Soul Calibur V

Without a shadow of a doubt, the supreme fighter of 2008 was Soul Calibur IV. Boasting beautiful character models and lighting effects, as well as a rewarding character creation mode, prospective fighters could spend their late summer tinkering away to build their ideal character and then go online to school the opposition. This latest instalment seeks to increase the customisation options and undo the damage left by guest characters Yoda, Starkiller and Darth Vader. In their stead, a middle-aged Ezio Autidore (of Assassin’s Creed fame) enters the fray, hidden blades and crossbow in hand. Set seventeen years after the event of the last game, Sophitia’s son, Patoroklos Alexandra stands in as the lead hero, with a number of fresh characters in tow. A tale of souls and swords eternally retold, and one we can expect to see in just a few weeks’ time.

Mass Effect 3

You know this one has ‘Game of the Year’ written all over it, especially if Bioware can capitalise on the success of its predecessor and take things one step further. The Reapers have at last arrived to make good on their threats and things are looking grim for the Earth; thankfully Commander Shepard – the galaxy’s first human Spectre and best hope of survival – is around to wage war in our name. As before, the tale presented in ME3 will vary depending on the choices made in the first two adventures, and characters will return if they survived the journey so far. Choice plays a big role in the series, and it’s reportedly possible that Shepard can fail (as non-canon as this ending will likely be). Kinect functionality and an online component have also been added, making the anticipated conclusion to Shepard’s story even more unique.

Darksiders 2

War sits out this sequel in favour of his fellow horseman Death, in a tale that runs concurrent with the events of the first game. Blending a simplified version of the combat found in God of War with the dungeon-based escapades of the Zelda franchise, the original received critical acclaim (for the most part), earning a solid fanbase in the process. City hubs featuring NPC’s are said to be included, and the horsemen Fury and Strife will also play roles. Can the wrongs of the first game – namely flat, one-note characters and repetitive combat – be set right? If so, it’ll be a good summer for fans of dark fantasy when the game hits retail in June. Interestingly, Darksiders 2 has also been confirmed for Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U.

I Am Alive

This retail-game-turned-download-only has had something of a tumultuous development cycle. After its announcement back in 2008 under the team at Darkworks, it changed hands to Ubisoft Shanghai and has since undergone significant changes. Survival is the name of the game in this post-apocalyptic world (now a rather dusty shade of grey) and various play styles including first person shooting and third-person climbing will feature. The projected March release date is looking likely, so expect to be playing this one soon.

Grand Theft Auto V

To say that GTA V will be a success would be to understate things ten-fold. At this stage it could be the same formula as always, with updated graphics and a few amusing characters and the game would still earn Rockstar a fortune. Information is scarce, save that we’re waving goodbye to Liberty City in favour of Los Santos, which fans will remember as Carl Johnson’s original stomping ground in the San Andreas state. Attention to detail, raw emotion and the freedom to explore were all huge selling points for GTA IV, but the writers will have to go to serious lengths to make the lead as strangely likeable as Niko Bellic. Whatever they do, this is going to be big.

Max Payne 3

Set eight years after the events of the second game, Max Payne 3 is bringing back the slow-mo shooting frolics that were once so popular. Having tried to leave his old life behind, Max has since moved to São Paulo of Brazil, where he once again finds himself thrust into a world of danger and shady dealings. There’s still a market for this type of thing, especially if it can separate itself from all the other cover-based action games out there relying on techniques we’ve seen a hundred times before. Just as importantly, if it can meet its May release date then we may have something to break up the annual summer dearth.

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To be clear, I adore Bethesda’s epic role-playing adventure and awarded it full marks in this very publication, but as much as members of its fanbase might agree with the content of the review itself, how accepting would they be of its imperfections regardless of the score? Texture bugs, PS3 lag and other technical glitches aside, for some there is an issue with the game that is never truly overcome – a lack of focus. Additionally, if you look at other (primarily) single-player productions such as the acclaimed Uncharted 3, it’s clear that no single moment in Skyrim is quite as jaw-dropping as what can be found in that title (we don’t just refer to the highly-publicised plane scene). The thrill comes from completing quests and developing your character in whichever areas you choose.

And choice is possibly Skyrim’s biggest draw… the fact that no two gamer’s adventures are identical. You can even explore the land, discovering locales in whichever random order you like, but it’s also this ‘go play’ aspect that will alienate players looking for a guiding hand or more streamlined experience. Skyrim is fantastic for the collector, the hoarder and the easily distracted, but if you fall in to none of the above then it can lead to an extensive settling-in period, or seem altogether less compelling. This slow-burner trades immediate blockbuster pay-off with the sense that you’re actually in another world; residents, butterflies and dragons included.

One friend explained, ‘I’m not loving it so far. It’s so much to take in that I’m…bewildered.’ I interrupted, to which he corrected with ‘overwhelmed’. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard such a thing said of the beloved game either, but having been weaned years ago on the less accessible Oblivion and subsequent Fallout 3, such a concept seemed hard to relate to. After all, this is a title currently absorbing hundreds of hours from people, while most full-priced adventures are lucky to reach more than ten. That said, there are aspects to Skyrim that will be either missed or ignored by many (of course it’s wonderful that so many options are available should you desire them), such as using ingredients for potion making.

The main part of playing ‘the silent protagonist’ comes from feeling as if you actually are that character… fulfilling the role depicted on-screen. It was a shame then, after joining a group that will go unnamed in order to avoid spoilers, that I was forced into single, stock responses and to pander to the whims of a man who – unbeknownst to me upon joining – was nothing short of a maniac. This was a man who would later have me betray the first real town that took me in, and rather than allowing my Dovahkiin to show indignation or even remorse, the game had decided I was a loyal follower unflinching in duty. This was not the character I had chosen to be. It seemed that my tale was being derailed in the name of more focused storytelling.

It’s possible that some of the focus – be it in a film, comic or video game – stems from the purpose of the hero. In a game like Assassin’s Creed, Ezio is a personality avenging his family, but in a title where the saviour of the land can suddenly (or concurrently) become a murderer for the dark brotherhood or be self-serving as part of the thieves guild then that purpose becomes less clear. Surely then, this is an issue inherent in sandbox RPG’s as a whole, and linearity really does make things more focused? Ultimately, the answer seems to be yes.

Now comes the ‘however’ part of the article that fans not currently raging should nod understandingly to; it’s entirely possible that a lack of focus is something people often crave. They actually want to feel overwhelmed and have to learn on the fly – it leads to new discoveries and a lasting sense of achievement not found in cinematic titles reliant on set-piece moments and button prompts. You can become a murderer with a bounty on your head, get stuck in to the middle of a civil war, join the mages of Winterhold, or all of the above… and having multiple concurrent adventures on the go is something that very few game developers would even dare take a crack at.

Maybe you’re happier to sink your time into an eight hour adventure with a decent multiplayer for replay value, take on a linear adventure like Assassin’s Creed, or perhaps the sprawling, open world of Skyrim is more your thing. After all, Bethesda has presented us with an adventure we couldn’t possibly feel short-changed over given the time-for-money ratio. Whatever your preference, if developers stopped pushing the boundaries of accomplishment, it would mark a terrible loss for gamers everywhere, in which case Bethesda should be commended. So, is Skyrim lacking in focus? In all honesty yes… and regardless of quality, nothing can appeal to everyone. The game offers choice, a sprawling world and potentially hundreds of hours of play time, and if focus must be lost on occasion to achieve this then it’s a sacrifice worth making.

For our Games of 2011…erm…Awards, the D+PAD team have each picked their two favourite games of the year – the games are listed in no particular order, but all shone in one way or another…and all are worthy of your attention.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

If one game represented value for money for the single-player this year it was the latest entry in the Elder Scrolls series. Both a sequel and advancement over Oblivion, Skyrim presented gamers with a lush fantasy world filled with danger, intrigue and choice. Perhaps you fulfilled your destiny as the Dragonborn of Legend and defeated the World Eater Alduin, or maybe you rose to power as a remorseless scourge upon the land and took up arms for the Dark Brotherhood. Or maybe you never managed to pull yourself away from the vast selection of side quests afforded by the townsfolk, because as we all know, running errands beats saving the world from a soul-sucking dragon lord any day.

The chatty townsfolk, ferocious enemies, rolling tundra and outstanding soundtrack all came together to create an atmosphere that turned the land of Skyrim into a living world, and that’s before you’ve considered the random threat of dragon attacks. The attention to detail given by Bethesda was nothing short of staggering, with a variety of skills (which level up the more you use them), armour, spells, unique dragon shouts and even a selection of books detailing the history of Tamriel all serving to bolster the experience. This is exactly how first-person adventuring should be done and with the promise of exciting and substantial downloadable content on the horizon it’s likely that we’ll be returning to Skyrim for a good while yet.

