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Omerta: City of Gangsters

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Omerta is, according to Wikipedia, a popular cultural attitude and code of honour that places heavy importance on a deep-rooted ‘code of silence’, non-cooperation with authorities, and non-interference in the illegal (and legal) actions of others. So, if you’re a gangster, and see another gangster do something terrible, you are not meant to say anything to the authorities. A similar thing exists in the game development world, where game developers aren’t supposed to be critical of other games. Of course, this gets broken all the time, and I’m about to break it again.

Because the game, Omerta: City of Gangsters, is the sum of all my fears with recent developments in video games. It takes all the crap iPhone / Facebook game ‘features’ and puts it into a full priced packaged retail box, and expects people to be ok with this. Well, I’m sorry, it’s not ok. Not in the slightest. Thankfully it doesn’t do the ultimate sin of iPhone / Facebook and charge for the ‘privilege’ of playing piecemeal, but the mechanics are the same.

Let me explain. Omerta teases you into thinking it is a strategy game. It has a small city map, representative of a neighbourhood in Atlantic City circa 1920, populated with little people walking about, with large icons scattered across it. You have a headquarters, and you have a bunch of goons to do things for you. In the first level of the game you have to establish a Speakeasy, in order to sell illegal alcohol to make some money for your empire. So you click the icon for “joint” and send your little dude out. It’s cool you can watch him actually do this. Then you wait, and the icon changes and a pop up tells you it’s now yours. Then you’ve got to click again and select a Speakeasy. And wait. Once this is done, your “dirty money” value increases slowly. The next task is to set up a brewery to supply to Speakeasy. So you select a goon, click on the icon, wait, click, wait, click, wait, and then click OK when it pops up finished. Rinse and Repeat.

Later, you’ve got to earn “clean money”. Yes, another different currency which can be exchanged for the first currency, usually at a loss, and accompanied with a period of waiting. But the process of setting up places to earn this second currency is exactly the same. Click, wait, wait, click. You can upgrade all the buildings you own by spending cash (either dirty or clean) and luckily here you don’t have to wait, but given the interface here I suspect this wait period was taken out.

Anyone familiar with the ‘Ville type of games will recognise these mechanics, and maybe that’s what the people behind Omerta wanted – an accessible strategy game for all audiences. But it makes absolutely no sense on the Xbox platform. We’ve got some really good quality strategy games on the xbox, and no one, absolutely no one, is crying out for Farmville on the console. Hell, if you absolutely need to play this type of game with a controller, there’s an inbuilt browser so there’s no reason to buy Omerta.

If there is one redeeming feature it’s the combat sections. Even though here they’ve completely ripped off Fallout 1 & 2, by assigning Stats to characters which determine initiative, Action(AP) and Movement(AP) points, and even the types of weapons and perks for characters, it’s still a fun system after all these years. If you haven’t played Fallout 1, it’s a top-down hex-based ‘dice’ system. The computer rolls dice and adds your player stats to see when you can move, how far you can move, if you can see an enemy, if you can hit an enemy, and how much damage you do to that enemy. Omerta removes the grid system, but else it’s pretty much exactly the same. And it’s fun, and to be fair the designers have tried to shake things up with missions now and then, like with the boxing missions where you can’t use weapons apart from fist weapons. But they do get repetitive really quick.

Although the world you play in looks ok, there’s nothing exceedingly impressive from one level to the next, and it all rather looks the same. This criticism applies to both the various neighbourhood screens and the combat sections. In the Neighbourhood screens, the icons on the main world view aren’t distinctive enough, so it’s easy to not be able to find various places you may need to. For example, it may tell you to upgrade a hotel, so you zip about the map looking for it and often can’t find the icon. The minimap is hopeless and is useless for navigation. There are coloured dots indicating if a place is yours or not, but it’s cluttered and some are different sizes without having a reason for the size difference.

Being set in the 1920s the sound track is groovy gangster jazz, and the voices are all typical ethnic “wise guys” and “slapper girls”. But the music and sound suffered from a terrible skipping. I can only hope this is due to a dodgy review copy CD pressing and not actually in the final game, as there still hasn’t been an update for it and it is incredibly distracting.
There is multiplayer and co-operative, but I never once got past the “looking for games” screen. Again, I can’t be sure if this is an issue because I have a review copy, or if it’s simply broken. I suspect the latter because it didn’t even tell me “sorry, no games found” – just sat on the search screen until I exited it.

