Remember those old point-and-click adventure games like Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle? There was one aspect I truly loved about those games: Discovery. As you solved their puzzles, their world would open up and expand, showing you the next trick up its sleeve.
I remember playing Grim Fandango and ending up as a skeleton Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Or ending up at a Mardi Gras in Monkey Island 2. That blew my mind: Behind these games were completely thought-out worlds, worlds I could explore and discover!
Nowadays, the only games that sometimes give me this giddy feeling of being an explorer are Japanese RPG’s. Unfortunately, the stories backing those up have been terrible at best – and when there’s no interesting story, the world-building falls flat. The Casablanca sequence in Grim Fandango only works because Manny essentially is Rick; the Mardi Gras only works because of the quirkiness of the Carribean setting in Monkey Island.
My only problem with adventure games: I don’t like puzzles. I don’t like to combine things, solve absurd problems, think outside the box or whatever. I don’t have the patience for it. I’d rather punch a hole in a door than combine a chicken with a piece of gum to pry it open somehow.
Enter Dark Souls 2.
I didn’t play the first one – seriously, a game trying to sell itself by saying how supersadistically hard it is is not my beef. Or so I thought – turns out Dark Souls has the power to suck me in and spit me out.
For those not in the know: Dark Souls is a series of games in which you and your sword explore a barren fantasy world. The game is ruthless but fair, killing you left and right, forcing you to be on your toes and deal with its many enemies, traps and pitfalls as puzzles. Find out how to deal with them and you’re golden.
It’s like an adventure game, only instead of combining chickens and gum, you’re learning motor skills. Be killed by a certain enemy enough times and you’ll start to figure out their pattern. You understand their timing. And all of a sudden, you’re not struggling with them anymore! Then, the game throws two at you and you’re back at square one. But you’re confident: You tackled one, surely you can deal with two!
Added to that, Dark Souls is one of the few game series with a consistent world to explore. There are no real levels, but a sense that everything is geographically connected. A village leads to a cave, which leads to an abandoned castle, which leads to a tower that in turn leads to a forest. From the tower, you can see the forest, and from the forest, you run alongside the wall of the castle.
I cannot stress how much fun it is to run inside a world that does not feel like it was designed as a video game, but rather a living world with videogamey obstacles in it. Worlds like the ones in adventure games, where design and world influence puzzles and not the other way around.
I just finished Burial at Sea and I’m slightly confused.
Then again, I was slightly confused with Bioshock Infinite, too. For those who don’t care about spoilers, here’s a little rundown: You’re essentially a guy who sold his baby on a drunken whim. Fifteen years later, you’re off to a floating city to rescue her. The hitch: You sold your baby to an older version of yourself from a different dimension – one who regretted selling his baby and decided to steal yours.
Now as far as weird plots go, this one takes the cake. It’s remarkably well told for a video game (it should be no secret I’m not entirely enthusiastic about the stories told in games at the moment) – just the right amount of mystery and confusion. It never truly came together, and people were frustrated.
So in comes the DLC for Bioshock Infinite – Burial at Sea. It takes place in Rapture – the city from the first game. And proceeds to link the first Bioshock to Bioshock Infinite. Amazingly, it actually pulls it off. I still don’t get how (or why), but they do!
But then you try to get to the emotional core of the story. This time, you’re playing as the girl. She used to have the power to see across dimensions (having been stolen etc). And now she lost it. This makes her mortal. Yaddayadda.
I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel cheated. Cheated because Bioshock Infinite opened up a spectacular multiverse theory, one that truly boggled my mind. And then they just leave it hanging. Close it off and ignore it just to finish the story.
And that’s the thing, right? Irrational Games and, at the helm, Ken Levine, knowing full well he’ll never be able to make another game as massive in scope as Bioshock Infinite, so he might aswell just close off all the last threads so no one else touches his game.
You might call him paranoid, but they’ve done it before with Bioshock 2.
What a shame, I say. I mean: I get it completely, wanting to protect your story. What drives me up the wall, however, is something else entirely: It’s the complete emotional distance with which he brings his story to a close.
Burial at Sea is completely unemotional. Just compare it to the main game, which was filled with emotional sucker punches. I mean, just look at the scene that starts at 8:20.
Violence! Character development! And then the immediate follow-up with a silent, emotional moment. Sure, you might call it pulpy, but god damnit, even then: This is brilliant pulp!
Where are these scenes in Burial at Sea? Where’s the emotion? Why do I get the impression this story was written by a bitter, angry man who wanted nothing more than for it all to end?
I snagged Papers, Please in a recent Steam sale. I’d known about this game for ages, and while a tenner isn’t exactly a steep price for a critically acclaimed game, the whole craze around the thing just kind of turned me off. Now, however, having played this game, I will immediately jump on the barricades and start co-applauding this brilliant gem along with the impressed mob.
Reviewing a game like Saint’s Row: The Third might sound easy, but to me it’s a pretty hard thing to do. I’ve basically sunk 25 hours into a sandbox GTA-clone, 25 hours I spent running tanks out of airplanes, using a chainsaw in a wrestling match and racing gimp-pulled rikschas. And now I’m going to convince this game is not just clever, but well-thought out, too?!
“Nulla e reale; tutto e lecito. Requiescat in pace.” (Ezzio)
At the end of my Assassin’s Creed review, I asked where my game was. Assassin’s Creed was an awesome tech demo – it was just too repetitive to be called an actual game. And lo and behold: here it is. Assassin’s Creed 2 is a mastodont that improves on its predecessor in every possible way.
“Be at peace now. Their words can no longer do harm.” (Altair)
Let me just get this out of the way: I played Assassin’s Creed in the Summer of 2011 – four years after the game’s release. At this point, two direct sequels have been made, one’s down the pipeline and I’m not even starting to count the mobile and handheld spin-offs. This franchise is huge. So naturally, I know this game is supposed to be good.
I’ve always had a weakness for those damned Grand Theft Auto games. They were incredibly fun to play. Sure, they were moral garbage, but for a last-generation video game, that garbage was very fulfilling and immersive. I had one gripe, though: as funny and satirical as those games were, I’ve always wished they would take the gameplay, quit being antisocially juvenile and use it to tell a more serious story. When the current generation of consoles arrived, we were treated to Grand Theft Auto 4, which made me swallow my words. GTA 4 was dark, sure, but if that was a mature game, I wouldn’t have anything to do with it. It was dark, mature and antisocial. Ick.
But then, just as I had forgotten liking the sandbox principle so much and had gone back to linear games, came Red Dead Redemption. (more…)
As far as telling stories goes, there’s certain things video games can do that movies can’t. Because video games are a relatively new medium, however, we rarely see these things. Video games tend to copy movies in their way of telling stories: a straightforward plot that shows us everything – little to no room for internal dialogue, for example. Only recently, with the release of BioShock (which bases its succes on Half-Life, Deus ex and the likes – shooters kind of got the point sooner), the way storydriven video games told their stories changed. Alan Wake gets this point. It gets it in an entirely different way the shoot-em-ups seemed to have gotten it lately. But it gets it brilliantly.
Alan, Wake Up
BioShock enabled us to collect Audio Diaries, which were basically side stories that played while you were out there, killing baddies. But it didn’t stop there: these Diaries also commented on the events in the game, or society as a whole. Now, I must admit, that even I find the idea slightly silly: it’s only a video game, it’s only entertainment after all. But what if it wasn’t?
Alan Wake builds upon the concept of these audio diaries. Only they’re not a side track in your story anymore. They are the story. Alan Wake, a successful writer with writer’s block, goes on a holiday in Bright Falls, a quiet mountain town. That’s where shit starts hitting the fan, as his wife disappears and he starts finding pages of a horror story he has written – but can’t remember doing so.
These pages are where the above point sets in: they describe the action in the game. You read about Alan getting attacked by a chainsaw-wielding monster? You bet you’ll get one on your tail a minute later. But they’re not just used as premonition tools. They’re also there to help you understand the sub text and motivations of side characters – which is a pretty nifty feat, seeing how you play ninety percent of the game only accompanied by your trusty flash light. On your first play-through, you might wonder if all these people are insane. But once you spend your time collecting the manuscript pages (80 percent of which are findable as you go along – but it’s the 20 percent of hidden ones that make it interesting), you might find out that the world created in this game is not as harebrained and flat as you first thought it was.
Episodic Flashlight Action!
If you would ask me – from a gameplay perspective – to compare this game to another one, it would have to be the latest iteration of the Alone in the Dark series. The game was a mixed bag, with truly great ideas but terrible execution. In Alan Wake, the former is true. The latter isn’t. The game is polished beyond belief, with only a few gripes to make.
Like Alone in the Dark, Alan Wake adopts an episodic storytelling mechanism. There’s six episodes which last about an hour to ninety minutes each. Each episode starts with a “previously on…” summary, so you can play at leasure and not get lost in the tangled web that is the plot (okay, you will get lost, but you’re supposed to). Every episode has a theme and a location in which the action takes place – or, usually a place for you to get to. There isn’t a single episode that doesn’t advance the plot, but you can feel the seams of the genre ripping at times: due to gameplay mechanics, the bogies only come out at night, so you know the story will set you up to be alone in the dark. The fun part is: our protagonist pokes fun of it himself, so it’s fair game. The developers know – just like people writing a horror movie know there’s certain conventions to adhere.
The plot is strikingly similar to Alone in the Dark: it involves light, darkness, love and monsters. As opposed to Alone in the Dark, this game actually has a clear idea how to handle the themes and turn them into a gripping experience. The story takes more twists and turns than a Stephen King novel (there’s a reason they quote him several times throughout the game) but still manages to remain interesting. It causes an irritation which left me wanting to know more. The story leaves the door open – it deliberately doesn’t tell you everything. As with any story doing this, though, it requires a bit of good-will from those experiencing it.
Gathering this good will is easy, though, because the gameplay is simply amazing. The premise is this: you can’t hurt the baddies without burning away their darkness with the flashlight. Once their darkness is gone, they become vulnerable. It’s a simple trick, but once again thought over nicely: you can use the flashlight, but there’s also flares and light grenades to be had. It’s a tough concept to pull off, but Alan Wake keeps things interesting for the duration of the game. And beyond.
In All…
It does sound like I have nothing but praise for this game. That’s almost true – but there are some gripes. Unfortunately, the cut scenes look like zombies looking for brains. The characters never seem to look at each other directly, and their mouth movement… not so great. But the voice acting is great (expect to hear at least two familiar voices from Max Payne), so it makes up for it. It’s just a shame for a storydriven game that’s had so much time for polish.
But other than that, I’d have a hard time coming up with anything bad to say. Some would say it’s boring, probably. It’s true: no one gets chopped to bits. But those are the people who prefer Saw over Shining: people who want to see a lot of blood and gore are not in the right place to be playing Alan Wake. What Alan Wake does convey, is the nagging, irrational sense of nightmare that a lot of Hollywood horror stories seem to forget about. Horror is not about blood or gore. It’s about foreshadowing, and that feeling you just can’t grasp your surroundings or understand what’s going on.
Alan Wake might not be a game for everyone, but it is a game made especially for me.
Whoever had thought it would become so big, back in 1998? I surely didn’t. I was thirteen when I first became acquainted with Starcraft: no zits yet, but hair growing already. I had been a fan of the Warcraft franchise (Warcraft 2 being the first game I ever owned, like, with the power of money), but Starcraft? Nah. Until a friend of mine bought it. And, at a quiet afternoon, we hooked our PCs together (which took hours) and played some games over LAN. It quickly became apparent: I had found a game I’d gladly suck at.
A whole new world
Oh, how little has changed in 12 years. Or has it? I grew zits and I lost them. And Starcraft? It became a phenomenon that swept the entire world and especially South Korea. People started playing a video game as competition, and made money doing so. Terms like micro, macro and APM became common knowledge. And me? I have found something new to suck at.
The campaign picks up four years after the events in Brood War. Jim Raynor is our tragic hero, still struck by the loss of Sarah Kerrigan, a ghost sent into an unwinnable war and turned into the Queen of Blades – the heroin of the Zerg. To be frank, the story isn’t all that exciting, but it’s executed well enough to keep you going. You only get the Terran part of it, and certain things you do have negative outcomes for the other races… which will probably come to play in the two race-specific expansions yet to come.
It’s the gameplay where the campaign shines, though. There’s some a few side plots which you can advance at your own leasure, and you can spend money on unit and building upgrades. It’s a pretty nifty feature that makes every playthrough slightly different. Yes, the story’s not much of a looker (compare it to a franchise reboot: it’s perfectly executed, but somehow you get the impression the writers are just a tad too much in love with their own characters). The gameplay though? More than just awesome.
Fight it out
But, obviously, it’s the multiplayer where this game truly shines. Starcraft has always been a competitive game by nature and Starcraft II is no different. In fact, so little has changed that you might even suspect the game of just being a graphical overhaul of its predecessor. And that’s just great: Starcraft (and especially Brood Wars) was such a tight piece of work that there was so little to improve.
But once again, it’s in the little things. They’ve streamlined certain aspects (group management, harvesting management). If you think this makes the game easier, think again. Blizzard has used the freed space to let you focus on different aspects. Every race has received some new abilities that need your attention. For example, Terrans can summon MULES to harvest faster, while the Zerg can spawn more larvae at their hatchery. If you don’t understand what I’m saying, just know this: if you want to get the most out of your game, you’ll need to use these abilities as often as possible to get that edge you need in a game. You spend less time on trivial tasks. It’s great!
In All…
There’s so much to say about Starcraft II. But I’d rather not: it’s a tight experience and the production values are over the roof. If you buy this, you’ll not just be playing it for a month. You’ll get your money’s value for years to come!
I still remember my praise for Super Mario Galaxy when I first played it back in 2007. It was winter, we didn’t want to go out, so we cuddled on the couch wile playing the fat plumber’s latest installment. I was Mario, she was collecting star bits. I called it “the perfect multiplayer experience”. Now, I’m in a bit of a sticky situation now. Is there a word called “perfecter”?
Little Orange Big Bum Star
It’s like they took the concept of the first game and upped the ante. The levels are better, the level select is slicker, the music is crazier, the game is longer, the awesome moments are more epic and the multiplayer is… well, I’ll use the word perfecter just because I want to.
I’m now entirely sure that Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a game best enjoyed with two people – the second player will want to keep on playing the game as bad as you. Now, he or she has an avatar (an orange star following Mario around) and can not only collect star bits, but coins, lives, upgrades… as well as kill baddies. If that makes you think of game balance, you’re antisocial and need to live a little. The excrutiatingly frustrating game (well, later on) becomes tension relieving when someone sits next to you. Because you need him or her, and he or she needs you. Multiplayer at its finest, and I’m not sure why it took twenty years of trying around to come up with this.
Bigger, badder, bester
As I already said, the levels are breathtaking. Obviously, we’re used to that: this is a Mario game after all. But I was amazed at the tricks Nintendo still had up their sleeves. In the last game, the whole gravity concept was being introduced – in this game, they just go all-out, saying that if you don’t know this shit by now, this will not be a game for you. Galaxy 2 is certainly harder than the first one, but its creativity makes it a lot more fun.
Remember in Mario Galaxy, how you could replay the game as Luigi after getting 120 stars? Forget that stuff. Luigi is available starting about midway through the first playthrough. There’s no second playthrough – instead, green stars have been hidden throughout the levels. There’s no time limit, no pressure, you can search for hours on end if you want. But finding these stars will force you to think outside the box, to do things that even look like they are breaking the game. So great.
In all…
Hey, if you haven’t played Galaxy, don’t bother with the second one yet. Better take your time and get introduced to the gravity concept, then switch to number two. You’ll enjoy all those nifty features they threw in there a lot more.
People who want to be cynical criticize it and call it an expansion pack – and it is. It expands upon the concept. It’s not just new levels. It’s a lot more. Fun.
