I'm a Developer at Master of Malt, a University of Brighton graduate, a 1st Kyu in Kyokushinkai Karate, a video gamer and technology enthusiast. Read more about me over here.
Despite being rather late to the party I really enjoyed the Assassin's Creed series to date, demonstrated by how I played them all at the start of last year back to back. Sure the first one was as repetitive as peeling potatoes and more of a tech demo than a game, but the story was unique and surprising and the core gameplay of exploring a city from the streets and the rooftops and assassinating enemies of the creed was incredibly satisfying. So it was with great disappointment that I discovered the latest entry in the series wasn't up to snuff having finally caught up with everyone else.
Assassin's Creed: Revelations clearly suffers from the law of diminishing returns. Despite feeling like games that have taken several years to develop, Ubisoft have been shitting these out every year since 2008 like they have erratic diarrhea and it's finally starting to show on their pants.
Sure the core experience is still there and I love it, but everything new feels as ill thought out as claiming to have fallen into a life boat. For those who hated playing Desmond you will be glad to hear you will be doing no more of that tomfoolery, but unfortunately it's been replaced with first person flash back sequences which have you completing deficient block puzzles that wouldn't entertain a three year old.
Even returning features feel completely soulless. In Brotherhood burning the Borgia towers made sense for the story, but in Revelations these locations exist without any context. In the same vein you can buy and restore every bank, shop and cake establishment in the city and I will because I have OCD, but there is absolutely no explanation as to why you are doing it and there is almost no real benefit for doing so.
To introduce unnecessary complexity, assassin dens can come under attack and be re-taken. To defend them you must participate in another oddball addition, a tower defence mini-game which isn't terrible, but doesn't hit it out of the park either. Just about every side task to the main quest seems out of place in Revelations, like it was simply included because it had debuted in a previous title.
Perhaps the worst offence of Revelations is in the title, as it provides no real revelations. We get some nice inception action as Desmond views the end of Ezio's adventure, who views the end of Altair's tale, but none of this moves the overarching story forward.
The fact Desmond is unconscious for the entire game should give you the hint that this is the game in there series to skip. Revelation's is still a fun game, but it is in no way the must play experience of its predecessors. Let's just hope Ubisoft realises that they need a change of trousers before it runs the series into the ground.
We conclude this series of posts on games I played in 2011 (part one can be found here and part two over here respectively) with the ones I truly didn't enjoy. These are not only the games I didn't complete, but the ones I officially quit playing because of the reasons listed below.
2011 in Gaming: Gave Up:
Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii) - I love Kirby and Epic Yarn is one of the darn cutest titles on the Wii. The way you can manipulate the yarn world is just ingenious and the things Kirby can transform himself into are adorable and awesome, but this game sucks. It's depressingly easy, there is almost no way to loose and local co-op is down right boring.
L.A. Noire (PS3) - L.A. Noire is critically acclaimed as a classic adventure game disguised as an open world GTA detective game, with amazing facial animation and voice acting. I was really into this game initially, but I soon realised how simple the "choices" were and got bored by how repetitive the game quickly became a few cases in. A brilliant idea, poorly executed. I ranted about this quite a bit on the latest episode of Downloadable Content.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3) - The Uncharted series is extremely popular, and I was hoping to jump into it after finally getting a PS3 similar to how I marathoned Assassin's Creed, however the excellent voice acting and incredible graphics weren't enough to convince me to finish this incredibly poor third person shooter. The enemies soak bullets, the controls are awful and the the fights unnecessarily long. I'm told the sequel is excellent so I'm going to give the series another go.
Kinect Sports / Kinect Adventures (360) - I don't own a Kinect, but I did play with one. Kinect is a gimmick, it doesn't work very well, and these mini games aren't very enjoyable.
Crysis 2 (360) - I'm told this is a high-quality shooter, but I just never got into it. Just one of those "not for me" titles I suspect.
Continuing from yesterdays post, here are the games that didn't make it. The journeys I didn't complete, both new and old. A lot of loooong games on this list. Hopefully I can knock more than a few of these out in the next year.
