lost in games

Just in case you are wondering what i will be doing over the weekend…..

An air of satisfaction filled my empty brain on Sunday morning as I completed BIA:HH’s last mission. Alas, it was not because I had successfully overcome insurmountable challenges in the game and not because I had played one my most anticipated games of 2008. No. It was because It gave me the freedom to move on to better things.

BIA: HH is not a bad game, it is just mediocre. There are some moments which lift the game above that to remind you what made the first 2 versions so great but these are few and far between. I don’t want to do a review of the game as I agree with most of the reviews I have read (bar Gamespot’s) so you can check those out.

Instead, I would like to talk about a few things that I would like to see in the series’ next game (as emphasized by the game’s ending cut scenes) which might help the developers bring the series back on the right track. It might be presumptuous of me to think that I can possibly have any valuable input seeing that I am not a professional developer but just a gamer. But consider it my input to a series that I love.

1. Skip the solo missions

These were possibly the worst missions in the game as they exposed the it’s weaknesses. BIA is not a COD fps. It cannot compete and nor should it want to. It’s the thinking man’s FPS and it’s about tactics. My greatest sense of achievement was maneuvering my men successfully in the battlefield and not when i managed head-shots. If Gearbox feels the need to have these missions, especially in indoor gunfights, then they should give you command of a couple of squad-mates. The only difference is that you should be given the option to control them on an individual level instead of the usual squad level. This will allow tight spaced combat and also increase the “bonding” between you and the men.

2. Germans’ cover

Stop making the enemies behaving stupidly. Having Germans hiding behind cover only for their limbs to be fully exposed is ridiculous. This is made more evident when you are shooting them and they are still not moving to shield themselves completely. Soldiers would never act this way on the battlefield. Granting the player opportunities to shoot enemies is one thing and making him feel stupid while he is doing it is another.

3. Cover system

Change the cover system from the third person view to first person or just don’t have one. It will make the game more difficult but at the same time increase immersion and realism. The first two games didn’t have this cover system and were better games for it. Stick to the first person view throughout the game.

4. Tactics

You should be able to designate where you want your squads to go in 2 ways:

(i) Same as always during battles with your left trigger.

(ii) The only time the game should go into a top down view of men gathered around a map. Then you can give instructions to the men which are located near you by pointing on the map where you want them to go, or via radio if the squad is not near you. I found it tedious to have to travel from one squad to the next to get a better angle of where to send them.

5. Enemy behaviour should be more proactive

One of the things that is noticeable with BIA is that during a particular battle you usually, like 90% (arbitrary statistic) of the time, you are not worried about what the Germans are doing while you are thinking of how to flank them. They are just sitting there, firing away. Their only movement might be to fall back to a new position at a certain stage to avoid being flanked. and that’s it. I would expect that in real battles the enemies are indeed entrenched in their positions. At the same time however, especially if you sustain losses, they would counterattack to take back the initiative. I would like to see that happening more often. The battles must feel real, not some only some set piece or puzzle that you just need to decipher.

This is not an exhaustive list of the issues. There are more of course, especially with regards to destructible cover, but all the above involve tweaking the game-play section of the game. The game’s story and presentation also did not live up to my expectations but i believe it’s in the game-play that Gearbox should focus on. It was after all what attracted me and i suspect most other fans to the series in the first place.

Oh yes. That time of the year has come. The monsoon of games. The satellites have picked up this phenomenon heading to gamers all over the world. We just need to make the decide to which game(s?) we should seek refuge. I would be hard pressed to pick just one game this week but if i had a gun to my head forcing me to make that choice then it would have to be LittleBigPlanet. The promise of what this title can bring to videogaming is just too great to ignore. I can’t wait to try building my own level and uploading it so that the world can laugh at my efforts. At the same time i want to travel through some users’ geniously built worlds.

At the same one cannot forget Peter Molyneux’s Fable II, the non-gamer’s RPG. Or how about EA’s new IP (oxymoron), Dead Space, which is receiving great reviews especially from American reviewers. Last but not least it’s Far Cry 2 for the FPS fans. There is something great for everyone. Even Wii cooks can try Order up which has been well reviewed.

The season is upon us. It’s raining games.

