staggering array of parody TV shows and internet sites. It's very funny as well. Sometimes completely crass and sometimes very subtle and clever. Just aimlessly driving around to listen to the radio is a pleasure that can soak up entire sessions.

Early days in and Nico is just a small fry, with limited access to the city. Considering how impressed I've been with the area I've been given run of so far, the prospect of what opens up later on is very tantalising indeed. It's not perfect by any means, and thematically it doesn't appeal nearly as strongly as other types of adventures, but I am having a lot of fun with it.

New Blood-Sin Blog entry.

2008-04-20T16:11:00.001+01:00

Town Centre West

Law returned to the Lands of Lore

2008-04-17T23:48:00.005+01:00

I just finished Lands of Lore. Really, really enjoyable game, if a little combat-heavy for the most part. Going into these things is always coloured by my experience with Dungeon Master, and the vast majority don't hold up well. This one deserves a high spot for sure though. Visually it's superb throughout with nicely animated creatures and a broad range of environments. The interface is simple and fast (though I often found myself struggling with the spellcasting in the heat of battle, wasting valuable magic points on the wrong thing because I forgot to switch).

Like I said though, it is very much centered around combat and a couple of the areas were something of a pain. The respawn rate is incredible, and when you've got enemies that can kill or stun your characters in one or two hits you're facing an uphill struggle. And my word - there are few things more annoying than dropping your weapons and shields every time a monster hits you hard. Also, your champions don't seem all that handy with their weapons of choice, and you can happily hack away a couple of dozen times without landing a single hit.

Criticism also falls on the structure of the game. This may have been just me but there were a few occasions where I simply didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. Some very obscure puzzles dogged me for a long time and I'd regularly find myself backtracking through nearly the entire game looking for solutions or things I'd missed. Mostly they were right in front of my nose, which suggests it's just me being a doofus. This is never entirely out of the question.

A repeated playthrough is most definitely on the cards, especially since I picked up the CD 'talkie' version while in progress on this standard one. I think next time it will be a more specialized character rather than the all-rounder as well.

I wonder if I should give the sequel a proper go. It is full 3D so motion sickness rears its ugly head, but perhaps running it windowed in DOSbox will help. For now though I'm pondering my next quest, which will either be the first SSI 'Gold Box' game Pool of Radiance, Ultima 1, Wizardry 1 or Might and Magic 1.

Do you see a pattern there?

Stone Soup Tiles

2008-04-10T20:08:00.004+01:00

Well whaddaya know... Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup has got itself a tiles version which completely flew under my radar. I've been playing the old, very outdated tiles version of Crawl all this time and here's this spangly new one with all the up to date features intact:

http://enne.walker.googlepages.com/stonesouptiles

Originality

2008-04-02T01:44:00.003+01:00

It's a well-known problem with emulation that you have a strong 'embarrassment of riches' factor, and this prevents you from really playing anything properly. You tend to scan the list of games, play something half-heartedly for five minutes, then move onto the next. For me it's partly down to the transitory feeling of emulated games. They don't feel like they're there. Which is odd, because they're just as much there as a genuine copy - when all is said and done it's just data in a system. Still, the psychological effect contributes to that feeling of not really wanting to devote large amounts of time to anything. Also, it has to be said that many times I've played several hours of a big game on an emulator, only to return at a later date and have the save state and file simply not work any more.

I'm a bit of an archivist when it comes to computer games, keeping complete romsets from a variety of systems. 99% of which I'll never even load, but I feel that as many people as possible ought to be keeping this stuff safe, what with the lamentable attitude of the industry towards its own heritage. I can fully imagine a situation akin to the one the film world is in now, with so many early works lost forever due to bad storage or neglect. Mainly I'm talking about early computer games here rather than console efforts. Consoles always have enjoyed a more widespread appeal and distribution in terms of games, and of course the media tends to be a lot more durable. I'm more about preserving the old Spectrum games, the PC games with the booklets, maps and various trinkets, the lavish and attractive packaging and so on.

This all ties into the playing aspect. I realise that I dabble too much and I don't get much genuine satisfaction from many games. Finishing Mass Effect and the two Tomb Raider games recently brought back memories of getting a new game and completely devoting myself to finishing it, before the days of easy access to everything. Revelling in the gameworld, making maps and keeping notes. My recent foray into DOS gaming brought this into full perspective in that so much abandonware is available it's hard to know where to start. So I made a decision... I would only play the games I own a physical, legitimate copy of.

Immediately the desired effect took place. I found myself sitting down with a game purchased from ebay (in this case Lands of Lore), and playing it properly. Another important factor is having the manuals and references to hand. I know you can download this stuff in text format or even a PDF, but nothing beats having the original documentation to flick through. It adds a surprising amount to the experience. That, and many times I've loaded up some RPG with only the basic grasp of the controls and what's required of me, walked around a bit and talked to some NPCs, then gone off and gotten killed. No matter, I just moved onto the next game that took my fancy rather than learning what I had to do.

This isn't an argument against emulation - indeed, the vast majority of these games I will be playing through emulation, on DOSBox, or WinUAE, or Spectaculator, etc. Just for the hardware convenience. It is however a solution I've settled on to get me playing older games properly again. Now instead of scanning through thousands of files on the PC I just scan through my shelves for something to play.

Lands of Lore

2008-03-23T21:37:00.002Z

I forgot to mention in my previous entry the game I'm actually playing now, of those old classics. It's Lands of Lore, by Westwood. A first-person step movement RPG. Obviously it appeals to me because I love Dungeon Master so much, but it's a great game in its own right. It's a lot more story focused than DM, and simpler in its gameplay (particularly the magic system). It is quite a glorious example of nice VGA graphics. Monsters scale nicely (the environment too can be set to scale smoothly as you walk, but I find this offputting and prefer the immediacy of clear steps, so I disabled the option). It's quite hectic, too, and throws a lot of enemies at you. I've had a fair few hairy moments in the dungeons so far, really takes me back to some of the moments in DM. Low on health and mana and being pursued by a gang of enemies.

Back to the roots

2008-03-23T18:31:00.004Z

Yes, my dalliance with the seductive harlots of the new consoles is pretty much at an end and I've come crawling back to the bosom of retrogaming. I always do. Not that I haven't pickep up a few new favourites along the way... Virtua Fighter 5 has a very definite place in my affections and I'll continue to play the series for a long, long time. I'm still looking forward to Mass Effect 2 and Too Human, and I've been dabbling in Bladestorm recently, which is fun. I came to that via a chance encounter with Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders on the original Xbox. It's like a collision between Dynasty Warriors and a Total War game, with a bit of character building inbetween. Very compulsive.

I'm also quite enjoying Yakuza on the PS2, which surprises me. I let this one slip by me, thinking it another cash-in on the GTA formula, but some praise on the 1Up Yours podcast inspired me to check it out and I'm glad I did. It's essentially an action RPG set in modern Tokyo, with you working your way through a mystery plot full of twists and betrayals, and engaging in a heck of a lot of fisticuffs along the way. It's hysterically foul-mouthed, which seems to be the concession the developers have made to it being an 'adult' gangster game.

But anyway, the main topic of this post - the oldies!

The thing that compelled me back was a brief experience with Lost Odyssey on the 360. A very traditional eastern-style RPG that I played solidly for a few days and kind of fooled myself into believing I was enjoying. To explain that, I can only say that I got engrossed in the character tweaking and the prospect of the visuals over any compelling gameplay qualities the game offered. After about 20 hours I came to a boss battle that I lost mainly due to my own lack of tactical thought, and instantly I wasn't interested in the game anymore. I had a weird kind of flash forward and I saw that I really wasn't enjoying things, that I was essentially grinding my way through a story that didn't particularly grab me, and I simply couldn't be bothered to devote any more of my time towards it.

This had me hankering after a more 'hands-on' RPG experience. Something with more depth of tinkering, and something much more open, where I didn't have to slavishly follow a single plot thread from start to finish (several times in Lost Odyssey I found myself in the midst of epic cutscenes, going for up to an hour between opportunities to save). I started pootling about with Haxima again, and that gave me the Ultima bug. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was knee-deep in DOS RPGs. Now, I never had a PC until about 2001, so almost everything prior to that is new to me aside from the things that got ported to the ST and Amiga, or things that were so famous I couldn't help but hear about them. RPGs though, being a particular acquired taste, tend not to be known outside their fan circles. There are so many treasures to be found there, though, and I've spent the last week or so emulating a great many of them, picking through to find the ones I want to stick with and seek out genuine copies of.

It's also reignited my love of old computer stuff over console stuff, too. My heart really lies with the nostalgic memories and great variety of games you got on computers (the format breakdown of my top100 speaks volumes to that). I broke out the Amiga and had a fun time with that, playing an Ultima V I managed to grab off ebay (complete with all the bits, no less). On the PC side though I've really been bitten by the D&D bug. Proper turn-based epic stuff like the SSI 'Gold Box' games - Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, and so forth. The Magic Candle is another that I'd previously not heard of, but it's something of a warmly regarded classic. I've reinstalled Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Arcanum, Fallout and The Temple of Elemental Evil too. All games I've dabbled in but never really set aside the time to play properly.

