Posts Tagged ‘PS3’

Sorry, I am doing this link thing again. My intentions were to stop these, but I have spent so much time writing for other sites that sometimes I just like to put them up to prove I am (still) alive. With that in mind below is a list of all my recent pieces, with a small taster of the articles that I am most proud of.

My game of 2011 list will still be coming soon later this month, as well as some highlights from the year so far. In the mean time check out the links below, keep an eye on Game People, Play Devil and Games Jobs Japan for my regular content. Also be sure to find me on Twitter (I am DoFuss there too) where I will be posting my exploits in video editing with OXM, CVG and other Future sites.

Warhammer 40:000: Space Marine - Call of Juarez: The Cartel – Scary Girl - and…

My silent character had to murder his way through the world with no relatable motivation. While the landscapes were beautiful and absorbing the fiction seemed unaware of the emotional well it left untouched. It left me only with the choice of continuing the senseless killing or turning off the game. I no longer felt like a champion or hero, I didn’t even feel like villain, just a robotic killing machine and that really frightened me. Do you want to know more?

I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go on alone; I felt that somehow, without my partner, to finish would be empty. Then from the darkness I heard a small cry, my screen illuminated slightly in one corner indicating the direction of the call. Wasting what energy I have left I leap towards the sound and am joyously reunited. Do you want to know more?

Just one on here…

After a number of recent posts from foreigners working in Japan our latest interview has a slightly different face, that of Yutaka Kurahashi, Chief Artist at Q-Games. As a Japanese employee working along side foreigners in Japan he provides a good counter point to the discussion of issues to be tackled in a mixed work place, from basic communication to cultural misunderstandings. Kurahashi is also able to compare Q-Games to more traditional Japanese companies that he has worked at, shedding some light on to the changing face of business in his native country, and how he feels injecting new cultural ideas can be of benefit. Do you want to know more?

Reviews

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt2 - Call of Juarez: The Cartel – PX5 Headset – Trouble Witches Neo – Nin2Jump – Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine – Ms. ‘Splosion-man – Xmen: Destiny – Mario Kart 7 – Rayman Origins (Xbox) – Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception – Captain America – Soul Calibur V - Thor: God of Thunder - BlazBlue: Continuum Shift 2 – Sonic Generations – Rage – Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi - Dark Souls – Batman: Arkham City - Super Mario 3D Land - Zelda: Skyward Sword – Bloodrayne Betrayal – James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes - Trine 2 – Final Fantasy XIII-2 – Wipeout 2048 – Pac-man Party 3D – Uncharted: Golden Abyss – Super Stardust Delta – Rayman Origins (Vita) – Street Fighter X Tekken

Previews

Namco Bandai: An Evening with Ezio – Armored Core V - Inversion – Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations – Ridge Racer Unbounded 

And…

There is a clear respect and seriousness given to the source material by the development team. The few cries that may (will?) be heard of it being in some way sacrilegious will probably find their basis in the fact that such text were used at all (or maybe that they are being regarded as fiction) rather than the handling of it. True some oddities come through, with character design and aesthetic often edging towards the bizarre, but it has gravitas and nothing is treated flippantly. Do you want to know more?

It is a wonderful story with themes that are actually adult, wrapped up in a beautiful anime style, creating an experience rarely seen in a retail console release. As I said it spoke particularly to me and it was interesting as I answered my questions to see just how differently Vincent’s life and my own panned out. Do you want to know more?

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.

Going in to Call of Juarez: The Cartel to review for Play Devil I was expecting very little. Having previewed it already for another site it sounded like a somewhat soulless attempt by Techland to move their Western shooter to a modern setting and cash in on its broader appeal. What I was met with was something far more surprising.

The Cartel throws you straight into the action with a car chase and shoot out.

Before I begin to tell you why I enjoyed Call of Juarez: The Cartel, I feel it is important to point out that it is not a great shooter. It feels unfinished, characters pop in to and out of existence constantly, it has a colour palette that makes enemies impossible to see, there are visible cracks in the environment and the whole experience is so linear that there is literally a dot that guides you (often poorly) through the game. Indeed if I were to assess this on purely a technical level then I would be inclined to say that it is the worst first person shooter I have played this year. But, and this is a big but, I really like it.

There is a lot Call of Juarez: The Cartel does that is rare to see in a game of this nature. Each of the games three protagonists has their own back-story and agenda and while they work together it is a strained alliance. A revenge obsessed LAPD officer (with a penchant for hookers), an FBI agent who wants to protect her gangbanger brother and a DEA agent who is up to his eyeballs in debt and suspected of betraying an investigation it to the eponymous Cartel. These disparate personalities are all thrown together to form a task force, and the seeds of mistrust are instantly sown.

Despite being tasked with the same goal, each member is self serving and distrustful of the rest of the team.

It is the mistrust and ulterior motives that the game immediately capitalizes on. As a game designed for three-player cooperative play, each of the characters is instantly charged with spying on the others. This means attempting to complete any objectives outside the taskforce’s own must be done in secret. These tasks are generally quite simple (picking up a wallet for example) but offer important experience points to gain extra weapons, if caught however it is the others who are awarded prize. It doesn’t really work in the AI controlled single player game, but it adds an interesting dynamic to the multiplayer that pulls in the narrative’s distrust.

These different objectives and levels of play are equally present in the main tale. At times a character is sent away from the main team. In the story while separated their actions play in to the other’s suspicions, but when playing co-op this leads to some nice asymmetry of play, such as one player offering sniper cover to the others as they make their way through a crowded club.

Though horribly linear the game does manage to create an interesting journey as the three agents move towards Mexico.

The Cartel also does some bold things with its pacing. I could sit here and bemoan gaming for its lack of options for interaction, shooting is all too often all they offer. But while The Cartel is undoubtedly gun heavy it does add a lot of variety to what could easily have been a mindless shooter. Interrogation, escapes, escorts, tailing suspects, questioning, fist fighting and undercover work are all dotted through out the story, never in enough measure to get dull but always building on the narrative to give texture and a sense of connection.

As I said, Call of Juarez: The Cartel is far from perfect, in fact at full price I would struggle to recommend it to anyone, but when the price drops this is going to be a title you should give serious thought to returning to. There are undoubtedly better examples out there, but with its theme and all of its twists and turns, there are distinct similarities to be drawn with The Wire. True it is feels like it is a rejected story arch from the HBO series, and one that has for some reason been cowboy themed, but it is still surprising and offers a far more engaging plot than most of its peers.