Dead Space 2: Concluded

It's funny how often a power failure in a vast city on another planet is fixed by dismembering 3 alien creatures isn't it. Dead Space 2 doesn't often toe the line where videogame clichés are concerned, however this is the most glaring case.

In this Dead Space, at least we get to see more of Isaac Clark this time, he talks, he goes insane, he's still stooped over like an arthritic old man. Visceral use the fact that Isaac is going insane to good effect by making sure the player is never sure what's real or what's imagined. When Isaac returns to the Ishamura, the bloody thing is always whispering in his ear but, as the player, you are never sure when there's a creature behind the whispering. As a result of this the player is always kept on their toes, never sure when to relax or when one of those spindly creatures will come running at him.

Visceral clearly take a lot of pride in their presentation, this sequel has a very slick UI and similar to the previous release very sparse in-game HUD, with most of the information the player needs being placed in the world, although where it fails is for health and ammo. There's no way of telling (that I can see) if Isaac has any health packs, and if so which size they are without going into the inventory which can be dangerous if there are enemies nearby. Given the ease of use of stasis recharge packs (a light blinks when the player has a recharge pack in his inventory) it seems a bit of an oversight.

It's a scary game, but for me too much of the Wes-Craven-something-pops-out-and-makes-you-jump type of horror, not enough of the spooky psychological stuff. The game does suffer from repetition in the scare gags - never go in a lift in a space city, something is bound to pop out and make you jump.

It's an example in excellent environmental storytelling, without the need to resort to cutscenes every ten minutes. When the action is halted for a cutscene, they are generally incorporated very well into the level. Dead Space 2 suffers from very linear level design, but it's broken up by a few open spaces and hidden by the excellent presentation and visuals.

Unfortunately the ending lets the game down as a package. The final encounter is designed to take use of a particular weapon, unfortunately I never used this one weapon throughout the game so had to backtrack to find one and improve it before I could complete the level.

In short, if the future of humanity leads us to space colonies then I don't like it, and don't think I'll take part thank you.

Dead Rising 2: Concluded

Have we reached the peak of the zombie meme yet? This recently released game trailer makes me think not, however with the release of Left 4 Dead 2 and now Dead Rising 2 surely there's nothing more to offer.

I get the distinct feeling whilst playing Dead Rising 2 that it's a game of two parts. One part player against zombies, the other player versus humans. If only the part against the humans was better, this game would be excellent.

The player plays the role of moto cross star Chuck Green and is tasked with rescuing the survivors (including his daughter) of a zombie apocalypse in Las Vegas Fortune City, along with trying to get to the bottom of where all these bloody zombies came from in the first place. It uses a third person camera and is set in the malls, shops and casinos of Fortune City.


Fortune City itself is the perfect playground for Chuck to try out his maiming skills, with each and every section the player encounters (bar a few corridors and safe areas) packed to the gills with the undead - indeed Blue Castle are owed plenty of plaudits for their game engine, as rarely does the framerate drop even with (it seems) hundreds of zombies on screen at once. At first the amount of zombies can annoy but once the player begins levelling up, gaining stronger attacks and faster movement skills, the playground comes to life. Combining weapons is another feature, and soon the player is Propeller Hatting and Blambowing his way through the throngs. Using combo weapons not only allows the player to destroy more zombies, but also gives more XP points. The XP/levelling mechanic is one of the main pillars of the game and allows for quite a steep learning curve and the player hardly notices levelling up until they are a one man zombie destroye. This is definitely A Good Thing.

The marketing for the game wasn't great. I'm aware of a DLC title called DR2: Case Zero which was released before this game, and the main game was released without much fanfare. It's presentation is basic and sparse (using that font all japanese game devs use, I must find out its name), and as you'd expect the story and plot loses a bit in translation. The characters are widly over the top, but where the game tries to be funny it succeeds (mainly). The use of a trike and "female massager" stand out.

The game's structure is slightly confusing. The game allows the player time to deviate from the main story without ever explaining which is the more important task until it's too late. I had to restart my game because I didn't have enough time to complete one of the major story tasks - fair enough if I knew this was the case but it was sprung on me. Not good.

On to Chuck vs the humans. Scattered throughout Fortune City are a number of boss, or psychopath challenges. The story is that these survivors have lost it and gone mental, and Chuck has to kill them. The bosses take some time to take down, but it's not explained where this super human stamina from. Some of them are good, enjoyable even, however in the main they annoy as there are so many of them and the encounter often overlaps with another story part, or zombies get in the way.

So yes, despite its faults Dead Rising 2 is good, great even. I fancy playing through it again since you keep your XP levels for another run through. Should be fun.

Reboot

I know it's been a long time time since the blog was updated, but I've been busy with stuff on the internet mastering a game and mastering (hopefully) raising a minor.

I'm still playing games, so I'll be updating a bit more regularly. Oh, and I hope you like the new look. It's a template!

Uncharted: Drakes Fortune: Concluded

The biggest problem with growing up with the Indiana Jones movies is that every experience that presents itself as ‘Indiana Jones-like’ is bound to be a letdown. Movies and games that try to reproduce the Indy experience very rarely hit the highs of the movies, so Uncharted was a pleasant surprise.

