Love is Over: Catherine

Catherine has been described as a “horror action puzzle game with social simulation elements”. What this equates to is an extremely odd, but enjoyable game.

What I Liked:

• Plot

Vincent Brooks is a man seemingly floating through life. His girlfriend of 5 years, Katherine, is very much a “plan ahead” type of person, and wants Vincent to clean up his act, and marry her. Vincent himself is much more unsure of this, being comfortable the way things are.

One evening, after getting extremely drunk, Vincent finds himself waking up next to a blonde bombshell named Catherine, and from this point on, his world turns upside down. In addition to this, Vincent begins having horrible nightmares where he much run from horrific beasts by arranging and climbing a wall of blocks, which always leaves him extremely tired when he wakes.

Upon finding Catherine in his bed, Vincent prepares to fire his laser.

The plot itself is quite adult oriented, for a game. I mean this in the context that it is more complex than your typical “there are bad guys, shoot them” storyline. Nothing in this game is clear cut for you – choices you make for Vincent may seem one way, but affect things differently than one might expect.

Add the multiple subplots to do with Vincent's friends' relationships and you get quite an enjoyable plot.

• Presentation

The game is initially presented as a television show, with the intro sequence briefly introducing the concept. Once this is over, you typically have a playable sequence in the bar (where the social simulation portion of the game is spent). Once the player leaves the bar, you end up in your nightmare realm, where the action puzzle game takes place.

These sequences are linked via cutscenes, occasionally as full blown 2D anime scenes, but more often using the in-game graphics (gloriously cel-shaded). If you don't like a cartoony art style, then you won't like the art here folks!

The presentation simply feels quite polished.

• Music

The level music is an interesting set of remixes of classical music. While aficionados will likely think this as an absolute travesty, I found myself enjoying the remixes. Not a lot to say here though.

• Gameplay

The gameplay whilst in the nightmare realm consists of pulling and pushing blocks in such a fashion as to allow you to climb the wall whilst being chased. More often than not, you are being chased by nothing at all other than the blocks simply falling away into nothingness. However, on the boss stages (which are all amazingly cool) you are typically being chased by a large beast of some variety, all relating to what's been on Vincent's mind during that day. For example, one of the more memorable bosses is a giant demonic baby – during the cutscenes for the day before this sequence, Vincent learned that Katherine was pregnant, hence the giant baby.

BLOCKS!

The bar gameplay is much more relaxed, allowing the player to immerse themselves in the world a bit more. You control Vincent in the bar, have some drinks and chat with the other patrons. You will receive text messages from both Katherine and Catherine, and get to choose whether to reply or not, and if so, how to reply to them. You select what to drink (and if you finish a drink, are given trivia about the particular drink), and when to go home. While it doesn't sound thrilling, I found that these segments of gameplay immersed me in the world more than any plain cutscene ever could.

• Morality

Whilst I am usually a skeptic of moral choices in gaming (they have a tendency to make you either saintly or baby-eatingly evil, with nothing in between), it is somewhat well executed in Catherine. For starters, while you have a red/blue bar showing where on the spectrum you are when you answer a question or reply to a text message, it never tells you outright what the spectrum is until you finish the game. It's not a “Good/Evil” bar, it is a little more complex than that. However, it still is totally possible to game the system and force your way to a particular ending as a result. This is not necessarily a bad thing though, when you consider that there are 8 endings to view!

Eventually during the story, Vincent needs to make a decision about whether he'll stay with Katherine and break up the affair, or whether he'll go the other way. You never make this decision outright – the bar makes that decision for you, as it reflects Vincent's state of mind at the time. While this prevents you from saving before the key decision making point in the game (since said point doesn't really exist for the player), you still are able to at the very least get the broad spectrum of endings associated with the decision he came to in your game (since the Good/Bad/True ending is decided by how you answer the questions in the final area).

Catherine also thinks Vincent is single when she gets with him, further complicating matters.

I would also like to point out that a bunch of the questions it posed to me made me feel a little bit uncomfortable. Whether they were about things I had never experienced or even thought about in my life, or simply difficult questions is a tough one to decide. The theme of cheating on a partner, and the consequences of that made me feel quite uncomfortable at times playing as Vincent – and this is why the plot succeeds.

• It's Different!

In a world of generic shooters, Catherine is a breath of fresh air. It's nice to be able to play something completely different from practically everything I have ever played previously. The last time I played a title that was so different from the pack (that was NOT an indie title) would be Mirror's Edge!

What I Hated:

• Schizophrenic Difficulty

The block puzzles difficulty ranges from absolutely trivial to hair-tearingly, insanely difficult. I found that certain block puzzles held me up for ridiculous amounts of time (I was stuck in a 5x5 confinement of blocks for over an hour – and considering that the floor falls away consistently, this also means many, many continues were used up here). On the other hand, certain puzzles were also seemingly too easy. 

You will see this screen a lot, but now's not the time to be dead!

Obviously, early puzzles should be easier than the later ones, but this is not what I'm referring to. I found that the final boss encounters were much easier than some of the “regular” puzzles I had encountered in chapters gone by!

As frustrating as this is, its certainly not a deal-breaker.