Fable II (360)
LittleBigPlanet (PS3)
Far Cry 2 (PS3, 360, PC)
Dead Space (PS3, 360, PC)
Moto GP (PS3, PS3, PC)
Midnight Club: Los Angeles (PS3, 360)
Spiderman: Web of Shadows (PS3, 360)
Monopoly (Wii, 360, PS3)
Order up (Wii)
Star Ocean: First Departure (PSP)

There I was, minding my own business determined to devote gaming time to FIFA09, BIA:HH and Hotel Dusk. No more games until one of them is finished (that excludes FIFA of course). That’s my decision and I am sticking to it.

But there is only so much a man like me, a respectable professional,  can endure. Eurogamer’s reviewer gave it and 9 and in his final paragraph says

“If there’s any justice, World of Goo will set the internet aflame and earn its creators a million dollars.”

Fine. But I will not be contributing to making these people millionaires. I have a plan and I am sticking to it. That’s what I said over and over again to myself. I almost succeeded until found this temptation on Brainygamer blog urging me to read the review at Rock, Paper, Shotgun review.

It was too much. I was pushing my luck. As I was watching my luck falling over the abyss together with my carefully drafted plan of “no more games until 1 is finished” the World of Goo was being downloaded on my PC*.

It’s not my fault. I am a respectable, addicted professional in the World of Goo and loving it.

Note* - the game is also available on WiiWare

It’s not a slow week by any means but compared to what’s coming up in the following weeks and months one could call it just that especially non-football fans. This Friday will see the battle of the footies. With FIFA 2009 already released and having received good to great reviews and comments it is now the turn of PES, once the undisputed king. Is there room for 2 top football games in our hearts? You bet!

Then there is the “GTA wannabe” as some people like to call Saints Row 2. It has a cool limited edition version by the way.  Bioshock also sees its availability on the PS3 (a game that is near the top of my pile of shame) and last but not least is Persona 3 FES for the PS2. That’s one title i will end up getting at some point in time.

The complete list of releases (after ignoring several garbage titles for the Wii and DS):

PES 2009 (360, PS3, Wii)
Saints Row 2 (360, PS3)
Golden Axe: Beast Rider (PS3 360)
Rapala Fishing Frenzy (PS3, 360)
Order Up (Wii)
Bioshock (PS3)
Persona 3 FES (PS2)
Exit (DS)

Following my post Consistency and realism of the game world i came across Manveer Heir’s Design Lesson 101 column on GameSetWatch. He is a game designer by profession, therefore a more authoritative person than myself, and has written about how the new cover system implemented by Gearbox has affected the game. He scrutinises the choice made by the developer to change the first person view, when covering, to third person.

It’s very  interesting because this decision, as he explains, has affected both the gameplay and the immersion of a player in the game. Here’s the link.

When a game incorporates a physics engine to a game should it go all the way and apply it in the entirety of the game? If it cannot do so should it add at all?

These are two questions I have been asking myself this past week as I am making headway in Gearbox’s Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway. The game introduces destructible cover for the first time in the series. This destructibility varies depending on whether it is sandbags, brick or wood. You and your squad mates can only stay behind soft cover lying around in the battlefield for only a short time before it is completely destroyed. It adds an element of realism which also increases the factors to consider when making tactical decisions in the battlefield. That’s a good thing.

At the same time however the game breaks its own rules as the physics only apply to preselected objects and not to all materials found in the game world. For example haystacks are impenetrable to bullets. Walls of a wooden building are indestructible even to rocket launchers while at the same time wooden furniture next to them can be shredded to pieces by MP40 fire. The developer also uses indestructible wooden furniture to block the player’s path to prevent the player from deviating from the pre-determined path.

This inconsistency spoils the immersion and the believability of the world that I might otherwise had enjoyed. It seems that as technology is improving and developers drive towards more and more realistic environments this can backfire. The more lifelike a game is or tries to be, then the more evident are its unrealistic elements (reminds me of the comments I heard about the Beowulf movie, which I have yet to watch).

This is where the developers must spend time and money to refine a game in order to camouflage these issues. For example do not have wooden walls or furniture unless they can be destroyed. Use rocks, concrete or steel instead. While not entirely realistic it will ensure that the rules of the game world are consistent much like in real life.