Crysis 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

As a sequel to the original PC melting behemoth, Crysis 2 delivered on all fronts. Granted, the island paradise filled with Korean soldiers was gone, but Crytek’s crumbling rendition of New York held as much artistry and chaotic atmosphere as any true fan could have wanted. First-person shooters tend to lack stealth sections that are open and fun, but Crysis 2 made the cloaking device central to the game play, providing a satisfying vocal effect to boot. The star of the show was very much the Nanosuit; an all-over covering that would imbue even a broken body with incredible – but not limitless – powers.

Taking too much damage would spell doom for our silent hero, but the suit ensured that he would always have the edge, even when hunted by packs of unrelenting Ceph. Of course, we can’t talk about Crysis without mentioning the sumptuous visuals. Running on the CryEngine 3, the game stood out as one of the best looking titles to grace home consoles, and with the original Crysis recently made available via Xbox Live and the Playstation Network, those who missed out can finally dive in and see where it all began.

- Chris Morell

Dark Souls (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

To date, I’ve ploughed about 45 hours into From Software’s Dark Souls; at this point in virtually any other game I would likely be an all conquering, near-indestructible killing machine stalking a world that had long since been conquered. That, however, is not the case here – though my character is infinitely stronger than when he first stepped out of a dank prison-cell at the game’s opening and though my competency as a player has grown, every step forward is still accompanied with a palpable sense of dread and a horrible foreboding that death will come at any second.

It should be painfully frustrating, but instead Dark Souls is exquisitely, sweetly, frighteningly immersive. From Software have crafted a game world that, in my mind, is second to none – it lives in your psyche long after a play session has ended, constantly daring you back, tempting you with dreams of empowerment that it often fulfils only to snatch them briskly away. To play Dark Souls is to have your emotions toyed with, as feelings of fear, victory, awe, desperation, hope and hopelessness ping-pong around your head like some kind of twisted pinball-machine – making for an experience that is nothing short of unforgettable. Choosing my Game of the Year has never been so easy.

Battlefield 3 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

As far as first-person shooter packages go, Battlefield 3 is irresistible, with a solid single player campaign and (more importantly) a scintillating multiplayer experience that I have little doubt I will still be playing this time next year. The series has never looked or sounded better, but Dice haven’t stopped at just giving the series a presentational overhaul – there’s a mode of play for nearly any and every taste, and a staggering number of weapons and other gadgetry to unlock, all of which service the game’s biggest strength: the wonderfully dynamic and immensely tactical single player.

Much has been made of EA’s desire to make Battlefield 3 a true Call of Duty killer, but this really does the game a great disservice; this is the latest instalment of a trailblazing series that has long had a clear sense of its own identity and very unique gameplay. It’s success then should not be measured in how well it’s sales stack up against Activision’s juggernaut, but on the experience it offers – and in this respect Battlefield is a work of astonishingly engaging magnificence.

- Simeon Paskell

Portal 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

Released back in April it’s easy to overlook Portal 2 when it comes to making game of the year decisions, but make no mistake Valve’s long-awaited sequel to the 2007 surprise hit is worth a place at the top of every list going in 2011. Expanding the scope of the original, whilst building on the backstory of GLaDoS, Chel and Aperture Science, Portal 2 was incredibly ambitious, which makes its triumph even more impressive. It managed to simultaneously retain the charm and smarts of the first game, but keep the scenarios and puzzles fresh enough for the duration of its much extended campaign.

Portal 2 also managed to maintain the razor sharp writing of the first, the brilliant casting of Stephen Merchant as Wheatley allowing Valve to expand the gentle humour of the first game to a much broader scope without losing any of its edge. What ultimately sets Portal 2 aside though was how effortless it felt, how meticulously created every room was, and how efficient the storytelling was. It remains a prime example of one of the world’s best game developers at the absolute peak of their creative power.

Dead Space 2 (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

Visceral games’ follow up to their breakout sci-fi survivor horror title starts with a bang and never looks back. Eschewing some of the initial build up of dread from the first game Dead Space 2 emerges as much more of an action game, a natural progression of the story of Isaac Clarke as he once again battles against the rising necromorph invasions, this time amongst the Sprawl, a vast man-made metropolis located on one of Titan’s moons.

As well as upping the scale and polish of the first game Dead Space 2 is unusual as it goes to great pains to detail the effects that the events of the first game had on its protagonist. Suffering hallucinations and breakdowns the game does a good job of investing your journey with an emotional weight amongst all the death and destruction. The gameplay itself was neatly refined and expanded upon whilst retaining the look and feel that made the first game so successful. With some expertly crafted set-pieces, some genuinely creepy scares and a memorably unique and interesting final boss battle Dead Space 2 stands as a worthy sequel and an intense and exciting gaming experience in its own right.

- Dave Stuart

Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo 3DS)

Though our typical vision of Super Mario involves him saving princesses, this year he faced his most formidable quest yet – saving the ailing Nintendo 3DS console, after a lacklustre launch left the Japanese giants with their first company loss in 30 years. Yet weeks after the release of Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, the glasses-free 3D handheld is finally starting to look like a sales success and it’s all down to that moustachioed plumber.

With clever gameplay decisions that mean that 3D Land plays as a cross between the 2D retro revival of New Super Mario Bros (narrow design, lack of hub worlds) and the critically revered complexity of the Super Mario Galaxy series, here we have the perfect combination of the Super Mario series’ invention and accessibility. As one of the few games that also fully takes advantage of the 3D effect (with certain puzzles involving invisible blocks that can only been spotted alongside their sturdier 3D models), Super Mario 3D Land is my pick for the handheld game of the year and yes, that includes any mobile apps that you could care to mention, Kairosoft be damned.

Pullblox (Nintendo 3DS)

My favourite downloaded game of the year is not available in the App Store, Xbox Live, the Android Market or the PSN. Instead, it can be found alongside overpriced GameBoy games and something called 1950’s Valet Parking. It is Pullblox and it is absolutely majestic.

A block puzzler like none you have ever played before, Intelligent System, the team behind the legendary Advance Wars series, task players with pulling blocks to create the vertical passage of devilishly complex structures. Though games start out pretty easy (or at least for the first 100 puzzles – there are around 250 on offer), the introduction of side pulls and colour co-ordinating pipes can mean that one deceptively simple puzzle could last up to an hour. Thankfully, the game is never unfair in its design so expect plenty of Portal 2-style ‘Eureka’ moments, as long as you haven’t slammed your 3DS against the wall in the minutes previously.

The icing on an extremely tasty downloadable cake (these metaphors can be tricky) is the ability to design your own levels and scan QR codes to download those of others. Already I’ve reached the peaks of Super Mario and Mega Man’s respective heads and despite trawling through forums to add to my scanning collection, I’ve yet to encounter a single blocky digital penis.

That fact alone says all you need to know about the respect Pullblox and demands and ultimately receives.

- Emmet Purcell

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Nintendo Wii)

Made with one eye on legacy, one eye on the future, Skyward Sword was the Zelda game that people had been nervously hoping for ever since words like “reinvention” started to be thrown around, back when the title was first announced. Skyward Sword was one of the year’s most unforgettable games for many reasons. As moving as it was witty, its story weaved together childhood romance and apocalyptic danger, while the environments were a reminder that (with the exception of this year’s Skyrim and Dark Souls) nobody weaves together a game-world as convincingly, as richly, as Zelda’s designers.

Possibly the last major Nintendo-published game for Wii, Skyward Sword was poignantly also the game to finally convince that motion controls could genuinely elevate ‘traditional’ game experiences. 2012 promises to be a fascinating year for Nintendo, the benchmark laid down by Skyward Sword a vertigo-inducing one to aim for.

Child of Eden (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

A beguiling mix of on-rails shooter, rhythm-action and music visualisation, Child Of Eden was everything one hoped a current-generation Rez sequel could be. Replacing Rez’s emphasis on hard geometry with lush foliage and various forms of organic life, Child Of Eden was one of the few games in 2011 in which every core design component – the colours, the beats, the subtly intricate shooting mechanism – were working in perfect harmony. It may look, sound and feel astonishing, but as a core videogame it worked beautifully, and this was Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s greatest achievement. With a soundtrack that veered from states of bliss to industrial clatter, a challenging bonus game that channelled Rez even more directly, and a plentiful array of collectables, Child Of Eden also – despite its superficial short game length – showcased a great depth. Sensory disorder has never been so fun.

- Zoheir Beig

Do you agree with our selections? Are any of your favourites missing? Feel free to let us know below.

