Saturday, 29 December 2007
Thursday, 1 November 2007
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Tuesday, 23 October 2007
Monday, 22 October 2007
Thursday, 11 October 2007
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
Friday, 5 October 2007
Spore
So, you're aware that Spore is a life simulator in which you (as a Play-Doh-wielding god) raise a species up from a single-celled organism all the way through to a planet-destroying scourge of the galaxy.
We're on the same page, right? The game, rather like the whole concept of life itself, is far too big to describe in the space allotted - so check with Mr Google if you're not up to speed, then rejoin the printed-page party right here as soon as you can. As we're doing the tribal dance. Baby.
Friday, 13 July 2007
Postmortem: The Game Design of Surreal's The Suffering
What Went Right
1. Initial Concept. As I have discussed, the initial concept of our game changed relatively little over the course of development. Something about "an action horror game set in a prison" was uniquely compelling to our publisher, the press, and gamers alike. Despite containing highly stylized supernatural creatures, the game's very real-world setting was essential to making the game relevant and hooking people. The game's prison setting proved particularly intriguing to gamers and was a rich space for us to explore that had been under-utilized previously.
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Shortly after development started, I wrote a fairly detailed back-story for both the game world (Carnate Island) and Torque, and these elements also changed relatively little over the course of development. Though we did not plan on communicating all of this back-story to the player directly, it gave the game tremendous consistency as we built it. As we were given more time to iterate on the project, the back-story documents gave us a strong foundation on which to expand the game without seeming forced.
2. Focus. Having established our high-level design goals from the start, we were then extremely frugal about adding features. We knew that in order to properly implement the features the game did need, we would have to omit mechanics that were non-essential. For example, beyond his weapons, health, and flashlight batteries, Torque cannot carry any inventory items, including keys. To some, it was odd that we were making a prison game that didn't include using keys to unlock cells and gates. But in the end we realized that including keys didn't really add much if anything to the core gameplay experience and would have been wasted development time.
At the same time, we worked hard to keep the features that enhanced our core gameplay. Our fully playable first person mode evolved out of a more traditional "look around" mode. Over the course of development numerous problems arose and cutting it was suggested numerous times. This feature, however, was a major enhancement to our core gameplay experience, since shooting from the first person perspective is extremely intuitive to players. Indeed, from our gameplay testing we knew this was a very popular feature. Thus we knew that whatever extra time was required to make a fully functional first person mode would be well worth it.
Though we may have been too conservative in a few cases (for example, the game's shooter mechanics would be better off had we included the ability for Torque to crouch), overall our strict policy paid off nicely and allowed us to refine our core features while staying on schedule.
3. Changing the Control Scheme. Though I said earlier that we stayed remarkably close to our original concept, there is something that changed significantly from our earliest one-liner: the game stopped being similar to Devil May Cry (DMC). Indeed, from the very beginning I wasn't much of a fan of the gameplay in DMC and preferred shooters that, at that time, were traditionally more popular on the PC. Indeed, Half-Life was also mentioned in our concept for exactly that reason. Truth be told, DMC was mentioned in the pitch because a number of the publishers we were talking with about The Suffering had expressed interest in appealing to the fans of DMC.
As a result, from the start our game and level design work had much more in common with Half-Life than with DMC, except for our controls. When designing control schemes, I feel that you want to give the user something they are familiar with from other games. In general I find relying on other games for inspiration to be problematic, but in the case of controls I think it is crucial. What we had originally implemented was a target-lock system inspired by Syphon Filter, the most popular third-person shooter on the PlayStation, and DMC, at the time the most popular third-person shooter on the PlayStation 2. With our controls for a console-style shooter but our gameplay from a PC-style shooter, about a year into development we realized we had a dangerous disconnect in our design that made our game tedious instead of fun.
However, by this point Max Payne, Halo, Medal of Honor: Frontline, and SOCOM had all been released on the consoles and sold in excess of a million copies each. All were shooting based games in the PC tradition: they eschewed target-lock in favor of double-stick control schemes that simulated the mouse/keyboard experience from the PC. This system had the advantage of forcing players to actually aim at their target while having the disadvantage of being challenging for novice players to pick up. But looking at the sales for these titles, we concluded the installed base of players who were familiar with these controls was now large enough that we could take the risk of turning off a few newbies.