Conclusion:
If Omerta had a persistent world in single player, rather than neighbourhoods which you played then left never to have an impact on you again, or more in depth strategy system when it came to earning money and resources, action cut scenes rather than stills, ok, so it still wouldn’t be the greatest game ever, but it would have been worth spending time with.

After playing two or three levels though, I knew I had seen all I had to see and simply persisted because of the review. Which is sad, because I really wanted to like Omerta. It’s a great idea by a small company and given the climate of games development at the moment it’s precisely the sort of thing we should be supporting. But by choosing to develop the game in this simplistic, “accessible” way, they’ve probably alienated the very people who would support a game like this.

Pros:
Cool battle mechanics (even if they are completely copied from Fallout)

Cons:
Boring mission structure
Overly simplistic strategy based on facebook waiting games
Confusing icons and maps
Stuttering audio
Online functionality never worked

55/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Call of Duty Black Ops II

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The annual release of Call of Duty rolls around again, and to try and make things fresh we find ourselves battling terrorists in the near future, as well as the immediate past cold war era. We return to Alex Mason, the hero of the first Black Ops, and journey through the creation of the story’s main enemy, Raul Menendez, the leader of Cordis Die, a hacktivist organisation with sinister motives. We battle through Africa, Afghanistan, and Panama. Then, as David Mason, Alex’s son, we battle in the near future through Burma, Pakistan and the Cayman Islands, Yemen and Haiti. Oh, and also on the huge USS Obama. All in all, it’s just another gun boner shooter with a typically boring and trite “America Fuck Yeah” storyline to go along with it.

The gameplay isn’t anything new – single player still spends half its time taking control away from the player in a desperate attempt to make everything seem action packed and cinematic. I just find it tedious and annoying. Yes, I realise this is fundamental to the Call of Duty games, but it doesn’t mean I like it. Treyarch have tried some things differently, like giving you control of the bad guy on occasion, and also offering branching storylines based on players actions. I like the idea, but not the execution. Simply put, branching doesn’t have much impact on the gameplay, just the story, which is baloney and simply not engaging enough to care about.

Another new feature of single player is Strike Missions. These maps are small, almost tower defence like battlegrounds. Taking control of troops, drones and turrets, you have to secure areas by stopping invading forces or taking control of various areas on the map. These missions also impact which ending type you get, and can’t be replayed if you fail them too many times. At first, I tried to play these like a tower defence game, placing forces at various choke points and so on, but doing this is guaranteed failure. The AI is simply terrible and although appearing as a strategy based game with overhead tactical map and hotswapping characters, it’s better to simply zoom out and take control of the various troops and run and gun around the maps.

Of course, single player isn’t why people buy COD games, and I’m glad to say even though there are no huge changes in the way you play multiplayer, it’s still a damn lot of fun. There is a plethora of modes to play from the traditional death match to team death match and capture the objective / king of the hill modes. There’s a new multi-group capture objective mode, which amps up the action by including more teams to complete against, making the already hectic action seriously adrenalin pumping.

The killstreak rewards have been altered to allow players like myself to unlock more rewards. I never used to get rewards because I’m not very good at killing – my ratio generally sits at 3 deaths for every kill. However, I am really good at defending and taking objectives and Treyarch have refined the allocation system to help players like me and those that work well in teams to actually win rewards. To be honest, it works, as I don’t think I’ve played multiplayer more in any other game this year.

Zombies also make a return – after all, there’s no point cutting modes when it’s easy as having endless waves of zombies attack you, but it seems out of place. There’s a single player campaign, but I just couldn’t get into it. I guess I have zombie fatigue and I don’t think I’m alone as you can have up to 8 player zombie multiplayer, but no one ever seemed to be playing these maps.


Conclusion:
The problem with COD:BO:II is obviously it will be compared to not only all the previous Call of Duty titles, but Halo 4, Battlefield 2, and Far Cry 3; and to put it bluntly, it’s not as good as any of them. This is not to say it’s a bad game, it’s just not different enough from previous Call of Duty titles. The story isn’t memorable, the maps and weapons aren’t any different to what we’ve previously experienced, the gameplay is near identical to previous games, and when it’s not identical it falls flat and fails to impress.