The first of these problems is a matter of sheer practicality: I simply have no telephone socket near my television. In this age of widespread and all encompassing wireless connectivity, I wrongly held the expectation that the OnLive MicroConsole would be WiFi enabled; to discover that this wasn’t the case was disappointing to say the least and highlighted a major flaw with the design of the current model. Unless OnLive are expecting gamers to rearrange their living spaces or pay hefty fees to obtain extra phone sockets or other alternative solutions, the lack of Wifi is likely to be a hurdle that many will be unable – or unwilling – to jump, at least in terms of welcoming OnLive into their living rooms.

Fortunately, OnLive is also accessible via a downloadable client that can be installed on your PC, Mac and numerous other devices. My initial experience with this was as disappointing as the MicroConsole’s lack of Wifi – the service simply didn’t work; I was either unable to connect or the visual quality was of such a poor standard so as to make the games unplayable. This, I assumed, was a result of my relatively slow internet connection (I only receive approximately 2mbps), and I felt my pre-conceptions that a) OnLive is far too ambitious and that b) the UK’s telecommunications network structure simply isn’t up to the task, were being immediately validated.

Upon upgrading my PC and deciding to test the service again it turned out that my snap judgements may have been completely wrong and that my previous woes were more likely a result my creaking old PC or teething problems at OnLive’s end. This time around, my experience was more positive.
Actually…scratch that… my time with OnLive genuinely blew me away.

And yet….I still can’t honestly proclaim that I have been converted, that I’ll be selling my consoles and jumping with both feet into the brave new world of cloud gaming, the reason being my second issue with the service: my internet service provider insists on tying me down to a 40gb month download limit, an amount that is simply insufficient to confidently use the system without fear of incurring frequent additional charges.

The official OnLive website is a little vague on this matter, but after prowling the internet for information it appears that OnLive can eat through anything up to 3-4gb per hour of play! Though this isn’t surprising for a service that streams high quality sound and visuals (and in fairness, it is not OnLive’s responsibility to provide me with broadband capable to accommodating its service), my problem is sure to be one experienced by many UK gamers.

In the face of these issues, that the short amount of time I had actually using OnLive made me seriously consider upgrading my broadband provision speaks volumes – OnLive, you see, gets so much right. First off, the ergonomics of the controller just feel right; though aping the 360’s pad, it tweaks and perfects the curves of Microsoft’s controller to make one of the most comfortable pads I’ve held since the Nintendo Gamecube. It’s also incredibly sturdily built, without any of the creaking and squeaking of Sony’s SIXAXIS.

Once I stopped cooing at the pad, the service itself was wonderfully intuitive, forward-thinking and technologically impressive. Titles loaded quickly and although none were delivered in true HD (again, I blame my internet service…), they still looked great. There was also very little in terms of lag, with my inputs responding pretty much as you would expect from a more traditional gaming platforms.

Coming across as a more mature take on the Wii’s now seminal menu screen, OnLive’s menus also caught my attention; everything was easy to understand and effortlessly accessible and even the most inexperienced of gamers should be able navigate their way into a game of their choosing. To slavishly explore each area of the menu in this piece would be a little on the dreary side, but there is one particular element that I think could serve as a benchmark for the future of networked gaming and social networks.

Snuggled in the top left hand corner is the word ‘Arena’. Selecting this I was expecting the usual online gaming services – matchmaking and the like – but instead was presented with a wall of video-streams seemingly stretching off into infinity. Selecting one of these streams immediately dumps you into a live game that is being played by a fellow OnLive user, allowing you to watch the game unfold, give their actions the thumbs up or thumbs down or even chat them.

The Arena doesn’t feel like a gimmick but a genuinely new layer built upon the concepts offered by online services such as Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, bringing all gamers (friends or not) together in a glorious mosaic; to stare at the Arena is to see the gaming habits of an entire community. It also offers a brand new way to experience games, allowing OnLive users to flick through live game feeds as if they were channel surfing on the television, something that could open up greater potential for gamers to stumble upon titles that they would never usually have considered playing. In a climate where the charts are increasingly dominated by a few AAA releases, that can only be a good thing.

Sadly, after forty minutes or so of OnLive gaming on PC, I had to leave: my 40” high-def TV and comfort of my sofa was beckoning and the internet-Angel sitting on my shoulder whispered sage words of advice in my ear; telling me that this was not my time to become a fully subscribed OnLive user… that every hour spent on the service could result in an increase in my monthly direct-debit to my internet service provider or my connection being severed due to infringement of their fair usage policies. Despite this, I walked away feeling like I’d experienced a small taste of the future and that, when the time is right, OnLive appears to be capable of becoming a genuine mass-market proposition in the UK and, indeed, the world. The gauntlet has been thrown down to both OnLive’s competition and the UK’s ISPs; the resulting duel could be very fascinating indeed.

(This feature originally appeared at www.gametaroo.com)

Whilst gaming is a highly immersive and interactive medium, this can often work against it from a storytelling point of view, the autonomy you have over your character becomes the most difficult thing to guard against, and so restrictions have to be put in place to maintain the illusion; NPCs will be invulnerable, or your firing capacity will become restricted when not in combat, only specific doors at specific times will open, bosses and enemies often have to be killed in specific ways and you have no real say in the way events will play out. You are a pawn in a virtual movie, your actions often very limited and it can be very difficult to try and tell a dramatically interesting story, when the only real actions your character can perform are navigating an environment and firing weapons, perhaps with a little puzzle solving in the middle. Any actual character development has to be left for the cut-scenes over which you have little to no control and there is often a strange cognitive dissonance between the two.

Take Uncharted 2 as an example; in the opening sequence of the game Nathan Drake finds himself incapacitated thanks to a gunshot wound to the stomach. He stumbles along, dragging his feel clearly in a bad way and it limits your abilities as you play in this regard. However through the course of the game you suffer hundreds, if not thousands of gunshots to no ill-effect. The re-charging health system lets him shrug such injuries off, until the cut-scenes of course. Similarly whilst the game spins an entertaining tale with well rounded characters, there is no escaping the fact that in through the course of actually playing the game you, as Drake, are responsible for killing upwards of 1,000 enemies, a fact that is completely counter to the character and realism elsewhere forged through the story. It’s perhaps a natural limitation of gaming’s current desire to ape the cinematic form of storytelling, but ultimately games aren’t films and I sometimes feel that in trying to be they take away much of what makes gaming so unique and interesting an art form as it is in its own right. The very freedom you have as a player, that so many stories seek to limit, can itself be a source of interesting and unique stories, not in the grand sense of a novel or a film, but a much more personal experience, arising from the combinations of player choice and gaming systems.

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The reason for this is as follows: We Sing: UK Hits is, to all intents and purposes, the exact same game as We Sing: Encore – a title that we reviewed in that we covered in August 2010. While we in no way wish to diminish the hard work that Nordic Games have put into crafting this latest addition to the We Sing family, there really isn’t much more we can say about the series that hasn’t all ready been said. Therefore, do not consider this a review; it’s more of an addendum to our original coverage in which we gave the game 3.5 stars out of 5 and praised its delivery of a well rounded package that did a good job of catering for the Wii’s audience.

It seems sensible for We Sing to shift its attention more directly to the UK, as it is in the UK that the game enjoys greatest success. Fortunately, the UK has long been churning out music of extremely high quality, giving UK Hits an enviable pool of tracks from which to draw, and the eclectic selection of songs included is actually rather nice. Rather than skim over this (and highlight our own personal favourites), the track list can be found in full below.

Unsurprisingly, Nordic Games have yet again taken the ‘something for everybody’ approach, but (as is always the case with karaoke titles) how tempted you are by the track list is dependent on personal preference. That being said, there are a lot of classic tracks on show here that should make the title ideal Christmas Party fodder.

So…with We Sing: UK Hits, the series has retained it 3.5/5 score – it will be interesting to see if it can up the stakes in its future releases.

1 Adele – Chasing Pavements
2 Amy Winehouse – Rehab
3 The Animals – The House of the Rising Sun
4 Bananarama – Venus
5 The Beautiful South – A Little Time
6 Blur – Girls and Boys
7 Bucks Fizz – Making Your Mind Up
8 Coldplay – Speed of Sound
9 David Bowie – Let’s Dance
10 Dido – White Flag
11 Dusty Springfield – Son Of A Preacher Man
12 East 17 – Stay Another Day
13 Eliza Doolittle – Pack Up
14 Elton John – Candle In The Wind
15 Example – Kickstarts
16 Florence + The Machine – You’ve Got The Love
17 Gabrielle – Dreams
18 Happy Mondays – Step On
19 James Blunt – You’re Beautiful
20 Jay Sean feat. Lil Wayne – Down
21 Jessie J – Do It Like A Dude
22 Kim Wilde – Kids in America
23 Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
24 Lulu & The Luvvers – Shout
25 Madness – It Must Be Love
26 McFly – 5 Colours In Her Hair
27 Plan B – She Said
28 Pulp – Common People
29 Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now
30 Queen & David Bowie – Under Pressure
31 Radiohead – Creep
32 Rick Astley – Never Gonna Give You Up
33 The Saturdays – Missing You
34 Spice Girls – Who Do You Think You Are
35 Sugababes – Push The Button
36 Texas – I Don’t Want A Lover
37 Tinchy Stryder Ft. N-Dubz -Number 1
38 The Ting Tings – That’s Not My Name
39 Tinie Tempah – Pass Out
40 Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

“I think what people want in games in 10 years is the perfect human being in digital form,” he said, “where you can’t tell the difference if it’s real or digital. In your reality it’s a human.”

