In preparation for next years release of Mass Effect 3 I've been playing through Mass Effect 1 & 2 with a second, Renegade, character to experience the flip-side of my main, mostly Paragon, Shepard.
In most RPG:s that allow for these types of choices I tend to play the way I feel I would, or would like to, in real life - which tends to be fairly altruistic and good natured, except when someone really irritates me.
So now that I'm trying to go almost the opposite route I feel I need some kind of moral and philosophical compass to navigate by to not just blindly choose the most evil/nasty option because really what's the fun in choice if you've already made your mind up ahead of time.
I decided that I would use the Battlestar Galactica character Admiral Helena Cain of the Battlestar Pegasus as my template. A military leader with a hard and relentless attitude that shows little compassion, never willing to compromise and is always ready to commit any atrocity that she deems necessary to accomplish the greater good - the survival of humanity and the eradication of any beings that stand in the way of that goal.
In fitting with the themes of Mass Effect - where, colaboration with and understanding of, other races is a key component to besting the Reapers I also though it fitting that she would be a specist, quite in line with the opinions of Cerberus in the second game.
Even with this role-model though I often find it difficult to go against my better judgement. Backing the Terra Firma party with their specist undertones, giving Liara and Tali the cold shoulder and eliminating the Rachni queen where tough decisions that felt so wrong. The old cliche "it's good to be bad" sure rings true in some situations when you want to let off steam, but staying the path of a hardened narrow-minded and compassion-less character is hard. Maybe that's a good thing though, I loved to hate Cain in Battlestar and tough I feel very much a part of my "Cain" Shepard I hope I'm not just experiencing "the other side" of Mass Effect, but that I'm also scrutinizing myself through this mirror image.
As my move to Kiruna meant that I am now working from home, my 1½ hour daily commute is no more and with it disappeared a large part of handheld gaming time, leaving summer as my main period for using my DS (my PSP hasn't been played all year). Professor Layton & The Curious Village is one of this years better titles although I had the opportunity to try out quite a few other ones. Some of my favourites include Tetris DS, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, Duck Amuck, Mario Hoops 3-on-3, Star Fox Command, Planet Puzzle League, Soul Bubbles and Picross DS, but they all had to take a backseat to Civilization: Revolution which got the lion share of my gaming time this summer.
This is my first Civilization game so I can't really speak to the concessions and streamlining made for the console release. But simply comparing the 360 version with the DS was enough to show what a complete game the DS version is, I'm amazed that they really did put the effort into making a well adapted version for the handheld. This is definitely my DS game of 2008, now if only I can put it aside long enough for the others to get a chance.
One DS game did however manage to get some game-time in between the rise and fall of handheld civilizations, namely the excellent Space Invaders Extreme. I was never a fan of the original way back when, I much preferred centipede, space wars, and even pong to space invaders so I was really surprised that this game was so much fun, especially after so many failed attempts at re-inventing classic games. The music and constant jumps between different play styles serve to keep things fresh and engaging beyond the normal high-score hunt that I personally seldom am interested in joining (as my rather lack-luster scores in Geometry Wars will attest).
On returning home after the summer I was meet by thick fog that lay for several days around our house. This along with a weekend hiking excursion to a nearby valley filled with gigantic rocks jutting out of the grass and covered with moss and lichen inspired me to finally play through Shadow of the Colossus. As luck would have it 1Up FM was just starting and their first Backlog was on this particular game, giving me even more motivation. Now, It might sound like I wasn't interested in the game, however I assure you the case was quite the opposite. I was very much looking forward to playing it, but I wanted to feel that I did it when I was really in the mood and could fully take the game in.
Like Ico before it, SotC became one of my all-time favourite games, definitely in the top five. This game is Atmosphere (<- with a capital 'A'). The story and undertones are though-provoking and it lifts itself above most games and is irrefutably art in all senses of the word. Ico and what I had seen of SotC where instrumental in my late purchase of a PS2 and as it stands the next game from Team Ico (often referred to as "Trico") may well be the game that gets me to fork out for a PS3 one day. So if you haven't yet played SotC I suggest you do so, and I highly recommend checking out the Backlog section of these episodes of 1Up FM for some excellent discussions 062308, 063008, 070708 and 071408.