Multiplayer is where the series has always shined, and with Black Ops II multiplayer shines brightest – it’s almost the sole reason I’ve given it the score I have. It’s fast, furious and fun, with enough different modes to keep most people happy. The change in reward structure will disappoint some players, but entices cooperation and team play amongst others, and attracts those who usually get bored of being pwned by people with a lot more time to play.

Pros:
Excellent multiplayer
A plethora of multiplayer modes & rewards
Branching story ideas are good for those into the story
Strike Missions are interesting idea..

Cons:
Boring story which is badly written and overly trite
Branching doesn’t impact gameplay
Strike missions could have been a lot better in implementation
Zombie mode is boring

80/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Assassin’s Creed III

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Returning to the Animus for the 5th time (not counting the spinoffs) Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed III forsakes the Old Continent of Altair and Ezio for the shiny new continent of America during its formative years. Once again we are thrust Forest Gump Like into the world of Templars and Assassins and Precursors, where every major personality and event is somehow influenced by these shadowy organisations and in particular, your main character.

Like all things American, this time it is bigger, brasher, and more in your face than ever before. But don’t go into thinking this is all “America, Fuck Yeah!” as it still stays true to the Assassin’s Creed philosophy, honestly and truthfully deals with the subject matter (well, as honestly and truthful a video game set in an alternative historical timeline can) and never lets you forget this is an Assassin’s Creed game.

We start the game with the ‘present day’Desmond Miles who is hiding out with his trusty sidekicks, the snarky Brit Shaun Hastings, ubergeek Rebecca Crane and his dad, William. Truth be told, I didn’t really understand why his dad was there as I never bothered with AC Revelations. Anyway, they find their way into a Precursor vault and send Desmond back into the Animus to find the key which unlocks the vault so they can save all of humanity. The story asks a lot of you, such as to remember plots, characters and devices from 5 games, and on top of that throws new characters, and a re-cap would have been nice, but it’s noticeably missing.

Travelling into the Animus in the Precursor vault, which is located in New York State near an old Native American Indian burial ground (or some such) you’d expect the story to start with the guy on the cover, Ratonhnhaké:ton, or Connor as he’s known to people who can’t say his name (which is nearly everyone not of Native American Indian descent), but surprisingly you don’t. However, telling you who you do start as kind of gives the story or at least part of it away. Let’s just say he’s an experienced assassin but someone you’ve not encountered before. This prologue helps you get back into the skin of the Assassin, helps you relearn the controls and the moves you’ve invariably forgotten, and also sets the scene for what will become the American Revolution.

Eventually after the prologue chapters you inhabit the memories of Connor as a child, then as a surly teen, then as a recalcitrant young man. Connor is not as fun as either Altair or Ezio personality wise. He’s much surlier and more of an outsider and rebel because of his mixed-race heritage. He’s rash, bold and unconsidered, much like Desmond. It doesn’t make him unlikable, but he feels more like a teen trying to find and forge his place in the world, unlike the Europeans of the previous game who were trying to make sense of it. The story does tackle some of the contradictions of the formation of American political system – the fight from tyranny and oppression of the British when they themselves owned slaves and terrorised the Native Indians, but does so fairly and is never unnecessary awkwardly in your face about it.

Where he improves on Altair and Enzo is in missions. Each mission given feels different, and you never feel bored playing him. The variety in length and use of abilities was very welcome, and although overall most missions were easy, I only came across on which was frustrating. Unfortunately this came at the end of the game, and really let down the last sequence which should be the best and most satisfying. I also felt slightly let down by the finale with Desmond. Like with Mass Effect, and players being invested in this character for so long, it feels like it could have been handled better.

During the early portions of the game with Connor is where it really opens up and gives you a great sense of the New World. There is a mindnumbing variety of things to do in the game – The usual collect the feathers/trinkets/treasure chests/courier/assassinate and synchronise points which existed in the previous games return. Rather than through cities across rooftops, here you find yourself ranging through the Frontier, leaping from shear rock cliffs onto trees and careening across stout tree limps and leaping with faith into bushes. Hunting and gathering tasks appear, with clues which lead you to find and trap certain animals to collect certain skins, reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption.

