Mass Effect 3

And so, dear Friends we come to the final part of the Mass Effect trilogy.  Many of the choices you make will have consequences here and one way or another the fate of the galaxy and the reapers will be decided once and for all.  No pressure.

As always, this article will contain Spoilers.  Avoid until you play Mass Effect 3 and also if you haven't played the first two games.

The game follows the same format as the last two, a third person shooter with RPG elements.  The game kicks off with Shepard facing a court martial after being suspended for a period of time. I initially thought this was for joining cerberus in the previous game but it seems to be due to the events of the Mass Effect 2 DLC "Arrival" which culminates in Shepard destroying the Batarian Mass relay, and most of the system, to slow down the reaper advance.  During the court martial the reapers attack earth En Mass and, with the help of Anderson, now returned to military life apparently, Shepard escapes on the Normandy while Anderson remains to co-ordinate resistance on earth.  Your mission is to unite the races of the galaxy and find a way to defeat the reapers.  In your way are the reaper forces, mercenaries, Geth and a more aggressive and amoral Cerberus.

As always there are tweaks to the gameplay.  These are less major than previously, there is a larger selection of weapons and armour, essentially bringing back the system from the first game, however they have kept ammo types as standard which is something.  In the game there is now jumping, but it is used as an action, similar to vaulting cover, rather than an unwelcome foray into platform games that tends to happen.  There are also occasions where you can take control of turrets and mech suits.  Outside of combat the system is pretty much unchanged, Paragon and Renegade interrupts remain but I have to say I found the conversation options less ambiguous.

The scanning of planets has been altered again.  Now you enter a system and have to set off sensor "pings" to find supplies, objects and sometimes reinforcements for the galactic fleet or parts for the Crucible (A device that may defeat the reapers)  this is actually pretty tense as the reaper alertness only resets after a mission.  I found myself barrelling the Normandy through systems, pinging madly, pursued by reapers, trying to catch that last object.  It really adds to the tension and the feeling that the reapers are unstoppably marching through the galaxy.  Any player will be hard pressed not to jump every time the loud horns sound heralding reapers arriving in the system.

And so, to the most important part; the story.  This is always the strongest suit of the mass effect series and this one doesn't disappoint.  As stated previously, the story involves Shepard trying to defeat a full on reaper invasion and liberate Earth.  To do this you have to unite the council races to commit assets to the fleet that will free earth and to the crucible project.  A prothean device that is the key to defeating the Reapers.  Through this and some side missions you will bring your crew back together and encounter all of your surviving allies from previous games. 

The story can almost be split into three acts.  The first involves recruiting the Taurian fleet to your cause.  To do this you must persuade the Krogan to help the Taurians fight the reapers on their own world, and to do that the Krogan want the Genophage cured.  The second involves you intervening to stop the war between the Quarians and the Geth.  Finally you have to take the fight to Cerberus before launching the assault to re-take Earth.

Each act runs the theme of victory at a cost, be it the bittersweet cure of the genophage at the cost of Morden's life or the freeing of the Geth and the return if the Quarians to their homeworld at the cost of Legion's life no victory comes free.  The game does do a great job of building you up over the first two acts, between the main stories and the side missions, and despite the losses of some friends along the way you feel invincible.  You regularly achieve the impossible and you feel like an all conquering hero.  By the end of act two you feel lime you're going to give the reapers a good thrashing.  Quickly kick the illusive man in the nuts and back home for tea and medals.  Act 3 brings this crashing down when you loose the Asarii homeworld to the reapers while searching for a prothian archive.  It really helps to take you down a peg.  It also adds to build up a villain called Kai Leng, a dark mirror of Shepard working for the Illusive man, as he is responsible for you failing to get the archive and loosing the Asari homeworld in the process.  There is also another worthwhile point before we reach the endgame.  The Reapers are hard.  They have minions which you fight normally, but when an actual reaper shows up it is properly terrifying.  You actually down 3 over the course of the game, but each is such an achievement you never feel the threat diminish.

Procrastinating from the end game a little more, I was given the choice to re- kindle your romance with Tali or Ashley (or indeed start a new one). I chose to stick with Tali and I'm bloody glad I did.  You are rewarded with some lovely moments on the Quarian homeworld and a romance plot that feels genuinely affectionate.

Also, I should mention the extra colour you pick up on as you travel around the citadel, be it an alliance soldier wanting to change assignments as her brother has joined cerberus or the salarian who finds out his new armour was bought from his friend selling her car, combine this with catching your engineers snogging below decks (not a euphemism) and the universe seems fully fleshed out.

So, to the end game, the invasion of Earth.  Starting from a lovely cut scene of the combined citadel races, plus the Geth vs the reapers you are quickly thrust into a ground assault through the streets of London.  In the middle is a short break where you catch up with everyone, featuring a touching scene with Garrus, and indeed a general feeling of the positive impact you have made in the lives of all these people.  However it was at this point I got the distinct impression old Shep wasn't going to make it through this one.

The final mission initially continues the battle through London as your forces push towards a transport beam to the citadel, now under reaper control and in earth orbit, and being the last piece of the crucible.  This culminates in a really hectic battle as you try to defend missile launchers poised to take down the reaper guarding the transport beam.  Once downed a mad dash to the beam begins.  I took garrus and Tali with me on this.  Representing both the people who had been with me from the beginning and my in game best friend and girlfriend.  Half way along this dash through exploding vehicles Tali is hurt.  There is a heartfelt goodbye as the Normandy picks her and Garrus up for you to go on alone.  It is at this point where things take an unexpected turn and indeed where I suspect the controversial part of the ending begins.  Caught in a large explosion shep comes to burned and bruised and you take control and limp to the beam.  Yes, the end game eschews combat for talking.  I love it.  Your final confrontation with the illusive man is verbal, there is some real pathos as Anderson dies next to you and then you finally you activate the crucible and are given three options.  Destroy all artificial life, which will kill the reapers, but also wipe out the Geth, Edi and of course yourself.  Control the reapers, which will still kill you or option three use your half artificial form as a template to make all organic and artificial life part organic, part artificial.  And of course die in the process.  This was my choice, and I found the ending both hopeful and satisfying, and the memorial service on the Normandy for shep and Anderson may have made me shed a small tear.

Now, to address some of the criticism, the lack of a boss fight and your character dying, frankly get over it.  I'm sure some would have preferred an ending where you kill the reapers and waltz off to victory but I thought the direction the game took was more interesting and original, and worked better.  Second, the criticism that in a game where it stresses choices having consequences everything boils down to a choice of three endings, first what the hell did you think, that they'd programme a thousand different options for every combination of events?  For starters, we know that while choices influenced events through each game only 3 or 4 transfer between games.  Also, look at the game as a whole, your choices counted.  Was a character dead?  Who trusted you?  Just because the ending doesn't represent every conversation tree doesn't mean each choice was for nought.  I thought the ending wrapped up the story and left a hopeful note for the future.

So, to summarise, a barnstorming story, good gameplay, were there any issues?

Well, I wasn't too happy with adding the complexity back into weapons, and instead of being able to keep a heavy weapon at all times those were now things you pick up at certain points but drop if you select a different gun.  Finally, a rather minor point but worth mentioning.  During the game you meet the crime lord Omega from the previous game on the citadel.  She is in hiding after Cerberus took over the Omega satellite.  You run a few missions and she says she may ask you to help when she re-takes Omega.  I wondered when this mission would appear and it never does. Turns out the Omega mission is DLC which I felt was a bit of a swizz.  I don't mind DLC adding extra to the experience but to have a section highlighted only for it never to appear feels a bit like a cheap in game plug for DLC.

Overall though this is a fitting end to the trilogy.  The story grabs you and the gameplay entertains.  Highly recommended.  As I have said previously, I am developing an itch to re-play all three games.  I may get the DLC first and comment on the differences when I manage to do that.

Mass Effect 2

Continuing my review of the Mass Effect trilogy I will now cover Mass Effect 2.

As before I will be revealing spoilers for this and the previous game.  If you have not played or finished both Mass Effect 1&2 I would advise you to go no further.

There is no real need to describe the mechanics, gameplay largely follows on from the first game with some differences I will cover later.

The game begins explosively when an alien ship attacks the Normandy, ultimately the Normandy is destroyed and Shepard is killed rescuing Joker.