2011 in Gaming: Backlog / Uncompleted
Dragon Age: Origins (360) - A 2009 game on the backlog that I briefly tried to get into, Dragon Age is an old school dark fantasy RPG with branching dialogue trees and plot points that change dramatically based on your choice of character and party members. I just need a lot more free time.
Bastion (360) - Wonderfully whimsical, Bastion is a top down role-playing action game that leads you through a stunningly beautiful world. The soundtrack is one of the best this year and the narrator reacting to your every action provides an incredible amount of depth to this experience.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (360) - One of those games I got distracted from near the end of the year and need to go back to, Deus Ex is an action packed first-person shooter set in a cyberpunk world that is absolutely worth seeing.
Assassin's Creed: Revelations (PS3) - Possibly the weakest and most unnecessary edition in the Assassin's Creed 2 trilogy, Revalations is showing signs of deterioration in the series' annualisation. The series formula is still a blast, but it's time to move forward.
Tales of Symphonia (GC) - The game I famously lost £40 on because I bet I could beat it before my graduation. I had over a year to do the bet, but classically left it to the last eight days. In the 25+ hours that I played I found a brilliant classic RPG with an addictive combat system and a massive world to explore. The voice acting is up and down, but the story is worth experiencing and I intend to complete this challenge. Eventually...
Chrono Trigger (VC) - 2011 was the year of trying and failing to complete classic RPGs on my backlog. Chrono Trigger is worth including in this list because I made more progress than ever before, reaching the Forest Maze in 65,000,000 BC. It shouldn't need stating, but Chrono Trigger is an incredible JRPG, and one I might still one day complete.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS3) - The seemingly endless battle against dragons and giants is just so big I'm frightened to become committed. I admit to not playing this epic game as much as I should. It's technically flawed in many ways (including a deteriorating frame rate the larger my save file gets), but all should be forgiven because the title screen music is just so bad ass.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (VC) - Another Zelda game I am ashamed to admit to never playing to completion. This also receives acknowledgement on the list because I got further than ever before, reaching the Shadow Temple. Ocarina of Time has suffered greatly due to its age, but it's still an amazing game and worth playing to this day. Just appreciate its age okay?
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii) - The newest edition to the franchise, Skyward Sword continues to add surprises to the classic formula, is beautiful to look at despite being SD and contains the best use of the Wiimote period. This is the Wii's swan song.
I meant to do this last year, but never did. Inspired by Reeve (and originally namatamiku), this is a roundup of all the games I played this year. It will be posted in three parts, providing my thoughts on the games I completed, didn't completed (but intend too) and gave up on. As this is my list I can be as arbitrary as I like, so for qualification I either played it for the first time this year, or completed (or made significant progress in) for the first time. For example, I played the original Zelda years ago, but only completed it in 2011.
This list required some effort, and I probably missed out stuff, so next year I plan to write it as I go. I doubt I will actually do that, but it's nice to be motivational and forward thinking.
From Dust (360) - The spiritual successor of Populous reminds you why it's so much fun to play God, but does little to live up to past greatness. The wonderful way you manipulate the world and it's elements is ruined by a short and simple game with some terrible AI.
Guardian Heroes (360) - A remake of the Sega Saturn classic, Guardian Heroes is a frantic and crazy beat'em up that works wonderfully in co-op over Xbox live. It's ultra short, but packs tones of replayability thanks to its branching story.
Batman: Arkham City (360) - While Arkham Asylum was a revolutionary game with an incredible combat system and fluid narrative, Arkham City is only evolutionary. The "open world" adds little to the experience and the story is nonsense, but the awesome core gameplay from the original is back and mildly improved. On the other hand; Batman.
Sonic Generations (360) - Incredibly short and full of padding, but still the best Sonic game (both 2D and 3D) that we've had in years. The physics and speed are just right, and the level design is excellent. Also, the 30 second time trial mode against friends is a blast.
Gears of War 3 (360) - Campaign-wise, an evolutionary sequel that should be given mad props for actually having the guts to provide a definitive conclusion. The package is also full to the brim with extra content, including a radically improved multiplayer and co-op experience.