There are the Wilderness missions, much like the hunting missions involving looking for clues, where Daniel Boone (he of the Racoon Hat) will tell you tall stories about things such as Sasquatches. There are Forts in both Boston and New York along with the Frontier which you can take over either stealthily or with brute force, as well as convoys to raid. There is a homestead to upkeep, and people to recruit both into the assassin’s guild as well as to help out around the homestead. There’s also a creation/trading system, so not only can you simply sell all your gathered skins to shop keepers, you can create different things you’ve gathered as well as buy from your homesteaders, and send them on convoy trade missions to receive a higher return. The creation system is also tucked in here, so you can create a heap of things to help you thought the game. I found this system to be over complicated and fiddly, and could have been much more user friendly.

Then there’s the sailing, which is simply a blast. It feels reminiscent of the old Pirates game, just faster and more action packed. You avoid rocks when close to shore and huge waves whilst out to see, trying to blindside enemy ships with cannon fire, or ramming into them, or shooting them with mini-cannons. Some missions require you to disable the enemy ships with chain cannons, and then board. Here you swashbuckle your way across the boat, aiming to kill a certain enemy or group. There are also pegleg missions, which involve collecting trinkets then returning them to a swarthy ol’ sea dog to receive instructions to find a hideout, which are like the AC II catacomb sections of running and jumping.

There is a lot more besides, because it is really a huge game with many things to do and keep you interested. So many times I would plan to go to a mission, but get sidetracked on the way by this or that – say a random convoy, or chancing upon an animal I needed to hunt – and I’d spend 15-20 minutes faffing about, but I never saw it as wasted time. There was always some kind of reward for doing the side missions, whether it is in-game money and unlocks, or achievements.

When you’re done with all of this, there’s multiplayer too. The multiplayer aspect is like a game of deadly hide and seek. You and your opponents look like the NPCs throughout the map, and by watching the NPCs and noticing behaviour which is ‘abnormal’ as well as taking in the audio and visual cues you hunt your prey whilst being hunted yourself. You score points for your approach – if the enemy doesn’t see you you get reward more points and increase in level, unlocking more costumes and items, like most other multiplayer games. Whilst it’s nice to have something different from every other multiplayer game out there, and the game is fun if somewhat a little unfulfilling, I’ve always felt Assassin’s Creed multiplayer was unnecessary for the series because the single player experience is so well developed.

Like all massive open world games, Assassin’s Creed III isn’t without its faults and glitches. None are game breaking, but some are incredibly frustrating. It still has the issue where you’ll try and run in a certain direction but simply run up a wall, or do a dead stop. The NPC following skill leaves a lot to be desired, and some NPCs obviously fall through the world, appearing as icons on maps but not findable. Speaking of icons, there’s far too few indicators on the map when you need them. Guards appear as simple red dots, and you never know if it’s one guard or a group 8. Many side missions aren’t shown on the map at all, and it’s near impossible to discover them unless you stumble over them by accident. When on horseback the amount of collision with rocks and NPCs makes them feel useless in terms of speed in areas crowded with people or trees – so nearly all the time.

The game is probably the best looking one thus far, with excellent character animations, although Desmond’s backpack as a weird clipping issue which annoyed me no end. It has a great looking wilderness, and cities full of bustle and their own charm thanks to a new physics and AI system. The Caribbean when fighting sea battles looks amazing and the new weather effects are really cool – the way rain trickles down cart grooves and pools on dirt roads is a really nice touch. Voice acting throughout the game is superb, and whilst some of the lines are corny, there is some great characterisation of well known historical figures. As previously, the Animus’s history lessons are very well written and full of Shaun Hastings’ (who supposedly writes it) trademark snark, and if anything even more so because of the subject matter at hand… the British did lose the war and the colony, after all. If every history books were written in this style, I think a lot more people would be into history.

Conclusion:
Assassin’s Creed III is a pretty damn fine game. It loses none of what makes the series fun with the translation to another time and continent, and creates a whole new set of experiences which define the franchise. The biggest issue, if there is one, are the small technical issues, but these niggling technical issues only seem worse because everything else is such a great experience. And If I really was pushed I would also mention how the surly lead character isn’t as likable as maybe he could be, as he doesn’t have half the charm of Altair nor the wit of Enzo, but I think that speaks more to their solid characters than a deficiency of Connor, his characterisation, or the writing of this game.

Pros:
It’s still the great Assassin’s Creed action and fun.
Enormous game with lots to do and experience.
Much variety throughout the main missions.
Great looking and fun to play naval battles.
Fun multiplayer.