Jump several years later and Shepard is revived by a militant, pro-human group called Cerberus, who were encountered as antagonists ins side missions during ME1.  The base you are being revived on is attacked and Shepard has to team up with Cerberus agents Jacob and Miranda. In this sequence there is an interesting scene where you are interviewed regarding key events of the last game.  This was to allow people who were not importing a Mass Effect save game to set up the required history for the current game and does show what decisions actually carry over.  Namely, who you romanced, Did wrex survive, who died, did you rescue the council and who you recommended as the human council member.  Basically 5 decisions.  Take note here because I will re-visit this in te next game.  Anyway, basic plot is that human colonies are being attacked by a race called The Collectors, who are abducting the colonists and vanishing.  The Alliance is not taking action and the citadel council don't believe the near legendary collectors are involved so Cerberus are going to deal with the problem independently leading Shepard into an uneasy alliance.

More on the plot later, first I will talk about some of the gameplay tweaks.

First, the MACO tank is gone.  Planets still have to be explored for side missions and to collect resources for upgrades, but this is done from orbit.  To explore systems costs fuel and probe that have to be bought, and I couldn't call planet scanning interesting but it is strangely addictive.  Do a mission in a system and you may find an hour slip away as you scan each and every planet near the relay.

In the main part, guns now have ammo, so clips need to be collected, but are universal for all weapons.  There is also the option for a heavy weapon, different types of which become available through the game and require separate ammo.  There is also limited melee combat.  The weapons upgrading has been massively simplified.  Ammo upgrades are now gained through your character levelling, so you can now swap in ammo types mid combat which adds a good strategic element.  The weapons now get one upgrade through the game and a second upgrade can be found on one weapon later on.  I actually preferred this, possibly because I'm not a hardcore RPG player and so hunting for the ideal combination of ammo, weapons and enhancements holds little appeal.  

Finally the conversations have been tweaked a little, the wheel is still there but it isn't always obvious which answer will be paragon and which will be renegade.  In general I like this but at times you pick an option which seems reasonable only for Shep to say something really evil on occasion causing much shouting at the screen.  There are now also paragon or renegade interrupts where a mouse click can force a paragon or renegade action which I quite enjoyed.  As always decisions made have plot consequences.

To the plot, this game is very well written.  It uses familiarity from Mass Effect to really involve you in the characters plot.  For starters each squad member has a loyalty mission, an optional quest to aid one of your team mates.  Again this helps in the final mission and nets extra upgrades.  

There is also a neat bluff.  The video that runs if you leave the start screen up shows only the new characters like Jacob, Grunt etc but none of your previous crew.  You even meet Tali on your second mission but she doesn't join.  At this point I really thought my previous team mates would only appear as characters to talk to and I would be dealing with an entirely new crew.  Accepting this I went to start gathering my new squad, first trying to find a vigilante codenamed "archangel". As you hear more about him he sounds faintly familiar.  When I finally realised that Archangel was Garrus I took on the mission with renewed enthusiasm and finally meeting him genuinely felt like meeting an old friend.  While ultimately Garrus and Tali rejoin your crew you will meet everyone who survived and each reunion is emotional and satisfying.  The new characters develop and, partly thanks to the loyalty missions you will bond with them as well.  In fact the Loyalty missions are worth a mention in themselves.  Each character will ask you to do an additional optional mission.  In the game this makes them more likely to survive and unlocks some extras, but it works narratively as well.  You are working for Cerberus and need your crew to be loyal to you, not the organisation.  Ultimately only Garrus and Tali join your squad and there is a lovely moment on teh citadel where they joke about the long lift rides of Mass Effect and start trading banter.

Overall the game is a vast improvement on Mass Effect.  The tweaks to combat mean that gameplay is enjoyable and no longer something you tolerate to see the story.  Voice acting is of the usual quality, and the pacing works well.

As for my specific path, everyone survived the suicide mission and I destroyed the collector base.  I also preserved the geth heretics.  Finally for romance, after being dumped by Ashley for joining Cerberus there were several options.  Eventually I went for Tali.  It was odd how involved you get in the story.  Initially thinking of who I would romance with my new in game single status I was surprised when I realised Tali was an option.  It was like having a good friend who you suddenly see in a different light. Made for a much more satisfying sub-plot than the more basic romance of the original.

On DLC I actually didn't net much but you don't seem to miss much.  Apparently much of the DLC can be done after completing the game which Seems fair.  I do consider this run done for now but may run through all 3 with all the DLC at a later date.

So, we end on a cliffhanger with the reapers on their way we will see how Mass Effect 3 goes.

Mass Effect

What?  Two posts? Madness.

So, years after the event I finally got round to playing the Mass Effect trilogy.  Did it live up to the hype?  Do I now describe Garrus as my best mate and was I corrupted by the alleged wall to wall alien rumpy?

I will cover all 3 games but in individual posts, so for the moment, Mass Effect.

This post will contain Mass Effect spoilers but none for 2 & 3.

For those living in a cave, Mass Effect is a Sci-fi 3rd person shooter with RPG elements.  You play Commander Shepard chasing around the galaxy in pursuit of a rouge agent who is trying to bring a race called the reapers back to the galaxy to wipe out all sentient life.

So, how was it?  Mass Effect is a definite flawed gem.  A distinctively average game salvaged by a decent story and interesting characters.  Gameplay flaws mainly centre around repetitive side missions.  The idea is many systems can be visited and their planets explored.  Sometimes this can be through a specific side quest but also just by tooling around.  The downside is that this ultimately means driving around a planet in your tank, occasionally encountering near identical structures.  In short it gets boring.  The RPG elements were a bit too hardcore for my tastes as well, each weapon can be upgraded and modified as can armour for your whole party. This means you often spend ages trying to work out which combination of weapons & mods suits.

The story however is compelling, your team builds up with likeable and fairly well rounded characters and the actual missions are entertaining and well structured.  The game also uses a system where your interactions have bearing on your character, with the much vaunted paragon/renegade system.  Indeed the interactions are one of the best bits of the game and I spent many hours wondering around the citadel chatting with people.  Again, decent writing and a good voice cast pay dividends here.

I was slightly spoiled on ME 1. I was told one of your party died.  When that mission started It managed to sell me a few dummies.  The game gives you options of who to sacrifice, but it is never put as "send X to their doom" to the extent that I really thought I could save everyone and so was rather crushed when I lost a man.

Overall this is an average game built up by good writing creating investment in the characters.  It also constructs a complex and textured universe full of interesting alien species that would not be out of place in a major Long running TV space opera.  Weakest of the series but as we will find out in future posts the small gameplay issues are addressed in the sequels.

The Mass Effect series is as much about the journey as it is the destination.  So, for those who have played, I was pretty much all Paragon.  My Shep was a male, soldier war hero.  I romanced Ashley, saved wrex and sacrificed. Kaiden.  I chose to rescue the council in the final battle and at the time didn't pick anyone to be the human council member.

Next time, Mass Effect 2

A Belated Farewell to City of Heroes.

It was near the end of last year City of Heroes closed its doors.  So I’d like to take a bit of time to look at the game which held my attention for around 6 years.  For those who didn’t know, City of Heroes was a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Game, or MMORPG based around Super-Heroes.  Initially the game only supported Heroes but eventually expanded to include Villains.  Create a character and go off to fight/commit crime.
Off the bat I will say that Villainy wasn’t all that great, however it did inadvertently give a very good reason why the myriad of baddies never sweep over the heroes, quite frankly a good chunk of your missions are in-fighting with other villainous factions.  Saying that while more raids on Paragon city would have been nice in general the Villain faction was at least as well realised as the Hero.

One of the ways City of Heroes stayed fresh was by constantly changing, while City of Villains and the later Going Rogue were bought expansions (Admittedly both were eventually merged in to the main game) subscribers could still enjoy regular “Issues” which would add in game content, from the minor, such as Power Spectrum which allowed players to change the colouring on the effects of some powers, to others that opened up  whole new mission areas and game play systems like crafting.  This was usually enough to bring people who had let accounts lapse back into the game if nothing else to check out new content.
One of the biggest shakeups was when the game went free to play under the banner of City of Heroes: Freedom.  Arguably, one of the better executed free to play systems.  While most content was available on micropayment, and features like new costumes and power sets were now bought add-ons, a VIP member (One still paying a sub) got a monthly amount of in-game money which covered most new additions, plus free VIP exclusive costumes through veteran rewards.  VIPs also got automatic access to the Going Rogue expansion.