Assassin's Creed / AC II / AC: Brotherhood (PS3) - Last Christmas I received a PS3 and played these three back to back to back. It was one hell of a video game binge. Each game radically improves over the last, continuing an epic (if totally nuts) narrative spanning generations. Scaling rooftops and assassinating never gets old and there are many addictive tasks that will feed the completionist. I strongly advise reading the Wikipedia article or watching some YouTube videos to get the gist of the first game however, as the gameplay becomes incredibly reparative and dull after a couple hours.
Portal 2 (PS3) - Without a doubt one of the best games of the year and a must play. From the excellent character development, voice acting and laugh out loud humour, to the perfectly play tested puzzles, the beautiful world and the incredible closing moment, this game has little to no faults. The co-op is also incredible fun.
The Legend of Zelda (VC) - I completed this for the first time this year in anticipation of the new game, and it's still as wonderful as the day it came out. It may seem simplistic in comparison to where future 2D Zelda's would go, but the concept of being dropped into a world with no instruction and setting out on an adventure has never been better executed to this day.
As a kid growing up you were either a Mario guy or a Sonic guy. Sure I loved both game franchises and played each religiously, but when it came to comparing the two Sonic was always my winner. Mario was fat, slow and very Italian. Sonic on the other hand was ultra fast, super cool and definitely not Italian. I had both a Master System and a Mega Drive, all the games, and would get up on Saturday mornings just to watch the cartoons.
Obviously I'm referring to the awesome cartoons...
…and not this.
Thus the general decline of awesome in the Sonic franchise after my childhood was rather upsetting. Every year folk get their hopes up that this would be the good one, only to discover it has a warehog in it, or Sonic kissing children. We fall for this every time. Most recently Sonic 4 promised a return to the series' 2D roots in episodic format, only to provide a single, short episode that had wonky physics and terrible level design.
Which is why the news that Sonic Generations was actually decent blew my mind. On the recommendation of a friend I picked up the game for 360 and was amazed by how good it is. The simple premise of the game is that "unknown dark evil" has gone through time and merged the worlds of classic 2D fat Sonic and svelte, obnoxious 3D Sonic. The nine levels in the game are each inspired by a different Sonic game and each one has two acts, one played in 2D reminiscent of the Mega Drive era and one in 3D like the Dreamcast era.
Remarkably they got both of these right in a single package. The physics for 2D Sonic are spot on, you always have a feeling of speed and it doesn't suffer from bad level design such as bottomless pits just off-screen that kill you because you were going so fast and didn't "know" to jump. The 3D levels are also shockingly good, thanks to the boost button and the homing attack that keep sonic moving. Sonic has always, and should always be about speed. The moment you stop and have to navigate difficult platforming, it all goes to shit, because Sonic is a terrible platformer.
The story around the time zones of two Sonics being merged isn't half bad either, with the short cut scenes between levels including some comedic interactions between the two. Sega even make reference to the stupid change from Robotnik to Eggman, which makes me happy.
Unfortunately its not a perfect package. The boss battles are lousy, and getting to them requires you to do three challenges (of which there are many more optional ones) in the levels you previously completed. None of these challenges are of particular high quality and feel entirely like padding. Similarly, you collect points that can be spent on upgrades for Sonic, which are supposed to add some depth to the game, but they never felt like they were needed. With nine actual levels, each with a 2D and a 3D act, the game felt incredibly short.
The real surprise for me was a mode Sega probably threw in at the last minute with very little thought. The game has a 30 second time trial mode where you try to get the furthest distant you can in each level, which is then recorded on a leader board. Myself and the friend who recommended the game have been viciously competing on this, going back on forth trying to get ever so slightly further in the level. As I said, Sonic is about speed, so constantly trying to better your time, particularly on the 2D levels, is an absolute blast.
So in summary; its very short, but what there is is the best Sonic we've had in years. Also, if someone tries to touch you in a place you don't like, thats no good. Especially if they're Italian.
