Tag Archives: 2011

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Mercury HG

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Mercury, also known as quicksilver, has fascinated humanity for centuries. It’s one of the few metals which occurs naturally in liquid form at “room temperature”, and the viscous silvery liquid has been used as a health tonic, barometer, thermometer and element for conducting electricity, as well as used in kids toys. Unfortunately the extreme toxicity of mercury has meant that it’s rarely seen outside science labs now, but thanks to the wonders of video games, we can still get to play with it.

Mercury HG takes the gameplay originally found on the PSP in Archer Maclean’s Mercury and on Wii as Mercury Meltdown and transposes it to the xbox. And it works very well. Presented in the form of the periodic table, Mercury HG sees you play with boards which you tilt with the left joystick of the controller to ooze the mercury from the start to the finish line.

The main objective is to finish each board within the time limit with 100% mercury remaining, collecting all the bonus items along the way.
At first, the game is very easy. The puzzles are simple, and the boards contain sides so the mercury can’t run off. However, the difficulty ramps up quickly, as the puzzle boards become more complex by removing the sides, placing gaps in the board, magnets which slow the mercury down, and having directional runners which can split your mercury and send it flying off the side. There are moving tiles, and on some of the later puzzles the board is all but visible, tiles fling into appear beneath the mercury as you move it about.

There are also colour switches, which change your blob into different colours. Some boards have squares which can activate other switches or tiles, whilst others have squares which are impassable if you’re the same colour, meaning that with the time limit, you need to carefully consider your path. Colours also have to be blended – like red and yellow to get orange. This requires you to split your mercury and control two blobs at once.

Each of these puzzle elements is introduced methodologically, ramping up in difficulty over each few boards, meaning there’s never a moment where you don’t know what to do. One thing I especially liked about Mercury HD was that although there was a par to match time and you need 100% of mercury to get a full score, unlocking new boards isn’t reliant on scores but on the number of pickups you gain each board. This means on the harder levels you can take your time and sacrifice your blob of mercury, but as long as you pick up every bonus you’ll keep unlocking more levels. The challenge comes from the dreaded leaderboards, which tempt you to try harder and get a better score after every turn you play.

The boards and background graphics pulse with the beat of the music, which is best described as “electronic”. You’ll find yourself almost moving in synch with the music as you play, an unconscious thing, but it adds a new dimensions to the play. You can even use your own music, which you’ll get an achievement for, which is an example of the kinds of achievements I enjoy the most because it encourages you to do something you wouldn’t normally do.

Conclusion
Mercury HG is probably the most fun I’ve had with a puzzle game in a while. Whilst it can be trying at times, it doesn’t treat you like an idiot and handhold you throughout the game, but introduces new elements thoughtfully every few levels, and it won’t punish your progression through the game you because you’re too cautious with your time or too careless at the edges.

Pros:
Fun, easy to learn but “hard to master” game play
Great graphics and clever use of music
Doesn’t punish players who like to take their time

Cons:
Some levels are very frustrating to complete
No Multiplayer

Score: 85

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

FIFA 12

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Complaints levelled at EA and FIFA for just rehashing the same game have been fewer in recent years, and the game has gone from strength to strength, providing soccer lovers with a reason to upgrade from each previous year with not only the usual roster updates, but solid and worthwhile adjustments and advancements throughout the core game. This year it stumbles however, and whilst the advancements never feel like a misstep, it’s one of the times that yearly iterations must be called into question as more polishing could have made this the best FIFA yet.

It all starts with defence. Tactical Defending is what EA calls it, and it’s quite different to previous games. Rather than simply focussing on applying pressure on the ball barer, FIFA 2012’s defence system aims at being more realistic. The focus is now on jockeying, containing and positioning; forcing the player with the ball into positions where passing is impossible or will concede possession. Although there are tutorials showing you the new controls, it still takes a lot of getting used to, and I’m not entirely convinced it’s better.

It certainly changes the rhythm of the game, but, I found as I usually play as lesser ranked mid table teams, I get beaten far too often. The problem is computers don’t do errors very well, and this is all about forcing errors. It just feels though at times errors aren’t coming naturally, and you have slightly less control over the game than you should. It’s not so bad when you’re attacking; it never feels like it’s cheating, it just feels slightly off, and with more time they could have got this perfect. It can be turned off however, and reverted back to last year’s methods, but that kind of defeats the whole purpose of buying a new game.