Though this comment is well founded to some extent – many gamers do want more realism – I can’t help but think that it is something of an oversimplification and, more importantly, a depressingly pedestrian vision for the future of the art-form.

For starters, take a glance at the types of titles that have achieved enormous success in recent years and you’ll find that many forego realism, instead opting for more abstract or cartoonish representations of the real world. The App Store phenomenon that is Angry Birds, for example, ploughs a cartoony-furrow and the Wii’s much adored Mii’s are closer to Homepride’s “Fred the Flour Grader” than any actual, real human-being. Then, of course, there is the mighty Tetris – though it may be growing long in the tooth, this entirely abstract puzzler is among a select few titles that have managed to transcend videogame culture and enter the cultural mainstream. Such examples prove that the perceived success and long term aims of videogames as an art-form, as an industry and as a form of entertainment cannot – and should not – be solely tied to improvements in realism.

Which brings me to my second assertion: that Yoshida’s sentiment is depressingly pedestrian. Striving to achieve ever more authentic representations of our world is a perfectly acceptable – and understandable – ambition. In fact, it is a natural impulse of any art-form, be it literature, painting, photography, film-making and beyond, all which have pursued realism at one point or another. Take painting as an example – since the earliest daubings of wildebeest on a cave wall, our ability and desire to render the world with an increased sense of realism has remained a constant and has improved exponentially over time. Today, there are artists practicing photorealism, producing paintings and sculptures that are near indistinguishable from real life (Glennray Tutor, for, example – see image below).

This, believe it or not, is a painting. Clever eh?

The plus’ and minus’ of photorealism in the art-world are for another time (or, more accurately, another blog!) but I think it is interesting to draw a comparison with videogames. In the art world, photorealism is just one strand – one technique – nestling amongst countless forms and methods of expression. There is no suggestion that it is in any way superior or more worthy than, say, sculpture or performance art or video-art.

This is almost the complete opposite to videogames; take, for example, the furore that surrounded the announcement of the ‘underpowered’ Wii – how dare a console step out of the graphical arms race and attempt to push the industry in a sideways direction! Similarly, games are often criticised for falling short of the standards of realism demanded by gamers – the character models may be too stilted, the textures covering the world too blurry, the physics too floaty or animation too mechanical. Of course such complaints are often warranted – but, they can also symptomatic of a wider problem caused by our attachment to the laws of the real world, something that can stymie and restrict the possibilities of gaming as an art form.

For an example of what can be achieved should a game resist the pull of realism look no further than Ignition Tokyo’s El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (PS3/Xbox 360), a game that, on an aesthetic level, refuses to be tied down by the demands of realism. Its central hero – Enoch – may be recognisably human, but the worlds that he explores are often entirely abstract, be it a collection of floating shapes, aggressively jagged fractal spikes or hallucinogenic washes of colour. Though the game does make some concessions to reality (a neon-lit stadium for example, trees sprinkled here and there and a brief excursion into a futuristic cityscape) the only apparent restriction is the boundaries of the developer’s imagination. In short, the game opts for freedom of expression over the ball and chain of reality and audience expectation, and the resulting game– from a visual perspective at least – is a joyously freeform feast for the eyeballs.

El Shaddai goes berserk with a pot of watercolours…

El Shaddai’s visuals also toy with the perception of the gamer; rather than directly servicing any desires for realism it stretches your imagination as much as its host-consoles processing capabilities. Its gameplay may well be easily filed under ‘beat ‘em up’ but this doesn’t mean that its unique visual style is a novelty – the presentation of the game in fact adds an additional layer, as the player’s perception of on screen events is almost as important as the designers’ intentions. The world is implicit then, rather than explicit, and thusly one gamers take on what they are actually looking at may be entirely at odds with another. And that’s something really exciting.

Sadly, games that pursue abstract aesthetics are few and far between (the most notable examples being Sega’s wonderful rhythmic shoot ‘em up Rez, pseudo-sequel Child of Eden and thatgamecompany’s flOw) and those that do are often labelled ‘art’ or dismissed as exotic yet ultimately shallow curios. This will likely remain the case, unless more developers take more risks and release titles that challenge our preconceptions of what a videogame should look like and from which sources they should draw inspiration. Obviously there are economic pressures placed on designers and publishers alike, but a failure to pursue and nurture titles that strive for something more visually challenging would be to see the gaming as a medium head down a creative cul de sac; after all, there are only so many different design spins you can put on a space marine…

Such is the march of technological-evolution that it seems inevitable that Yoshida’s vision of a future in which digital humans are indistinguishable from actual humans will come to fruition – L.A. Noire, for example, recently took a giant leap out of the Uncanny Valley and graphical fidelity continues to improve year upon year. But, if this were to be the only path taken by videogames, what happens when this goal is reached? That’s why games like El Shaddai should be celebrated for embracing the abstract and creating more visually challenging experiences; without them the industry would ultimately paint itself into a corner. Games can be visually interesting yet still serve up traditional videogame thrills – and I hope that Ignition Tokyo’s game serves as a call to arms to help ensure a future that not only strives for visual realism, but (to quote El Shaddai’s tagline) allows us to ‘Journey to [worlds] that no mortal has seen’.

This feature originally appeared on www.gametaroo.com

In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, players assume the role of Adam Jensen, a souped up security agent imbued with cybernetic implants that grant him abilities beyond that of a normal human being. Some of these powers are nothing new (such as a HUD interface and built-in radar system – two things we’ve seen countless times but are rarely explained as part of the canon), while others such as cloaking and the power to see and smash through certain walls make the idea of signing up to play guinea pig seem all that more appealing. Ironically, Jensen never signed up for the procedure, creating drama and putting these powers into context; in a game with clear Blade Runner inspirations, no longer must you suspend your sense of disbelief. Suddenly the ability to upgrade makes perfect sense and has a place within the story.

Another increasing trend is the issue of vulnerability. Having such powers can make you feel extremely powerful by giving you an edge over the opposition, but rarely will you feel anything like a superman – it’s more likely that you’ll feel like a total badass only if you use these powers to make the kill just right, in which case it’s still all in the sense of accomplishment. It’s a trend that continues in Crysis 2, with the leaping and stealthing explained by the use of a nanosuit (which can seem like a character in its own right). Getting caught in the open with a drained power meter can often spell doom for Alcatraz, as getting careless rarely leads to a happy ending for the protagonist despite the increase in power. Having to wait for a battery recharge to pull off another melee takedown is also a way in which a developer can limit what the player can do, introducing a ‘give and take’ element that might otherwise be lost.

What appears to differentiate an augmentation (at least in the technical sense) from a bog-standard gaming power-up is the influence it holds on the gameplay; where a power-up is an item found in the game world that gives you a temporary – and often incredibly strong – boost to your performance, augmentations are a permanent, if not always useable fixture to the character. You could argue that they’re nothing new either, with the original Bionic Commando serving as one of the first titles to feature a basic augmentation. In that title, the standard jump was replaced with a swing mechanic, though games have certainly come a long way since the days of simple side-scrolling (which is a genre that still holds a place in the form of downloadable offerings). Today, an augmented character can be expected to carry a much wider array of death-dealing equipment as games have become deeper and more complex.

As fantastical as the idea of swinging about on a mechanical arm might be, much of the tech found in Deus Ex is more realistic than you may initially believe. Prosthetic limbs which respond (albeit in a very robotic manner) to the user and microchips added to the back of eyes in the name of vision replacement have been introduced, but have yet to be perfected. An interesting short on the subject comes in the form of The Eyeborg Project which briefly explains some of the headway being made in the field as well as some of the challenges faced. As stated in the video, one of the biggest hurdles faced seems to lie in linking pathways in the brain to the devices themselves, as every brain is wired in a different way. Such goals seem especially out of reach when you consider that artificial legs to this day have a problem dealing with stairs.

Optical camouflage may seem the stuff of fiction so far, but bringing these stealth technologies to life by bending light around objects might not be far from becoming a reality. Having cybernetics grafted to an object – or more bizarrely, a living being – to allow for stealth at will is oversimplified in the media, but it’s also been reported numerous times that progress is being made, regardless of how basic it might all be at this stage. Yahoo recently ran an article on such technology, where the Project Manager at BAE systems is quoted as saying that cost and the excessive need for power have been an issue in development. For now, the science and technology just aren’t there even to the military, so we’ll have to wait to see a real live Jensen in action, if indeed such a thing could be considered ethical.