Going Rogue was very interesting, taking place in Pretoria, what should be the “Evil” mirror universe of City of Heroes.  While undoubtedly the main heroes in Pretoria are definitely more villainous, the choices you are given are much more morally ambiguous.  While your faction choices of Loyalist and Resistance sound pretty straight forward the game included a “Power or Responsibility” arc, basically you could be a Loyalist without being evil, instead you try to keep order and help people but from within the confines of a potentially corrupt system.  Similarly a Rebel may be more like a rabid terrorist than a noble freedom fighter, not caring too much about civilian casualties.  These shades were well realised and made for interesting game play.

Similarly the alignment system released with Going Rogue allowed your Hero to act more like a Vigilante or villain less villainously and all this made the basic grind-emup game play more textured.  There were also attempts to make missions more varied and interesting than merely kill all mooks, press a button etc.

For me, while City of Heroes was definitely a grind at times the setting and feel of the game usually made up for this, plus with my altitis there were always new characters to create and new parts of the game to explore and when all else failed, new costumes to create.  In fact arguably the strongest part of the game was costume creation.  A part that was further enhanced in freedom which took away the faction binding to classes.  While most classes were similar, there were subtle and often not so subtle differences, for example a Scrapper and Stalker do the same job in a group but are pretty different beasts.  To be able to create a heroic mastermind was a real bonus.

While Star Trek Online has now filled the CoH hole in my free time I do miss roaming the streets of Paragon City fighting the various forces of evil, it was my first MMO, and while even playing STO has highlighted the flaws in COH I still have a soft spot for the game play and plotting that kept my attention all this time.

Elite Revisited

Back in the mists of time, nearly 30 years ago, it was the 80s Some people regard this as a golden age of video gaming, where you couldn’t sell a game on looks alone and playability was everything. To be honest this is rose tinted glasses thinking most of the time, many games were simple, on occasion addictive but ultimately disposable, requiring far less commitment than the modern equivalent.

Elite wasn’t one of these, it was miles ahead of its time and did amazing things with the very limited resources of the BBC micro. Elite was one of the first “sandbox” games. The premise, you are someone with a spaceship; it has some weapons, a cargo hold and an engine, keep it flying and earn credits to buy add-ons and extras. How you earned money, up to you, you could mine asteroids, hunt pirates, raid other ships, trade legitimately or trade in contraband. Best of all you could switch as the mood took you, although another nice touch was that piracy and smuggling tended to get the attention of the space police which could make your life far more difficult.

After seeing a few documentaries about Elite, I decided to try and find an emulated version to play. The Easiest to find was Elite: The New kind, seemingly a port of the PC version, featuring solid 3D shapes as opposed to the wireframes. There is an old adage of never meeting your heroes, particularly when they’ve aged over 20 years. Elite, I’m proud to say is not this sort of game. Despite the lack of a premise, Goal or score beyond your credits it instantly draws you in. Controls are simple although the keymapping of this particular version isn’t particularly intuitive and you find your hand having to shift between setting speed and firing when a better layout it could have done both. Gameplay is repetitive, but no more than some modern MMOs, you jump to a system, fly to the planet, avoiding/fighting anyone who tries to rob you on the way, dock with the space station and take on fuel/cargo/upgrades as required. Once you get the fuel scoop buying fuel can be replaced with skimming the sun in the system. The look of the game, the lack of any in game music helps the atmosphere, silence as you fly towards a planet broken up by the noise of lasers if you get attacked.

I generally find I play as a trader/bounty hunter, since carrying cargo of any value attracts pirates and fighting them off can sometimes be more lucrative than the cargo run.

It is odd how you get drawn in to such a simple world, you feel genuine joy when you manage a steal on some cargo (Finding something dirt cheap somewhere and selling for huge profit) and similarly the relief when a hard fight ends and you’re left waiting for your power cells to recharge.

The funny thing is, it is truly sandbox, you can (Within the limits of what the game actually contains) do anything, where as modern sandbox games sometimes try to hold a narrative (GTA, I’m looking at you) for progress, in Elite the universe is there, you just have to spend the time exploring it.

I hear that if I like Elite I’d love EVE on line, essentially modern Elite as an MMO, and indeed I can see how well it would work as one, but I encourage any readers to give Elite a go.

Doom Revisited

I recently found the shareware version of Doom as a flash app. This in itself is mind boggling as I’m old enough to remember when Doom was “it” and required a decent computer and all that jazz, hells I remember playing the SNES version and being slightly disgusted by how pared back it had to be. Now I can have it in a window while running something else, a fabulous modern age indeed.

Anyway, in its day Doom was groundbreaking which is odd, it wasn’t the first FPS, it had no look up or down and only managed a true 3D environment (compared to Wolfenstein’s flat rooms) in a graphics trick (It looked like there was an up and down but the effect was purely visual compared with later games such as Dark Forces and Duke Nukem 3D. What Doom had was atmosphere, first the setting, initially a rather standard “Abandoned base” SF setting slowly descends into a full on gothic hell. However this was only part of the atmosphere. Doom used darkness and light to great effect. Areas would be in near total darkness, or with flickering lights and often enemies would appear seemingly out of nowhere as the lights flicker on for a brief moment. This was helped by the extra trick of hiding enemies in secret rooms, often triggered by certain switches or passing over a specific area of floor, this meant that an area previously cleared may still be dangerous later on. Finally doom would also on occasion jump you with a small onslaught of enemies which gave a nice balance between a near survival horror experience of the one enemy in the dark and the full forces of the unread walking into your chain gun.

It’s odd to think, but Doom even had an effect on FPS weapons, it was one of the first to include the shotgun, groundbreaking at the time, hard to imagine these days not switching between machine gun and shotgun depending on the closeness of combat.

Doom was a massive success, which is odd. Not because it wasn’t that good, it was excellent, but because I never knew anyone who had bought a copy of Doom, Seriously pirate copies were swapped in every school playground but I never saw, heard of or even heard a rumour about anyone who actually purchased a copy. It must of happened, where did all the pirate versions come from, but I can’t fathom how it managed to be such a success with this level of illegal redistribution (Unless piracy isn’t as bad a thing as the companies selling games would have you believe eh?)

Now, this is the modern age, games are undoubtedly better looking, more cinematic and more complex, so how well does an old warhorse like doom fare in this age of motion captured 3D and near photo-realistic graphics. It fares very well, even in a small window you quickly get sucked in and soon forget that the foes on your screen are dumb (oh, very dumb, no intelligence at all) 2D sprites occupying a 3D world, no soon you are jumping as one of these sprites appears from the dark. Yes, you don’t need the spiffy graphics with a game as atmospheric as doom; in fact I think this is where many modern games are going wrong. Many games seem to lead with spiffy visuals and often gameplay suffers, developers may want to consider if the game would still be fun if it looked like Doom.

So, this has wetted my appetite for more old FPSs. Once I have my games out of boxes I may well look to playing Duke Nukem or Dark Forces under emulation, as well as hunting down Doom, hell I may even pay for it this time.

Games That Stole My Life - X-Wing

Back in the mists of time LucasArts was virtually a by-line for excellent game. They really couldn’t go wrong and obviously Star Wars Licences were a big draw. In 1994 they released every fan’s dream. X-Wing, a space combat simulator that put you in the cockpit of the mighty X-Wing Starfighter.

X-Wing

The basic concept of the game is simple; you play a rebel pilot flying various missions for the rebels. The core game contained 3 Campaigns, leading up to the Death Star mission as seen in Star Wars Episode IV, and was followed by two expansions, Imperial Pursuit, which focused on the evacuation of the Yavin Base (Just because they lost the death star doesn’t mean the empire is just going to leave it there) and B-Wing, which focused on the development of the B-Wing Starfighter and the relocation to Hoth. These expansions were later available in a collector’s edition.

It was great, addictive fun, on top of the campaigns there were training missions which simulated real missions, or flight training where you flew down an assault course. This meant that I spent a lot of time on X-Wing. In fact, I never finished the B-Wing expansion (one really tricky mission) but overall it was great fun clocking up medals and the like. These were then displayed on your Rebel uniform which could be viewed on the menu screen.

X-Wing allowed you to fly The X-Wing (All rounder), the A-Wing (Nippy interceptor) and the Y-Wing (Heavy Bomber) with the B-Wing being introduced in the B-Wing expansion. Sadly it lacked the option to select the craft for the mission (Not really a biggie) and the weapons loadout (A bit worse); your wingmen were pretty useless as well. Also, while there is a fanboy thrill flying the trench run, I would have actually preferred it as a training mission since it kind of made you Luke Skywalker for the mission. I generally try and justify it by saying I was the guy who missed first, see I used my targeting computer rather than the force. Still, a few annoying missions aside it was a great fun game. The sequel was even better

Tie Fighter

Tie Fighter was a sequel in terms of technological advancement and release date, but didn’t technically follow on from X-Wing (This could be argued it does, as X-Wing ends prior to the battle of Hoth and Tie Fighter picks up just after) Instead it put you in the post of an Imperial pilot. Tie Fighter was bigger, more campaigns, more ships (With expansions up to 7 compared to X-Wing’s 4) and in general a more involved story.