Another new adjustment is the Player Impact Engine, which is the most noticeable change to the game, and also the one which seems to have the biggest need for more polish. Players are now complete physics representations, and when players collide with each other and the ball, this is taken into account. This allows for a far more realistic jostling and impacts and play, which when it works is an absolute joy to experience. Slight nudges to players can knock them off the ball, and dribbling becomes the art it should be.

This also affects tackling. Now tackling with the X button throws the player’s leg forward, and causes the player to halt their run in a much more realistic manner. It forces you to tackle less as otherwise you’ll lose momentum, and concede many frees. It becomes especially hairy in the box. Whereas previously it was simply stupid to slide in the box, now even tackling from behind can cause penalties to be called.
But like noticing a flaw in a diamond, when it goes wrong it’s really noticeable. I had my two forwards trip over each other at kick off, leaving the ball stranded on the kickoff spot as they flailed about. It pulls you out of the fiction of the game, like when noticing a jet trail in the background of a medieval fantasy film. It’s no game breaker though, but with a little more time and polish it could have been flawless and skyrocketed FIFA into the history books as most realistic soccer game ever.

The game features all the usual modes –Be A Pro, Tournaments, Manger, Player Manager all return, as expected. They’ve had the usual yearly tweaks to make them a little different from previous years, but honestly it hasn’t changed much. Be a Pro still works in the exact same manner, except now you have to work harder to keep your player’s performance high. The Manager Career mode transfer window feels more dramatic with countdown timers and AI teams constantly trying to poach your players, and morale seems to play a bigger part in this year’s series.

Ultimate Team is now included in the game from the get go, and I found this to be quite a fun little experience. Formally a downloadable and purchasable add on, Ultimate Mode gives you the ability to trade player cards with other people, buying player packs, and competing in the Ultimate Tourneys. Ultimately it’s a pay-to-win experience, especially if you want to be competitive online, but it’s nice to have it right on the disc rather than a separate download this year.

A new addition to the game’s modes is “EA Sports Football club”, featuring “Support Your Team” As you play FIFA, you earn XP, and this is used not only to unlock strips and balls and arenas, but also adds points to the team you designate as “yours”. Each week, the scores are tabulated and shown as a soccer season. It’s interesting that the “big teams” like Arsenal and Chelsea aren’t always at the top, but I have no idea if this is because supporters of those teams are just bad FIFA players, or if there is some huge organised movement for teams like Wycombe to get a little more free advertising.

There’s also the weekly challenge, where real-world events are recreated in FIFA so you can see if you can recreate them. Scenarios like Dortmund being 1 player and one goal down at half time, or Real Madrid winning 7 goals to 1. It’s a fun and often challenging distraction and one that acknowledges the wider enjoyment of the sport.

Online the game is as great as single player is, and free of lag for the most part. Again, I felt let down by the matchmaking, as I never felt able to seriously challenge any of the random players I was matched with. I admit I’m not the greatest player, but after a succession of being beaten by more than 5 goals, I’m left wondering is it just me, or is something else broken.

Lastly, these are little niggles which have no real impact overall, but demonstrate what I mean by needing more polish. Some menus are very slow to react to input. Sometimes the players don’t load in the Arena when loading a game. Overall loading across the entire title feel longer. Nothing which is really upsetting or detrimental to the experience, just that compared to previous iterations it seems a little worse.

Conclusion:
The additions this year make this a worthwhile pick up, but this year more than ever I wish the game wasn’t a yearly event. Although nothing new breaks the game, and with practice you’ll develop an appreciation and even fondness for the new changes, it’s the little flaws which indicate that perhaps EA didn’t get enough time to do everything they wanted. If the game was given more time for polish on the new features, this would easily be the best FIFA since 2010.

Pros:
New additions to tackling, player movement and so on make the game much more realistic
Ultimate Team included right on the disc
EAS Football Club is a great new addition

Cons:
The Player Impact Engine can cause things to look and feel wrong.
Overall the game needs polish
Online Matchmaking needs improvement

85/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Pro Evolution Soccer 2012

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With PES 2012 it appears that Konami have given up trying to fight EA and FIFA in the fight for dominance of the soccer simulation market. In every way, PES is the lesser game now. This is not to imply that PES is a bad game – It’s still a fairly decent soccer game. But that’s the problem. PES has always been a decent soccer game. Although the changes introduced in PES 2011 lifted it out of the “next gen” doldrums, this year there is no evolution, nothing that makes it remarkably different from the last year.