I'm not saying all these old RPGs are still wonderful stuff though! There are limits of clunkiness that even I can't go beyond. I've found the Phantasie games to be an example, among others. What I do find though is something I've known all along but tend to push to the back of my mind: that I want to like JRPGs more than I actually do - mainly because of the attractive visuals and stylings - but my real fix comes from western style games that allow the player to just do whatever they want whenever, and dip into the main quest at will, even if they are represented by the most basic visual forms. I guess that's the essence of a compelling game though - one that holds your attention regardless of graphical flourishes.

Final Fantasy XII - Finished!

2008-02-08T23:50:00.001Z

I put the early part of my holiday to good use and finally completed Final Fantasy XII, almost exactly 15 months after I got it. I took a long break from it because I got rid of my big old CRT television and went for a while without one at all before taking delivery of a new HD model. Anyway, I was thoroughly satisfied with the game, the ending was superb. I'm also happy with the fact that I never had to level grind to beat it. I took a little peek at the end boss and got beat, but a bit of tweaking here and there and equipping myself with some spells I hadn't bothered to get yet sorted things out. In the end I think I hit about 81 hours. Not bad at all.

On another RPG note though, I was trying out Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata on the 360. I say was, because after a few hours of each I've decided not to continue. Not that they're bad games as such, but with RPGs I really need something to hook me in the story and/or characters as well as the gameplay, and while they are charming enough I don't get much out of the overly cute Anime stylings. I'm much more inclined towards the FFXII, Vagrant Story or Valkyrie Profile style - a kind of medieval fantasy design at least slightly rooted in a physical reality.

That leaves my RPG plate with Folklore on it, which I can now put my full attention towards. I'm still enjoying that a great deal.

Revelatory moment

2008-01-30T00:51:00.001Z

I've just suddenly realised, after over a decade of playing Final Fantasy games, that Phoenix Down refers to the down feathers of a Phoenix bird and is therefore the actual name of the item, rather than a descriptive name regarding act of resurrecting a downed comrade, Phoenix-like.

...And yet more gaming.

2007-12-29T23:23:00.001Z

Well, I've been a busy boy this past month! I've fully embraced modern gaming, it would seem. Either that or I've been lucky enough to pop my head in at a time when a bunch of great games have turned up.

I finished Mass Effect, which pleasingly lived up to all my expectations and hopes. The climactic few hours are just stunning. I've left off getting stuck into a clear game playthrough for the moment, because I've got enough else on my plate - and I don't want to overdose on one game. Completely unexpectedly I've become engrossed in Tomb Raider Anniversary on the 360. I've never liked the Tomb Raider games before, mainly due to the awful control scheme. I tried the first one on the Playstation and just couldn't get on with it at all. As each successive one came out and I heard that they hadn't altered the controls I never bothered. With Legend a couple of years ago they finally entered the modern age and gave Lara Croft a control scheme to fit a 3D action game, but I was too prejudiced against the series by then to care.

Fast forward to my current love-in with the 360 and I off-handedly decided to try Anniversary (essentially a remake/remix of the original game). It's excellent! Very much focused on large-scale puzzle solving rather than combat, and it has a great sense of exploration and ancient mystery. I'm quite fascinated by archaeology and ancient cultures to start with, so it's especially a treat to play a game immersed in that ideal. It's also very satisfying to be presented with puzzles, think them through a bit then solve them without either getting hopelessly stuck or frustrated. There's a nice natural progression to the solutions.

Anniversary is really just an upscaled last-gen game though. It's nice looking, but I find myself genuinely excited about the next Tomb Raider game - the first made specifically for the new generation of machines. It took a while, Ms. Croft, but you've won me over.

On a somewhat similar note, I picked up a PS3 and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I suppose it could be put in the same broad category as Tomb Raider... exploration, ancient treasure hunting, combat... but it's much more focused towards the combat. In fact, what little puzzling there has been so far is so rudimentary as to not really count. This is not a bad thing though, as the action is incredibly fun. It takes the now standard over-the-shoulder perspective for the action, complete with matching cover system. It's utterly gorgeous, and even the acting and characterizations are spot-on. It really is like playing an action adventure film.

To round off this entry there's the Wii and Super Mario Galaxy. This is the only game I wanted for the Wii, and it's easily worth the price of the machine. It's absolutely stunning in every way. Within moments the controls are second nature and you're completely immersed in this beautiful, imaginative world. The game throws an amazing amount of good stuff at you, but it doesn't linger on anything. Another developer would take some of the ideas present in Galaxy and string them out over a whole game. Not here - and it works to ensure that you're constantly delighted and surprised. Visually it's leaps and bounds over anything else I've seen on the system, and that's down to a particularly vibrant and appealing style that plays to the strengths of the machine perfectly. This is without a doubt the finest platform game since Super Mario 64, over 10 years ago.

Mass Effect

2007-12-02T18:08:00.000Z

This is what I've been doing with my spare time over the past week. I've held off writing about it until I finished the game, which I did last night.

I'd lost track and mostly lost interest in Mass Effect during the middle of the year. This time last year it was a definite highlight in the 360s upcoming games for me, but as I once again drifted from new stuff I took on the opinion that I probably wouldn't be bothered enough to play it. However, as I posted recently I've got a second wind on the 360 thanks to Virtua Fighter 5 and Sega Rally among others, and the approach of release for Mass Effect got me excited again (as well as embarking on a replay of a previous Bioware RPG - Knights of the Old Republic).

Right off the bat I'll say that it's the best RPG / adventure I've played since KotOR. The game plays like a hybrid of KotOR and Gears of War - plenty of dialogue, sidequests and moral complexity fused with a very immediate real-time combat system. Simply put, getting into a fight in Mass Effect is enormous fun. You take direct control of your character, leaving your two squad mates to the devices of the AI and a simple action type you've given them. They'll act independently of you but you can take control of their psychic - Biotic, as the game has it - powers for specific tasks. As it is the feeling of being in a functioning team is very strong, and rarely will the AI do something silly.

The main portion of the game takes place over a handful of beautifully realised worlds, while the extra assignments take you to a number of barren landscapes that are fairly identikit but just diverse enough to remain fun. Just driving the Mako land vehicle around is a blast in itself, and some of the environmental effects on show are breathtaking. Scattered around these worlds are various discoveries, minerals and items, all of which add to your wallet and XP, as well as furthering the exposition on the galaxy as a whole. Generally the sidequests involve travelling somewhere and confronting an enemy force, leading to a firefight or a diplomatic solution. Which one often depends on your own handling of the situation.

Once you get command of a ship early on in the game you have free run of the galaxy. The majority of planets can't be landed on, but many can be scanned for information and resources. The background detail revealed through the writing is vast and intricate. Exploring the planets reminded me very much of Star Control 2, though there isn't the means to exploit what you find in the same way. Add a dash of resource gathering, a simple trade system and more in the way of settlements, fauna and maybe even a little ship-to-ship combat and this would edge close to a perfect game in my eyes.

Writing and voice acting is top-notch, as expected from Bioware. It's easy to forget, in the midst of Japanese RPGs, that games written for the west by western developers have long been providing high quality stories and dialogue. Really, it's so far removed from the adolescent fantasizing of the vast majority of JRPG output it's barely worth a comparison. Mass Effect provides a quite serious, hard sci-fi tale populated with totally believable characters, each with their own stories, motivations and arcs. There's even a well-handled romantic subplot. I wish they'd done more with that actually, as the idea of a romantic relationship with a teammate that can be affected by your behaviour throughout the game would be a natural progression. Imagine being dumped because your lover disagreed with your actions so much. Further plays will reveal how your allies' attitude towards you varies according to your actions, and the different paths that open up because of it.

There are a few technical issues with framerate and texture pop-in, but nothing remotely game-breaking. However, the inventory and character management interface is a nightmare. Horribly designed and ill though-out. You can't check the stats of a team member that isn't actually in your squad of three, nor can you check their equipment if you're away from your ship. Also, the inventories themselves are cumbersome - everything in one master list that you can't quickly cycle through or organize by custom fields. Equipping and upgrading is very odd indeed, and the details of it aren't covered in the manual at all (indeed the manual is pretty much useless). I pray for a patch to correct all this.

Enough gripes though. The last four hours or so of the game played exclusively on the main quest provide some of the most thrilling and satisfying gaming I've ever experienced. I don't finish games very often at all (in fact I'm pretty sure the last new release game of any significant size I played this enthusiastically and finished was KotOR). It took me just over 27 hours, and I loved every last second. I'm going to squeeze a whole lot out of repeated plays with different character types and different choices at the crucial moments. Bioware have crafted a compelling and beautiful story, and I can't wait for the next chapter.

Puzzle Quest: Addiction > Fun

2007-11-20T20:05:00.000Z

Why am I still playing Puzzle Quest? I don't enjoy it, it has no particularly riveting gameplay features or a compelling story. It's completely unsatisfying to play, yet... I load it up almost every night. I used to accuse it of cheating, but I've realised there's something even worse at work here: It's so utterly random that it negates any attempts at strategic play, yet it sells itself as a game that requires such an approach. As a result it's a completely hollow experience. A game that demonstrates more strongly than most a sense of futility and pointlessness. Nothing more than a time waster.

