Tag Archives: Arcade

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Trials Evolution

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Three years ago Trials HD, the motorcross physics puzzler platformer, snuck onto the XBLA market alongside heavy hitters ‘Splosion Man and Shadow Complex, but because of its simple yet quality gameplay coupled with tremendous amount of fun, it demanded attention. Xbox World gave it 90/100, one of the highest scores for an arcade game at the time, and fortunately for us the praise the game got then is still very relevant for its sequel, Trails Evolution.

It still has the “easy to pick up but hard to master” quality, and has that steep learning curve, but it’s not one that can’t be overcome with practice and determination. The checkpoint system is still wonderful, and the handling of the bike is superb. However, where it differs is it takes the great stuff of the original game and makes it more social.

This time they’ve refined the feel of the bike’s physics, so the already tight controls are tighter. There is less of the flighty feel of the previous game, and you constantly feel in control of the way the bike and rider will tip and fall. Not only do you scroll from left to right when racing, now the track will curve, and whilst you’re still “on rails” adding this extra dimension increases the enjoyment of the experience. In addition to this, the physics of the track can change. One track in particular moves about under you, so you need to put more acceleration in places for jumps that normally would require little. And there are some simply stunning tracks, with one of my favourites being Limbo, taking the black and white silhouette of indie darling Limbo and making into one of the most nefarious tracks to play.

Social is often a negative word when coupled with traditional or hardcore gaming. And make no mistake – Trails is a hardcore game. It makes you fail and encourages you to get better. It doesn’t hold your hand like so many other games, but will help you up when you fall. The game will teach through repetition, causing you to replay parts over and over. And it will only punish you a little, but give greater simple rewards, whether it’s another funny explosion when you fail, or scream from the rider as he shoots down a ramp, to silver and gold medals after the race.
Throwing the social aspect into this title enhances the experience greatly. There are three aspects to the social which I will call the ladder, the multiplayer, and the track creation. The ladder of the previous game is replaced with a devious and insipid new ghost like feature which shows your Xbox Live friends as dots along the track you’re on. As you race, these dots will be a constant nag at you to do better. They’re unobtrusive, but the best motivator to improve I’ve seen in a game.

When you’re racing along the track and screw up, restart at a checkpoint, and see one of the little white dots with a friend’s name on it wiz past you get a renewed sense of determination. When you see a dot get stuck at a point and you go flying past it, you’ll cackle with glee.
However, cackling with glee becomes a genuine chortle of mirth with multiplayer. Racing in real time with 4 people online or together in a room is laugh out loud funny. There are two modes, one with races on a 4 line track; the other which tests your skills against one another in a ghost-yet-realtime mode on any single player track.

I much prefer the 4 player as although you can’t influence each other, I’m sure the expectation of performing well is far more relevant in this mode. It’s gripping, in that you know one little mistake can cost you the race. It’s incredibly funny watching people stack it on a jump you totally nailed, and being able to play it 4 player offline as well makes it an ideal party game, because merely watching it makes you want to play as well. The Online ghostmode has this competitive feeling to a degree, but even though it does occur in real time it doesn’t bring out the same fervor in people that racing alongside one another does.

The last aspect of the social game is the ability to make your own tracks. The track creator is quite complex to use and would benefit greatly from the use of a mouse and a decent tutorial. Yet the creations already online are brilliant, and like the competitiveness of the racing itself, the quality of the tracks makes you want to do something just as good. After you’ve played a track you get to vote on it, and the best ones show up in weekly showcases. One of the best I played was Shadow Redux, which used the physics of shadows to interact with the real world items for a complex and rewarding ride.

Conclusion:
Trials Evolution is fantastic fun. Its simplicity and beguiling depth encourages replay, and the addition of social functions encourages a competitive streak in even the most placid of players. It’s the perfect sequel to an almost perfect game.

Pros:
Everything that was great about the first title is here.
Refinement of the physics gives a deeper sense of controls.
Great new tracks which will challenge and amuse.
The addition of social features adds competitive fun to the title.