The greatest addition is what Konami are calling “Active AI” which boasts that players no longer flock to the ball, but rather make runs, create space, and draw markers. And it works well for the most part, especially for the AI teams, as they always seem to have a player run onto the ball and defeats your backline, especially if you’re playing a team ranked above yours.

Because of this, the game feels faster. It feels far more like the PES of old. Some people might say arcade-y. Compared to last year and FIFA, that’s certainly the case, but this shouldn’t be seen as a negative. It needs to stand out against FIFA, and if this is the way it should differentiate itself, then it’s a good difference.

And this difference shines in Multiplayer. I had issues with getting online games occurring in that I kept getting told my NAT was moderate although I’ve opened up all the appropriate ports and so forth so I never had an online game, and again I hope to put that down to review code. However, offline with four people around the screen is incredibly fun. The pace of the game lends itself brilliantly to quick matches where skill often plays second fiddle to luck.

Another difference is Master League. It’s always been more in depth than FIFA, but this year also throws something more into the works. You create a manager, and there are little rendered vignettes with players and coaches discussing issues with themselves, the team, and so on. For example, if you don’t play a good player, they’ll request a meeting with you, and you have to placate them with one of three responses. It’s very cute and very Japanese. Although never as bad as something like “All Your Base Belong To Us”, it’s apparent some of the dialogue needs to go to a real translator.

All the usual modes are here – the aforementioned Masters League, the Legend Mode, various world leagues and create your own. And of course, there are a few teams such as Barcelona and Manchester, with the unlicensed teams that you can edit and import from other users. I think we’re past the point of complaining about them getting licensed teams, aren’t we?

However, there are quite a few things wrong with it still. The problem of players just stopping when the play switches direction, a bugbear of PES for a while, is still very much present. It’s not so bad for AI controlled players, but when the player you’re controlling does it, it’s annoying as hell. And speaking of controlling players, that’s not the worst of it. There are other times when the player you’re in control of will simply do the wrong thing. It’s almost as if the game forgets that you’re in control, and reverts to the inbuilt AI.

I’ve had this occur too many times for it to be a fluke, but when the AI defender player gets between the goal and the goal keeper with the ball; it has a tendency to boot the ball straight into the back of the net for a home goal. I’ve seen my defenders do it and I’ve seen the computer’s team defenders do it. It’s kind of funny, and I’m hoping it’s a bug in my review code. That and the PS3 banners around the stadiums are hopefully addressed in the full game.

The physics of the ball has also stepped backwards. The ball feels far floatier, and spins off at weird angles at times. Curved shots seem to curve in more extreme arcs. The rubber banding to player’s feet it far more pronounced this year, with the ball bounding back to the players feet colluding with animation to give a weird disconnect at times.

And the worst thing is, as always, the commentary. Repetitive, dull, and often not following the play. At least this year the menus are slick and the music is enjoyable… apart from the looped Champion Leagues theme when playing the Champion League Mode. Yes, we get it – you’ve got the rights to it, you don’t have to loop the theme endlessly over the menu!

Conclusion:
PES 2012 offers no remarkable new features, no amazing new teams, no real advancement to the soccer game genre. This is a problem if you’re looking for something else, or something better than last year’s version, but it’s still as fun as PES always has been.

Pros:
Faster paced game, with improved AI.
Fun with friends
Cute Master League developments

Cons:
No real improvements to last year
Ball physics are a little weird
AI sometimes a little slow to relinquish control to the player
Commentary (as usual)

75/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Child of Eden

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Kinect games get a lot of flak for being childish or simple, and pandering to a non-gamer audience. But Child of Eden, the follow-up to the critically acclaimed Rez, is nothing but an unadulterated video game experience. So much so you can actually play the game with a controller, but only a fool would prefer it over the Kinect controller. It’s not that playing with the Kinect is more accurate, or more skilful; it’s simply more fun. As someone who has become mightily disenchanted with games recently, playing Child of Eden was an exercise in pure, unabated joy.

Child of Eden acts as a prequel to the events in Rez. The human race has moved to the stars, and what we know as the internet is now referred to as Eden, a storehouse of humanity’s combined knowledge and also the database you defend in Rez. Lumi, the first child born in space, is adding her knowledge to Eden to become the first artificial intelligence, but the memories are under attack from a virus and you have to fight to save the memories.

