Earthbound and Dune 31.07.15

The usual summer gaming lull hasn’t happened this year, between the equally fantastic Rocket League (PS4) and Splatoon (WiiU) i’ve had plenty of time to waste in video games, and thats without investing in the big AAA releases of the season. I did pick up the re-release of Journey (PS4) mostly to help me go cold turkey from the aforementioned Rocket League, it didn’t succeed in that but it was a splendid experience. I’d never played the original, so just knew it as a darling of the indie scene (along with Fez, which I never really got and The Unfinished Swan, which I loved) visually its amazing, i’m sure it looked good on the PS3 but its jaw dropping in places, seamlessly blending from deserts to caves and snowy tundra. It sounds great too, at first minimal but building up music throughout toward the moving ending. The gameplay in parts is Zelda and at other points 1080 Snowboarding, where it seemed unique though was the lack of fail state in the game, meaning the frustration of missing a platform or being found out in stealth was lessened, you just have to traipse back to that point again. The other hook to the game is the connectivity of it, real world players will appear in your world but with no form of communication apart from a simple musical note (sorry to the 3 people who entered my world and had me attempting the Mario theme) they can be helpful, as one was to me, showing me the solution to a puzzle but also it can be heartbreaking loosing them, as at one point near the end I did, I missed a simple jump and fell down the mountainside (about 10minutes hike back) I never expected my companion to follow suit and sacrifice his/her progression but I also never expected to find them waiting patiently at the top when I returned, in a world without communication it was a powerful message. The story in the game is a minimal way of telling what is a massive subject, death and that its told with such a gentle touch is all the more moving, I didn’t recognise the point where control was taken away from me at the end, the chapter before being such a joyous bound through every mechanic the game had shown me so the simple act of walking forward seemed simple. Its short, about two hours, but its tuned in such a way that not a minute is wasted, everything feels fresh and new and much like The Unfinished Swan original ideas enter as quickly as they leave the game, no concepts are overused. Its not a long game, probably about 2 hours, but the game is best played through in one sitting so that isn’t an issue, there are secrets dotted around the environment which would benefit another play-through of the game (at a more leisurely pace). 

So yeah, I loved it, its a game well deserving of all the hype that surrounds it and i’d recommend playing it.

Earthbound and Dune 24.07.15

Splatoon made me rethink a lot of my attitudes to online gaming a few months earlier, it was (and still is) a more social, fun environment with a unique hook for a shooter, a lot of this I attribute to the fact it offers no voice support and therefore it doesn’t risk teams becoming too overpowered with tactics and also looses the insults and bitterness that terrifies me about the internet. Another game popped up from out of nowhere with a lot of the same principles, rethinking a genre and in the process making it more fun. Rocket League (PS4) apparently a sequel of sorts, buoyed by the fact it came out with the monthly PS+ offerings. It takes the core concept of football (or soccer), reduces teams to a maximum of four, doesn’t apply set positions such as goalkeepers and defenders and finally replaces humans with cars/trucks/jeeps/vans. The ball is oversized, making it an easier target, but control of it is significantly reduced by the fact your behind the wheel, early games (and indeed some games still do) saw me driving blindly round the small pitch narrowly missing the bounce of the ball, but then something clicked, nuances to the game started to appear, don’t just boost wildly toward the ball at kick off, hold back watch the play unfold. Blowing up an opponent by boosting it the back of him leaves the other team a vehicle down for a few seconds and he respawns at the other end of the pitch. Jumping (yep the machines jump and double jump) can be tuned by a small amount of control in the air, twisting sideways, forwards or even achieving a bicycle kick. The main meat to it is online, placed in a team of strangers where communication is limited to commands such as “defend” and “good shot” and the games being contained in the perfect bubble of 5minutes rarely get tiring and being ripped apart by another team is rare. More advanced tactics have started to appear in matches, people spent more time driving up the walls and controlling the ball there, I managed to jump from the wall in a downward motion to knock the ball into the goal (the downside of online gaming at this point was the understated “good shoot” from my teammate) I’ve gained a huge admiration for the players who’ve taken it upon themselves to learn the less glamorous art of defending, saving shots and making clearances basically doing the dirty work, whereas when I go back toward my goal invariably i’ll end up knocking it into my own net. Customisation of what you drive and what it looks like is beefed up by adding ariels, paintwork and most unusually hats there is also a typical levelling up system in play, which doesn’t seem to do much but add a tag to your name. Finally there is an offline league mode, which is a fun way to practice less on display. This game came out of the blue for me, and it feels like an amalgamation of so many games I love, Micromachines, Sega Soccer Slam, NHL Hitz, Sensible Soccer, Monkey Ball and so on, at the same time it feels fresh and such a joy to play, I say this quite a lot but the PS Plus offerings have become the perfect platform for titles such as this to flourish. I’ve heard mention of it being supported post release with DLC such as arenas and an announcer, if thats the case I’d happily put money toward this game, just to see what the makers come up with next.