You can't plan ahead at all, because with every turn the situation changes. Winning a match is very rarely about playing well - it's almost exclusively about being lucky. In fact, I would argue that it is 100% about being lucky. This being the case, it's simply not satisfying in any way other than the basic thrill you get out of watching matched-up pieces disappear - sometimes explode - and a new bunch dropping down. Victories aren't to be celebrated because each match could go either way. It's not an achievement.

I don't have an answer to that opening question, by the way. This is what frustrates me more than anything. I'll probably keep playing it until I've cleared it, but I can't think of any other occasion where I've stumbled so blindly through a game with such a minimal amount of enjoyment.

Virtua Fighter 5

2007-11-10T02:03:00.000Z

I'm shaken. My steadfast belief that gaming is fast degenerating into an mire of creative bankruptcy is in peril. Even Halo 3 didn't have this effect on me. Some games just get better and better the more technology you throw at them, and Virtua Fighter 5 is a prime example.

I've dabbled in the VF series since its home debut on the Saturn, but I was always a fan of the faster-paced action of Street Fighter 2 or the easy returns of Tekken, and for a glorious while the undeniable visual splendour of Soul Calibur. Virtua Fighter passed me by. Too technical, too demanding. Not flashy enough.

The latest in the series has just arrived on Xbox 360 and I'm absolutely blown away by it. It's so solid, so well made, well constructed that it demands respect. That alone isn't enough for greatness of course, but the fact is that it's also a genuine pleasure to play. The wealth of options, game modes and customization possibilities could keep me going for months. I'm reminded of Soul Caliburs quest mode, the compulsion to play and play in order to unlock every last extra mode, every last gallery picture. Virtua Fighter 5 takes this to incredible lengths. Hairstyles, jewelry, outfits, accessories... dozens of each can be won or bought. It's a collect 'em up fans dream ticket.

In the end that's all superfluous though - what you're left with is the meat and bones of the finest, most intricate one-on-one combat game ever made, and that alone is enough to warrant months and years of playing.

It's a first impression - I've only spent one short evening with the game so far - but I can only see myself becoming more enamoured of it. The best game on the 360 yet.

Castlemania - Castlevania (NES)

2007-11-06T18:59:00.000Z

Defeated Death using the holy water trick last night. A hollow victory considering the method I had to resort to. Bit cheesed off with this at the moment so it's going on the backburner.

Castlemania - Castlevania (NES)

2007-11-02T21:17:00.000Z

losing the will to continue with this game now, after losing track of the number of attempts I've made at beating Death. On several tries I had him down to one health point before one of those effing scythes found its way to me. It's been a very long time since I've been so physically wound up by a game.

Castlemania - Castlevania (NES)

2007-11-01T23:36:00.000Z

Stage 15 - Medusa heads coming from both directions + axe-throwing knights. Lovely. Timing your jumps to avoid the heads while timing your hits on the knights to avoid the axes makes for a pleasant experience. I made it to Death, but the pitiful amount of health I had left ensured I lasted approximately 3 seconds.

That ain't friendly.

Castlemania - Castlevania (NES)

2007-10-29T21:26:00.001Z

Stage 13... I start off grinning ear to ear as yet another classic tune starts up (Heart of Fire). The grin turns upside-down pretty quickly when I'm faced with skeleton bone-lobbers and hunchback jumpy guys all at once. At one point a skeleton leaves the screen completely then jumps back on, killing me. It's the standard platformer practise of throwing several different obstacles at you - all of which have to be avoided in different ways, which usually means avoiding one puts you in danger from the other.

Thought I'd have a quick bash on Mega Man and was quickly reminded why I didn't choose to tackle that particular series.

Castlemania - Castlevania (NES)

2007-10-29T17:08:00.001Z

That was a pain in the arse.

The stage 12 boss proved to be a bit annoying... it's a combination of Frankenstein's Monster and one of the little jumping guys - who also fires shots at you. Again, the stopwatch doesn't work, so I can assume it's not going to from now on (unless it only freezes life, and the last two bosses have been undead?). Anyway, much, much restarting was done until I got into to the mindset of being patient. Usually I'd just go in and try to thrash the boss before it did the same to me. The problem with that is... going toe-to-toe with a boss doesn't work out too well does it? The Big Guy himself doesn't actually pose much of a threat, he just shuffles back and forth, but it's him you need to hit. The little guys jumps all over the screen and does quite a bit of damage by both hitting you physically and with his slow-moving shots. I found that if you hit the little guy he freezes for a couple of seconds, and in that time you can get a few hits in on Frankie. Still, it was a close thing with a great deal of luck involved.

There were a lot of unnecessary deaths throughout this stage thanks to iffy collision detection and a couple of unfair moments. Only the boss had me chewing the pad and swearing though. It can only get worse I expect!

Castlemania - Castlevania (NES)

2007-10-27T21:39:00.000+01:00

Second crack at Castlevania. The Medusa heads are still the most annoying things in the game, but those little guys that jump around you come a close second. Got to the beginning of stage 4 where I suffered some unfortunate jumping problems (jumping over water while trying to avoid flying enemies). Progress is swift though, considering this was my second ever go on the game. I've found that the way to beat bosses is to simply make sure you have the stopwatch and just freeze them and thrash. I wonder if that will work all the way through...?

Startropics

2007-10-27T16:56:00.001+01:00

I didn't really want to go to bed this morning, so around 4am I decided to start playing random NES stuff. I settled on Startropics and was immediately charmed. It's really simple and linear and holds you hand tightly, but it's also a lot of fun. There's overworld exploration and conversations with NPCs, then you're handed a quest and you venture into some dungeon or similar to carry it out. There it zooms in a bit and you have a very Zelda-esque series of rooms you need to progress through. There are monsters, switch puzzles (albeit very basic) and boss encounters.

It's got a bit of the stiffness of the 8-bit era, but on the whole it plays well. I think I'm going to stick with it.

Back to basics

2007-10-27T16:47:00.001+01:00

I don't do anywhere near enough drawing (in fact, I barely do any). I don't really enjoy it and always have to break through a boredom / disinterest threshold soon after I've started. However, I am making a concerted effort to start drawing stuff and keep at it - it's pretty important after all!

Castlemania - Castlevania (NES)

2007-10-25T19:14:00.000+01:00

Ouch.

Just had my first proper crack at this one. Apart from some glitches it actually plays pretty well (I fell clean through a moving platform at one point). Lost my first life to the first boss before coming back and spamming magic axes at it, then I succumbed a couple of times to the spiky presses on level 2 - which have a very unforgiving detection and timing. Also got my first NES taste of those damned Medusa heads, which have wound me up in every version I've played. Still, lessons learned!

Castlemania - The Mission

2007-10-25T03:08:00.000+01:00

OK... so I had an idea today. Probably one of my more stupid ideas, but at the moment I'm quite excited and up for it. I was thinking about how I tend to sample a lot of games but stick with very few - even when I'm very much enjoying the ones I move away from. This got me thinking about the many classics I've missed out on over the years. Games I've played, sure, but not ones I've finished or even put any decent effort into.

So, seeing as exciting new games are thin on the ground and I'm a grumpy old retrohead anyway I've decided on a mission. I'm going to take a classic game series and play through it from the debut title to the most recent - to completion. No abandoning because I'm having trouble with a boss, no drifting away because some new RPG comes out that I want to play 10 hours of then forget about. Nope, I'm going to go back to the old days in both respects: old games and the old attitude I used to have about them - that I would beat the damn things.

Choosing the series came pretty easily, though I whittled it down from a shortlist. I settled on Castlevania - a series I've dabbled in to various degrees and been thrilled and frustrated by, but one that I've not really put a lot of effort into (the closest I've come to finishing one was 95% or so on Circle of the Moon, but gave up on being unable to defeat Dracula). It's remained resolutely 2D for the most part, and even the entries that have gone into 3D have only done so in a limited manner - unlike Metroids move into the first-person realm (the one reason that series was discarded). I like the style of game it's developed into but in the past I've had issues with frustrating bosses. I gave in too easily! The earlier games make a refreshing return to simpler A-Z platforming, too, and to my shame I can admit I've barely touched any of the NES entires before.

So, without further ado here's the list, in the order I'll be playing them. Each will be completed before I move onto the next. One caveat I have is that I only need to see a victory screen - it doesn't have to be a 100% effort (in the case of those titles where exploration and item collection are factored into the completion rating).

Castlevania - NES
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - NES
The Castlevania Adventure - Game Boy
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse - NES
Super Castlevania IV - SNES
Castlevania II: Belmot's Revenge - Game Boy Color
Akumajo Dracula X: Rondo of Blood - PC Engine
Demon Castle Dracula X68000 - Sharp X68000
Castlevania Bloodlines - Megadrive
Castlevania Dracula X - SNES
Castlevania Symphony of the Night - Playstation
Castlevania Legends - Game Boy
Castlevania 64 - N64
Castlevania Legacy of Darkness - N64
Castlevania Circle of the Moon - Game Boy Advance
Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance - Game Boy Advance
Castlevania Aria of Sorrow - Game Boy Advance
Castlevania Lament of Innocence - Playstation 2
Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow - Nintendo DS
Castlevania Curse of Darkness - Playstation 2
Castlevania Portrait of Ruin - Nintendo DS
Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles - Playstation Portable

There was an MSX game that came out prior to the NES one, but as far as I can tell it's the same thing...