The core gameplay of Child of Eden is quite simple. You’re locked on rails moving slowly through the game space, shooting enemies on the screen with one of two weapons – a pink “quickfire” weapon and a blue “lock-on” weapon. The quickfire weapon eliminates enemies quickly, but they take a lot more hits than if you lock on. You can lock on up to 8 enemies, and getting all 8 will give you a higher score. You also have a smart bomb called Euphoria which eliminates all enemies on screen. It sounds simple, but the wonder and the joy of Child of Eden comes from how the enemies are presented and dispatched.

You have to play through 5 databases to rescue Lumi, each one named after a particular theme – Matrix, Evolution, Beauty, Passion and Journey. Each database has a variety of different viral enemies. Beauty contains flower-like enemies. Evolution contains gears and mechanical flying machines. Passion contains giant space whales. Each enemy is colourful and exotic, sweeping into view with majesty and vitality, and often it feels such a shame to destroy these beautiful creatures. Many will fire at you, and the pink bullets can only be shot with the quickfire weapon. There are also walls where you have to quickly unlock by locking onto certain parts and blasting before coming into contact with them, damaging yourself.

Rather than the traditional “pew pew” and explosive sounds of shooting games, each shot fired is accompanied with a percussive sound. By listening to the brilliant techno inspired musical score and timing your shots with the beats, you get better scores. Certain enemies will be predominantly pink or blue, meaning only your pink or blue weapons harm them, and then it becomes a juggling act as you switch weapons.
The boss battles use the dual weapon system to great effect. You’ll fire your lock on at various parts of the trippy and wonderfully designed creature on screen, locking on and then quickly switch to the quickfire to blast away enemy missiles. The enemy will change colour, meaning you’ll have to switch up your tactics quickly, else miss a chance at eliminating it quickly.

With playing with the Kinect, you hold your left hand out to fire the pink quickfire, and with your right hand and sweep over the enemies to lock on, flicking your right wrist to launch your weapon. Raising your hands and clapping fires the smart bomb. It’s feels silly at first, but eventually it feels very natural and you feel yourself start to sway in time with the music. You become absorbed by the action, listening to the audio cues when you’re firing, watching the visuals explode and coalesce to the sounds.

Although it will take you only about 4 to 5 hours to get through the entire game, it’s not a matter of rushing to the end. Scored on time, amount of enemies killed, and number of health pickups and Euphoria, as well as the timing of your shots to the music, it’s a game designed to be savoured again and again. Each time you play, there will be something new you never noticed, a new way to confront enemies, and you’ll start racking up the scores and climbing the leaderboards.

The best thing about completing the game is Hope, the “Survival mode”, a kinaesthetic battle against the computer which had me giggling as wave after wave of things to shoot appeared on screen, as the colours and sounds flashed and you become completely absorbed in the game. It was reminiscent of the hard songs in Guitar Hero or Rock Band where all your concentration is consumed with the action and the music, but unlike those two games there is never a sense of failure or frustration. There’s no feeling of “I’ve failed again. I can’t do this”, only “Hell yeah! Let’s do that again!”

Conclusion
Lately, video games haven’t felt like games to me. They’ve felt like extensions of Hollywood, full of violence and explosions and not much substance. Or they’ve felt like tools to keep the music industry afloat. Or, at their very worst, addictive time sinks designed to fleece money out of you.

Fortunately Child of Eden has arrived, and it’s a game that completely absorbs you when you’re playing it. A game which makes you laugh for no reason when playing it. A game which expresses pure joy at simply being a game. And it’s brilliant.

Pros:
Amazingly fun to play
Combination of audio and visuals creates a stunning experience
Proves Kinect can be used to play video games

Cons:
Possibly too short
100/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Thor: God Of Thunder

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It’s pretty sad you don’t even need to read any reviews to know this game is bad. It’s a movie tie in, made as a marketing vehicle for Marvel’s Thor movie, a movie not particularly highly rated at that. It’s everything you’d expect from a movie tie in. It’s glitch filled – I actually took the disc out thinking it was dirty when I first loaded the game and saw the stuttering frame rate. It’s derivative; It’s an action brawler, trying to be the next Arkham Asylum but failing miserably; and it’s not fun; the camera, the controls, the hit detection, the repetitiveness. If I really wanted to, I could totally rip into it, tear the developers a new one with funny comments on how bad it is, and so on.

