Escape from Castle Gamerscore.

I have an achievment that almost nobody else has!

Sadly, it does not appear on my gamercard. There is no direct evidence that I have done it, anywhere. There is only indirect evidence, and even then you need to know what you're looking for before the connection can possibly be made.

So, what is this mystical achievment, I hear ... er, me ... ask? Well, I shall tell ... um ... myself! It is this :

For the last couple of years, I have willingly subjected myself to the torture of this overly annoying system. I have actively chosen to spend more money on a game purely because it has achievments! (Lego Star Wars II for 360 rather than the cheaper PS2 version.) I have also denied myself the opportunity to play some other games because they don't have trophies. I realised how stupid this was in the case of Ratchet & Clank : Tools of Destruction, which I am yet to play. I decided to wait for the trophy patch, and now that I have discovered that there won't be one I suddenly feel somewhat stupid.

Why have I done this to myself? Why has an arbitrary and even random reward system become one of the dominant factors in my gaming life? Why do I CARE that I have 910 on Halo 3 compared to the 760 that Mrobjob has? (User chosen because his total gamerscore is the next one I could pass if I were still playing that particular game.) Why do I allow that missing 15 on Braid to even bother me at all?

Having a higher gamerscore does not make me a better gamer than somebody else. I know this, and yet I still trawl through the gamercards of people to see if I can justifiably make the claim. "Ha, you may have 50,000+, but you don't have a million in Geometry Wars! You don't deserve your score..."

But, recently, I just stopped caring. It helps that the 360 can no longer be relied upon to ever actually read the disc that we put inside it. Eventually, you just tire of restarting, opening and closing the tray repeatedly, and instead switch to a console that works! Further to that, even if playing a Live Arcade game, and therefore not using the DVD drive at all, it still takes 1 minute and 13 seconds from switch on to moving your ship in Geometry Wars Evolved 2. Compare this to the 25 seconds from switch-on to Secret of Mana on the Wii, and you see why the 360 has taken the back seat recently.

Going a month without any noticeable change in gamerscore was cathartic! It freed me, allowing me to once more not care about what anyone else sees, just what I do. It has allowed me to dust off the PS2 once more, and play God Hand, which shall be getting a review-me-do soon enough.

I do still wish that the rest of the world could see what I am playing. I would also love for there to be a "Beat Fat Elvis without using Roulette" achievable, or "Spank 50 women". For now, though, I will content myself with the knowledge that I have done both, until some smart arse invents an all-format 'Achievment Aggregator' that tells the world everything in every game!

Little Big Planet review-me-do.

PS3 HOME is supposed to be the most amazing thing ever. It isn't. It is just a crass attempt to make you spend money instead of playing games on your games console. (Read : Media centre.) As a gateway to a world of new experience, it makes for an incredibly effective barrier. The whole community aspect is far too limited, and I can think of no logical reason why the bowling alley consists of 6 lanes that can fill. Yes, you read that right. I had to wait for a slot to become available to play a video game in a virtual space!

Sony have made a pretty huge mistake there, because despite HOME and its over-powering restriction, there really is the potential for a great community on the PS3. The proof of this pudding comes in the shape of Little big Planet.

That it is the best 2D platformer since New Super Mario Bros. is enough for me, I would buy the game on the strength of the single-player alone. Platforming, when done right, is still one of the most satisfying genres out there. And Media Molecule have gotten some of it EXTREMELY right! From pixel-perfect jumps, to timed chases, to seemingly unreachable rewards, all the required elements are in place. Things are made so much better, though, because of the style. Sackboy is such a simple idea, and yet is full of charm. The world in which he lives is a direct extension of this, and is all the more enjoyable for the enforced cartoonishness of things.

The real genius, though, is the clever usage of physics. Items can be moved, bounced, burnt, sploded, broken, and interacted with in countless ways. Some things are light enough for Sackboy to grab and drag in order to get access to areas he can't jump to. Sometimes, you need to find other ways past. So, you might grab a sponge on a string in order to swing across a chasm. Or, you might have to drive a rocket-powered car at it fast enough to smash through. Or, you might need to carry explosives toward it from a jetpack, through perilous rocky outcrops. All the kind of stuff you just don't do in more real-world based games.

And then, the piece de resistance. Or, more accurately, the first of two.