A notable point is that you spend very little time doing “evil”; instead you fill the empire’s general role of keeping order in the universe. In fact an early mission has you performing customs inspections at an imperial post. The interesting part comes from the side missions, issued by a mysterious cloaked figure which allow you to progress through the ranks of the secret order of the empire. These uncover the imperial coups that feature prominently in the campaigns. For fans of the expanded universe you also get to serve under Grand Admiral thrown and fly on the wing of Darth Vader.

A criticism of the game would definitely how the game develops. It starts off being a different game to X-Wing, with the Tie-Fighters being flimsy beasts you really rely on your piloting Skills as the Tie fighter can take about 2 hits (And that first will fry half the systems) and the hardiest is the bomber (4 IIRC) but aside from the odd missions in the Assault gunboat (Which sacrifices speed and manoeuvrability for shields) and the Tie-Advanced (Much rarely deployed), you graduate on to always using some craft or the other which possesses Shields, letting the game fall into a more X-Wing like mould. It also has a little too much love for the Missile boat but that’s a personal preference.

These don’t get in the way of what is an awesome game.

The success lead to two sequels, the first, X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter was based more around Multi-Player gaming, and while it did feature a proper soundtrack (based on the CD) I really wanted (ideally and orchestral version) of Tie-Fighter’s specially created soundtrack included, sadly not to be. By this point it was beyond my machine and while it was popular, it sacrificed story for multi-player. However it is still played online.

Finally X-Wing Alliance, which went back to a single player focus and featured the opportunity to fly the Millennium Falcon, however it included some unpopular tweaks and failed to capture the imaginations like the predecessors did.

Still, like X-Com, if stable versions were released on Steam, I’d be very tempted to pick them up.

Games That Stole My Life - M.A.X.

Reilly 2040 was probably wondering when I’d get to this, MAX, acronym for Mechanised Assault and Xploration, because MAE wouldn’t have been as good a title.

The Story, aliens come to earth and say “Hey, we bring technology etc, all we want is for you to colonise planets and mine stuff for us” and mankind says “Nah, no thanks” however some of the more unwanted groups, religious nuts, hard-line communists, Nazis, samurais, corporations and many more take the aliens up on this offer and go into space on giant ships. You play a MAX commander, a human brain in a robot body used to control ships in hyperspace where the human body can’t stand the stress. You then command the mechanical vehicles and units to colonise worlds for alien benefactors. Yes, it’s an RTS.

MAX came out in the mid to late 90s when Command and Conquer commanded and conquered all. There was a plethora of RTS games out at the time of varying quality; MAX had some interesting strategic levels. At the time being able to zoom from a worldview to very close up was pretty rare, also the fact that each faction used the same units meant that, upgrades aside, you could roughly judge how soon enemies would reach you. There was also the tactics of land, air and sea combat, with certain units being required to attack air units, and some sea units that could only be attacked by air or certain sea units (Such as submarines).

MAX seems to have been created initially as a turn based strategy game, which was then tweaked to work as a real time game, sort of. The game still requires turns to be taken, but in simultaneous mode everyone takes their turn at the same time, giving a real time feel. However this feature is what made MAX so addictive for me.

See, confession time, I’m not really that good at RTS games. I like them, but I’m not good at them. I loose track of things, get confused and have a habit of lumping all my units together in untidy charges. MAX offered me something more interesting, it had a multi-player mode called “Hot Seat Game” In this, each player took ether turn in sequence, but on one computer, so you could invite 3 friends round and spend hours playing MAX turn by turn. Better yet, if you weren’t good at RTS, you could play yourself. This is what sank time in for me. Huge 4 way battles with me running all players. Sounds dull but I enjoy it so much I still play it under emulation. Because it's not real time it allows me to drop the game at a seconds notice and react to my life’s responsibilities. MAX, you are great. You still steal my life though.

City of Heroes - My Characters - The Scarlet Swordsmistress

The scarlet Swordsmistres sis a Katana based scrapper with increased agility powers. My goal here was to try and make a Natural based character with mostly real world powers, so she dodges attacks using martial arts and uses skills with a sword in combat. I actually quite like the close quarters slugging of playing a scrapper, but do have to remember that the don't have the resilience of a tank.



Character wise I opted for scantily clad woman in stripper boots, this was deliberate, but not for the more obvious reason. My origin for her was of a woman who was supremely confident in everything, her skills, appearance, and was loud and forthright with it. In fact often she gets to the point of being annoyingly sure of herself and could be deaf to other ideas. To this end she has a bright but revealing costume. (Working on her opinion that she has it and may as well flaunt it)



I also decided that an aspect of her personality would be a slight superiority complex, particularly to heroes with non-natural powers, her only concession to her powers being purely her own ability is a gravity belt that allows her to leap great distances for travel purposes. Otherwise the most high tech thing she'll generally use is her trusty katana.

Games that Stole My life #3 - Duke Nukem 3D

Duke Nukem 3D was one of the later Build Engine 3D First person shooters that emerged in the mid to late 90s as part of the FPS boom of that era. It wasn't the most technically advanced game, Quake had just launched with polygon graphics, it wasn't the most atmospheric, both Quake and the older Dark Forces beat it on that count, but it had a strange perfect storm combination of level design, humour and action that means it is still spoken about in hallowed tones to this day.

You play Duke Nukem, star of 2 side scrolling shot-em-ups, while travelling home from your latest adventure Duke is shot down after finding out that aliens have invaded, mutated the LAPD and in general caused chaos, and only one man can stop them.

In general gameplay involved you, as Duke, battling your way through levels, solving puzzles and finding keys. Nothing really that new. So, what was it in this game that chewed up so many hours of my adolescent life?

Some would list obvious answers such as its 18 rating, profanity and mild sexual references (It had strippers in) which were fun, as was much of the low brow humour, but it was more than that. The game had an immense sense of fun, often based in toilet humour but also in riffing as many films as possible. In fact 3D Realms were sued by ID Software over a small part of the game featuring a dead space marine from Doom, to which duke said "That's one Doomed space marine" There was stuff like this littered all over the place, but it went further. The level design incorporated in jokes, such as the Shawshank Redemption style escape tunnel behind a poster in the prison level. This was turned up a notch in the Plutonium Pack expansion, particularly in the Pigsty level, which riffed The Terminator, but also had Die Hard and Dirty harry references.

A second part of what appealed to me was the interaction and modeling. On a basic level, bullets left holes in concrete, mirrors and security cameras worked. A better touch was weapon effects, get shot by a shotgun close up, it hurt, and you knew it did, duke screamed, blood was liberally dashed on nearby walls. Similarly blow someone away next to a wall and there was a satisfying blood stain trickling down. It led to a decent but not too serious level of immersiveness.

Duke nukem introduced some interesting weapons. Yes it had the near traditional pistol, shotgun, chaingun, rocket launcher staples that we'd seen previously (Although adding clips to the pistol and making it a weapon with a fair rate of fire was nice) it then gave a fairly original (For the time) selection of extras, we had the shrink ray, which temporarily shrunk opponents down to micro size. This was used in some puzzles to shrink duke himself but there was always fun to be had shrinking and squashing enemies. Similarly the freeze gun allowed freezing and shattering. While Pipe bombs and laser trip bombs weren't used as much in combat they did provide extra spice to multiplayer (Where remote bombs and proximity mines tend to crop up as standard)

Finally level design. Duke nukem had two great aspects in the design of its levels. First was the look and feel of levels. Dukes second episode did some good things using old staples of space stations and moon bases, although these looked more like most other FPS games of the time, its real power was in grungy urban environments, which it did fantastically. Red light districts, Sushi restaurants, underground trains, lapdancing bars, fast food restaurants and a sorting office all crop up and these shine. There were even some pretty damn impressive looking stages, like the sunken city. Similarly the actual level design allowed for some spectacular setpieces, such as cutting down marauding baddies as they invade a bar, or ending one level in a trap, to start the next unarmed and in the electric chair, or on occasion where it just flung and onslaught of foes at you.