Science fiction has always been influenced by real world advancements and vice versa. The movie industry has featured augmented characters for decades (Robocop is just one of these iconic roles), but only recently have games advanced to the point where they can influence the way a game actually plays and how the character interacts with the game world. It also begs the question, ‘what will it all lead to?’ Breaking through weakened walls via a swift upgrade is all well and good, as is a built-in oxygen system to neutralise gas grenades, but things are unlikely to stop there. We’ll have to wait and see as to what the clever games developers out there can think up in future games.

Not all types of human augmentation in video games are technical, however, with titles such as Bioshock introducing elemental (and outright magical) powers via the vague ‘science’ of genetic splicing. Of course, we’re now coming perilously close to the topic of mutation which is a separate issue altogether, but it does illustrate how development teams are attempting to think creatively whilst weaving some form of in-game context. Increasingly, a character can no longer fire bolts for the sake of it – such a thing must be justified, earned and used wisely. It’s another case where playing efficiently can provide abilities and grant a significant payoff plus upgrades. Granting such powers can actually persuade the player to behave in a certain way, as seen in the moral issue of whether to harvest the Little Sisters for their energy source or to do the right thing and rescue them.

As long as films and video games exist, the genre of science fiction will endure, along with the idea of self-evolution via techno bells and whistles. Suggesting that augmentations can make or break a game may be to give them too much credit, as such concepts and themes would hold little ground should the game itself be of poor quality. Instead, they can set the tone and atmosphere, presenting a neat twist on gameplay options that we may have seen before. How these ideas are put into practise and in what way they will be influenced by popular trends may become an interesting issue, especially as technology – not to mention our gaming hardware – advances at such a rate, but as amazing as the idea of having cybernetics implanted into our bodies might sound, I’m sure we would all rather have our natural limbs in place… wouldn’t we?

In many ways there is absolutely nothing wrong with this; games are after all ultimately a means by which we can escape the mundanity of the real the world – what kind of escape would they be were they to dwell on our limitations, our failings and our weaknesses? And yet, to have winners, there must also be losers – it is a symbiotic relationship; ying and yang.

But what exactly is losing, and what role does it play in gaming? Is it merely the undesirable outcome of simply not being good enough; of not being able to rise to the challenge, persevere and get the job done? Or, is it a fundamental part of what makes video games – as an art form – so special? Is it a major element of what differentiates them from other forms of entertainment? And if so, could the possibilities that it offers be more fully explored – a dark and menacing underworld much like Tolkien’s Mines of Moria in which unimaginable riches await those brave enough to venture into the unwelcoming shadows? Or, is it really just a dank oubliette for careless gamers to fall into; something to be avoided rather than embraced?

Currently, the relationship that gamers have with losing is more complex than ever. Gone are the days when failure was accompanied solely by the knowledge that a game has bested you or the stark realisation that the person with whom you’re sharing a sofa simply has faster thumbs. Online gaming has made the whole world an opponent intent on beating you down, and the arrival of Achievement Points, Trophies and online statistics have had the effect of unitising our relationship with games; no more are we merely playing to pass the time or to have fun – now our every in-game action has its own measurable value which is in turn broadcast to our friends and opponents. If we lose a lot, people will know as our stats plummet and our Gamerscore fails to grow.

It’s not surprising that such an environment has fostered gamers who are unable – or, indeed, unwilling – to accept the notion of losing; who have such a strong aversion to it that avoidance of the fail-state becomes the priority, outweighing notions such as fair-play or, indeed, the importance of actually having fun. A few examples: an opponent disconnects upon being KO’d by a Dragon Punch in Street Fighter IV or on being smashed into last place by a Blue Shell in Mario Kart DS. A Call of Duty player finds themselves at the receiving end of a torrent of abuse, merely for either a) be slightly faster on the trigger than them or b) dragging their team down by dying too often.

Then, of course, there are those that resort to underhanded or cheap tactics to inflate their winning streak – the infamous ‘snaking’ technique in Mario Kart DS is a prime example, as is base camping in any number of online First Person Shooters. When playing Street Fighter IV I’ve come up against players who set up one-round fights with a tiny time-limit in the hope that they can chip away just enough of the opponents energy before launching a devastating and – more importantly – time consuming Ultra attack as a means of claiming victory by default. Such methods could be described as imaginative manipulations of game mechanics; many would just call it cheating that sucks works against the grain of finely honed gameplay….and all in the pursuit of victory/avoidance of failure.

In some ways, the games themselves can also be blamed, most obviously in the way developers have constantly placed us in the shoes/space boots of universe saving, evil slaying, legendary heroes for whom ‘defeat’ is a bad word. In building us up so frequently, it’s unsurprising that games that attempt to implement more punishing difficulty levels are often categorised as ‘niche’, ‘hardcore’ or accused of being plain unfair.

This brings us neatly to From Software’s Demon’s Souls – a game that is built almost entirely around the concept of loss and that has gained a reputation as being ‘The Hardest Game Ever™’. In fairness, this moniker is probably undeserved – Demon’s Souls is hard, but it is also never less than fair. What make’s the game so interesting in terms of any discussion on losing, is that losing is an integral part of the experience. You have to die in order to improve, to learn and ultimately progress. The game beats you down – not as an act of malice – but to teach you how to overcome the world it presents. You play, you die, you learn. This is a concept that will no doubt be alien to many gamers (especially those who missed out on the 8-bit era that was so fond of the ‘three-lives and out’ rule) and, I would argue, this fact goes some way to explaining Demon’s Souls notoriety.

On the flipside there are games that completely remove the fail-state altogether, thatgamecompany’s glorious Flower being a prime example. Aside from a small section of one of the wonderfully rendered levels, the game delivers a benign world that can be explored at the players leisure. There are goals that must be achieved, but no enemies to slay you, and no ‘game over’ screens. Again, this is concept that betrays the expectations of gamers, and hence Flower is often labelled described as an ‘art’ piece, rather than as a ‘game’ per se.

Both these examples highlight just how fundamental losing is to our relationship with games, and how messing with such a core concept – either by heightening or diminishing its importance – can result in titles that are at once hugely interesting and often controversial. The most important thing for gaming as a whole is that there are developers taking risks in this respect, and that gamers are able – and willing – to accept defeat, or a lack thereof. The crowds of gamers who disconnect, who bend the rules, who react with anger and insults when facing defeat are missing the point, and are doing little more than holding back the unbounded potential of an art-form that they would claim to love.

Ultimately, we all have to lose sometimes, and I’m cool with that. How about you?

This feature originally appeared at gametaroo.tumblr.com

‘Coming in Fall 2011, this new core experience for PlayStation Home features a “hub and districts” design that will help you find games, people and places that fit your favorite game genres. The design features a new Hub that integrates games, quests, community events, and user-generated content, while providing you with additional navigation, shopping, socialization and entertainment options.’

The two words that caught my attention in the above statement were ‘quests’ and ‘user-generated content’. Home’s current focus on community events and, more recently games, is well documented, but for the social network to strive to deliver narrative experiences and allow users themselves to shape the world is a bold move. Home has dabbled with such things in the past – a user art gallery there, an alternate-reality game there – but its core raison d’etre has been in delivering a social space for PlayStation users to meet, interact and immerse themselves in PlayStation-related products (or, product placement!). It has never really been pitched as a game – or adventure – in and of itself.

This new direction throws up a number of questions. Firstly, in attempting to more explicitly go head to head with core gaming experiences, is there a danger that Home could in fact lose something of what makes it so unique? And then there is the worry that in promising ‘huge, branching narrative adventures’ (note the word ‘huge’!) could Sony yet again be setting Home up for a fall, with the promises and hype falling short gamers expectations?

On top of this, it has long be a complaint that most gamers would much rather just pop a disk in their PS3 and play the latest and greatest of what the game chart have to offer, and not have to pootle around a virtual world seeking out morsels of entertainment. In shifting focus to a more gamey-experience, could Home’s foibles and shortcomings be brought into even starker contrast, with it transitioning from a highly criticised – yet unique – social space into a second rate game?

There are reasons to be a little more positive. Home-based games such as Sodium (1 and 2) have delivered perfectly competent gaming experiences, in turn proving that the underlying technological potential is there. The million dollar question is whether or not Home can rise to the challenge and deliver experiences that not only meet gamer expectations, but that accentuate the ‘Home Difference’ – the elements of gameplay that could only be achieved within a social gaming network of this type. If the games can’t do this, then the main sound echoing around Home’s newly revamp halls will be that of a million blu-ray disks being unsheathed and popped into the PS3’s drive.