You get the opportunity to create your very own levels. In the past, this has amounted to some limited "Place one of these few blocks in one of these few places." Not so, here! Here, you get to create the very blocks that you are placing, as well as what they do, what they react with, along with where they go. You can create locales, traps, enemies, vehicles, even the very backgrounds. You define how they look, how they sound, how they are lighted, and how they react, along with what they react to.

Then, you get to upload it to the community. Which is quite possibly the trump card. I swear, rather than making adverts with generic Australian 'comedy', and stressing that you can play with anything, Sony should be showcasing the idea that ANYBODY can play with anything you made!

I came across a level called 'Vanessa Feltz in the Cheeky Temple', which speaks for itself. Even if the level is awful, somebody took the time to create something like that. Let's examine this for just a couple of seconds here.

Vanessa Feltz is ... there is no nice way to put it. She is a joke. Her short-lived career as a broadcaster is well and truly over, she only gets to appear on TV these days when they remind us annualy of her Celebrity Big Brother meltdown. Any aspect of seriousness she once held has been stripped away in a loop of reality TV and sitcom cash-in appearances. And, most people in Britain know this. She belongs to that special class of celebrity who exist these days because we like to laugh at those less fortunate than ourselves. To her credit, she does somewhat accept her fate, rather than try and act like she still has any kind of relevance.

So, when 'Divalicious' got his or her hands on the tools to make ANYTHING THEY COULD IMAGINE, they imagined a fat has-been for their ideal mascot. I have yet to play the level myself, but I don't need to. I can already imagine the level of hilarious it entails. Divalicious is clearly a person with whom I could have a great laugh. At time of writing I am unable to access the LBP servers, but as soon as I can I will 'heart' them (add them as a favourite creator of levels) without hesitation. Such is the potential of this title.

From my own point of view, I have in my hands a tool that will allow me to try out ideas, and test them on the public at large. By refusing to join in with any forum-based "Let's heart each other for the trophy!" shenanigans, and just releasing my own levels to see how they do, I will know that if I get enough people hearting me that I am doing things right. If I don't, then I am not. This is wonderful, publishing without the need to buy a license!

All of this goes without mentioning 1-4 player local play, and up to 8 players online! Replayability is built in due to the quite frankly scary amount of items to collect in each level, some of which are VERY well placed. Some require co-operation to get, and thankfully all players receive the reward when they reach these items.

The real community consists of gamers, not customers. People are what they make, not just what they buy. HOME has been made by marketing executives, whereas Little Big Planet has been made by artists. I will leave it up to you to judge which one is more likely to be a success.

New year, new game.

It occured to me that I have not yet posted anything about the making of games in this thing. Which is something that I should do, as it will help to seperate the blog from all the other 'This is what I played today' blogs out there. Also, I don't expect there are too many other blogs out there in interwebland that are discussing games that I am making at the moment!

The plain brutal ugly truth is that at this precise moment in time I am not making ANY games. Or, to be more honest, not physically making any. I am working on several ideas, but none of them have gone beyond the theory stage. This has to change. It is 2009, and I think my New Years Resolution should be to have a completed game ready before this year ends. A completed NEW game, which will hopefully stop me from going back and just adding more to the games I have already done. Should anybody reading wish to see any of them, they can be found at the Wee Games website, although this concept has been put on hiatus for now. I do have plans, but they are plans. It turns out I am GREAT at planning, but fucking awful at putting them into action.

A perfect example of this displacement activity that I am World Champion of is 'Untouchable', and my treatment of it so far. It was an idea that I happened upon, expanded, and made into a game for a first year University assignment. It garnered me a first-class pass, AS IT SHOULD HAVE DONE, and I decided that there was almost certainly room to improve upon it. To that end, I spent some time thinking about additional modes, and even have a name for the sequel : Untouchable Retouched. Here is the plan :

1.) Convert Untouchable to Flash, and have it on the site.
2.) Make Retouched, and have it on sale.
3.) Get the free Flash game out there, so that people can play it and love it and hopefully buy the superior 'real' version.

Here is the action I have taken so far :

1.) Learn a bit of Flash.
2.) Think a LOT about Retouched.

Now, I know that a lot of the creative process is the thinking about it, but there has to be some action. This is the bit I am not so great at. Also, I suffer from inspiration. Or rather, I suffer from brief periods of enhanced inspiration, when every single thing I lay eyes or ears on gives me another great idea. At times like this, I find myself coming up with several themes, most of which are doomed to just remain as prototypes IN MY OWN BRAIN.