• Australia Doesn't Get Nice Things

As I have mentioned in prior posts, Australia is not allowed to have nice things. This includes Catherine. To get a hold of a copy, you will need to import. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is something worth mentioning, since certain people are unwilling/unable to import games, and one cannot simply walk to the games shop and pick up a copy.

~~~~

Catherine is an interesting title that, while it may not appeal to everyone, is definitely worth a play to anyone after something a little different. Those who immediately look at it and think that its not worth playing must truly be jaded. Or scared to try something that's so far removed from the umpteenth WWII shooter.

On a side note, the voice actor list reads like a who's who of English anime/game voice actors. Vincent is played by Troy Baker – who played Snow in Final Fantasy XIII, and Yuri in Tales of Vesperia. Catherine is voiced by Laura Bailey (or Lust from Full Metal Alchemist, Chun-Li from Street Fighter 4), and many other recognisable voices.

Silent Hill: Homecoming

Development duties for Silent Hill 5 were handed over to an American company. While I question the wisdom of such a move, it did result in a Silent Hill game being made, so I suppose that's something. More details below.

What I Liked

• Despite the Americanism, its still Silent Hill

While the development duties changed hands, this time allowing the Americans to play with a Japanese franchise, seemingly with the aim of ramming it into the ground as quickly as possible (which mirrors my opinion of the Devil May Cry reboot, oddly enough) it remains “Silent Hilly” enough to tolerate. While the by-now-overused nurses appear a lot, and Pyramid Head is wrongfully used in the name of fanservice, the puzzles and the general feel of the game still screams Silent Hill at you. From the fog, to the way almost every door is permanently locked.

Although, admittedly, this one is much more linear than prior Silent Hill games!

• UFO Ending tradition remains strong

Silent Hill has always had a tradition of having multiple endings – one always being an ending which involved UFOs and aliens. This is the secret ending, usually requiring multiple playthroughs to find.. Apparently, in Homecoming it isn't quite so secret. It's also, by far, the most interesting ending of the five (which is quite sad – the other four endings, while more serious in tone, also weren't interesting in the slightest).

What I Hated

• Dodge ability works only half the time

One of the big new features that was advertised for Silent Hill: Homecoming was a revamped control system, including the ability to dodge. The game now controls much more like a third person shooter than it used to (though having tanky controls was arguably part of the thrill of Silent Hill).

However, I found that more often than not, the dodge button would simply fail to operate correctly. If you touch the dodge button as you were being attacked, you would either get a last second dodge (which meant a parry if you held a melee weapon, or taking a hit if you were holding a gun), or simply not move at all and take a bladed arm to the face!

No, to dodge properly in this game, you must press the dodge button a second BEFORE the attack goes through. The monsters telegraph their attacks to a degree, in an attempt to lessen the deadliness of this issue, however it is difficult to tell between a tell before an attack, or just a random shudder from the monsters, due to their mutated nature.

• Pyramid Head does not belong here

Pyramid Head was an important part of Silent Hill 2, symbolising James' sexual tension, as well as punishing him for his misdeeds by chasing him around and generally scaring the crap out of the player. However, it is simply that – a punishment for his sins.

While Alex in Homecoming has his own issues to come to terms with, it feels wrong to have Pyramid Head appearing here. For starters, he appears and simply walks away, opening a path for you to progress. Later on, he kills a plot-integral character right in front of Alex. This isn't right! It just feels like a fanservice issue, rather than an actual need to use him. Much like how he was used in the Silent Hill film.

• The game is almost over before you enter Silent Hill

You spend a total of 3 chapters of the game in Silent Hill. For a Silent Hill game, this feels kind of weak. Isn't the point of Silent Hill the fact that weird stuff is going on in the town? Admittedly, by the end of the game, they do explain why it spilled over into Shephard's Glen, but it still feels slightly off to me.

• Plot feels empty

Silent Hill plots are typically heavy on symbolism, and light on straight logic. Things tend to not make sense until quite late on in the game, and even then take some thinking (and possibly reading of other people's opinions) to realise what's going on.

However, Silent Hill: Homecoming does not have this. The game feels fairly light in plot until the last few chapters – and even then a lot of what takes place doesn't require any thought at all to decipher what went on. Particularly since it falls into the trap of having the “bad guy” explain their plan to you (while you are tied to a chair in a scene reminiscent of a Bond film).

It is very much a Hollywood attempt at horror in this manner, where the plot must be explainable in words with less than three syllables in them, for fear of losing sales (and therefore money) due to requiring too much thought.

In conclusion, while the game was tolerable, that's about all it is. It really pales in comparison to prior Silent Hill titles. Hell, it pales in comparison to the title immediately following it (Silent Hill: Shattered Memories – the retelling of SH1 which takes the plot of that, and remixes it so it goes in a completely different direction. While not an amazing game, it was fun, tried something different, and feels like it may be the beginning of an alternate history SH series).

Silent Hill: Homecoming is a completely forgettable experience, and altogether skippable. Don't waste your time.

Also, I got the good ending. After watching the other endings on YouTube, I would have preferred any of those, because things actually happened in them. Aren't we supposed to be wanting the happy ending?

Maccas Monday - Attack of the Killer Truck of Doom!

When i was working at McDonalds, I was consistently given the "Walkers" shift. This amounts to accepting a delivery of stock, rotating the stock that's already stored in the freezers and other stock areas, organising it into a logical order, and putting it away neatly. I was given this shift often, because I was apparently quite good at it.

I suppose all that time playing Tetris paid off somehow.

Aside from the usual woes of the delivery, such as management ordering more stock than is physically possible to fit on the shelves while still following legal regulations as far as safe stack heights are concerned, one particular delivery sticks in my mind far more than the others. Though simultaneously, far less as well.

The delivery had been taken, and all the boxes counted up. It turns out that we were missing about four boxes of tatsoi lettuce - the "fancy" (read extra leafy so they can get away with putting less on a burger) lettuce used for the crispy chcken burgers (and the Angus burgers). The delivery driver, Tony, decided that we should check the other stores' orders on the truck. Sometimes the idiots who put the stock on the truck mix the orders up.

I went to assist him in taking a look. The back door on the truck was a strange kind of latch (which I'd seen before on my father's truck), where there was a lever in a holder. Raise the lever and pull it outwards to open the truck door. Unfortunately for me, the lever got stuck in the holder, so I started hitting it, to make it move upwards, and therefore open the door.

With my amazingly bad luck, the lever finally flew upwards. It also flew outwards, straight into my nose, knocking my backwards a few steps, and sending my glasses flying a few meters away. After retrieving my eyes, I realised that my nose was bleeding, quite heavily. I (somehow) calmly acquired some paper towel, and proceeded to sit in the crew room, plugging my nose with it to wait for it to stop.

Then I woke up, on the floor, with a co-worker's crotch in my face. When he realised I was awake, he hurriedly moved (I think... uh hope? that he was simply laying me down properly, but from an awkward angle) to reveal about 12 more faces standing around. My first question was "Why are you teabagging me?", which was quickly followed by "Where am I?"

About 15 minutes later, an ambulance arrived. The lady from the ambo woke me up (I had passed out again, by this point) and tried to move me. I then woke up again, to a lecture along the lines of "If you do that again, I will leave you here". Apparently, I had passed out again, and almost hit her in the face! Apparently, she took this matter personally... because I was totally in control of my actions at this point -.-

Eventually, they got me to the hospital, where I awaited a doctor. Five hours later, I saw a doctor, who determined that I had a mild concussion, and had somehow not broken any bones. If the lever had hit me a little to the right, I would have broken my nose. Left? Cheekbone. up would have been glasses/eyes, and any lower and I would have lost teeth. I was amazingly lucky.

A few days later, I was back on the job - the next shift being taking the delivery again.

A few weeks later, the regional manager took me aside, and blasted me for attempting to help the truck driver. Apparently its not my job to help people who are helping me do my job. Yet another reason why McDonald's is a trap!

And for the record, our lettuce wasn't on the truck.

Musings of the Day

No amazingly coherent topic today, so the following is a bunch of potentially speakworthy thoughts I've had in the last few days.

Today, the 3rd Humble Indie Bundle was released. I haven't played any f the games in the pack, but I bought it anyway - I've heard very good things about VVVVVV (well, heard its difficult at least), and have seen "And Yet It Moves" in action, which was kind of interesting. Besides, supporting Indie devs and charities simultaneously is awesome. Buy it. Now.

