In honor of the year winding down I've decided to recap on some of my favorite games of the 2010. I'm not going to do a top 10 list per se, as I find it futile to rank such diverse offerings, but would rather dedicate a short blog post to each game that really meant something to me this year. So today we'll start with...
Donkey Kong Country Returns.
I wasn't that excited for this one initially. My memory of Donkey Kong Country is foggy at best, having only rented it when it came out a decade and a half ago. I remember liking it at the time, but given my age it didn't take a lot to impress me. Prior to DKCR coming out, I'd assumed that the series was mostly known for its graphics, not gameplay. There was nothing I could gather from trailers or my time with it at trade shows that made me think DKCR was anything more than nostalgia for nostalgia's sake and that a recreation of our early childhood memories wouldn't hold up in the modern era.
Still, My girlfriend was a big fan of the series, though, so for that reason alone I decided to take the plunge and check it out.
And boy am I glad I did! Initially, it didn't do anything to change my preconceived notions. There was nothing particularly innovative about jumping, swinging, shooting out of barrels, etc... But what I hadn't expected was just how fun it would be. Controls are tight and responsive, levels are lush and gorgeous, and the cute animals are genuinely cute. Like really, really cute. The way Diddy runs over a rolling Donkey Kong still fills me with delight every time I see it.
It's also plain exciting. There's a real momentum to some of these sequences as the levels crumble behind you as you desperately try to acquire the hard to reach KONG letter. It's definitely challenging, but rarely frustrating with frequent checkpoints and a liberal dose of lives.
Co-op was fun too. It's not perfect and you'll hemorrhage lives this way, but they're not hard to replenish. Playing through the campaign with my girlfriend was seriously one of the highlights of the year for me in gaming.
Once we'd completed it I asked her what she thought. She said she liked it, but was a bigger fan of the older games. My memory is too rusty to accurately compare, but I'll say that it effectively captured the feeling I got when I was 12 and a 2D platformer needn't be innovative or deep for it to be just about the best thing ever.
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And for record keeping purposes, here's some stuff I've written over the past few months:
Defying Design: Dead Lines Rising. On how time limits can enhance or hinder an experience. Looking specifically at Dead Rising: Case Zero and Majora's Mask.
The charms of this game were lost on me. I should probably revisit it.
I was listening to the most recent Experience Points Podcast with one of my favorite writers, Michael Abbott as their special guest talking about how he recently had Portal added to the list of required for a freshman course at Wabash College where he teaches.
During the discussion, the concept of gaming literacy came up and I wanted to throw my own two cents into the mix...
It may seem odd now being the seasoned gamer that I am, but I recall struggling a lot with Ocarina of Time when I first played it about seven years ago. Embarrassingly, the things I struggled with would seem like common knowledge to any gamer now, yet confounded my rusty 16-bit gaming mind.
When I'd played Ocarina I was 20, just bought a Gamecube, and hadn't owned a console since the SNES. Gaming was a mere curiosity to me at the time, as I wondered what had become of my favorite childhood pastime. Little did I know how hard it would be to get back into.
I recall first getting stuck in Ocarina when told to head to Hyrule Castle. I went up to the gate, a guard told me I wasn't permitted on the premises, so I left. Given my background in point-and-click adventures I naturally assumed I needed permission before entering. I scoured the land far and wide talking to everyone, hoping someone would give me the proper documentation to enter. Inevitably I gave up and consulted an FAQ. The answer; I was supposed to sneak past the guards -- something that would have never occurred to me as I'd not had to do that in a Zelda game before.
Granted part of this was due to a technical limitation. Guards have unrealistic eyesight in that they're incredibly near-sighted and standing a scant 20 ft in front of them is considered being out of range, even if it looks like you should be clearly spotted. I chalked this up to me being a dunce and pressed on.
My next point of contention was not understanding that my fairy, Navi, doubled as a hint system. After Hyrule Castle I kept wandering without a clue as to where to go. Navi kept interrupting, saying that she wondered what my possible girlfriend back home would think of me now. Looking back on it it was obvious; she was telling me to go back home where I'd discover a new event that would drive the plot along, but I somehow thought that this was just cutesy dialogue meant to add flavor to my fairy companion. "Yes, Navi, I get it. I'm the hero of time. My g/f will be impressed. Whatever. But where am I supposed to go?!" Much like the castle, it wouldn't have occurred to me to go back to the starting village as I thought I'd already done everything there. Whoops!