Right now, there are multiple ideas floating around. Some of them include :

• 2D platformer where the hero can temporarily affect gravity.


• Simplified strategy/boardgame where the units are geometric shapes, and combat is decided purely mathematically.


• FPS Robotron. (Best thing I can think of to call the idea for now.)


• Exploration based platformer set in the darker side of fairy tales.


• 2D top-down vertical shmup, with the gimmick that the game exists in more than one dimension at the same time, and the player can phase between them. Some enemies become weaker in some dimensions, and the scoring is affected by this.


• Forces of Nature. Puzzle game akin to The Lost Vikings.

This is on top of actually finishing 'Doodlebugs', making 'Untouchable Retouched', and finding some use for my blob engine. Oh, and converting 'Untouchable' to Flash. (And somewhere in there perhaps converting 'Doodlebugs' to XNA and releasing it onto XBox Marketplace as a Community Game.)

All in all, quite a busy little time I have ahead.

I think what I need most of all is a partner, or even a team of people to work with. I think 3 people would be enough, although ideally I would like to go as far as 5. Myself, a dedicated programmer or 2, a dedicated artist, and a dedicated musician/sound effects guy. Of course, this would bring with it additional headaches, but I have always found that having people to lead brings out the best in myself.

The main problem I foresee with recruiting a team is that they would bring their own ideas to the table. I am not saying that I am some kind of all-knowing facist who would refuse to accept the input of others. No, I am merely saying that I don't want to add even more ideas onto the 'Stuff I want to do someday' pile. I am trying to complete something, not give myself even MORE reasons to procrastinate!

For now, I need to work on my motivation, and set myself a timetable that I WILL STICK TO! If this means less time playing games, then so be it. A sacrifice must be made, as I do fully intend to live the dream.

I guess what I need to do is find someone to brainstorm with, or at least to get some idea of what would be the best thing to focus on from. This person could actually exist purely online, but I would rather it be someone I could spend face-time with. It just so happens that I now have some friends who may just have the time, so perhaps I should take advantage of circumstance.

Super Mario Galaxy review-me-do.

Of course I bought it when it was first released. After all, it was getting rave reviews from everyone, save for the usual few monkeys who just want to attack anything Nintendo related. And, I played it, and loved it. And then, for whatever reason, I abandoned it for other games. Just .... for no real reason that I can see, other games were much more appealing to me. Which is not to say that any of them were better, incidentally. Just that they were on the 360, which meant achievments and communication with friends at the same time.

And then, the other night, nearly a year after I last played it, I decided to switch on the Wii again and give Mr. Gay another shot. The reason being that the Wii had finally seen some love over the weekend when we tried Samba de Amigo with friends. Before this, my message board tells me the Wii had been inactive in 6 weeks. Which pretty much explains why I hadn't completed Galaxy.

I still haven't completed Galaxy, but I have beat Bowser. Now, here is where things get interesting. Because I would normally not bother going back to 100% complete a game at this stage. I am more of a "Play them all" than a "Play it all" type of guy. But, I knew there was much more fun to be had in Galaxy, so I gladly went back in to add some more stars to my collection.

The closing credits pleased me, and surprised me. Apparently, 6 people were involved in level design, and 1 person was involved in in-game cinematics. This pleased me because it is the way all games should do it, and surprised me because I felt sure that there were at least 100 level designers! I have never played anything that has so consistently thrown new things at me. There are entire massive levels based around a single play mechanic that could quite easily support a full game, that is then thrown away. There are comets that change the rules completely, and yet are entirely in keeping with the rest of the game. There are of course the familiar old enemies, along with some entirely new creations. And it all sits hand-in-hand, and makes complete sense.

All the reviews you have read can't prepare you. They certainly didn't prepare me. I knew I was in for a good time, what I didn't know was that my entire gameplaying life for the last few years would be revealed to be as empty as it has been.

For example, there is a level where I had to multiple wall-jump from side to side up a tower that was sinking into the sand. Or maybe water. Or maybe just empty space, I don't remember now. What I DO clearly remember is the feeling of pure awesome as I made the jumps.It was almost as if I was all-powerful, with the knowledge that I could go pretty much anywhere at any time as of right now, and have no fear at all. Very few games give you that level of reward, Galaxy starts you off with it.