I gave Call of Duty 2 a go. As the only game that seemed remotely interesting on the 360 when it launched, this game has been in the back of my mind ever since and I've been meaning to try it at some point, after a few sessions though I lost interest. There's just something about the World War II setting that I find uninspiring, perhaps it's that we have been so over saturated with it during the decades after the war. I've never played any other WW2 shooter (besides demos or a couple of goes at Battlefield 1942) so it isn't due to playing too many. Maybe it's just that I have too many preconceptions of what it was like through books and movies that a game just feels too contrived and shallow. It's still on my shelf though, so you never know...
Soul Calibur IV arrived with both mixed feelings and mixed reviews. The adolescent focus on the constantly more and more exposed skin and over-sized boobs of the female characters has now gone beyond any kind of beauty or fantasy aspirations and tethers between the vulgar and the bizarre. Despite this and any critique about this being an unbalanced fighter that doesn't reinvent itself, I found it to be solid and back to the glory days of SCII which was my favourite fighter of last-gen. Personally my friends and I are far from good enough to where any possible balance issues are noticeable for us. For me SCIV strikes the perfect balance between accessible and challenging and it follows the tradition of a strong single-player component and adds an excellent character creation tool that I have probably spent as much time with as actually fighting. Anyone want to challenge my Guybrush Threepwood? Oh, and then there was the guest characters, Yoda, Darth Vader and his apprentice "Starkiller" from The Force Unleashed. What a strange and unexpected crossover that was. Did anyone buy this game because of those?
Speak of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, after an extra years delay it was finally let loose on the collective gaming and Star Wars communities. Standing firmly in the rather large overlapping section of these two demographics I'm a loyal listener to gaming podcasts like 1Up Yours, 1Up FM, the Giant Bombcast and the Wiire as well as Star Wars podcast, The ForceCast. It's always funny (although sometimes quite irritating) to hear the gaming community talk about Star Wars and get several things wrong and viceversa as the fairly casual gamers of The ForceCast discuss gaming. While the gaming sites fault the game for it's rough gaming mechanics and repetitiveness, the Star Wars community is more focused on the games story and slightly ignorant of the standards we hold a modern game to. As someone who considers himself a fairly well-versed gamer and Star Wars fan I'm able to forgive the game for it's short comings considering the high level of the Star Wars experience that it delivers. Read my review for all the details.
A certain well respected British publication started off their Mirror's Edge review saying that it's "...like a piece of Scandinavian furniture, picked for its perfect blend of form and function, discovered on receipt to have the wrong pieces in the box, ambiguous instructions and too few tools to make it all come together."
Now, while I can appreciate the humour in this - I find it to not only be quite harsh (especially in regards to the game - Mr. Kamprad's company has no doubt proved it's worth to the masses at this point), but also a quite erroneous statement.
From the new world I've heard several game journalist lament over the, "poor" gun-play in the game, saying that it isn't fun and that you need to toss the weapon to regain your optimal mobility. This to me is a moot point, if the gun-play was handled just like an FPS and you could carry one with you at all times, this would be a completely different game. It would be the IKEA-version of Half-Life 2. This game is not trying to be Half-Life 2, or Halo, or Killzone or even Portal even if some people seem prone to draw parallels to last years darling as well.
No, this isn't a shooter, the guns are there to enforce this message, and if you want you can use them as a temporary "power up" although I got much more satisfaction out of not firing them at all.
I should perhaps pause here and point out to those that don't already know, that I myself am in fact Swedish. Just like the developer DICE and that aforementioned flat-to-functional-furniture-fabrication-firm. So, perhaps it could be held that I'm a bit biased, and I won't deny that experiencing Mirror's Edge fills me with a certain degree of national pride. On the flip-side there seems to exist a certain cultural divide that skews peoples' opinions of said game to either loving it or hating.
I'm not saying Yankees and Limeys don't appreciate Mirror's Edge - but that perhaps it is too exotic and strange, too far from the comfort-zone for some that it becomes scary and their minds narrow. Again, I'm not saying that you have to be Scandinavian to appreciate this game, not at all - I have both British and American friends who love it - but I have a feeling that their opinions will pull further in one or the other direction. Personally I am not as strongly touched by the game as they seem to be, I love this game and although it does a lot of new and different things, it still feels very familiar and in some ways traditionally Swedish.