But you know what? This time I’m not going to. Because, I’ve worked on worse games. I worked on Dukes of Hazard: Return of the General Lee, Hellboy: The Science of Evil, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. All franchise or movie tie in games, all made on incredibly short timeframes and incredibly small budgets.

Someone like me, over at Sega, busted their guts to make this game. There is someone out there who worked from 8 in the morning to 12 at night writing code to get the shadows and glare to work like it does in the movies. There is an animator who spent weekends weighting the character models so Thor’s arm wouldn’t clip through his face when he threw his hammer. There are environment artists who worked through their children’s birthdays to build levels which were cut at the last moment. There are testers who spent ungodly hours sitting around, waiting for builds, finding and reporting bugs which, due to time and budget constraints, couldn’t be fixed.

I know there are many people out there who think making games are easy, and the bad games are just the result of lazy developers and greedy publishers. This is, putting it mildly, utter bullshit. In 8 years of working in games, I’ve not met one person unwilling to put the same level of energy or effort into a game like Thor compared to a game like Halo. Simply put, if they were lazy, they’d be out of a job, but moreover, making a game, critically successful or not, is something to be damn proud of.

People hear about how much a game costs, and think it’s a fortune. And yes, to you, my reader, who statistics show is a 22 year old male who’s just finished college; $10 million is a lot of money to make a game based on a franchise, isn’t it? Should be easy – don’t have to think of costumes and locations and story and such, right?

But let’s break that down – firstly, that’s $10 Million over the 3 major consoles – Wii, Xbox and PS3. Now we’re down to $3 Million per platform, or ‘sku’ as it’s known. Secondly, you’ve got roughly 10 months to develop a movie tie-in, so that’s now a budget of $300,000 per month per sku. The average wage of a developer is $70,000, so on average you have 5 people per sku on the project from kick off to gold. Of course, this waxes and wanes throughout the production cycle, but this is how you work things out. Now that $10 million isn’t looking like very much, is it?

Often, this money comes out of the films marketing budget. This means the marketing people have a greater stake in how your came comes out. Marketing always has a say in how games are made, but the people at Microsoft Marketing have much more realistic grasp on how games are made compared to those at Fox Pictures, for example.

Many people think you automatically have the story and characters for use when making a movie tie-in, and essentially all a developer needs to do is make a fun game out of it. But Thor isn’t based on the plot of the movie; it’s a whole new story. Transformers didn’t even have a story until after principle filming had completed – by which time the game was nearly beta!

There are new locations and new enemies and new characters. All of this has to be designed, created, and approved by the rights holder – in Thor’s case, Marvel – as well as the movie rights holder, as well as the game publisher. So, not only are you making a whole game with a new story from scratch, you’ve also got many fingers in the pie, something non-movie based games don’t have. You can bet only people who had to approve Masterchief’s armour were the Bungie creative directors.

If a studio is really lucky, they might get access to the film’s assets. That is, the 3D assets for props or environments, access to the sound library, motion capture data, and so on. But even if they do have this, the resolution of film is so much higher than a video game console can handle. So, in addition to making props and characters and items for any level not in the movie, these assets must be optimised for the game. Artists will chop out verts, re-skin and re-texture to reduce the size of the original assets, which then need to go through the approval process.

Any changes to the movie affect the game, too. In Transformers, Bumblebee’s headlights changed in the movie, so we had to adjust them on the game model. Then they changed a second time. Sure, it’s only a days’ work, but that’s two days wasted when you need to be doing other things. And if it’s something major, like a major character is cut from the movie but is already in your game, you need to make justification for this. The most common solution is adding a cutscene, my “favourite” solution to hear from an external producer.

Adding a cutscene isn’t as easy as doing it for a movie. For a movie, you call your actors together, go on-site, and reshoot. For a game, it takes an environmental artist, a prop artist, an animator or two, and a programmer to put it together. Remember how before I said there is an average of 5 people per month on a project? Well, these people have tasks they need to do to get the game done, and now because of changes of the film which are completely out of their control, they have to find time to do this extra stuff as well as their usual tasks.

