crash bang boom

Played Fallout 3 for about fifteen minutes before freezing and a hard reboot-then switched to Vista to update and play World In Conflict. Crashed 3 times. Suspect heat and humidity has something to do with as massive thunderstorm exploded moments later.

RT

Games-In-Brief: Spring/Summer 2009

A massive slew on ongoing personal stuff including moving my family 3500 km has been distraction. I am working to keep them under better management to prevent further distraction.
I rotate through a pile of games, as I usually get to play in chunks, and when I get frustrated, I quit. Here is a list of the games currently plaguing my shelves and hard drives:

The Witcher: Extended Edition- A visual feast of an RPG with truly adult themes and content (without being gratuitous), the combat is a bit wonky. Unfortunately the most recent patch destroyed my install so I am re-installing and re-patching.
Supreme Commander- This epic RTS has been a blast to play but the biggest impediment is that the missions grow massive and timely as you play. I am wary of starting what appears to be an end-game, as the initial mission space is massive and looks to only get bigger. I also suck at RTS’s
World in Conflict- I left this game behind a while ago on an abandoned Vista partition-Win 7 is spectacular, and leaves me thinging I will be nuking that partition so I should finish the game. A tight, accessible RTS, it is visually enthralling and can really push a system. Great story too.
Far Cry 2- Visuals again lead the pack in this game, as does the dynamic weather, day/night and fire propagation systems. The open ended nature of the game leaves the experience entirely to the player, which can be daunting. Like Supreme Commander, this game has a potential to be a massive time –sink as the exploration of the world is far more compelling than any story missions. More annoying is the compressed and apparently time-adjusted dialogue, which makes everyone, talk as if they are running at 1.5X.
F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point – A reasonable expansion pack to the original, it builds on the atmosphere of the first game, bumps up the weapons, but still leaves the player fighting inside warehouses and corridors. The A.I., while more cleverly scripted than actual A.I., is challenging and exciting.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Not yet graduated to the Clear Sky prequel, this game, while initially buggy, has finally been patched to a tight, unique experience. As much RPG as shooter, it has a vibrant exciting world with threats from all side and looks fantastic.
Age Of Conan- I have jumped back into this ultra-violent yet striking MMO with renewed vigor, as new content has been released, opening areas of the world previously unexplored. Recent patches addressed balancing issues, which required me to re-outfit my avatar with new skill trees, but the new far more granular feedback on stats is welcome.
Titan Quest- A pretty Diablo clone RPG is accessible and entertaining, though driven solely through mouse-clicks. The resounding thud of a shield bash is satisfying, though I feel like I am not leveling properly. Distribution of skill points is a bit obtuse and unlike as to potential benefits.
Fallout 3- Though I have not purchased or played any DLC, I continue my quest through the capital wastes, avoiding the game ending mission in order to finally and fully explore the map. Now essentially overpowered and able to walk through (almost) any enemy in the game, especially accompanied by weaponized companions, I am playing to explore, and discovering new and weird things every time.
Xbox Live Arcade has gotten my attention with two game demos: Shadow Complex and Trials HD. Shadow Complex is a gorgeous side-scroller rendered in 3D, following the old-school vibe of the original Metroid. The Unreal Engine is stunning as ever and this massive arcade download comes complete with full rendered cut scenes. Ridiculously fun and might in fact pry $20 from my cold hands in the form of 1200 Microsoft points. Trials HD is a physics based 3D almost-isometric view of a motorcycle stunt driver who the player has manipulate through a serious of ever more challenging jumps and tricks. Controlled only by acceleration, braking and leaning back or forward, the bike and rider are sent hurtling through the air into flips and ramp slide, often culminating in a massive ragdoll crash. Deliriously entertaining, it looks like a steal as well.

Return To Form

I have split off my ranting blog (ragingcanuck) from my gaming blog (game-a-day-ish) because it was getting too muddled. Hopefully this works better and allows me to get back into blogging.

For a laugh, check out whyicantpark as well, its my log of parking denials.