Why did Amy Winehouse's death bump the Norwegian slaughter off the front page of the news? One (admittedly) talented, trainwreck of a woman dies (likely due to a Charlie Sheen-like dosage of some illicit material), and due to her fame, appears to get more exposure than a freakin terror attack. I realise this is an old complaint, and not particularly fair to Amy or her family, but surely there was a fubar there somewhere?

This morning I got off the train at Central Station (as I tend to do on my way to work), to find that there was a large group of people waiting at the door to get on the train. Said group of people refused to move to let me off the train, and wondered why I pushed them out of the way. (I'm fairly sure I made a rage comic about this and posted it somewhere...) Maybe next time, I'll just stay on the train and block their path on -.-

Also, this morning, I was walking up the hill from the station, to work (again, as I have a tendency to do). Unfortunately, I got caught behind three people walking together, who blocked the entire footpath. This isn't such a problem really, except for the fact that they were all smokers. Who were continuing to smoke as they walked slowly up the hill. When they exhaled their smoke, it stayed where it was (as it tends to do if there's no wind), which forced me and the other poor souls behind them to walk through a massive cloud of cigarette smoke.
Smokers - I don't mind if you decide to slowly poison yourself with those contraptions. Really, its none of my business. What IS my business is that your stupidity forces me to endure massive stinky clouds of death in my face. If you're gonna light up, at least do it somewhere where other people won't be forced to inhale your second-hand smoke. Have a little common sense, geez!

I've been fairly steadily playing through Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection. It's quite good, though it does feel excessively long. This is likely due to the fact that I am essentially playing three games in one - the third one being episodic in nature. Not to mention that they're all RPGs! Other things I have been playing are listed on my Backloggery page. I urge you all to make an account there, that way we can compare games :P Feel free to add me to your multitap!

I apologise for the lack of posts in recent times, but I've been fairly busy at work (been moved onto a different, short project with a tight deadline. Also, the project itself is boring) which has been utterly wiping me out, making it difficult to come up with a coherent, semi-interesting topic, let alone put words into that topic. I will try to do better in future.

Trippin' on Bits

BIT.TRIP Beat is a very simple game to describe. It is a game of pong, where you, as the left side paddle, are bombarded with blocks to deflect. These blocks come at you at varying speeds, arcs, and even return after being deflected (a bit of a curveball).

Of course, there has to be ore to it than just pong, right? There is, but not very much.

The blocks you reflect play a different sound per note type, speed and where you happen to be when you hit them. This has the effect of playing a song when you play skilfully.

Yes, Pong has been turned into a music game.

As the levels get more difficult, the songs become much more intricate. Of course, you have a health bar and a bonus bar – filling up the bonus bar makes you go up a power level – also altering the sounds you make (seemingly, although I couldn't see the purpose of it really). Lose enough health, and you drop a level. Run out of health on the lowest level (which, incidentally, has a black and white screen, and sound consisting purely of 2-bit Pong beeps) and its game over.

Simple, right? Damn right!

Also note that I played the PC version, available on Steam.

What I liked

• Art Style

I'm a fan of retro games, so when a game comes along with an 8-bit style (of which there are surprisingly many) its easy to ignore, but I do enjoy the graphics in this game. Though with a premise like “Pong, but musical!” it's kind of difficult to justify making it anything but 8-bit! The graphics are functional – really, its just blocks flying around. It's harsh to expect anything more.

• Music Style

This is where things get a bit more interesting. The game maintains its retro feel mainly via the music consisting of chiptunes. While above I stated that it is a music game, the entirety of the music is also 8-bit. Although it does gain some synth properties once you reach the higher level, it keeps a retro feel to it.

What I hated

• Very few levels

There are only three levels in the game. Four if you count the bonus Portal themed level (which the developers certainly don't – you get an achievement for beating the game without playing the Portal level). This seems at odds with a game which seems to long for the days of old, with 8-bit everything! These older games were either infinite (due to the design simply allowing repeats of the same screen), or having a large amount of content.

• Levels are overly long

Each level can get quite long – every time you think you're done, another volley of blocks is sent your way! While this attempts to make up for the lack of numbers in the level, I find that for a game like this, its better to have more levels, and have them be shorter, rather than fewer levels but each one ridiculously long.

Even with the long levels, the amount of content still seems short. If you are good at pong, you can finish all the levels within an hour or so.

All in all, BIT.TRIP Beat is an entertaining diversion from other titles, but its short length pretty much strands it. While it allows for a lot of replayability (music games always feel replayable), its not something I find myself returning to often, mainly due to the dated gameplay. If you feel like playing something old school, you could do worse.

SMASH!

For those who didn't know, SMASH! (Sydney Manga and Anime SHow) was held in the Sydney Convention Center in Darling Harbour last Saturday. This convention, unlike Supanova, is based entirely off anime, manga, and the occasional video game. Of course, I attended the con. Dressed as Suzaku again, no less (you expect me to not reuse the outfit after spending months worth of weekends working on it?).

The convention itself was quite well organised, with a couple of exceptions. These examples were, however, quite annoying. For example, Spritza and myself arrived quite early at the venue, and were in the queue to enter (we pre-purchased our tickets as usual). We were fairly close to the front of the third queue, which was good, since the queue got ridiculously large later on.
The powers that be decided to start scanning people's tickets and handing out the laniards that attendees were to wear before the show opened, therefore saving time for the people who had gone to the effort to pay before the day of the con.
Except that they neglected to do the same for the third line. Leaving this line to get in after the others had - regardless of arrival time. Of course, Murphy's Law dictates that this was the line that we were in. We still got in at a decent time (around 9.20 or so), but we were robbed of a good 20 minutes of time that the peons who didn't pre-purchase had no access to (and so actually having space to walk around the con unhindered).

On the other hand, the venue was set up well. All of the stalls and gaming was downstairs, while the activity rooms, the cosplay contest and chess, the workshops, panels etc were upstairs. This split meant that people weren't getting constantly clogged together trying to reach their desired events. The only criticism I'd ave of the venue itself was that the lights in the shopping area were quite dim, making any photos taken in there much more difficult to do right, as well as putting some minor strain on the eyes after a while.

Of course, a large portion of the day was taken up by posing for photos, taking part in the cosplay chess (we lost, although the game was entertaining and went a fair while thereby making up for it all). Part of the fun of the chess was that my cosplay group had booked a large chunk of the team for our spots - our Code Geass group (consisting of myself as Suzaku, Spritza as Euphemia, Mark as Gino, Juanita as Anya - although she didn't play chess, Lyndall as Nunnally, Brendon as Lloyd and Jamie as C.C) as well as two other random Code Geass cosplayers we managed to poach (Zero and another Suzaku) took up the entire back row of the black team. To make matters more entertaining, our entire front row consisted of Hetalia cosplayers.
All the countries of the world are as pawns to Britannia, clearly.

I was killed by a woman who threw CDs at me

After the chess, we dashed off for lunch, and some random photo taking around Darling Harbour, which was fun due to freaking out the "normal people" who were around. Only a small group of us went photoing, since some people were taking breaks and others had simply disappeared from view.

One of the many outside photos

Eventually, the convention had to end, so we changed into regular clothes, headed off for dinner, then returned for the Eminence concert. Eminence are an orchestral group that play predominantly video game and anime music - even being contracted to perform some songs for the shows and games themselves (they recently finished recording music for Diablo 3).
The concert was brilliant, even though I only recognised three songs (Aerith's Theme from FF7, the My Neighbour Totoro medley, and the Mario medley) it was entertaining nonetheless. They also had in attendance two video game composers, whose music they spent the majority of the time playing. These composers were Kenji Ito (Romancing Saga 1-3, Saga Frontier) and Hiroku Kikuta (Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3). They were both interviewed on stage, with entertaining results.

After the concert, I spent some time in line to buy a couple of CDs, and get some autographs. We then headed home for some rest. Great day, all in all.

Also, thanks to Oni-5 and Martzy for meeting up with us, and joining us in the photo frenzy. I'm a terrible photographer, so they wouldn't have been taken at all if it weren't for you guys :P