And don't get me started on hitting A to take out/put away your sword. Apparently that doesn't matter as hitting B will perform an attack regardless, but it took me most of the game to figure that out as I constantly cursed the screen every time I'd accidentally sheath my sword when trying to read a sign.
It's easy to forget about these barriers to entry having played so many games, but I still find it fascinating what parts of videogame knowledge we simply take for granted. Let's hope Wabash's incoming class is smarter than I was (or that Portal is more intuitive than Ocarina. Which I imagine it is).
And I've continued my Defying Design columns here:
Smooth Talk; the evolution of dialogue trees using Monkey Islands' present and past as a base.
Alternate Perspectives; examining how Nier only told its story through multiple playthroughs and the potential benefits and pitfalls to such an approach.
Altered States; analyzes the effects of moral choices on character design and how it can influence playstyles.
On a side note the Eurogamer piece was a major win for me as that was the site that initially got me interested in pursuing videogame journalism professionally. I can still acutely recall Penny Arcade linking to Kristan's Prince of Persia: Warrior Within review, which I thought was exceptionally well written. I liked it so much that I started perusing the site further and it soon became my go-to for game reviews and previews. This isn't to say that other sites aren't equally great or anything, but EG was my original inspiration and continues to hold a special place in my heart.
Secondly, I flew up to Vancouver, BC last week to preview ModNation Racers for them. I have to say that I was quite impressed by what I saw and sadly didn't have the word count permitted to go into everything in my preview. But know this, dear reader: I did create a steampunk/robot/cowboy/sheriff with a Clockwork Orange left eye and a small red diamond tattoo resting underneath it for my racer. I was very proud of it and hope to see it in the final game.
In an age where shooters are all trying to outdo each other’s realism, it’s refreshing to hear Gearbox’s creative director Mikey Neumann tell us that, "realism can eat shit and die." This bolshy mantra is first made apparent in Borderland’s new art style. It’s gone cel-shaded since we last saw it, making for a flashier, comic-book style vibe. This succeeds at streamlining the focus of the game from a gritty, desolate atmosphere to pure, raw fun.
Borderlands is a "Role-Playing Shooter" from Gearbox Interactive, the creators of Half-Life: Opposing Force and the Brothers in Arms series. It aims to combine the open-ended structure and leveling commonly found in role-playing games with first-person shooter combat and a healthy dose of co-op. Borderlands is primarily set in a desert wasteland of the hostile planet Pandora, where your rag-tag crew of treasure hunters is looking for a legendary alien vault containing unspeakable technology. Unfortunately, a lot of others are looking for this vault as well, forcing you to duke it out with them while also surviving the local wildlife. Thus begins your quest of exploration, looting, mission-hunting, and killing things, all of which will take you across miles of open terrain.
Arguably, Borderland’s biggest selling point is that it will contain over a million different weapons. This may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not. Each gun is comprised of multiple components that are randomly generated and cobbled together. As such, no two weapons will ever be exactly alike. You’ll also have the option to make your own custom weapons out of parts that you find lying around the environment. Creatures disappear and leave ammo and weapon parts behind, which is another wonderfully daft example of Gearbox’s reluctance to conform to the standards of reality. This custom nature also extends to different ammo types, of which there are plenty. The most noteworthy of these are the self-explanatory "healing bullets," which sound like great fun in co-op.
I have a confession to make: I never played any of the previous Alien vs. Predator games. I am as wary of licensed games as many others are, especially when said game combines two properties that really have nothing to do with one another. Despite all of this, Alien Vs Predator ended up being the most interesting first-person shooter that I saw at E3. Imagine my surprise.