The level design shines. Every galaxy you open brings you at least one area that you can see, but can't quite work out how to get to. These areas may not contain anything, or they may contain power-ups, coins, it doesn't matter. You never feel as if they are out of reach, they are just slightly out of your reach at that moment. You trust that they are there for a reason.

This reason comes with the advent of the purple comet. Once the game is completed, you get a message telling you that 'Another chapter has been added to the storybook', and another one saying 'The purple comet has now appeared'. The purple comet is the one that scatters 100 purple coins through each galaxy, and gives you a star for collecting them all. It is an entirely optional task that is only available once you have completed the game. And yet, it feels like something you should have been doing all along. That is the genius I am talking about. 60 stars is all you need to fight final Bowser, but you will want to find the rest of the 120. Because every single star is just such fun!

Mario Galaxy has made me question just what I have been playing since Mario 64. Why aren't all games like this? I'm not suggesting that every game should be a cute platformer, but I am suggesting that every game should have this amount of love and thought lavished upon it during its creation. 99% of all other games look soulless in comparison.

I wish Mario Galaxy was on the PS3 and XBox 360, so that everybody could play it. Make no mistake about it, there are peole out there who loathe the Wii and all it stands for. These people are denying themselves one of the greatest, if not THE single most wondrous, gaming experiences ever crafted. Anybody reading this who does not have a Wii on which to play this game is hereby ordered to find a way to play it. If you do not, you will have to find a way to apologise to your own soul.

Call me Ishmael

It was a day just like any other. Maybe a little colder than others recently, but the rain was no worse than usual. There was no particularly bad news, or good news. To any observer, it was just the standard average every normal day.

Except, of course, there was something very special about it. Very special indeed. Perhaps it was a planetary alignment? Maybe biorhythms are real, and this was the day that all 3 cycles matched at the top? Whatever the reason, something was different about today. I didn't know it at the time, but I was about to experience something quite monumental...

To fully understand the events that transpired upon the 4th December 2008, we actually need to travel back in time a little, and explore several previous events. Such as, whatever date it was that I first got hold of Project Gotham Racing 2 for my original XBox. That was a good day in several ways.

The next important day happened a couple of years down the line. The actual date has been forgotten, but what I saw that day still lives with me. It was the day I read an article on joystiq.com, and more importantly, the day I watched the video that it linked me to!

Another huge milestone occured on April 11th, 2006. For, that was the day that I first had an XBox 360 of my own to play on. Perhaps April 13th was more important, though, as that was the date when I first purchased some MS points. Which allowed to download the first Live Arcade game I ever downloaded.

PGR2 wasn't just a racing game. Well, it was, but it also had a little bonus. In the garage, there was an arcade cabinet, that was fully playable. The game on the cabinet was called Geometry Wars, and it was, in this humble writer's opinion, better than PGR2! I loved it. Simple, addictive, fiendish, and absolutely relentless, it left an impression on me that not much else has managed to top.

The joystiq article alerted me to the fact that there was a sequel to this bonus game, Geometry Wars Retro Evolved. The video was of K4rn4ge scoring 16 million, which was the highest score on the leaderboard at the time. I watched, and was completely amazed at what I was seeing. It was .... beautiful! Such chaos, such frantic randomness, and such a multitude of enemies. I vowed then and there that I would have that game!

And, the day I finally had a 360 to play on, I actually played the various disc titles we got first. But, the next morning, I knew that no matter what else, I needed to buy Geometry Wars Retro Evolved. My life would simply not be complete without it.

Back then, I had no idea what achievments were going to do to me. I recall reading in the joystiq comments about 'Pacifism' being hard, and was therefore determined to get that one straight away. It took me a couple of tries, and I felt good when I managed it to that minute mark. Right there, I had a badge that proved my skills as a gamer. Right there, I was on the start of a path to greatness. That first achievment, which I got even before I scored 100,000, was the mark of honour that was going to seperate me from my friends.

I was wrong, of course. Pacifism is tricky, but far from impossible.

Since it was the first achievment I got, I looked at the others. None of them looked difficult, and I figured that I would be earning all of them before long. And, within the hour I had scored 100,000. Nice! Sometime in the next day or two I survived to 100,000. At this point, I actually led my friends leaderboard for score. Sadly, somewhere around this time, Razzie50 managed to post a higher score than mine!