Well. I can say no more other than: updates will be forthcoming!

Halo 3

2007-10-03T17:45:00.000+01:00

Well it's finally here, and it's really, really good. Best of all I seem to be able to play it without motion-sickness problems, which is a huge relief. I still get a little bit queasy when the action takes place in cramped areas with a lot of movement, but even then it's almost insignificant - certainly not enough to stop me playing. I don't know what it is about the movement of Halo that makes it different to any other FPS in that regard, but I am extremely thankful for it.

As for the game itself... it's Halo, but it's Halo polished and refined to perfection. It won't convert anyone who didn't like the first two but for those of us that do it builds and expands on what's great already and offers up plenty of new elements. At the moment I'm playing through the solo campaign mode on Heroic difficulty. I haven't touched the online stuff yet, but it's obvious from the reaction across the media and the net that online Halo 3 will be played for years. Endlessly customizable multiplayer maps added to Bungie's own added content will see to that. There's so much in there it's staggering.

My favourite thing of all though is the Theatre Mode. Evey time you play a session it records the game to the hard drive, and you can play it back from any viewpoint, edit clips and take screenshots. It's an awesome tool for revising strategies, coming up with dramatic scenes or just reliving the action. It also brilliantly shows off the artistry in the visuals.

So yes - the wait was worth it. The game completely lives up to my expectations so far, and it's justified in getting all the praise it is.

Persona 3 and RPGs

2007-08-31T23:12:00.000+01:00

I've come to a conclusion on the seemingly random nature of my affinity for RPG videogames. I'm known as something of an RPG nut, but it's really an erroneous label. The truth is I try a lot of RPGs - but there are very, very few that I stick with and enjoy. I always seem to be on the hunt for an epic game that's going to engross me the way Phantasy Star, Final Fantasy VII or Vagrant Story did (and do).

So why, after trying and casting aside literally dozens of popular RPGs over the past few years has Person 3 stuck with me so emphatically? The answer, I think, is that it's significantly different to the traditional Japanese RPG, or at least my experience of it. There seems to be a reason to play it other than the compulsion to level up... it's fun to actually play.

I start playing most JRPGs full of enthusiasm and good intentions, but those quickly drain out of me as the inevitable 'RPG guilt' takes over. This is the overwhelming feeling that embarking on what typically amounts to 50+ hours of save-the-world, level-grinding gameplay is an inexcusable waste of time. An almost self-loathing feeling that comes over me after spending several hours playing a game that I'm not really enjoying all that much, but am for some reason compelled to attempt.

Persona 3 is different. It boasts over 70 hours of game time on the case, and it mainly consists of fighting repetitive battles to boost stats, with the ultimate goal of taking down a succession of boss monsters. If this were all there was to it, and if it played similarly to any other JRPG I wouldn't give it a second thought. Thankfully though, it's quite unlike any JRPG I've ever played. The easiest way to describe it is a cross between Tokimeki Memorial and Rogue. Not the most obvious match-up! By day the focus is on attending school, doing well in studies, and cultivating social networks. All these things constitute part of the stat levelling system in the game. Sing at the karaoke bar and your courage will rise... answer questions in class correctly and your charm and academics benefit. All these behind-the-scenes elements factor into your battle abilities, but it's all nicely hidden and to be honest it's refreshing to not be assaulted with the minutiae of character growth sometimes.

The Roguelike aspect comes in the form of a demonic tower named Tartarus that has to be scaled as the game progresses, each floor layout randomly generated, and offering up opportunities for more straightforward levelling up, items and boss battles every few floors.

The entire gameworld consists of the high school, a few locations in the city, and Tartarus. Major events in the plot are determined by the calendar (for example some kind of large-scale demon activity on each full moon), and day-to-day life is chopped up into sections where sometimes you get to pick an activity or social event to influence your growth. At midnight every night you have the choice of whether to venture into Tartarus or not (sometimes individuals will be too tired or sick to go adventuring, and need nights off).

Getting back to my original point, obviously this represents a substantially different structure to the standard fare. Yes, different RPGs have their different combat systems and different skill systems, but when it comes right down to it the structure and essential gameplay of them remains very conservative. Personified completely by Dragon Quest VIII, which is to all intents and purposes exactly the same game as Dragon Quest I. The graphical finery and vocal work and the substantial charms they bring aren't enough to keep me playing, because I've done all this before. It's not offering anything new to play. I admire Nippon Ichi SRPGs, but whenever I tinker with them I always come to the same conclusion: Why don't I just play Disgaea and be done with the rest?

Persona 3s fresh approach has me playing for sessions of several hours without the faintest hint of RPG guilt. I realised this was the same with Valkyrie Profile, and why it became the first RPG in over 5 years (since Vagrant Story debuted) that I avidly played through to completion. This is why I adore Final Fantasy XII, because regardless of my admiration for the team that created it, if it had simply been another in the long line of traditional Final Fantasies I would not have bothered to play it for more than a couple of hours, out of curiosity. As it is it's so radically different to its predecessors that it really does feel like a completely different game and a new experience.

It's not enough for me to be obsessed with stats and leveling up, or even to be gripped by a good story anymore. There has to be something in the very core of the game mechanic that I haven't experienced before, and that presents a fun challenge in addition to those other things.

I've happily come to terms with the notion of getting a great, fresh, compelling RPG every few years. If nothing else, it at least gives me enough free time to actually play other genres.

1 - Dungeon Master (Amiga / Atari ST / PC)

2007-08-23T21:11:00.001+01:00

And so we have it. My all-time favourite game. It's held onto the top spot for just under 20 years now, and weathered powerful attacks on its position from some of the other games in this list. Whenever I come back to it though I find it as compelling, fresh and addictive as ever. I've lost count of the number of times I've completed it yet I still relish every new start. It's a masterpiece of design, presentation and interface. It's smart and scary. It's amazing.

A friend of mine lent this to me - it must have been in early 1988 - along with some other games for the Atari ST. He didn't think much of it but thought I might like it. I watched my brother struggle with it for a bit, get killed by the first creature and dismiss it, but there was something there that fascinated me and I found myself loading it up whenever I could get onto the ST. Soon I was raving about it to my friend, who then gave it another shot and fell as much in love with it as I did.

I hadn't played anything like this before. A realtime environment, cunningly designed and filled with monsters, puzzles and riches. A freeform character levelling system and a seamless interface that had you interacting directly with the environment via the disembodied hand-cursor. That interface lent a strong sense of connection to the game along with the clean visuals, with every option no more that a couple of clicks away.

The magic system was rooted in a common-sense reality, made up of runes representing different forms, elements, alignments, etc. The specific spells were drip-fed to you as you progressed deeper, but a bit of savvy thinking and experimentation would unlock their power much sooner - if you had the resources to handle them. Characters progressed and became more proficient in the actions they practised. You could concentrate one characters' efforts towards destructive magic, another towards mélee combat, or have them Jack-of-all-trades. You could take one, two, three or four champions with you.

The design of the dungeon itself was a work of genius. After a fairly linear first half, the deeper levels opened up in all kinds of ways, and interconnected via a series of hidden stairways. The feeling of immersion in the place was absolute. I remember the first time I journeyed down to the deepest levels, and having the overwhelming sense that the entrance was a distant, unreachable memory. Each new descent brought a new creature or two to the roster, and a new challenge in dealing with them. The most ferocious and deadly of all reserved for the 14th, deepest level.

I remember level 12, keeping my starving party alive on stamina and health potions potions while battling against Chaos Knights. I remember jumping out of my chair on hearing a Magenta Worm attack me from the side. I remember the weird calm in the centre that is level 7, the epic battle against a room packed full of giant rats on level 9, which provided me with an almost endless supply of food. Most of all though I remember the final confrontation with Lord Chaos - a desperate, nerve-wracking test of dexterity that had my heart pounding as hard as any arcade game.

Dungeon Master lives on thanks to a couple of remake projects - the original games included in their entirety but with the capacity for total customization. The groundwork laid down by the interface has been put to amazing use by some talented individuals, keeping both the original game alive and expanding its potential. It's the kind of game that encourages that level of dedication and following, and I for one am grateful to be part of it.

2 - Phantasy Star Online (Dreamcast / Gamecube)

2007-08-23T20:40:00.001+01:00

I can barely put into words my feelings about Phantasy Star Online. Along with many people it was my first real online gaming experience, and the early days of the Dreamcast version were a gaming Utopia filled with friendly and helpful people. The universal chat interface brought players together in a beautiful way, and spending nights dropping into random games with complete strangers was a joy. The camaraderie was amazing, uplifting. High-level players would happily escort new people through a tough area. Gifts were given freely. The nature of the game engendered a community spirit unlike anything else.

After the hackers started in on things we marshalled ourselves together in more tightly-knit groups, locking games and giving out passwords only to trusted players. This only served to strengthen and solidify friendships though, and allowed for the more focused and demanding aspects of the game to be taken on. Challenge Mode demanded a solid unit, and we took up the challenge and met it. The intense co-operative team play of Challenge Mode PSO remains my pinnacle of gaming experiences.

