The Mannconomy Update – A Credit to Team?

Last week, with next to no prior hype Valve launched the latest update to Team Fortress 2, with 5 class updates produced by modellers from the Polycount forums and a long promised feature permitting the trading of items. The biggest surprise however, was a feature never, to my knowledge, even alluded to, the Mann co. Store, allowing players to spend real-world money so that they can put a saucepan on their Soldier’s head.

The thing I keep having to remember is that the store items with non-cosmetic gameplay value, namely weapons, are still obtainable for free via random drop and crafting, and indeed are more accessible thanks to the trading option, nothing has been taken from me. Some rices seem a little steep for virtual items, such as the rarer hats (especially new ones that are components of the Polycount set, at £12 each) but again, no obligation. And of course, you can get all the Polycount content for £30, cheaper than buying three of the hats stand-alone. So that’s a “saving”, though still more expensive than the game itself, but I did find myself feeling tempted to take the shortcut and get to try the new content right away.

But there is something I regard as, dare I say, insidious. A new, fairly common random drop comes in the form of a Supply Crate, which may contain a rare paint or hat, a real potential badge of status or something that can be trades for another desirable item. Or it may be a weapon you already have in duplicate. But to find out what’s inside, you need a key. A key that can only be obtained for £2 at the store. Hmm.

So I end up with two crates in short order, and there they are in my inventory, saying “I might have a Sombrero for your Pyro” “Don’t you want to paint something black?”. I caved to curiosity, bought the keys, and got a Wrangler and Scottish Resistance, that I recall struggling to get back when their updates first came out, but nearly worthless to me now. I felt sick, these weapons weren’t even worth £2 each from the store. I know this was the chance I took, but is this a feeling Valve should want to be giving it’s players?

Lesson learned, though, I’m not going to stop playing TF2, it is still one of my favourite, most enduringly appealing games, so it really looks like Valve wins, though I can’t help feeling I was monetarily punished. Time to move on and get hold of the new loadout sets, which seem to have interesting properties. The Scout set’s +25 heath seems worryingly good, whilst the Pyro’s full set seems to lack synergy and for some reason is the only one with a drawback of a +10% extra vulnerability to bullets. The Sniper set seems to be aimed at preventing the Snipers of both sides entering a long-range duel separate from the rest of the match (as so often seen over 2Fort) by preventing them from delivering or receiving headshots, whilst the Spy’s identity-stealing set opens up a distinctive new play-style to the class, disguising as his last victim but unable to do so before hand. This is all speculative for now, but looking forward to trying them out for myself. Someday.

Have a little post-Eurogamer, er- post on the way, once I’ve had a day to digest it all.

Old Republic E3 Cinematic

A cool video of all the stuff you certainly won’t be able to do in the game:

Okay, they might get away with Force-Kamehamehas. Still looking forward to seeing how things turn out, it’s unlikely the game will be without merit, I’m just getting curious what will make it an MMO and not a direct KOTOR sequel (which I would be fine with anyway)

“I Still Function!” – War For Cyberton demo

Had been meaning to renew my Xbox Live Gold subscription for RDR mulitplayer, which I should really get on with, but was finally spurred into action by the release of the Transformers: War For Cybertron demo.

The extent of the demo is fairly limited, with only two of the four classes playable to level 3 (which can be reached in a single match) limited customisation and one map with two game modes (team deathmatch and control point)

One concern is that one of the absent classes is the Scientist/Jet class, probably the most distinct vehicle mode. It’s a shame since it is the class I most wanted to play, and I wanted to see how well flighted characters played within the confines of the arena, which doesn’t appear to have much open space for it.

Got used to the controls very quickly, and action is very fast when the game is well-populated. Might be down to inexperience but the Warror’s tank mode seems very vulnerable to the nippy Scout car, and can expect to be punished if they miss their first shot with their main cannon, though perhaps things will even out with the other two classes involved. It’s still very cool to quickly turn into a tank to fire a quick shot at an unprepared target. Had trouble using the melee weapons effectively since it calls for a press on the thumbstick, which I think I have some kind of mental block over, but clearly isn’t a problem for many given how many times I’ve been shanked in the back and clobbered with spinning mallets. I think the tumbstick-activated transformation command resulted in a few accidental mode-changes for me as well.