~~~

On a semi-related note, today marks the release of the "Play for Japan" album - this album was a project headed up by Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill's composer, among other things) as a charity album. This album features original tracks by a large selection of video game music composers - and after a single playthrough of the album today, I love it. There are only two of the eighteen tracks I can say I honestly did not enjoy, although that may change.
As an added bonus, people who buy it from iTunes get a Mario medley as a bonus track.
Also note that all proceeds from this album goes to the Japan recovery fund. Although it is no longer reported in the news, Japan hasn't exactly recovered fully yet (that'll take a LONG time), so spend some money people!

Also, cover art by Yoshitaka Amano

Madboards Pathfinder: A Postmortem

This evening marks the official end of the Madboards Pathfinder game I have been running. Technically, the game has ended for 4/6 of the players (and really, if I were to be pedantic about it, it ended for one player a couple of weeks ago when he stopped posting altogether), and the final two have their last chance today. As a result, I figured I would devote a post to my thoughts on the entire game, and share what I have learned.

Lesson #1: Pathfinder on a Forum is a Terrible Idea

This was the first mistake. Pathfinder (or any other RP system that relies heavily on the use of maps) is way too complex for a forum based RPG. When playing in person with a physical map set it is trivial to move pieces, I found myself dreading the inevitable combat sequences in the game (which are, to me, some of the most fun I can have as a GM when I'm on a mean streak since there is a chance for me to kill off PCs in hilarious manner) due to the drudgery of opening my iPhone app for mapping, moving the pieces, doing all the die rolls, uploading a screenshot of the map, writing a description of said map for the people who can't read the pieces (and to make up for the shortcomings of the app - mainly a lack of required art assets), as well as writing the actual mod itself - a lot of work for 6 seconds of game world time!

Add to this the fact that the game is heavily based on number crunching, as well as player cooperation and discussion and you get a game that is a pain in the arse to run well on a forum. I found that the players, outside of a select few, rarely cooperated. The party didn't really form as a party, causing massive plotholes to form, which leads me to...

Lesson #2: On a Forum RP, Write Your Own Damn Plot!

I was using a pre-written module for the story. This worked perfectly well in my long-running face-to-face PF campaign, which hasn't yet ended (and really needs a session to get us going again). This worked in the online one for approximately 12 seconds, when the players immediately made moves that were breaking anything the future plot had in store for them.

For example, the party reached the inn, where the real adventure was to begin, by having a mercenary character claim that the dagger they had found during a combat sequence immediately before arriving at the inn actually belonged to him. This was to trigger a pub brawl which escalates to encompass all of the people in the pub, and destroy some valuable property, thereby giving the Sheriff (who was in the pub at the time) a reason to confiscate the blade, and to send them on a quest to pay off their debt.
This didn't go quite according to plan, since the party immediately split up upon entering the bar, and the character with the dagger tried to leave the pub. This forced the Sheriff to only see a few characters as being involved in the argument over the dagger, immediately splitting the party into those who were in trouble with the Sheriff (and therefore on track for the story), and everyone else. Considering that the majority of the game hinged on this, this was quite a problem!

If I had written the story myself, I would have been better equipped to add extra characters, items and events to force the party to stick with the plot (or even better - not force them into a single party, allow them to split, and by "coincidence" bring them back together). Time constraints lead me to only be able to read a little bit of the book ahead of playing, which made me much more hesitant to add these kinds of things, due to the very real possibility that I ruin what the book had in store.

Not to mention that when players irritated me I could throw in a random encounter with something, and alter the plot to accomodate it. I try not to railroad players, but this seems to only work for me with a group that works together to a degree, or with a plot I write myself.

On the other hand, I'm a fairly terrible plot writer, as anyone who played in my shambles of a first RP on that forum can attest to!

Lesson #3: Make Everyone Feel Part of the Game

Due to issues mentioned in the previous point, I believe that some players felt a bit left out of the game. Again, the source material is part of the problem here (a fairly specific set of knowledge checks were needed, and while we had the skills required in the party, since they were so specific, others were kind of left out). Add to this that I didn't really add any material to give these players interesting and useful things to do, and they kind of just stood around a lot.

This was compounded by a large percentage of the group creating "Lone Wolf" characters, which rarely work in a group RP game, since they simply want to do everything themselves, and segregate themselves. I have seen this happen in other RPs, and the players in question wondered why their character was being ignored and left out!

All in all, I think it will be quite a while before I try to run another RP on a forum anywhere (if I indeed ever try it again) since it seems to me that my GM skills aren't up to scratch. Players lost interest quickly, and frankly, so did I.

F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin

Shooting bullets at things

The sequel to First Encounter Assault Recon seems like it is quite an old game to be released, and that I'm behind on the times. However, I feel that now is the perfect time to review it, due to the imminent release of F.E.A.R 3, and the fact that until now I hadn't played it. Those who read my reviews of the expansions to the original F.E.A.R game know that my opinion of those is particularly low – and I needed quite a long break after playing those train wrecks to be able to bring myself to play F.E.A.R 2!

What I Liked

• More than 2 weapons at once!

This absolutely shocked me – this would be the first modern shooter I have played in quite a long time that aims for realism (to a degree) and yet allows a player to hold more than two weapons at once! Admittedly, it is still restricted (4 guns, 4 types of grenade), but it allows much more choice than, for example, Call of Duty, or Duke Nukem Forever (the latter being very disappointing in this regard, due to its roots).

In addition to this, a fair few of the guns are quite satisfying to use. My jaw dropped when I got hold of the Napalm Launcher. While its not particularly powerful, I always enjoy being able to set things on fire in a game – and a fire launching gun is something I never see often enough in shooters! The sniper rifle would immediately gib an enemy soldier if you get a good shot on them. In fact, the only disappointing weapon was the Hammerhead – the successor to the first game's “Penetrator”. It is essentially a nailgun, and is quite powerful. However it doesn't feel as powerful as it should be.

The plasma weapon you get late in the game is particularly awesome.

Alma just loves to ruin your day

• Plot

The plot for this game is utterly insane. To be honest, I found it quite difficult to follow, but it was entertaining nonetheless. It began to fall into place by the end, and made a semblance of sense by the end, leading up to one of the strangest game endings I have ever seen. I won't spoil it for anyone (obviously), except to say that it leaves a sequel a foregone conclusion (and really... the sequel's out at time of writing, so meh). It's also kind of disturbing, but that's the aim of the game really.

• Mechs

The first game had a bunch of mech-like power armours to battle against. These battles were frustrating, and forced the player to rely on explosives due to their increased damage (they could be taken down purely with bullets, but it would take a lot of them). Of course, you destroy them all and continue on your merry way.

Why do I mention this? Well in F.E.A.R 2, you have two sequences where you are lucky enough to pilot these. These sections are fairly easy in comparison to the on-foot sequences, but I found it quite fun to run around blasting these guys in a mech. Variety is always a blessing in an FPS, and these sections were much needed short bursts of destruction.

What I Hated

• The Fear is a Lie

For a game titled FEAR, there was a surprising lack of it. This may be the jaded gamer in me talking, but I found that the game didn't creep me out in the slightest until quite late. The sections that did creep me out were creepy due to random ghosts attacking (and dealing damage) out of nowhere than to the actual game. They get a lot of atmospheric things right – there a lots of corridors of corpses and blood, and the occasional dive into the mind of the psychic (and psycho) girl who is chasing you. However, it occasionally feels like they're just going through the motions.