During the last few years the topic of game length and difficulty have come up a lot. Many gamers in my own generation (those that grew up with 8-bit consoles and PC:s in the 80's) now have talked at length about how games where more difficult and unforgiving back then, and how they no longer have the patience to replay a game from the beginning if you aren't able to finish it in one sitting. Also, many say that they appreciate shorter games, that they don't want to have to invest tens or hundreds of hours in one game to see it to completion. In many cases they have gotten their wishes, games have generally become a lot easier and forgiving, and while games are probably on average a lot longer today then 20 years ago, the average length is declining compared to say 5-10 years ago.
But people are never completely satisfied, are they? The contrary argument has come up now and again as well, that many games are just too easy, that you just push a button to win and it's more or less an excuse to show you a bunch of cut-scenes. There's always someone who will complain that a game is too short as well, like the cocky "you'll beat it in one sitting"-mantra often used by people trying to brag about their 1337-gamer skillz...
Now I'm personally no sadomasochistic gamer. I don't appreciate insanely difficult games and won't force myself to get through them. Games like the classic Mega Man series (including this years Mega Man 9) and Ghosts n' Goblins are short-lived on my consoles now a days. But I don't understand those that complain that Mirror's Edge is too difficult, that it is unforgiving and death is all too frequent. I found that except for a couple of places, the checkpoints where well placed and progressing was seldom held up for long on any one section. Only a couple of sections became irritating and in both cases I got stuck because I misinterpreted where I should be going and not because the game was too hard. Now granted, misleading the player is nothing to take lightly either, but that is something else, and in a game that is all about figuring out how to navigate the environment I appreciate the hand-holding being kept to a minimum (glares at PoP).
The sales have unfortunately been pretty poor so far, but EA CEO John Riccitiello had this to say when interviewed by Edge Magazine, "Mirror's Edge is one that was very strongly reviewed, that one's going to go forward" which is encouraging, what is a bit more worrying is his later statement "We're probably going to look into some issues around the design to make sure strong IP is married with strong business." This better not involve balled space marines and BFG:s, or I'm holding the Anglosphere responsible! So I reiterate:
Mirror's Edge places you in the role of the runner Faith, a parkouring courier that delivers messages for those that oppose the big brother society where everything looks nice and people have given up their freedom for a nice and comfortable life of complacency. The game is a nice blend of old and new. It mixes old-school game design with some of the better improvements of later years and a striking art-style. These lyrics from the title track Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky sum the game up pretty well:
I've learned to lose There is admittedly a lot of trial and error in Mirror's Edge, but I never found it to be unfounded or due to broken game design. Yes, death comes often and fast, but the checkpoints are well placed and the controls feel precise yet forgiving enough that you don't need pixel-perfection to succeed. A large part of the challenge lies in learning to successfully time and string together a series of moves and if death was never a threat a lot of the atmosphere and excitement would fade away. Nothing's more satisfying than when you've mastered a section and fly through it with a series of jumps, slides, roles, wall-runs, kicks and disarms and then go flying through a door or into an elevator that takes you to safety, your racing heart slowly calming in time to Faith's and the music. There is something refreshingly retro about this, bringing back memories of gaming in the nineties, when men where men (I was a boy though) and games where meant to challenge and not just entertain.
I've learned to win Perfect platforming in first-person has long been a holy grail which we are slowly inching towards. Metroid Prime showed us that it was possible and Mirror's Edge hits even closer to the mark. It's not perfect and obviously it can never be as easy as it is in 2D, but then what do you expect when you have 50% more dimensions to take in to consideration? Viewing the world through the window that is your TV or monitor of course also increases the difficulty since there is next to no peripheral vision, however Mirror's Edge manages to handle these restrictions very well and I very seldom felt that I was unsure of where my feet where or when to make a jump, or slide.
I've turned my face against the wind Mirror's Edge dares to be different. Dares to be a first-person game that isn't about shooting and killing. Taking out a bunch of armed assailants with non-lethal force is difficult but very satisfying once you get the hang of it. Dares to be a first-person game with a bright and vibrant world devoid of rust, grime and dust - the usual greys, browns and muted color pallet are no where to be found. Dares to veer it's focus away from shooting and killing in first-person games. Combat is simple but no walk-in-the-park and will keep you on your toes. Although you are often advised to avoid combat when possible, and you are seldom kept in an area until you've defeated all enemies, in practice some areas still require that you clear out all or most of the opponents before moving on and in later stages this can require quite a bit of skill and strategy that is quite rewarding once you've mastered your attack-run.
