Gadget, Past as Future - get back review

I've beat it a few days ago (it only takes about 2 hours), and I had been trying to write something here since then... But I just can't. I loved it and I can't sum up exactly how good it is.
It suffers from not being an actual game, more like an interactive movie, but it managed to create a fascinating universe and intriguing story, with lots of eye candy. It works on so many levels and it clearly influenced and reminds me of so many other games with its design (Half Life2, Bioshock, Fahrenheit, Last Express, FF7 or Lost Odyssey, heck even Shenmue...) One of the most original pieces I have had the delight to experience.
I realise haven't talked much about what it is: it plays as a first person adventure, like Myst, but with no real puzzles or gameplay. You just click around the places which you can see at leisure (including the various gadgets that give name to the game) and certain objects to progress the story. Many cutscenes intertwine the action and this, coupled with the setting, is where it shines. The story revolves is great, deep and philosophical, free for interpretation and lots of freak out sequences.
Lots of attention to detail as one would expect from a Japanese team.

*/10

Originally published July 10, 2009

Way of the Samurai - get back review

No, not THAT way of the samurai ...

I had wanted to try this game for a long time, long before I even had a PS2. And, after that it still took me some time to get it, but I did manage to get one recently, and it was sealed and everything, joy.
On with it: The main draw of the game is to play multiple times, because what you do and don't do, affect how the story unfolds, much more than in, say, Raw Danger or Shadow of Destiny, sometimes just being at a certain place at a certain time has an outcome, but of course, choices based on text options are present as well. The story takes place in just 2 days and revolves around Rokkotsu pass, and more or less 4 factions. On one side there's the Kurou family that are historically the rulers of the pass. Then there's the Akadama clan, who are ruled by the Kurou boss' illegitimate son and want to bring back samuraidom ruling to Japan. Then there's the Meiji government (who historically ended the shogunates, this is XIX century) who intend to take control of the pass. In the middle of it all are the people who Rokkotsu, mainly a restaurant, a foundry, a swordsmith and a railroad track.
To get the full understanding of what's going on, you really have to play through it at least twice. Thankfully, and while I did only beat the story on my third try (because when you die, it's really gameover and you have to start from the beggining, oops), you can play through the game in about 1 hour and 30 minutes, which is perfect, as you can do it all in one sitting.
What I liked the most about it, is how the characters, in small number, and the situation, resembled so much a play, in that they were quite multidimensional, and while some were holier than others, everything was justifiable and it all made sense. Tough but fair, weak but honourable.
What I didn't enjoy as much was that it included some atmosphere breaking elements. The whole of Akadama clan dress up in a typical JRPG fashion (and haircuts) and the inclusion of an english woman and an afro samurai was also more or less weird hehe.
A final note for the music. While there aren't many different tracks (after all, a single playthrough is very short) I found them to be quite interesting choices. It ranges from very pleasing more or less epic tunes to a very Shenmue-like ambience tune, to traditional japanese music, and the battle theme is also an atmosphere breaker, using a more rock-ish tune with guitars (both electric and spanish), but this, as a whole, gave it a certain flair and made it stand out from other games rooted in historical Japan like... Ôkami or Cosmology of Kyoto, for instance.

All in all a nice surprise (it didn't exactly get stellar reviews) and an interesting game to enjoy.

Originally published July 25, 2009

The Path - get back review

Tale of Tale’s biggest project yet ends up as one of the most interesting experiences in gaming.