I find it quite difficult to describe why it didn't scare me – since such a thing is quite subjective. I have spoken to other people about this game, and some have been scared, and others were very not scared. I was scared the first time I played the original game, but since then it seems to have become simply run and gun to me.

Admittedly, a FPS where you are allowed weapons (some of these weapons being extremely powerful – not to mention the aforementioned mech piloting segments) makes a horror game feel much less horror oriented, since you are able to fight back against the bad guys. The game attempts to wrench this from you when you have the sequences where Alma exerts her influence over you, but before long you realise that these are all scripted, and you will be returned full control of yourself before long.

If you want a game that will scare the pants off you, this is not it. Play Amnesia: Dark Descent instead.

• Mostly Generic Enemies

This is a complaint I had with the first game – with the exception of the ninjas and the mechs, every fightable enemy is a generic soldier. Some have small arms, some have bigger guns, some have sniper rifles, some are wearing helmets, and some are not. This is about as much as the enemies vary.

In addition to this, there is only one type of ninja (fair enough), and one fightable monster/mutant type. It begins to feel very samey after a while, after you have gunned down generic replica soldier #8445674. Admittedly, the replica soldiers are supposed to be replicas of each other – that's part of the plot. However they are not the only enemies you have in the game, and the sameness of the other enemies seems unjustified, and simply not fun, to me.

• Certain Environments are Boring

A lot of the early game environments are much like they were in the first game – empty warehouses, underground laboratories, and deserted hospitals. These places are all well and good, but they feel too over-utilsed in horror games nowadays (particularly since Silent Hill made hospitals scarier than they have ever been before). Compound this with the fairly bland enemies, and the early game feels like a chore. It wasn't until about halfway through the game (where I reached the streets of the city) that I began to really enjoy the game at all. Unfortunately, first impressions matter – people will stop playing if they get bored unless they're pedantic and want to finish the game.

• Conflicting Goals

This is partially covered above, but the game doesn't seem to be able to decide whether it wants to be a balls to the wall shooter, a realistic simulation, or a horror game. As a result, it has a tendency to flip between the three. Whilst not necessarily a bad thing, some of the transitions feel kind of clumsy.

The AI is fairy strong on some points, forcing you to think tactically (to a degree) about what you're doing. When to reload, when to hide, when to shoot. However, this is blown by giving you an activate-at-will slow-mo ability which gives you a limited amount of time where you can essentially charge at the enemies without regard to sense.

You are repeatedly shown scenes of random soldiers being dragged away by an invisible force, and ripped apart in an attempt to scare you (or at least creep you out). Moments later, this tension is broken with an all out gunfight, or a terribly placed line of dialogue. An actual line from the game: “You're like free pizza at an anime convention. She smells you, and she will consume you.”

Uh... what?

The protagonist of F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin

• Retarded Default Controls

This is a minor gripe, but the default controls reek of console port. Right click is the melee button by default, while I cannot remember the initial setting for scoped sighting (which you will want to use a lot, since, you know, aiming when shooting is a good thing). The middle mouse click opens a very consoleriffic gun selection "quick menu", which felt very wrong to use early on, and didn't get much easier as the game continued. I found myself simply ducking behind a corner and scrolling to find the gun I wanted!

All in all, F.E.A.R 2 is a huge improvement over the first game, particularly the terrible expansions it had. While completely disregarding those expansions plotwise makes me all the more bitter about suffering through them, it was for the best. However, don't come to this party expecting to be sent home crying to your Mummy.

Damn it, Steam!

For those who even remotely know or care about gaming, you would know that Steam is currently having their Summer Sale (lol, America) - and as a result selling games ridiculously cheap. This is both a boon and a curse.

For starters, it is obviously a good thing due to cheap games! Never complain about cheap games (unless they're terrible, anyway)! I've managed to buy a fair few games off Steam in the last few days, and likely will continue to for the next few days until the sale is over. Magicka with all the DLC for $8! Monkey Island remakes for $8 (both together in a pack!) Dwarfs?! for $5! (don't buy it, its a trap) I believe The Witcher 2 was up for $50 at one stage... not bad for a brand new game.

Don't ask me to recall my purchase list - I've forgotten big chunks of it because there are so many. I recall picking up Frozen Synapse though (and it comes with two copies... anyone want a copy?).

And this is where part of the curse lies. I already had a ridiculous backlog of games I'd never finished. What better way to make this pile larger than for Steam to have a sale!

On the other hand, Steam has also put up a competition where each day there are specific achievements for specific games. Each achievement earnt gives you a ticket in the major draw - the prize being the top ten games o your wishlist. Once I saw this, I started working on the achievements they specified (at least, the ones I could do for the games I already owned), and have so far earnt 16 tickets. As an added bonus these tickets can be redeemed for extra free DLC for certain games (and they don't destroy your entries into the draw).
While I'm not typically an "achievement whore", if they are usable for something tangible then I'm all over it. I've averaged 3-4 tickets a day so far, though this will likely drop over the weekend when I stay at Spritza's place. Well, that's assuming I get over this cold (I'm still sick, to a degree >_<).
It's also quite nice having Steam tell me what to play - even if it is for a short period of time. It's reminding me that I have some great games that I've been neglecting (and not necessarily long ones either). For example, last night, I was working on achievements for Trine, Zombie Driver and Serious Sam HD. I had already finished Serious Sam, but I had completely forgotten how good the other two games were (particularly Trine)!

On the other hand...

Creddit where its due: MrGestore of Reddit

Absence: Obligatory Excuses Post

You may have noticed that, for a week or so, I had completely disappeared off the map, universe, and this blog. Now that I have returned, its excuse time. So, what was it that caused me to not post for over a week?

A terrible chest infection that kept me out of the office, out of Japanese class, and in bed for the last week and a half. Well, in the strictest sense I wasn't in bed that whole time, but around half of that. Whatever.

As a result, I didn't post, and I apologise for that. On the other hand, I also didn't really do anything interesting during that time either, other than fork out copious amounts of cash for (legal, prescription) drugs and seeing multiple doctors (the first one was an emergency doc I saw due to my one not working on SUndays. He looked at me for about 12 seconds before prescribing me something random which didn't work in the slightest).

On the other hand, I did spend a few of my brief conscious and mentally competent periods playing around with some random tech on my PC, setting configurations and all. It all seems to be working, and as a result I will likely experiment with it for my next game review - instead of text and pictures, it will be video and voiceover.

As for what game it is, I will let you, dear readers, guess until the video arrives on the intertubes, to grace your screens and likely annoy the crap out of you.

On another note, I took a brief look at Google Plus last week. To be honest, it didn't really hold my attention. It seems fairly clean, but its just another Facebook. I'll be more likely to mess with it once I have more than 2 people I know on it, I suppose. As for completely moving across to it... not likely anytime soon. Again, a lack of people is a major issue. Add to that that I haven't seen it do much different to Facebook (with the notable exception of seemingly properly implemented share restriction).

*shrug*

Balls of Fail

Oh noes, he lives!

The joke is over – 15 years in the making, Duke Nukem Forever has been released. I held little hope that the game would be any good after being in development hell for so long, but I bought the Balls of Steel Edition regardless – figuring that the collectibles would be a nice throwback to my childhood as well as simply being one of the better Collector's Editions I've seen for a game of late. (As an aside, what's with “Collector's Editions” that simply provide an extra weapon and a tin box? There's nothing to collect there!)