The change was a huge success for the game: it fixed the disconnect in our gameplay and added depth that had been completely missing. There was now very little similarity to DMC to be found. Looking at the forums today, I find that some players still have trouble adjusting to the two-stick system, and I believe we have lost some potential players for this reason. However, our significantly deeper game experience has brought in so many players that I know we made the right decision.
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| | Two 2D level maps created by the design team prior to level construction. The one on the left was created using Smart Draw, while the one on the bottom was made using Photoshop. | |||
4. Storytelling Techniques. The Suffering had a deep story to convey, but we didn't want storytelling to get in the way of our core game experience. With immersion being one of our design goals, we didn't want to rely on too many cut-scenes. We had a rule of thumb that cut-scenes were to be used exclusively for pivotal story points or for intensely scary scenes. Furthermore, we wanted to keep Torque's actions fairly neutral during these scenes to avoid negating the player's feeling that they were fully in control of Torque at all times. Thus we needed to use different storytelling techniques.
A lot of story was communicated during gameplay through the various NPCs who function as Torque's guides through the world of Carnate Island. Though the player could kill any human character at any time (thus missing out on the story points they had to convey) being in a horror space allowed us to use supernatural characters who Torque was unable to kill. The player could also hear dialog over radios, PA systems, and telephones, all real-time during gameplay. The player was also able to collect various notes throughout the game in addition to unlocking pages in an archive, both of which revealed more of the back-story to players who were interested. Finally, we used a slow-motion blur effect to convey events from Torque's past and the history of the island. Inspired by some of the imagery from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, this technique was our most innovative and also proved to be fairly frightening.
All of these techniques combined to allow us to tell a story with a minimum of play interruption. Players who wanted to experience the story were able to, while those who would rather stick to playing the game could ignore it. Even with these techniques, the story is kept mysterious enough that players will still be left with numerous unanswered questions. My hope is that players will fill in the blanks with their own imagination, following the tradition of great horror films such as The Birds, The Shining, The Blair Witch Project, and The Ring. In horror, the player's imagination is far more disturbing than anything a writer could possibly come up with.
5. Iteration and Gameplay Testing. From a design standpoint, one of the most fortunate events of The Suffering's development was getting time to iterate on the game. Midway was quite happy with the game's progress and had seen a strong reaction to it from the press and public alike. Thus they gave us a generous time extension, not because we were behind schedule but because they wanted to make the game as strong as possible. Thus, with our levels all fully built and functional many months before shipping, we were able to do a number of passes on the game. We did a pass on horror elements to make the game more frightening, including adding our real-time environmental flashes that are so key to the final experience. We also did a story pass, not to change the story but to expand on how it was presented to the player. We performed an AI pass to make the creatures much more dynamic and varied in their behaviors. Finally we did a puzzle pass to fix the most egregious problems with the puzzles. The impact of these passes cannot be underestimated. For example, the game's design did not originally plan for the real-time scenes involving Torque's wife and children to be in the game, since we did not have time to build them from an art standpoint. Anyone who has played The Suffering knows how crucial those scenes are to the game experience.
To help us figure out what needed fixing, at numerous points in development we put the game in front of a group of gamers and watched them play and then listened to their feedback. This gameplay testing is distinct from focus testing since these sessions were for development feedback alone, not for marketing use at all. We did this as early as seven months into development, and we were able to fix a lot of major problems early on, including our disjointed control scheme. If anything, the game could have benefited from more gameplay testing, but what we did have time for impacted the game tremendously.Referensi : http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20040609/rouse_02.shtml
Monday, 9 July 2007
Halo 2 for PC
You've had some good times with Master Chief, whether sitting on the floor in front of an Xbox with a mate or perhaps even with Gearbox's PC version of times past. I know that a fire has been lit somewhere deep in your heart - so take hold of my hand, look deep into my eyes and join me in exhaling a smidgen of that green metallic love.
Something you can say, though, is that there was no need to keep the PC community waiting three long years for a conversion. A conversion too that now appears dull and ageing, and what's more can only be run on a Vista platform bereft of anything else worth playing apart from Geometry Wars. That is, at least until the advent of DX10 and the whine of a million gamers opening their wallets and pouring coins into the cavernous maw of Bill Gates.
But whatever you think about Vista, and whether you consider MS a risen messiah or a ruthless hijacker of fun, I think that while we're still holding hands (and we are still holding hands), we can all agree that releasing the ancient Halo 2 as a flagship title for both Vista and Games for Windows LIVE is a f***ing stupid idea.