As you may have heard, the US Supreme Court struck down a proposed California law today that would have made it illegal to sell violent video games to minors. You can read a much deep analysis of the decision over here, but it basically boils down to the government not being allowed to regulate violence in media as it is protected by the first amendment, aka free speech. If this law had been about sexual video games it would have likely passed, as the government does restrict the sale of porn to young minds.
The gaming press and enthusiasts at large are heralding this as a great victory; David defeating Goliath and little ol' video games getting their due. And to be clear, as a gamer I am all for this. As part of the ruling the court noted that there's never been a conclusive link between exposure to violet video games and harmful effects on children, which is great as I think the whole notion of violent games creating violent children is nonsense. My issue, conflicted as it may be, with the parading of this victory is that this may not have been a bad thing.
Don't get me wrong, I am inherently against what this law was proposing. This law wanted to single out violent video games as something that should be restricted from minors, while excluding violent movies, TV shows and music. Now that we all agree that violent video games don't create inhuman monsters that want to eat our brains (the zombie apocalypse will do that), all these forms of media should be treated equally and thus if you want to regulate one you should regulate them all.
Which as it happens is what we do here in the United Kingdom, where apparently we don't have free speech according to todays ruling. In the UK we still have an advisor system that is non-legally binding and rates games similar to the US, however content rated for 15 or 18 year olds is passed onto the same folk who rate films and DVDs; the BBFC. Media rated by the BBFC may not be sold or rented (or watched in a cinema) to anyone younger than the age rating and this restriction is enforced by making it illegal to do so. With the exception of restricting it only to video games, this is the exact thing that was struck down by the US court.
While I haven't had first hand experience ever being denied the purchase of a game (as a kid it was almost always my parents who purchased my games), I did witness a school friend on his fifteenth birthday being denied a 15 rated game. The store even went to the lengths of phoning his mother to confirm his age before they would sell him some crappy Lord of the Rings title. And what has the enforcement of this law done to the games industry in the UK? Has there been child riots perhaps, walkouts in class rooms or maybe GTA didn't sell as well here because kids can't play it? Um, no.
All the restriction have done is put more pressure on parents to make decisions about how they bring up their kids. The biggest argument I've seen against this law has been the idea that its the parents job to decide what their kids should be experiencing at what age, and they are totally right, however in this day and age sometimes that can be difficult. If a kid has some money whose to says they wont try to purchase an extremely violent game behind their parents back? Of course there's the other side of the argument which says parents are stupid and will give their kids GTA even when warned by the store employees that its not suitable for kids, but then it's their decision, not the kids.
Parents can also give their kids knives...
While this is a great victory for the video game industry as a whole, and kicking the notion that violent video games creates violent kids down a deep hole is good, I feel the industry (and gamers) jumped on the concept of regulation as an evil thing without really considering what it actually is and what its effects on the average gamer will be. Which if your anything like me, will be none. Leland Yee, the guy pushing this bill, said today that "the U.S. Supreme Court has decided it's going to side with corporate America and Wal-Mart against our children," and while that comes of as sounding like political bullshit, he might not be far off. The people defending the gamers in this battle were the game publishers, the people who want to sell GTA to twelve year olds. Of course they were against this idea.
Gamers just sided with them without really considering the ramifications. And because they like to blow shit up.
On Monday and Tuesday I had two exams, both three hours in length, involving questions about .NET architecture (three tiers, web services and AJAX) and database theory (transaction processing, object-relational databases, business intelligence and data warehousing). The best part of the whole thing was having to hand write the answers (on this antiquated technology called paper) which has the delightful result of making the exams much more difficult to do for someone (like the kind of person that would take a computing course…) who types all day. It also makes life much more difficult for the examiner, as my hand writing is teeeeerrible. I felt the .NET exam went pretty well, but I left the database one feeling my attempt at answering questions about business intelligence and data warehousing didn't go down so well, so we will have to wait and see what sort of final grade I get.