Cons:
Bloody hard to put down! (not really a con)
Music could be better, but it’s better than its predecessor.
95/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

I Am Alive

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Ubisoft’s I Am Alive has so many good ideas that it should be brilliant, but then proceeds to undermine that brilliance with poor choices. The central conceit of I Am Alive is the world has gone to shit after the Event, a cataclysm where earthquakes rocked the world and caused cities to crumble, leaving survivors choking on toxic fog. Our hero travels cross country for a year to return to his ruined hometown of Haventon, obstinately to find his wife and daughter despite, you know, all the earthquakes and post apocalyptic desperate vigilantes, etcetera.

Immediately on starting the game, the influence of every post apocalyptic movie in the last 20 years is apparent. Abandoned cars on broken highways. Torn apart bridges. Crumbling skyscrapers. Skeletons just lying in the street. Trolley carts everywhere. Apart from being hackneyed and incredibly grey / brown, the world is also curiously static. Sure, I’ll concede the world is meant to be drab and sad looking after it ends, but the choice to not have physics on objects and debris makes the game world unbearably dull. Climbing about on skyscrapers is a breeze, but you can’t open a car door or climb on top of it. There are wire blockades which after a year should be rusted, and even if not could easily be climbed over or through. The only movement is cloth, which flutters nicely in the wind, but walking into trash cans stops you dead in your tracks.

The climbing mechanic is quite interesting. You have a health bar and a stamina bar, and your stamina bar decreases the more you climb. The more you exert yourself, the quicker the bar empties. If it empties, the bar itself decreases, meaning you have less stamina. Erode your stamina too far and it is game over. You can regain stamina by pulling yourself up onto a ledge and standing on it, placing a piton (a climbers hook) into a wall, or use items which you find around the world. Most of these items are in plain view, so exploration of the drab world isn’t really rewarded. Also, when you get into certain areas the land becomes dusty and you lose stamina slowly but steadily. The only way to avoid it is to climb.

One of the biggest issues I found when climbing was the unresponsiveness of the controls, especially when moving horizontally, as when you’re crossing monkey bar type climbs. Often you’ll switch camera view, and start climbing the wrong way. There is also a problem with vertical movement, and you wrestle with the controls when jumping upwards or sideways. As you are climbing your stamina bar is decreasing, so you dick around trying to get the controls to play nice, all the while getting more stressed at losing stamina.

You also have a life bar, which depletes if you fall too far, or get hit / shot by enemies you encounter. Although you’re armed with a machete and a gun, ammo is limited so you have to choose your fights wisely. This is a great idea, and makes the player think about being stealthy and patient as you move through the world, listening for clues of the presence of other people. Or so the game would have you believe. However, most fights are in fact unavoidable, and most end up occurring in the same way.

You can draw your gun and threaten an enemy, getting them to back up to a drop so you can push them over, or get close to slash them with the machete. Usually there will be three guys, one with a gun and the other armed with machetes or knives. You end up in most fights simply shooting the guy with the gun and slicing the other two. In some fights there’s a “tough guy”, and shooting him will make the other guys surrender, at which point you can knock them out.

The game also has a frustrating save system. I understand the developers are trying to make the player stressed to a degree, and careful in how they play, and that’s fine. However, when part of that stress comes from issues outside the player’s control, it’s simply nasty. The aforementioned difficulties with climbing can cause you to slip and fall, meaning you have to retry from the last checkpoint, which are quite far apart.

Moreover, you’re limited in how many retries you get from the checkpoint. You start the game with three retries, and by helping people (usually simply by giving them things in your backpack you’ve discovered in the world) or completing one of the main missions, you’re rewarded more. However, if you use all retries, you’re taken right back to the beginning of the chapter, and these are spaced way too far apart.

For example, I completed a difficult climb which took about an hour, I was rewarded with a cutscene. I thought cool, chapter done, and turned off my xbox. When I returned to the game, I was at the start of the level, and had to spend another hour climbing. Again, this would be fine if there were multiple approaches to levels or encounters, but it’s really quite linear, so replaying is just a chore.

The game also suffers from minor technical issues, such as clipping and poor animation. On top of the control frustrations and lack of life in the world, as you’ve only got the main character to focus on when you jump and clip through a girder, or walk through a shaft of light and cast no shadow, it’s probably more apparent than usual here. The music score is dynamic, and as you get hurt or lose stamina, the music rises dramatically. Again, this is a great idea on paper, however it’s poorly implemented. The choice to have it occur every time you lose more than half your stamina, which is every time you climb, means it loses any dramatic impact it might have had.