BE MY HALO
The bare bones of Halo 2 are great - its shooty, hidey gameplay, amusing physics and some genuinely excellent set-pieces (notably jumping onboard the giant spider mech in an otherwise barren attack on Earth) still get the adrenalin pumping. But due to the 'OMG - online multiplayer on Xbox! This is the future!' effect of its original launch, people tend to forget its multitude of sins.
The dull, obtuse and nonsensical storyline (the low point of which is a Flood hive mind ripped straight from Little Shop Of Horrors), the sudden ending, the cop-out that was the Earth invasion, the crap bits where you play as an alien Arbiter, the endless retread of gameplay already done to death in the original... All getting in the way of action you can't help but feel affection for despite it all.
STILL A PISSER
Multiplayer is what sealed the deal with the living-room format, and all the old arenas and downloadable content resurface here - ready, willing and able for you to strap yourself into MS's bulky LIVE system and an undeniably giggle-packed game, despite a marked variation in quality as you pass between the 23 maps.
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if there are redeeming features in that one with the giant turbine that every bugger plays, then I've yet to find them. As for the persistent lack of co-op play on PC, well, that's just as unforgivable as it was last time around. Oh, and the menu systems pissed me off too - MS still seem convinced that everyone will be playing with one of their pads, and to get my mouse inverted (yes, I know), I had to traverse seven screens, which may not sound like much, but felt like I was ascending Kilimanjaro.
As for the graphics, well, I can't deny they're far crisper and cleaner than the Xbox version (you can increase the resolution and everything), but that doesn't stop them looking dated. I've always really liked the character models of the Halo menagerie, but even so, everything seems flat and lifeless compared to the efforts of every other shooter on the market.
Crikey. What a kicking. Despite all this, though, what Halo boils down to - the same 30 seconds of decent action, repeated ad infinitum - is, while sometimes too repetitive, still great fun. Interiors are drab and lifeless, exteriors are often starkly beautiful; you shoot, you jump, you hide, you win, you lose, you die, you laugh, you live once more.
The Halo template is not broken - but shell out cash for this and your spirits sure will be. You'll have fun, it'll make you smile, I won't deny it. But three years on, the Halo 2 Vista experience is as forgettable as it is tardy and somewhat depressing.
Referensi http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=164526
Friday, 6 July 2007
Who Says Video Games Have to be Fun? The Rise of Serious Games [2]
Pushing Forward
Swain hopes The Redistricting Game, which launched at the recent Games for Change Festival in New York, is one of the success stories that helps push the genre forward.
Such a notion may seem a bit pie in the sky, especially considering The Redistricting Game’s content. According to a press release that preceded the game’s launch, “the game exposes how redistricting works, how it is abused and how it adversely affects democracy. It provides hands-on understanding of the real redistricting process, including drawing district maps and interacting with party bosses, congresspeople, citizen groups and courts. Players directly experience how crafty manipulations of lines can yield skewed victories for either party—effectively allowing politicians to choose their voters instead of voters choosing their politicians.”
Why did Swain make a game about gerrymandering, and why would anyone want to play it? Telling someone how redistricting works and what it means can be cumbersome and hard to grasp, Swain replies. “However, if she could gain an understanding of redistricting by experiencing it via a fact-based interactive system, then she may come to her own conclusions about its ramifications.
“Our goal with The Redistricting Game is to provide an objective look at the phenomenon and let people come to their own conclusions,” he adds. “We don’t side with one political party and we don’t push an agenda. We just want the game to demystify redistricting in a credible way and we want people to have a good time while playing it.”
Another game that hopes to demystify complex issues, impact society and promote change is PeaceMaker, released by Pittsburgh-based ImpactGames in 2006. Started by Eric Brown and Asi Burak while they were students at Carnegie Mellon University, PeaceMaker allows users to play the part of an Israeli prime minister or a Palestinian president and make diplomatic, security and economic decisions for their virtual country of choice.
Although Brown and Burak hoped their game would make an impression on the general public, they also hoped it would influence their peers in the mainstream game development community. “We really wanted to drive the industry,” says Brown, the founder and former co-manager of Issue Design Build in Seattle. “We wanted to make something that compares to the role documentaries play in the movie industry.”
“The demographic of gamers historically is 12- to 18-year-old boys,” he adds, “which has grown as that generation got older. In our minds, there is a group within that community that is interested in something with a bit more meaning, a little more depth. We wanted to show them you can produce a game that is just as engaging as anything out there, but also has a positive message and influence.”