All this is without talking about the game itself, though. PSO was unique in its aesthetics - everything from the visual style to the music was fresh and new, and so intrinsically linked to fond memories that simply thinking about the opening bars of the Forest theme triggers a wave of emotion. The gameplay was simple - Gauntlet in space, Diablo in space... but it was direct and immediate. An online RPG where arcade game skills mattered. The interface was clean and necessarily fast, with shortcuts configured to vital items and techniques.

Then there was the RPG aspect of it. Level-building, the collection of better equipment. In the pre-hack days we used to marvel at a player unveiling some mythical rare weapon. The Spread Needle, the Crazy Tune, the Twin Brand. Owning these things became an obsessive, almost quixotic quest. Beyond that there was the Mag raising. Your little robotic buddy, always at your side could be carefully manipulated into a variety of forms, and players became obsessed with raising particular types, or better yet finding a super-rare Mag Cell that would instantly transform it into one of eight special forms.

The game comprised only four main levels, split into two or three areas each, yet we played them over and over again for literally years. And happily, too. Just being in the game was cosy, it was so inviting. Everything just felt so right.

For a few years Sonic Team gave us a dose of pure gaming paradise, the likes of which I doubt I'll ever see or experience again.

3 - Star Control 2 (PC)

2007-08-23T20:12:00.000+01:00

I was introduced to Star Control 2 by way of the Ur-Quan Masters - a free remake made possible when the original creators released the source code into the open-source community.

It's an epic space adventure / strategy / arcade game. Hard to define, in fact, because it does so many things so well. It's completely open-ended, presenting the player with a galaxy to explore and exploit, technologies to acquire and use, alien races to contact and communicate with (sometimes with hilarious results - the script for SC2 is among the best I've ever seen in a game), forge allegiances, make war, engage in ship-to-ship combat... there's so much to do it's mind-boggling.

Being a space game it doesn't have to do much to appeal to me visually, and while it's quite basic compared to modern efforts it still has a very attractive, bright and colourful VGA style. The atmosphere is helped no end by some excellent music and ambience.

The short end of it is that Star Control 2 is comprised of several types and facets of gaming that I am a complete sucker for. There are trading games, combat games, exploration games, strategy games, even diplomacy games that I've enjoyed, but this one takes all those things and mixes them together in one glorious package. Some games you play for a quick fix, and others you settle down with for years. Star Control 2 is firmly and permanently in the latter camp.

4 - Chaos (Spectrum)

2007-08-23T19:37:00.001+01:00

I bought Chaos for 50p. I probably bought it because it was 50p. I mean, how could you go wrong for that? Not very, as it turned out. On the Spectrum I probably played Chaos only slightly less than Elite, and I'm still playing it today.

On the surface Chaos is deceptively simple, and seems almost throwaway. The graphics are modest even by Spectrum standards, the sound effects rudimentary, and the overall presentation of the game is very basic. None of that matters though, because bubbling under that surface is a strategy masterpiece that still outclasses its brethren in the genre.

Up to 8 wizards do battle in an arena with a variety of spells that their disposal. Creatures can be summoned, enhancements cast on the wizards themselves, fires started, magical woods created, lightning bolts fired... there's a large range of magics available to each player, each with its own chance of success. For example - keep casting chaotic spells and the chaos-alignment increases, making subsequent chaos spells easier to cast. Each turn the players get to choose and attempt to cast a spell, then move themselves and whatever allies they have. Directly attacking an enemy is simply a case of trying to move into its spot, either by land or air. Distance attacks and offensive spells have to be executed within range. Victory goes to the last wizard standing.

This simple premise soon blooms into a very tactical game. After a few rounds the boards is teeming with creatures and obstacles, all out for one thing: the destruction of their enemies. Players can hide inside citadels or forests for a few turns, they can mount their own ridable creatures or arm up and go into direct combat themselves. Different creatures affect each other in different ways.

Something I always liked about Chaos is the fact that it never lets on how well your wizard and creatures are doing... whether they're fit as a fiddle or at deaths door. Every attack on your wizard is a painfully tense moment. Will they survive or be wiped out? The death of a wizard is always a fun moment, as he explodes in 8 directions, taking all his creations with him.

With such a range of options, numbers of players and spell choices no two games of Chaos are ever remotely the same, which is why over 20 years on it's still my strategy game of choice.

5 - Typhoon 2001 (PC)

2007-08-23T19:22:00.001+01:00

I absolutely adore the game design of Tempest, and while the original still looks nice and plays a decent game, the idea really shone when Jeff Minter took it and gave it a total makeover for the Jaguar. Since then it's gone through many incarnations on many platforms, but it's retained that manic eye-melting formula. Typhoon 2001 - a freeware, homebrewed tribute - is the finest version I've played yet.

It's the kind of game that only makes sense to the person playing it (and even then only some of the time). It's completely exhilarating, and sometimes overwhelmingly frantic. Typhoon 2001 throws down the highscore gauntlet and dares you to blink. It's arcade gaming mainlined into your brain, forcing your hands to play catch-up. It's my absolute favourite dose-of-adrenaline game. The surest way into The Zone.

6 - Dungeon Crawl (PC)

2007-08-23T19:06:00.000+01:00

My favourite Roguelike, Dungeon Crawl (specifically the tiles version) jettisons so much baggage that it makes even other Roguelikes look flabby. The premise is as simple as they come: Descend into a dungeon and kill things while searching for the Orb of Zot. There isn't even so much as a town, or any shops along the way, and it makes no concessions to sidequests.

One of the many things I love about Crawl is the persistent levels. Everywhere you've been remains intact when you return, so heading back upwards for a breather isn't a proposition filled with uncertainty. There's a great religion system at work in the game, and after a few levels the player gets to choose which deity to follow. Performing certain actions while praying can incur the wrath or favour of these deities, and each one offers a number of abilities and bonuses - if you keep them sweet.

It's also famously difficult, in fact it's fair to say that the game takes a great deal of pleasure in sending your characters into the afterlife as often and brutally as possible. But you still come back for more. I get wildly excited if a character of mine gets down to double-digit levels in the dungeon.

The tiles version benefits from (obviously) the nice graphical tileset and even mouse control - though it's best to save the mouse for inventory management.

Dungeon Crawl is really a case of wearing the name that fits. It doesn't have any pretention, it just does what it does perfectly. I find it more engrossing and fun than almost any RPG I've played.

7 - Freelancer (PC)

2007-08-23T18:53:00.001+01:00

Despite a number of flaws I consider Freelancer to be the very best space trading and combat game I've played.

The mouse flight control feels wonderful, and after years of getting to grips with rotation, pitch, yaw and a dozen other commands, the handling of the spacecraft is actually the most fun part of the game. Gliding carefully through a debris field or circling round a huge battleship really brings home the intuitive nature of the control scheme, and simply clicking a mouse button gives access to all the menus in the game while still in flight.

Unfortunately, the combat suffers from this scheme in that it's simply a case of FPS strafe-and-shoot, most encounters coming down to who has the most powerful guns and the best shields. Still, there's no denying the excitement and dynamism of the battles, especially when there are allies involved.

The main feature of Freelancer that appeals so much to me is the sense of place it creates. Each solar system feels genuinely busy and realistic. With various ships going to and fro, radio chatter crackling all the time, police and military going about their business taking out pirates and insurgents. When I'm just sitting in space watching things go by it feels so solid and so believable.

It's aged a little in the graphics department, but that only means that I'm able to run it at full whack on my PC - and despite that I still think it has a special beauty of its own. Just the range of colours across the skies is captivating.

Freelancer has a lot to offer, and for a fan of the genre it's almost infinitely playable. It's simple enough to pick up and play without worrying about every little detail, but vast enough to have a grand adventure in.

8 - Super Mario World (Super Nintendo)

2007-08-23T18:21:00.000+01:00

Nintendo's greatest achievement and the greatest platform game ever made. Super Mario World is an absolute masterpiece of game design that has yet to be bettered almost 20 years on. I can't decide whether that's a cause for celebration or sadness.

Nintendo took the leaps forward that had been made with Super Mario Bros. 3, polished them up a bit, expanded them and let the Super Nintendo work its magic. For a start the look is timeless. Super Mario World will look just as great in 100 years as it does today - its crisp, clean style invincible against the march of technology. It handles so well. It's a given with Nintendo that its games - especially its Mario games - would be playtested to perfection, but it's most obvious here. The entire thing is flawless.

All the greatest tricks of the genre seem to have been put to work here. Hidden exits leading to hidden levels or even entirely new areas of the map, a dash of puzzling here and there and a range of new tricks and abilities opening up new possibilities. And this was a launch game.

Amazingly, the quality and inventiveness was maintained through nearly 100 levels. Never along the way are you just fed up of playing the game. It's possible to shortcut to the end, but why would you? You want to play through all those areas because it's such damn good fun.

And yep, I found all the exits, did the star road, collected the 'Super Player' coins.

In the case of Super Mario World it would be rude not to.