Conclusion:
With so many great games on XBLA let alone on disc, it’s hard to recommend I Am Alive. It feels like it never reached its full potential. Maybe with more time or a bigger team Ubisoft would have a classic like Assassin’s Creed on their hands, but unfortunately it falls flat on too many levels.

Having said that, Ubisoft should be praised for taking a risk and releasing something beyond the endless shooters, and hopefully despite its mediocrity we’ll see an update or a sequel which addresses some of the main concerns.

Pros:
Potential to be great, but let down by poor mechanics and controls.
The balancing of stamina and health is an interesting mechanic.

Cons:
Story is contrived and trite.
World is static and lifeless, and not in a cool, “end of world” fashion.
Poor climbing controls.
Linear path through all the levels.
Fights tend to play out the same way every time.
Technical issues.

69/100

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

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

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers

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Wizards of the Coast have tried to capture the hearts, minds and wallets of Magic the Gathering Xbox fans before, with Magic the Gathering: Battlefields. Whilst it was an interesting game, it didn’t really translate the actual skills, knowledge and indeed obsession that the collectable card game requires.

So knowing that the Magic the Gathering card game is best representation by the actual cards themselves, this time around they’ve used what they’ve learned from MTG: Online, and made it suitable to an xbox audience by offering it as an Arcade download. It’s presented a little like UNO on XBLA, with a playing surface that players lay their cards down onto, with graveyard (where you discard cards) to the side and your hand revealed only to you (and your partner in co-op games).

The game’s presentation is great. The cards are revealed to you as they’re played, and squeezing a trigger brings them up close so you can read them in better detail. Each card is played with an effect, so for example a flying creature hovers over the playing field, a healing artefact sparkles blue, scratch marks appear when a creature hits. A clear and precise representation of which creature is attacking and which creature you’re blocking with makes tracking plays easy. The paintings from the cards are reproduced here, and it’s fantastic to see these in high definition. I still chuckle at the Pacifism spell imagery.

There are various modes available to the player on starting the game. The robust tutorial will help new players or those who are a bit rusty. Once you’ve got through this, there is a Challenge mode which sets up a one turn play in which you have to play the right cards to win. These are really helpful in understanding the game mechanics better, and I strongly recommend this for new players before getting into the longer Campaign mode.

Presenting you with a range of starter decks, Campaign mode sets up a tourney with the selected deck against progressively harder AI. As you defeat each enemy planeswalker, you unlock more cards. As there 16 rounds fighting against 9 enemies, you’ll unlock 16 new cards for your deck, as well as the decks of your enemies. Unlocking all the cards for all the decks will take quite some time, giving the game a long shelf life for obsessive fans. There is also Co-operative Campaign, where two players on a console can go head to head with the AI.

The AI is quite clever, as it knows its deck and the rules very well, using these in a very logical and rehearsed manner, but it can do silly things, like attack a creature instead of a player, or play certain cards too soon when a human player might hold off. As all games there is also a bit of luck in who gets what cards out when, and the AI flounders as much as a player does. However, after unlocking a couple of decks, playing the same AI over and over to unlock more can become a little tedious and predictable.

However, this is all really a prelude to the online games. Online you can play 2, 3 or 4 player all against all, or two versus two. There’s also a special mentoring system, where a player can come online and see your hand, and suggest how to combat enemy players.

You can tailor the starter decks with your unlocked cards for off and online play, but you can’t create your own from scratch. Whilst the more hardcore MTG players may baulk at this, I think it’s a clever decision. It reminds me of the sealed deck tournaments we used to play – you’d always have some idea of what you’d get in a standard pack, but sealed decks even the field between players. In the games I played, although I’m not exactly a noob I am very rusty, I felt I was beaten by a skilful player, and not someone who was lucky or had the right deck.

One of my biggest complaints about the collectible card game is you’ve got to spend so much money on getting your deck to how you want, and with new editions invalidating your favourite cards (essentially forcing you to buy more) it becomes untenable for all but the most dedicated players. The xbox version gets around this by standardising the decks, allowing you some leeway to play a deck you like, with winning really coming down to your skill (and a little bit of luck) and not simply the amount of time and money you have.