Not that I wanted a more traditional take on a sports sim I still played a few matches of Super Mega Baseball (PS4) for the first time, cartoony in look it retains a lot of the core principles of baseball, and explains them early on for novices to the sport such as me. What it does lock down though is the control of the matches, setting how hard the match is by setting my “ego” before the match. A mid range ego gave me enough leniency on aiming shots and hitting them, something which can be a sticking point with other baseball games, it also seemed to nudge me toward not hitting foul balls which is another thing that gets me. The games are quick between innings, a 9 innings match tends to take about 20minutes, there isn’t much animation unnecessarily added and its not littered with replays, a homerun is the one chance I was given to bask in the glory of my team. The presentation of the game is a contrast to the deep mechanics running below it, characters are exaggerated in a comical style, which fell just on the right side of silly for me, there isn’t a commentary as such but you hear the umpires call in a humorous tone. I customised a few players but couldn’t see the option to customise a team, which on reflection is fine because I’d never have thought of teams as awesome as the Beewolves and the Herbisaurs. Its a lovely touch that women and men are added to the same teams with little song and dance about it too. I’ve not got too much more to say about it, its probably the most fun I’ve had with a baseball game, I’ve played a few of the Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū (N64) games wanting to find this entry level baseball game but the cap has been a little to high for my limited knowledge. Apologies for any terminology or rule errors in the above!

Not too much else in terms of games, Animal Crossing New Leaf (3DS) is a lot less appealing when you can walk to work, getting Roosters Cafe in town was a real drag. I’ve checked in most days just to make sure the holy trinity of Roscoe, Leonardo and Croque don’t leave my town.

Earthbound and Dune 17.07.15

This week I had planned to talk about a couple of games I’d played intermittently over course of seven days, but the sad passing of Satoru Iwata made me revisit my favourite game of all time, and one he’d been instrumental in the creation of. Earthbound (SNES). I picked up on an old save, just after collecting the diamond to release the Runaway Five for the second time, not really wanting to push forward in the story, I went to the bus-stop in Fourside to catch a ride back to Threed, from there I took a solum stroll back to Onett, Jeff and Paula following behind dutifully as we passed through Twooson, speaking to a few residents as we went. I went back to Ness’s house to the north of Onett, spoke to his mother, who wasn’t that sympathetic to my moping around Eagleland. I got a nights rest and beat up a couple of crows and snakes, but the XP they were handing out wasn’t really worth it. With the intent of hiring a bike (just to see the gleeful look in Ness’s face as he darts about on it) I set off for Twooson again, the owner of the bikeshop reminded me this isn’t possible with a party of three though, and being impossible to ditch my two companions I walked back through the town, fighting an old lady in the middle of the street gave me a decent chunk of XP so I roamed the town for a bit to grind out a bit more progress in the game by attacking (crazy) old women. I found myself at the once haunted tunnel, which would led me back to Threed, and once there I went to look at the now caged zombies to the south of the town, I’d forgotten that, quite understandably they don’t offer much in the way of dialogue now so I just stood and watched them for a bit. I then wandered back through to the desert, knowing this area is still full of wild dogs and sunstroke I approached it with caution, but did find $1000 in a box near the roadside. I was soon back where I started, the Fourside theatre, I bought a ticket for the show and got insulted by the headline act after. In this city most adults either find you a nuisance or are accusing you of looking at they're hips, knowing that Pokey was residing at the top of Monotoli building I visited him, but he predictably threw Ness, Paula and Jeff out. Thats where I left it, I didn’t want to take the story any further just to wander about for an hour or so.