9 - Vagrant Story (Playstation)

2007-08-23T00:40:00.001+01:00

Vagrant Story is, to me, the Playstations crowning achievement. It pushed the machine to its limits technically and served up a magnificently dark, epic, intelligent adventure with incredible depth and replayability.

The unfortunate downside of its complexity is that it's reluctant to show its qualities to a casual player, and many who tried simply gave up, bewildered by its arcane combat system and seemingly impossible boss battles.

With a modicum of effort and research though that initial spike can be overcome, and the greatest RPG to grace the Playstation is the reward. It seems to me that Vagrant Story is a true labour of love for everyone involved. Coming off the success of Final Fantasy Tactics, director Yasumi Matsuno and his team from Quest got a chance to craft a game of their own, and Matsuno brought his full genius to bear on it. His brand of convoluted political intrigue served as a background for a story of one mans journey of self-discovery and redemption. Every character is full of hidden motivations and shifting allegiances, and by the time the game approaches its climax many assumptions are undermined.

The story of Vagrant Story is by far the most intriguing and compelling I've ever come across in a videogame. Lucky then, that the western localization was carried out by a tremendously talented team who relished and respected the task. It's undoubtedly among the finest translation jobs ever performed on a game.

At its heart, Vagrant Story is a dungeon-crawler. The player takes direct control of the main character and journeys through the derelict city of Lea Monde, both above and below. Along the way he is confronted with all manner of creatures from bats to dragons, beasts and supernatural beings. Combat is very much the core of the gameplay, and its here where Vagrant Story truly shines.

The player can create his own weapons and armour by combining found items of the same. By experimenting, two weapons can be used to create a new, more powerful one. Likewise with armour. Underneath the surface of this is a complex system that determines what the outcome of any combination will be, and it's the exploitation of this system that makes for one of the most compulsive aspects of the game. You will very rarely find an item as good as one you can make. It goes without saying that - for someone who tends to get addicted to the minutiae of a game - this is an irresistible draw. I once spent five hours entering and leaving one room on the off chance of the creature inside dropping a particular item I wanted. By the time I'd finished it had dropped it three times.

The combat itself has a kind of rhythm-action vibe to it, with timed button presses keeping a combo of hits going. Everything is scored, too. From your highest combo to the number of enemies you've killed with each type of weapon. It's a stat-hounds dream come true.

There's a clear game option after you complete the adventure, which allows you to start over with your stats, abilities and items intact. In fact this is the only way to complete the game 100%, as certain areas are inaccessible on the first play. I've played Vagrant Story six times over on the same file.

Last but not least goes a mention to the music. Hitoshi Sakimoto's finest hour, the score here ranges from pure ambience to grandiose battle themes. The soundscape meshing perfectly with the theme and visuals of the game.

10 - Oids (Atari ST)

2007-08-23T00:26:00.001+01:00

Taking the top spot in my gravity games list comes Oids for the Atari ST. It's got a touch more substance than most, and even something of an emotional core, concerning itself as it does with rescuing little androids (Oids) under the oppression of nasty aliens.

You have to firstly destroy the buildings they're held in to free them, then land and let them board. Accidentally frying the Oids themselves is a traumatic experience, and is best avoided. Alien spacecraft will take exception to all this and attack you, and there are other things dotted around the landscape that affect you, such as towers that repel or attract your ship.

In gameplay terms that's all there is to it, essentially. It is, however, completely addicitve, fun and satisfying to play. What's more, there's a comprehensive level editor included for you to design your own fiendish worlds to challenge yourself or others with. The graphics are simple - minimal, even, and the sound is barely existent. Which only goes to show how great the game is regardless.

11 - Exile (Amiga)

2007-08-22T23:54:00.001+01:00

This is a little unusual in the list, because it's a game I only discovered very recently. Sure, I was aware of its existence but I hadn't played it and never thought twice about it. I ended up trying it by default when playing around with a BBC emulator recently. I mean, when you've got a BBC emulator what do you play? Repton, Elite... and Exile.

After smacking myself 'upside the head' for a while for being ignorant of this amazing game all these years, I settled down to play it intensely and ended up favouring the Amiga version for its clarity of visuals (I spent an awfully long time stuck at the very beginning of the BBC version because I couldn't tell what anything was supposed to be). However, it remains a classic in all guises, and a genuinely amazing feat of programming and execution on the BBC.

Marrying the gravity gameplay to a sprawling, puzzle-based adventure game, Exile casts the player as an astronaut sent to a remote world to stop an insane genius from unleashing his deadly experiments on the galaxy and Earth. Arriving without equipment and low on power, you have to search for items and weapons to aid you, while fighting off the creations of the exiled madman.

The behaviour of the astronaut with regard to gravity, weather and physical interaction with other objects is so satisfying. The delicate controls beautifully responsive. It's an immense pleasure to just move around in the game, but there's a job to do. Exile can be a real head-scratcher, with some serious lateral thinking required, but it's also very accommodating to the player. You can't die in the game - you just return to your last 'remembered' position when you take too much damage (you can hold one position in memory at a time and teleport to it at will - a vital component of several puzzles).

Exile is a game that not only provides a compelling challenge and an attractive gameworld, but also has a particularly attractive feel to it. Something unique to videogames.

12 - Laser Squad (Amiga)

2007-08-22T23:31:00.001+01:00

After many years of trying all kinds of squad-based strategy games I always come back to Laser Squad. To me it's simply never been beaten for immediacy, ease of interface and replayability. I actually have fun playing it, something that often seems lacking in other entries in the genre. There seems to be a line of complexity over which I lose interest, but Laser Squad hits it just right. I want to choose what equipment to take, and that's it. Straight into the action.

Even though there are only 6 missions they vary generously in objectives and environments, and as with any good strategy game they really come alive in multiplayer. Having said that, I never, ever tire of blowing apart the home of Sterner Regnix, or making my way cautiously through the Moonbase. Even against the computer Laser Squad is very entertaining and rewarding.

Julian Gollop has expanded his series in various directions, and Laser Squad is still going strong today, albeit in a substantially different arena. None of them have managed to top the purity of this classic.

13 - Final Fantasy VII (Playstation)

2007-08-22T23:11:00.001+01:00

A short while after the launch of the Playstation I sold my machine, having wrung all the entertainment I was ever going to get out of Tekken and Ridge Racer and having given up on anything appealing turning up anytime soon. I dropped out of gaming completely for a year or so until Final Fantasy VII turned up.

I don't even know what compelled me to buy another machine for it. I wasn't familiar with the series, I hadn't been reading game magazines so hadn't been exposed to the preview hype, but for some reason when it hit I just had to have it. Maybe Square put something in the water.

It seems I was ready to dive back into gaming, as I spent the next few months utterly obsessed and engrossed in the game. It remains one of only two 'traditional' Final Fantasies that I can happily go back and play (the other being in this list already). Whatever magic formula Square hit upon here, it worked. Technical limitations aside the story, characters, magic system, visuals and soundtrack were as perfect as could possibly be. The game had buckets of depth: time spent idling at the Gold Saucer, the convoluted and obsessional quest for a Gold Chocobo, defeating the optional Weapons, mastering Materia, and last but not least levelling your party above and way beyond the call of duty. I've still got a save file with characters that can win the game just by counterattacking.

I love the world of Final Fantasy VII. I used to play it every night then go to work the next day and tell a friend everything I'd done and the new places I'd seen. The game is so dear to me that even the random encounters don't bother me in the slightest. I think that first play through took me somewhere around 70 hours - much, much more than any game I'd previously played.

And that death? I didn't cry, but I was very surprised and impressed, and found a whole new level of respect for the game - that it would be willing to do that. I know SEGA had done it years before in Phantasy Star 2, but I never felt it as strongly as I did here. I had spent a significant amount of time levelling the character and following her story. I should have been angry at what might have felt like wasted time, but Square pitched that moment and its aftermath so surely that it became essential to the game, and I remember feeling nothing afterwards other than an intense desire to see it through to the end.

And the first thing I did after completing it? I started over again.

14 - Radiant Silvergun (Saturn)

2007-08-22T22:58:00.001+01:00

Forget the business about the value or otherwise of the game. Radiant Silvergun is a stone-cold classic of design and gameplay.

Taking advantage of every trick the Saturn has to offer, and pulling out a few that people thought it never could, Treasure crafted a masterpiece in the shoot 'em up genre. I didn't buy this blindly on the hype - even I'm not that daft, I downloaded a rip of it and tried it out on a modded PAL Saturn. A few hours with that slow, bordered version was enough to convince me I had to get hold of a genuine copy and a Japanese machine to play it on.

To me, Silvergun is like taking part in a big, dramatic story. It's peppered with dialogue and cutscenes - something that you tend not to see in shmups, and that lends it a quality of immersion seldom experienced. I'm not talking about The Zone here, I mean that particular feeling that what's going on in the game is actually happening. Hard to explain but there it is.

It's incredibly tough, but it's entirely possible given the effort. As with most shmups it mainly comes down to learning the patterns and best strategies to take on the bosses. And the bosses are glorious beasts - the game is essentially a boss rush with the business inbetween all about levelling your weapons and chaining for highscores. The music is essential to the experience, and the game wouldn't be half as thrilling without it.

