Future Wars

Future Wars is an early project of Delphine Software team, which involved both the creators of Flashback and Another World. That is the reason I bought it many years ago. It’s a straight-forward point-and-click adventure game.

I read the manual telling some science-fiction story about aliens traveling through time in order to invade our planet. The plan was cunning indeed – place the bombs (or some equally destructive alien technology contraptions) where the generators of Earth’s force field would be built. Excited, I watched the intro showing some people fried by laser beams, only to begin the game as... a window cleaner. A window cleaner? Where’s the future, where are the aliens, the laser beams?

Okay, okay... I know the protagonist gets to that pretty shortly. I just wanted to express my initial surprise at playing as a window cleaner, whose life’s pleasures consist of making pranks on his boss. In the end, the idea is simple; after all, what a sci-fi story can be about if not about – all together now – SAVING THE WORLD!!!

As you can see, if you scroll down a little, Future Wars is darn good looking, considering its release date: 1989. It features a lot of text, showed in pretty, shaded boxes (which in the DOS conversion got colored): some dialogues, but mostly funny comments coming from the faceless “narrator”. You get a feeling that the creators didn’t want the game to be very serious. The interface is everything you’d expect from an early adventure game: the action menu with a lot of options. Thankfully, it’s not very complicated and after a couple of minutes, it even gets intuitive and natural. Still, there are places where it can be a pain. For example, typing a code to a security keypad. Once you examine it, a convenient image is displayed, showing all the keys. You think all you need to do is click on them? Nossir. You bring up the action menu, choose “OPERATE” and then click on the first digit. Then you bring up the action menu again, choose “OPERATE” and then... You get the pattern? And all of this happens while the ceiling is slowly coming down on your head.

The game does commit two sins which the gamers of today won’t easily forgive. The first one is an enormous amount of pixel-hunting. Apart from some cases where you can clearly make out a pickable object, taking things (and figuring out places to put them into) usually takes some frustrating moments of moving your cursor across the screen, searching for the right spot, like one single branch on a tree which has at least twenty of them. Secondly, you can get stuck. All it takes is not to pick up a plastic bag from the waste basket and later, having traveled back through time, you’ll discover you can’t dispose of the vicious wolf guarding an area. In the past, the solution was simple: either being extra meticulous in scanning the screen or saving a lot, or both. While in the nineties many games offered a possibility to reach a dead-end (I remember one semi-erotic adventure game called Fascination where you had to replay pretty much the entire thing if you hadn’t picked up a newspaper or some shit at one point), today it would be considered an unforgivable blasphemy.

Moving around is another nuisance. How do you do that? Well, you move the cursor to the destination spot and left-click. Sounds simple and, in most cases, it is. Yet, there are places in which this can drive you bonkers. Take a look at the swamp on a screenshot below. Your task upon arriving there is to make your way to the left of the screen, to the mosquito nest. To do that, you have to walk precisely on the dark green pixels and if you make one step on the dark-gray ones, you drown and have to load your last save. It is perfectly doable, you just have to be patient, but is such an aggravating sequence really necessary in an adventure game? Plus, there are some arcade stages, one of which is making your way through the maze of platforms (in a Flashback style), with a timer counting. Twice. Boy, was that a bad idea.

Okay, the final paragraph. As most games in Press Play on Tape, Future Wars is a granddaddy and we tend to forgive our granddaddies a lot of things (even the smell). Especially if they still look kinda good. Besides, it’s still considered by many to be one of the best point-and-click titles of all times and, even though it took me a lot of nerves (and years) to finish it, I must admit I liked it.

The Weakest Link

Only a cow doesn’t change its mind – it’s a saying we have here in Poland and I would like it to be the main thought of this editorial.

EVOLUTION

Evolution is a process of gradual change and development. Human beings evolve, a person’s identity evolves, the industry evolves and games evolve. It is a natural, and in most cases unstoppable process. The problem with evolution is that it doesn’t advance with the same rate for all nexuses in our system. This leads to discrepancies which can cause the system to degenerate or collapse altogether. Taking into account that there is no way to accelerate evolution, the only way a slowly evolving constituent can prevent a system failure is by…

ADAPTATION

Adaptation is a rapid change (at least compared to the process of evolution) to suit a situation or conditions. Adaptation is essential in evolution. If it wasn’t for the constituents’ ability to adapt to the various changes the system undergoes no system would prevail the process of evolution. However, not all constituents can, or are “willing” to adapt. In such case the number of “impaired” constituents and their strength decide if the system will prevail or not. If the “proper” constituents are in majority, or are particularly strong, the “impaired” constituents are disposed of and the system continues to function. If not, the system fails. This is a part of…

NATURAL SELECTION

Natural selection is a process in which the constituents best adapted to the changes within a system survive, and those that did not adapt are disposed of by the system. Here, I would like to note that since I’m discussing an artificial system, hence I cannot use notion of heritable traits. I will be discussing only traits developed by the constituents during the process of adaptation.


You’re probably wondering what the hell I’m writing about?

I’ll use this diagram.



As you can see, we, the gamers, are a constituent of a larger system. Unfortunately, we are the slowest evolving constituent, hence we need to adapt to the changes in the system. Bear in mind, that the system is not the electronic entertainment industry. I will not try to name it for the purpose of this editorial. If any of you does come up with a good name though, do not hesitate to let me know.
Gamers are the fastest growing part of the system, but the core gamers, do not adapt as fast as they should. We are very hesitant to change; we tend to keep to our habits a bit too much for our own sakes.

Ok, this is a bit confusing, so let me use myself as an example. I am a gamer since I was seven. Actually, I’ve been playing games before that, but at the age of seven I got my first machine (c64). That was eighteen years ago. That means that the games from mid 90s impacted my gamer perception the most. This is a case for many core, or rather statistical gamers (male in late 20s, early 30s). We’ve got an almost twenty year gap since 1990 and 2008 (I’m not even talking about earlier years which had many revolutionary games) – the industry, the technology, the philosophy and the cultural absorption of games changed tremendously during that period. I will even risk a statement, that apart from IT the EE industry made a bigger “evolutionary” leap that anything else. But did we?

