Play My Cards Right

I had a chance to play the Dark Void demo that was released online this week.  I’ve had my eye on this game since it was announced- it’s being developed by Airtight Games, the remnants of the team behind the awesome Crimson Skies; Capcom publishing meant that there would probably be a focus on fast paced, arcadey action; the setting seems pretty great- The Bermuda Triangle, the Rocketeer and Nikola Tesla all coming together for awesome aerial combat and RE4 style over-the-shoulder running and gunning.  Ultimately it didn’t disappoint, but there were a few problems.

The robotic enemy soldiers were mostly a breeze to fight, but the targeting seemed a bit off.  A lot of people complained about the fact that you can use you’re rocket pack while your on the ground- if you hit the wrong button you’ll rocket yourself right into a ceiling and die instantly.  That sells the reality of the situation to me, and added a bit of tension to the gameplay.

The flight controls in combat took a little bit of getting used to but once I did it was enjoyable enough- very few games seem to really convey the feeling of exhilaration one would hope to find in flight.  It reminded me of Star Wars: Starfighter actually, which isn’t in any way a condemnation, but that is certainly not the game you think of when you think edge-of-your-seat aerial combat.

The main character is yet another everyman in the Nathan Drake vein, and is in fact voiced by everyman actor extraordinaire Nolan North.  At this point it’s becoming a bit of a joke.

Also of note: Capcom is definitely playing on the nostalgic retro love that is bringing the aging gaming demographic to their games lately. They’re releasing a 2d retro platform version of the game that’s being pitched as the original game that this was based on.  Very cute, the game itself looks like it might play like NES era Capcom games Strider (not the arcade version) or Bionic Commando.  Bear McCreary, the composer of the “real” Dark Void, even pitches in a chip-tune version of the games’ soundtrack.

McCreary’s bombastic score is worth mentioning.  I’ve always thought of him as a bit of a one trick pony- the music he did for Battlestar Galactica seemed a bit of a happy accident.  I was not surprised at all to find that a lot of the over the top, rhythmic bombast that made BSG so memorable is here and distinctive not in that it differentiates itself from his previous work (it doesn’t) but that it really doesn’t sound like other game scores out there.

Finally, this demo was incredibly short.  Nothing more to say there, just goddamned short.  Based on the demo alone, I can’t say whether this game is really going to stand out amidst the crop of now-gen games that are hitting in 2010, but it hits a lot of the right notes for me personally.   Now if only it weren’t coming out a week before Mass Effect 2.

A few random thoughts about Uncharted 2:

I still can’t invest myself in multiplayer gaming.

I love games that tell big, rollercoastery stories, but sometimes they still try too hard to be movies.  U2 definitely fails here.  Despite its excellent acting and set pieces, many levels feel absolutely out of place because they are simply so gamey:

Very few of the puzzles in temples and caves make any kind of geographical sense.  They look as though they were designed by game designers rather than, I don’t know, ancient monks.  Paths that get you through levels are frequently portrayed as improvised yet they appear to be the only path ever available to a person on the sacred quest for the Cintamani Stone.

The amount of killing Drake has to do is eventually insane, and at the very least the game recognizes that maybe there really isn’t much difference between Drake and his adversary, who treats Drake as the only real threat he faces in the game.

Of course it’s a game, but I’ve played games that relish the fact that they are games yet were able to keep me interested through narrative.  See my old standby Beyond Good and Evil for what exactly I’m talking about.

Claudia Black.

This:

Shiny

Finally, I think I experienced this game quite differently because I took my time with it.  A lot of people played through it so quickly I don’t think they realized how repetitive some of the shooting battles were.  I had lost quite a bit of momentum by the time I reached the end of the game, but this was with a week or so in between sessions at times.

From the Archives:
(I started writing this in May of 2009 but never really finished it.  I’m posting it just to get it out of my system)

I’ve been playing Chrono Trigger on my DS of late; RPGs are really suited to the platform as you can take it practically anywhere.  It’s perfect for the bus, couch, bedtime etc., and most of the DS versions make it very simple to quickly save and shut off.

The game has been great so far- there seems to be a joy in the characters that has been lost in the Final Fantasy games.  Dragon Quest had a bit of this too- it just doesn’t take itself so seriously, even though there is a lot on the line.  The picture below says it all to me: A frog, a robot, a cavewoman, a princess, a swordsman, one of the games villains and a mechanic, sitting by a fire in the woods.  The art is so simple but it speaks so much to the care that was taken in the creation:The shortcuts the game takes speak of its pedigree as an RPG made relatively late into the 8 and 16-bit generation:  You aren’t subjected too much into how it is that your hero (Chrono) is an expert fighter- you’re given a cursory explanation and sent on our way.  The game is filled with little sidequests and even a rudimentary system of consequences based on the choices you make.  I wonder how many games from 1995 had as many endings as this does?