AVP is split between three campaigns: that of a human soldier, a Predator, and an Alien. All three will encompass one complete story, but you can experience it from varying points of view through a set of species-specific missions. The first demo that we were shown was from the human side, which was a curious choice considering that it fails to capitalize on the greatest strengths of the brand name and looked like a fairly typical sci-fi/horror FPS at first glance. The level took place in a dark industrial setting, with the player throwing flares to brighten up areas beyond his flashlight. The flare landed underneath a staircase, showing off some really impressive lighting that brings to mind the entirely orange and black aesthetic of Alien3. Since the flares are your only source of light besides the flashlight, you are forced to make their placement a tactical decision. At this point, I was still fairly unimpressed, as everything that I had seen looked a bit generic. "You roam around metal corridors fighting monsters," I thought. "How original."
All that changed once a pitch black Alien silently emerged from the shadows, leaping at the screen. The audience twitched as the PR guy--who had been demoing the game all day--died from this attack. "Where they come from is randomized" he noted, before trying again. This time the alien came from the same basic direction, but a little higher up. The creatures are very hard to see, so even the slightest change in trajectory can throw off your game and force you to squint to make out their shape against the shadows. The marine popped off a few rounds, but the Alien was too close to him when the bullets struck. This caused the creature’s acid blood to explode onto the screen, which would probably hurt like hell and cause you to go blind in real life. Since that wouldn’t be too much fun in a game, the on-screen acid sizzling ends up being one of the best vision-obscuring effects ever rendered.
Mass Effect was truly an epic game, one full of planet-hopping, galaxy saving, and alien shagging. Since the original seemingly had it all, constructing a worthy follow-up would be quite a daunting task. Thankfully, Bioware seems to be up to the challenge, keeping everything that was great about the first game and improving upon all its little problems immensely.
The first change worth mentioning is that Mass Effect’s much maligned combat has been greatly improved. My demo had me raiding a tower on a blue metropolitan planet that looked a bit like Coruscant from Star Wars. Classes have been tweaked from what they were in the first game, opening up new abilities to fit every player type. In this case, I was playing as a Soldier build and the assault rifle was my go-to weapon. The combat is similar to the original, with the time-stopping weapon and ability wheels popping up with the press of a button. Everything is a bit faster paced this time around, with two hot-keys available for different rechargeable abilities. I could also tell individual teammates to lock-on to different enemies at any point. Where an enemy gets shot now seems to make a much bigger difference in how they react, making combat that much more visceral. All of this comes together very smoothly, as I could imbue my bullets temporarily with a special power that would send enemies floating through the air and then tell my squadmate to take them out while they were incapacitated.
The first Mass Effect did a lot to push dialogue trees forward in games, but the conversations were not without their problems. While the voice acting was great and the facial animations were expressive, dialogue sequences still felt stilted and janky as the camera unceremoniously cut between two staid characters. Now, the camera and characters both move around a lot more, proving that the inhabitants of the Mass Effect universe can *gasp* both walk and talk at the same time. Bioware has also made these interactions time-sensitive, so you can’t just stand there awkwardly deciding how to respond. The game forces you to be quick, or the conversation may not go the way you want it to. Furthermore, you’ll have the option to interrupt a chat with the left shoulder button. In one choice example, we were shown Commander Shepard ending a discussion by throwing a guy out of a window, hearkening back to the days when Han Solo could shoot Greedo first and yet still be the hero
Prior to the launch of the Wii, Ubisoft’s Red Steel remained an intriguing proposition due to its unique blend of guns and gesture controlled sword combat. Unfortunately, it was a launch title, and Ubisoft had yet to learn how to develop for the Wii at that point. As such, the controls felt clunky and sometimes broken. However, if the E3 demo is an indication, it looks like Ubisoft has listened to nearly all the criticisms of the first game for this upcoming sequel
The first point worth mentioning is that Red Steel 2 has little in common with its predecessor. The game features an all new story, setting, and art style, going for a Samurai Western theme instead of the original’s Asian setting. The sequel features minimalist cel-shaded graphics and a desolate wasteland location that acts like a crossover between the anime Lone Wolf and Cub and the classic western El Topo. You play as a gunslinger/samurai who literally gets roped in to ridding his hometown of a malevolent gang, with the opening cutscene having him bound at the wrists with rope and dragged behind a motorcycle.
2D platforming continued its comeback at E3 in a big way, with New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Shadow Complex leading the charge. So it’s easy then to overlook a fairly anonymous downloadable 2D platformer like Trine. That would be a mistake, because Frozenbyte’s upcoming title was easily one of the best games I saw at this year’s E3.