You’re invited to take 6 sisters through the path to “Grandmother’s house” (1 at a time, in any order), interpreting the Brothers Grimm’s classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood. The first thing you’re told is to “stay on the path”, what where’s the fun in that?! And this is of course, the juice of the game. And, my friends, is it ever juicy! Indeed you’ll encounter many things, which will make our girls say a little poetic comment about and, if all goes well (or not, actually), you’ll find the Big Bad Wolf, unique to each girl (as are also certain places and objects). After you find your Wolf you’ll wake up, frail, on the ground outside Grandma’s house. Within you’ll explore various rooms until you revisit your apparent “demise”. What makes the experience so incredibly brilliant is in fact how due to the subjective nature of the tale and the ethereal feel of the game’s environment&atmosphere&direction, your imagination and interpretative skills are given free pass to conjure up what is REALLY happening to these girls and what they are actually seeing and doing. Filling food for thought which I have to say I had seldom been given in this medium.
Common to all 6 sisters is another girl, dressed in white, who usually takes us back to the path (& thus out of harm’s way) and is an almost omniscient presence in the forest. You also get to play as her in the concluding epilogue chapter. All in all this game has become one of my favourites, on the same pedestal as SotC and Shenmue and definite GOTY (MW2?! Hah!). A true mind-boggler that made me go “Oh my God…” every two steps, as our little girls braved through this most metaphysical of forests. It certainly conjured up feelings like a VG had never done to me, and on an artistic level reaches for a very ambitious place. A true beacon for indie game mentality.

Originally published December 2, 2009

Another World - get back review

In 199x Éric Chàhi of Délphine made what was to be, along with the original Prince of Persia, the founding father of the modern console adventure game. Both these games stuck out back then due to their incredibly realistic animations (thanks to use of rotoscoping technique), minimalistic storyline, dark visuals and frustrating difficulty (one-hit kills). As acknowledged by Fumito Ueda, Another World is the true videogame precursor of what are the practically undisputable videogame masterpieces of the XXI century, SotC and Ico. But, 15+ years on, how does it test the strain of time? The recent 15th anniversary edition gave the game a beautiful graphical lift, with really smooth HD and high res graphics. I would dare to say, the best graphical remake of this generation, definitely benefitting from having been made by Chàhi himself and not some outsource job, like the incredibly cringy HD remakes on XBLA or the Ultimate Genesis comp. the minimalistic approach is now beautifully rendered and it gives an even more awe-inspiring view of this alien landscape our hero ended up on.
Keeping things ever so simple, only 1 button is used, apart from the directional controls, throughout the game, just another example of spot-on design. The gameplay is of course still deep, with various jumps and shots possible. It can sometimes be, though, extremely tiring as it uses the “trial-and-error” method, even if ways to die are incredibly varied and well animated and directed (I guess as a small treat for the player). Unforgiving, but gratifying, as it makes the journey all the more epic.
The story is mostly non-verbal (very little text) (another thing Ueda picked up on) and even in “alleged” cutscenes you are somehow always in control of your character. Now, this is something that only very recently VGs have picked up on (Assassin’s Creed, Half-life,…). It is also overwhelmingly cinematic, with very smart cutscene direction and a great sense of action and tension throughout.

Originally published December 2, 2009

Fatale - get back review

Exploring Salomé

Tale of Tale’s next release after their most ambitious project yet (The Path), Fatale took the team in a completely different direction (although akin to their first project, The Graveyard). So, in Fatale you’re invited to delve in the story of Salomé, one of the stories of the Bible but, in this case, following Oscar Wilde’s adaptation, “Tragedy in One Act”. The game is, however, divided in three: first off you’ll play as John the Baptist in the dungeon, then you’ll hover over the courtyard, and in the epilogue you’ll be Herod Antipas, the tetrach of Judaea. All of these are sort of in “first-person” view. The courtyard hovering is the real meat of this “game” though, as the other bits don’t even require you to do anything.
The “gameplay” consists in hovering over the courtyard where Salomé rests in contemplation. You should zoom in on sources of light (various lamps scattered around) and just try to put them out with a sort of darkness that you control while you’re zoomed in (the process of zooming in is quite cryptical, I haven’t yet understood what they meant by it). As this is a very passive and visual game, these zoomed up views gather the content of the game. This makes it quite free to interpretation (as seems to be the main thing about Tale of Tales, and I guess one of the things that sets them apart as artists rather than gamemakers). As the actions you can take are quite limited (hover, zoom, put out candles) you’re instead invited to take in, absorb, what you’re seeing. The game is quite small if rushed (40minutes?) but I found myself pacing just wondering why they chose particular angles on the zoomed bits, the way things were arranged, like you were analyzing pictures, although not as a game element (like so many adventure games make), but for your enjoyment, to interpret and figure out what it was exactly they were trying to express, without it depending on your “game progress” (truth be told, there would be no right “answers”).
Apart from the candles, there are 7 coloured veils twirling about and just some things you wouldn’t expect to see, like a guitar and amplifier, a matchbox with Salomé written on it, or an iPod strapped to Salomé’s thigh.
The game’s graphics and music are quite a delight and show just how close independent and mainstream games can get in those departments. Lighting is exceptional, character design (by famed Silent Hill designer Takayoshi Sato) is intriguing and it’s just overall quite an experience to just stop, hear the music, see the contrasts, the fluttering veils… quite an artwork.
As for the story, I must admit that, as a semi-heathen, I wasn’t familiar with it when I played Fatale for the first time. So it was even more cryptical than ever, albeit slightly fascinating. As I read the play afterward (it’s quite a short play) and got the gist of the Bible story (somewhere in St. Mark’s gospel), a lot of things started to make more sense and it just struck me that the way they transposed a play into interactive media was amazing. Lines from the text pop up here and there, but it’s the way the atmosphere was captured (a hot summer night, gradually turning into dawn), the connection between the Moon and Salomé, the facial expressions, the way it all wrapped up in the end… It made me wonder how this method could be applied to other literary works (why not something more ambitious like Don Quijote or Walden?); extracting feelings and ideas like movie adaptations can’t seem to.