Condemning Manhunt

Still fresh for me was the controversy surrounding Manhunt, the only game to have been rated “R” in Ontario. Given I ran an EBgames during that period imagine my shock and horror when I discovered (while at the hospital no less) that I had been “stung” by the local tv crew selling it to a “minor” (girl was 18 in less than a month and made up to look like an adult, then put on camera in pigtails).
Lo these 5 years later I have finally played and beaten the game, and honestly I don’t get it. Hindsight tends to clarify most things and though I can understand the brouhaha, unfairly directed at Rockstar specifically due to the GTA series, the game just isn’t that bad. Other games made around the same time or soon after are far more graphic, an issue that plagued Manhunt 2. Clearly the subject matter and “execution” gameplay mechanic were the tipping points in this issue, but I found the game to be entertaining and reasonably fun. Perhaps more importantly I appreciated the unflinching depiction of human filth and the depravity people are capable of expressing. Not unlike the 24 hour exposure our world receives of horrible images often without context on the news, this game expresses a singular vision of exploitation.
The sneaking mechanics of the game are now well-worn and the limitations of the hardware available at the time are apparent in the graphics and A.I. That aside, 2/3rds of the game make for reasonably varied play, only to collapse into stop and pop shooting mechanics which fail the central conceit. The ending is singularly unsatisfying but again, very little in this game was truly unnerving or disturbing (except for Pigsy’s junk dangling, lovingly).
Comparatively, Condemned, released on the Xbox 360 not long after Manhunt, is a far more visceral, graphic and disturbing game. An FPS driven on what appears to be an early build of what would become the F.E.A.R. engine is brutally violent, and also contains execution style mechanics. However, the player character is a cop tracking a serial killer rather than a serial killer tracking and killing cops (amongst others). This distinction along with the “snuff-film” plot is what drove the controversy against Manhunt. Context, as with all media, appears to be everything

Retro_active

A brutal holiday season followed by busy work stuff prevented me from having time or energy to write about anything, hopefully that has now changed.
Whatever the distractions life has presented I continue to persevere, playing a stupid amount of game,rotating through my stock, and goozexing what I no longer have need of.

In the interim I have stepped away (mostly) from the most current crop of games to reach into the past and beat those not yet defeated. The exception to this is Crysis Warhead, a dumb blonde of game. Pretty but stupid, the game takes everything that was good about Crysis and tosses it out the window, making this Crysis-lite. Emulating the successful COD 4 format of level design the game is entirely unsuccessful in replicating the intensity of that experience, leaving the player with a mish-mash of half-baked ideas. Focused on the character Psycho's misadventures on the island in the same time frame as the first game, Warhead dumbs down the A.I. and level layout, without ramping up the visuals or story to any significant level. The end result is a game that unlike it's predecessor will likely run on a mid-range system but leave the player unsatisfied. She's pretty but she ain't got much to say.

Viking:Battle for Asgard is a reasonably fun yet repetitive title, filled with gore and an unintelligible story that assumes moderate knowledge of Norse myth. A checkered past plagues your character as a cursed leader who needs to prove himself as he frees his people with the aid of dragons and some really big armies. Lather-rinse-repeat is the crux of the gameplay as you conquer areas, freeing your warriors and completing tasks that will allow you to lay siege on the enemy positions. The combos are reasonably satisfying and brutally graphic (spines make lots of appearances as you cleave bad guys in two). The most rewarding aspect of the game is the massive sieges, where hundreds upon hundreds of NPC's battle around the main character. The game engine chugs during these moments but it does not take away from the intensity of being in the middle of a massive hand-to-hand engagement. Dragons are limited air support, called in via dragon-gems and of little real use as they can only be activate once or twice during a siege. The repetetive nature of the game diminishes it greatly, however the singularly beautiful art direction and engaging combat make it tolerable.

You're not the boss of me:Gears Of War 2, Rise of the Argonauts & Brothers in Arms 3

When did boss battles go from being a means of ramping up the players experience to culminate in a hopefully satisfying use of the skills learned, to being game-breaking punishments?

Boss battles come in a gazillion different forms ranging from escaping ever-increasing hordes of enemies in a ever-decreasing area (COD 4), to a big alien dude you shoot stuff at its weak spots to make it roll over and die (Lost Planet). Shadows of the Colossus is an example of a game made of nothing but boss battles as the player finds way to attack an kill massive creatures, all with unique weaknesses and behaviors. All of these games create these battles organically withing the story, using them as storytelling elements to drive to plot as well as engage the player.

Gears of War 2 has one of the worst boss battles I have ever played, to the point that I actually quit playing. The battle is not only achingly repetitive and tiresome, it actually breaks the immersiveness of the game and violates the physics engine. Facing the locust villian Skorge, the player has to avoid grenades, falling rocks, explosive "tickers" and finally, massive wood columns that Skorge chainsaws through, causing them to topple.

Directly on the player.

Even if they are behind the column when it starts to fall.

I screamed cheap at the screen more than once because the developers were so unrelentingly lazy making this game that they broke the gameplay in order to make the battle more difficult. This is unacceptable. Gears 2 is a mediocre rehash of the first game at best and its makers are clearly resting on their laurels.