In the end, Duke Nukem was a fun adventure with some levels that just made you want to explore, while I liked Quake, ultimately, one had a dumb brightly coloured world where I could shoot aliens on the toilet and have showdowns with flying pigs in an LA backstreet, the other had moody Gothic atmosphere. In the end, you always go back to the flying pigs.

Games that Stole My Life #2

Myst

Or to be Precise, the Myst series of games, yes, Myst, Riven, Myst II: Exile, Myst Iv Revelations, Uru and Myst V: End of ages have all taken up an inordinate amount of my time. The series focuses on you, a mysterious traveller who gets dragged into a mysterious book. You become embroiled into the affairs of Atrus, one of the D'ni, a people who could write links to amazing worlds in books.



Myst


The story starts with you trying to work out what has happened on this deserted island, and which one of Atrus's Sons trapped both him and Catherine. As you travel through the ages of Myst you see the signs of both son's corruption, but who was responsible, Sirrus, who plundered ages for wealth, or the more sadistic Achenar. Both try to blame the other in garbled messages from their trap books. The revelation at the end is of course, it was both.


I started playing Myst in School, it came free with the Apple computers that had been donated and being one of the better computing students I, along with others, was occasionally allowed to go to the lab at lunchtime and play games. The look and feel of Myst blew me away, the atmosphere, the mystery. Even now if I load up Myst, I can almost smell the pine on Myst Island. This is a game that virtually requires you to sit down and spend about 20 odd minutes in game reading. Oddly enough when I left school without knowing how Myst ended I needed to buy my own copy, and did, in pre-Internet days my only source of advice was a certain mate who had sometime net access and could provide me with hints. Regardless, this game took as many hours of my life online as it did offline, sitting in classes or in front of the TV I'd be trying to solve puzzles in my head or work out what I'd missed. Once I'd beaten it I would occasionally still load up the game, just to play the story again. I still get annoyed that RealMyst is so thin on the ground, yes I prefer ed the Myst IV engine, but to wander around Myst island with changing weather. Wow.



Riven

Following the events of Myst Atrus contacts you once again, try and free his wife Catherine from the clutches of his power mad Father Ghen in the age of Riven. And there may even be a way home for you.

For me, this was a long awaited sequel. What happened next. Surprisingly, at the time I was a little disappointed. Initially the more uniform look of the different islands of Riven was a let down after the variety of the ages of Myst. However the plot was interesting, and seeing the sadistic way Ghen kept his followers obedient through fear was interesting, if nothing else because you, as the outside observer get the view from behind the curtain. Riven also suffered from puzzles making slightly less sense, in Myst, they were hints to combinations to access the valuable link books, in Riven some made sense but others (The generator puzzle for example) didn't really make sense (Why have a coloured bead puzzle to switch on power?) Overall though a very good addition.





Myst III: Exile

For a few years this was just a cover picture and a selection of images and concept sketches to me. My machine lacked the oomph to run Myst III. This led me to do something purists will no doubt call a travesty. I played Myst III on the Playstation 2. Yes, I played it on a console, my enjoyment was not diminished of this tale of a nutter who was tortured by Sirrus and Achenar out for revenge, plus you really felt like you were learning a little about the "art" of writing worlds. We also had a good selection of distinct areas, mechanical islands, anachronistic tech and giant organic areas. This was the Myst I remembered. It also had a fantastic "Gotcha" moment on the villain, who I'd found sympathetic, but also fallen afoul of the ending where he basically stabs you in the back.





Myst IV: Atrus has invited you over to see him and his family, and you apparently haven't learned that things go wrong when you drop in. Sure enough, he's been visiting his sons, who he trapped in their ages during the events of Myst, and wants to know wheather he should let them out. While he's away getting parts for a machine there is an explosion and his daughter Yeesha disappears, and worse, it seems that one of his sons is responsible. But which one.

This was excellent, it had the varied ages that drew me to Myst, a decent mystery (Albeit similar to Myst) and my favorite graphics engine, the set nodes made a game that looked better than its sequel, it had the neat feature that you could tap surfaces, in fact the sound could deserve lines of review alone, Only two puzzles were hellish and the mystery was really well presented. Plus it had the superb version of Peter Gabriel's "Curtains" in it. One I must return to at some point.





Myst V

Set many years after the events of Myst IV, Yeesha is all growed up and the events of Uru are in the past. Things are beginning to fail and collapse, and it may be Yeesha's fault. This is so far (With a small caveat) the only Myst Game I am yet to finish. You must re-assemble some sort of tablet, then work out if you can save the Myst universe.

This game had an several new gimmicks, it was split over 4 distinct ages and the D'ni city itself, well at least the access to the City, nice to see areas from the books realised though. Anyway, puzzles are mostly solved using a tablet on which you draw symbols to make events happen in the age. Its a bit weird and can be an utter pain. Each time you draw a symbol you have to drop the tablet and let one of the Bharo (From Uru) judge your drawing, and they're pretty damned fussy. Still, nice touch of having Yeesha and an older D'ni man follow you through the adventure, giving advice and trying to talk you to their way of thinking. Problem is there are far too many timebound puzzles, where you do one thing and have a limited time to do the next few steps. It removes the easy and thoughtful pace of the previous games. Also while the engine used (Same as RealMyst and Uru) allows you complete free roaming, the node based system of IV looked better and seemed more immersive. Another I'll have to go back to and see if I can finish.

Uru

This was a fairly bold attempt by the Myst bods. A Spinoff, so not directly related to Atrus, experimenting with some 3rd person and platform elements, and finally it was to have an online feature, so the game could be played through as a group of friends solving the puzzles, creating new ones and just hanging out. The story follows Yeesha, Daughter of Atrus and Catherine and various prophecies of the D'ni and dark secrets in their past.

This game had a lot of nice touches, not just tat you could run around the ruins of D'ni, and Visit the cleft in the rocks Atrus grew up in. Although those were nice touches. An element of the plot featured an abandoned expedition to the D'ni city by a group called the D'Ni restoration committee, who were investigating this underground city and hoping to open it up for study. The gameplay basically featured exploring several ages in order to highlight a series of "Journey Cloths" througouht each area. You had a home base of your own little island (As seen on the cover) think it was called Rhelto. A neat touch was you could pick up pages for your personal Rhelto book to add things like weather and decorations. There is even a page for trees but they take time to grow. The basic story of exploring the patchier parts of D'ni history is compelling and despite the 3rd person and some irritating platform parts it is a fun game to play. The caveat from Myst V being the only game i didn't finish, not exactly true. I completed the main quest of Uru, but didn't play through the two expansions, Do D'ni and Path of the shell. So those adventures still wait for me. I also never had a chance to try the online element before it collapsed. However I believe there is a new version of the online game out. I'd be interested to meet that online community

So, not only has the Myst series taken many many hours of my life, but it plans to take many more. In fact, when I fix my big computer, I feel a Myst Marathon coming on.

Games that stole my life #1

Some day I'll compile a list of all the #1 starts of series I've started.



Games that stole my life is not a negative thing, instead it refers to a game that you played a hell of a lot and took days of your life in playing. Its a good thing, honest.

First up is the X-Com series, now available on Steam. My good buddy Reilly2040 blogged about them here http://reilly2040.co.uk/blog/2009/01/20/x-com-on-steam/ I thought I would add my own take.

UFO Enemy Unknown/X-Com UFO Defence

The first in the series, and only one with two titles. The plot is simple, you are in charge of X-Com, a secret organisation fighting alien invaders. Gameplay switches between the Geoscape, where you manage your base, from personnel to building new facilities and buying equipment. You also intercept UFOs, and the Battlescape, where you control your squad of agents in an isometric turn-based battle against the aliens.