Outside of the games, the new Home is to feature a “Hub and District” design, with a central area surround by four themed districts. Reshaping Home into a more ordered structure does make a lot of sense. While there is no shortage of spaces in Home’s current form, there is little sense of cohesion; each seems to occupy an ethereal space completely disconnected from the rest of Home’s areas. The upshot of this is that Home is a world of pocketed communities; disparate areas occupied by fans of specific games or themes. If the new Home can bring these areas together – physically and thematically – that would really be something to celebrate.

The other biggest announcement was that Home’s core client is to be updated, promising a ‘streamlined initial user experience, getting you in and playing games faster than ever before’. If the new Home is to only deliver on one of it’s promises, it must be this one. Should Home manage to coax a cynical audience back onto its shores, only to confront them with clunky load times, sluggishly skinning avatars, long waiting times for games and other issues, many new or returning users will simply walk in one door and out the other.

With Home’s extended period in ‘Beta’, Sony should certainly have collated a lot of data from which to work, and should have a reasonably clear idea of what works and what doesn’t. So, this revamp could very well be make or break time for Home; the groundwork has been painstakingly – and painfully - laid, its now time for Sony’s vision to finally crystallise, for the ‘Beta’ tag to fall away and for PlayStation Home to finally find its place in the world.

This piece originally appeared on the gametaroo! blog.

]]> http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/08/25/the-home-of-the-future/feed/ 0 http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/08/24/fighting-the-call-of-the-undead/ http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/08/24/fighting-the-call-of-the-undead/#comments Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:10:50 +0000 Chris Morell http://www.dpadmagazine.com/?p=12174 ]]> I’ll admit it; this is coming from someone who, until very recently, has failed to even scratch the surface of what Call of Duty: Black Ops has to offer, single-player or otherwise (I’m well aware that a quick run-through of the demo doesn’t count). One aspect of the game that this humble writer has been schooled in is the entertaining Zombie mode, which was first pioneered in Treyarch’s 2008 hit, ‘World at War’. The haunting groans of the shambling dead, the screeching sounds of the sprinting ghouls and the rattling noise of desperate gunfire stay with you long after the session has passed, but just what is it that makes this mode so appealing?

For those who don’t know, the concept is a simple one. You play as one of up to four survivors quite literally left to hold the fort during a zombie apocalypse. The dead will come in their droves (or rather waves) and the battle escalates accordingly. Once you’ve passed wave five, things will be starting to ramp up and the otherwise simple zombie kills begin to become a real challenge. It’s every score whore’s dream, with the counter rising progressively with each undead execution. This gives a competitive edge to a mode where cooperation is king. Those expecting to rack up the kills without ever having to fork out for the team are in for a rude awakening however, as not only will greediness irritate your compatriots, it’ll get everyone killed in the process.

That may well be the mode’s greatest strength; its reliance on cooperation in the face of adversity. You know from the outset that not a single one of you will make it out alive, and while there is a friendly sense of competition as to who can last the longest and attain the most points, you’re still allies thrust together in a last stand. Other games such as Perfect Dark – which made a big impact in regards to first-person co-op gameplay – relied on a set of predefined goals in a fairly linear sense. Here, there are no guaranteed victories, if any, and few quiet moments in which to take stock. It’s one building, a handful of players and whatever clever strategies you might have in mind.

What’s fascinating is how a simple mode can become almost a game unto itself, when each map is essentially a stage set with infinite respawns. Under normal circumstances, gamers would rightly frown upon such a thing, but in the case of COD’s Zombies it’s what makes the experience all the more intense. It’s the same reason millions play the certain handheld and PC puzzle games, and why Angry Birds has shot to fame in the way that it has – sometimes simple fun is the way to go, with no complex goals to occupy your attention. It also helps that the media seems to have gone Zombie crazy, with ‘Undead-chic’ very much the in-thing at the present time.

One of the most useful items in Zombies is the Mystery Box, which once opened for 950 points provides a randomised weapon with which to stave off the horde. It isn’t always kind, but you may have to make do considering the ammo situation. Knowing where the box is and trading in weapons is paramount in the name of survival, but it’s also a great example of a risk/reward system that strives to be different. The agonising wait for a weapon to be chosen as well as the gasps that occur should the teddy appear – teleporting the box to an unknown location – only adds to the tension, and it’s something that arguably improves the mode despite being an inconvenience at times. In this regard, the developers have created a system that engages (or enrages) by removing control from the player; it’s a gamble, but the pay-off can be explosively entertaining.

An interesting switch to the formula can be found in the Call of the Dead map, which is included in the Escalation DLC pack and dubbed by Treyarch, ‘a very special creation for all zombie fans’. Here, four actors (Sarah Michelle Gellar, Robert Englund, Danny Trejo and Michael Rooker) find themselves besieged during a film shoot. It’s all very tongue-in-cheek as was the intention, with no canon or rules to hold back what the developers can accomplish on a creative level. This is the map where George A Romero chases you maniacally with an electrical spotlight after all, so it’s safe to say that anything goes and it’s all the better for it.

Whether Call of Duty’s Zombies is a timeless achievement or not, it certainly seems to have some legs, albeit rotten and shuffling ones. The drip-feed of new content via downloadable content also ensures that things won’t become stale for some time, with the next pack entitled ‘Rezurrection’ mere days away. To be clear, I’m still very much a Zombies rookie, relying on the watchful eye of a seasoned veteran (see: master tactician) to guide me through the stages. There’s still much to learn and a lot to discover, but this is one side of a game that I never expected to find even remotely engaging, having approached the whole concept with a good degree of scepticism. So now there you’ll find me, machine gun in hand, blasting away waves of the rotting undead with the best of them. Should it happen in real life however, it might be a very different story…

This piece originally appeared in Vestibule of a Power Nerd

]]> http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/08/24/fighting-the-call-of-the-undead/feed/ 0 http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/08/21/enslaved-pac-man-to-the-west/ http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/08/21/enslaved-pac-man-to-the-west/#comments Sun, 21 Aug 2011 20:29:52 +0000 Simeon Paskell http://www.dpadmagazine.com/?p=12119 ]]> In a recent Kotaku article about Jonathan Blow – the creator of cult classic, Braid – the following paragraph caught my eye:

‘When you engineer a game to foster those constant reward compulsions, he told me, “there is a lack of faith in what is the core game.” The game designer doesn’t trust that players will find the playing of a game to be rewarding enough, so he or she adds all these baubles and unlocks to keep the player playing.’

Shortly after reading this, I embarked on my first playthough of Ninja Theory’s ‘Enslaved: Odyssey to the West’ on the PS3 and, by pure coincidence, discovered as good an example of the above sentiment as one could ask for.

Before I explain what I mean by this, I would just like to say that I very much enjoyed the game; it sports some lovely visuals, great characters, engaging and varied gameplay and a plot of which I’m certain many other titles would be envious. Sadly, there is one small piece of design permeating the entire the experience that does little more than distract from its considerable achievements – and it goes by the name of the ‘Tech Orb’.

In line with gaming tradition, Ninja Theory felt it wise to sprinkle these collectible, glowing, floating orbs of light throughout Enslaved’s fourteen or so acts, with the player who chooses to collect them being rewarded with stat and ability boosts. The concept of linking collectible items directly to a character’s progression is a tried and tested one, but in the case of Enslaved, I would argue that the collectible orbs conflict with its narrative, character and cinematic aspirations.

As Kotaku and Blow point out, Mario has been collecting Coins, mushrooms, feathers (and much more besides) for 30 years, and rarely been criticised for doing so. The contextual difference between a chubby, dungaree-wearing cartoon plumber and Enslaved couldn’t be more contrasting however, with Mario’s kleptomania gelling perfectly with the smiley, bouncy world he inhabits.

The production of Enslaved, on the other hand, saw Hollywood talent – in the form of Andy Serkis and Alex Garland – being drafted in to the give the game added narrative and dramatic weight. While these efforts are far from wasted (see my opinion on the game above), nearly every level and every scene of high drama is dragged down by the presence of the pesky tech orbs. Controlling Monkey, there are numerous occasions where you must frantically dash to aid of Trip, your master and eventual companion; as you rush through the beautifully rendered world, you can’t help but notice the tech-orbs littering your path and peripheral vision and – as a result of years of gaming conditioning – you can’t help but stop and pick them up. The upshot of this is that much of the drama is killed as the tech-orbs shatter your sense of immersion by reminding you that you’re only playing a game.

Things are worsened by the fact that very little explanation is given as to a) why these orbs exist or b) quite how Monkey uses them to improve his skills; their existence feels completely arbitrary and does nothing to embellish the game world. In the right context, such a lack of explanation would be perfectly forgiveable, but here it just feels lazy at best, completely unnecessary at worst.