In the end it’s a very interesting piece that I guess should be enjoyed with a basic knowledge of the story. It’s an experience that does strike a chord, and is just quite different from anything else ever done. Worth it if you’re fans of Wilde, Tale of Tales, Sato or just looking for something out of this world. I can’t wait to see what they deliver next.
Fatale is a contestant for the Independent Games Festival 2010 awards.

Originally published December 7, 2009.

Machinarium - get back review

I had been following this game ever since I first saw it as one of the finalists of the Independent Games Festival 2009 (it won the Visual Art award). It immediately struck me as a throwback to the old adventure games (it had that Neverhood-sort of charm) and at the same time looking fresh and original. As I had never heard of Amanita Design before, I took the liberty of trying their first two games (Samorost and Samorost 2) which I thoroughly enjoyed and raised my antecipation for Machinarium even more.
Well, in Machinarium you play as a little robot that was often bullied around by bigger robots and must attempt a daring rescue in a most fantastic robo-world. Mind you, the story is nothing to write home about and merely a vehicle for gameplay (as was with both Samorost).
The puzzles are all quite entertaining even if some of them are a bit hard and may be a put-off. The best are environment-based and the hardest require a lot of patience and thinking skills. The first ones are just one-screen puzzles, while later on, as the game opens up, you’ll be trekking back and forth for items, switches and the lot.
I am in no way a fan of puzzles so what made this game for me, shallow as it is, were the technical details. The visuals are tremendous, incredibly defined with a slick and distinct style, great use of colour and light effects and great animation. The cutscenes and some of the talk and thought animations were done in black and white cartoon style. And it’s all done on Flash! Lots of little details abound, from the animations when your mouse goes untouched for a while, to the hint mechanisms (original), some minigames (including little hommages to Adventure and Space Invaders)… It all shows a great attention to detail and a very high production value, that we normally don’t associate with independent production.
The soundtrack is another great plus, a really fantastic score, very ethereal, very dynamic, very coherent with the visuals. Tomas Dvorak (rising to the legacy of his name) is certainly establishing himself as one of the most interesting videogame soundtrack composers around.
In the end, while it was a great game (let’s face it, how many games like this have come out… not even this year, but this decade?!), I admit that it was a little bit too much puzzle-heavy at times, and even, while absolutely charming from a technical point-of-view, I personally preferred the iconography of the Samorost games (more up my alley).

Originally published December 8, 2009

Link to picture gallery of the Collector's Edition:
http://img257.imageshack.us/g/dsc073460.jpg/

Huong Jiao Ping & Ulitsa Dimitrova - get back review

I came across these games through the list of applicants to the Indie Games Festival 2010 (IGF10) award, which was announced about a month ago. Albeit possibly indefinable as games, they present an interesting, if short, foray into the interactive media genre. Although surprisingly well set in China and Russia (respectively), these games were actually made in Germany by students from the University of Fine Arts of Kassel. This new wave of graduate gamemakers seems to be in full gear since USC’s Interactive Media Division paved the way.

