Posts Tagged ‘EA’

Gaming is becoming an increasingly wonderful (and expensive) hobby. Last year I must have played and completed more games than in any previous year. That isn’t me bragging, it’s a sad statement of my year of part-time employment that has left me with a depressing amount of free time to indulge my hobby. Luckily gaming was accommodating, with a flood of polished and interesting releases throughout the year.

In a year so filled with titles any list I can offer is far from exhaustive, but I can say with certainty that if you see a game the coming few posts that you haven’t tried, then you should probably consider it.

This is a list of the biggies. Games with the advertising muscle to make an impact, with or without the medias’ approval. Don’t hold that against them though, seek them out if they passed you by.

Dead Space 2 – A real treat to start the year for a horror game fan. Managing to blend horrific monsters, creepy plot and tight shooting action, its success was well deserved. While I still maintain the original Dead Space offers a scarier and more terrifying experience, Dead Space 2 to builds on the unnerving interplay between church, state and unknown alien force that was only hinted at in the original.

Dead Space 2's setting, the silent and isolated Sprawl.

Portal 2 – My expectations were mixed for Portal 2. With the original an unexpected bonus in the Orange Box, much of its appeal was a snappy sense of humour and the fact it was basically perceived as free. But keeping the same sense of discovery and comedy was going to be a challenge. Valve should never be doubted however and the results were impressive, maybe lacking some of the wonder of the original, but managing to defy (my) doubt filled expectations.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – No real surprise here, this vast game can accurately be described as epic with little hyperbole. Advances on Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’s combat system and graphics were to be expected but it was the Radiant AI that dynamically introduces quests that really elevated Skyrim.

Skyrim finally made hairy overly large men the stars, so I felt right at home.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception – Another globe trotting adventure for Nathan Drake, Uncharted 3 was incredible, with ship, airplane and desert sequences that were as good if not better than any single set piece of Uncharted 2. It may have ultimately been a less cohesive and rounded story than the second game, but it remains a fantastic and moving adventure.

Super Mario 3D Land – It is hard not to love Nintendo when they are on their game. The effort and craft they but into each of their flag ship titles is undeniable, and Super Mario 3D Land is a prime example. An instantly familiar feel despite entirely new angles of play, in conjunction with the best use of 3D on the handheld, made this not only one of the best games on the system but also of the year.

This should be the last you see of my articles on Shadow’s of the Damned, the game I expected to worship but that I ended up just adoring. It was a hard score to decide on for Play Devil, as their scores are weighted slightly higher than I would naturally place them and I suspect that by comparison to some other reviews on the site I should probably have gone up to 8.5, rather than the flat 8.

As with Shadow’s of the Damned you are likely getting bored of this of me talking about scores all the time so lets make this my last post about this also. I always understood each site and publication weighted their scales differently, but it was never something I gave much thought to. Reading only a handful of magazines regularly for reference, Edge and GamesTM, my internal barometer adjusted to their admittedly strict schemes. Receiving a 6 in either of these indicates is an above average game, but looking at most other sources such a score would be quite damning. By learning the rubric of these two magazines (how they use the full scale with 5 as the true average) the context of any review score is immediately evident to me. Unfortunately my familiarity with systems meant that I internalised them, and I am now finding it hard to slip in to a different mindset.

A good game but how good depends on context, numerically at least.

A score has to be relevant to the place it finds itself, because otherwise it’s just an abstract number devoid of reference. As long as a site is internally consistent with it’s scoring then everything should work out fine providing the readers understand the range. The issue here of course is that as I am struggling to assimilate Play Devil’s system, and so am doing the readers a disservice as they compare my scores with others on the site.

Having become used to the more stringent scoring in the few magazines I read readjusting my thinking is a challenge, but I will continue the struggle. I guess the point of all this is to say that if I were I to review Shadow’s of the Damned on the scale I am accustomed to it would probably earn a 7, but compared to other games on Play Devil I suspect even my 8 was a little harsh.

I hate memes and leetspeak, I despise them, but upon hearing about Shadows Of The Damned my reaction was an instinctual… OMG! It was as if Hermes herself (among her other duties in Greek myth she was also the god of gaming) had reached in to my mind and plucked my dream team of designing talent and forced them to make a game for me.

For me Shadows of the Damned achieved a sublime mix of creative talent. If I were to compare it to the classics I would see it as a mix of Shakespeare, Mozart and Da Vinci coming together for a production. To my Japanese centric mind, with a propensity for horror and narrative, the pool of creative talent EA pulled together was breath taking. Suda 51 brought his spin to the story, with Shinji Mikami handling game play and Akira Yamaoka on drums… I mean writing the score. Honestly there is nothing in this mix that could possibly go wrong. Right? Well, in theory yes, but as I proved one time when I made ramen with a beer and cheese, sometimes the whole can be far less than the sum of its parts.

Meet Garcia 'Fucking' Hotspur and his faithful friend Johnson, the talking and conveniently transforming skull.

