September 2011 Archives

(Originally posted on GamesAreEvil)

Deus Ex is almost certainly one of my top games of 2011. A game that offers me stealth and non-lethal options already has a leg-up on the competition if it handles them correctly. Deus Ex isn’t perfect though.

When the original Deus Ex title appeared in 2000, there really wasn’t anything quite like it. The clarity of vision of the development team offered an unprecedented amount of choice in the game. Warren Spector’s “Play Style Matters” motto was woven throughout the game.

Human Revolution, on the other hand, feels almost confused by comparison. Achievements and “gamification” seem to conflict the choice the first Deus Ex is so well known for.

The first few hours of DXHR actually fit the vision pretty well. The police station section is especially well-done. As Adam Jensen, you can talk your way in or sneak in. If you talk your way in, you might have to deal with consequences of that later. If you sneak in, you can kill, subdue or avoid contact completely. Even the process of getting in has some options. You can box-jump your way over the electrified water or, if you’re like me, you can drink a bunch of booze and run across it as fast as your little robo-feet can carry you.

After that though, it feels like the focus narrows a bit.

While I don’t let achievements guide how I play a game, I do think they can indicate how the developer expects people to play their game. In the case of DXHR, all of the big-score achievements lean toward stealth and a non-lethal approach to combat. Trying to play a tank also starts to expose weirdness with the AI that isn’t present when the AI doesn’t know you’re there.

More broadly, this is one of the negative aspects of my beloved achievements. Games before had to sort of just do their thing or make their intentions clear. Now, though, games can reward you for playing them the “right” way. That little dopamine trigger that goes off when the award notice pops up gives me the pat-on-the-head approval I so desperately crave.

Even the in-game experience system leans toward non-lethal options. A takedown that leaves the target breathing nets the player far more experience than a skilled headshot alone.

The other very problematic aspect that interferes with the vision of DXHR is the handling of boss battles. As much as the majority of game encourages stealth and non-lethal options (which can take up a huge amount of your inventory and augmentation points), the boss battles bring a more standard FPS mindset into the game. When faced with one of the bosses, the only choice is shoot-to-kill. This would’ve been a great way to infuse some truly interesting choices into the game.Throughout the course of the game, Jensen fights a few augmented mercenary bosses. The first is much stronger than Jensen, while the second has better stealth. The third has Jensen out-teched in a few ways. On that first boss, Jensen should have the option to out-stealth the beefcake monster and deal a one-hit takedown. On the second, Jensen could hack a computer beforehand that would give him an opportunity to mess with the boss’ stealth by activating coolant sprinklers in the room. InFallout: New Vegas, I literally talked the final boss out of combat. I can think of a few places in DXHR that could’ve benefited from such an option.

And in those boss fights, every single one, the takedown you’re encouraged to use throughout the game is useless and just results in you taking more damage. This is a personal pet-peeve of mine, something I became vividly aware of when the first God of War title switched Kratos’ Blades of Chaos with a broadsword for the final battle. It’s something that’s bothered me ever since.

On the upside, DXHR delves more deeply into the philosophical problems inherent to human augmentation, and the philosophy, ideas, and conversations that spring from the debate ensure that the game doesn’t let players out without making their brains churn a bit first.

(Originally posted on GamesAreEvil)

One of the biggest trends in games right now is making games free-to-play. Circumvent the wallet barrier and suddenly it’s much easier to capture a gamer’s attention and, more importantly, time. Once the player is invested, a few bucks here and there to get more out of the game doesn’t seem so bad. It’s a new way to look at gaming as both a hobby and a business. Many new MMOs that can’t compete with World of Warcraft are shifting toward “freemium” and finding it easier to stay afloat than when they were asking for money.

So of course, it was only a matter of time before the big guys tried to get in on the fun. Microsoft’s first entry into the market is Crimson Alliance, an overhead dungeon-crawl action game. Select the assassin, the mercenary, or the wizard, and take on the dungeons alone or with a few friends.

While Crimson Alliance may look at first like a cash-in on Torchlight, a longer look shows otherwise.Crimson Alliance‘s lineage is Gauntlet. Instead of focusing on skill trees and randomized loot like Diablo and Torchlight, Crimson Alliance emphasizes fast, skill-based combat and replay.

While the lineage may reach back to one of the oldest games, Crimson Alliance is decidedly modern. When Wizard Needs Food Badly and the assassin with full life grabs the refill, the hearts skip the assassin and head directly do the wizard. Already, the amount of time spent punching your co-players is diminishing. Gold is equally distributed and every level has a couple new items for each class to pick up. Instead of telling you not to be a dick, Crimson Alliance makes it impossible to be one–unless you open your stupid face, jackass.

The characters, too, feel more modern. Instead of a cast of a tall blonde barbarian, a scantily clad redhead, and that sort of thing, two of the characters are black, and it’s never a “thing.” There aren’t any uncomfortable slang moments. Minor, refreshing differences like this are becoming more common in games but are still rare.

The combat in Crimson Alliance emphasizes twitch combat and strategy rather than the brute-force loot collection and leveling of other games. While there are new items to pick up, there is no leveling or upgrading.