My answer is “no”. We’re still the same people, only a bit older. We had no choice but to get used to the new technologies – 256 colour graphics, 3D, surround sound and now HD, but that doesn’t mean that we perceive games differently than we did eight, ten or fifteen years ago. Even through we embrace the changes, we personally did not change that much. If you ask a 25-year old what is his favourite game he’ll probably name a title from somewhere in the 90s. Ask him about his favourite survival horror and he may tell you it is Resident Evil or Silent Hill. Ask him about his favourite platform game and it may be Super Mario Bros. 3 or Crash Bandicoot. Ask him about an RPG and it’s gonna be Diablo or Final Fantasy 6.
People do not like changes. Gamers do not like changes.
When we look at new games, we look at them through the prism of our old favourites and this is where we fail to adapt. And believe me, this is a way to a hell of boredom. I know, I do it myself. When I buy a new survival horror I always compare it to either Silent Hill or Resident Evil. If I see a new hack’n’slash I always wonder how it is compared to Diablo. It can have great graphics, cool idea and whatnot, but if it doesn’t have at least 5 diverse character classes and randomly generated weapons I always lose interest. When I want a new jRPG I always wonder if it will be as good as Final Fantasy VII… it never is; I lose interest. I remember how pissed off I was when they first showed footage from Resident Evil 4 (I mean the version that got released). I thought: “What the fuck is that? What the hell did Capcom do with my favourite game, it’s nothing like it”. It took me a while to get used to the fact that Resident Evil is evolving into something different. Now, RE4 is one of my favourite games, but it wasn’t easy to love it at first.
We gamers may cause the system failure ourselves without even knowing about it. It takes us way too much time to welcome new ideas. And don’t you dare bring Wii into this! I know you’re itching to do it. I know it’s selling extremely well, but how many core gamers play it a lot? How many CORE gamers? Wii is being bought by Sunday gamers and Sundays that play their Wiis an hour a week will not become core gamers… ever. They will get bored with games before they can get into them.
I will be even so bold to write, that Nintendo may be paving the road to a dark alley where hardcore gamers are screwed over with motion sensor controllers. Just look at what they are doing. The Wii sales stutter? Bring out another peripheral and make another silly sports game. That’s it. I realize that Nintendo was always a company that made games for the whole family, but all their previous consoles had at least something for cores. And now? Nothing. The Wii is successful and now the Big N is just cutting away the coupons. Will other companies do the same? Yes, but to what extent? Unfortunately for cores, Sunday are needed because games are too expensive to make. M$ knows it and we get cartoon-ish avatar in a console that is targeting 18-40 year old males. Odd?
There is one “glitch” in evolution. Sometimes, instead of slowly changing, a constituent of the system mutates. The mutant turns out very powerful and kills off all normal constituents and becomes a dominating one. The problem is the mutant is hyperactive due to high metabolism which means it is short-lived. It prematurely dies and the system goes to hell. For me, Wii, or rather Nintendo is such a mutant. The mutant can either be given gene therapy (hardcore games) or is killed before it goes on rampage. Otherwise we may face a future where in 5-10 years time games are made for Sundays and hardcores get served with small, independent games via PSN, XBLA or whatnot.
Am I exaggerating? Probably.

And now for the solution.
We need to keep an open mind. This is our biggest problem. We just can’t get around the though that a big change might be a good change. You remember when it was first revealed that Bethesda is making the third Fallout? I can tell you what I was thinking. “God, just don’t let them make it 1st person and the combat in real-time”. Does God hate me? Is it a test? No, I think God knows that if I don’t stop thinking about Fallout 3 as of Fallout 2.5 I will get no Fallout at all.
Similarly with games that I dismissed when they first came out for some stupid reasons. Take Ratchet and Clank for example. What the first one came out for the PS2 I immediately labelled as a “stupid game”. A 3D cartoon platformer with a lot of shooting involved was a travesty for me, a game that will contaminate one of my favourite genres. Well, after finishing Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction I realize how big of a moron I was. The game is excellent, the shooting is fun and the dialogues are hilarious. I sure will be getting the next one.

Now I’m trying to be faithful to the Keep an Open Mind rule. I finished Alone in the Dark (5) because I think it’s a game that will set new standards in gameplay for future titles. I didn’t mind shooting everything in Metal Gear Solid 4. I’m very much looking forward to playing Fallout 3. I accepted WoW-ish graphics in Diablo III. And I will not be upset if Silent Hill: Homecoming turns out to be a piece of crap.
Games will change, it’s inevitable. We should look forward to those changes. And the next time you will want to compare Final Fantasy XIII to Final Fantasy VII just turn on your PSOne and play FFVII and let the XII be its own entity.

Criminal Origins in space

Usually when I ask people about Condemned: Criminal Origins they tell me something like: “yeah, pretty nice game; a little boring but the mannequins were cool”. Well, the mannequins are back and this time they’re just the beginning of this fickle and elusive thing called FUN!

“That’s a whole... That’s a whole new bunch of crazy shit... That’s... You’ll hate that shit...” – Prichett

If I were to describe Bloodshot in one phrase, I’d say “Criminal Origins in space” (hence the title). Why? Let’s begin with the protagonist. Agent Thomas was everything you would expect a criminal investigator to be. A nice clean suit, big eyes constantly widening from the horrors their owner experienced, a somewhat fragile personality. One thing that didn’t really match was the face you wouldn’t quite call handsome; to me, he looked like mixture of Tommy Lee Jones and a gorilla. For Bloodshot, the creators apparently took that very mixture and removed the Tommy Lee Jones element (and maybe added some more hair, while at it). Mister Thomas – and don’t you dare to call him “agent” anymore – is someone I’d be afraid of meeting in a dark alley. He’s alcohol addicted, he constantly swears (makes Edward Carnby look like an altar boy) and if you so much as look at him the wrong way, you risk some very close, fatal encounters with his giant fists. Jeez, is he a joy to play... What’s more, the evil forces have recently started gathering around him, so every now and then he hallucinates, which is an even greater joy to play... I’ll come back to that in a moment.

Combat. The greatest one which I’ve ever experienced in an FPS. All it took was to assign both triggers as fists: left and right. Play with that idea a little and you get combos, play a little more and you get fatalities. What more could I possibly ask for? The truth is, beating someone in Condemned 2 is pure fun: they scream, they curse at you, they run around, grab random things and throw at you. And after some skull-rattling rendez-vous with Ethan’s knuckles (or boots, as you can kick people as well) they drop down to their knees, at which point you can grab them and use something to end their lives with. Just take them to the nearest skull icon and enjoy the scene. Otherwise, you can just break their necks. There’s also the trusty stun gun for emergency use, and a lot of firearms. In fact, some purists might say Bloodshot features too much shooting, especially during the second half of the game. Even if that’s true (you can’t argue with purists), the ammo depletes very rapidly so you have to make every (head)shot count. If you get carried away with bursts, then whoops! Wait a second, mister bad guy, I have to go get some more bullets... Speaking about the guns, there’s one fun element attached to it: the booze. As you may remember, Ethan is an alcoholic, so his hands tend to get rather shaky when it comes to aiming. Fortunately, most levels feature dozens of scotch bottles which you can deplete with a few deep gulps to steady yourself.

Sometimes it’s really hard to tell if the creators actually did sit down to discuss how Bloodshot should be developed or if they just had a couple of shots of booze themselves and said “ah, to hell with it, let’s take the players for a ride!” Do you remember the coolest weapon in Criminal Origins: the paper cutter? Well, it’s back alright, but just in one level in the game where the secondary objective is NOT to kill anyone. Fortunately, there are many more fun things to use, imagine beating someone to death with a metal foosball table rod with plastic players still attached to it...

Okay, let’s come back to the supernatural. A lot of games tried to use vision distortion to enhance the horror effect, but none of them, not even Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, comes even close to Condemned 2. The effects are plentiful and beautiful as well: blurs, noise, TV screen flickering, desaturation, contrast manipulation, the “there was something there last time I looked” effect... All working seamlessly with sound effects to make you experience the limbo Thomas is undergoing. Cutscenes also make use of these tricks, especially the appearances of the masked guy, whom I really got to like.