The demo is effective at making you want more, letting you advance a little to make you understand the reward system but withholding them for now. After a little over an hour’s play I have little desire to play the demo any further, having seen it all, but I can’t wait for the full game’s release. It also exploded my perception of the game as principally a single-player/co-op affair. Depending of the learning/reward curve of multiplayer advancement, the game may offer a lot of long-term appeal there.

What is wrong with you people? Mass Effect 1

I’m staring, right now, at my copy of Mass Effect 2. Bought and paid for. With money. My purchasing this game got me thinking that, well, I really should get on and play Mass Effect 1 properly shouldn’t I? Obviously it has all of that story Bioware is known for leading into the next instalment, plus I can carry my character over, and of course, everyone keeps saying it’s great.

What were they playing? I’m really trying hard to find something good here that isn’t part of a dialogue tree. The story might be okay, and I do only mean okay, and moving around on foot is much smoother than in KOTOR, combat really isn’t much fun. Enemies seem pretty tough most of the time, and your squad-mates fragile. Shepherd isn’t much better, though can be given some health regeneration if you play the right class. I didn’t once, and the tutorial mission was too difficult to complete.

One of the concessions most fans make of the first game is that the Mako APC gameplay is a pain, but that’s okay since they aren’t in the sequel. Except, why not fix it? Why not make it fun, since these sections have a reasons to exist? Getting around within a planet’s atmosphere makes it ‘feel’ a lot bigger, and it makes sense that they would need to get around like that where the Normandy can’t land. You could turn it into a on-the-rails shooter, or just give the time to fix the vehicles physics so it doesn’t bounce around in such an infuriating way. Understandable they responded to criticism about it, but that’s the simplest solution. They should make the sound idea work rather than throw it out because they didn’t bother last time.

And how did it escape notice that despite all the stops for long conversations, bullshit ambushes and elevator rides, they didn’t put in autosave checkpoints? I feel sick thinking of the hours, literally hours, I’ve had to replay because I’ve not been quicksaving every time I blink. And every time I need to replay a section, I can’t skip a cutscene or dismiss dialogue I’ve already heard. It’s the sort of thing many laymen blame on poor QA, but I would say it is more likely developers ignoring their testers or not asking for feedback on anything but bugs of features already implemented. I’m hardly a venerable industry bod, but I’ve seen many times that very few developers want to utilise their QA resources to find out if what is being produced is up to scratch as it is designed.

This most is largely driven by my extreme anger and disappointment over this game, I was going to hold off on commenting until I was playing ME2, which I don’t know will even happen any more. I know the shooting element is meant to be a lot better, but I will have to skip the majority of the existing story and whatever advantages moving the character over confers. And I have to remember that people said the original was a great, enjoyable game. Can I really take their word about the second? And it gets me thinking about how people look at Bioware. Yes, they do interactive story very well, but that’s just a Choose Your Own Adventure book if it’s not got good gameplay to wrap around it. And I remember now that KOTOR’s character and combat system was derived from Wizard of the Coasts Star Wars RPG, and not and original Bioware creation. Sonic Chronicles had a few good ideas to use DS tech, but got repetitive and unfulfilling pretty quick. Gets me thinking that Bioware simply don’t live up to their hype. A lot of people seem to cut them a lot of slack for making great stories embedded in poor gameplay. I’ve probably been guilty of this myself, moving around KOTOR was a bit of a chore and the combat and character progression quite basic, but I got to swing a Lightsaber around and drop Force Lightning.

Maybe I will be able to play more when I calm down, but it’s hard not to see continuing as a massive waste of time. Given how people like it I want to believe I will come back to it and see what they see, and enjoy myself again, but right now the game seems to do little but make me very, very angry.