Another issue is sound. For the cutscene example above, you’ll need all the actors to come back in and re-record. Actors cost lots of money, and moreover they’re often unavailable. That’s why often in movie tie-ins it sounds “phoned in”. Often it is. Even if it’s in an actor’s contract they need to be available for VO work, they’re tired after doing 8 months of filming and a 2 months press junket. Then there are the on screen actors who look good but can’t act their way out of a paper bag, and that becomes embarrassingly obvious when you hear them do VO.

Then there are the executive producers. Some of these people are wonderfully fantastic and fully understand the issues and pressures you’re under. From personal experience, it’s the Western game studios – your Activision and Microsoft people, who are most accommodating. However, when they’re not reasonable, or worse, think they’re creative, that’s when real problems arise. They may know about making games in general if you’re lucky, but they don’t know about your studio and your game in particular.

If you’re unlucky, they’re straight out of business school and have no clue about production cycles. They look at spreadsheets, and calculate time based on hours in a day, not the way people actually work and live their lives. These are the people who come in and say “the movie has major stars that are not in the game… put them in the game” or “change the entire structure of that platforming minigame” a week before your beta date, even after every other person in both the studio and the publishing company has told them these are very bad ideas. They make calls based on creative whims or market demands with little concern of how to achieve them, but demand them to be done simply because they’re the boss.

Conclusion:
These are just some of the issues I’ve faced working on movie tie in games, and I know for a fact the guys behind Thor would have had similar experiences. I can tell as I play through the game. I nod sagely when I see an enemy glitch out. I sigh the sigh of one who’s been there, done that when Thor’s cape stretches off to infinity. I’ve butted heads against the same types of producers who think they’re creative and demand changes at the last minute as is obvious with Thor. I’ve waited until 2 am for a build which is broken because of an art change. I understand what they went through to get this game out and that’s why I can’t be harsh on the game.

Most importantly, I understand why they do it. Partly it’s because you have to. You have a job, and it needs to be done, and you do so to the best of your ability under the circumstances. Partly it’s the hope your next project will have a vision you can sink your teeth into, and a budget which supports your expansive or innovative ideas.

But mostly it’s because, no matter what the critics score it, no matter what disparaging remarks commentators on web forums say, there will always be people out there who will enjoy the game, no matter what, simply because it is a tie-in. And because it’s Thor, the chance for that fan to inhabit their favourite character in their favourite worlds, as flawed as it may be, has brought joy for just a little moment. Because as a game developer, there’s no greater justification for doing what you do than when you get an email or letter or forum post from someone on the other side of the world that reads “I love this game. Thank you.”

Pros:
It’s Thor! You’re a damn Norse God throwing around a big fuckoff hammer.
Great environment art.
Great character and enemy art.

Cons:
It’s a typical movie tie-in game.
Poor, glitchy combat controls.
Glitchy camera.
Repetitive gameplay.
Odd animation issues.

45/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

De Blob 2

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A couple of years ago Australian developers Blue Tongue released De Blob on the Nintendo Wii. Featuring a lovable main character, a unique colourising mechanic, and awesome, complex soundtrack which grew in structure the more Chroma City became colourised, the game went on to sell more than 700,000 copies, becoming a smash hit on the console, and keeping Blue Tongue in business when so many other Australia companies crashed out. Its sequel has appeared on the real next generation consoles, and despite its “last gen” beginnings, its charm and sweetness make it ideal for any platform.

The plot of the first game had Comrade Black, evil leader of the INKT Corporation, remove the colour from Chroma City, and saw Blob and the Colour Underground restore the city to its colourful, vibrant self. The sequel sees Comrade Black and his INKT Corporation return to wreak havoc upon the population once more. A priest called Papa Blanc is controlling the minds of the populous, tricking them into voting for him, and those he can’t control he uses more nefarious means – electronic hands which push the button to vote for him! De Blob and the Colour Underground expose Papa Blanc as Comrade Black, and fight through the cities zones to wrest control from his INKT Corporation once again.

Blob is a unique creature in the world, able to absorb paint and splat it onto various surfaces. He holds points of colour, and every surface he touches leaps into colour when he comes into contact with it, removing a point. He can also mix paints, jumping into red and yellow to make orange. He also becomes transparent when he touches water. This not only cleans the dirty black ink which litters the landscape and can cover and hurt our hero, but also that which is fired from his enemies guns.