I have not been following the Tokyo Game Show this year but there are some announcements worth mentioning:

1. PSP direct store access in Japan from 15th of October. Hopefully the European launch will follow and there won’t be any restrictions if you are in Cyprus - Eurogamer
2. Halo 3: Recon - Wired
3. Xbox 360 dashboard update on 19th November - Wired
4. New Res 5 trailer (haven’t watched it as i want as many suprises as possible when the game finally comes out) - Gametrailers

Last year was the first year since 2000 that I did not buy PES. Instead FIFA 2008 was added to my collection. It was a momentous decision as the last FIFA I purchased was in 1995 on the Mega Drive. Partly, this was to punish Konami for releasing a poor product, especially the online component and partly because FIFA had really improved. Its strongest feature, at least for me, was the Be A Pro mode where you locked yourself onto a single player of the team. The problem was that the mode was only available in one off matches against the CPU or in the 5v5 online games. But the potential and promise was there.

FIFA 2009 EA has taken this mode in the right direction. The game now allows you to control an established/existing player and guide him to glory. You can also create your own player and decide in which team he will start playing in reserves matches and then in the first team as long as you catch your manager’s eye. Not only that but if your player’s chosen nationality has a team in the game (i.e. not Cyprus) then you will also be called to the National Squad. So you can build your reputation both on a club level but also on a national one.

Once you finalise your created player’s appearance you are given 10.000 experience to allocate to attributes found under 5 different categories. It offers a RPG element to the mode as you start building up your player according to your position and also depending on how you want to play. You can either be a fast winger running down the flanks of the opposition or be your team’s playmaker with superb short and long passing.

It’s here you that begin to realise however that EA is still not sure on how exactly the Be A Pro mode is going to work. First of all you are not given any explanation as to what each attribute does. Some are simple enough to understand such as short passing, finishing etc but others are less clear so. For example I fail so see how the attributes found in the mentality category e.g. tactical awareness, vision can affect your player when you are controlling him.

In the matches you really need to wait for the cut scene showing the formations as there is no other way to confirm where you are supposed to play. You don’t have access to any team management or tactics prior to each game. Team management is unlocked when you become the team’s captain. However I think going into a match you should be informed in some way on how the team is expected to play and what to focus on. It does not feel like the team has a personality apart from the kits, players and the stadium. This is something that EA can learn from Footballl Manager’s approach at creating relationships between staff, players, fans and also the personalities of these people.

Then you have the in game action where you are rewarded with ratings depending on how you perform. This works fine to an extent but it could have a more permanent effect than just rating. You should be able to increase your stats based on what you are doing i.e. increase in dribbling skills if you manage to go past players, passing skills, heading and so on. This is like modern RPGs (see Oblivion) where you also increase your stats depending on how you play with your character. Of course this requires a lot of thought in order to incorporate this in-game levelling up suitably and not feel like “grinding” and also so as not to be exploited in any way.

Finally, you have your ratings at the end of each match where depending on how highly you are rated you get your experience points. My impression so far is that you are mostly overrated. In one match for example I was rated higher than a player who had better stats and who also had scored the winning goal. This is in stark contrast to the 3 objectives you receive prior to each match which can be near impossible to achieve. One objective is always to get a rating higher than either 7 or 8. The rest can be to have 2-4 shots, win by 3 goals or score 2 goals. When you are playing against Manchester Utd and you are asked to score 2 goals and get a rating higher than 8 then you realise that the game is randomly selecting these objectives without taking into account the opposition nor your club’s strengths and goals. Furthermore I am not sure whether these objectives are the same even if you are a defender. EA has to make sure that they would make sense in a real football match. A defender should get a bonus of experience if he manages to secure a clean sheet (much like Fantasy football works) or prevent a specific player you are man marking from scoring.

By the way I am still not convinced about the Pro camera angle especially when compared to Tele in the other modes. Although it is aiming for more realism I find that the view is even more restrictive than when playing real life football especially when determining the depth/length of the pitch. I don’t have any ideas on this but I believe that it can be improved in some way.

The Be A Pro mode has the potential to become an excellent mode in FIFA or even a stand alone game in the future. It can be similar to FM but from a player’s perspective. I really hope so. Anyway that’s enough for now as I still have not finished even a single season yet. More is sure to follow. Stay tuned.

Oh yes. FIFA 2009 is released today and i have a copy and a couple of friends waiting for me so i expect this game to dominate my time over the weekend. That, along with Brothers In Arms, Hinterland and NHL 09.  I should not forget Avatar: Book 3. I am on disc 4 and loving it thus far. Good times.

Unfortunately a birthday party and two weddings will come between the above and myself during the weekend but what can you do…….