Brown says he and Burak chose to make a video game about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because “games are really good at putting people in the shoes of someone else—something you can’t always do with something like a news article. Games can empower people to interact with an environment, and they can contextualize events in time.”
Seggerman agrees. “Games can help people put themselves in perspectives otherwise unavailable to them. They can let people exhibit behaviors or try roles they’ve never tried before.”
Likewise, she says, “games are fantastic at allowing players to explore complex, interrelated issues and fiddle with those issues to see how they affect each other.” Global conflicts and even environmental issues are especially worthwhile topics for serious games, Seggerman adds, “because you can’t really look at one aspect of global warming, for instance, without looking at a myriad of other aspects.”
Alternative Topics
Headline-grabbing subjects like global warming or third-world poverty (as seen in the popular Ayiti: The Cost of Life) aren’t the only ones tackled in serious games. Some of the genre’s most captivating offerings take on topics that are a bit further from the limelight.
Take Persuasive Games’ Disaffected!, which puts players “in the role of employees forced to service customers under the particular incompetences common to a Kinko’s store.” Bogost says he made the game because “Kinko’s is a place I both frequent and abhor and I felt that a satire of it had the opportunity to speak to a whole range of people.”
“Getting crappy service at Kinko’s is a mundane, everyday experience that all of us have had,” he adds. “Why does it happen? We don’t answer that question in the game, but we offer players the chance to step behind the counter and imagine what forces might be driving these dissatisfied workers. Is it simple incompetence? Sedition? Labor issues?”
Similar questions are addressed in another of Persuasive Games’ offerings: Airport Insecurity. “It’s another everyday experience that I hoped players could start to ask questions about,” Bogost says. “I’m really much more interested in the mundane than the serious. It’s just that our work often breaks a lot of unspoken rules about what can be represented in a video game.”
The same can be said for the products of the Italian video game collective La Molleindustria, headed up by Paolo Pedercini. One of studio’s best-known releases is The McDonald’s Video Game, which puts players behind the counter (and into the back office) of the world’s most famous (and infamous) fast-food chain. The lesser-known Tamatipico, on the other hand, focuses on the often-ignored world of flexworkers, while another La Molleindustria offering, Queer Power: Welcome to Queerland, turns a curious eye toward “queer theory.”
“I see a lot of cartoons and movies that deal with gender issues, but video games too often spread homophobic messages,” Pedercini says of the thought process behind Queer Power, which inverts the fighting game archetypes created by arcade-style beat ‘em ups like Capcom’s seminal Street Fighter II.
“Game conventions are strongly biased by cultural and ideological values,” the developer says. Overturning those clichés “is a way to play with players’ expectations and push them to reflect on the stereotypes in commercial games.”
Offering gamers “alternative points of view” is a goal Pedercini and his crew set for each of La Molleindustria’s releases. “We believe that if we want to have an impact on society we must influence mainstream pop culture,” Pedercini says. “The progressive forces always ignore the importance of pop culture in the opinion-making process.” Conservatives, he adds, have the practice down pat. “Just look at TV shows like Dallas.”
Who Needs Fun?
Play a few rounds of Queer Power and you’ll quickly realize that “having fun” isn’t the point. Nor is it the point of any of Pedercini’s games, it seems. "Fun is never our main
goal-or, at least, not the common concept of fun," he says.
Other developers of serious games share Pedercini’s opinion that video games don’t have to be fun to be worthwhile. “I’m all for escapism,” Frasca says, “but I think that games that deal with serious topics can be more engaging to certain people.”
“For 30 years now we’ve focused on making games produce fun,” adds Bogost. “Isn’t it about time we started working toward other kinds of emotional responses?”
Bogost believes that will happen eventually. “I know that comparisons to the film industry have grown tired and overused,” he says, “but indulge me in this one: When you watch the Academy Awards this year, how many films in the running for awards are about big explosions and other forms of immediate gratification, and how many are about the more complex subtleties of human experience?
“Someday, hopefully someday soon, we'll look back at video games and laugh at how unsophisticated we are today,” Bogost adds. “It's like going to the cineplex and every screen is showing a Michael Bay flick.”
Seggerman offers up a similar comparison to the movie industry when forecasting the future of the serious games movement. “It took a while for film to start taking a look at serious issues,” she says. “We didn’t see documentaries come to the fore until the late 60s or early 70s. So it’s going to be a little while before serious games hit their stride and gain mainstream attention.