Both games share a distinctive handmade pen&paper art style with simple drawings but well animated and great intro artwork. Sound is minimalistic.

Intro screen


Starting with the eldest, Huong Jiao Ping has you guiding a woman through what appears to be a chinese marketplace. Interaction is slim: you can move up and down the road or look in your shopping bag. The so-called purpose of the game is to fill the aforementioned. You’ll gather your ingredients and then boil them up in the pot at the end of the street, and at this time the game ends.
Of course, from what I’ve told you you can imagine this being done in a very common way, perhaps imagining some old woman from Shenmue II’s Green Market Qr., just shopping about for groceries. What is shown however is somewhat more gruesome and bizarre. So bizarre that I have no way of interpreting the ending as no more than slapstick or maybe a deal of karma. Spend 2 minutes downloading and playing the game and you’ll understand what I mean. Quite a disturbing experience.

Buying cigarrettes from the stall


As for Ulitsa Dimitrova, it is slightly more complex. The game environment is larger, there’s more interaction and the game really only ends when you don’t want to play it anymore. The name of the game means something like Dimitrova Avenue. You’ll play the role of an actual son of a whore, and you’ll be able to rob hood ornaments, smash windows for vodka and glue or beg, with which you can get cigarrettes or money (to buy more cigarrettes). The game is very much touted by blind perseverance. You can play for as long as you like, and the little tune that’s being whistled will repeat ad infinitum. But as soon as you stop, the boy will get the shivers, curl up and die in the snow. Just like Pacman, Tetris or Donkey Kong (save for killscreens), death is inevitable.
Again, the themes are borderline and present a harsh contrast with the juvenile artwork. Not only are your game mechanics very much reduced to stealing, but you roam around an environment that’s populated by drug addicts, blackmarket dealers and prostitutes.
One interesting encounter will be with a girl that fancies you reciprocally. Your one shot at love is maimed by your offering of a cigarrette. She willingly accepts but as her mother catches you she takes her away. Unlike everything else in the game (that runs on a continuous loop), you’ll never see her again.

These games are obviously free and avaiable here:
http://www.uni-kassel.de/hrz/db4/extern/trickfilm/spiele/

Originally published December 30, 2009

Far Cry 2 - get back review

I'm going to start by stating that I am in no way a fan of first-person shooters. In fact, I can count the ones I like with just one hand: Half-Life 2, Prey, Breakdown and now Far Cry 2. What I think these games have in common though is that they definitely transcend a lot of the stigmatic barriers of this ill-genre although, with the exception of Breakdown, they're still far too rooted in them to reach their true potential.

Such is the case with Far Cry 2. From the get go, you're dropped into a vast unnamed african country, divided into two areas. Like most FPS the story is non-essential, which is a great miss considering the incredible potential it had. You're main goal from the start is to assassinate The Jackal, a take on legendary weapons dealer Viktor Bout, as you take missions for both opposing factions UFLL and APR which, just like real-life militias, all look the same. The supporting cast is thus far and wide forgettable, a huge miss considering the fairly interesting range of characters movies with similar backgrounds like Hotel Rwanda, Last King of Scotland or Blood Diamond have produced.

You are commissioned your story missions in towns which are another miss as they're totally FPS-like. While there's talk of "the people" and "refugees" and stuff, during the entire game, you only see soldiers, taking a big amount of realism out of it, as for instance more interaction with villagers, drivers, women and children would surely give a lot more emphasis on the dramatic action. Like all FPS, interaction is nearly limited to gunfire.

All this would be unbearable if it didn't have some redeeming factors. The big star is the environment. I was very excited when Resident Evil 5 was unveiled as being in Africa as this continent has such great potential that is seldom used in art, and more so in video games; i was then very disappointed when I saw the final result. In Far Cry 2 however things are different.
One of the criticisms the media pointed were the long treks you had to consistently make to get to your target missions, as well as the overall length of the game (it takes seriously more than 30 hours, huge for an FPS). I myself revelled in it. In fact, it's where my comfort with this game comes from.
Although mission objectives are relatively strict, you can execute them to your liking. If you wanted you could take days preparing a mission, deciding on what equipment to take, deciding your approach, placing getaway vehicles, planning the hour of the day of your attack...
This is aided a lot by the excellent dynamic GPS and map system, allowing you to pursue paths less travelled, reach for higher grounds for scoping and just essentially to get by, as you'd feel very much lost without them.
There's a reasonable network of roads and vehicles (including gliders and boats) you can take as well, but sticking to them is detrimental to the experience: refreshingly, this is an FPS where you can explore a beautiful, lush, dynamic reactive environment with great delight.