Well, I had no choice but to beat her again. Which I did immediately, and it wasn't long before I had the 'Score 250,000' achievment as well. By now, I had started to realise just how tough it was going to be to get all the achievments. But, there were peole scoring 100,000,000 by now, so I had no doubt that I would be able to do it eventually. After all, scoring a million was a very worthwhile achievment, compared to some of the stupid things I had already seen games dish them out for.

But something went seriously wrong. My score kept on edging higher and higher, but I still never got anywhere near to 1,000,000. I didn't even feel like I was improving enough to get close. I swore, I screamed, I raged. I calmed myself down. I allowed myself only three games per day, so as to not allow the game to learn too much from me. I swear, I was becoming paranoid. Somehow, the game was tailoring itself to my playstyle, and getting harder instead of easier!

Why did it sometimes save?

I kept on trying, and became more and more disconsolate. I had all but given up. You may laugh, gentle reader, but my life was in ruins. I was a broken man, and nothing could ever be right again until I had done it. I convinced myself that I was beaten, and made the decision to just let it go.

Two years to the day after I got the console, I unlocked two more elusive achievments. I not only survived to 500,000, but I also had 9 lives at the same time. However, I still hadn't scored the magical million. Razzie50 had, with 200,000+ extra points to boot. Also, by now I had 4 friends who had it, as well as another 2 closer than I was. My score stood at 750,000-ish, which was frankly an insult to me. It hurt me to look at it. It literally burned my very eyes.

That night, though, I had a very good game. I upped my score to 800,000+ in that one game. Suddenly, a million wasn't so far away! Suddenly, I had new hope!

About a dozen games later, I realised what had happened. The game had tricked me! That was the only explanation, this was some kind of psychological torture. I was victim to the whims of an insane AI, programmed to impregnate me with false hope. It gave me wings just before ripping them back off me, cutting my flight short and letting me tumble back to the floor of my own despair.

Another month or so passed, and by now I only ever loaded the game when I had nothing else to play. One night, alone in the flat because my girlfriend was off in Northumberland visiting her dying grandfather, I managed to not only pass 500,000 with my first life, I also beat my current high score. In fact, I got to 900,000 on that first life. This was unbelievable! This was it! I paused upon dying, because I was shaking so much. I am shaking even now, as I recall it. My heart rate resembled that of a hummingbird, and it was even a little uncomfortable. Such adrenaline rushes are rare indeed, but they are the very reason I game.

And once again, Geometry Wars was cruel, unflinchingly so in the way it tricked me. After hitting 925,000 and having 8 lives spare, everything went as wrong as it was possible to go. Within moments, I was dead again. And again. AND AGAIN! My score that game ended up as 952,000. Catastrophe! I had somehow gone from seeing the peak of Everest to looking at it in a picture book as a 5 year old.

Would this torment never end? WHY CAN'T I DO THIS?

One million points in Geometry Wars had become my own personal Moby Dick. It was a dragon, and some day I knew I had to slay it. My life would never be my own, regardless of what other accomplishments I made in life. There was a hole that could only be filled by one of those bastard red magnet homing shielded bastards in a green circle.

This is getting a little long. I think we should have an interval. Here, look at the little dancing girl :

I don't care how pathetic you may think I am. I promise you I thought worse of me. A game was getting the better of me, to an extent beyond which anything had ever proved capable in the past. Something was wrong with the very fabric of the universe. I had been close, but still hadn't managed to suck on the cigar of success. I no longer cared if I ever beat Razzie50, or indeed anyone else. I just wanted my million. God knows I had worked hard enough for it!

Which brings us to tonight. When, for no reason I know, I loaded my nemesis up once more. Expecting nothing, I played a warm-up game. It was quite a harsh game, as it happened. That is one of the things about Geometry Wars, actually. Since it is all random micro-spawns, some games are easier to score in than others. Some games give you endless amounts of snakes and gravity wells, whereas some are a stroll in the park until suddenly you have a screenfull of magnets.

My first game tonight was snake heaven. Snakes used to be my most-hated enemy, simply because I thought they were unfair. They can spawn right on top of you, and kill you instantly, unlike all others. Then, they were replaced by the little triangle things. For a long time, they terrified me, as they flooded in from all corners leaving me no option but to smart bomb or die. However, I soon learned to deal with them, and in fact have hoped many times that they would spawn as they are a great way to speed that multiplier back up after a death.