I’ve just found I’ve been misspelling “criticism” on my blog tags. This is embarrassing.

Sonic 4 and the Sonic series

Moving homes has kept me busy these last few days, but I would like to spend a little time talking about Sonic 4

Two things seem to keep coming up in conversations on forums and podcasts about the Sonic franchise. That it is unsalvageable and that Sonic can’t work in 3D.

One the first point, that a franchise can be irredeemably ruined forever:

Maybe a bit of apples and oranges I admit, since Batman’s popularity was maintained by his native comics, and more well-received ventures like Dini/Timm Animated series. Then again, Sonic has enduring popularity too, I am constantly surprised to keep seeing new Archie Sonic comics at Forbidden Planet. But the fact remains, all it takes is one good game, and there is nothing at all to stop someone making a good game that stars Sonic. Maybe it will be a “reboot” like Sonic 4 sort-of is by ignoring the games since the 16-bit era (Not that story continuity ever mattered much to the franchise. Maybe a page can be taken from Mario and stories kept simpler/non-existent) The 2006 Sonic The Hedgehog was meant to be a reboot too, of course, but let’s face it, that wasn’t the game’s problem.

As for the idea that Sonic can only remain true to his original concept by remaining in 2D, I think that is a quite odd thing to say. For one, the 2D perspective acts against fast movement since you can’t see far ahead of your character. For another, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 were very well received games at the time, and no one seemed to take strong issue with 3D then. Problems were identifed, certainly, but could be rectified. If anything, the biggest problems with the games was when they deviated from the core “Sonic” gameplay. In SA1 this was just the mercifully short Big The Cat sections, whist all other characters played quite a bit like Sonic, mostly representing different “game modes”, with Tails racing, Knuckles treasure-hunting and so on. Even the Gamma shooting stages retained a lot of the fast moving Sonic gameplay, which was sadly lost when the gameplay was transferred to the Tails and Eggman levels of SA2, which were much slower and more removed from the Sonic levels. Skipping Sonic Heroes and Sonic 2006 because I never played them (I probably should since they’re probably cheap enough I won’t feel bad now) this takes us to Sonic Unleashed, which I think illustrates my point clearest, because I think the Sonic sections are some of the best seen post-16-bit. Long sprints see you dodging with side-steps and sharp corners at taken as if drifting in a car, coupled with the 2D gameplay people keep banging on about, and plays pretty well. But half the game, and an unavoidable half that you can’t put down and progress in the half you like, has you playing a God of War clone without any tits. That I could find.

I’m sure many agree, even granting the Sonic series should be afforded some suspension of disbelief, the Werehog was a bit of a silly concept. Taken on it’s own, and ignoring that it’s Sonic, the werehog gameplay was actually fairly solid, if derivative and unspectacular. But it’s not what anyone wanted, people resented “having” to play it. I honestly thing Unleashed would have been recieved better if it was half the length with the Werehog element completely removed.

So that’s something Sonic 4 has going for it, with no other playable characters it’s not likely to deviate too much from the fast style of gameplay. I guess I could speculate on if it will be like Sonic Rush on the home systems, and say how odd it is that the homing attack, which was added to make Sonic work in 3D, is being included, but we really know next to nothing about the game. It could be a flashy update of the 2D games, or another cynical appeal to nostalgia from Sega, albeit a more convincing one than Unleashed, but like the franchise itself, I don’t think we can write it off yet.

As a side-note, I’m glad to see the return of the “chequerboard” landscape and robot designs from the 16-bit games. An important thing I think Sonic has lost is a distinct aesthetic. I hope they retain that for new 3D games, which have seemed to lacked a strong, distinct look outside of the characters themselves.