I will move fast, I will move slow To help you find your way DICE have implemented what they call Runners Vision, which drapes key objects in the environment in a clear red, contrasting the dominating whites and blues of the world. This allows you to keep an eye on where you are suppose to be going even at full speed. Reaction Time allows you to slowdown time (that FPS-staple bullet-time) to make disarming or attacking opponents a bit easier. Disarming opponents and/or knocking out opponents is preferable to killing, both from an Achievement/Trophy standpoint but it is also much more rewarding than the firefights, as Faith is noticeably slower and weighed down while carrying a weapon and you have a limited amount of ammo so if you have to take to using heat, drop it as soon as you're done and move on. Personally I chose to play the pacifist, although a stray bullet due to butterfingers snubbed me of that achievement all the same...
Take me away I have to go. You'll usually fly through the environments pretty fast but the prologue and 9 chapters add up to a fairly lengthy action game just the same. Depending on how much you get stuck, I would guess that it will take you somewhere between 8-12 hours. But the experience is a high-speed adrenaline rush and 2-hour sittings felt like enough for me before it was time to let my heart-rate return to normal and allow for my palms to dry. No one should miss the opportunity to play Mirror's Edge. It's not perfect, there are some things I'd like to seem them do for a sequel. Populate the world with more people for instance. As it stands the only people you interact with are enemies and your friends, others can only be seen at a safe distance where there is no chance of interaction. This does enhance the atmosphere of the totalitarian society, however if they can pull it off, some crowd interaction like that in Assassin's Creed or what has been shown from Splinter Cell: Conviction could be a cool addition. Now run, run like the wind and bag your copy of Mirror's Edge!
It isn't my fault. They told me they'd fixed it! The Force Unleashed is not the best game ever made and the Euphoria, DMM and Havok systems aren't utilized to their best effect, instead they represent pockets of physics-fun sharply contrasted against the otherwise static backdrops, much like how the actors in Episode II stood out against the CGI-backdrops in all too many of it's scenes. There are also some camera issues and sound glitches and I've had the game completely freeze my 360 on one occasion ( although I was happy to see that it hadn't red-ringed so it could have been worse).
Impressive, most impressive. That said, there is much merit to the game as well, the graphics are beautiful, the art-direction and character design is very Star Wars-esq, more so than many parts of Episode II, and some of Ep.I and Ep.III as well... Being set as it is in the highly interesting time-period between Ep.III and Ep.IV there was little chance that TFU would disappoint story wise and it definitely doesn't. The main characters are interesting and bring back the group-dynamic of the original trilogy that was so sorely lacking in the prequels and the slight bits of comic relief provided by your droid Proxy is never cringe worthy or forced. The inclusion of several well-known characters is handled very well, in many other Star Wars games (Jedi Outcast comes to mind) these familiar faces feel like cameo-appearances at best and are often shoe-horned in and fill no real purpose, here they are instead part of the central story and their own origins and background are explained and fleshed out to great effect.
All too easy... Some critics have complained that the game is too short and that game-play is all too simplistic and that using the force soon looses it's appeal, seeing the game degenerate into a mind-less button-masher. I would say to those people that they have no doubt chosen the wrong difficulty in that case. Seeing as this is a game squarely aimed at the main-stream, the difficulty is scaled back slightly as compared to games like God of War or Devil May Cry (from which TFU has taken a lot of inspiration to great effect) and so where I would usually go with normal difficulty I chose the harder, Sith Lord setting (on completion you will also unlock the Sith Master level for an even greater challenge). This still leaves some frustrations, as the challenges are not very well balanced (larger enemies and bosses being particularly tricky at times and push-overs at others) and you will find yourself dying quickly against easier foes at times without any apparent reason. However over-all the experience is heightened by the need for a lot more strategy and though-through tactics which keeps things interesting. Also if you do get stuck on a section help will eventually come your way...