I will confess before I begin that absolutely Shadows of the Damned IS better than beer-ramen with cheese topping, both in flavour and overall experience. Every member of the Japanese trio that had me so excited certainly delivers on their promise, with the outlandish plot, supported by solid gameplay and music that is both evocative and unique. But it is hard to ignore the feeling that none of the group are on top form. That, similar to the England football team, each of them was brought in at the top of their game and then became unable to produce their best performance.

To shed a little clarity for those unfamiliar with Shadow of the Damned it is a grind house inspired trip to the Underworld with the fantastically named Garcia ‘Fucking’ Hotspur (not sure if that is his real middle name but he seems to like to). Garcia is a demon hunter out to liberate his girlfriend, Paula, who had been captured by the king of the Underworld, Fleming, who is repeatedly killing her to teach Garcia a lesson for killing all of his minions. This may not sound too odd when I explain it, but I promise it is with all of the odd flourishes that Suda 51 is famed for making an appearance to make you utter befuddled and amused sounds constantly.

A light and dark mechanic allows somethings to only be hurt when in shadow, unfortunately this also hurts Garcia.

Supporting Suda’s story is more than slightly familiar game play, as Mikami reverts to his Resident Evil 4 roots, and a score that thanks to Yamaoka oscillates between appropriately odd and out right peculiar.

It should all add up to my dream title, but the amalgamation just never quiet meshes. Every time the team comes close to the harmonious chorus I long for it goes wrong. There is always a distraction from total enjoyment; a strange music choice here or a loose camera movement there; there is always something elusively that stays just outside my perception, distracting from my enjoyment. Perhaps it was that each of the creative minds involved work better when not constrained by others creative diversions, truly a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

Here is the girlfriend, Paula, being killed by Fleming hundreds of times seems to be taking it toll.

Of course there could be dozens of reasons Shadows of the Damned not reaching the lofty heights I had hoped for. A troubled development, difficulties in any number of areas, time restraints or simple lack of inspiration could have all contributed to the game’s underperformance. None of this changes the end result however, which is that Shadows of the Damned does not meet my (unreasonably?) high expectation. None of this is not to say I don’t like it, just where I was expecting a cheese board with a nice red wine I instead received a hearty ploughman’s with a pint of Stella, and I am not that keen on Stella.

Last month saw the release of a number of significant titles from Japanese designers and developers, most notably Child of Eden and Shadows of the Damned. For a long time gamer like myself they represented hugely significant titles marking (in Eden) a spiritual successor to a classic (Rez), and (in Shadows) a collaboration of some of Japan’s greatest talents. Yet while my excitement was nearly over flowing at their release, the gaming playing community at large responded with a near inaudible, ‘meh’.

For all of my protestations and despite having bought it before huge price reductions, I am not enjoying Child of Eden.

The 360 timed exclusive Child of Eden, the first ‘core’ game for Kinect, shifted 90,000 worldwide, while Shadows of the Damned mustered even fewer at 60,000 despite being aimed more at a Western market and releasing for PS3 and 360. This is all set against the sales of the critically panned Duke Nukem Forever, which has (at the time of writing) had sales totaling of 750,000. I say these figures represent worldwide sales but in fact these games have only released in Europe and America, despite their Japanese roots. Interestingly in the same time frame the PS3 exclusive, Yakuza: The End, released in Japan and has managed sales of 400,000 units, proving Japanese games can sell to the right/home audience.

But should this be a surprise to anyone? Having followed gaming in both the East and the West it is becoming increasingly clear that games do not transcend culture as some once believed. There was a time when the limited number of games (and a focus on the pure mechanics of play) allowed sales of ‘good’ games to cross cultural boundaries. Yet with the market and range of games growing, a title’s ‘dressing’ has becoming increasingly important.

Shadows of the Damned lack of success in the West is a mystery to my, let's put it down to poor advertising.

In much the same way that all entertainment media struggles outside of its cultural home, games are now finding that the environment they are created proves an increasingly limiting factor. A fact that can be clearly demonstrated with Call of Duty: Black Ops, which sold a total 10,300,000 units, only 300,000 of which came from Japan.

The natural conclusion to this for companies will be that they should only release massive games, or those deemed able to cross cultural boundaries, outside their of home territory. In other entertainment media this would leave it to small, specialised companies to bring a title to foreign audiences, but in gaming the cost of translation and distribution are considerably higher, increasing the risks involved. Even endeavors such as fan translations are faced with the struggle of media that is hard to alter, and so doggedly protected by its owners that even purchasing a legitimate foreign copy is often frowned upon and expensive.

Attempts to bring Call of Duty to Japan have always been half hearted in the knowledge sales will be limited.

It is hard to admit, but the reality is that the market for translated foreign titles is not present, making doing so an unattractive proposition for companies. It is a sad truth for long time gamers (like myself) to accept that despite the affection we have for Japanese titles it isn’t enough to convince a company, whose main focus is profit, to localise them for us. We are lucky to have companies like Atlus importing niche titles, and even more fortunate to have had EA sponsor a title like Shadows of the Damned, but if sales continue the way they are such projects will become increasingly rare. When that happens we can only hope that holders of their copyrights will be willing to loosen their grip and allow fans to find some (at least vaguely) legitimate way to experience their games.

(All figures courtesy of VGChartz.com)