When i recently picked up Gran Turismo 5 again, it was so that i could get in some quality time on a couple of the best tracks........ in the world. But after a couple of days, and the completion of the beginner and amateur levels, i realised that i had hit something of a brick wall.
And at 200mph that's not very much fun at all.
The thing about Gran Turismo, and it's something i've always liked, is that Polyphony always have their invisible hand on your shoulder, cajoling you along a certain career path. The gifting of a Mini Cooper for winning the Sunday Cup series, and then the knowing look of approval as you decide to tackle the FF challenge next (since you have just fortuitously acquired the very car to do the job) has always worked nicely. Yes you could eventually spend 100,000 credits on a sexy little super car and jump straight into the deep end if you wanted to, but that was the point, you didn't have to do that.
I only mention this because since the inception of B-Spec, the balance of the game has been a little off, and this is where the 322kph crash into a masonry barrier occurred for yours truly.
When i buy a racing game it's for one rather simple reason, i want to race. B-Spec is a nice addition if you've always wanted to be Ross Braun, but seriously you'd rather be Lewis Hamilton right? Playing B-Spec (and i use the term "playing" loosely here) is like buying some sexy sleepware for the mrs, and then inviting the next door neighbour over so you can enjoy watching the action rather than getting stuck in yourself. You may marvel at some of the tricks he can pull off, but you'd rather it was you fumbling around in the dark.
So, as i said, B-Spec is a nice diversion if you like the management side of racing, but it's not what i bought the game for. I very much doubt that many others did either, which is why it's so annoying that your progress in A-Spec seems to rely on winning cars in the management mode that are un-available if you race yourself.
So with all that said i have to ask, why did Polyphony decide that in order to progress in a natural and balanced way through the Driving career, you have to use B-Spec as well ?
The obvious answer would, i suppose, be that they want you to get the most out of the game by guiding you towards using both sides of the sim, management and driving. Much in the same way that their invisible hand once nudged us in the direction of the FF series in GT's past, they are now showing us that we need to use both functions in the game to get the best from it.
I guess i'm okay with that too, after all i play as much PES as i do Football Manager, and they are essentially the football equivalent of what GT5 has done here. Maybe this hands off gaming isn't so bad, but why must it be harder to progress if you only play one side of the coin rather than both?
Originality is a difficult thing to achieve. In a sense as we move forward it becomes harder to achieve since everything that can be done will be done at some point. Hollywood has all but given up on such a thing even existing it seems, with sequels and franchise movies dominating much of the past decade. But every so often something, like Inception, turns up which re-affirms your belief that originality is still possible and can be just as successful as yet another Transformers movie or tired re-hash of the "Girl loves Vampire, Werewolf loves Girl, I throw up thinking about it all" genre
IGN has helpfully published a list of big games due to be released in 2011, and luckily for my dinner there isn't an Emo polygonal version of Edward in sight. What this list does reveal however, is that 2011 will most certainly be the year of the sequel, with a few glimmers (no Twilight pun intended) of hope for those of you that want something original to play.
Fight Night Champion, Dragon Age 2, MLB 11 and the like are all what Activision once famously termed "Annualisable" which is no fault of theirs and certainly no indication as to the quality of the games. Fight Night has always been a very good Boxing sim, bringing something new to the table every time a new iteration is released. I have no doubt that Dragon Age 2 is an excellent game, and the MLB franchise is obviously based on a solid game or else there would be no market for a yearly release with updated rosters.
Encouragingly there are plenty of original IP's in here too. LA Noire, Bulletstorm and Homefront are all brand new games with no real history attached to them, and while they do all fit snuggly into pre-existing genre definitions they all promise to be excellent gaming experiences for lovers of Sandboxes and FPS games. LA Noire in particular impresses with it's cutting edge Mo-Cap technology and gorgeous visual fidelity.
But what about those of us that want something completely original? It's been a long time since we saw the likes of Vib Ribbon, Parappa the Rapper and Kurushi lead the way with their differing philosophys on original game play. Vib Ribbon especially gave us a whole new type of experience, where our own musical tastes informed the design of the level that we played and graphics took a firm back seat. It also helped that the Vib the Rabbit was amazingly cute for a wire frame character. Unfortunately it only released in Japan and the EU but still managed to sell well. Parappa the Rapper was an early forerunner to the now defunct Rock Band and Buitar Hero franchises where your timing was key to the continued playing of the song, it took cues from DDR no doubt, but it was a new and fun take on rhythm games as a whole. Kurushi was a truely original puzzler which had your character actually standing on the board itself. Despite it's simple game play it could keep you hooked for hours if you weren't careful.