“It! The thing! The evil! The thing that’s the rotten core at the bottom of this place! The thing that’s gonna kill us all! Death by corrosion! That thing!” - Pritchett

Let’s talk about the gameplay a little. All levels feature some secondary objectives which grant you rewards at the end of the level. Aside from specific tasks like “don’t kill any guard” or “photograph every torture device”, there are also constant elements, a reminiscent of Criminal Origins’ dead birds collection. Scattered around the stages are sound emitters which you must destroy (you equipment reacts to sound waves they produce, so it’s not that hard to pinpoint them) and TV’s and radios which you must adjust to hear the latest news (mostly just for fun, as they don’t seem to provide any crucial information, maybe except the first level of the game). One more element adding up to your rank is the forensic investigation. In the first game all you had to do is find glowing pieces of evidence and photograph them. Here, you have to use your brains a little, as well as some tools you possess, like the UV light. One of the first analyses covers a body with a gunshot wound. You have to determine what kind of wound is this (exit or entry?), if the victim was shot there on the spot, or if the body has been moved, etc. Moreover, sometimes people give you information and your task is to ask the most relevant questions or draw the most correct conclusions, or on the contrary, answer someone’s questions as accurately as possible. The system works pretty well, despite some minor inconsistencies: At one point I found one incredibly vicious looking torture table, smeared with blood and with some strange machines attached to it. I was told to take o photo of the torture device, so I did my best to capture it time after time, only to receive a “try again” message. Aggravated and ready to abandon the assignment, I noticed a small unremarkable electrified cage with a homeless locked inside. And THAT was the thing I was supposed to photograph. Oh well... A question of interpretation...

Speaking of inconsistencies, let’s move to the practical side of the game. The sound quality is impeccable: the effects are full and juicy, while the music is a curious mixture of casual horror soundtrack, Valvish resonating guitars and... oh, there’s even that weird noise from Not Tomorrow 2 during the museum boss-fight. The violin stingers during some punches are also a very clever idea, which, to my knowledge, has not been used in any game so far. Yet, I guess the graphics might be just a teeny bit better. Overall it’s a great-looking game (the shiny black goo...) but some levels look noticeably worse than others and some specific objects or location might have been polished. I guess the fall of the final boss might be a good example – I know the shaft is dark, but the scene (an important scene at that) looks just like a bunch of gray squares with a silhouette of a man flying somewhere in the middle. A similar thing happened with cutscenes directing. Some are perfect, some are just painfully American, like the ending itself, not really fitting into Condemned atmosphere.

“Pritchett? Are you currently under the care of a physician?“ – Doctor Blackburn

We come to the “in space” part, probably the most controversial aspect of Bloodshot: the story. In the first game, the concept was simple: one cop versus one psycho killer, chasing each other through a city filled with unnaturally hostile criminal elements. There was hardly any supernatural, except for the mannequins (obviously) and the end of the game, where we learn that there might be some sentient force behind what’s been going on. Here, the force is revealed to be some very evil organization making not exactly legal use of human hearing sense and vocal chords of all things. Oh yes, and our booze-loving, everything-else-hating Mister Thomas is imbued with the greatest vocal power of all, supposedly able to make or break empires, if properly tuned. Does that sound silly? You bet. And this time, the crusade is not about chasing a psycho-killer, it’s visiting the most fucked-up places the City has to offer in search for some cryptic clues. The bottom-line is: with Bloodshot, Condemned switched from "cop vs. killer" into something like "superhero vs. evil almighty cult", but not that cheezy. Now you know what I meant by “Criminal Origins in space”? While in my case it didn’t spoil the mood, because the organization members are deformed (or modified) in a truly disturbing way and some monsters created by them are even more so (I think Clive Barker could learn from the hanging “guard-dogs” they’re perfect), some people will almost definitely get turned off by the plot. If you haven’t played the game and haven’t gotten turned off by now, I guess you’ll be fine.

“Bouga, bouga...” – Pritchett

The end of Bloodshot promises an epic battle between Ethan and his nemesis SKX (it stands for Serial Killer X, but it should be Shit-Kicking eXperience, if you ask me) and an introduction of some other, even greater sentient force in the future. So I guess, Condemned 3 will be something like “Criminal Origins in hyperspace”. Well, only time will tell if the series will evolve into a known and respected franchise, but, since Bloodshot is indeed far better than the first game, I guess it’s a thing to look forward to.

On E3

After prematurely coming back from my vacations I decided to check out what happened at E3. Now, in the past few years this particular even is going down a slippery slope to a pool of excrements. The press conferences are boring, people talk shit, less and less companies even appear on E3 and most of the games shown were either exploited so much before the show that anyone will lose interest in them, or are something not even worth paying attention to.
This year is no different I’m afraid. Actually, it’s worse then ever.

First of there are no big announcements, unless you think Square-Enix announcing Final Fantasy XIII for the 360 is something big. Still, I think anyone who can count saw that coming. Resident Evil 5 proved to me that even though I think it’s gonna be a great game it’s just RE 4.5, and when I didn’t mind Resident Evil 0 - 3 (including Code Veronica) being pretty much the same gameplay-wise (because they were survival horrors) an action game like RE5 should feature more changes.
What else? God of War III? That is a no-brainer; I think everyone was expecting it to be announced.
Fallout III seems to be ok, but they didn’t really show anything new.
Gears of War 2, Killzone 2. Resistance 2? We’ve all seen them before and E3 didn’t bring any substantial info regarding the bigger titles (and I’m not talking only about those three above).

How about the three big press conferences?
Microsoft did what they do every year. They said they are the best, have the most third party games (developers, developers, developers, developers…) and sell the most software. Not a hard thing considering they had a head start. Sure, they announced the new Dashboard which I think is pretty awesome. I even like the silly avatars, but I’m pretty sure that the typical 360 owner would like something that doesn’t look like a character taken out from a cereal commercial. And say what you will, but it’s a so obvious rip-off from the Miis that my liver hurts. The fact that they are more complex models and were designed by Rare doesn’t change much.
All the interactive games/shows/events shown are quite a neat idea, but since it’s M$ they will be only available in the countries that have their Live services, which means most of the world won’t be able to take part in them, and hence doesn’t give a shit. Good job with creating the global gamer community Microsoft. I guess some places are just not good enough to be the part of America Planet.

Now, a look at Sony. In their usual style Sony announced much, promised much, and then showed Buzz for the PSP. Yeah…
Ok, inFamous looks interesting, Resistance 2 seems ok, the Rachet and Clank PSN game is something worth looking into and the Little Big Planet presentation was awesome, but there was nothing that I would comment with “Wow”. I do admit that MAG (Massive Action Game) seems impressive from what they said (256 players in one game!), but as usual they just showed a CD teaser and gave little info. To be honest, I didn’t expect anything else from Sony, but I really hoped that they will show something meaningful. True, they announced the VOD service, but it’s only for the US at the moment, so I don’t care.

What about Nintendo?
For Nintendo I will be very brief. I think, Nintendo press conference was the most embarrassing thing on E3 I’ve seen in years. They made complete fools out of themselves and proved once more that they have absolutely no idea what to do with Wii, but to release a peripheral after a peripheral to satisfy the housewives and pensioners. They didn’t announce anything that would be even remotely interesting.
After watching all the people on the stage act like complete morons I’m pretty sure I suffered brain damage.

For me the 3 most interesting things of the show were the announcement of GTA: Chinatown Wars for the DS, Portal: Still Alive that will be released on XBLA and Fat Princess – the multiplayer PSN game.
Pretty sad considering it’s one of the biggest electronic entertainment events of the year.