Cons:
Ending is a little weak.
Some small technical issues now and then.
Connor is not as engaging as Altair and Enzo.

90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Dark Souls 2

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I dove head first and blind into Dark Souls 2. I thought this would be the best way to approach it. I haven’t played the other games in the series, and have read very little about it; a review here and an “arty critique” there, but nothing really to make me think I knew about the series.

What very little I did know about Demon Souls and Dark Souls was this: they were hard, and a lot of my gamer friends really enjoyed those games. And after diving headfirst into the game, I’ve come to know Dark Souls a little better, and come to two conclusions: Yes, it is hard. In fact, it’s very hard. The other conclusion is I have changed in my gaming preferences and habits.

One of the things people rave on and on about this series is lack of handholding. I agree, handholding can feel highly insulting and demeaning to players. In cinema, there is an adage – show, don’t tell. Movies where this is put into practice always top critics and filmmakers “best of” lists. This adage applies even more so in games. Let the player explore the mechanics themselves. I’ve nearly come to blows with a producer with a business background (opposed to a gaming background) who wanted to put a tutorial in our game because they couldn’t figure out how to play it. I screamed “you learn how to play it by playing it”! Developers spend months and months refining these mechanics, and to then put the player at the start of the game, halt the action and tell them exactly what to do is insulting to the people who designed the mechanics, the people who designed the levels, and the people who are playing the game.

So I was overjoyed when I was dumped into Dark Souls 2 and had no idea what to do. I ran around pressing every button and ran into everything just to see what would happen. And I was honestly surprised when I peeled back the first fog layer and found a stone telling me how to swing my sword in a traditional “this is a tutorial and this is how you play the game” fashion. Although I do admit it was very useful, and I got a few precious souls that would help me level up later. And I laughed when I had my first death and received the achievement “This is Dark Souls” after missing a jump, which was totally my fault for not reading the instructions properly. And I laughed again when I approached a huge hippo creature and whacked him with my sword, and he turned around, grabbed me and bit my head off. I thought “this is cool”.

That feeling quickly dissipated however, when I first got to Majula, the newbie main hub area. I was just exploring, took the wrong corner, and was attacked by three little rat things. I swung my sword and tried to block their attacks, and it didn’t work. I was just thrashing about madly and in return they hit me with such force that I died almost instantly. I thought to myself ok, maybe I need a different tactic, and tried to kill them again. My different tactic was to focus on the enemy by pressing the right joystick. This focused on them, but again, I couldn’t hit them and I died really quickly. So I just avoided them from that point on.

However, little did I realise that my health bar was now at 50%. So off I went, exploring the world of Drangleic, and when I got to the Forrest of the Fallen Giants, I got my ass handed to me. Time and time again. By the same “lowly” zombie creatures you first meet way back in the training level. After two hours of being killed right near the campfire, I gave up. It was just too hard and too annoying to get killed by the same mobs in the same places over and over again.

The next night, I rolled a cleric, thinking healing would help me. Nope. Same thing happened, I got stuck in the earliest part of the Forrest of Fallen Giants, again. This time, apart from not being able to hit anything, my spells would never cast. In desperation, I jumped online to learn how the fuck you are supposed to play this game.

Now, this brings me to my first issue with Dark Souls 2. As it is, I don’t have a lot of time to play games. Sad, but true. Everyone at XboxWorld donates their time to do these reviews, and get nothing but your love and the game in return. Moreover, I’m one of those people who plays 3 or 4 different games at one time, sometimes on the Xbox or PS3, sometimes on the PC, and yes, even on the iPhone. You could call me a gaming slut. So having to spend 40 minutes on watching a LEARN TO PLAY video, along with reading countless forum posts and walkthroughs isn’t what I call a positive use of my time.

It’s not that I want to be handheld, as I made clear above, but at the same time I don’t want to spend my time learning about the game outside of the game. I want to be shown in game how to defeat the game. I found this disconnect to be disconcerting. And I HATED it.

In this way though, Dark Souls is reminiscent of an MMO. Quite a few of the MMOs I’ve played have difficult parts where it’s not clear what to do or how to do it, so you jump online looking for hints, or ask in chat (and generally get a chorus of “google it!”). And like a MMO, DS2 is not a game where you can really give just one review, because your feelings towards the game changes over time, as does the game experience itself. The hints people leave in the world, the fact you can invite players or be invaded on any given play session, and the constant updates to the game when you load guarantee an evolving experience.

And of course there is the grinding, a staple of the less fun MMOs, where you have to kill the same things over and over and over and over again just to level up. The Dark Souls series is based around this mechanic. Which is fine, if you have the time to grind, which I don’t feel I do have, and why I’ve stopped playing most MMOs which feature it. I do like the fact that if you are killed you go back to where it was and collect your souls so the time is not totally wasted, but of course that means you’re covering the same ground over and over any way.

Yet as I played more and more, getting better and better, I started to enjoy the game more, and I learned how to play. I still feel the game is not supportive of my game style, which is exploration, as I found myself simply stuck at times, even with the aid of a walkthrough. Even now I’ve played the game much more and feel comfortable with the stamina mechanism and developing a rhythm to my attacks and dodges. I know when to consume the precious life giving pickups, know to restore your health with the rare effigies (but not at a campfire!), found areas where it’s relatively easy to farm souls, know how to get back to the campfires with the bones you find around the place, and definitely know not to hit any barrels, because you don’t know which ones will explode and which ones won’t.

Although I am playing better, I still feel the controls are wildly inaccurate. The lock on will switch focus mid battle, even if your foe is not dead. Swings which look like they are going to connect miss by miles. And in a game which is as unforgiving as DS2, this is unconscionable. There are times where I die and it’s definitely my fault, because I’m not managing my stamina, or I’ve run into an area with too many creatures, and I can handle that. What I can’t handle is fighting against the controls, struggling to do what I know I need to do an being unable to do it. It’s worse in the boss fights, or should I say fight, because I’ve only managed to do one successfully.

My final comment on the game is the graphics are terrible. They’re muddy, pixelated, clip through one another, don’t appear on the surface they’re meant to but float above it, and just not up to standard for a game released in 2014 on any platform. It’s really disappointing to see such an underwhelming looking game come out this late in the Xbox360’s lifecycle. Sure, some of the set pieces look great, for example when you emerge out of the early cave system and experience Majula for the first time, and admittedly it’s the last thing you’re thinking about when playing the game as you’re looking at your stamina and health bars and making sure you’re connecting with the enemy, but really there is no excuse for it.

Conclusion:
I hated Dark Souls 2 at first. HATED IT. I thought it was too hard, too unforgiving, and too involved to have anyone but the most hardcore to enjoy it. And in some sense I still think this, but now it’s with a sense of grudging respect. After reading about the game, learning how to play, and becoming involved in the Dark Souls community, I understand where it’s coming from and it’s place in the gaming strata. It’s not a strata I find myself in very often any more, which makes me somewhat sad to be honest, but at the same time everything changes, and although this game isn’t aimed at me any longer, I can’t begrudge those who it is aimed at.

Pros
Tough game which ultimately becomes rewarding
Plenty of replayability
Helps develop a community of people who are willing to help

Cons
looks very ugly
most of the replayability is forced on you.
Controls are not as precise as a game this demanding warrants.
is very, very demanding in difficulty and of your time

Score 80/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Dragon’s Dogma

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Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma could be describes as a Japanese Elder Scrolls. The development team behind it are comprised of some of the best game makers Japan currently has, and the scope of the game is quite ambitious. It has elements of Monster Hunter, Shadows of the Colossus, and of course the Elder Scrolls series, and if you like those games you’ll really enjoy Dragon’s Dogma.

Unfortunately I don’t any longer. Mostly because I don’t have the time to play huge, open ended games any more. Sure, I can make time for them, and tried with DD, but they’ve got to grab me immediately, and DD fails to do this. On top of that, there are a few things which let the game down, including the graphics, the constant chatter of the NPCs, to the tedious grind.

The story of Dragon’s Dogma is fairly interesting. It starts off with a dragon appearing, set on tormenting the province of Gransys, and after creating your character through the incredibly robust character generator, you stand up to the dragon, only to have your heart devoured and then come back as the Arisen. From here on in though, the story gets a little lost, and like other massive RPGs you’ll get bogged down in so many quests and side activities, it’s hard to focus on what you’re meant to be doing. The world you’re in isn’t radically different to any other world you’ve visited in RPGs, and I found it rather boring, to be honest.

During character creation you can choose from three classes, as such – Magic User, Bow User, or Melee user. Whilst the tutorial tells you the basics of how to play the game, it doesn’t give you a feel for the game overall. I don’t particularly like handholding in games, but here it’s unfocussed and only tells you the very basics of how to play. It doesn’t, for example, tell you that you can branch out and change your class relatively early in the game, and gives no hints to where to do this. I stumbled upon it by accident.

Something which really put me off was the graphics. I’m a rare person who thinks realism in games should be secondary to the gameplay, but even I balked at the seriously ugly graphics. I realise no sprawling, open world, go anywhere game can match the graphical fidelity of tightly polished arena shooters for example, but here feels positively last gen. Textures are very basic, the poly counts on models are quite low, framerate is really low, draw distance isn’t great, and everything seems to blend into everything else because of the poor lighting. The animations on the models are also really bad, especially when they’re talking to others.

The game features an upgrading system for weapons and equipment. Like the Elder Scrolls, the land you explore is full of stuff you can pick up. Some of it is lying in the world, others can be found by killing monsters. You can combine these to make better items such as better health potions, better weapons, and unique buffs. Many of the items can be gifted to NPCs to make them think better of you so they give you discounts and better information about quests.

One really cool thing about DD is the NPC system. These Pawns as they refer to themselves follow you around, fight for you, pick up items you may have missed, and tell you tactics on how to fight monsters and hints on where to go in missions. You get to create your first pawn much in the same way you make your character, and you can equip them in the same manner you equip yourself. Where it becomes really cool is when you aren’t playing the game. The game connects to other people, and when you’re offline your pawn can go travelling in other people’s games, earning equipment and experience to guide you in your game. It encourages you to equip your pawn with the best equipment so people choose to go with your pawn.

When fighting huge monsters, there’s a great ‘Shadow of the Colossus’ feature where you can grab them and climb up to a weak spot. Your Pawns will helpfully and constantly tell you when you can do this in a fight. This gives some epic battles as your pawns scramble around whilst you’re clinging onto the back of a giant hydra.

One of the bad things about Pawns is they’re not very smart. They will steal things you’re trying to pick. They tend to run off and attack things you can’t see. Part of that is the bad graphics. As mentioned, everything tends to blend together, so seeing enemies can be arduous. But to have them scream “goblins” and run off is highly annoying. Also, they constantly chatter, obscuring often important dialogue. They’ll constantly tell you how the tactics of how to kill the most frequent creatures “wolves hate fire!” and often tell you they know something of important, and when you click them to ask they say “we need to find the book”, which is the objective of the quest anyway.

To progress through the game you’ve really got to grind. I hate grinding in games, and it’s why I don’t often enjoy Japanese games. I prefer to be able to play the game from point to point. It doesn’t necessarily mean I enjoy a linear experience, I just prefer that if I get tasked with doing something then I’m at a level to do it. If I get tasked with killing X creatures (a type of quest I hate in games anyway as I think it’s really lazy quest design) then I should be at a level to kill those creatures when asked to do the quest. If I get tasked with escorting a NPC to a place, I should be able to defend that NPC with my skills. DD tends to simply throw every quest at you and make you attempt it before realising your too weak a level to complete it.

This is compounded by the fact you’ve got to walk everywhere. There are no mounts, no quick travel. So, if you walk into an area you’re not equipped for following a quest, not only do you frequently die, you have to turn around and run away, often for great distances between the different quests. You’re simply stumbling blindly for a great portion of the game doing nothing except dying. I found it frustrating and tedious.

Conclusion
I know there are people out there who love games like Dragons Dogma, who love being able to forge their own path at their own pace. People who don’t mind grinding, killing the same types of enemies over and over again to get enough experience or equipment to continue quests.
Although I did know what kind of game Dragon’s Dogma was when I picked it up, I was hoping that it would be different, have something I found compelling, something I could get addicted to and want to spend my time with.

But for me, this kind of ‘old school’ gaming found in Dragon’s Dogma is simply tedious and not enjoyable. I no longer have the time nor the patience to grind through games, especially if the story or the world it’s set in isn’t compelling. There are other games out there to be played, games that don’t demand I put in hundreds of hours just because the designers want you to, but rather encourage it by being more interesting and better looking.

Pros:
Very large world with lots to explore
Pawn System is a unique and interesting system

Cons:
Demands too much of your time for too little reward
Looks very ugly
NPCs can be really dumb

70/100

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

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

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