All of these games had modest success, and spawned sequels that in some cases improved on the original, and in others killed off interest in it altogether.
History lesson over, you can relax now.
So looking at the current generation of consoles, is there evidence that the same spirit of originality is still around? Well actually yes there is. Electroplankton on the Nintendo DS is a music game, but in truth it looks nothing like one. Using the stylus you can engage in a range of mini games that allow you to create varied styles of music. Everything from the Mario theme, complete with coin and jumping sound effects, to sweeping strings, Electroplankton has it all.
Flower, available on the PSN is a beautiful game which lets you take on the role of the wind, blowing petals and pollen around fields for no apparent reason other than to pollinate the other plants around you. For a game that has seemingly no objective or goals it certainly is very addictive. Also available on the PSN, The Last Guy is a top down perspective game where you have to search the streets of Tokyo for survivors of an Other Worldly invasion. No guns, just you running around the streets in a city wide version of British Bulldog, with Aliens. It doesn't fit into any category that i can think of, but it's gloriously mad at times and keeps you on your toes much like Vib Ribbon used to.
Many current generation games manage to bring original elements to the table, even if the genre they find themselves in is overcrowded. Bioshock for example might be an FPS, but it brought us the ability to mix gun play and plasmid abilities while Deadspace did away with the traditional HUD in favour of subtle clues displayed on your armour as to how healthy you are.
Last but by no means least we have the Gods made flesh at Team ICO. This spring they will release the Team ICO collection, for the first time giving us both ICO and Shadow of the Colossus in HD. Both of these games are true masterpieces in their field, and can rival other art forms in their beauty.
SotC in particular is a true achievement in originality. There is no combat in the game save for the Colossi themselves, the rest of the story focusses on you and your horse travelling from point to point, wondering at the scenery and thinking about what you have achieved so far and what must still be done. It's a tale that raises as many questions as it answers, and in some points raises a real moral quandary. Should i really be slaying these mammoth beasts just so that i can get back the girl i apparently love? Guilt is not an emotion that you often experience in video games, but here it is an all too uncomfortable bed fellow.
In the Fall the latest game from Team ICO will hit the shelves, The Last Guardian promises to be just as good as the two that came before. Whether it strikes that balance of originality against familiarity is a question best asked when it finally arrives, but let's hope it does.
So what did happen to originality in gaming? It's still there, you just have to look a little harder for it.
I don't like 3D, there i said it.
The problem isn't necessarily the technology, or even it's application at cinemas, although it must be said that far too many films are now being released in three dimensions just because they can. There in is the reason why I don't like it, and why I worry about it's increased use in the games industry. Forcing 3D into a game that doesn't benefit from it's inclusion just adds extra cost to the developers wage bill, and weakens the format for when it truly is deserving to be used.
I played Gran Turismo 5 in all it's glorious three dimensions while I was in Tokyo recently. It sucked.
So what is the future of gaming if not 3D? Well like three dimensional gaming this innovation has it's roots firmly planted in the past, so come with me now on a journey through time and space (not to the world of the mighty boosh) to a wonderful era when the ROM cartridge was king and load times didn't exist.
The Fairchild Channel F, NES, Atari 2600, Master system, Mega Drive, SNES, N64, the list goes on. All these consoles had two things in common. They used Cartridges, and they had very little load time at all. However, due to limited capacity, Cart based systems died out when the CD format Sony Playstation began to dominate the industry with games such as Final Fantasy VII.
So why, you might ask, is cartridge gaming the future of the industry? In a way it already is. Flash card technology works on a similar premise to that of the old ROM Carts of yesteryear. No moving parts, fast download times, and depending on the format of the card quite robust to boot. The Nintendo DS, the best selling console of all time, hand held or otherwise, has been using a solid state mask ROM since it's inception in the mid 2000. This format is not too dissimilar from the cart systems used by the older Gameboy, and the format used by the NES and SNES also.