Its hard to express why this game is so good, I think it is the combination of Geoscape and battlescape, where you micro manage resources in one to the nerve racking battles with aliens on the ground. It really pulled you in, and you became invested in events. You feel frustration and loss when an entire squad of agents is lost, frustration of a mission being fouled by psychic attack and glorious relief when a Snakeman terror mission is finished. I think it was also the nature of geoscape and management/Battlescape combat that seems to make time slip away. You will while away many hours of "Just one more mission"

X-Com - Terror from the Deep

The much maligned sequel, rumour is that it was actually made by a different team using the UFO engine, and it shows. Yes it is more of the same, only with the difficulty increased substantially. There were some decent fixes, such as a way to lock on the reserve time units option, and a decent tactical choice with some weapons only working under water meaning that you had to consider your teams equipment before you sent them out on a mission. It was pretty atmospheric, with the oppressive rumble of underwater or the gentle sea washing sound of a surface terror mission. And it was hard, did I mention that. Your starting weapons are not only weak as heel, but hold very little ammo so you do find yourself frequently reloading. It also lacked the "Master Weapon" so to speak. See in UFO once you researched the Heavy Plasma, that was your go-to weapon, rapid fire, light enough for anyone to carry, plenty of ammo lying around. Great stuff. TFD actually made the choice between the Aliens Sonic weapons and the researched Gauss weapons a tougher choice. Gauss packed less of a punch, but you got an Auto shot that the sonic guns lacked. Also the Heavy sonic (Sonic Cannon) was really heavy, so you would often pack a few rifles for weaker agents. The tech tree was a mad monkey puzzle and the enemies were just harder (Tasoths and Lobster men still give me Nightmares) Maligned as it is there is a lot of entertainment to be taken from this sequel.

X-Com Apocalypse

Again, a sequel that often gets a bad press, this time for the opposite reason of TFD. Apocalypse was a drastic departure, although the meat and veg of the game stayed the same, with one screen being related to base building, procuring resources etc and the other controlling a squad, there were many differences. The Geoscape was replaced with a cityscape and world governments by organisations. There were completely new aliens and new situations. so there was a real change in look and feel. The Battlescape was now playable in real time as well. However in my opinion most of these complaints are due to Apocalypse being different.

The Cityscape is used to brilliant effect in the game. Its far more a living breathing entity than the old geoscape. The different organisations will battle each other in normal competition (Such as police and gang vehicles getting into fights) while you're waiting for aliens to show up and these same police will help you fight aliens when they arrive. n fact one of the best moments I had was when the aliens foolishly attacked a MarSec (The main weapons manufacturer) plant. Suddenly all these extra vehicles launched and joined the battle. That sort of thing happens frequently. Similarly you could raid and be raided by hostile organisations or gangs looking for a quick buck. One of my favorite touches was, unlike in the original games, supplies were finite. f you'd been careless with your machine gun ammo, there was a good chance that there wouldn't be any more on sale until the end of that week. Similarly you may want to hire 50 scientists, but only 10 may be available. When you hire personnel, they have to travel to yoru base through tubes. Indeed at one point the tube network had been damaged and so I ran out an APC to pick up the new personnel. The game also replaced the monthly review with a weekly one, each usually having a corresponding hike in difficulty. This really gave the invasion a greater sense of pace than before. Overall this one is a forgotten gem, but again, it can be bloody hard.

Overall these games have probably eaten up a good few years of my life. And you know what, If I get my copy working, or just download off of steam, I'd loose a few more in a heartbeat.

In Game Advertising

City of Heroes has decided to start selling ad space in game, and I for one, don't mind.

There is almost always uproar when this sort of thing happens, but I'm finding it hard to get riled, particularly if it keeps subscription costs down, and in this case, can be switched off. The picture here shows one of the best uses of it, a movie ad, outside an in-game cinema, some of the other boards look added but overall, ads seem to be on in-game billboards not plastered on the sides of buildings or flashed up on every loading screen.

There was initial controversy when Battlefield 2142 announced there would be in game advertising, although this was in part due to a myth that your browsing habits would be analysed and advertising targeted to you. To be honest Battlefields ads aren't too bad either.

I really don't know where the opposition comes from. Yes, I've seen games where buildings are more or less replaced by blocks of advertising, and that is poor, but this is just replacing in game fake billboards, for Vanguard or Crey, with a poster plugging a Vin Diesel film. And as always, if this keeps subscription costs down, I'm all for it.

Naturally, not every game can take ads, I somehow don't think a bar in World Of Warcraft would look particularly good with a Babylon AD poster in it. But so far the whole thing seems sane and normal.

Now, Issue 13, Architect.

The mission designer sounds interesting, more on my part to see how they've managed to avoid making them XP farms. However the part that really appeals is the Day job, where you gain points depending on where you leave your character when you log off, so Logging off near a hospital means you're doing hospital work and will give health benefits which is tantalisingly close to being able to engineer a secret identity. I like it.

I know Kung-Fu

I like beat-em-ups. while they've somewhat fallen from favour these days nothing gives entertaining 2 player action like an old beat-em-up. What I want out of a beat em up is simple

1. Story. I want a premise for my fighting, a Tournament is fine but I'll want that expanded on. Each character must have more than just looks, I expect a character bio, personality traits and rivalries with other characters. I also want an ending, preferably an animated conclusion but text and pictures is fine. I remember the disappointment of Street Fighter Ex plus Alpha, where the endings were animated, but didn't seem to relate to any plot going on. It was annoying (Possibly the actual details were just left out on the translation)

2. Kung-Fu. This is the most important, and also in some ways hardest to define. I can't remember which one of my friends coined the phrase. All I know is that it was said during a bout of Street Fighter II, and it was at the point that we were both significantly good enough to really have a good fight.

Kung-Fu, in this context, which is only appropriate to myself and 2-3 other people, refers to the state in a fighting game when the combat flows. That's still quite vague isn't it. Think of it this way, if you remember the original Mortal Kombat, where every character could do the stock roundhouse/sweeps etc. ell an example of Kung fu would be ducking a roundhouse by doing a sweep and tripping your opponent. Its when you exchange blows but each block correctly high or low. In short its where a spectator could watch the screen and see it as a choreographed set piece rather than two people playing a game.

One of the things that left me cold about the more hardcore fighters Tekken and Virtua Fighter was that, while I'm told that when you have 2 people who really know the games it looks great, even after a bit of practice you look like someone hammering buttons. It also requires decent character models and animation (Why despite being cited as my example Mortal Kombat wasn't great for Kung-Fu)

SO, my top 3 list of games which lend themselves easily to Kung-fu.

3 - Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance/Armageddon - Yes, its 2 games, but its important to note that they ditched the odd combo system from Deception in favour of most of DAs fro Armageddon. While a rookie won't Eb pulling off style branch combos any time soon the way the game animates itself and the way the fights flows lends itself very quickly to kung-fu. Particularly on the weapon fighting styles. MK also has full rich stories for its characters and is never afraid of a downer ending.

2 - Soul Caliber 2 - Actually quite well respected in fighting circles what I like is the simple button allocations (Overhead slash, sideways slash, kick/punch and grab) with stick direction, position and frequency of button mash dictating what you see on screen. with the addition of a solid block and better, an easily applied shedding block that allows for a free hit fights look fantastic with very little effort or experience. The characters all have a little history and the overreaching plot fits everything in nicely.

1 - Dead or Alive 2 - Ok, could have been 3 as well. Dead or alive is the button masher's dream. Scorned by hardcore fans for being too simplistic (it unashamedly is) and for being quite obsessed with, ahem, CG women, hell the unlockable costumes is a major part of the game. Besides all this what you have is a game that still lets you feel like you're in control, but where the computer fills in much of the gaps to make for spectacular fights with little or no experience. Its like the computer wants the thing to look good. If you can master some counters this is amplified considerably. The characters once again have a back story and the single player is more of a story mode and will usually have several cutscene supported battles.

I do sometimes wonder when games are reviewed as too flashy or easy. Because to me the Kung-Fu factor is primary, if the characters look like they're randomly stumbling as opposed to performing ballet like martial arts I just enjoy it less. And surely fun is the most important part of gaming.

For those about to ROCK!

There are several things that can make me buy a game, but there are 2 which can be almost guaranteed.

1. Unlockable content, I'm a real sucker for repeating the same tasks to see extra gubbins.
2. Zany peripherals, If I'd had a gamecube, I'd have bought Donkey Konga, a Saturn, Samba del amigo or whatever it was called. In fact I still yearn after a singstar set despite the game being pretty duff if not mixed with other people and copious amounts of booze.

One series that scratched both of these was Guitar hero. I mean not only is it a fun rhythm based game but it has unlockable content (Characters, tracks etc) and an absurd controller, plus the rock music I so dearly love.

I counted the original as my last extravagant purchase before responsible co-habiting life, and really enjoyed it.

There was some criticism from people that Guitar Hero was a bit sad, and that players of it should buy a guitar and learn for real. For gods sake, I'm playing a game. I know I can't get up in front of a crowd and play Texas flood unless I have my comedy plastic guitar and a PS2. The amount of hostility from your common or garden bedroom guitar player was really surprising, what had guitar hero done to deserve such wrath? Did they think that people would just play guitar hero instead of taking up the guitar? is it one prop too many for air guitar? Are all these games ok but rock, particularly with a guitar shaped peripheral, is sacred?