Stay dazzled

Many years ago, when I was just a little kid, my folks used to listen to songs a lot and they had an impressive collection of tapes. Day or night, Monday till Sunday, our house was just full of music. I guess that’s why I’m such an audiophile now, as in the past, no matter what I was doing: building something with small wooden blocks, doing my homework, playing with Matchbox cars... there was music around. Quite a lot of it, in fact.

One day, I believe I was about 10 at that time, my dad showed me one of his recent discoveries, Status Quo: the Greatest Hits locked in an original, double-tape case. He told me this had been one of his favorite bands years before and wanted me to check it out. I took the case, went to my room, put the first tape into my Sony (some coincidence...) audio equipment and pressed ‘play’. I remember sitting down or walking around the room (I like to do that while I’m listening to music, unless I have my headphones on), inhaling the songs pouring out of the speakers, trying to find some positive features which may make me want to go back to them in the future. And believe me, I’ve found enough of them to do so.

Nowadays, while I still like, let’s say... Ol’ Rag Blues or Burning Bridges, I sure as hell cannot conceive how on earth I could ever enjoy crap like Pictures of Matchstick Man or Ice in the Sun. They sound like they were written in ninetieth century, don’t they? That’s the point – today I would probably take the tapes, fast-forward through them in maybe five minutes, then take them right back to my dad. If I had happened to find something interesting, then okay, cool, I’ll maybe listen to it again, if not, then, “here you go, dad, thanks, but it’s not really my type of music”. Back in my young days, however, I would listen to the entire tape back-to-back, thinking that maybe there is something I would like about it. And more often that not, there was. I even liked David Hasselhoff’s “Looking for Freedom”. (What? I still think Lonely is the Night kicks ass... And maybe Sheltered Heart... ... What???)

Exactly the same thing happened with the way I perceive games. While I had Amiga 500, I could play anything, ANYTHING, and like it. Bad games seemed neutral – I could spend some time with them occasionally, if I had nothing better to do, but the good games seemed perfect. They dazzled me so hard, it was sometimes difficult not to hold my breath. I remember Jaguar XJ220, Crazy Cars 2, Swiv, Street Fighter II (oh boy...), Super Cars and Super Cars II, Alien Breed, Lemmings (can you believe one time I actually burst into tears once, watching the little creatures falling to pieces, while there was nothing I could do to save them?)... I also remember Crazy Sue, Rick Dangerous, Apprentice, Logical, Dangerous Streets, Terminator 2, Overlander (the one with a red car) – and just what I liked about them, I don’t know anymore. Better yet, I didn’t play Rise of the Robots on my old Amiga, but if I did, the graphics alone would probably make me call it the best game of all times (today it’s just wasted potential, nothing else).

The world moved on, the computers came and went, off with floppies, in with CDs. Nothing has really changed – there were still bad games and good games. But this time I knew the bad game when I saw one. And if I did, I was angry about having spent money on it. Screw neutrality, I’ll never going to play this piece of crap again! I can still remember some games which even then managed to dazzle me: Half-Life, Resident Evil 2... But more often that not, I would frown playing games: Unreal was too boring, Need for Speed 2 looked sad and empty (and what the hell happened to cops and pursuits?), Virtua Fighter 2 was downright pointless, Lara Croft’s boobs seemed smaller... (just kidding, I actually hated the controls in Tomb Raider – fuck the ledge when I can’t climb it) It got further – I remember being genuinely in love with Blair Witch I – now, I feel my head aching every time I see those endless excursions through the forest and back again. Oh yes, speaking about Resident Evil – I never owned Dreamcast (Fallingstickman does) so I never got to play the original Code Veronica, while I badly wanted to. Later, when I bought a PS2, I got myself a copy of Code Veronica X and tried it. It seemed all but casual – the charm I felt while watching the Dreamcast version was completely gone – and I’ve never even finished it.

This goddamn trend of misery keeps getting worse and worse, as you can see here on this site. It’s hard to find a game I really like, almost impossible to find one I love and even if I do, I sometimes just want to dismiss it as “medium” or downright “bad” like most reviewers do because of all those tiny glitches which we immediately take notice of and, in consequence, effectively erase the smiles off our own faces. I know I did. Many times.

You may think I was just a gullible child and now I’ve simply grown older and wiser. But, is that a good thing? The painful truth is: IT’S NOT. After all, what is gained by playing a game and constantly searching for critical flaws that will turn you off? By forgetting about the creators’ good intentions and constantly reminding yourself about their obvious slackness and lack of skills instead? I know it takes more than intentions to make a good game and pointing out mistakes and things you don’t like may eventually change something in the end if enough reviewers keep doing it, but, for Heaven’s sakes, games are for entertainment, aren’t they?

My message to you: stay dazzled. If you feel you heart beating just a little harder when you see that game IGN has dismissed, Gametrailers has rejected, Gamespot has nothing to say about, then go ahead and get it anyway. Play it. Enjoy it. Remember how you felt when you got your first PC/console and played your first game. Save the emotions before they are killed by reasoning. Save the way you feel about the game before it is killed by all those negative reviews written by sad people called “experts” for whom writing about games is just emotionless, everyday work. Don’t ever get older and wiser. Just stay dazzled. To hell with everything else.

Missing Saturn

It's not really a rant, just a thought: wouldn't it be great if Sega released their Saturn games, through the PSN? Probably not gonna happen, but one can dream...

I remember playing demos on Saturn many many years ago and I wanted that console really bad (never bought it...). No matter what you say about Sega self-destruct marketing strategies and PS1 being better in every way, you have to admit, that black thing had style. Not to mention some good games. Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Fighter 2, maybe Golden Axe - the duel... Heck, I would even play Sega Rally just for the sake of memories... Too bad we don't see the titles along with PS1 ones on the PS Network. The black monster would rise again, on the shoulders of another black (and dust-catching) monster. And score Sony and Sega some extra cash while at it.

Project Firestart

A cute little thing from 1989 which you might call one of the first action-adventure games.

Ye plot:
You are some sort of hot-shot alien shooter send to some space research station conducting genetic experiments. Their radio went dead, you're there to find out why then blow the thing up.

Ye graphics:
As you can see below - an average example of Commodore 64 quality. Still some images look pretty decent, like the monster in the middle picture, or the outro sequence, which I didn't want to spoil, just in case you care.

Ye sound:
The beeps are few and far between, except for the monster tune, which is aggravating.

Ye gameplay:
Even though the game is side-scrolled the locations are 3D (like the city outskirts in onEscapee), which means there are intersections where you may choose which way you want to go, plus riding elevators. This can be a little confusing, since all the linking corridors, leading to different rooms look exactly the same (this smells of Penumbra), fortunately they are labelled with letters, so if you happen to have a printed map...
Monster encounters are not very pleasant, because the energy tends to fall and so does the ammo. There are a few weapons to be collected in the station, but before you are allowed to take one, you have to deplete the ammo of the one you already have. This seems weird today, but what wasn't in 1989?
There are a couple of nice touches like some plot-turns (even in spite of the simplicity of the plot itself), occasional surprises like the power-downs, images zooming on some interesting objects (mostly eviscerated corpses). There's also a quick intro, and an early-Hollywood-sci-fi-production-resembling outro.