The game’s art is fine- simple Torayama stuff that only really bugs me during the Dragonball-esque cinematics.  People drool over the music but most of it isn’t nearly as memorable as your typical Final Fantasy theme, or even the glorious Valkyria Chronicles soundtrack.

I won’t get into the fighting mechanics as I know others can (and have) do it better, but it is fun enough that grinding isn’t a chore, and it is a real relief after the archaic system of Dragon Quest IV, which I also recently played.

My biggest beef with this game is also probably a hallmark of JRPGs, and one that people probably laud them for:  At a certain point, the game opens up and you are basically allowed to go and do as you please.  You have a vehicle that takes you anywhere on the various world maps (even across 65 millions years).  The problem is- and I concede that this may be just me and my reluctance to buy a hint book and/or not be smart enough to carry on is that at this point your direction is generally left relatively vague.  You are told you must do something, but not specifically where or how to do it, and from there, you have to determine just how you are to get it done.  I think the problem isn’t that the world becomes “open” so much as it is there is usually a single specific thing that must be done, and you are somehow supposed to intuit what the games creators want you to do, rather than actually figure out a way of accomplishing it through your own means.

I think I’m pretty close to the end, so I’m going to try to see it through, but at this point, I’m ready to sell it off, even though I do want to find out how it all ends.

Update:

So it turns out that mostly I just wasn’t paying enough attention.  The world does open up at the end but you’re given the choice of going right to the final boss or running around the world and completing a bunch of sidequests.  The relative openness of an RPG like this speaks to the medium- at the time it was made, text and pixel art were the state of the art and could be used in such a way that a game could be huge without demanding a huge amount of resources.  Contrast that to today’s Final Fantasy XIII- the cost of building a full HD 3d engine, photorealistic CG cutscenes, full voice acting (with a large cast) in Japanese and English (and likely other languages as well) for every line of dialog and games like this quickly become untennable to all but the biggest studios.  In this case Square Enix and the five+ years it has taken to develop FFXIII. And at the end of the day you are probably given less choice in FFXIII than in a game that came out in 1995, just a linear story.

Chrono Trigger plays with time, and as such, you can make a lot of choices that have repercussions in later eras of the game.  The producers obviously worked really hard to lay it all out, and it pays off.  Seemingly insignificant choices made in parts of the game bubble out into the future to surprising effect.  I may not see all 16(!) endings without going to YouTube to watch them, but just knowing they’re there is enough for me to appreciate this game even more.

I’ve been working on a long post about how much I love Chrono Trigger, but in the mean time, this is where I am- stuck and tired of playing it.

I found this at a yard sale over the weekend. A Japanese Sega Saturn. The missing link between the Genesis and the Dreamcast, and largely considered a massive failure on all counts. It was $5 so I couldn’t say no, but what to do with it?

It only plays Japanese games, and while I’ve read that the voltage differences between Japanese and American electronics are minute enough to get it to power on if I plug it in, doing so may shorten the lifespan of the device.

Ebay gold, perhaps?

The stfun00b submission for the February 2008 54 Hour Movie Project.   The third in a series investigating the ecstacy of repetition.

Music by Manuel Gottsching

Decided to try and beat my cold to death by going for a run this afternoon, and kill a second bird with said stone by going to the Edgewood Town Center Gamestop to pick up a copy of MGS 3: Subsistence. Literally the worst retail experience I have ever hard.

I tried to embed a google map of it but it didn’t work.  Anyway- 3.4 miles there and back.  Not a huge distance but I would have made it in about 35 minutes had the turds at Gamestop not slowed me down.

I haven’t been posting regularly for some time. Since January things have been moving very quickly and I’ve had a hard time collecting mental things to place here. I feel like all I would be able to write is various complaints and gripes, which is boring, so I have refrained. Things will likely continue like this until after the reception, we’ll see.

If you’re interested, I’m working on Luke and Dawn.com, which is currently a repository of information about the reception, but will eventually become some kind of day in the married life sort of thing.

Also in the last month I completed ripping my cd collection to itunes for ratings, iPodding and playing through the old XBMC. It took about 4 months, and my itunes library is now comprised of 1148 albums, about 75% of it is from my cds. I have not ripped my vinyl, and I doubt I will- at least for the time being. I was thinking about doing a music and voice podcast, but probably won’t.