At its core, Trine is a 2D physics-based puzzling platformer. In its single player, you can toggle between its three characters at will, namely the Knight, the Thief, and the Wizard. The Knight can slash enemies with his sword, and use the right analogue stick to block with his shield from any direction. The Thief shoots arrows in any direction, and can grapple Bionic Commando-style under wooden objects like walkways and boxes. The Wizard summons boxes (one at a time) into existence by drawing them, and can move objects like bridges and boxes telekinetically.
What makes this interesting is Trine’s co-op, played by two or three players, in which you cannot assume the same role as another character. This makes the puzzles harder, as you’ll all have to work together to find a solution for getting each player across the game’s chasms. Here’s an example: a path ahead is covered in spikes while there’s a series of platforms high in the air. The Thief can grapple across the platforms from underneath, but the Knight and the Wizard have to jump across them, and reaching them can prove tricky. First off, the Wizard creates a box to stand on, then the Knight throws said box, with Wizard perched on it, up towards the platforms. Then the Wizard summons a box for the Knight to stand on, and then the Wizard telekinetically drags the Knight on the box using his wizardry. If it sounds complicated, don’t worry, because it’s actually easier said than done or thought out. The game is all physics-based, so where the Wizard grabs the box with the pointer will actually effect how it will move, as does where the Knight is standing. Working in tandem to keep one player perched on a box is just one example of how teamwork in Trine will really pay off.
While I hate to blithely sum up a game as game X meets game Y, there’s really no better way to sum up Shadow Complex than as Metroid meets Uncharted. Chair Entertainment (the studio responsible for XBLA title Undertow) and Epic Games’s Shadow Complex is a 3D-rendered, 2D side-scrolling action-adventure game with a heavy focus on shooting and exploration, not unlike Samus’s early adventures. The aesthetic and modern-day jungle setting, however, has far more in common with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, not to mention the hero who looks and sounds an awful lot like Nathan Drake – always a possibility when he’s voiced by the same guy, Nolan North.
The game starts off with protagonist Jason Fleming’s girlfriend Clare being kidnapped, bringing Jason to the heart of the jungle where he must infiltrate a mysterious military base – a shadowy complex, even – and rescue her. The demo I played began with my landing in said jungle, where I was to find my climbing gear that would allow me to grab hard to reach ledges. The climbing gear is the first of 18 upgrades you’ll unlock over the course of the game, including a full suit of armor and in pure Metroid form an ice-beam-esque “foam gun” that can create temporary staircases and makeshift cover. This was all set against lush, detailed 3D jungle environments, shown off by Jason’s ability to explore his surroundings with a flashlight aimed in any direction with the right analogue stick.
If Brutal Legend knows one thing, then it’s how to rock. It’s got babes, hot rods, demons, gore, face-melting guitars, head-banging entourages, and of course a heavy emphasis on Norse mythology. This is not rock as we now know it, but its genesis. Rock and Roll was always about rebelling against the status quo and trying to make the world a better, more awesome place. What better way to do that than rid the world of demon through the power of heavy metal?
For the uninitiated, Brutal Legend is a third-person action-adventure game where you play as Eddie Riggs, a roadie voiced by the enigmatic Jack Black. Eddie gets sent back in time via a cursed belt buckle, which just so happens to be a demon, but instead of getting sent back to the past as we know it, he finds himself in a time when the gods of rock ruled the land with the awesome power of their, er, rocking. Unfortunately, said rock and roll fantasy land is being overrun by demons, and it’s your job to save everyone. Righteous!
The demo I was lucky enough to play began with Eddie being transported into this unholy yet awesome land atop a mountain of skeletons, where he gained his first two initial weapons; an axe and an enchanted guitar called Clementine. The ax came with standard heavy and light attacks, complete with suitably gory slow-motion finishing moves. With Clementine equipped Eddie was able to, as Patton Oswalt would say, “change the physical properties of things with the power of his rocking”, i.e. electrocute enemies. After dispatching a handful of red-hooded foes, I moved on to the first mini-boss, a tall nun-like demon who you’ve probably seen in the game’s trailers. After defeating her, I stole her vehicle that resembled a crab made out of metal and bones. Because it’s an unholy magical demon vehicle, Eddie had to pray to the demons above to grant it the strength to move, which laid the path for arguably the most hilarious monologue I’ve heard in a game since GLaDOS’s cries of despair towards the end of Portal.