Ye bottom line:
The C64 equivalent of Dead Space. ;-)

Series update

Hi there. Just a quick piece of update on lowrestextures' series. After hours of long debates (actually just a few text messages) FallingStickman and myself have decided to go back to the roots and focus more on game reviews and editorials, instead of writing just Press Play on Tape and Open Your Ears and the some more Press Play on Tape again. From now on, both series will be posted on weekends, interchangeably. Yet, weep not tapes and ears fans, there's a brand new exciting series coming this summer. ;-)

Take care,
Your Loving EXramp

A Prince in Rags.

Ok, how should I...
Imagine you have a mobile phone. It has really cool stuff in it –a big, high-resolution screen, a 5Mpix digital camera with auto-focus, a high quality MP3 player, GPS, a flashlight and a Swiss knife. It’s great to play around with and it’s fairly functional, but it has a few dead pixels in the screen matrix, clunky navigation, it sometimes turns itself off for no apparent reason and has a tendency to wake you up in a middle of the night with high-pitched noise and flashing lights. It also automatically sends text messages to you with the word “fuck” every seven and a half minutes disguising itself with your grandfather’s number.

That’s Alone in the Dark. The fifth one.
Let me start off by writing that the technical state of this game is a fucking disgrace. In this day and age a digital product should not be released on the market so unfinished under the punishment of whipping. This game should have been left in the greasy hands of the beta-testers for at least two or three more months.
Floating objects that rotate rapidly, monsters stuck in doors, cars getting catapulted 20 meters into air after hitting as curb… that’s something you’ll be exposed to throughout the entire game. Add to that clipping problems, texture flickering, lightning and shadowing discrepancies and bad collision detection. Don’t get me wrong, they all don’t happen at once and none, let me put it in capital letters, NONE of those issues will prevent you from progressing or finishing the game. Wait, there was this once time that I made the main protagonist jump out of a speeding car while I was passing another vehicle – Carnby hit the other car and when he got up he was buried knee-deep in the other car’s hood. There was nothing I could do but to replay from the last checkpoint. It sounds bad, but all those problems are nothing more that annoyances. The game is not falling apart as some reviewers would like you to think. It is certainly a shame that AitD was released is such state, but it’s not like you’re going to buy a stone and you’ll get back with sand.

Also, many people reviewing the game said that the controls are so bad that the game is completely unplayable. Hell, Ryan Geddes from IGN gave the game a 3.5 for being buggy and „uncontrollable”. I don’t know what Atari did to that guy. Did they kill his cat? Did they steal his shoes? I don’t know, but it must have been something really nasty. Maybe they hid his remote?
I state here and now, that anyone claiming that the controls in Alone in the Dark are too poorly done to make the game playable should stop playing video games right now and start growing cabbage; because that is something they will be much better at. I don’t think this game’s controls are much harder to muster than, let’s say, Metal Gear Solid 4’s.
This game control scheme is complex, because the game’s mechanics are complex. Just get over it. If you can’t handle it go back to Wii Sports, shut up and let people with a cerebellum play the game. I will admit that the controls are a bit loose, especially during the driving sections, but it’s nothing serious.

With all that said – Alone in the Dark is one of the best games I have played recently, or actually ever. Surprised? I bet.
Yes, the game has flaws, quite a bit actually, but they are “dwarfed” by all the incredibly ingenious ideas packed into the game.
First of all the fire – it looks good, spreads and burns everything that can be burned (well, almost). You’ll need to use fire to solve puzzles and kill enemies. Actually, most enemies (excluding pretty much only the small dog-rats) die only if burned. That means sometimes you’ll need to fetch something burning to kill all the enemies off, but you’ll have a lot of flammables through most of the game so it’s no problem.
Combine wood with spreading fire and HAVOC physics and you’ll have more fun that with a “Small Arsonist” kit. Imagine that there are wooden beams that block your passage. What do you do? You take a can of mosquito spray, a lighter and warm those beams up a bit. You’ll see how the fire engulfs the wood, the textures change from a nice wooden one to a black burned-wood one (it looks excellent by the way – you’ll see small embers glowing on the burned wood) and then the burned beam will break on the point where there is the highest stress. Do the same with five or six pieces of wood and you’ll just love to watch them crumble.
Of course it’s not a game for insecure firemen so there are a lot more to do than just play with flames. You’ll use the physics to your advantage many times during the game and you’ll do it in most creative ways. I don’t want to spoil too much, because it’s one of the best things in this game – experimenting. You also do a lot of the afore mentioned with your inventory items. The inventory, which is Carnby’s jacket only hold so many items. You can combine them in various ways and sometimes you’ll be surprised with the results. Hell, that goes beyond your inventory. It’s excellent. One minor flaw though – the interface governing your inventory is not very intuitive, but one you’ll get the hang of it you’ll mix items faster than Flash Gordon masturbates.
Next thing is the AI. It’s surprisingly well made - something not often seen in survival horrors. Well, apart from Resident Evil 4, but that wasn’t really a survival horror, now was it?
Take the dog-rats again. They are interested in three things – you, light and blood. Wanna avoid confrontation with a particularly big pack? Find a corpse, shoot it in the head to make it lose blood and you’ll see the ratz (that’s how they are called in the game – laaaame) push the corpse to spill the blood on the floor so they can lick it. Also, other enemies will not just rush towards you if they know you have something to burn them with.
Ok, enough, or this review will go on forever.

The story isn’t the most original out there, but it’s engaging enough for you to want know more. The characters are distinct and Carnby is a likable, foul-mouth bastard with a nihilistic approach to life. He also swears every second word which creates both cool and silly moments. Overly, the voice acting is in an old-school, B-movie, survival horror style. I like it, because it fits well with the genre, but I’m sure most of you will frown after hearing the first few lines of dialog and it only gets worse as the game progresses.

The game is divided into episodes, and I don’t mean Half-Life 2 episodes. I mean Lost, 24, Prison Break episodes. Those are divided into chapters and can be controlled like a DVD movie. If you find a section of the game too difficult or annoying you can just skip it.
After every episode you’ll see the ending credits and when you load the game from a save file you’ll get a “previously on Alone in the Dark” cut-scene. It really makes the game feel like an interactive TV Series and I hope other games will feature something similar.

When it comes to sound the effects are nothing special really – just the average stuff you can hear in a survival horror games. What I do like is the soundtrack. It’s not exactly something you can hear in a game or a movie. It’s something that you would more likely hear on a concerto, with a choir and an extensive array of instruments. It creates an excellent mood for the game, even though there are a few instances with a questionable choice of music. Those however are few and far between.

Last, but not least are the graphics. And here I have mixed feelings. There are some locales that look stunning. They have sharp texture work, many details, excellent lightning and design. And then there are some places that seem to be taken from the Playstation 2 version of the game and look like a dog urinated on your TV screen. They are blunt, have issues with the dynamic lights and the textures look like they were made from butter and jello. In most cases the bad ones are only some of the minor or bonus locations, but it still hurts. Oh, and the character models are ugly as hell. Maybe not as ugly as the ones in Two Worlds, but they could use some serious work.