Rise of the Argonauts uses the same engine, as does Brothers in Arms as Gears 2, the Unreal 3 engine. Epic has often been labeled as the only developer capable of manipulating the engine to its fullest (including a lawsuit from Silicon Knights) and I am starting to get an inkling why. They are the only ones who don't try to make the engine do something its not good at. Of the the three Epic games made on the engine, they are rely on tightly controlled, small,linear environments surrounded by lush, but unreachable, visuals. Rise, Brothers, Mass Effect, etc etc, use the engine to create massive environments where you can usually go to what you can see. This engine is not made to do this, resulting is massive amounts of texture pop-in, frame-rate issues and general glitches. It makes one wonder if other developers were sold a bill of goods on the capabilities of the engine, specs that Epic itself does not have the engine do, only to have it fall short.

Rise of the Argonauts, in direct comparison to Gears 2, is receiving an entirely unfair critical drubbing compared to Gears, which I consider to be an inferior single-player game. Rise has a compelling emotional plot that drives the player forward. It does exhibit a lack of final polish in its animations, voice work and gameplay, but overall the game is fun and tells a great story. It seeks to engage the player emotionally rather than viscerally, using Mass Effect inspired dialogue trees and some very clever writing. Any fan of Greek myth should rent this game. It too has a boss battle that frustrated the snot out of me but I finally beat it, because I wanted to see what happened next. I didn't care with Gears 2. Argonauts also has babes in it, which is nice. I beat Rise of the Argonauts in 2 days of non-stop play, I liked the game that much.

Brothers In Arms 3 also draws the player in emotionally, asking us to invest in the characters, including a "Previously on..." cutscene that shows the first two games. Using a linear layout, like Gears, BIA drives the player and their squad forward against the German defenses.Reasonably smart AI (other than when it runs down the middle of the street rather than following you through back yards) drives the squads and they follow commands well. The control scheme is smart and intuitive and the cover system allows the player slightly more protection from the hail of bullets.

Satisfying and challenging without being stupidly difficult, BIA 3 is fine game that deserves more attention than it is getting from consumers. I am looking forward to beating it soon.

Secur-bomb

DRM (digital rights management) has been a growing concern for years now as publishers of any and all media try to find new and different ways of controlling the release and prorogation of that media to consumers.

Unfortunately, last century paradigms are still being applied to 21st century media, and industry by industry try and fail, repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Napster lead the way in the 1990's in regards to music and the internet. Consumers came to like and more importantly desire portability of music in manner never before scene. Mix-tapes and CD's become irrelevant in an era where hundreds and eventually thousands of songs could be shuttled around in smaller and smaller devices. Relatively small file sizes allowed consumers to transfer and share their music with others over email, the internet and peer to peer.

The music industry slow response was first to litigate everyone in sight to try and prevent music sharing, then misguided attempts of DRM were implemented (Sony rootkits, magic marker workarounds). Only Apple's monolithic hardware allowed them to leverage the music industry to become the single success story in monetizing digital delivery of music with Itunes, and even they have DRM laden product, though workarounds are easy to find.

As broadband internet has become ubiquitous, fast and cheap (relatively) the film industry has fallen into the same trap. By not adapting to the media rather than trying to force the media to adapt to an outdated business plan, movies are now traded on the net through P2P almost as frequently as music. Blockbuster hits can be found, in varying quality, on the net within days or hours of the films release to theaters. Like the mistakes made by the music industry, the RIAA have tried to litigate everyone they can find, while forcing different forms of DRM into their product. Unfortunately, each new encryption program is cracked within its first year of existence up to and including blu-ray. In a war of mutual assured destruction the music biz has shown they cannot win, because the courts and governments move exponentially slower than technology. Laws will always be far behind the ability to circumvent those laws. The only reasonable solution is to create a new paradigm for a new form of business.

Piracy and DRM have always been a bone of contention in the games industry with many early PC developers growing their fanbase and bank accounts by giving aware portions of the games as "shareware". The advent of consoles made piracy more difficult but like any encryption eventually beatable given time and a world of hackers who will do it just to prove they can. This has lead to a dichotomous approach to protecting and monetizing the intellectual property of the company while also trying not to alienate an increasingly well-informed and pro-active audience.

Various forms of DRM have begun to plague the releases of major companies, the latest and most prevalent being Secur-rom. Once a simple disc-check to ensure the game is in the computers drive when the game is started, secur-rom is now an invasive and often invisible piece of spyware that sits on the user's harddrive long after the game has been uninstalled. Lawsuits have sprung up regarding this as have virtual attacks against the bottom line of companies like EA with hundreds if not thousands of users spamming consumer review sites like Amazon with bad reviews on product because of the restrictive DRM.

Most disappointly my beloved Fallout 3 uses securom, but as quoted by the developers, "only as a disc check" which is fine, except that if I try to have a process explorer running (showing me what is running on my system and eating up resources) when I try to start the game, securom crashes out. Apparently it doesn't want you to know what it is doing on your computer, which to me is unacceptable and the behaviour of spyware or a virus.

It appears the game industry is now heading down the same path as music and film before it, the question is only whether there are lessons to be learned.