I love rock like I love pies, and to me this was a great idea. Rockers could play a fun game, kind of air guitar with a score attached, while gamers would be introduced to a world of rock. Ok covers in GH1 but still I imagined gamers walking away thinking "I'd like to hear some Judas Priest" or "Man Boston are excellent" and indeed there were stories of players taking up the guitar. Still, the hate was confusing.

Guitar Hero 2 really just fixed the few problems in 1, adding co-op 2 player with one on bass and the encore system while still keeping the game's rock themed humour made this so far the pinnacle of the series. Sadly disaster struck. Harmonix and Acclaim had a falling out. Harmonix went on to team up with MTV to produce Rock Band (More on that later) while Acclaim got Harmonix's cooperation on Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s and hired Neversoft to do Guitar Hero III.

Rocks the 80s was good, exactly what I wanted, just more tracks with the guitar hero II engine, a few graphical tweaks but to be honest I was quite happy with just more songs, about the only issue was that, with reduced extended content the game was still sold initially at full retail. It just wasn't value for money. Shame as I would have been quite happy with many expansions based around the GH2 engine (Its not like you're coding much new) at around the £15 price point, and would have picked them up as, lets face it, having the controller I tend to want to use it so I'm a bit of a captive audience. Just started GHIII and I'm a Little put off. Its clear they wanted to make it more "Next Gen" or wanted some separation from Harmonix, perhaps Neversoft wanted their own stamp, but the look and feel of the game just doesn't work as well. Still it has some killer tracks.

There was, however, competition this time around. Rock Band. This was a bold move by Harmonix and MTV, for starters it would have all songs by the real artist as opposed to Guitar Hero's "Made famous by" majority. Also a full set (around $200 in the US) included 2 guitars, with 6 extra buttons for special sections, a mic for singing and a drum kit. The idea is that you and 3 friends can get together and play as a band, or you can play each part individually (a nice touch since the bass tracks in GHII were only available in 2 player co-op) Sadly my inner killjoy points out that in total I've played 2 player guitar hero 3 times. How often could I actually get 3 others to play rock band. Rock band also has an uphill struggle. See, quite a few people have guitar Hero SGs (The guitar peripheral) and while Rock Band may be the better game, we'll most likely go for the one which we can buy at the cheaper solus price.

SO, what do I want from each company. For both, keep releasing on the PS2, you've got a userbase there who most likely now own 4 games for their controller, none of us are going to buy a PS3 to own a 5th. Although by all means release a PS3 version alongside your Wii and 360 ones. Also consider allowing other companies to make guitar based games using the SG or rock band guitars (Preferably compatible with both) having other dance games didn't hurt Dance Dance revolution nor did other singing games dent singstar, so compatibility throughout.

Rock band - Open the game up to 3rd party controllers, give me a guarantee that my Guitar hero SG will work with rock band and I'll probably buy it for more songs to play. hell I may even buy your mic as I hear with a stand you can sing and play guitar (If you are able to concentrate like that, apparently its not easy) preferably I could attach any PC voice Chat mic and I'd probably buy one of those and also use it for voice chat on my PC. Regardless if my two SGS were compatible I'd definitely buy Rock band when it becomes available.

Guitar Hero - More tracks in expansions. Similarly open up the SG so anyone can code a guitar game, allow compatibility with Rock band guitars as well and just give us a raft of extra tracks in expansions around the £15 point.

Keep this up and I'll keep rockin.

Console War Correspondant

The Wii is the current leader in the current console war. The response from both Sony and MS is, well Cheat. They've disqualified the Wii for not playing by the rules and doing the same stuff but better looking. However the war is far from over. And it still could be everything to play for as so far Nintendo's biggest advantage is that it has not made any blunders.

Using a military analogy the Wii has won some early battles using the unconventional tactic of seemingly having different goals to its two competitors. Rather than barrel into a spec battle it went for innovative gameplay and quirky, original games. Like the clear win of the DS over the PSP Nintendo's biggest advantage has been their appeal to non-gamers thanks to party style games, innovative basic controller and low price point. In short rather than aim to win over the hardcore gamers, Nintendo almost went out of their way not to appeal to them (Although it has some very good titles for the more hardcore). It made the Wii the must have gift this Xmas which is no mean feat. In the long run the larger numbers of Wiis sold (Although supply problems, deliberate or not create good peer pressure based sales in the kids market. If all your friends have Wiis, you want a Wii rather than a 360 or PS3 so you can share games, play together and compare progress. The Wii versions of EA sports staples (Such as Madden NFL and tiger woods golf) have definitely given the sports simulation crowd a preference to the Wii as well despite the spiffier graphics of its rivals. Some games have had very good critical response, Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy. Zelda and Metroid Prime corruption have received solid reviews comparable to games on the XBox (PS3 have yet to gain a "killer App") To win Nintendo will have to continue to produce original fun titles peppered with the odd involving Hardcore title to keep the serious gamers interested.

Microsoft went for a quick attack by launching near enough a full year before its opponents, indeed they may have been the most prepared for this war, spending money during the XBox's tenure acquiring some very lucrative licences such as Grand Theft Auto. Neither of these are exclusive but MS have the first launch. Also getting the system out first now means they have an established user base and plenty of titles out there. Indeed evidence from the last war showed that the first system (PS2) won despite lower power. However, they blundered. It was a strange vision of consoles being an upgradeable entity that has to a large extent hobbled MS. They had a vision of people checking system specs before buying games, as is done with a PC. To this end they launched with 2 systems, core and the other one. The blunder came by not equipping the core with a hard disk. Now, any 360 game is limited by the storage of a memory card and the hard disk on the better and elite models is relegated for holding pictures, music and rented movies. Games can't utilise larger storage and can't use the hard disk to stream data to reduce loading times. I'm not exactly saying the core was a mistake, but the lack of a hard drive on it definitely was. Also the XBox is so riddled with DRM and lockdowns (Like a Mac :Shudder:) those tasks such as transferring data from an older 360 to the new one is an exercise in beurocracy and frustration. Still, if Sony and MS have decided the Wii doesn't count, since they target the "Hardcore" gamer, MS would do well to play up its "First dibs" essentially they should say "Play it first on 360" otherwise they will loose custom to the more powerful PS3.

Finally the PS3. It's very much the new boy. However already its Blu-Ray DVD drive has won that format war for Sony, but will it do the same in the games machine battles? Well, history shows us that the most powerful machine doesn't guarantee a win and the PS3 has yet to launch a "Must have" exclusive title, although it is definitely winning acclaim by its games looking significantly better than its rivals. It has also lowered its price from its initial high which has encouraged more people to consider it. However so far Sony has seriously blundered in a number of ways. Sony was complacent. After all, it was the winner of the previous 2 wars, and it pretty much thought it was the chief of the new generation of gaming, having beaten old hands Nintendo twice and seen off a well funded new rival in Microsoft. They had built the most powerful games machine on the planet and were fairly assured of victory. It was clear this early confidence was stuttering a bit when the Wii's controller was announced. Sony very much had the appearance of people floundering in confusion. Suddenly they had to include motion sensitivity in their controller, this combined with a small legal dispute over the Dualshocks use of rumble led to comedy announcements such as the controller can't hold motion detection and rumble (But the Wii does it and has a speaker and mic to boot) not only that but the significantly cheaper Wii was looking very strong on its launch. Sony's second mistake was not noticing that in the PS2 years MS had bought a fair number of their exclusive titles. Sony are fighting back now, short on exclusives they're being far cleverer. They play up the Blu-Ray aspect, making it a cheap option for a new movie player. Also, Sony are very much aware that their killer app on the PS2 was the Grand Theft Auto series of games. While you will play it first on the 360 Sony seem to be keeping their name linked to it. I don't know how but everywhere I read people talking about how the killer app for the PS3 is GTA 4, the fact that the 360 will have it first is ignored or glossed over. This could be a sign of very clever marketing, but it could backfire. Sony are winning some hardcore gamers away from their 360s, and have been fairly dismissive of the Wii as everything from a fad, a kids machine or not a machine for proper gamers. Some are buying this and PS3 sales are increasing. Sony are also pitching it as a bling type fashion accessory, almost akin to a big ugly car with spinners and neon lights, or a chunky gold watch, or £500 trousers, and again, some people are buying into this.

So in conclusion, it looks like the Wiis game at the moment, but Nintendo best keep things fresh and interesting and supplies coming lest their competitors get a better foothold.