Something Shiny- Blade & Soul

Earlier today I chanced on the trailer for NCSoft MMO Blade & Soul. (EDIT: Annoyingly, I then found the interview on the official site and had to re-write a big chunk of this) Aesthetically it’s not far removed from more recent Final Fantasy outings or the general fanservice-y fantasy style favoured by many of Korea’s developers (character design is by Magna Carta II’s Hyung-Tae Kim) but all the same, very fetching. It’s hard to be sure how much is pre-rendered trickery, but the combat system appears to be quite different to most MMOs. I can’t be sure of the gameplay style from the video, possibly like a fighting game, or some kind of turn-based system, but it seems things will be possible here that are in no other MMO I can think of, like characters reacting directly to being hit, and able to physically interact with one another. Notice that the Destroyer class character picks up a fallen opponent and is able to do a number of brutal throws, I don’t think any other MMO game allows that kind of direct interaction between character models. Usually you just wave your weapon in the vicinity of an enemy and actually cause damage based on the whim of invisible dice, but this makes everything look like it’s really part of the same world.

The focus seems to be on one-on-one fights, given the number of them shown, but beyond this there is a traversal element rarely seen in the genre, which makes it look much more like a single-player action game for those sections. It would appear that you determine the destination and the traversal is then done automatically, but it seems to allow the covering of very large distances, and allows for combat on the move. The video makes it look good for a single-player game, and very impressive for an MMO.

It has to be remembered this is early material that doesn’t feature a fully implemented game world. Will we get these cool showdowns, or will we have people running around our fights doing emotes and selling gold? Is the traversal system dynamic and exciting, or little more than cutscenes and QTEs? There’s a lot we don’t yet know, but I think it’s worth keeping an eye on. Though I immediately hate the mouse-like race. Besides being a creepy-looking, I don’t like how the males look the same as females, just with moustaches.

Apollo Justice- The case for the prosecution

Well, that didn’t go very well did it? I blame Champions Online, which captivated me, as so many MMOs have, for two months before I realised I had exhausted my interest completely. I like how they give you a great character creation tool, encourage you to make alt characters, and then limit the plot paths in such a way that you will have seen everything by playing to level 40 (not too hard) and a couple of hours playing the alternative starting areas. There just isn’t enough content to maintain interest, even with the Blood Moon event, which added thirteen near-identical dungeons. Made me miss the many starting zones of WAR, and multiple story-branches of City of Heroes, from which Cryptic seem to have learned worryingly little.

I did find time to resume Apollo Justice, just not whilst playing CO (there were times whilst playing WoW or EVE I was glad to have a handheld with me as I mined or made long hyperspace jumps) I’m enjoying the story and humour as much as ever, but I am reminded how insubstantial the series are if viewed as games rather than interactive novels. There is a rule set, and you need to solve puzzles to progress and continue receiving story, and there are small morsels of humour and story to be had if you look (by methodically pressing at every bit of testimony) but ultimately, it’s a matter of doing every task need in a roughly set order and selecting the correct evidence at the right times. But it’s enough, I enjoy finding out what happens, and I like the feeling of figuring out things at the right time, without the game practically telling me, or having to hit up Gamefaqs because of a weird jump in the designer’s logic. At the same time, it’s frustrating to not feel you are going at the same pace, in particular when you know what point needs to be made but are evidently not allowed to do it. Worse, a massive plot-point hands on this.

What follows are spoilers for Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice

In the trial “from seven years ago”, Gavin submits a diary that apparently indicates from it’s last entry that the victim was killed shortly after writing. In response, you have to submit a page apparently torn from it, showing the victim continued writing after this time, which proves to be a forgery. This sets up all the present day events of the game. Why can’t you submit the diary itself and point out that a page has clearly been torn from it? Besides the prosecution tell you not too, when I wouldn’t think it’s their call.

I think I would enjoy a more “robust” version of the game, where there are more than just a set path to get through the testimonies. As it stands, every testimony has exactly one weakness, a point where you submit the right evidence and proceed. What if you could make the same point with multiple pieces of evidence? Or what if you could take the trial in different directions by attacking a different piece of testimony? Perhaps allow players a quick route through the trial if they figure it out quickly (or use Gamefaqs or are playing for a second time) whilst there will still be longer routes through for players who might need help or more information.