Radiant Silvergun is one of those rare games that's almost as entertaining to watch as it is to play, because of that great sense of the dramatic. To play it though is a dream, whatever the cost.

15 - Resident Evil 2 (Playstation)

2007-08-22T22:40:00.001+01:00

I still think Capcom got their survival horror series bang-on with this installment. It's perfectly paced, atmospheric and genuinely scary. It offers great replay value and has a great schlocky plot.

I love this game so much I pretty much forced it on a friend who isn't a fan of scary movies or games, because I was so convinced the sheer quality of the game would compel him to play and love it too, and I was right. I had played Resident Evil but it never quite clicked with me the way 2 or 3 did. I found it a little too clumsy, a little too difficult and unforgiving. When the second one came out I bought it because of the hype and, well... it's placing here speaks for itself.

The visuals have a grimy roughness necessary to the limits of the platform but also perfect for the visual style of the game. I think it still looks tremendous. The music and effects totally draw you into the world. The constant wind blowing through the streets contrasted with the eerie silence of the police station, punctuated by that classic piano piece. The voice acting is a little on the stiff side, but it's leaps and bounds over the terrible effort on the first game. It's cheesy but fits perfectly with the B-movie atmosphere.

I used to be able to ace this game, I unlocked everything and was pretty much always able to get through the whole thing without using more than a couple of health herbs. That's how much I played it. I loved the fact that it's possible to learn it in that way. There's no randomness to trip you up and frustrate you.

The thing I like most about it is the pacing. It's spot-on. The early parts of the game are pretty quiet, punctuated with action moments but on the whole it's more of a sedate puzzler. Once you get out of the police station things ramp up a little, until the finale at the lab where you're toting all kinds of firepower and running against a clock. The whole A and B scenario is a valiant idea, but it's not quite executed perfectly (some things overlap inconsistently). Still, it adds a nice twist to the game and gives at least another reason to play though it again.

16 - Sundog (Atari ST)

2007-08-22T22:13:00.000+01:00

Ostensibly a space trading and combat game, but one with insane amounts of detail. Sundog is a game that's been bizarrely lost to the collective memory, but is every bit as classic as the finest entries in the genre.

The 'Zoomaction' system was a brilliant way of presenting the potentially complex facets of the game to the player. You never had to use anything other than the mouse. Clicking the mouse buttons took you down or up levels in the menus, and literally inside whatever vehicle or building you were in. You could walk around your ship for example and personally check on the engines or shields while in flight or even combat (racing to replace damaged shield batteries and engine parts during combat was hair-raising stuff).

There's also a pretty large RPG element. Your stats are determined at the start of the game by spending from a pool of points. Strength, Intelligence, Charisma etc. will affect your abilities in various areas in the game. You could be attacked on the street while walking to the bank, or have to persuade a character to give up some vital information. Yes, in this game you can not only land on planets, you can get out of your ship and into a car, and out of that and walk around. Be careful where you park though, or you may get a ticket! You even had to feed yourself and make sure you got enough sleep.

There is a strong storyline that develops during the course of the game, and following it will lead to an end screen (which is unusual in itself for such an open-ended genre). I never saw it though, because I always enjoyed bashing around the galaxy too much.

17 - Metal Gear Solid (Playstation)

2007-08-22T21:23:00.001+01:00

Metal Gear Solid thrilled me like nothing before when it first came out, and I still think it's the best one in the series. Subsequent games have added complexity in both gameplay and plot, but for me they've never recaptured the drama and excitement of this entry.

One of the rare occasions where I was genuinely eager to find out what would happen next in a game story, MGS had me playing solidly (no pun intended) until the finale, and not for a single moment was I bored or frustrated or disinterested. It's a greatest hits of action gaming, every area offering a new challenge. It's plainly obvious that Hideo Kojima and his team threw everything they had at the game. They had plenty of fun breaking the fourth wall, too, leading to some very inventive and memorable moments. The variety in the boss battles was great, from hand-to-hand combat to taking out a helicopter with missiles. Though it usually comes under criticism for its aspirations to a movie-like experience people tend to forget that it's packed full of gameplay of all kinds. I never felt short-changed at all.

The sense of place is outstanding, each environment packed with details. The whole thing hangs together beautifully as a consistent setting. Even the much-derided Codec conversations don't bother me here as they did in the immediate sequel because I was so invested in the story and characters, and they helped to make it feel like I was really a part of this adventure. Alongside the Resident Evil games it has one of the best ambient soundtracks I've heard as well. From a technical standpoint it still holds up remarkably well, and I do believe that it's particular style means that it will never look bad.

Reliance on the radar system can lessen the experience, and after a couple of plays I ditched that and moved onto the harder difficulties. It becomes almost a completely new game, and a much more satisfying one.

Cinematic in the very best sense, Metal Gear Solid remains a benchmark for action gaming that its sequels have so far struggled to equal.

18 - Wonderboy III: The Dragon's Trap (Master System)

2007-08-22T20:59:00.001+01:00

SEGA's masterpiece on the Master System, Dragon's Trap is a near-perfect platform adventure that mixes in light RPG elements as the icing on the cake.

I had greatly enjoyed Wonderboy in Monster Land, but was always frustrated by its timer and hurried nature (understandable, given its arcade origins). Dragon's Trap got rid of the linear format and laid open a world to be explored at leisure. Here were a variety of wildly different environments, challenging the player in different ways and containing plenty of secrets. The stuff of great adventures.

But the real stroke of genius was in the decision to have Wonderboy cursed and transformed into various forms throughout the game. Each form having unique abilities that allowed the player to access the level specifically designed for it, for example Mouse Man being able to stick like a spider to a particular type of block, or Lion-Man being able to slash downwards with his sword, breaking blocks below him. This Metroid-like mixture of abilities gave the game a superb freshness throughout with new challenges, and offered plenty of scope for exploration as a new form gave access to previously inaccessible rooms or areas. These would usually hold some kind of item or cash reward for players savvy enough to find them.

Like Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES, Dragon's Trap really proved what could be done with the Master System in capable hands. It's bright and detailed, the enemies and different forms of Wonderboy superbly designed and full of character, and the areas are complemented by a range of great tunes, my favourite being the island music Side-Crawler's Dance.

It's an eternal source of sadness to me that SEGA didn't keep up the Wonderboy series and build on the promise of this classic. A couple more installments appeared on the Megadrive, but the character and even the style of game faded away. With the continued success and obvious popularity Metroid and Castlevania I can't help but think that SEGA let a really good thing go to waste.

19 - Gravitron (PC)

2007-08-22T20:50:00.000+01:00

A homebrewed hybrid of Gravitar, Oids and Thrust, Gravitron uses a similar glowing-vector style to Thrust Xtreme for its visuals, but is more varied in its environments and elements. In addition to tight caverns to navigate there are spacemen to rescue, reactors to destroy, boulders to clear out, enemy ships, forcefields and a variety of gun emplacements to tackle. It can get pretty intense, and luckily there's a password system that allows you to start over from any level you've previously reached.

Suffice to say I'm won over by the nature of the game itself and the visuals. This is like a game created with the sole intention of appealing to me, and it's a no-brainer for inclusion in my 100 favourites.

20 - Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved (360/PC)

2007-08-22T20:40:00.001+01:00

People tend to think I'm joking when I tell that I think Geometry Wars is the best game on the Xbox 360, but I'm completely serious. It's the game I bought a 360 to play, and it's one of the best pure highscore arcade games ever made.

Another rung on the evolutionary ladder from Robotron via Smash TV, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved is a pure and simple arena shooter that gets progressively more manic until the player is overwhelmed. It's just a case of using skill and luck to last as long as possible.

Taking the most basic visual style - vector graphics - and putting the grunt of a machine like the 360 behind them naturally means that you can have some mindblowing effects without any loss of performance. GW is eye-candy at its most glorious, and it's always tempting to let the screen fill up with as much as possible just because it all looks so tasty.

The sound is a vital aspect, too. Every spawning enemy has a unique sound, and it's imperative that the player learns every one in order to immediately face whatever's coming next. Enemy behaviours, too, because things get pretty frantic with several types onscreen at once. Some coming directly for you, some avoiding your shots and moving away, some travelling in predetermined patterns. Threading your way through the tiniest space with dozens of enemies on your tail is heart-pounding stuff, and the game cleverly discourages the use of your limited smart bombs until it's absolutely necessary.

It's true that I love few things more than a good old highscore game, and I'm just glad that there are still a few people out there happy to make them.

21 - Ys I&II Complete (PC)

2007-08-22T20:14:00.001+01:00

Ys came along at a time when I was really at a low in gaming, and it pretty much single-handedly revitalised my passion for the old days - or at least it made me realise I was looking for my gaming fix in the wrong places.

My only previous experience with the series was a few hours with the Master System version when it first came out. Since then Falcom has done its level best to avoid releasing or promoting the series in Europe (at least in the US they got a few more installments). Being a fan of videogame music, it was that which brought me to the games themselves.