Demon’s Soul’s--From Software’s upcoming action-RPG that is being published by Atlus--is a game about death. You will die in this game. A lot. Because of that, only the most masochistic need apply.
The phrase, "You cannot kill me, for I am already dead" does not apply here. When you die in Demon’s Souls, you must start the level all over again as a ghost, this time with half of your original health. If you make it back to the bloodstain that marks where you died, you will regain all of the souls (i.e. experience) that you lost at your time of death. Die as a ghost however, and your bloodstain will be overwritten and all of the souls that you had on your previous playthrough will be gone for good. You are tasked with continually making your way back to your bloodstain, eventually hoping to regain your body by defeating that level’s boss. It’s brutally punishing, and there’s no telling if this will start to grate over the game’s 60 hour runtime or somehow manage to keep things tense throughout.
Demon’s Souls is primarily a dungeon crawler, two words that would usually send me running for the hills. But in Demon’s Souls’ case, it is a dungeon crawler for people who typically don’t like dungeon crawlers. The world is separated into five sections, each comprised of four interconnected stages. After the first level, you’ll be able to tackle the rest in any order, so no two playthroughs will be alike. Each level will be full of enemies of varying difficulties as well as a number of secrets. Early level will have some sections cut off by high level demons, so you’ll be urged to go back to those areas once you are more powerful. You can choose between ten classes at the offset, each with their own unique strengths and weakness. What you choose at the beginning only effects the earlier stages of the game, as you’ll be able to customize your character or class at any time later on.
It’s strange, but no one ever seems to create a game set within WWII-era Europe unless it’s some kind of battlefield shooter. Pandemic Studios--creators of the Mercenaries and Star Wars: Battlefront series--aims to fix that with their upcoming release, The Saboteur.
Set in the early 1940s, The Saboteur sees its protagonist Shawn ridding the world of Nazis throughout the greater part of Eastern Europe. The interesting thing about this character is that he’s not in it for the greater good of mankind, per se. Shawn is on a personal quest for revenge, though Pandemic has remained tight-lipped about what the impetus for this is. This makes the story rather compelling, as Shawn is inadvertently making the world a better place and doing good for the wrong reasons. He likes fast guns, fast women, and has a history as a macho race car driver prior to getting caught up in the world of war. Furthermore, Shawn is not an action hero, instead preferring to complete his objectives the stealthy way.
The most instantly noticeable thing about The Saboteur is its unique sense of style. In a bold move, a majority of the game is portrayed in glorious black and white. This indicates that an area is currently under Nazi occupation. There are still bits of color around--which can be seen in the red Nazi flags and armbands that make enemies much easier to see, as well as the faint yellow lights in windows that illuminate the glorious, climbable architecture--but most of what you see is monochromatic. If you complete a Nazi-clearing mission in said area, things will go back to being in full color.
The first mission that we were shown had Shawn trying to take down an anti-air cannon in Paris. Anything that looks climbable is, so Shawn took to the clustered rooftops of the city to slowly stalk his way to the target. If you go in real slow, your character can get all the way to the cannon by just hiding in the shadows and snapping necks. Sadly, the PR rep who demoed it for us was spotted fairly early on, so he had to resort to the game’s polished third-person shooting mechanics. There wasn’t anything particularly innovative about this aspect of the game, but the controls looked tight and intuitive (with the now standard duck-and-cover system firmly in tow). Since most stealth games turn into broken shooters once you have been spotted, The Saboteur’s competence in this area is a good thing. Of course, there’s no telling how balanced the game will be between stealth and combat, so it’s yet to be proven whether or not it falls victim to Hitman syndrome--where it’s way easier to run-and-gun your way through levels that it is to go in stealthily.
Beauty comes in many forms. Ico is beautiful in its subtlety, like a fairy tale. Bayonetta, however, is beautiful in its excessiveness. Like Las Vegas or Monte Carlo, the game is garish, over-the-top, and borderline sleazy, yet it dazzles and delights like no other.