That was longer than expected.

Hot Alien Rumpy

As an addition, this got to Fox News's ears and apparently they did a "SHOCK HORROR THINK OF THE CHILDREN GAMES ARE EVIL" segment which included a round table discussion composed of uninformed worriers and foaming mouthed Neo-cons. All well and good.

However,http://kotaku.com/348187/ea-calls-fox-out-on-insulting-mass-effect-inaccuracies

BioWare, who made Mass Effect, are now run by EA, an Industry giant. An industry giant who are singularly unimpressed that a major news channel have bad mouthed a signature game that cost a lot to make. They have publicly asked for an apology.

I'd have demanded.

EA are clearly getting in early for fear that this turns into a "Hot Coffee" and gets the rating ramped up to AO, and hence barred from 90% of all US retailers. If you remember the Hot Coffee Controversy in Grand Theft Auto: San-Andreas, there was a sex based mini-game (On the explicit-o-metre the footage of that I saw measured about 6, Compared with Mass Effect's 2 and Seven Sins 7) it was cut from the final release of the game but (As occurs quite often) the half made code to run the game still existed in the GTA:SA code, as it transpired, this code could be unlocked by a mod, most easily on the PC. This caused uproar as people found out that a game which you could murder with weapons ranging from guns to chainsaws, steal and extort, and which glamorised gangsta lifestyles, had sex in. Despite the fact that someone wanting to engage in aforementioned virtual bonking would have to install a mod in order to access these scenes, it instantly upped the rating to AO (Adults Only) and meant that many big retailers in the US wouldn't stock it, this lead to a major loss in share value for Rockstar (Makers of the GTA series) and forced them to re-issue the game with that code deleted in order to regain their M (Mature) rating. EA are clearly aware of this, and since Mass Effect is one of their Big products, and the culmination of Millions of dollars of both production and marketing, the last thing they want is for it to be pulled from shelves in a hand wringing campaign by overly-moralistic nutters and wildly uninformed parents.

This is good, it’s good that a big games company is actually willing to respond to these accusations and to try and represent gaming and gamers in a more positive light to the general public. Hopefully more companies will do this when the next ignorant nut-ball tries to start a "Gaming is EVIL" bandwagon.

On this subject, the "Hot Coffee" did show the very odd nature of what censorship considers obscene enough to get an Adults only rating. Murder, crime etc, that’s mature, but the first hint of sex and it becomes Adults only. Not only that but it wasn't GTA's traditional implied sex with ladies of the night, no this was girls you meet, woo by taking on dates and eventually, after effort, get to have sex with, but basically you can have levels of violence for an AO rating but not levels of sex. Now, as far as evils in the world go, random violence and crime are both well above consensual sex. But yet it’s about the only thing that means an automatic AO rating. I could understand if it was rape, or at least sexualised violence, but it isn't. Take 7 Sins, a game where you have to sin your way to the top, largely by cheating, stealing and sleeping with any and all things in your path (Sort of Season 1 Torchwood: the game)

Anyway, actual contents were cartoon violence, some letching and sort of simulated sex, sadly it chickened out on Nudity and showing actual sex. Regardless it was referred to advisory groups and is yet to be rated by the ESRB. Now while its UK 18 rating was borderline on content, an AO for that is just hung up about sex being in some way evil. AT most it should have been an M rating on the ESRB.SO, good for EA, but really, we should rate more on context and content and loose this hang-up about sex in games.

Then BioWare can make the game that McCullough described, that sounded ace.

Mased Effect

Since my last post a number of things have drifted in line for a good old rant. However this one jumped out at me.You can catch up on the most part through Links on the Penny Arcade Website (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/01/14) I could link directly but I don't really want to give this guy any more publicity that he seems to crave, indeed I'm almost tempted to copy and paste the articles in full.

Kevin McCullough, nobody blogger and professional handwringer has recently found out that XBox 360 game "Mass Effect" has naughty bits in it. His argument is that Mass effect is billed a as cinematic space adventure, but is in fact a hardcore Virtual Orgy, in which, and I paraphrase, you can design your own characters down to minute physical attributes such as breast size (He mentions breast size a lot) and then command them to perform obscene acts.

Now I've not played Mass Effect, thanks to astounding Generosity by my wife I am very much in the Wii camp of this console war. However the 360 looked tempting and aside from the new GTA and ace combat games Mass effect looked like just the sort of expansive, immersive sandbox Sci-Fi adventure I really don't have time to play. Mass effect is rated M by the ESRB, now while the chance to pull aliens and co-workers is a logical part of a "Do anything" universe, however the acts that McCullough describes seem to be the sort of thing that would instantly garner an AO rating (I won't get into how sex gets AO but 90% of violence doesn't) McCullough wrote a further article following up the negative response the gaming community (Who are often their own worst enemy when it comes to reasoned backtalk, seriously, if you're going to sound like an illiterate foul mouthed ten year old keep it to yourself, you make the rest of us look bad and reinforce negative stereotypes) he published a follow up explaining that he was right, gamers were all to a man bestiality obsessed losers who lurk, alone in their darkened basements looking for more diverse fifth. However this is where he really destroyed the last of his argument, he posted links to the content to show how bad it was and how much this could corrupt a kiddie who has nagged a criminally uninformed parent to buy him mass effect.

Now, I'm a fan of CG rumpy in games, and so I settled the wife down in front of Eastenders and retreated to my darkened study to look at the Hot Alien on Alien action this man was describing. I must say on the hot rumpy action I was disappointed, but at least he links to something that proves him wrong. I just hope the more jittery of America’s hand wringers don't get the loudmouthed uninformed majority behind this without looking into it.

So, let’s go through the accusations one by one.

First, the creating any character down to minute attributes. Well, some character creation engines are pretty good, however as far as I could see Mass Effect only lets you make your own character, the NPC's you perform obscene acts with seem to be set. So that’s inconclusive, verging on exaggerated, lies or mistaken.

Second, once in game you can command these characters to perform all manner of sex acts. Well that’s plain wrong, the clips (I like the term Evidence, or Facts) show what actually happens. At certain points in the game a character will grow close enough to pretty much say "How about it" this is decided through a conversation with a fairly standard set of selectable answers. This then leads to a very tame cutscene where the sex is mostly implied, nudity is nothing you can't see before the watershed, there is no "Hardcore" action and the most exotic thing you can do is set your character as female and have lesbian alien sex. AT no point can you command characters to perform acts on you, or yours to do anything to them, it’s a cinematic, a cutscene. So, this comes in as the product of a fevoured imagination.

Finally he argues that parents can't regulate what games children buy, and that game shops can't restrict who buys them. I beg to differ, when I become a parent I will be keeping close eyes on what games my child plays, and since we rate games like films in the UK an 18 rated game can not be sold to a child. By his argument neither parents nor stores should be able to stop children buying violent films, or pornography.

This guy is an uninformed publicity hound who is desperately trying to get himself noticed as a moral crusader against a digital age that is clearly leaving him and his ilk behind. my worry is that there are so many technologically illiterate people who will read his foaming rant and take it at face value, and that there may be moves to sanitise all computer games in a drastic "Think of the children" move.

This is becoming a great worry for me as things like gaming and the internet may soon be censored or restricted in panic moves by politicians looking for a bandwagon to appease parents who are too stupid, lazy or too poor a parent to try and monitor what their child is exposed to. My mother in law volunteers at a youth club and there are endless complaints from parents about kids "Accidentally" accessing Pornography. The cafe runs so many filters on its internet access that it noticeably slows the systems down. Whatever these kids see is most likely from their home systems that aren't protected thus. Indeed one parent complained that her child googled its name and got pornographic results. That is either a lie or a story that's "grown legs". Interesting thing about Google, it employs a system called "Safe Search" which filters search results. By default this is on and in order to search for anything juicy you have to deliberately disable it. If it’s on, no dirty pictures or websites on a search. Similarly on a Panorama programme about paedophiles grooming children, their fake 14 year old asked "How would this look to a real 14 year old alone in their room" and I agree that it would be scary. I'd also ask why your child was not told to mention this sort of thing to parents the instant it happened, and indeed why the child was accessing the internet alone in their room. Rule 1 of parenting children on the internet, they don't get the net alone in their room, the computer is in a public place (Living room etc) where you can keep an eye on it.

I'd like to hope this sort of thing dies out as my tech-savvy generation grows up. And indeed I hope it has that chance before foaming nutters like McCullough or idiot parents get the joy of gaming and the information in the internet restricted from children.