But maybe that would alienate a lot of existing player who like the series just as it is. I can’t fault them for that, but a more challenging spin-off would certainly pique my interest. Maybe the upcoming Ace Attorney Investigations will deliver some of what I’m after.

Down with Crackdown

It seems slightly odd to me that Prototype seems to draw more comparisons to Realtime World’s Crackdown than to Radical’s previous “cult classic” Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, or other open-world super hero titles such as the more recent Spider-man games (though I’m given to understand that Spider-man 2, the only one I have played, is the only one that’s even fairly good). Parallels with H:UD, with it’s over-the-top attacks and combos, seem much more apt than the slightly more sedate (not saying much) Crackdown, which seems more like a somewhat super-powered GTA. Prototype and Crackdown don’t share mission-structure either, which is where RTW’s effort departs markedly from the GTA template. Maybe it’s just compulsion to compare all open-world/sandbox games to one-another?

Crackdown gives you effectively 3 objectives and drops you in the game world, free to do them and the sub-missions in any order but strongly shepherded by the difficulty of getting the 3 bosses without beating the underlings first. It was perhaps the most truly free-form “sandbox” game yet made, though for it there is next to no story to draw you in and drive you forward. Or rather, there is story, in the form of mission briefings and interjections from your handler, but it’s the city’s story and the criminal’s stories, not the story of this agent that is, for some reason, on a one-man crusade against crime.

That brings me to our mute protagonist. At the beginning of each play session you may choose a new appearance for him, and this changes a bit randomly when you resurrect after death. You are told he is all the Agency has, besides regular police, to take down the big 3 organisations, and yet they can load you up on any kind of ammo at any time, clone you repeatedly and furnish you with any number of flashy transforming cars, which begs the question why they don’t just clone and arm an army and go Order 66 on the criminals. I think further than just unlocking checkpoints, which offer fast-travel points, healing and ammo in-game, your campaign should include seizing the means to get all these benefits. Improve the defences on these points, and besides acting as a travel target, have each confer a benefit, such as access to a gang’s weapons. Rather than be able to get an agency vehicle at any time, there could be a recharge timer before a new one can be requested, with the timer shortened when certain points are held.

As an open world game, Crackdown places a large focus on the city setting, but I just didn’t find it engaging or memorable when compared to the obvious benchmark of the GTA series. I just lacks character, I have no great interest in what happens to it, and so when I died on one of the last missions a few times, I put it down and didn’t feel like going back. I’m really not sure what people see in this game beyond a Halo demo delivery system.

Dead Rising

I have been drawn to Dead Rising for a while now, it seems to me that the freeform, “sandbox” style of game is the way to make the truest “Survival Horror”.  In movies, survivors tend not to take up an impressive array of firearms, but desperatly seek shelter and the means to make it through another day.  I think it might actually be possible to ride out the whole game in the safe room at the start, perhaps never even finding yourself in danger.  Unfortunately, on booting for the first time I was reminded of something that means me and my SD TV might have to wait a little longer.  Nowadays making a game unsuited for an SD TV would just be silly, but two or so years ago it must have been crazy to assume everyone with a 360 played in HD already.  Most of the text is just about legible I suppose, but it’s a very big black mark against one of the early selling points of the system. Hopefully a move and a new job will allow me to get the spectacular (budget) HDTV I so deserve.

I like how inventory management is an important part of the game, Frank being able to carry a very limited number of items at a time, which can be increased with levels.  This representing the amount of extra strenth you can develop over a three day period and quickly stitching another pocket into your jacket I suppose.  That aside, it makes a lot more sense than Resident Evil’s invisible attaché case or the four-dimensional hammerspace that most games have, and presents the player with the dilemma of what they will carry around with them.  Starting with four slots, you may want to keep a healing item, a good baseball bat or other club to clear a path through the horde, and a gun in case you find yourself needing one when they are difficult to find.  That leaves one slot, and remember that the melee weapons tend to break when you are in the middle of a crowd, and guns don’t come with much ammo.  The situation means you are constantly on the lookout for things you can use.