Early this year Sony finally announced the NGP, the long suspected follow up to the PSP. Among the raft of impressive demonstrations of the hardware, including dual analogue sticks and an OLED screen, it was noticed that it would not use the UMD disc format of it's predecessor, but instead move to a card based system which has been announced as having a capacity of either 2GB or 4GB, depending on the size of the game. While the inner workings of the card are yet to be truly ascertained one thing is almost certain. It will use what i believe is the future of the gaming industry on all platforms.
Solid State Memory.
Let's look at this on three fronts, the first being console reliability. One of the major reasons why any console breaks down is due to moving parts, and also the heat they generate. The RROD that so many XBox 360 owners dread is due to the console overheating. All thanks to the disc drive constantly spinning so that the disc can be read and data loaded. The PS3 suffers from drive failures due to extended use of the disc drive as well. Now what if you replace the disc format with a solid state card, for arguments sake lets say the physical size of a floppy disc or mini disc. With no moving parts heat is drastically reduced, and wear and tear on the machine is almost completely removed.
Secondly, by using a solid state card to hold game data you can access media held on there much faster than you ever could on a CD/Blu-ray disc. Although it might well not be instantaneous it would certainly be much quicker than sitting there for what feels like an eternity waiting for the Mojave Wasteland to load up again after searching through some deserted shack.
Last but not least, lets talk about the environment. With no disc drive to constantly power and no cooling fans needed to keep the drive from frazzling the power consumption of a future console is conceivably much lower than those of this generation. This not only helps you to save money on your utility bills, but just as importantly reduces the amount of energy you use, meaning that less fossil fuels need to be consumed to power our enjoyment. It won't save the world, but it'd certainly do some good.
A few years ago this would have been mad to suggest, that you could fit an entire console game on a solid state flash card, but the proof is there in concept at least. NGP is reportedly nearly on par with PS3 in terms of graphical power, and it's card based system can hold 50% of the capacity of a blu-ray disc already. Clearly the developers think they can develop something worth playing on this system using this memory format. Technology improves and capacities may increase over time so that we can fit more and more data onto a card the same size as a DS cart, or SD card. Even if they don't, would you really be that annoyed if you had to swap out one card for another halfway through if it meant you could play Fallout: New Vegas or a 100 hour plus JRPG with no load times and without fear of your console frying?
I know i wouldn't
Until next time I'm Dave Roberts, and I'm Game for a laugh.
You know, when i started this blog it was for two reasons. First, i wanted to work off the ring rust after a good few years of not really writing anything of my own. Second and more importantly though, i wanted to channel my energies into something that i could use to demonstrate my writing ability to prospective employers.
Journalism isn't something i ever considered at school, I had this pipe dream to become a fireman, then join the army and last but not least the next Santiago Calatrava, and now the day before my 28th birthday, ten years after i left school with great grades but no real direction I'm writing this in the vain hopes that one day soon someone will read it and think, maybe he's got something here.
Well maybe not this post, this one stinks.
You may have noticed, or maybe you haven't, that the name of this blog has changed from "if I can be ridiculous for a second", a play on the Lance Storm catchphrase of the early 2000's, to "Game for a laugh". This new title reflects the change in focus of this blog in recent months as i have been concentrating more and more on one topic. Games. It's not that there isn't anything else to write about, after all Egypt, Libya, The Ashes series, Chilean Miners and Earthquakes have all been in the news recently, it's just that for some reason I didn't feel like i wanted to write about them. If I write about something it has to be something I enjoy, something that inspires me to do so. Games have always done that for me.
Now, maybe this blog will never gain more than the three followers it currently has (I love you guys), and maybe it'll never reach the eyes of anyone who could offer me a professional career as a writer, but what if it does? I have to keep hoping, at the very least maybe this will entertain some friends for a few minutes and spark some debate amongst us as to the future of the industry.
Either way, writing about games is something i truly enjoy, so being able to do it at any level is rewarding in its own right.
My name is Dave Roberts and from now on I'm game for a laugh.
Games have been an important part of my life for years. Along with Music and Films they have entertained, inspired and sometimes even educated me. Some of these have been throw away experiences that lasted as long as i played them, while others have stayed with me long after i stopped playing them. These are the games i want to talk to you about today, Games that were almost more to me than just entertainment.