Everything feels right in Uncharted, there are very few times that the game experience is ruined by a bug or poorly coded AI behaviour. I’ve done a bit of research into Naughty Dog’s impressive production techniques, well worth a read if you can dig them out – the proof is in the pudding and when such good production techniques yield such a good game, you know they’re doing things right.

If I was being overly critical I’d say the game is around a third too long; Naughty Dog could have ended the game before introducing the cave-dwelling monsters and I’d have been happy. Oh, and the very end of the game is amazingly frustrating – without spoiling it for the few that might not yet have played it, the end sequence takes the mechanics you’ve been using throughout the last 8 or 9 hours and pops them straight in the bin, to introduce a new way of doing things right before the game ends.

Uncharted is a real boys-own adventure game, it’s polished to a high standard and a great introduction to the franchise. Roll on Uncharted 2!

PS3

You may or may not have noticed a few PS3 games have crept onto the playlist. That's right, I'm the proud owner of a shiny 250gb PS3 slim. After buying a used PS3 from ebay, it turning up broken, and the nightmare of having to return it for a refund, I decided to trade in a few old games to get myself this new one.

Ghostbusters: Concluded

Since the baby came along I've found less and less time to play games, which isn't ideal because a) the more games I play, the better I become at my job, and b) I still love playing games. Balancing time between games, work, and home is becoming increasingly difficult. But then Ghostbusters came along.

Let me begin by saying that I've been waiting what feels like my whole life for this game. Ghostbusters is a constant in my life. Other favourite films come and go (The Big Lebowski, Aliens ... I could go on), but I can put Ghostbusters on at any time, in any mood, and I'll love it like I loved it as a youngster watching at the Curzon cinema in Manchester, my mum telling me to cover my eyes before the librarian ghost flies at the camera. My expectations couldn't have been higher.

Ghostbusters fans have been harshly treated over the years. I have hazy recollections of an old plaform game (probably on the Amiga) disappointing me, but other than that Ghostbusters games have been thin on the ground. Zootfly released footage a few years ago that peaked attention, but that game appeared to die after the news broke that there was no official license. Shame as the footage looked excellent.

Fast forward to 2009, and after a few years in development Ghostbusters: The Videogame is released by Terminal Reality, a developer few people had previously heard of. Due to some complicated legal wrangling between Sony, Atari and Activision the game has a staggered release, meaning I have to pay over the odds for an American import version which works on PAL 360s.

Anyway, enough of the history lesson: my thoughts.

Ghostbusters: The Videogame is as good as Terminal Reality, or anyone else, could have made. It's very difficult to see how they could have made anything different, given the source material: it ticks all the boxes but feels a little sterile.

The bad:

Lip sync is terrible, the characters seem intent on showing that they have teeth.
The PKE image capture mechanic feels very tacked on, as if someone in Production decided the game needs something else, so they throw in the equivalent of a digital camera and expect the player to photograph every ghost, even in the heat of battle.

The game design is very old school. Expect locked doors and invisible walls.

AI is not so good either, expect huge gameplay pauses while you wait for them to do what their supposed to do, and for them to stare blankly until you do your thing. Peeking behind the curtain indeed.

The setting is a strange one. Obviously to get the best effect the game had to be set close after the end of the second movie (which would place it in the early 90s), however all the actors are now in their 60's, and sound like it. This gives quite the juxtaposition when you see the fresh young face of Egon Spengler on screen, but hear the voice of the 65 year old Harold Ramis.

Talking of the voices, Bill Murray could not sound less interested. I think he rang in his lines on a mobile phone from the bath. Sounds like it.

Overall it gives a decent spooky experience, with a few high points (sta puft is brilliant), but I'm afraid I'm going to have to end this with a terrible cliche: if you're a fan of Ghostbusters you'll love it, if not you'll think it an average videogame. As I've explained I'm a fan, so back off man, I'm a scientist.

The Path: Concluded

At it's heart, The Path is an adventure game that breaks design tradition by tempting the player away from the most obvious correct route. The player plays one of several red riding hoods, and the game presents the player with a path through the forest with a house at the end where Grandma awaits.

Rather unfairly, the player fails if they go straight to the house. The aim is to explore the forest away from the path, learning more about each character and the forest itself.

Audio cues and ghostly images populate the forest and give it a deeply unsettling atmosphere, giving The Path very much a feeling of the Blair Witch Project.

The presentation is consciously arty, a trick which can impress if used correctly but I'm not sure it works here. Art for arts sake? Maybe. The game would feel exactly the same were it to have a standard front end and in-game UI.

Now we come to completely unfair arbitrary death that the player will suffer many times. I still don't know how to avoid these (which seem to crop up with most forest encounters), however I understand that it's a mechanic to further the story. There's nothing worse in a game to fail and not know why, because it's impossible to learn from such encounters.

Is The Path important like Jason Rohr's work, Braid, or Ico? I don't have the answers, go ask Roger Ebert.