Bayonetta is also a game about killing things. Instead of being a tried-and-true demon slayer, Bayonetta is an ass-kicking, witch-slaughtering renegade angel. Not much is known about the plot at this point, but we do know that Bayonettahas been asleep for over 200 years and has now been awakened with no memory. While further details of the storyline remain a mystery, the real draw of the game lies in its unique blend of upbeat slaughterhouse fantasy fun.
The core mechanics of Bayonetta are a bit like Hideki Kamiya’s previous outing, Devil May Cry, on crack. Dante had his sword and guns, while Bayonetta has guns and--in a wonderfully sadomasochistic bent--her high heels, which are comprised of revolvers. Dead sexy. The triangle and circle buttons are used for her punches and kicks respectively, while the square button swings her weapon. Enemies leave weapons behind as you fight them, such as a musket, a spear, and a giant mace. You can only hold one at a time, and they all come with their own unique strengths and weaknesses, such as speed, damage, and range. As you destroy things, you collect gold rings which--as far as I can tell--are on loan from the Sonic division of Sega. Rings are the game’s currency, and can be used to buy new moves and items for more ass-kicking greatness. Adding to the insanity of it all, Bayonetta can also run up walls in certain areas, making for some wonderfully dizzifying combat scenarios.
I have to admit my biases; Shadow of the Colossus is possibly my favorite game ever, and Ico is high up that list, so I've been waiting with bated breath for whatever masterpiece Fumito Ueda has been cooking up to be unveiled. Last year, E3 went by, and nothing. Then, Tokyo Game Show (where SotC premiered four years prior), and still nothing. Then, Ueda went on to speak at this year's GDC where everyone thought for sure his new game would be unveiled, and STILL nothing. All we had to go on was a job ad for his studio portraying a chain going down a hole. And now that they've finally released some actual footage of something, I have to say, I'm a little underwhelmed.
For starters, it looks a little too much like a mix of the previous two games with little originality emerging. The boy appears to be a dead ringer for Ico, and the creature bears a resemblance to a certain colossi. The fact that they're friends is new, but again, it looks a bit like Ico, where they swap Yorda for a colossus. Neither of these are bad things, exactly, just a little less than I was expecting.
Furthermore, the aesthetics looked quite a bit worse than what we saw in Ueda's previous games. I loved the simple, elegant cel-shading of Ico and Yorda, and the new fully 3D modeled character just doesn't resonate as well. He looks a bit blocky and goofy to me. The creature too looks a bit too clean and majestic; a bit at odds with the crumbling, ruinous tones of the world.
Speaking of the world, it looks very similar to what we saw in Ueda's previous two games, but perhaps a little too glamorous. For example, there are ruins, but they stretch out as far as the eye can see, which makes them appear a bit cluttered. As such, it lacks that lonely, minimalist, somber feeling that was so prevalent in Ico and SotC. The music, too, was a bit cheesier and more generic than what I'm used to from Ueda's games. It's like they took everything that was great about Ico and SotC and Disneyfied it (flashbacks to The Neverending Story certainly spring to mind. And apparently I wasn't the only one who though that, according to my mates on Twitter). Then again, there's no telling if that's the final music (or character models, or anything, really), so that could all likely change, or at the very least, make more sense in the context of the final product.
Obviously, I'm a bit biased, as I had unreasonably high expectations, and was disappointed. That being said, I'm sure the final product will be amazing nonetheless. Even if it does look too much like a retread of his previous two games, that's still a world that I love and wouldn't mind going back to. And as far as it being a cliched story of a boy befriending a giant goes, I must say that one of my favorite films of all-time is The Iron Giant (and I recall recoiling in horror at the trailer for that movie as well), so this could well be absolutely amazing. I was particularly intrigued by the shot of the creature swimming through a tunnel with arrows jutting out of its back, implying a level of violence only hinted at here, but will be made apparent later.
Make no mistake, I'm still woefully excited about this game. Even if I found that this particular teaser trailer fell a bit short of my expectations.