My first dedicated gaming system was actually the original Gameboy, i got it for Christmas one year bundled with Super Mario Land and Tetris. While Nintendo's Russian puzzler was extremely addictive and super fun to play, it was Mario's first outing on the Hand held platform that i spent most of my time playing. I was so addicted to the game and so in tune with the gameplay that once i completed it i actually turned the system upside down and played it that way just for the extra challenge! The music, as simple as it was on the Gameboy system was iconic but also completely unique to the Mario Land series, something that made the game feel less like a 2 bit remake and more like its own game, which of course it was. Platform games improved graphically on the system over the years that followed, Mario World 2 was a prime example, but they never held the same interest for me that the first Mario Land did.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!! I played the original ISS so much and scored so many goals that i drove everyone else in the house nuts with that simple word shouted over and over. ISS was the first time i had ever played a football game on a console and felt like i was playing a real game of football. It was a step ahead of everything that came before. The animations were fast and fluid with characters that actually looked like adults, rather than the super deformed players featured prior to its release in 1995. It had crowd chants, tricks, superb animation, addictive menu music, an editing suite where you could change your teams kit colours, and most importantly it had commentators celebrating whenever you scored a goal.
I didn't play sensible soccer until much later, and although the top down perspective "Sensi" can rightly claim to be the first true football game available released (3 years earlier than ISS) i would still take Konami's offering over it.
Staying with the SNES, It pains me to admit that i was a bit of a late comer to the party where the Legend of Zelda is concerned. My sister bought me a copy of Link to the Past for my 11th birthday in 1994.
Link to the Past has wonderful art and brilliant gameplay, as always it has a decent story that keeps it simple and allows you to concentrate on the task in hand. It's also the first game i owned on a console that had an on board battery powered memory pack built into the cartridge. Just as well when you consider just how big the game was. I would spend hours looking for cave entrances and fairies that could heal my wounds, all the time spurred on by a great soundtrack that made the most of the SNES's soundcard. This game in short, was the game that started me off on RPG's and made me a fan of games that you had to spend more than an afternoon playing.
Well, let's be honest, you knew this would be on the list didn't you?
Of course you did.
Released in the UK on November 17th 1997, Final Fantasy was the first of the series to appear on Sony's Playstation console. I bought it within a couple of weeks of release not really knowing much about the games history or what i was getting into. Many people will site this game as their gateway drug, the game that opened their eyes to the JRPG genre, i'm one of them.
Final Fantasy VII benefited from the increased data capacity that came with Playstation's CD format, but even so the game was so large that it took 3 CD's to fit all the content in. I recently started playing through FFVII again and a few things stood out to me. The story telling is still superb, even if the translation of the original Japanese dialogue is a bit sketchy in places. Use of Music was a stand out feature the first time i played this game back in 1997, something that still holds true today. I have bought two game soundtracks in my life, one of them was the FFVII OST.
As technology improved and Games got longer thanks to memory cards and on board battery packs it became more and more of a rareity for me to complete a game. Cloud's story in Final Fantasy VII was so compelling that i stuck with it all the way through to the end. Finishing this game was honestly one of my proudest gaming achievements (and this was a time before achievements were a dirty word)
I literally spent hours getting my infiltration of Shadow Moses as perfect as i could, i've never played a game before or since (except perhaps for the other MGS games) that have instilled in me such a dedication to getting things just right. I would happily lay under a truck for ages trying to figure out the movements of the guards and see if there was a weakness i could exploit.
The solution to the Psycho Mantis boss fight was an inspired use of the console, while all the other boss fights were just the right side of infuriatingly difficult. I'd be annoyed if i died fighting a boss but then go straight back and say "can i have some more sir?"
I was amazed by the cinematic feel to the game, from the opening credit sequence to the final scenes at the end. The script was tight, voice acting was excellent, and every character felt fleshed out and real. MGS truly was an immersive experience for me, the music, story and characters were all well done and made me care.
I think the reason why i picked these 5 games out is that they all share some of the traits i've mentioned, no matter if it's the iconic music from Mario Land, the revolutionary animation in ISS, the Immersive gameplay of Zelda and FFVII or the combination of all these things as found inMetal Gear Solid. Maybe these aren't the 5 greatest games in the world, but for me they will always be the games that i hold most dear.