These exams mark the completion of my university degree. After twelve years in compulsory education, two years at college and four years at university I'm officially out of the education system. A real boy you might say. It's kinda scary to think I won't have to do pointless coursework, listen to lectures about subjects I really don't give a shit about or take exams ever again. At the same time its very awesome the freedom that provides. I'm now completely free to work on the projects I want, as long as I have some sort of income at the same time. I do have to pay of that student loan at some point…
Happening at the same time as my exams was WWDC and E3. Apples announcements at WWDC were interesting, with the improvements in Lion and iOS 5 being very much desired, even if most of the later were lifted from Android, Windows Phone 7, third party apps and jailbreaks. Whatever the source of these ideas, as an iOS user I don't really have any complaints. Companies should always be matching features at the same time as innovating, and much of the feature set of iOS 5 seems designed to remove a lot of the arguments (beyond the whole open debate) Android fan boys have. For me personally, wireless sync, better notifications and tabbed browsing are the primary features I'm excited for. Its also nice to see them finally allow you to set the thing up on the device, as requiring a computer to activate an iPad kinda destroys the whole "post pc" spiel they are trying to sell you.
The iCloud stuff is also interesting, as if nothing else it makes MobileMe free. It also adds universal syncing between your devices, so if I download a song, app or book on one device, it syncs to the others. The same is true for documents made in iWork and photos taken with an iPhone camera, which will automatically sync with iPhoto on my mac. The iTunes portion of it is what everyone is making the biggest deal out of, and they certainly have an interesting offering (for $25 any song in your library will be upgraded to a high quality iTunes version and they will upload anything they don't have), particularly because they are basically providing an amnesty for any pirated music as long as you pay the yearly fee. What sucks is no streaming option, and the fact it wont be coming to the UK any time soon. That makes all three cloud music solutions (Google, Amazon and Apple) US only for now…
Of the E3 presentations, Nintendo was certainly the most interesting. They have Kid Icarus, Luigi's Mansion 2, Star Fox 64, Mario Kart and Super Mario coming to 3DS, which alongside the soon to be released Zelda remake almost makes me want to get a 3DS. Unfortunately the machine is kinda bulky and the battery lasts four hours, so I think I will hold out for a revision, as I was pretty badly burnt by the DS Lite (which came out a couple months after I purchased a DS Phat).
The Wii U announcement obviously gained the most attention and aside from its horrific name the concept is interesting. I played Zelda Four Swords and Crystal Chronicles on GameCube using GBA's and the experience was actually pretty fun, so I can see how the new controller could be used. Its just a shame Nintendo once again opted for a cheap single touch capacitive screen. I think the Wii U will have a pretty successful launch, and will use the fact its in line with current hardware specs to its advantage to get 3rd party support, but I can see problems one or two years in when Sony and Microsoft's next machines are released and leave the Wii U behind. You have to give Nintendo credit though, for once again trying to innovate while Microsoft and Sony are still demoing their wiimote ripoffs. Motion control is so last year dude.
Speaking of Sony, aside from some impressive looking PS3 games (Uncharted 3, Resistance 3, inFamous 2, Dust 514 and Starhawk), multi platform titles (BioShock Infinite) and some terrible move games (NBA on the Move and Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest), their big announcement was the PlayStation Vita, another God awful product name. The Vita looked nice and all and the price point was right for once, but I feel Sony is really making a mistake here. Everything they showed for the PSV was a big, epic, cinematic, console experience on a handheld platform. They sold this exact concept when the PSP was released six years ago and guess what, no one (outside of the Japanese who love monster hunter) play their PSP. Why? Because you can't play epic console experiences on the bus. The end result of this is you play these portable games at home, on a tiny screen, with shitty controls, when your TV and console is sitting right next to you. Some of these games even let you transfer the experience between the console and handheld, which kinda proves my entire point.
Speaking of transferring, perhaps my favourite part of E3 was this video from Konami (starts 35 minutes 10 seconds in)…
The PSP was released before the iPhone and Android devices took over the handheld market. These days if you want a quick, portable game you buy one for a very low price on your smart phone. Nintendo may still have some chance because they make unique games that will never come to smart phones and because they actually make games suited for portable play. Sony however, is trying to sell you a portable PS3, and no one wants that…
As for Microsoft, their presentation was probably the most disappointing. Beyond another dashboard update, Gears of War 3, Halos and some multi platform franchise like Call of Duty and Tomb Raider, all they showed was Kinect bullshit. This demo of Ubisoft playing a Tom Clancy game where you shoot by doing jazz hands describes how I feel about the whole thing (starts 1 minutes 30 seconds in).