No strangers to reinventing and remaking their classics, Falcom have released Ys I and II on many formats, but their primary concern in Japan is the PC market (console versions are normally handed out to other developers). Ys I & II Complete is obviously a remake of the first two games in the series, and things are actually very similar to the original incarnations. They went with the overhead 2D look, and the structure and control of the game remains intact. That said, the visuals have naturally undergone a transformation, making the game one of the most visually attractive RPGs out there. I don't mean in terms of graphical extravagance though - this is very much in traditional bitmaps and sprites territory - I mean that there's a charm here that the vast majority of games lack.

The attention to little details is wonderful, from grass and trees blowing in the wind to the animations of characters and animals. The large-scale character portraits used in conversation are done in a classic Anime style and are very accomplished. This being an Ys game again the music is unequalled. Perhaps not as exhilarating as the score for Oath in Felghana, but it has a different, gentler style that fits the simpler gameplay.

And the gameplay is quite simple. There is no attack action - combat is carried out by simply bumping into opponents. There's a bit of skill involved in attacking from the side or back (in which case Adol takes no damage in return), but on the whole it's more about being well equipped enough to take on whatever is around. You'll swiftly find out if you've strayed too far from the path you're supposed to be on at any given point.

It's this combination of simple gameplay, lovingly-drawn graphics and wonderful music that sold me on Ys. I find the game infinitely replayable because it's so relaxed and fun to play (that's not to say it doesn't hold a challenge - boss battles are usually quite difficult and there are a number of difficulty modes to play on). It took me back to more enjoyable time and type of game, unburdened by complicated controls, time investment and the demands of modern systems.

22 - Ultima VII (PC)

2007-08-22T19:07:00.000+01:00

Ultima VII is the very definition of deep. There's literally hundreds of hours of game in there, and beyond that a staggering number of pointless little things to waste time doing. It has a definite plot and an overarching quest, but there's no rush to complete it or move it along. It has the sensibilities of an online game almost, in its capacity for just being in the world and tinkering about.

There's a lot going on beneath the surface, too. The relationships between you and your companions, and they with each other. Your reputation and standing with the NPCs - Ultima VII was pioneering things that are still seen as revolutionary in contemporary games. I spoke earlier of Angband and its discarding of the extraneous content of RPGs. Ultima VII is where that content is exploited fully, and its welcome here. It's a game to truly lose yourself in, and so much fun can be had with it that it's always an enticing prospect.

This may all sound a bit heavy, but in fact Ultima VII is full of humour, in the conversations and interactions with other characters and the possibilities for mischief that the player freedom allows. Just thinking up new ways to be a nuisance can be fun. Alcohol is always a good source of entertainment, for starters.

When you're done with messing about though, Ultima VII provides a top-notch story and a massive quest that will take you far and wide. As an example of an epic, western-style RPG it's probably unbeatable.

23 - Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (PC)

2007-08-22T18:50:00.000+01:00

Lucasarts' finest hour, and in my opinion the finest hour of the point and click adventure genre, period. Monkey Island 2 took everything that was great about the original and expanded it in all directions. Hand-painted locations scanned in and presented in gorgeous 256-colour VGA, the iMuse system providing an evocative, dynamic soundtrack, and of course all the favourite characters returning for another daft tale of pirates, romance and voodoo.

As in the first game, the main bulk of Monkey Island 2 set the player on a multi-threaded quest that could be completed in any order. This time locating and acquiring the four pieces of a map revealing the location of the fabled 'Big Whoop' treasure. A side order of kidnapping and another run-in with the fearsome pirate LeChuck was thrown in to round out Guybrush's woes.

Monkey Island 2 was the game that made me suddenly very aware of how attractive PC games were becoming. I remember reading the review in ACE magazine and comparing it later to the screenshots of the Amiga version. While still very nice, the 32 colours of the Amiga couldn't really compare to the lush palette of the PC. It would be years before I could actually play it on the PC however, and I contented myself with the 11-disc extravaganza on an A500 with a single disc drive.

So many great moments! Striking a match in the dark to find yourself in a room full of dynamite, then dropping the match... finding a telephone in the jungle and calling the Lucasarts game hint hotline... contaminating a bowl of soup with a live rat, then ordering the soup, seeing the chef fired and taking his job on the spot (then leaving the kitchen via the window, salary advance in hand). There's barely a duff moment or flat punchline in the whole game, and as a result it's relentlessly entertaining from opening to end credits.

24 - Final Fantasy Tactics (Playstation)

2007-08-22T18:26:00.001+01:00

I owned Final Fantasy Tactics for years before playing it properly. I just never seemed in the mood for it, and the slow pace of the opening always turned me off at a time when I was down on anything requiring more than twenty minutes to finish.

One day a couple of years ago I decided to sit down and give it a shot, and a love affair with strategy RPGs began. This is stat-obsession taken to new levels. The story and actual battles are almost secondary to the compulsion to max out a particular job or gain a specific combination of abilities. Indeed, I spent so much time in mid-game playing the same map over and over to learn Ninja skills that by the time I was finished I pretty much cakewalked the rest of the game.

That's short-changing the game a little though, because the battles are excellent and the story - while mangled somewhat by a truly awful translation - is compelling and surprising. I had some tremendously satisfying moments taking strategic gambles against the enemy and having them pay off in do-or-die situations. Despite the fairly cute visual style the story is pretty dark and sombre, and certainly more involving than the usual Final Fantasy fare (though to be fair FF Tactics is really a Tactics Ogre game dressed up in FF clothes - Square saw a potential for success in the genre and gobbled up Quest, the team that developed the Ogre Battle series).

It also has superb replay value by nature of its character roster and profession options. Playing through with nothing but Chemists is a popular challenge.

Absorbing Quest and its regular contributors meant that FF Tactics benefited from a score by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata. Their heavy orchestral style added immeasurably to the game's atmosphere, especially in the stunning battle themes.

25 - Granada X (Megadrive)

2007-08-22T17:58:00.000+01:00

A free-roaming shoot 'em up with great graphics, effects and music. Meaty explosions, varied levels, impressive bosses and great controls. What more could you want? I love Granada X to bits.

I bought this sight-unseen on import when it came out. Feeling a bit starved of quality new Megadrive games I'd usually take a chance on something out of the blue. I didn't have the luxury of checking opinion on the internet, magazines were often behind the times somewhat (and not guaranteed to cover everything anyway), and of course the backs of the boxes didn't help much when the text was in Japanese. The cover looked exciting though.

(I've just realised that this is probably how I ended up with Herzog Zwei as well...)

Anyways... the gamble paid off in spades. Granada X is my favourite Megadrive game by a long shot. You take control of a tank in an overhead-viewed level that scrolls freely in all directions. You have a standard rapid-fire cannon and a single powerful shot that forces you back with recoil. Along the way extra weapons can be picked up such as rockets and a curious metal cube that orbits you erratically and reflects your shots. A cool feature of it is that shooting it with the big shot causes it to spray bullets out in all directions for a few seconds.

Each level has a number of objectives to take out before moving to a particular area to confront the boss. On level one it's enemy tank bases, on level two it's the engines of a huge aircraft (be careful with the recoil here!), etc. The levels are varied and there are multiple paths, providing plenty of scope for hit-and-run tactics, and a generous timer gives you plenty of freedom to work your way around.

The music is especially excellent, being composed by Motoi Sakuraba - now one of the foremost VGM composers in Japan.

26 - Batty (Spectrum)

2007-08-22T17:42:00.000+01:00

I always liked Batty more than Arkanoid. maybe because it was such a superb use of the Spectrum, maybe because it was free. All that matters is that it's my favourite 'bat and ball' game, and while I can't say I've exactly followed the genre closely in the intervening years, I can honestly say I've never felt the need to. Batty does everything I want out of an Arkanoid clone perfectly.

The controls are tight, the ball movement smooth and realistic. I tend to expect anything arcade-like on the Speccy to age terribly (and most of them have, to be fair), but not Batty. It even manages to be colourful in an attractive way - not an easy task for the machine.

There's really not much depth to go into in the realm of bat and ball games, suffice to say it's an addictive arcade staple that will probably never go out of style.

27 - Escape Velocity Nova (PC)

2007-08-22T17:27:00.001+01:00

Elite in 2D is a facile way to describe the Escape Velocity series, but that doesn't do justice to the essential differences the perspective provides. The basic template of trading, combat, upgrading and mission-running is there, but the gameplay has a much more immediate, arcade-like feel to it. Space flight and combat are more akin to Asteroids, but there's more than enough depth here to satisfy any space game fan.

Despite the comparatively tiny graphics, EV Nova is quite beautiful. Each ship is modelled in 3D and fully lightsourced, and lasers, bullets, missiles and explosions are painstakingly drawn and animated. The player is free to just bash about on their own, but a strong plotline is provided that will lead to greater riches and dangers. There's even an option to play in 'Ironman' mode - meaning permanent death for a lost character. I don't think I could bear that in a game so demanding of time investment, but it's certainly an exciting prospect.

One thing I find about 3D space games is that the combat is often fudged. Taking the whole thing into 2D negates that problem while still providing the meat of a classic space trading / combat game. This was a hotly contested spot in the 100 - I had considered both Space Rangers 2 and Flatspace 2 for it, but EV Nova wins out over both. It's a little gem.