“It will get there,” Seggerman adds. “It has to—it’s such a natural fit.”
Referensi http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1465/who_says_video_games_have_to_be_.php
Who Says Video Games Have to be Fun? The Rise of Serious Games [1]
Think back to when you first contemplated getting into the video games industry. The ‘aha’ moment probably occurred while playing a particular game.
That certainly was the case for Suzanne Seggerman, co-founder and president of Games for Change, the social change/social issues branch of the Washington, D.C.-based Serious Games Initiative. While working as a documentary film producer for PBS, a co-worker slipped Seggerman a diskette containing Jim Gasperini’s government simulation game, Hidden Agenda. “I had played a little Asteroids while in college,” the New Yorker remembers, “but I definitely wasn’t a gamer.”
That all changed after she spent a weekend with her computerized present. “It was a transformative experience for me,” Seggerman says. “I sat up in the attic while a party was going on below—and I’m never one to miss a good party—and must have played the game for 10 hours straight.”
“I learned more about politics by playing Hidden Agenda than by reading 10 newspapers,” she adds.
Seggerman continued making films for a few years, but that ‘aha’ moment was never far from her thoughts. “I made a mental note that it had been something important and powerful and that I’d get back to that place at some point in my career,” she says.
That moment came in 2004 when Seggerman, who in the meantime had earned a master’s degree from New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, co-founded Games for Change with Global Kids’ Barry Joseph and NetAid’s Ben Stokes (now with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation).
“We act as the primary community of practice for the people making activist games, documentary games, persuasive games, political games, serious games, social-issue games—whatever you want to call them,” Seggerman explains.
Games for Change fills a void Seggerman discovered when she attended her first Game Developers Conference in 1996. “I went there to find people working on what I called ‘meaningful’ games,” she says. “Much to my surprise, I couldn’t find anyone.”
“That made me realize what an aberration Hidden Agenda was at that point,” Seggerman adds. “I’m amazed it made it into my hands when it did, because I don’t think any other game would have impacted me the way that one did.”
Serious Attention
Serious games are no longer an aberration, of course. Countless examples created by the likes of Ian Bogost, Gonzalo Frasca, Paolo Pedercini, Chris Swain and more have caught the attention of the press and the public in the years since Seggerman’s first trip to GDC. They’ve also caught the attention of the mainstream game development community, though not often in a positive way.
“There’s a lot of hatred toward serious games right now,” Seggerman says, adding that the lack of love could be due to any number of reasons. “It could be because of the name or it could be because they think—and rightfully so—that many educational games have been terrible,” she adds. “Bad educational software has done us a lot of harm.”
Another knock against so-called serious games is that they simply don’t stack up to more mainstream offerings.
“Most people are less generous with their words; they’d say that most activist/political/serious games just plain suck” says Bogost, Ph.D., founding partner of Atlanta-based Persuasive Games, LLC, makers of Presidential Pong, Disaffected! and Airport Insecurity. “And that might be true, in part. The level of craft in serious games often leaves much to be desired.”
Powerful Robot Games' September 12th Of course, mainstream titles generally garner bigger budgets than their “serious” brethren. "I think the main problem is that it is very expensive to make any kind of game," offers Frasca, co-founder of Powerful Robot Games, a Uruguay-based studio that has crafted such titles as September 12th and the Howard Dean for Iowa Game. “Political games generally do not have a financial return, and that makes it particularly hard to produce them with the same quality as commercial work.”
Swain, an assistant professor in the USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Interactive Media Division and a co-director of the school’s Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab, also cites miniscule budgets and less access to experienced talent as reasons for the discrepancy between mainstream and serious games.
That said, Swain—who designed The Redistricting Game and acted as a faculty advisor for the PlayStation3 game, fl0w—suggests “the field of political/activist games is very young. We need some success stories to prove our value because right now political games mostly grab headlines and have little real impact.”
Referensi http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1465/who_says_video_games_have_to_be_.php
Friday, 29 June 2007
Silent Hunter 4
Some shining soul at Ubisoft has decided to prologue this World War II Pacific-theatre sub sim with a 17th century poem about mortality. John Milton's powerful 'On Time', beautifully spoken over an arresting collage of game clips, has just left me tearful and quivering with anticipation. Best start to a simulation ever! Now, let's see if the game can live up to such an opening.