With these basic concepts learnt, the game adds layers upon the basic gameplay each mission. For example, in the first level there are no enemies, just Gradians, poor Chroma citizens locked in egg like suits. They roll out onto the streets once their buildings are colourised, and blob has to jump on them to free them. You target using the left Trigger, and jump on them using the A Button. Later on, this same mechanic is used to jump on paint bots who help Blob mix colours. From there, you learn that certain levers need to be activated in the same way. You combine colours, activate the lever, and it unlocks a certain part of the map.

It’s also used on the Inkies, the main enemies. As you move through the levels, the way to defeat the Inkies becomes more complicated. Some Inkies need to be squashed like the Gradians. Others need to be smashed, and this is done by pressing the Right Trigger instead of the A Button. Smashing always needs Blob to have a certain number of colour points. Some Inkies are colour coded, and you need to be the same colour to destroy them. However, the game is so well designed, the colour is always nearby. An additional trick you learn is when he’s transparent guards tend to ignore him, which is used almost as stealth in some sections.

There are also environmental obstacles. Some remove the colour, some zap paint off blob, some set him on fire, and others ink him. These can be avoided by jumping over them, or in some segments grabbing continently placed powerups which make Blob immune to the environment for a small amount of time. An addition to the sequel is gravity puzzles. By triggering a certain power-up, you go into gravity mode, where you can roll up walls and across the underside of roofs. It’s a little underused to be honest, but this shows the platforming was pretty much spot on the first time, and this simply enhances what is already there.

A new feature in De Blob 2 is Blob goes into buildings to transform them. The outside of these buildings doesn’t change colour when Blob lands on them, and require Blob to be a particular colour and have a certain number of colour points available to him before entering. One he’s the correct size and colour, you target a hole and move inside the building. Once inside, the actions flips the 3D action to a 2D platforming, and Blob has to fight through enemies, and press buttons and activate switches. These sections are equally as well designed and entertaining to play as the open world 3D sections.

There is a time limit, and a number of main objectives need to be done in that time to complete a given segment of the city. However, it’s a very generous time limit, and if you ever need more time you can get time boosts by doing a little exploring, freeing Gradians by colourising the buildings, or wiping out the Inkies which populate the level. Once you finish your main objective, you can complete side quests for the various residents, or move on to the next level. These side missions involve colouring buildings a certain colour, freeing all the Gradians, smashing INKT boxes, destroying all the Inkies, colourising all the trees, and wall rolling to graffiti Comrade Blacks’ propaganda billboards. You can also explore and collect all the power ups and colour atoms. The reward for doing these side quests is not only the usual unlocks and achievements, but also “inspirations” which allow Blob to become more powerful.

And it looks very polished – there’s never a moment when the Wii roots rear its ugly, lower specced head. Everything looks crisp, shiny, and beautiful. The sense of giving life back to the environment as you play is brilliantly executed. The movement of the freed Chroma residents, the bright colours, the funny and very cute cutscenes – I lost it with the one that apes the Tiananmen Square protests – and the squeaky, jibber-jabber voices of the main characters capture a mood that’s enticing and engaging for adults and children alike. A very powerful aspect of this is the music. At first, when the city streets are all grey and sad looking, the music is minimal and forlorn. As Blob rolls through the city, the pace picks up, the music becomes more layered, and by the time you’ve completed the level it is seriously party time.

You can have a friend join the game anytime, and they take control of Pinky, Blobs flying companion, who shoots wads of colour everywhere. Unfortunately this is the extent of the multiplayer, and the only gripe I have with the game. It would have been nice to have seen some kind of live compatibility. A scoreboard, so you could compare your time and scores to other on the friends list, or even the ability to play together over live.

Conclusion:
De Blob 2 is a fantastic, fun game. Its cute characters will have you giggling throughout playing, and the clever game design will have you marvelling at how something pretty simple can be so engaging. There’s enough variety and challenge to never leave you bored, even with the lack of features such as leader boards and online play.

Pros:
FUN!
Cute Characters and engaging world
Simple yet engaging and clever gameplay
Lots to do throughout every level.
Excellent graphically and musically.

Cons:
No online features.