My meander through the world so beautifully realised by Itoi and Iwata was a fine reminder of the artistry of Iwata as a programmer, the game feels like an open, living world, long before the sandboxes which are so popular now. Everything is connected, and the distances seem real, in the fallout from the news of his death I read a great quote which he said about (and I’m paraphrasing here) that a game such as Tetris wouldn’t get made now, it would need to be better graphics, more levels and tied to another property, all of this is true, but its the bit about graphics which applies to Earthbound, and his philosophy as the President of Nintendo, Earthbound is so charming and runs so smoothly as you go through its world, towns seem individual whilst connected to one another. Nintendo properties still strive to be individual, while running smoothly and looking like nothing else. Thanks Iwata, for everything.

I wish I could pound fate with this two by four - Mother 3

Earthbound and Dune 08.07.15

I don’t utilise my Steam account as much as I should, after all the press that Her Story was getting I made my third steam purchase and it almost instantly became my favourite. A hard game to describe, even harder to describe while keeping it as vague as it should remain before playing. Your given a database which has been damaged by a combination of water and the new millennium and are tasked with sifting through it to find as much as you can about a murder. The way you do this is search keywords in a task bar, murder is the first thread given to you and then your on your own. Another fly in the ointment is that only 5 entries will show up per search, so you can’t cast your net too wide. The results you get back are FMVs of a number of interviews with a woman, her performance is as fantastic as a game which lives and dies by one characters performance should be, its laced with glances to the camera and clues which can get you closer to the solution or further into the labyrinth of video clips with no idea of whats going on. So thats it, I found myself searching locations, dates, objects and more, sometimes coming up with nothing but the occasions where I picked up on the narrative of what actually happened felt organic and that i’d deserved it (although I could see someone stumbling upon massive plot points). There is an end game, or at least credits roll at a point, but it remains ambiguous enough that I wanted to delve back into it. I’ve now started taking notes on the game, externally, it seems the watermarked dates to the videos are a handy tool, there are some other visual clues I found are telling too. Theres not much more to say about it without getting into details of what should remain mysterious, there seems to be debate whether it constitutes a game or not, I’d argue it is, a puzzle box which can infuriate at times but keeps giving you enough thread to keep coming back to it. I really enjoyed it, and its one of the most memorable things i’ve played in a long time.

Yoshi’s Wooly World (WiiU) is two things at the moment, predictably cute and surprisingly brutal. To get the negative stuff out of the way, I can’t stand the noises Yoshi makes these days, the strained baby sound is never anything but irritating. In comparison to Kirby’s Epic Yarn (a game which precedes it purely in style) its very much a Yoshi platformer re-skinned with a wooly texture, rather than Kirby’s more original take on a fabric world. Yoshi’s ability to consume enemies and throw them as eggs has just been replaced with balls of wool, other quirks of earlier games have been fudged in less elegantly, he still turns into other forms for short periods of time (with little reason apart from a wooly version of a motorbike or umbrella) for example. Setting this game in the Mario universe also sees a more conservative story than the oddly fantastic Prince Fluff filled Kirby adventure, the premise is Kamek has stolen all the Yoshis and turned them into balls of wool, getting past all this though its still well polished, great fun game. When Nintendo go all in with HD graphics they’re games still look as good, if not better than anything on the other home consoles at the moment, imagine the Ballon Trip game from Nintendoland at a more relaxed pace, so you can take in the environment and thats what this game looks like, the colours are vibrant and familiar foes from other games have all been knitted to perfection. The adorable look of this game is in contrast to what can be taxing gameplay, there isn’t a limit on lives so attempts at a level can be infinite but levels are structured with few checkpoints, and collectables are often placed in tantalising positions, meaning I’m risking and loosing everything quite often just to dress Yoshi up as a cow. The gameplay is fun and familiar, Yoshi platformers tend to be more forgiving and reward exploration more than the frantic Mario and Donkey Kong Country games of this world. Its not that there isn’t precision to the platforming, there is in places, but you’ve always got the flutter jump to help you out of a tight spot (if you can stomach the annoying noise Yoshi makes). Light puzzles litter levels, but usually involve throwing balls of wall at outlines to reveal something, and boss fights, despite being gorgeous to look at, have defaulted to three rounds of throwing balls and unraveling my opponent (so far anyway). I do really like what i’ve played of this game, and i’ll finish it for sure, I was just hoping for a little bit more from it. One other quick point is the loading screens are uncharacteristically long. Sorry Yoshi.