It is a functional game, with a beginning and an end. It didn't bug out on me, apart from one time the subtitles and all other on-screen text refused to show me the center of each letter, rendering it quite difficult to read. Annoying, but not game breaking – and all it took was a reload to fix (happily provided by a pipebomb to my face).

I Liked:

• One liners

Occasionally, when Duke does something interesting (like exploding a pigcop, or interacting with the environment) he will make a one liner. This attempts to bring some character into the game – and to a degree it succeeds. It works some of the time – for example, earlyish in the game there is a sequence where you are offered power armour by a soldier. The power armour is an exact replica of Master Chief's armour (of Halo fame). Duke responds with “Armour is for pussies”, which I found mildly amusing. The problem I find with these is that they are not frequent enough, they get old very quickly (particularly when the same five kill phrases are repeated ad nauseam). A little more variety in these would be great.

• Interaction with some world elements

There are some elements in the world you can interact with. I found this to be nice. For example, you can draw on the whiteboards which have battle plans (probably a bad idea since most people who buy this will just draw genitalia), you can eat the donuts, you can play the pinball machine, etc. This was kind of cool, particularly since you get rewarded for “performing Duke-like actions”, because apparently using the toilet is something that Duke Nukem would do, and others wouldn't (great logic there, 3D Realms). The problem here is that not enough of the world is interactable, so it becomes fairly obvious when an object you can interact with is placed. Compare this with HalfLife 2 – where almost anything is interactable due to the use of a proper physics engine. While not everything is interactable, it feels like the objects in DNF that you can do things with were placed there purely to give you something to do.

I hated:

• It's Halo All Over Again

While it makes fun of Master Chief's need to wear ridiculously heavy armour, the game actually takes a lot from Halo. Even though its on the Unreal Engine, it felt like I was playing the original Halo game again. Only being allowed to hold 2 weapons at a time is a limitation that should not apply to Duke Nukem – particularly since the game just prior allowed him to hold everything all at once. Not to mention the regenerative health/armour (creatively renamed Ego), the jump animation (or lack thereof), and the need to constantly flip your monster truck back over because it handles like shit (and the ability to simply flip the truck effortlessly). Which leads me to...

• The Goddamn Monster Truck Level

This level was terribly designed. It seemed like it was trying to do what HalfLife 2 did with the driving section. However, they couldn't think of anything interesting to do to make Duke stop, to break up the tedium of driving (and the truck doesn't have a gun). Their final solution? To make the vehicle constantly run out of fuel, so you're forced to get out of the car, walk down a hallway or two of death, get a fuel canister, then return to refuel and continue driving. Seriously. Why are they suddenly trying to make Duke realistic? THIS IS NOT RIGHT.

• As Linear as a Line

Normally, I don't have a problem with linear games. They give you a clear goal, occasionally hold some secrets, though also give you the illusion of freedom by scripting interesting events, or placing you in a city where things block your path but you can see beyond. Duke does this to a degree, though it also falls into the JRPG trapping of placing treasure at the end of very short alternate dead end paths. To compare apples to oranges, Final Fantasy 13 is one of the most linear games I've ever played (until you reach the late game, where you are suddenly given a lot of exploration space). Duke Nukem Forever is, to me, more linear than that. Think about that for a few minutes.

• Duke is Suddenly a Wuss

There is a cutscene where the President speaks to Duke through his BatCave like communications center. The President flat-out tells Duke to stay out of it, and that the aliens are there peacefully. This is after power has been shut down to multiple buildings – seemingly by the aliens. Duke remains silent.

There is a cutscene where the President screams at Duke for a few minutes over all the destruction caused during the alien invasion (the President blames Duke for it all). Duke remains silent. This isn't Duke Nukem!

Seeing a trend here? Duke does not speak when he should, and never says anything relevant to the plot – he speaks entirely in quips and one-liners. If your character is going to talk, they should not suddenly get silent when the plot is being moved forward.

• The Guns Feel Weak

The only gun which feels like it could kill anything is the shotgun. The railgun is also quite good, but the other guns feel like they're toys. I can't quite pick why, perhaps their firing sound isn't loud enough, perhaps there's not enough kickback (if any), but it feels like it's impossible to kill anything. Even the explosive weapons feel unsatisfying. The freeze ray is the most pathetically weak weapon I have seen – even though it was ridiculously cool back in Duke3D.

The crux of the problem with this game is outdated design wrapped in current tech, it seems. The game feels like its taken the worst of current games, wrapped it up with Duke's universe, and then been thrown against the wall a few times for good measure. While not completely a mess – I enjoyed the game for the first hour or two – it felt like a chore to finish – and that's exactly the opposite of what a game should be!

To sum it up – if you remove all references to Duke Nukem as a character or a universe from DNF, you get Halo 1. And this is a terrible thing.

I don't blame Gearbox – they just finished what 3D Realms started. The lack of fun in the new Duke Nukem rests entirely on 3D Realms' shoulders. There is hope left for a new Duke game to not suck – if Gearbox can do it right.

Supanova Sydney 2011

Spritza and I in our costumes

Supanova 2011 has come and gone, and it was awesome. There were parts about it which weren't so awesome, and those will be mentioned, but in general it was pretty good. Photos were taken, much geekery was around, and I spent money.

Lots of money.

When Spritza and I arrived at the venue, we found that they had split the attendees up into multiple lines. Two lines for the people who were exchanging their pre-bought tickets for stamps or wristbands (split according to where the ticket was purchased from), a line for people who had their entry stamp/wristband, and a line for the people who hadn't bothered to pre-purchase their tickets. This system worked well enough for before the convention opened, but I can't help but feel it would be fairly overkill once people were getting inside.

After queuing for what seemed like an eternity, we were finally allowed in the building to... wait for it...

To queue again! They opened the building, but only to let people in the first room - which contained a total of one stall, and all the booths for people to get autographs. Of which none were there yet. This was ridiculous! Eventually, they opened the gates blocking the rest of the convention, which caused a minor stampede for the actual convention stalls. Why they didn't open those gates at the advertised time of 10am I'll never know...

Inside there was a plethora of people hawking their goods. Geeky goods, of course. Plenty of generally geeky figures, DVDs, random art prints, and the like were being sold left right and centre. Except for centre, I supopose, because they had put a huge freaking wrestling ring in the middle to accommodate the crappy Australian Wrestlers that noone actually cares about. Well, I say noone cares about them, but when there was a match on the central area got ridiculously packed, making it hard to move and purchase things from the stalls in the area.

Which leads me to the first problem with Nova – space. The convention seems to grow yearly, and they've clearly outgrown the space that The Dome at Olympic Park offers them. It was quite difficult to move around – especially during the aforementioned wrestling matches, but in general it was quite difficult as well. On Sunday it was much easier to move, mainly because there were far fewer people. Hopefully the organisers will see this and move somewhere bigger – or organise the spaces better. 

There were many stalls that were positioned in places that caused massive traffic jams – for example, one particular stall had the guy who was selling the stuff (dressed as Duke Nukem – awesome) on the outside, since his section was a wall with shelves of stuff. Every time I went past that section, there was a massive traffic jam due to people checking out the wares and buying things. While it took no more space than the stalls that actually had desks and people behind them, it seemed kind of out of place, and more difficult to maneuver past, since generally the desk ones had a defined area where you could tell if someone had stopped to look and spend money, or were just passing by.