Ok, a small summary perhaps.
From all the whining here you could probably think that this is not a good game, but it is. It’s full of excellent ideas that were implemented into the gameplay and none of them feel forced or broken. Alone in the Dark is a game very well though trough. Too bad it’s not as well made. Think of it as a test. If you can get through the complex controls, the various bugs and glitches you’ll like this game tremendously. If not, well, maybe you should change a hobby or stick to AAA games that are more polished than dog’s balls. If you do that however, know that you’ll be missing a lot and I will have the right to call you a Sunday gamer.

Purists beware, this game will eat you alive.

And to all who diss this game, but are not gamers enough to actually play it I will misquote Edward Carnby – “I don’t care about the controls, and fuck you anyway”.

Goodbye.



P.S.
From what I’ve heard the controls on PC are really bad. Really, really bad. So maybe you should stick to a console version. On the other hand the PC version seems to have less bugs, so maybe you should get that one anyway. Or maybe get both, let Atari make more money, maybe the will hire more beta testers. For Christ’s sake!

Frostbite

I know Black Plague is a direct sequel to Penumbra: Overture and I should probably review the previous game first, but guess what – I didn’t play it, nor do I intend to. Instead, I decided to simply watch the game on youtube. Pretty lame of me, I know, but imagine how much precious time I saved that way... :-) I did however install and play Black Plague demo and it kept me interested enough to wait and get myself a full game. So let’s get on with the review, shall we?

“Round one goes to the hideous Mr. Olin for effective aggressiveness, I have to admit he had me going... For a moment...” – Mike Enslin

The first twenty minutes of Black Plague are pure survival horror ecstasy. You are trapped in a dark, dirty room with no idea whatsoever who put you there or why. You walk around, do some fiddling with things you find, familiarizing yourself with the game’s innovative use of physics (you can rotate the items while holding them), solve some puzzles. It appears the gloomy location is some sort of research facility, abandoned not so long ago. Unfortunately, the fleeing scientists locked and barricaded most of the doors behind them, so making your way through the corridors won’t be easy, especially with some dangerous infected humanoids running around, while you have absolutely no weapons to defend yourself with.

Save for that no-weapons-to-defend-yourself-with part, the paragraph above is pretty much the definition of what I like in survival horror games and I have to admit, Penumbra presents it flawlessly. The rooms have all kinds of stuff lying scattered around in them, which significantly raises the realism level, the corpses look natural enough and the freaky messages scribbled on blackboards on the wall or paper notes as well as recorded on tapes signify that something has gone terribly wrong in here just hours ago. And I love barricaded doors – they always promise something extremely scary behind them, without actually telling what it is. The puzzles are clever and make good use of the physics system. Yet...

“But where is the bone-chilling terror? Show me the rivers of blood...” – Mike Enslin

The first sign that Penumbra might not be a gem I so badly wanted it to be appeared with the first enemy. I didn’t have much time to take a good look at him, but he, or it, looked really artificial, completely in contrast with the locations. The movements were artificial, so were the sounds, the textures and the polygonal shape, which reminded me of weird corpses in System Shock 2. I believe ripping off the Mass Effect’s brown corpse-like zombies wouldn’t hurt... Oh well, I thought, nothing’s perfect, besides I felt I was going to forgive Penumbra a lot more of things.

Next come the retrospective sequences which take you back to the beginning of the previous game – Penumbra: Overture. Perfect, yet again. I adore blasts from the past in games and the giant worm part scared the hell out of me. Sadly, once they finish, the game begins its steady drop from nothing short of brilliance to mediocrity. A steady flow of suspiciously empty corridors leading to different chambers. A steady flow of puzzles in each chamber. And it goes like that pretty much to the rest of the game. Now, I’m not complaining (that much), but I guess adding a little more drama – some cutscenes here and there – would be a blessing. I can see where they were going with this – Penumbra is supposed to be an adventure game with stealth elements. Both of the ingredients are there and present themselves properly. Still, if a game – any game – does not change its pace from time to time, it becomes boring: the exciting puzzles become a chore, avoiding enemies becomes a frustration and even the most hair-rising, nail-biting atmosphere goes to hell in a hand-basket. This is Penumbra’s number one sin.

The surface sequence is a little lame – I know it’s difficult to show a realistic surface covered in snow, but there are effects like blur, more snow obscuring your vision, etc. A minor detail, yet, it could have made a lot of difference. Oh, I almost forgot Clarence. God, if they meant him to be annoying, frustrating, making you want to perform lobotomy on yourself just to shut him up, then boy, did they hit the jackpot. His voice itself is aggravating, his OUVA-PRUH-NOUN-SEE-AI-SHUN melts your ears and the things he does to you and then laughs hysterically about it make you want to eat your PC’s mainboard. The big question arises: is it good of bad for the game when one of the antagonists drives you bonkers? I’ll leave the answer to you.

Finally, we come to the final sequence, let’s call it... um... displacement level. All the things I’ve mentioned so far are not terribly important, just useless merciless ranting of a guy with too high expectations, but this... This killed the game for me. The background story – the idea behind it makes sense alright, but really, if I wanted to know about the meaning and mechanisms of human existence, I probably would choose a better way than just placing the protagonist in some ridiculous stone maze and putting him to the test. Not to mention ordering my minions to attack him again and again throughout the game and then say “I’m kinda sorry” at the end.

“It’s just a room...” – Mike Enslin

Oh, yes, Penumbra – both Penumbras – have their moments. I’ll try not to spoil too much, but some of the plot-turns are really positively surprising, if not breath-taking. Meeting the she-doc, meeting Clarence in the flesh as well as meeting Red in the first game will always remain among the most memorable video game moments of all time. The graphics are impressive, the new engine useful, the atmosphere convincing. Still, for survival horror freaks like myself, it’s just not enough, especially when all it would have taken are some minor patches here and there and maybe some more script drafts. Still, the creators have done a good job and I hope their future projects, including the third Penumbra, will be a lot better. Can’t hardly wait.

The Black Mages

The Black Mages is not a game soundtrack per se. Rather; it’s a collection of Final Fantasy combat tunes in an instrumental rock style.
Actually, to be precise, the collection is not called Black Mages. Black Mages is the name of the band, and the album doesn’t really have a name.
The band was formed by Nobuo Uematsu – the man behind a lion’s share of the music for most of the Final Fantasy games and many others.
The tunes on the album are all very energetic, but then again what would you expect form music played during combat. Most of them have a hard rock vibe to them, but some feature some synthesizers which make them sound a bit more like progressive metal. To be honest the synthesizers can sound a bit cheesy at times, but on the other hand it gives the pieces a very Japanese feel.
The most dominant instrument in all the compositions is a strong electric guitar that is doing a particularly good job in the bridge battle theme from Final Fantasy V as well as two FF IV themes included on the CD.
All the tunes are easily recognizable - like the theme from FF VII that plays during the helicopter-robot boss fight on the Shinra building – and even though they sound differently than the original versions (not surprising, considering most of the original pieces were in MIDI format) everyone that played any of the FF games will feel warm and fuzzy inside while listening to the CD.
Those of you who didn’t play any FF game should still pick this one up. This album will make you turn your volume all the way up, maybe even help annoy your neighbors and it’s a perfect collection to listen to while driving. Careful though, it may be directly responsible for some speeding tickets.
I must admit that this disc frequently finds its way to my CD player and has been doing so for almost two years now. It’s that good, and it just doesn’t get old.