You are not a Jedi yet. TFU incorporates a bit of an RPG element in the form of force powers and moves that you can purchase with orbs that you earn or find along the way. There is a long list of combos that can be unlocked as well as increasing your health and force bars, speeding up recovery of these two, as well as improving your ability to deflect attacks. These add more depth to play and you can choose which abilities to focus on depending on your play style, and since you are continuously gaining force points, which go towards your next level-up, even when you get stuck you know that if you aren't able to beat the section on your tenth try help will come soon, making it slightly easier and less frustrating. I found this to be a very smart system, as I hate being stuck on sections for long but I'm also reluctant to go searching for game guides. The only problem is that even though you will eventually be able to beat a boss through sheer perseverance, it is much more satisfying when you figure out their attack patterns and weaknesses so that you can use them to your advantage. This however is another area where the game falls a bit short. It is often hard to see what tactic works and what doesn't, the visual cues are either too subtle, non-existent - or in a few unfortunate cases - obscured because the camera is acting up.
Depends greatly on your own point of view Like most Star Wars games you're enjoyment of TFU will depend greatly on how much of a Star Wars fan you are. The atmosphere, sounds, music, characters and story go a long way if like me you are the type of person who wants more Star Wars and you love diving into Georges universe. Also if you are slightly put-off by the "kiddier" aspects of the series (slapstick battle droids, Jar-Jar or C-3PO in the droid factory) then you'll be happy to hear that this game is much more "Empire" in tone and being set in between the trilogies it veers more towards the original trilogy than the prequels in look and feel. So depending on your love of Star Wars you may want to add or subtract a point from my score.
The so called hardcore has had an downward spiraling attitude towards the Wii and the titles that are released for it. Prior to release speculation ran wild on all the fantastic things that you would be able to do with the system. How it would revolutionize gaming and how you would never want to go back to using the tired old gamepad for many genres, one that came up in particular was the FPS. I myself was not immune to the hype and fantasies either, expecting I would have a hard time going back to "duel-sticking" once the wonder of the wiimote and nunchuck combo arrived.
The first blow came at the systems launch when Red Steel - the title that was suppose to show us what the Wii could do for the FPS-genre - turned out to be a rushed and ultimately failed attempt, that seemingly proved the opposite - that the Wii was totally unfit and incapable of doing FPS:s properly. Then there was nothing for what seemed like ages. Few games of worth where released and the FPS:es we where expecting in droves where especially non-existent. While the more casual gamers where still happy with Wii Sports and where buying Wii Play by the truckloads, the hardcore where becoming restless.
Finally Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was released. Although this game was a massive improvement over Red Steel, it still didn't seem to make the impact that many of us was expecting it to. Partly this was due to many gamers not being completely sold on the idea of an FPA (First-Person Adventure) that the original game introduced and that was continued with it's two sequels. Some, like myself had grown slightly tired of the Prime atmosphere... It's a little too Halo-ish for my taste. The environments are lovely but I hate the space-pirates as well as the Federation (I think they're called the Federation anyway) troops which both feel like toy action figures or something. It all feels a little too childish... in a bad way. Well, I simply felt little motivation to keep play, and getting stuck on one of the earlier bosses didn't help much either. Another reason that MP3 didn't get much attention is that Nintendo failed to market it properly. It seems like they thought it was a strong enough IP to sell itself (and I'm personally surprised that that isn't the case) so there was next to no push from their side.
A year on from the release of MP3 and still no other FPS-games of note released on the system. The feeling now among gamers, press and developers alike seems to be that of resignation that the Wii is for causal- and party games only. That if you want anything more substantial you should look to the other consoles and PC. I've begrudgingly come to place my 360 as my #1 system, the one I will default to when I want to play games and the one I will most closely follow the upcoming releases for. The Wii is very seldom acknowledged at all and I rarely even bother to check the release schedules for Wii-titles as there is not much there of interest anyway.
This is why The Conduit is a shining beacon of hope in the otherwise desolate landscape that is the Wii release calendar. E3 was a massive disappointment this year with the sole exception of this title. So I was surprised to hear the 1Up Yours panel being so dismissive of it after all the critique they have directed at publishers for not producing quality titles tailored to the Wii:s strengths. They, like so many others seem to have completely written-off the Wii which I feel is very sad.