Apart from the fixed gun set in front of you all the time which really aggravated me (it's part of that country-with-no-people-just-soldiers thing), the first person perspective is quite dynamic and enthralling. Coupled with the silent protagonist, you get a real sense of presence in the world, even if for the smallest glimpse, and that makes it very special.

The special effects department is a beacon of excellence, with fire effects simply astounding. It develops very realistically through all flammable contents and is just a delightful eye-candy. The one set-back is that it puts itself out and very quickly at times (no more than 2 minutes)...
Fortunately it's not just fire that shines. The light and dark routines are excellent (aided by a full 24hour system), with sun effects really top notch. Let me tell you, it's really something to watch a sunrise or sunset just as you wake up in the middle of a forest hill. The storms that punctuate the game at times are also incredible, trees shake everywhere, rain pours, I wish they had gone the extra mile and put up puddles and mud development as well...

An ingenious piece of design is that you're never really in control, a harsh difference from common "action-hero" type of FPS. Guns jam and even blow up in your hands (right when you were gonna take that crucial sniping shot, hehe), cars break down, you get malaria attacks periodically, and even the environment can work against you (since there's no HUD it's sometimes really hard to see who's hitting you at night; although the same applies to the enemy).

Sound is amazing, from the environment sounds to a great soundtrack that keeps you on the edge just as you try to sneak through the long grass outside an enemy post.

Final words: while it's still an FPS, I feel that games like this and Prey really try to push forward the genre, making it feel more dynamic and alive. It's a shame that it got a little stuck halfway. Still it's an incredibly enjoyable ride, very entertaining, and especially atmospheric.

Originally published February 17, 2010

Yakuza 3 - short review

Doing it for the kids

Foregoing its Japan-only side-story Kenzan!, Yakuza 3 marks itself as both an improvement and a departure from the first 2 episodes in the series. On the one hand, it’s bigger and better than it’s ever been, with an environment that while completely familiar and related to the series, is now incredibly more detailed, and whose exploration is much facilitated by the use of a 3rd person perspective and a very immersive 1st person view mode; the fighting sequences are more refined and varied and the series’ staple sidequests are plentiful (even to an excess) and creative as ever. On the other hand, Yakuza 3 delves deep through more sentimental grounds in terms of story and characters, a slight rift from its previous racier “crime-thriller” episodes. This is perhaps much owed to a change in writers. Thus, there’s noticeably less emphasis on crime family politics and war mongering, and more on life values. While the characters certainly feel much more interesting, and the new graphics’ engine allows for a lot more expression, in the end it seems all that potential wasn’t fully utilized. The game rewards us with some great directed cutscenes right at the start involving charismatic characters that unfortunately end up not being completely relevant to the tale, or are brushed aside too early (Tsuyoshi Kanda, Goh Hamazaki). While what ends up being the main antagonist is an interesting choice, American Psycho-like (sans the sexual bits, at least) Yoshitaka Mine, he too is under-utilized. In the end, the game ends up having too many characters that, for the game’s overall length, just aren’t developed enough.
Gameplay-wise the scale has too been upgraded, although always maintaining familiarity with the series.
While giving players and fans more of the same though, it did manage to convey what was undoubtedly the best experience in the series, simply due to its enormous depth and variability. Even if the story was shallow and unfulfilling, sometimes bordering on the inane, it never took away from the core experience of the series in providing an immersive and detail-attentive experience in modern Japan, with its tradermark humour and violence intact.
After this, and with Yakuza 4 out in Japan, it might seem that the formula is drying up. Only time will tell, but it’d be a shame to see this great series and current pearl of historic company SEGA be reduced to ridiculous expansions and sidestories in the vein of Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil.