Tag Archives: Puzzle

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

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

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