It's Good To Be Back

This review will be a bit different than all the others. You won’t find any information about the technical side of the game. I also won’t give you any details regarding the plot, save for the general outline (maybe).
This will be a review from a Silent Hill fan’s perspective. The series was always special for me. The first Silent Hill on PSOne was a prelude to a distinctive chapter in my personal gaming history. This piece of code managed to devalue all games that I have played before and many that came after. I didn’t find a game that would possess my consciousness so strongly until the second Silent Hill was swallowed by my starving Playstation 2. Only the second game could surpass the original and to this day no game came even close. Metal Gear Solid 4 is on a strong third position, but it’s still too far to catch up on the Silent Hills.
I must admit that I was a bit disappointed with the third and fourth iteration. They were both good games, but they just were not on par with the first two. Silent Hill 3’s story was probably the weakest of them all and Silent Hill: The Room featured some questionable gameplay elements (and the fact that you had to drag Eileen through the entire second half of the game was just too much).
I won’t comment on Silent Hill Play Novel, because I consider it more of an experiment that an actual Silent Hill and let’s just let Silent Hill: Arcade rot in hell together with the person who came up with the idea to create it.

When I first heard about Origins, that it was not only an exclusive for the Playstation Portable (a system that I just can’t find a reason to buy) but also developed by Americans, I couldn’t “shed” a feeling that someone gave me a cold enema when I wasn’t looking. Still, it was Silent Hill. So for a brief moment I calculated how much of my liver I would have to sell to buy a PSP. But then someone decided it will be beneficial to port the game to Playstation 2 – my liver was saved.

I knew I would buy Origins no matter what, but I was still skeptical and my expectations were quite low. When the day came for my PS2 to change its interior to a rusted world filled with horror and suffering I was sure to face a disillusionment. But for some bizarre reason the disillusionment never came. For free days I took short vacations in Silent Hill and I was astonished that they were more fulfilling than the ones I had with Heather and Henry.
I couldn’t find the reason why. This Silent Hill was neither as big nor “pretty” as the last two and yet I felt a lot more like I belonged there. Then it struck me. I didn’t feel like I was on vacations in the town like I did during my trips with Heather and Henry, I felt I was home. And even though I felt more like I was coming just for a visit to a home I don’t live in any more it was the same home I have spend my best years in.
On my trip with Heather I felt like a customer in a big mall. There are so many interesting things in there, but after a while the mall becomes wearying. Similar with Henry – I felt we were spending too much time in our room just watching Silent Hill through the window than actually experiencing the town.

I decided to hitch-hike to Silent Hill this time. A trucker gave me a lift. I was in luck – he was going to Brahms so he would go through Silent Hill. I asked him to drop me off a mile or two before the town as I wanted to take a walk and see if anything was different. There were a few new billboards along the road, but apart from that not much changed. I couldn’t help to grin - as usual this time of year the town was covered with a thick mist. I didn’t mind though - it made the town feel even more calm and secluded and that is something I need during my time off. And it was just as I remembered it.
During my stay I decided that I want to revisit some old parts of the town, but I would also like to venture into those that I haven’t seen before. To be honest I never really noticed that there was an old theatre here. Maybe because there were never any plays staged, or maybe it was because I was never into this kind of entertainment. Sill, an old friend let me in and I could check out how the backstage looks. Interesting stuff. I would never think it’s all so complex.
Another friend was working at the local asylum, so I thought it would be nice to visit him, but it turned out that he was out of town; very unfortunate, but I’m sure I’ll get to see him another time. I wanted to ask if there were any news from James, but I guess I will just call his dad.
On my way back to the motel I figured I would go through some back alleys. I always do that when I’m here. You can’t even imagine how much strange stuff people loose here. I swear to God, Silent Hill must be home to the most unlucky people. Some things I find are real treasures.
The motel owner disappeared somewhere and since I left my key with him I couldn’t get into my room. That wasn’t a big problem; I just went for another walk. The owner left a note that he would be back soon, but I wasn’t in a hurry. I took a long stroll without a particular destination. Before I noticed it got dark and I had to get back. If you are new in Silent Hill the town at night can seem pretty intimidating - when it’s dark the town reveals its grim, colonial roots. It has a pretty violent and disturbing history, but right now it’s just a sleepy resort.
I think I’ll be ending this now, someone in the next room is making a terrible racket, giving me a thumping headache. I think it’s that doctor we met with Harry. Remember him? I always had a bad feeling about that guy.
Anyway, I just want you to know this town hasn’t changed that much. It’s still good old Silent Hill. Forget about the trips with Henry and Heather. When you come here in September just stay at the usual place, it’s still here.

Some Are Good...

People invented, composed and made everything already. It must be the case and seeing all the movie and music re-makes, game to movie adaptations, book to movie adaptations and adaptations of adaptations only proves it. In most cases the remake is painfully worse than the original, especially in case of music where new “stars” having neither talent nor ideas sing covers of artists who managed to become successful without using other peoples’ work. And every time I hear “Satisfaction” performed by Britney I know that someone is being stabbed by the Devil somewhere.

In case of games the situation is a bit different, because usually a remake is made by the same company that made the original game or at least the company supervises the work. Over the years we’ve seen a few remakes that improved on the original. We had Doom 3 which was a remake of the original Doom. We had a very good remake of Metal Gear Solid - the Twin Snakes was a great production although the re-recorded voice overs were criticized by hardcore fans. We had the excellent Resident Evil: Rebirth that not only featured incredible graphics but also added a few elements gameplay-wise and story-wise. And then there was Tomb Raider Anniversary a very good remake of the original game featuring the busty archeologist. On XBLA we can play the original Prince of Persia with Sands of Time graphics and Capcom is making a HD version of Street Fighter II Turbo for XBLA and PSN. Not to mention the great Final Fantasy III for the DS and the upcoming FF IV (with voice overs for God’s sake, VOICE OVERS) for the same system. Those among a few other show that game remakes are usually a good thing, so we will give you a few titles that we would like to see remade.

1. Parasite Eve - this Squaresoft’s classic is an excellent candidate for an overhaul. Some new spells, even more guns and more customization options would be nice as well. Ten additional floors in the Chrysler Building anyone?
2. Final Fantasy VII is a no brainer. We all want it, and Square Enix knows it.
3. Resident Evil 2 is my favorite RE game. I’ve finished it a few dozen times and wouldn’t mind doing it again on the Resident Evil 5 engine perhaps.
4. Nightmare Creatures 2 might have not been an amazing game but dismembering zombies and demons was never more fun. Do it on the Unreal Engine 3, add some combos and we’re good to go.
5. The first Broken Sword in glorious 2D HD with digital sound would be amazing. Me want.
6. Metal Gear Solid on Nintendo DS would be very cool. Top screen showing the radar and the bottom one the action. Some touch screen action and the boss fight would be a completely new experience.
7. Chrono Trigger either for the consoles or a handheld would be something worth looking into. Square Enix, are you there, people? (Actually there will be a DS version of the title, but right now it looks more like an enhanced port rather than a remake)

The whole idea of remaking things is a little bit sad, isn't it?
You take something which was good and still lives in people's memories
and you just stage it again, admitting that, no, you don't have any
ideas of your own. This is especially the case in music industry where
the only way of starting one's "career" is to cover some hit from the
past.