Edit: After watching the trailer a few more times, I've come to the conclusion that the creature looks great, but the kid still looks pretty bad. Notably his cartoon face in full HD, which just looks a bit silly. Here's hoping they fix that before the final build.
I have to admit that I was extremely skeptical of Bioshock 2, as I felt the first one was a fully self-contained game. Furthermore, I felt that it was a game that had worn out its welcome in the final quarter. So when Bioshock 2 was announced, it sounded a bit like a heartless cash-in. This was confounded by the first look we saw of the concept art for the Big Sister model, which I thought missed the point spectacularly. The Big Daddies were iconic. Bulky, lumbering men in turn of the century diving suits. An icon we’ve all seen before. The Big Sister model just didn’t make much sense. It’s a bulky lumbering diving suit that’s also trying to be curvy and voluptuous? Looked more like a cyborg ninja to me, and at odds with the more understated, realistic tones of the first game. Thankfully, after seeing the above nine minute developer demo, I have been completely turned around on this sequel and am very excited indeed.
The first thing I noticed was that since you play as a Big Daddy this time around, enemies don’t pose as much of a threat. In terms of conventional game design, this should be a bad thing. We’ve been trained to think of combat in games as something difficult that one must overcome, but that is not the case here. In Bioshock 2, you play as the ultimate badass and the game knows it. Rather than just launch a horde of cannon fodder at you as you tear them to shreds, the enemies react realistically to your presence and will gang up on you in groups before fleeing when the going gets tough. My favorite moment in the trailer was after the player murdered a group of splicers, then queued up his drill at the sole survivor ran away in horror. I’ve seen enemies fall back behind cover before, but to see one who wants to retreat from the fight entirely--and in response to your drill revving--was a sight to behold and gives the player a sense of empowerment that I’m not sure I’ve seen in a game before. This may diminish the sense of challenge from the game’s combat, but I don’t believe that challenge was ever the focal point of the first Bioshock or the direction that the series should take.
Since Bioshock was such an immersive cinematic experience that already had no loss condition due to its vita-chambers, it makes me wonder what you could do with a game that features easy combat that only exists to add drama to the proceedings. As an action game, this wouldn’t work, but for a game that focuses on exploration, choices, puzzles, and narrative, I’m surprised that this hasn’t been done before. I’m not saying Bioshock 2 will be that game--as there will still be challenges in the form of the Big Sister--but this looks like a nice first step towards an interesting new direction for combat in gaming.
I don't often write about a game before it's released as I feel like there's way too much of that already (and then a game gets a measly one-off review and is never heard about again, in most cases), but I felt compelled to write about InFamous.
With all due respect to the fine folks at Sucker Punch, there is no way your game is going to live up to the game I've envisioned it being in my head. Let's start with the concept:
You're a regular guy inexplicably given superpowers during a cataclysm that decimates the better part of a metropolitan city, leaving the remnants a quarantined, lawless dive. Think hurricane Katrina with less water and more electricity. We've seen more than our fair share of post-apocalyptic cities in videogames over the years, so at face value, the thought of another one does little to stir the imagination. But this isn't a Big Brother/1984 rip-off like Final Fantasy VII, Crackdown, Madworld, or the Fallout series. From what I gather, there is no organization in charge. This is pure anarchy. Generally speaking, having super-powers makes one either a crime fighter or an outlaw. Here, however, there is no established order. You don't revolve around civilization. Civilization revolves around you. That makes you the shape of things to come. A heavy burden indeed.
It's not a "god game," though. Unlike a strategy game like Civilization or Black & White, here, you play a particular role. You're a person. As such, you have needs. You'll have loved ones who you'll want to protect, which may be at odds with performing your duties at establishing order amidst the chaos. I've heard of scenarios where you'll have to decide whether to horde rations of food for yourself and your girlfriend, or distribute it equally amongst the citizens. This sort of situation really appeals to me in this current wintry economic climate. If this were happening to me in real life, I don't know that I'd have the will to resist skimming a little off the surface for myself and my loved ones. InFamous, at its core, could prove to be amongst the greatest tests of mankind's true nature.