As per usual, the cosplay was quite good. I didn't get a chance to watch either of the competitions, but simply walking around you get a good idea of what was there – as well as being part of the cosplay chess game! There were multiple Minecraft creepers walking around, Captain Falcon, Hercule (who I'm sure was the same guy as Hercule, done on separate days), many, many Miku's (including two male Mikus – one being THE TALLIS OHMYGODNO), a few Haruhis, etc.

This is the tamest Tallis I could find. I refuse to look at the others.

Of course, I spent a lot of money, though this convention holds the distinction of being the con I have spent the most money at in a single event. I won't go into details of how much I spent (it was much more than I expected to, but not more than I took with me), though the loot I got was incredible. This includes the Shiva Bike figure I've been eyeing for over a year!

On a related note, while shopping for things, there were some kinds looking at the stalls – as you get at these events. There was a stall with a bunch of phone straps of nicely geeky things – anime characters, game characters, weapons, etc. These kids saw a particular phone strap, and immediately dismissed it with “Ergh its just a Minecraft block, why would you buy that?” This “Minecraft block” was the POW! Block from Mario. These children have clearly not been educated properly. I blame the parents.

Pictured: NOT a Minecraft block

Also, as you can see, the costumes turned out awesomely. Admittedly there was a minor disaster on Sunday – I knelt to get into my bag, and at that moment, the crotch of my pants ripped. I hid myself in my cape until an emergency sewing kit could be borrowed, then headed off to the restrooms to stitch myself back together. Imagine my dismay and panic when I opened this kit to find there was no needle! In the end, I simply pinned it closed and went the day constantly checking myself to make sure I hadn't come apart. This had happened in the line in the morning before we got in – quite funny in retrospect!

Obligatory loot photo!

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

For some reason, being a gamer in Australia is terrible. We rarely get our game releases on time (though game companies are getting better with this - and in some cases we beat America to the punch). We get anything that has anything remotely controversial banned (well, refused classification which is effectively the same), and there are plenty of games which flat out never get released over here - leaving me with little option but to import.

Let's start with the most angernating one - banned games for stupid reasons. Or at the very least, inconsistent reasons. The most recent and stupid one is a (apparently) temporary ban of Dead Or Alive: Dimensions for the Nintendo 3DS. This is a fighting game with no blood or gore, from a successful series which has had no trouble having games released here before, so why now?
Well, according to our politicians, it contains child porn. I shit you not.
And what causes this concern? Well, 3 characters are under 18. This, in itself does not make child porn, not even our pollies are that stupid, right?
No, the game has a photography mode, where you can look at the characters in various outfits and poses. And you are able to look up the skirts/dresses of said underage female characters. Apparently, this constitutes child porn. Note that these same characters were wearing string bikini's (which leave nothing to the imagination) and pole dancing in Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball. Yet somehow, the ability to see up their skirts in a photo mode is too far. Not just a stupid ban, but inconsistent with itself.

This is not the first time the ratings board has refused to classify a game for stupid reasons entirely inconsistent with itself. Fallout 3 had a large issue in Australia with the fact that the health kits were called "Morphine" - apparently having a positive effect from a drug is a bad thing. Because, you know, morphine is such a bad drug. In the end, to avoid arguing with stupid people, the devs renamed it to Stimpacks. For everyone in the world. Australia's dumn politicians caused the game to be changed for everyone. While it is a tiny and inconsequential change, the implications are huge.
Not to mention that they were fine with Bioshock showing a graphical representation of your character constantly shooting himself up with a  mystery liquid, which enabled the player to shoot lightning from his hands (among other things). I don't know about you, but the ability to fire lightning at will as a result of using a drug seems like a positive effect from a drug!

Random mystery drug - more legal than morphine apparently

Mortal Kombat (the recent edition) was flat out banned due to violence. I imported the game (at risk of it being seized at the border and a fine of up to $110 000 - I shit you not), and found the exact reason why it was banned in Australia. It is an extremely brutal game, full of decapitations, bone breaking and evisceration.
I seem to recall there being no difficulties with Splatterhouse (again, the recent edition) being released in Australia. That game, while I have not played it, also seems super brutal. Some of the videos I saw of it showed some utterly disgusting things!

This is, of course, largely caused by our lack of R18+ rating for games - something which we have been working towards, but seemingly making no progress in. I'm not going to talk more about this issue since it gets political and I hate politics.

Another issue with gaming in Australia is the price markup. Look on any game shop on America. The typical price of a new release is $50 - $60 US. We have a strong Australian dollar at the moment, the last I checked it was worth more than the US. So why do we consider $80 cheap for a new release? I can understand the GST affecting it, but that's 10%. Last I checked, $80 is not 10% more than $50. I see no reason to not import every game that I want, apart from the instant gratification, preowned cheapness, and region encoding (which is becoming less of a problem).

Add to this the host of games that are never released here. For example, I have NEVER seen a Persona game in the shops in Australia. A friend of mine did find a couple, and when I mentioned that they are supposedly good, he snapped them up. However, to this day, I still haven't seen one in the shops here. Not to mention that by all accounts via Internet searching, Catherine, a game I'm looking forward to, does not seem to have any data related to a local release. Another game that I'll have to import (and will do so happily - it'd be cheaper like that anyway).

Yes, it's a strange cover. It's a strange game.

This aside, they won't stop me from gaming. It's what I do!

On a related note, my Backloggery page has been set up, and is in full swing showing off the 300 or so games I have yet to finish. I really didn't realise it was as bad as it is until I filled them out. Take a look if you wish, my backlog link now takes you to that page.
Even better, create your own account and friend me on it! We can compare lists :P

Hail to the King, Baby

Apparently, Duke Nukem Forever was released. I'm still in doubt over its existence, even though I bought the game (the Balls of Steel edition, of course) and have some of the goodies sitting in front of me as I write this.

I maintain that this game, and the package that I paid for are the culmination of the most elaborate and longest-running troll in the history of the Internet. I will continue to believe this until I am sitting at my PC on Monday (public holiday woo!) playing the game for myself. No matter how many screenshots, trailers and player accounts I see, watch and hear respectively.

And if it is a troll, well at least I got some cool goodies out of it. Not worth the price of admission, but still cool stuff. Photos of this stuff follow.

Look at all that stuff!

Apparently its real. Note that the Duke signed it

Deck of cards, dice, two poker chips. Only two chips? How am I supposed to play poker with just two chips?

 

 

Postcards. Duke's been in space!

Bust of the Duke. Yes, that says Carpe Nukem

E3 Impressions

As any gamer with even a passing interest in keeping up with new games would know, E3 is this week, and the main press conferences have all finished. And so, I will post my impressions of what I've seen. What impressed me, what was meh, and what made me utterly rage and want to throw things at people.