Thank God, that awful trend hasn't touched the world of video games.
Besides, in this area things change a lot faster that in music industry - we don't talk about the sixties being different than the seventies; we talk about 2002 being different than 2005. There were many great ideas in the old games and it's great to see them revamped and refreshed, even if it means leaving everything as it is, only bringing the gameplay and graphics up to date.
I guess it wouldn't hurt to try a little different approach every once in a while - why don't change the spirit of the original game, the way Marilyn Manson changed the spirit of "Sweet Dreams"? Wouldn't it be great to play the game you know and love in a totally different way, where everything has been rewritten somehow? This way, you would love both the original and the new one - you would play them both, compare them, etc. which is what a good remake should be in my opinion.
No such luck; it smells of art and no one makes artistic games these days, except for Grasshopper. Let's get it on then:

1. Walker, because mayhem in HD is always a good thing.
2. Syndicate /Syndicate Wars - I don't care which, just do it, people - can it be that hard?
3. Total Annihilation - one of my favorite RTS games, completely hi-tech, without even a single human element - this could be like controlling the city of machines in matrix... [salivates profusely]
4. Rise of the Robots - before you think I'm nuts, let me tell you this. I have a dream, a dream where this game is not a dumb beat'em-up but a third-person, Tomb Raider-like, platform-adventure-beat'em-up hybrid, with lots of lesser robots, swarming the levels, with side tasks to complete, with epic boss battles like in God of War featuring the redesigned versions of the original enemies and with a great story in the background (I was thinking about infusing robots with human souls, like in Ghost in the Shell - Innocence). Okay, back to Earth...

Apart from that, there are also 3 games I'm not sure about. They are perfect as they are, still I love their plots, gameplays, and characters and would die to be able to experience them once more, in an improved way. On the other hand, it scares me that the good remake may kill the original game - I used to play Resident Evil day and night, not caring about the game's flaws, but once the remake came out, I couldn't be bothered to play it again, was it not for Dead Silence. Same thing with Metal Gear Solid and Twin Snakes. The first two are Resident Evil 2 and Parasite Eve (same as above), the third one is Silent Hill. There are some additional problems with making a good Silent Hill remake. The prime one is the fact that the old PSone graphics quality was actually the key element of the game's atmosphere. Nowadays, the grayness and dullness of the old textures would probably be replaced with new, colorful ones and this would be nothing short of a disaster. Next, considering that the series itself is undergoing its own personal "survival horror", a *good* remake is next to impossible - it would probably contain many dumb movie references, maybe even an altered plot, since the original one was often considered incomprehensive. So I guess leaving the game alone is for the best, yet my imagination is sometimes just not enough...

Beneath a Steel Sky

Before the Broken Sword, there was a Steel Sky. Before George Stobbart, there was Robert Foster.

Oh, but I don't really have to tell you that, have I? After all, if you are 20 or more, you'll probably remember the forgotten video game genre, called point-and-click. Forget gamepads; use your mouse - and not for moving the crosshair, but a cursor. Not a lot of new games have cursors in them during the gameplay, right? Point-and-click was a once a firm genre, one of the most important kinds of game out there and the pride of computer owners. Console games of the past (grand-grand-gen) tended to be very simple: 4-directional pad and 2 action buttons (four, if you were lucky) so all they seemed to offer was platformers, shooters and driving games, while PCs, Amigas, Ataris, MSXs and even Macs flourished with games which required more complicated controls - adventures, managerials, turn-based strategies, real-time strategies, Microsoft Flight Simulator... Today, things are different, as everything tries to be as straight-forward as possible. A game where you have to become a member of an exclusive, private club just to obtain a glass with some fingerprints would seem totally illogical and crazy (on the other hand, show me a point-and-click title where you have a next-gen console with an opportunity to "buy money" for your game; dig this - you spend money for some points you spent to buy money!).

Anyway, back to B.A.S.S. I'm not going to tell you anything about the plot - that's because either you know it already, or I'm not going to spoil the fun in case you've never played it before. Suffice to say, it's the cyberpunk future (yummy...), the society is divided into classes, where the snobs are living on the ground in their posh apartments while the slums are working hard in the rusty sky-high factories above the clouds. There's a sinister computer controlling everything and there's one man with American accent from outside the city on a crusade to figure what the hell is going on.

The graphics are of a decent, slightly-worse-than-Broken-Sword quality, the music is not altogether pleasant, but will do, the interface is pretty intuitive. The collection of items in your inventory is placed neatly in the upper area of your screen, as are the dialogue options, and there's not too much pixel hunting. Also, the flow of the story is very entertaining, which is a trademark feature of Revolution titles. The game bursts with jokes and funny dialogues read by actors with either a French of British accent (Irish, maybe) - the accent itself is another trademark of Revolution Software. :-)

Okay, this was a short episode, but, let's face it - who doesn't know Beneath a Steel Sky? If you haven't played it - you can download it for free from Revolution's website (the new SCUMMVM engine allowing it to work flawlessly on newer platforms), even check the official spoiler-free walkthrough if you happen to get stuck. I strongly encourage you to do so.

PS. About a year a go, Tony Warriner announced that Revolution was working on a revamped version of the original Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars with some extra plot and other stuff thrown in. The game is to be released on DS and Wii. They keep quiet about the project, but I look forward to it just the same. The world needs it.

Your knee bone connected to the leg bone... leg bone connected to the...

This is not really a review, but rather a description of Maxis’ Spore: Creature Creator. CC is a small test of Spore, the next game from Will Wright – the creator of the SimCity and the Sims. Spore is about creating your own organism and personally directing its evolution from a single-cell to a space conquering species. The game features an open-ended gameplay and a lot of customization – you’ll be able to create your own buildings when your creature will be culturally developed enough, you’ll create your own vehicles and what is most important you’ll design your very own species to evolve.

You can save this little bastard and use him in your CC.

Spore: Creature Creator is the tool that will also be included in the final version of the game.
First you’ll have to shape the body of your creature by changing the length and shape of the spine, and the amount of flesh the creature will have on it. After that you just drag and drop on your creature all the body parts you want it to have. You can choose from different kinds of heads, limbs, feet and hands (talons, claws, hoofs, etc.) and all kinds of strange details (these include “weapons”, wings, hair and stuff I can’t explain :-) ). Care for a two-headed, six-limbed pig-mosquito with a body in a shape of a carrot. No problem. Want to make a deer with wings and a huge ass. Done. Interested in playing through Spore with a devilish Wiimote or 360 controller… you can do that as well.

The creator gives as lot of freedom in creating your creatures, but doesn’t let you do much more. You can “paint” your creature with different textures and take it for a spin on a small arena in three environments. You can check how your pet would act in different moods, and record a short video or make an animated avatar, but that’s it.

Same with this one.

What’s really cool about CC (apart from making a creature that looks like a couple having sex… no I’m not kidding) is the community. On the Spore website you have access to the sporepedia where you can check out all the creatures people made.
What’s even cooler is that you can take those creatures and edit them in your CC.
You do that by saving a picture from sporepedia on you PC and then just dragging it to your creator. It’s ingenious! You get a 3D model from a 2D .png file.
You can even take the creatures I’ve posted here.

There is a demo of the creator on the official web page, but I really encourage you to get the full version - it’s cheap and it’s a lot of fun. And with a bit of skill and patience maybe you’ll make some really sick shit.