At the end of Assassins Creed we learned that Altair had gained possession of the Piece of Eden and taken control of the Assassins guild, Assassins were still in existence in modern times, Abstergo Industries was the modern face of the Templars, Lucy Stillman was ,in fact, an Assassin, and Desmond was picking up the odd skill from experiencing the memories of his ancestors. In AC2 things have changed. Desmond is on the run thanks to help from Lab technician Lucy, we meet more members of the Assassins guild and we delve further into Desmond's mind to experience the life of another of his ancestors, in the hopes that he can, through experiencing another assassins life, become one himself.
Assassins Creed II, much like it's protagonist Ezio Auditore has some large boots to fill but at the same time had the potential to improve on its predecessor. The original Assassins Creed had been criticised in some quarters for lacking variation in game play. Although the game had a brilliant fighting system, superbly fluid free running mechanics and a story that had you intrigued from beginning to end it lacked the variety in mission types needed to keep boredom at bay over the course of the many hours required to complete it. As riveting as it is to climb a hundred foot tower and then jump off the edge into a hay bale it tends to lose it's shine after the thirtieth or so!
Luckily where the original faltered, it's successor has excelled. It goes without saying that the meat and potatoes of this game is the assassinations of key Templar conspirators but the surrounding missions vary so much that it's difficult to get bored with. You are tasked with everything from escorting allies around the city to delivering letters, from time to time you have to free imprisoned rebels who will aid you in your cause, while at other times you must take out enemy archers in total silence so that your friends can take their place in the lead up to a target assassination.
Free running (parkour to those in the know) is just as fluid and enjoyable as ever. The inclusion of pigeon roosts as indicators of "leap of faith" points is a welcome improvement while the tried and trusted leap of faith from upon high is still in tact and as thrilling the first time you do it as ever. Oh and if you jump off a rooftop and find yourself falling into a canal don't worry! Ezio has had swimming lessons and can keep himself above water quite ably.
Fighting is very similar to the first outing with Altair, counters and dodging are still important to your survival during a fight with low level guards. Heavy duty soldiers, denoted by large swords or axes along with thick armour can't be parried as easily and must instead be dodged and then countered. There is a wealth of new weapons available for your journey through Italy, and while you can probably complete the game with the basic weapon load out where's the fun in that? There's no greater feeling than taking on a group of guards bare handed, disarming the first to attack and then dispatching him with his own weapon. Your favourite counters are all included in this sequel while a few new animations are included for good measure.
During your more stealthy missions you'll find dispatching multiple targets easier thanks to the second hidden blade newly developed by Leonardo Da Vinci from plans drawn up by your predecessor Altair. You can take down two guards at a time with this new upgrade both on your feet and from the air. New stealth kills are avilable too, you can now kill a target from a cart full of hay or grab them from a ledge below and hurl them to their deaths.
Now the down sides, although there really is only one worth a mention. Horse riding still feels awkward at best and at worst is horrible. Unlike Rockstars' Red Dead Redemption Ubisoft seem to have reached a certain level of functionality with your steed and then decided it was good enough to move onto other things. Fair enough, unlike the first AC you won't need the horse for many areas, in fact you can't ride in the cities at all, but it still feels like while everything else is nicely polished the horseplay is lacking that same sparkle.
Speaking of sparkle, the graphics in this game seem a step above the previous entry in the series. Maybe it's just the re-cap but the graphics from AC1 seem a little more jagged. That point not withstanding, Assassins Creed 2 is a beautiful game to behold. The Cities are all reproduced in stunning fashion as you can see from the screen cap at the start of this review. Voice acting is strong throughout with the exception of Shaun, played by Danny Wallace, who isn't horrible by any means but can be slightly inconsistent from time to time. Desmond/Ezio 's lines are delivered well which helps to make him, once again, a believable character who is very easy to empathise with. Believe me, there's plenty to empathise with him over.
Assassins creed 2 has managed to improve on the formula of the original, continuing what was already a very interesting and original story and further developing Desmond from a gateway character, who seemed to be there only so we could play as his ancestors, into a more complete character who is becoming just as interesting to play as in his own right.