85/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Hydrophobia Pure

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Kate Wilson is a system engineer on the Queen of the World, a massive ship city which sails the world of the future. During a large celebration, the ship is attacked by terrorists. The Neo-Malthuseans, named after 18th century philosopher Thomas Malthus whose treatise on population first formulated ideas about infinite growth being unsustainable, believe that his theories are indeed correct and the only way to save the world is to kill yourself, with a little nudge from themselves, obviously. Kate gets trapped in an elevator, and as she escapes gets entangled in the larger plot, becoming involved in rescuing not only herself, but all on the ship.

Being based on a sinking ship, and obviously from the title, the game is all about water. Hydrophobia has an amazing water physics engine. Objects in the water bob realistically. When waves are created as new volumes of water are added to existing volumes, anything in the water reacts violently with it. Barrels floating on top are pulled under, and hapless terrorists are knocked off their feet. Shooting a crack of water to weaken the wall, and watching the water barge its way into a room is amazing. But often the game feels like a tech demo of that engine rather than a full game.

The game has real problems with control and navigation. Having played the demo before the “Pure” download I can see where problems were addressed with the patch, but I still think a lot of work was needed on these aspects of the game. The controls feel loose, especially when Kate is completely under water. As there is a breath meter so there’s always a sense of urgency and fear of drowning, but often it feels Kate doesn’t respond to movements fast enough. She’ll catch on geometry and butt into invisible walls. And Kate can get caught by water in areas she can’t get out of. I was caught under a set of stairs which were placed above a shipping container. Although I was in no danger of drowning, I was stuck and had to restart the level.

Navigation has improved greatly with the Pure patch, however it’s still a little confusing. Objectives will be shown through walls, and the urgency of finding a way around the wall to the object with the threat of drowning can cause some consternation. I get that in some parts this is actually exactly the feel the developer was going for, but in others it’s clear it’s just poor level and interface design that causes you to unwarrantedly drown.

In trying to escape, Kate ascertains the terrorist attack was well planned. As she explores, there are various items to pick up, documents to find, and encoded messages to discover. I’ve liked this way of telling stories in other games, but there is such a large amount of collectables that you can miss if you don’t explore thoroughly, and feeling of urgency and the constant threat of drowning seems counter-intuitive to the exploring aspect of the game. And I was a little disappointed none of these had any real application in the game, either. You find anxiety pills, for example, which give a sense of things not being completely right on board the ship, but you can’t use them to help you face the anxiety of being a mere engineer in a full on terrorist attack.

Another aspect of the game which needs work is combat. Kate gets a really low powered gun, and that’s fine as far as the story goes. She’s not a gung-ho space marine, she’s just an engineer. I get that. But why can’t she pick up enemy weapons? You have to charge up your weapon to fire, and it takes numerous hits to take down enemies. But that’s not even the main issue.

Kate’s main form of combat isn’t gung ho run and gun, but stealth takedowns using the environment – shooting barrels, shooting walls to allow water to flood rooms, and shooting electrical wires to fry enemies. However, the cover system doesn’t always work. You’ll hold the button to go to cover, and often end up going to the wrong place. This is especially annoying as if you go into cover on the wrong side of a hallway because the game can’t tell you want to go there, the guard sees you and you’re screwed.

Furthermore, combat underwater is simply annoying. There’s one section which is completely underwater and you’ve got to get to the objective to be able to breathe again. There are enemies who shoot at you from somewhere – but it’s not clear where from as there is a lot of debris which blocks your view, and you’re trying to find the way out before drowning. Again, the sense of urgency and fear here is fantastic, but the poor level design and poor combat conspire to make you fail again and again.

Graphic wise the game isn’t going to blow you out of the water, but it’s not terrible. The way Kate reacts to the world around her by covering her head as she runs under a gushing leak for example is pretty cool. The environments and enemies look a little too samey, though. It would have been nice to have seen a little more colour, defining different areas of the ship you’re in. Not everything has to be blue, brown and grey.

Conclusion
Hydrophobia Pure is a decent enough game for a downloadable title, but as mentioned feels more like a tech demo for water physics than a fully thought out game. You can see what the developers were aiming for, but it misses the mark in many places. The Pure patch has improved a lot of things, but not enough for the game to shine. However, given the way the developers released the patch, and the promise shown in the game engine, a sequel could be amazing.

Pros:
Excellent water physics and effects
Great main character animations
Lots of pick ups which create a backstory for the game
Interesting potential

Cons
The potential isn’t realised here
Controls that feel loose and awkward
Bad cover combat
Awkward level design and navigation system leads to frustration

68/100