The execution of the freeform aspect, having free reign over the mall, able to choose to complete the side quests you find and try to take a good picture, whilst at the same time providing the boundaries, both in where you can go physically and when you need to be in certain places to continue with the plot, provide a narrative structure that keeps you playing with goals in mind rather than the aimless screwing around that sessions of GTA4 often turn into. The mystery element to the story, making it more than simply a matter of if the characters can survive, helps pull the player in and value Frank’s life, which is good since the game is made to punish you severely if you are even a little careless about saving or what you do with him;

The game uses fixed save points that you need to visit if you want to put the game down and keep your progress. They tend not to be very close together, so you have to plan things with some care to ensure an accident doesn’t result in the loss of hours of gameplay. It’s not something I’m used to in this age of quicksaves and checkpoints, and I have lost progress to it, but I can understand why it’s like that. You shouldn’t be able to look at a cluster of zombies, quicksave and charge through repeatedly until you make it through. The immersion of this survival situation would take a hit if I had the option to play it safe.

I have been playing for about 5 in-game hours now, and whilst I like the premise and basic gameplay, I find myself having trouble progressing. It is now night-time, making it hard to see in most locations, and I won’t be able to continue the main story until 6am. In the meantime, besides randomly cutting up zombies, my options are to rescue people hiding in the mall, most of whom will ignore my instructions whilst following me and will need repeated saving from the zombies they wander needlessly close to, and fighting a boss that is much too difficult for me at my current level 6 with the weapons available. What’s worse, the survivors need to be lead across a field not only filled with zombies but patroled by some guys in a jeep that shoot me up, again with me not having a good enough weapon to deal with it. This all means I’m repeatedly loosing big chunks of play time to idiot AI and a situation that goes far beyond “enjoyably taxing” and into “infuriatingly unfair”. Maybe I will find a solution, and hopefully it will make up for all the lost time. The save system is all well and good if I know that when I lose my time it’s my fault, but that simply isn’t the case, I loose time because the game, for various reasons, stacks too much against me, I need followers that can look after themselves instead of trying to take on the horde alone.

So it seems thus far that the concept is sound but the execution is a bit lacking. I’ve not stopped playing yet though, maybe I will find something to get me back into it if I can just make it to the next morning.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

I’m doing my Sith Master play-through right now for the achievement mother-lode. I liked it fine on the easier settings, my big gripe being the camera being awkward and the control prompts for the “Star Destroyer bit” not being clear on what you need to do, forcing you to spend ages moving the sticks around as you try to work out what I wants.

As Star Wars games go, the story was strong, and I loved the voice acting, I think that needs to be said. Good sound-alikes for Vader and Palpatine, and I loved the voice of Starkiller, who really came to enjoy as a character. I am also a big fan of Euphoria physics, which work well with the OTT force powers of the game and make the game world more cohesive and “real”, as reactions seem more appropriate and organic. Graphics are wonderful, and the classic Star Wars sounds have the same effect on me as ever. The controls are well structured and intuitive, giving each face button ever to a particular power type, which also helps remembering and structuring combo’s either. In many ways structured much like God of War, down to orb collection, but it’s a good fit.

On the hardest setting though, I swear, the game cheats, loosing 100% health to something unseen with no comeback. It’s a nuisance to begin with that if you are doing anything more than standing, moving or jumping you can’t protect yourself at all, and you pretty much have to accept you will take massive damage, probably from someone you haven’t seen. Also, the game needs more and better placed checkpoints, I keep getting stuck at places where I repeatedly have to wade through normal enemies, kill one or more big enemies (Rancors, AT-STs etc) and then something else, and I have to go back to well before the big thing if I die.

As I say, on the lower settings I didn’t take issue, it’s supposed to be hard, even if I don’t like how it is made so, but at this point I really shouldn’t feel bad to put the game down, and feel glad for the experience. The engine gives you free reign to throw enemies and objects around, leaving a satisfying trail of twisted metal and broken bodies as you go.