I know that's a ballsy statement to make, and I'm aware that there have been lots of games to give you these binary good/evil choices, but I often find myself less drawn into their scenarios and don't play the way I would if I were encountering such situations in real life. In Fallout 3, for example, it was fun to occasionally kill a random wayfarer and take his loot. I'd argue that murdering civilians was the highlight of an GTA game. Fable 2 started strong, but after its opening hour they sort of dropped the ball on storytelling and it became rather silly with its silent protagonist, lack of memorable NPCs, and I think most people would agree that the game was at its most fun when you'd mischievously break the rules and say, murder your family. None of those games were representative of me as those games didn't make me care about the people in it. The best example I can think of so far where a game gave me moral choices and I cared about those choices beyond whatever stat boosts they'd garner me, was Mass Effect. I liked that universe and I liked my crew. I wanted to do good by them. But again, Mass Effect had an established order. You could only effect the status quo so much by either saving the galaxy, or saving the galaxy and putting humans in charge. Oh kay then...
InFamous also makes being evil tempting for all the right reasons. In a lot of games, I'll be a dick, simply because I can. Because it's funny and the world lacks character, so it feels like playing army men. But in InFamous, the concept of being evil is tempting because you could quite possibly rule this place as a dictator. Well, maybe. I'm not sure if the game will go that far or not, but I sure hope it does. Sure, murdering civilians in GTA is fun for awhile, but ineffective in the long run. The idea of having a whole city move to your whim is certainly a compelling notion. Or maybe not even a dictator, per se, but even just a high class criminal who people will not want to mess with would prove to be an enviable enough role. Either way, being evil seems like it would net rewards and I really hope the game doesn't cop out the way Bioshock did and give you at least as many rewards for supposedly altruistic choices.
Early previews have suggested that Cole is somehow responsible for the cataclysm that destroys the city, yet gives him super-powers. This has me extremely intrigued as I like the idea of a superhero who has the deaths of thousands on his conscience. I can't help but revel in the irony that his accidentally massacre is also what leads to him having powers and could shape him into a hero. For anyone who's watched Battlestar Galactica and found themselves oddly compelled to root for Gaius Baltar, InFamous may be just the game we've been waiting for. I just hope against hope that they don't cop out here and have some stupid revelation that it wasn't you after all. Or worse, was some already "evil" dude they could use as a scapegoat.
While the premise has me really intrigued, I'm also quite confident the game will be a heck of a lot of fun to play as it looks to control quite a bit like Sly Cooper (my favorite 3D platformer series), and the art style seems to really "get" the whole superhero thing. It's a bit goofy, but it's serious kind of goofy, like X-men. The powers are silly, but the situations feel grounded. I'm particularly intrigued by Cole's electric powers. A lot of people felt like having only one kind of power might limit the game, as something like Bioshock gave you such things as fire and ice to play with as well, but from what I gather, there will be a lot of variety to his electric powers. Plus, superheroes always have just one power (plus the standard heightened dexterity and jumping), so it's in keeping with the concept. And the fact that Cole's electric powers prevent him from using guns in a masterstroke. I think I speak for a lot of gamers when I say that I'm starting to get a little weary of guns these days.
While I have ridiculously high hopes for this game, there are still some things I'm a bit skeptical of. Notably, the script. Given that Sly Cooper's writing and characters were some of the best I've ever seen, I remain hopeful. Though, based on what I've seen so far of Cole, he looks and sounds a bit bland. And his sidekick buddy Zeek looks a little too goofy. Murray the hippo worked in Sly Cooper, but I'm worried a character like that might feel a bit too silly and forced in this setting. We've seen surprisingly little of the characters so far, but it remains one area where I only have good faith to go on. So here's hoping.
Even if InFamous can't possibly live up to its full potential (or perhaps will, and blow all of our minds) it will at the very least be one of the most compelling premises I've seen for a game in a long, long time. And that, my friends, has me very excited, indeed.
When I'm not writing for thegamereviews.com or trying to take over the world, I'm posting my thoughts, theories, and ruminations on all things videogame related here. I may also post stuff about my life, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum because it's probably less exciting.
Freelance game journalist for such sites as G4TV.com, GameSetWatch, Eurogamer, and Joystiq. Cunning, mysterious, and decidedly well-dressed, not much is known about J. Matulef other than that he has a moustache and cat named Oliver.