Yet even new comers will find they can play against a seasoned pro and the games will feel fairer. This system allows anyone to pick up the game and play on a relatively fair basis. Someone picking the game up in six months time will have the same cards as someone who got the game at launch (assuming downloadable card packs don’t get released in that time), meaning there isn’t a disadvantage in arriving to the party late.

Conclusion
Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers will scratch the itch many ex-MTG players have. Although completely accessible to absolute new comers, the game seems just as well designed for those of us who used to play but got sick of the constant revisions and releases and unfairness that came with the collectable card game. It might not go far enough to simulate the game with the inability to customise the starter decks limiting some enjoyment of the game, but otherwise it’s a great way to pass the time.

Pros:
Excellent Presentation of the MTG card game
Easy to pick up and learn
Fair amount of replayablity with unlockable cards, co-op and online modes

Cons:
Can’t completely customise your own deck
AI can feel too logical and predictable
Unlocking everything can become tedious.

80/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

N+

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N+ may sound more like the title of a math game instead of a game featuring ninja. And in some ways, that’s an apt description, as N+ involves a ninja who can’t actually do any of the cool ninja tricks we’ve become used to from movies and video games. There’s no nunchuck, no katana, no shuriken, and no cheesy dialogue – just a little ninja with a massive leap. Using only the mathematics of physics, your little ninja has to leap to a switch and open a door to escape a massive complex whose only existence appears to be finding ways to kill you.

Each room in the complex is a pitfall of chasms, elevators, bombs, electrical traps lasers and missiles. For each level, you have to locate the switch to open the door, negotiate your way past the obstacles, and then find your way to the door before the count down ends. The time doesn’t restart at a new level, either, and your only defence is your leap.

All you do to play the game is press the A button to leap, and move the stick to control the direction of the leap. Holding down A for longer makes you leap further, and you can control your trajectory mid flight. You can also bounce off walls to climb up higher and slide down walls to avoid falling to your death. To aid you in your quest, there are gold coins scattered about which extend your total time. Collect all the coins, and you start the next level with a full time bar.

It began life as a flash game, but became so popular that it was ported to consoles, and has lost nothing in translation in the port. It sounds like it would be boring, but in the tradition of Prince of Persia (the original game, not the 3D remakes) N+ is an amazing time sink that you can get lost in. Although each level has the same objective, the way they’re arranged and the way you approach each level is different. You can spend hours not being able to achieve the goal, becoming more and more frustrated, and then suddenly you’ll figure it out and leap into the next level. One issue though is that next level may be easy as pie, and so the payoff doesn’t feel too great, but it’s only a minority of the stages that feel like this.

If you manage to beat the game, there’s a very simple map editor that is easy to use, plus you can put these online for anyone to play. You can also download other maps to play from other players. The standard is the same with any player created maps – some are good, some are too hard, and some are just stupid.

And if that’s not enough, there’s multiplayer. Multiplayer maps are similar to the single player – one exit that you must make it to, but the rules of play change. Whilst there’s no reason for co-operation, you can have some players act as decoys, blowing up mines or distracting rockets while others head to the exit. It’s an interesting twist, and even simply watching how people get around various obstacles can give you ideas to return to the single player to try.

Conclusion:
There’s a debate amongst the more literate gaming press about complexity verses simplicity, and although it’s often sidetracked by completely moronic commentators who have little knowledge about the psychology and philosophy behind the arguments, it does bare some further examination. Because a game like N+ will come along and although its entire mechanic is simply pressing a button and moving a stick, it is one of the most frustrating and demanding games ever made, thus blowing apart all the pre-conceived notions about complexity people have, and proves that if you have a good game play mechanic, you have a good game.

Pros:
Simple controls mean it’s easy to play but difficult to master.
Hours of fun on offer
The level creator is simple to use and share your maps
Multiplayer allows for different tactics on the same levels.

Cons:
Why pay for it when you can play it on PC for free?
Multiplayer can be laggy
Difficulty is inconsistent throughout the game.

80/100