Your Wife and Son have been Kidnapped, and the only way to get them back is to track down and kill the men you used to call family.
Welcome to the life of John Marston, a former gang member turned farmer who has been tasked with the unenviable task of tracking down his former running mate Bill Williamson and Gang leader Dutch Van der Linde. Along the way you'll meet a ragtag band of miscreants who will both be of help and a hindrance to you. Some, like Irish, are as much for comedic relief as they are for plot advancement but each is memorable in their own right and feel very much like part of the world in which you find yourself thrust. The whole game is in the same vain as GTAIV, no bad thing since it's been based on the same engine as the most recent entry of that successful franchise.
The world in which you initially find yourself is what most of us would term as classic Wild West America, circa 1911. You won't stay there for long though as you travel south of the border into Mexico and eventually venture north into the snowy reaches of Tall Trees, an environment that feels and sometimes looks a lot like Colorado. The level of detail in these settings is astonishing, on more than one occasion you will find yourself slowing your horse to a slow trot as you take in a beautiful sunset or gaze in wonder at the huge explorable Vista in front of you. Rockstar have combined the three environmental settings of Red Dead extremely well, considering that, geographically, these three places are nowhere near each other in the real United States.
While exploring you never feel any form of disconnect from one area to the next, each one bleeds naturally into the other.
Where necessary, for plot reasons, Rockstar has no problem separating them with a variation on every sandbox game makers favourite structure, Railway Bridges. While there are many side missions to get your teeth into, the real meat of the game is in the main story which while not necessarily the longest seen in a sandbox game is certainly one of the more emotionally involving. The whole "Family have been kidnapped to force you into something" story might not be the most original, but it's realised in a way that makes it interesting throughout non the less.
Music is important in any game, at best it can be the final piece needed to suck you into a story making a half hours fly by before you know it, at worst it can completely ruin a game by not suiting the goings on or completely distracting you from what's happening. Rockstar have a good track record where it comes to in game music, although normally it's listened to through a car stereo and can be toggled on and off. In Red Dead Redemption the music is treated like the score to a film, changing depending on environment and situation. Each track is perfect for the situation and blends into the background to create a rich and vibrant world. The only time you truly notice the music is when you're meant to. Upon entering Mexico you're treated to a beautiful song by Jose Gonzalez entitled "Far Away" it's a true stand out moment in the game as you'll be tempted to slow your horse and simply enjoy the ride with that song playing you onward.
Another area where Red Dead excels is your equestrian friend. "Gun" attempted the sandbox western a few years ago but never quite managed to get horsemanship or gun fighting down, and since you'll be spending as much, if not more time on your horse as you will off of it (drinking your milk optional) this is obviously a very important part of the game. There's a feeling of connection with horse riding in Red Dead, you feel like you are in total control of the animal underneath you which is just as well given how huge the environments are, and how often you'll be riding one.
Gun play is very similar to that found in GTAIV with the addition of something called Dead-eye, Red Dead's version of Bullet Time which allows you to become the biggest bad ass in New Austin, taking out six assailants at a time with well placed head shots before they even squeeze a shot off.
As mentioned earlier, this game is based on the same engine as GTAVI, the graphics are sharp and at times jaw droppingly gorgeous. Character models are full of life, each one is brought to life by some excellent voice acting. As is the usual with any Rockstar title there isn't a bad performance in there, each actor has put in some excellent work. Cut scenes use the in game engine so you're never taken out of the experience, the animation throughout is superb. The map is the same as the one found in Nico Bellic's adventure in Liberty City, again not a bad thing since it works quite well and is not too obtrusive when you don't need it. It would perhaps have been nice to see the map tweaked to reflect the games turn of the century feel.
There are some small niggles to be mentioned though. Small bugs throughout the game made the auto aiming work intermittently and there was a point in the game where Marston couldn't change out of his rancher outfit. This might have been part of the games design, but nothing was mentioned on screen or in the menu about costume options being suspended.
These are all really minor complaints, none of which affected the gaming experience to any great extent and the positives in this game far outweigh any negatives that you may encounter.
A great game with a wonderful story and excellent game play and graphics. If you haven't already, play this game. You won't regret it.