Also like Gauntlet, Crimson Alliance absolutely thrives on multiplayer. Some of the hidden areas require a second or third player for entry, and the different characters’ combat styles complement each other. For those who were worried when I said you won’t get to punch your friends, stop worrying. As you fight the horde of monsters, you and your friends build up a shared score multiplier. Anytime anyone gets hit, the multiplier drops back down a notch. This little nod to perfectionist gamers keeps Crimson Alliance well – outside the ranks of casual games without hurting its general approachability.

Crimson Alliance is a solid, fun hack-n-slash with great replay and multiplayer. While it’ll most likely be forgotten in the torrent of Fall releases, it’s absolutely worth a look.

That’s where reviews usually end, but there’s still that whole “freemium” thing to talk about, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the game.

A big company trying out something smaller companies are doing almost always come across like Grandpa trying out slang. It’s awkward at best and horrifying at worst. And no, my friend Hiroshi is not “the a-bomb.”

Thankfully, Microsoft’s attempt falls more on the awkward side. While the download is free, full characters cost additional money. I’m still not sure what a “full character” is. Each of the three classes costs $10 on its own, but all three can be obtained together for just $15 – the price of a normal XBLA game. The game is limited enough without the character pack, however, that it might just as well be called a trial game. You know, those things EVERY Xbox Live game gets. To be a true free play game, Crimson Alliance would need to be a fully featured game on its own while encouraging players to purchase extras. Instead, it feels like a trial game that is desperate to get players to purchase it.

Inside the game there are small ways to spend money as well. This works more like the standard freemium model and is much less obnoxious. Along your path to the dark castle or whatever it is heroes head toward these days, there are shops at which to spend the gold you’ve accrued in your questing. While levels give plenty of gold to have fun, each shop has a magical treasure chest that will award players 40,000 gold for a dollar of real money. The chest just sits there nice and quiet, and if you do drop a few real coins into it the output is significant enough that it doesn’t feel like a total waste of money. As this is a purely cooperative game, friends with better equipment won’t alienate new players either.

This first attempt at free-to-play is weird and misguided, but it shows that Microsoft is willing to try new things. A true specimen of the breed can’t be too far off. If we’re lucky, it’ll be just as much fun to play as Crimson Alliance.

(Originally posted on GamesAreEvil)

What would you get if Terry Gilliam made a historical bowling game? Rock of Ages can’t be that far off. Completely unrelated to the musical of the same name, Rock of Ages is a boulder-rolling simulation-cum-art history lesson from ACE Team.

Lessons start with ancient Greek mythology. Sisyphus has tired of pushing the boulder up the hill endlessly and decides instead to push it down the hill. His clever plan works and Sisyphus busts out of Tartarus to become the unlikely protagonist, not to mention the one with one of the most obnoxious names to spell. It’s worth noting that Sisyphus wasn’t sentenced to push that boulder for eternity for say, teaching kittens sign language. He was kind of a dick, even tricking Death himself into locking himself up.

Once Sisyphus escapes his supposedly eternal punishment, he starts rampaging through art history, attacking everyone from the Pope Julius II to Vlad Tepes. This is where the game’s weird, quirky sense of humor comes in. Every stage opens with a quick movie to introduce your opponent. These are littered with pop culture references. Leonidus informs Sisyphus that this is, in fact, Sparta, and kicks him. Vlad Tepes’ castle is about to be invaded by a stout-looking guy with a whip when Sisyphus boulder squishes him. Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam would be proud (or maybe a little offended?), as the animation and sense of humor both clearly emulate his style of animation from the Python days. Clippings of classic art trot along muttering weird sounds and fart noises to tell the story of Sisyphus.

Once each stage of history is introduced, we find Sisyphus at the top of a hill. The goal is to roll your boulder down the hill, through a series of obstacles, to attack your adversary’s castle. His goal, of course, is the same. Both of you get an opportunity to set down obstacles for each other – towers, elephants, and giant fans – but the obstacles are so ineffectual as to be nearly useless. Instead, it’s a Marble Madness-style race to see if you can out maneuver the computer player to reach his door before he reaches yours. The race is fun the first few times, but it loses momentum after a while and doesn’t feel quite as fresh.

Where the game really excels, though, is the art. Built on Unreal Engine 3, the game isn’t going to push anyone’s PC or Xbox into meltdown, but the art might just roast your eyeballs. ACE Team is also responsible for the XBLA and Steam game Zeno Clash from a couple years back. That game, too, was received well critically for its strong art design and sense of style. ACE Team is building a library of great-looking games.

Rock of Ages takes its art cues from each of the ages it features, including ancient greek, renaissance, and rococo (among a couple others). The art is inspired by the ages enough that it almost feels educational in the same way that Assassin’s Creed feels educational, without feeling like the designers just lifted the art and did nothing else.

ACE Team is working to build a library of unique-looking and playing games and is doing so successfully. The games don’t always play quite as great as they look, but Rock of Ages, like Zeno Clash, is worth checking out just on novelty alone.