And while we're on the subject of Ubisoft, their press conference is probably the winner of the most bizarre award. The guys at Giant Bomb probably explain it best (starts 8 minutes 35 seconds in).
So yeah, a week of highs and lows to say the least.
Originally posted on the now defunct latetotheparty.com.
In September 2007 I posted my thoughts on Final Fantasy's twelfth instalment, back when Late to the Party was my less than regular reviews column. And by less than regular I mean I did two of them. Which officially makes it a column I'll have you know.
Two and a half years later I've just completed Final Fantasy XIII and my have things changed. For all the things I hated about Final Fantasy XII (and I hated most of it), the one thing I truly loved was the incredible landscapes, the rolling vistas and the truly massive environments to explore. For a game I didn't like very much, I played over eighty hours for this reason alone. The world was just so incredibly rich and deep it made up for all the other insecurities and faults.
It's a crying shame then, that Final Fantasy XIII throws all this into the trash like a microwave dinner gone bad. The game is as linear as a modern first person shooter. This shouldn't be that surprising considering it comes from the team that brought us FFX, which if you ever looked at the world map was a literal straight line from the bottom to the top. FFX was able to hide this issue however, with interesting and complex locations along the way, something XIII is having none of.
From the begging to end, your goal is always straight ahead. There are no alternate roots, no optional passages, no back alleys to explorer. There is always you and the path ahead. It makes you wonder why they even bothered to give you a map as it's impossible to get lost.
There is no exploration. No towns, no shops, no people to talk too. The game is one single roller coaster ride made up of cut scene, move forward, fight, move forward, fight, cut scene, rinse and repeat. With all this apparent "baggage" shed what you're left with is an RPG that focuses entirely on it's combat.
Which is where I forgive the game, because the battle system is second to none. Once you have your entire party and you can choose who is in your team, it all becomes about strategy. You have two computer controlled party members and an auto battle option for the playable character, so you're probably wondering if the game expects you to do anything except twiddle your thumbs. The answer is paradigms.
Your main role is to guide the flow of the battle. Prior to the fight you setup paradigms, which are basically battle configurations where you choose the roles each of your party members can take. In it's simplest form you can have one paradigm where you have a fighter and two magic casters and another where you have a fighter, a caster and a medic. You start the battle with the first paradigm, and when your party starts to take a lot of damage you give up one of your attackers for someone that can heal you by switching paradigms. This is a very simple description of what becomes a very deep, complex system, but what I want to get across is the idea that it's no longer your job to select attack five times to win a random battle. There is no recharge period for swhiching paradigms, and you can do it as many times as you want. Every fight in XIII is fun, and that's what makes this system so unique. It also has possibly the best battle music of any RPG.
The caveat to all this is that Square believes the battle system to be so complex that you simply can't be trusted with it until you've gone through ten hours of tutorial. No joke, for the first ten hours of the game the battle system is simply awful as you are drip fed features one at a time. This is why you will hear about so many gamers that were bored to tears with XIII, and it's a damn shame because if you can get through those dreadfull growing pains, the rest of the game is simply outstanding.
The game consists of thirteen chapters (thirteen, get it?…), ten of which can be completed in about twenty hours. Chapter eleven is where the game truly opens itself up, giving you a single optional side quest of hunting missions to complete and the feeling of a more free environment. This chapter alone can take another twenty hours to complete. The truth is the game never becomes less linear at this point, but for a single chapter it pulls the FFX card in it's ability to charade that dark secret in beautiful landscapes, and the game becomes much better because of it.
So there you have it. Final Fantasy XIII is a game of two halves. The first ten hours isshit. The next ten bearable, and the next twenty some of the best you will play this year.
You can give the game a pass for it's broken economy and weapon upgrade system. You can even ignore a lot of the linearity because the combat is just that good. What you can't forgive is the fact you have to play nearly half the game before it gets good.
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