Jonathan Blow’s comments hit the nail on the head – the inclusion of collectible items such as this are often merely a crutch upon which developers can rest in order to explain away certain elements of their game. They also serve as a handy tool with which to pad out your game; “baubles” to encourage gamers to explore the expansive – and expensive – worlds that the developer has spent so long creating. In Blow’s words, it also shows “a lack of faith in what is the core game” – something that, with Enslaved, Ninja Theory really shouldn’t have had any concerns about; the padding that the tech-orbs supply really isn’t needed.

Sadly, Ninja Theory’s faith in its creation was obvioulsy shaken. While Enslaved does deliver an epic, wonderfully crafted linear adventure, it unfortunately also makes you feel like a Pac-Man who has been dumped in an exquisitely rendered post-apocalyptic landscape that – in true Pac-Man style – is well stocked with dots just waiting to be gobbled up. I guess we should just be thankful that Ninja Theory didn’t go the whole hog and also include googly-eyed cartoon ghosts…

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This feature original appeared on gametaroo!

]]> http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/08/21/enslaved-pac-man-to-the-west/feed/ 0 http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/08/04/happiness-is-a-warm-gun-emplacement/ http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/08/04/happiness-is-a-warm-gun-emplacement/#comments Thu, 04 Aug 2011 20:13:15 +0000 Simeon Paskell http://www.dpadmagazine.com/?p=12031 ]]> Over the years, videogames have thrown all kinds of cool weaponry our way; bionic arms that can toss cars over buildings; gravity guns; mining equipment that handily slices off limbs and swathes of stonking great machine-guns that allow us to squeeze off round after round like some kind of pumped up action hero. Such tools of destruction make up a large part of the life-blood of videogames – an art-form with a (possibly unhealthy) obsession with blowing things up and shooting things down; they are the paint brushes with which we must approach the canvas of videogame worlds and therefore play a key part in our relationship with them.

But not all the weapons that are laid at our disposal are so grandiose…so attention seeking. It is with this in mind, that I would like to celebrate the humble fixed gun emplacement. Though featured in countless games, they manage to nestle quietly – almost unseen – amongst the showboating, screen-grabbing antics of more portable, eager-to-please pieces of virtual weaponry. They can be found dotting battlefields – be it the war-torn deserts and mountain-scapes of the Battlefield series; the cold, purple, futuristic architecture of Halo or the grimy, greasy horrors of KillZone and Gears of War – silently, inconspicuously waiting for a player to step up to the plate and take on the challenge that they present.

By their very nature, fixed-position weaponry come with a sense of drama, intrigue and danger that simply isn’t possessed by more standard guns, offering up a curious dichotomy of extreme firepower tempered by extreme vulnerability. The former element is easily identified in the firestorm that fixed-weaponry can usually unleash. The latter is a little more complex; firstly, there is the inability to move – assuming control of such a device you become a frozen giant; a heavy-weight boxer whose feet have been glued to the canvas. On top of this, more often than not the aiming of your weapon is also restricted, meaning that you will always be left relying on a degree of luck, waiting patiently for a foe to wander naively into your line of fire so you can unleash the power that lies at the tip of your trigger finger. And then there’s the fact that, for enemies with a penchant for sneaking around the back, the fixed-position gunner is little more than a bento-box waiting to be snacked on; standing there stock still like an Eye of Sauron that can only look in one direction, giving pesky hobbits liberty to wander up and dispose of their accursed jewellery as if it were a Sunday afternoon stroll.

So, while great power may well bring great responsibility, the gamer stepping up to the fixed gun emplacement has to realise that with great power can also come a whole world of hurt. To my mind, no game demonstrates the above quite as well as DICE’s Battlefield series. In Battlefield (I think it’s fair to speak on general terms…rather than naming specific instalments), successfully utilising fixed gun emplacements requires a combination of skill, timing, knowledge of the maps and a comprehension of the ebb and flow the battle that rages around you.

Take the machine gun emplacement situated on a bridge mid-way through the Arica Harbor [sic] on Battlefield Bad Company 2’s Rush mode. As your team is pushed back, jumping onto this gun at the right time gives you an enviable view of the battlefield and, for a time, a chance to rest safely in the knowledge that enemies will only approach from west. Scanning the horizon, enemy helmets pop into view, and you squeeze off a few rounds, snagging some easy kills as the unsuspecting soldiers fall at the hail of death spitting from the your gun. From the first moment you fire off a shot, however, you are sitting on a time bomb, as your position has more than likely been inadvertently announced in turn making you a tempting target for nearly every sniper on the opposing force. The question you face now is this – do you stay still, and attempt to ride out the ever growing threat for long enough to snatch a few more kills? Or, do you cash in your achievements thus far, and take the cowards (or…indeed…the sensible) route and scarper to the nearest bunker? Should you decide to stay put, these questions will continue to rattle around your head, with each kill bringing an even greater sense that you may be pushing your luck too far; that at any moment a sniper round will take your virtual head off, or a knife will plunge into your exposed derriere. Ah…the sweet loneliness of the fixed-position gunner…

Which brings us to a rather worrying trend in the wonderful world of fixed gun emplacements – namely fixed gun emplacements that…well…aren’t fixed. In a move that the developers would have you believe was carried out in the name of progress, four huge, recent first person shooters – KillZone 3, Crysis 2,Halo’s 3/ODST/Reach- have seen fixed-guns heartlessly ripped from their sockets to be brandished by heroes who are unable to stay in one place for more than a few seconds.

From a design perspective, I would contest the wisdom of this; the act of ripping fixed weaponry from their mount may well give you the gratification of strapping an oversized weapon to your hip, but it also removes the mystique that surrounds them; they become just another gun to be used up and discarded. The act also denigrates their fixed-origins to a mere annoyance; something to hinder and complicate the process by which you can add them to your arsenal. Like any art-form, the most successful videogames have a range of contrasting shades; effectively destroying the concept of fixed weaponry brings about the loss of hugely intriguing element, and, I would argue, is not necessarily something to be celebrated.

So, here’s to the true fixed gun emplacement – the plucky little gun that sits stoically in warzone after warzone like an oasis of calm in a sea of chaos, waiting to deal out death – and victory – for those with the courage to take the reins. First (and third!) person shooters really wouldn’t be the same without ‘em.

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This piece originally featured on the gametaroo! Blog

]]> http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/08/04/happiness-is-a-warm-gun-emplacement/feed/ 0 http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/07/27/the-big-nintendo-preview-part-3/ http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/07/27/the-big-nintendo-preview-part-3/#comments Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:26:39 +0000 Chris Morell http://www.dpadmagazine.com/?p=11974 ]]> In the previous part of our preview coverage, we went hands-on with Nintendo’s bigger names, more specifically Link’s return to the home console and Mario’s inevitable handheld outings. In this concluding part, we’ll be taking a look at a few more titles looking to make an impact in the coming year as the big N attempts to re-assert its dominance with the 3DS.

Sonic Generations 3DS

Whatever you might think of Sonic’s latest adventures on home consoles (thoughts of that werehog still have us cringing), the handheld titles have retained at least some of the hedgehog’s glory by adding a rush of speed, some neat new twists in gameplay and some colourful, if slightly derivative landscapes. As the upcoming console version of generations deals with the Sonic of old as well as his latest adrenaline-fuelled ‘Unleashed’ incarnation, the handheld version suitably sticks to what it does best, in this case handling the Sonic of old, then throwing in the ‘Rush’ version that has proved so popular. Unfortunately, Sonic Generations seems to deliver only on what it preaches, which could be a bad thing given the interesting – if not always successful – shake-up to proceedings that Sonic Colours provided.

Classic Sonic will feel instantly familiar if you’ve played any of the original Mega Drive titles (and with so many re-releases out there, we can’t think of a reason why not) while modern Sonic blasts through the levels at an eye-watering pace. We’re sad to say that although the 3D effect was functional, it added very little at all, even detracting from the experience as the frame rate chugged and the screen began to tear – pretty unforgiveable for a game based around the element of speed. Noticeably, all was well with the slider turned right down. With some nice set-pieces and challenging boss battles, Sonic Generations 3DS could still impress if this graphical kink is ironed out.

Resident Evil Revelations

Following in the footsteps of Resident Evil 4 and 5, Revelations presents a survival horror played from the third-person, over the shoulder perspective. Unlike Chris and Sheva’s console release however, Revelations returns to the series’ roots by offering only scarce amounts of ammo. Walking into a room only to hear a noise and to be rushed from behind by a pair of bladed creatures can be daunting, especially if you only have a handful of bullets left. Critical shots are a must then, which might not always be easy when attempting to get to grips with the controls on the handheld system. It is, however, wholly engaging.