These days, the only enemy I dislike is the magnet. An otherwise perfect run can be demolished by a badly-timed spawn of these. Also, since I rarely ever get the triangles, one magnet usually means the end of my multiplier at a decent level. My dream game would consist of loads of cyan diamonds spawning from the corners, backed up with plenty of triangles, and a healthy supply of black holes. Healthy, not excessive.

I got that game tonight.

I. GOT. THAT. MOTHER. FUCKER. TONIGHT!

My first death was at about 400,000. Which annoyed me, naturally, but wasn't a nightmare. It was my own stupid fault for dying, too, rather than the game doing something unfair. I felt the game was being mean early on, but it got to a point where I was glad of the large amount of enemies and relatively small amount of surround-spawns.

Before I knew it, I was at 800,000. This was my best game in a while. I was by now getting a LOT of triangles, none of which were killing me. I was also peppering the screen with smart bombs, as there was a steady supply of black holes exploding. My little boy was also enjoying walking in front of me, which cost me another couple of lives.

At 950,000, with 7 lives left, I was in a state of shock. I knew I had this, if I could just avoid the complete mental collapse I got last time I was here.

975,000, and by now the screen is teaming with far too many enemies. I use my last smart bomb, and start to feel myself dying inside. 6 lives to score 25,000 points ... surely I can't mess this up now?

993,000, and I die again! NOOOOOOOOOOO! But then ... a calmness comes over me. 7,000 points is NOTHING. I have 4 lives with which to score this. I have done it, I know I have, I'VE FUCKING DONE IT!

And, I did. For tonight, the game ended with me on 1,091,110! See for yourself :

I am amazed at how calmly I remained at this point. I wanted my girlfriend to walk in and see it, but she didn't. I just left it on the friends leaderboard, so that she would. I always thought that I would spontaneously combust, or at the very least run around shouting and screaming, but nothing of the sort occured.

Tonight, I feel as if there is nothing I can't do. I am once more a God amongst men. I can stand tall in the company of friends, knowing that I have not only knocked the monkey off my back, I have flung him into the pits of hell.

I don't care that I haven't beat Razzie50 yet, either. Because now, I know I can do. Now, it is only a matter of time before I take my rightful place atop my friends leaderboard. That hurdle has been getting taller and taller for the last two and a half years, and tonight I finally jumped over it.

Bring on the new Everest!

Mirrors Edge review-me-do.

The trailers were so promising! Full of blue-skies, incredible stunts, gymnastic feats, and WEEEEECOOLSPEEDY bits. Sure, the protagonist is a tad ugly, but who the hell cares about that in a game where pretty much the only thing you never see is your own face?

With good reason, people have been excited about this one. In a world full of REHASHAN and SHOOTAN, something new is something to celebrate. And Mirror's Edge is definitely a contender for "Coolest idea of the year" in gameplay terms. When people call it a 'free running' game they are mistaken, although it certainly seems that way at first. It is not Parkour, though, because you are not really trying to do anything with style. You are mostly getting from A to B as fast as possible, which maturally involves jumping and sliding, so it is obvious why people made the connection.

And, it has to be said, there are parts of Mirror's Edge that genuinely capture a feeling of unbridled motion along the rooftops. Sometimes you see where you need to be, and immediately see several ways to get there. On these instances you simply can't help yourself ; You COULD just climb that wall, but why do that when you could jump up there, slide over there, and then launch from that and roll nicely upon landing? A lack of momentum is rarely punished, and yet you feel a need to maintain it. It is purely because it is so much fun, the game appears to not actively punish you for slowing down.

Which is why it is so frustrating when the game FORCES you to slow down! Honestly, up on those rooftops is Nirvana. You feel at times like you never want to go back indoors again. So, the decision to set half the game indoors is a baffling one. Crawling through air ducts has NEVER been enjoyable, and yet in the first three chapters I have had to do it on at least three occasions. So, let me get this straight ... I am able to run along walls before leaping to catch the slightest overhang, and so naturally I take advantage of this by crawling in confined spaces. Or, waiting in lifts for a minute at a time!