Let's start (much like the big 3 did) with Microsoft. While I did not catch any of their press conference yet (I plan on watching some of the trailers and things when I get a chance), I did read the cliffnotes. It seems that they brought a lot of "meh" to the table this year, as well as a lot of Kinect. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about the Kinect. There's no question that it is impressive technology, and I do want to have a play with it. However, my wanting to have a play with it stems more through development tendencies, rather than finding any games that I want to play on it!
Microsoft have, of course, unleashed information about the first thing that made me rage. The promise of four more Halo games. One being simply a remastering of the original, which I can deal with. The first Halo game was decent. However, from there it began a decent in mediocrity punctuated by the fact that the game didn't actually change at all from there, with the exception of pretty graphics. The announcement that there is going to be a new Halo trilogy, while not altogether unexpected (it did, after all, make extraordinarily stupid amounts of money for Microsoft and Bungie) it also did not assure me in the slightest that it would be trying anything new either.

The Vita. I want one so, so badly

Sony released some interesting information. I only caught bits and pieces of their press release, so there is probably a lot I've missed, but what really caught my eye is the Playstation Vita. This would be the NGP (Next Generation Portable) that they have been talking about. It looks just like a PSP with a second thumb stick, no UMD drive (it reportedly uses flash cartridges for games), and a touch pad on the back of the console.
I have been asked repeatedly why a touch screen on the back. I can wholeheartedly answer this question with a "Why the hell would I know? Do I work for Sony all of a sudden?" I would assume that this is for things like noncritical functions. The guy demoing the latest iteration of Modnation Racers demonstrated this to great effect when he used it to raise and lower terrain surrounding the track, in the track creation mode. It was also quite quick to load and test the new track he created, which I liked.
By far, the thing I liked the most about Vita is its connectivity. It connects to a Sony PSN cloud, allowing someone playing games on the Vita to play multiplayer with people who are on the PS3. And not just in the same room or anything - this works via wifi and 3g as well! Aside from this, the fact that you can stop playing a game on the Vita and load up from exactly where you were up to on the PS3 was also quite awesome. They demonstrated this using some random action-rpg, which I cannot recall the title of.
That said, when they showed Street Fighter X Tekken I began to rage. Not because I dislike Street Fighter or Tekken - I quite like them. No, the problem is that they've decided to do another one of those stupid bad cameos I raged about on Monday - this time adding the guy from Infamous to the game. Why would you do that? It wasn't necessary! It's not even cool! It's a game based almost entirely on cameos (being a crossover title and all), so why add more. He doesn't fit into either universe!

The Wii U

Nintendo talked a LOT about the 3DS. I was excited about the new Kid Icarus game, until it was revealed to be on the 3DS. I have posted at length already about how 3D is retarded and should be set on fire, so I won't bother repeating this.
What was interesting was the Wii U - the new console. Sporting a controller that seems to me a cross of the Playstation Vita, the Wiimote and an iPad, it promises to retain the accessibility for the "casual gamer" peon hordes, as well as provide depth for the hardcore gamers. I consider myself to be far far beyond the casual gamer, so a little added depth fron Nintendo is exactly what I wanted.
As for how I like the new console... I'm very undecided. They were able to do some interesting things with the demo, for example someone changing channel on the TV, and the game being simply moved onto the controller is a great addition. The AR meets Wiimote functionality seemed kind of interesting too, though it has to be done well. I plan on trading in my Wii for the Wii U, if only for the HDMI input (with my TV-less monitor-centric setup, it makes the Wii much easier / more appealing to use) to use in conjunction with the backwards compatibility.
When it comes down to it, the fate of the Wii U is in the developer's hands. If they do good thigns with it, then it will fit in quite well to my gaming collection. If not, then it'll be an expensive paperweight.

On another note, its The Legend of Zelda's 25th anniversary this year. To celebrate, they're doing a world orchestral tour for the music of Zelda.
Also, the insane people who bought a 3DS can get a free AR based Pokedex. This was really cool, but completely inaccessible to people who are like me and can't actually look at 3D without their brain haemorrhaging.

As for game trailers, I finally caught up with Devil May Cry. The new Dante design is epic fail on every level, though the game itself looks to be as much demon-annihilating fun as it's always been (except for DMC 2). Final Fantasy XIII-2 confuses me with its lack of most of the main party, and focusing on Serah and newcomer Noel (which will anger me GREATLY if they try to hamshoe in a love subplot between Serah and Noel, since she was engaged to Snow for the entirety of the first one - the ending even including the line "we've got a wedding to plan!"). I could care less that Hope disappeared, but Snow and Sazh need to reappear!

Game Cameos

Game developers and publishers occasionally do funny things, in an attempt to sell more copies of their game and make money. Sometimes they are ridiculous marketing campaigns, promising things that never arrive in the completed product (the original Assassin's Creed, anything Peter Molyneux is involved with). Sometimes they make extra little games to draw attention (Bulletstorm with Duty Calls), or just draw attention to odd things ("Duke Nukem has been in production for around 12 years, but its coming out! Quick, buy it!").

And sometimes, they insert random character cameos. Oh noes...

A cameo can either work really well as an added little bonus to the game. It can also fall flat on its face, making it seem like a stupid little cash in - or even worse, completely breaking a game and rendering it unplayable.

The "Tales of" RPG series does good cameos. They tend to have characters from other games in the series feature as a special optional boss in the coliseum. This works well because it completely does not intrude upon the game - they have nothing to do with the main plot. Indeed, you could miss the cameo entirely if you do not fight much in the coliseum (there's only one coliseum battle required in Tales of Symphonia. I do not know about the other titles). Once the battle is over, those characters disappear and never appear again. A true cameo role.

Viewtiful Joe also does a decent cameo. You play the entire game through, and unlock Dante, from Devil May Cry, as an alternate character to play as. He has nothing to do with the storyline as it stands regularly (as far as I can recall, anyway), and is completely optional, fun extra.

I have no problems with these cameos. The problem arises when the cameos become stupid, and adversely affect the game.

The single biggest example of this is Soul Calibur 4. It is quite an entertaining game, until you bring Star Wars characters into the mix! Soul Calibur is a sword fighting game with a medieval age type setting. Swords, armour, staves, etc clash in an all out slashfest. Quite entertaining.

So why the HELL did Namco decide to do a deal with George Lucas' people, and add in Darth Vader, Yoda, and the apprentice from The Force Unleashed? These characters affect the game badly in a few ways:
# They have an extra game mechanic which applies only to them - the Force. They have an extra meter as a result.
# They get in the way of random character selection - I like to do the random character selection, but I sure as hell don't want to be playing as Yoda when I do!
# Yoda is both useless, and gamebreaking. If you learn how to use Yoda half-decently, you're essentially immortal because HE IS TOO SHORT TO BE HIT WITH A REGULAR HORIZONTAL ATTACK. They seemingly tried to mitigate this by making every movement of his involve jumping around like a monkey, but seriously this is as bad as Dr B in Tekken 3!
# The Apprentice throws lightning. Nowhere else in the game do I recall seeing a projectile attack.
# Star Wars + medieval fantasy = fail.

Another example of where a cameo didn't make me very happy is the recently released (and banned) Mortal Kombat on the PS3. Kratos from God of War appears in it. At least this time the universe crossover works - Kratos is exactly the kind of guy who belongs in Mortal Kombat, due to the brutality of both their universes. However, I played a few levels as him, and it wasn't executed well at all. In a (mostly) unarmed fighting game, he permanently has weapons. Also, he only seems to have one voice acted line, simply lifted from one of the GoW games.

Seriously devs, if you're going to include a cameo in your game, think it through. Make it an Easter Egg, or a hidden secret that isn't a fundamental part of the game.