Earthbound and Dune 03.07.15

I went back to a few Megadrive titles that I remembered to be fun a long time ago this week, first off was Robocop Vs the Terminator. A side scrolling shooter, playing as Robocop as he visits locales from his movies and fights against bad dudes and robots from both franchises. In my hour or so I killed Robocop 2, 3 or 4 terminators,a small tank thing from the Terminator and ED209, weirdly enough the later of the four poses the biggest problem a hulking bullet sponge who disintergrates slowly until he's a comical, but deadly, pair of legs. The game seems heavily influenced by the Mortal Kombat era of gore and extreme gameplay, enemies splatter into bloody ooze and you use poor ED209s dismembered arm to whittle away the last embers of his life. All the weapons are extremely powerful, apart from the pistol you start off with and this poses the biggest problem in the game, the penalty for death is one of the two guns you've got equipped gets removed from your inventory, die again and you've left with just your pistol. Enemies who where exploding into a bloody mess now easily repel your bullets and poor Robocop is left screaming on the floor, at least he has a more dignified death than most. Back to the other weapons though its all fairly standard stuff, a shotgun, a flamethrower and an interesting take on a grenade launcher, the grenades follow the path you do very slowly, so you can redirect the trajectory of them on the fly, its very odd but also quite cool. Quite cool is a good way to sum this game up, its not overly serious and very arcady.

I then moved onto Alien 3 which bastardises the movie its set on it a similar way. Ripley now has a wide range of weapons to take the hundreds of Aliens on with, and its a lot more fun that translating the concept of the third film into a game. Your tasked with saving all the prisoners from the Aliens bursting out of they're stomaches in a short period of time (it doesn't imply whether your healing them or putting them out of they're misery), as well as a time constraint your also living with the pressure of a limited amount of ammo so along with the fiddly platforming and battery life on your scanner its all tense stuff. The Aliens make your life a little easier by dying with relative ease, but then some of them crawl about or drop from out of sight so they can be tricky, and thats without the multiple queens and face huggers darting about. I still like this game a lot, graphically it's not great, but its got some neat features plucked from the films, like crawling about in vents. It might be because I played so much of it years ago, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

Road Rash 3 was next. Ignoring the sparseness of the options from the outset, I couldn't see a track or bike/driver select option anywhere? Its another great game, I've not played a 16Bit Road Rash in so long, I couldn't remember if they all had gradients to the courses, but this addition of peaks and troughs makes riding the bike a lot more fun and dangerous. There was a generosity of the draw distance on the handful of tracks I played which meant oncoming traffic was easy to spot, but not so easy to avoid and adding the Streets of Rage naming and health to all the drivers on the course as you encounter them made me much more aggressive with my racing. Its still all very charming, cows slowly cross the road and your manic run back to an unmounted bike always raises a smile. Of the first three games I played this is the franchise I think really needs to come back in some form, its not hard to see a tuned version of this game (but not adding too much) being a lot of fun in 2015.

I'm also continuing to drop into Splatoon (WiiU) matches, the constant drops of new weapons and arenas seems like a smart way of keeping things fresh and people interested. The weapon drops themselves are little more than a distraction as i'm pretty pleased with the setup i've got going on. A gun with a fast rate of fire and a special of grenades suits my frantic approach to matches, the roller and paintbrush players I have an immense amount of respect for as I can't get to grips with them, but it can be really useful having someone on your team who can use these more abstract weapons. What becomes apparent with the new stages released is how much like the weapons, some stages really don't suit my playstyle, the skatepark and oil rig stages are perfect for me, giving me the space to spat ink and take out other squid-people. Tighter levels like the warehouse used to end with me getting annihilated pretty fast so I've adapted to them, I'll aim for the higher ground, or try to get deep into the enemies territory. As they add new stages it gives me the chance to work out the best approach on them and limiting the levels in use for allotted time forces me to use all the stages while allowing me to focus on how to attack them. Nintendo have built a shooter which has the dressing of a cartoony, child friendly game but with much more complex components once you get into it.