It's crazy. It's almost like in the Sonic games, where the designers seem to want to restrict you too often. The best part is the running. By limiting the running, they are also limiting the fun. Because, GENERIC SHOOTAN GAME #34 does the in-building combat bits so much better than Mirror's Edge does.

I get that it wouldn't be realistic for Faith to be some kind of tank. She is an athlete, not a warrior, and so it makes total sense that she can't just stand there and absorb gunshots. But, it does seem like she is somewhat of a wuss. Pretty much two shots mean curtains. Now, I like this, but then it becomes a problem when there are more than two enemies around. Which is more or less every time there are any enemies around. Throw in the occasional helicopter gunship, and another SERIOUS flaw, and it would be very easy to hate this game.

SERIOUS flaw. Almost a game-breaker. I'm not even kidding, it is more than frustrating, it is absolutely infuriating.

Apparently, there is a thing called 'Runner Vision' wherein things you are meant to jump off/climb up/interact with are red. This is nice, but often there is nothing red on your screen at all. And so you can press B to show you where to go. Yes, the game felt the need to include a "Where the fuck do I go?" button. Something I have frequently wished more games would do, as it happens. It is a great move, except for a quite glaringly obvious contradiction.

A game about MOVEMENT and FLOW should not really ever leave me wondering "Where the fuck do I go?", should it? Am I alone in finding this to be a somewhat major gripe? Plus, it doesn't even work properly. Early in chapter 3 you come to a roof with no obvious way up to it. You can see precisely where you need to be, and a quick press of "Where the fuck do I go?" confirms this, and yet it seems to be completely beyond your reach.

I tried multiple combinations of jumps, wallruns, rolls, turns, and could not reach the next rooftop. It made no sense. I don't even know why I found the button that moved the window cleaning platform so that I could reach the roof, but it would have been nice if "Where the fuck do I go?" pointed me there instead of my ultimate destination! Fifteen whole minutes on that roof, trying every kind of athletic feat I could think of, when the solution was something far more mundane.

Playing Mirror's Edge, then, is akin to visiting a friends house as a child. He has some wonderful toys, so much better than yours, but you are only able to play with them for a couple of minutes before they are taken away. To make things worse, if you ever do get the chance to play with them on your own, you find that they are hidden from you and you have to go and find them first.

I have completed the first three chapters so far, and I have been somewhat disappointed in what I have played. Sure, there are moments where it has been everything that I had hoped for, but they have been too few and far between. Any game that has me shouting "WHERE THE FUCK DO I GO?" at the screen even when it includes a button to answer that question is getting something very basic very wrong. I'm not asking to have my hand-held. I am just asking for clear direction. By all means make getting to my destination as hard as you like, but never hide it from me.

I file this under 'Missed opportunity', then. I am sure that time trials and speedruns will change things for the better, but having to plod through a story first to get to the good bits is less fun than the designers seem to think. A game that is about getting from A to Z should also show you the way to the other 24 letters, and Mirror's Edge doesn't do that well enough.

Games got good again!

There are simply too many games coming out all at the same time. It's the same every year, with a mad rush to steal our Xmas money. Don't publishers ever think that if they wait a couple of months they can get the entire market to themselves? Imagine if you were a developer, and you were told that your game was scheduled to be fighting for shelf space with FIFA, PES, Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Tomb Raider Underworld, Left 4 Dead, the WoW Lich King expansion, Resistance 2, and Little Big Planet? Wouldn't you be just a little concerned? Wouldn't you rather be the only good game released in March? I know for certain that I would.

But, that's not actually what I am wanting to talk about. It is a rant I am all too happy to go into this time every year, but this year is different.

Because this year there are two games released that may well steal the entirety of my play time.

I got into games at the age of 7 by playing Space Invaders on my way to school. Back then, arcade games were a whole new concept. They were also EVERYWHERE! Corner shops, takeaways, the local swimming pool, pubs ; all had their own arcade machine. Some were good, some were not so. But they were all pure excitement to a nipper like me. Of course, I wasn't very good at them, but sometimes I did well enough to make it into the top 10 scores. And I have never forgotten the feeling of typing my name in to the scoreboard, even if I knew it would probably be gone the next day. (I didn't even realise at the time that the top 10 was almost certainly wiped every night when the owner unplugged the cabinet.)

As I faced my teenage years, though, arcade cabinets were not so prevalent anymore. But that wasn't a problem as games had moved well and truly into the home. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum that I got for Xmas as a 12 year old became the single most used thing I posessed. Games got more complex, and more varied. Graphical adventures made you think, but overall I still felt more comfortable with games that just kept on pushing me harder against ever increasing odds.

Cycling on several more years, and the high score concept had all but left games for good. Story had taken over. Shooters had more or less died. The focus seemed to be on 3D worlds, and ensuring the player got a 40 hour campaign/story. Final Fantasy VII deservedly sold millions, but it also made games into virtual masturbation. the social and competitive aspect was becoming a memory.

XBox Live changed all that. By having leaderboards for pretty much everything, and by allowing remote players to connect their consoles, competitive and co-operative multiplayer console gaming became the norm once more! (I know the DreamCaast did it first, but the XBox did it right. That is what matters to the world at large.)

And now, the XBox 360 has two games that are pretty much the realisation of my videogaming wet dream.

The first is Gears of War 2. Here we have the age-old story of Man vs Aliens. LOTS of aliens! Sure, there is a campaign mode, but it isn't a life-sucking epic. It is 5 acts, and unless you jump right in to the hardest difficulty solo on your first attempt (as I have done) you won't be seeing much beyond 10 hours gameplay, no matter how poor you are.

It also has multiplayer over Live. And, one of these games is the new 'Horde' mode. In Horde, up to 5 players co-operate against the Locust. Wave 1 has 10 or so enemies. Wave 2 has more. Wave 3 has even more. Oh, and there are more types of them, too. They are bigger and meaner. Every single wave adds more enemies. Then, at Wave 10, they get double health!

This continues for 50 waves. And, you get a score. So, we have a co-operative game where you are all facing against ever-increasing amounts of tougher enemies, which then allows you to compare your skills to others. My friend Jon and I managed to get to Wave 18 so far, and it is getting quite insane already. Plus, this is on NORMAL difficulty. There are two additional difficulties beyond this! I am already taking an hour to cool down, what exactly is this going to do to me on Insane?

Naturally, there will come a day when I will attempt to do all 50 waves on my own. Because THAT is what I game for! Being the guy at the top of my friends leaderboard? Trust me, it doesn't get any better than that for me.

I once started a Source mod of my own. It was going to be some kid of Secret Agent training simulator, where you just fought ever-increasing numbers of AI bots in an attempt to get a higher score. But, the Secret Agent bit was just a quickly invented plot on which to hang my perfect game. I spoke to several people about it, and they all said more or less the same thing. Most weren't into it, needing more of a plot.

But somehow it seems that Epic read my mind, and gave me a marginally altered version of my ideal game. (Only because my game didn't end at Wave 50, it just kept on going until it beat you by sheer brute force and weight of numbers.)

I can honestly say that I have no need to ever play anything else, but then I remember that Left 4 Dead is released very soon. And, having played the demo of that one, I am even more excited than I have been for a very long time.

It's not just that it is zombies. It's that there are just so many of them!

It's not like Horde. Things don't keep on heating up. Left 4 Dead is basically 'Escape the city' for the four of you. In fact, it is more like Dead Rising, pitting you against so many enemies that at times you literally can not see anything else on screen. What makes Left 4 Dead is the co-op aspect. Even on your own, you are teamed up with 3 AI bots. The option is, of course, to have humans for each of the four charcaters. I swear, with 3 friends it won't matter if we win or not. I know for certain that 99% of the time I am going to be too busy laughing to shoot straight.

There are 4 campaigns, each with 5 maps. 20 maps of zombie MAYHEM! Again, there are multiple difficulties, with the last one being labelled 'Impossible.' How can I resist something like that? And as it is Live, there will be leaderboards.

Zombies. Co-op. IMPOSSIBLE. Did Valve reach into my brain and make a game for ME?

Co-op is the future. Every game should have a way to play with others, regardless of how little sense it makes. Halo 3 was good solo, and great with friends. If you haven't played the campaign co-op, you haven't played it properly. With friends, the story doesn't matter. With friends, the difficulty is basically what you want it to be. With friends, even if you mess up you can still laugh. With friends, you can all work together, or you can kill steal and team-kill for lulz. I often stick plasma grenades to team-mates right at the end of the level, just because I can.

Things are looking up. Gaming is slowly remembering just what it was that made it popular in the first place. It was never about epic tales, it was just about epic gameplay.