The demo begins with Jill Valentine (complete with sexy battle suit) waking up in a creepy yet richly detailed mansion; this is one game that shows the true horsepower of Nintendo’s little machine. You’re then tasked with examining objects and interacting with them, be it draining a bath tub to find a key to open a locked door, or completing a short mini-game to short-circuit a fuse box. The smaller, closed-in rooms and corridors have afforded a good sense of atmosphere, though we do look forward to seeing what other locales and horrific foes lie in wait as Jill pushes on through the mansion. This should be a much better use of your money than the cash-in that was Resident Evil: The Mercenaries.

Kid Icarus: Uprising

Mario Kart appeared crisp and clean, Revelations showed graphical prowess and Starfox 3D saw the return of a legend, but if there was one game that presented the 3D effect in all its glory, it was Kid Icarus: Uprising. Western gamers may not be too savvy with the character Pit beyond his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii, but Ninty looks set to change all that with this quite beautiful offering. Each level we played featured the hero engaged in on-rails combat akin to Fox McCloud, only Pit’s wings are his own. The character himself seems to leap off the screen, revealing the team behind the game as masters of the tech – even the sparkle effects seem to stand out and the softly coloured backgrounds are presented with sufficient depth. Simply put, it’s all very whimsical and shiny.

Kid Icarus stands tall from a gameplay perspective as well, as the first area of the three levels we tried represented on-rails shooting at its best. You tap the L button for repeated blasts, or wait a while to charge up then let go for a more powerful shot. Blue orbs can be used as bombs to clear the screen of enemies while the stylus is used to control Pit’s crosshairs. Accessibility is definitely a strong point here; with simple enjoyment to be had from what is quite a basic style of play, and one that’s well-suited to the nature of the 3DS. On the ground, things are very different. The stylus is used to control the camera while the thumb stick moves Pit. This is where the weapon selected at the start of the level comes into its own, with each described to us as ‘similar yet different’, be it a standard blade, claws or bow and arrow to name a basic few. All enemies must be sliced, diced and exploded before the next room can be entered, with a challenging end-of-level boss waiting to test your combat abilities. It isn’t always easy, but it is at least fair.

And that’s your lot, folks! If the purpose of Nintendo’s London showcase was to put the gaming press (and by extension the masses) at ease regarding the future of their handheld system, then they should, for the most part, consider it a success. Clearly, plans are well underway to win over the hardcore audience, and with the help of some major third-party development teams, the big N looks capable of doing just that. There is still room for improvement however, and we wait with baited breath to see what other surprises will be in store over the coming year.

]]> http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/07/27/the-big-nintendo-preview-part-3/feed/ 0 http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/07/26/the-big-nintendo-preview-part-2/ http://www.dpadmagazine.com/2011/07/26/the-big-nintendo-preview-part-2/#comments Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:26:50 +0000 Simeon Paskell http://www.dpadmagazine.com/?p=11921 ]]> Welcome to Part 2 of our Big Nintendo Preview (part one can be found here) – in today’s post we don the Tanooki suit in Super Mario and get behind the steering wheel of Mario Kart on the 3DS, and unsheathe the Master Sword on The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on Wii.

Mario Kart 3DS

Though Mario Kart‘s classic status is well earned, it hasn’t necessarily had the smoothest of rides; after the first two primarily racing-focussed instalments, purists gasped as Double-Dash squeezed two drivers into a single kart and sighed as Mario Kart Wii saw the series move even deeper into family-friendly territory. The latter proved particularly irksome, with extremely generous (or, annoying) rubber-banding doing much to diminish the importance of driving skill while raising the prominence of the dreaded blue shell.

It was with a certain degree of trepidation then that we approached Mario Kart 3DS – would this be the game to take the series back to its racing roots, or would it mark further adventures into the realm of gimmickry? Thankfully, from the three tracks played, Mario Kart 3DS looks like it may mark the point that the series manages to bring together all its past successes. Most importantly the racing felt very solid bringing the wonderful Mariokart DS to mind, and track design was also strong, with satisfying cornering, and split-route designs that looked likely to serve up the knock-about multiplayer thrills and obsessive time-trialling that fans know and love.

The gimmicks this time around come in the form of customisable karts, hang-gliders that pop out of the back of your kart at specific points during the game and underwater sections. The gliders worked surprisingly well, and for our money is certainly preferable to the ‘hands-off’ jumps and tunnels of previous games that arguably interrupted the experience. Controlling much like the hang-glider in Pilot Wings, mastering the controls for the airborne sections will no-doubt be vital to grabbing the chequered flag. The underwater sections added an interesting dynamic in that it makes it incredibly difficult – or impossible even – to powerslide.

Overall, Mario Kart 3DS is looking to be making the right moves; Nintendo have taken on past criticisms and honed what works well while further expanding the game’s horizons. With the promise of classic tracks and a range of new locales, Mario Kart 3DS is definitely high on our 3DS wish list.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

It takes a very cold-hearted gamer to not feel at least a small bit of anticipation at getting their hands on a brand new Legend of Zelda game, but there’s little denying that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is facing slightly more of an uphill struggle than previous instalments in this much loved series. For starters, it’s coming out in the twilight years of a console that was already comparatively underpowered when it launched over four years ago. Secondly, its use of Wii Motion Plus – a horrifically underused peripheral – does smack slightly of Nintendo scrabbling to justify the device’s existence.

Hands-on time with Skyward Sword didn’t do a huge amount to dispel these two concerns (the graphics, though expectedly polished and almost Disney-esque, are showing the Wii’s age, and the extra accuracy offered by Wii Motion Plus wasn’t entirely convincing), but it still managed to retain that old Zelda magic. The series has always thrived in exploring the tension between the comfortably familiar and the power of the unknown, and so it is with Skyward Sword. Though the disparate nature of the demo we played made it difficult to get a strong contextual perspective of the overarching plot, the game’s sky-based setting is certainly intriguing.

The demo was split into three sections – a dungeon, a boss fight and air-based pursuit/race. The former was fairly standard Zelda-fare with the added twist of a controllable flying beetle that Link could unleash to hunt down rupees and other hidden treasures and spiders that had to be slashed at certain angles in order to force them to reveal their weak-spot. Similarly, the (surprisingly difficult) boss fight required you to slash in certain angles in order to prevent the pallid-skinned foe from clasping your sword between his fingers, kung-fu style. The biggest disappointment in both these sections was that the swordplay didn’t feel like a huge step on from The Twilight Princess, and definitely felt some way off the 1:1 control long promised by Wii Motion Plus.

Where the game really came to life was in the airborne section. In a scene not dissimilar to that featured in James Cameron’s Avatar, Link leaps off the side of sky-city and free-falls for a short spell before landing plumb on the back of a giant bird. What follows can be best described as Pilotwings-meets-Zelda-meets-Quidditch. Tilting the Wii remote to control your airborne-steed, Link’s goal was to hunt down a golden bird and grab hold of it. Visually, the feeling of swooping through the clouds was convincing, and the wings of your bird ruffled pleasingly in the wind. Though very much a mini-game, the possibility of a sky-based Hyrule Field is an intriguing one and we’re interested to see how this mechanic is further explored when the game finally lands towards the end of the year.

Super Mario

As with Mariokart 3DS, with Super Mario on the 3DS it appears that Nintendo has focussed on taking all the best bits from previous Mario’s and wrapping them up in a single package. To this end, the game occupies the middle-ground between the explosion of concepts that was Super Mario Galaxy and the more traditional New Super Mario Bros.

The four levels available in the demo gave a nice taster of what the full game will have to offer and for the most part it worked well; it feels compact – dinky even – with level and visual design that helps emphasise the feeling of peering through the front-pane of the 3DS screen into the world that lies beyond. The effect is somewhat understated, and the pace of play a little more pedestrian than Mario Galaxy, but it merges the play-styles of Mario’s 2D and 3D adventures impressively well, making use of the benefits that three-dimensions bring while retaining the satisfaction that comes with the precision platforming afforded by two-dimensional play.

The much loved Tanooki (or, racoon) suit makes a return and performs much as you remember it from Super Mario Brothers 3 but in three-dimensional space. In fact, the game’s penchant for riffing on past Mario titles while introducing new concepts (such as toying with depth-perception with 2D, cardboard cut-out Goombas!) suggests that by drilling into Mario lore, Nintendo can find a whole new universe just as it did by exploding the series outwards to the stars with Super Mario Galaxy. While those hoping for a portable Super Mario Galaxy may well be a little disappointed with Super Mario, no one knows their way around a Mario platformer like Nintendo, and the steps taken here are looking as assured as ever.

Make sure you come back for our third and final instalment in which we go hands on with Kid Icarus Uprising, Resident Evil Revalations and Sonic Generations on the 3DS.

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