Log 02. Two hours have passed since that last paragraph was written. I've romped through the 'submarine school' and a couple of quick missions, and my brain's message log now contains the following nine thoughts:
1. Oooooh! Lovely interiors. Very atmospheric.
2. The helmsman's waxy pallor and malevolent glare is starting to give me the willies.
3. Great, all the old SH3 controls still work.
4. Now that's what I call a battleship!
5. And it's got little sailors on the deck!
6. Dang, now how does this new-fangled US stadimeter work?
7. Flotsam, jetsam and lifeboats. Very nice.
8. Great, it looks like crew management is a lot simpler.
9. I wonder what sex with a dolphin would be like?
Expanding on numbers 3 & 6, the sub school is pretty shoddy really (text-based, unimaginative, no explanation of manual targeting or crew management) but it does teach enough to get newcomers up and silent-running. As in Silent Hunter 3, if you stick with automated torp targeting, activate aids like unlimited fuel and oxygen, and cheat occasionally by doing recon with the freecam, there's nothing whatsoever to be scared of. Well, nothing except for the depth charges, the mines, the six-inch shells, the razor-sharp keels, and the ragged rocks.
Log 03. OK, my first SH4 campaign patrol is over. For the last few weeks (in-game weeks) I've been stalking Japanese steamers in a balmy corner of the East China Sea. The surface of that sea is now approximately 0.00000000000015mm higher thanks to the 40,000 tons of iron I have sent to its bottom. Highlights of the trip? Using the deck gun to junk a junk off the coast of Okinawa would be one. Watching a torpedo clip the bow of a listing troop ship near Iwo Jima would be another.
Lowlights? Running into a juicy Jap taskforce on the way home to Pearl and realising I had nothing to throw at it except insults and sweaty underwear. Wish me luck for my second tour of duty.
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Although there are still no chess or battleships mini-games (inexcusable), there is now a recreational wireless and a gramophone to help while away long voyages. Rather than reach for the x8000 time acceleration you can loll on your bunk, listening to the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and ogling Betty Grable's shapely posterior.
That's the theory anyway. Actually there's very little period audio in the box (there are no mp3s for the gramophone at all and few of the 20-odd Radio Washington reports are longer than a minute). You'll have to wait for the community to rustle up some sounds before you can fill your sub with swing.
The other thing standing between you and that cosy bunk fantasy - apart from the absence of Crimson Skies-style selectable pin-ups - is the lack of bunks. Silent Hunter 4's subs actually come with fewer modelled compartments than their SH3 counterparts. Losing the virtual radio shacks and captains' quarters is not disastrous - especially as the new command rooms are decorated so diligently - but you do have to wonder whether the designers' 'more is more' approach was the right one. Hands up who would have preferred to have just the Gato class (the workhorse of the Pacific War) recreated down to the last greasy galley, cramped cot and stinky head rather than a selection of seven types modelled in much less detail? Ah, I see. Just me then.
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Log 06. Another sweaty-yet-rewarding hunting trip. This time I bagged a pair of destroyers and a cocky seaplane as well as the usual haul of freighters, sampans and saki tankers. Interestingly, I also got to try out one of the new mission types (see 'I Sink Therefore I Am'). These activities help to keep the 'This is just Silent Hunter 3 with warmer weather' thoughts at bay, but even so there have been times over the last few days when I've had to remind myself I'm not back in the North Atlantic in U-233.
The numerous graphical improvements, and added and overhauled features, don't alter the fact that hunting freighters and dodging escorts in Silent Hunter 4 is just like hunting freighters and dodging escorts in Silent Hunter 3. The tactics I use, the tactics they use, are all virtually identical. Maybe I'll find the freshness I'm seeking in the game's new adversarial multiplayer mode.
Log 07. Crikey, yes, that's where it's hiding! I've just mauled, or more accurately, attempted to maul a convoy controlled by a live opponent. Brow-beading, nail-nibbling fun! He was giving orders RTS-fashion from a 3D bridge while I prowled around, occasionally pushing my periscope above the foam to target a plump merchant. It's not quite the Destroyer-Command-2-with-full-interoperability-dream, but it's a wonderful stopgap.
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Diambil dari http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=161863
Thursday, 28 June 2007
Spider-Man 3
You realised this was a piece of merchandising, right? In case you didn't realise it, it says so twice on the first splash screen. 'Official Spider-Man Merchandise', it says, right next to the less official-looking 'Spider-Man Merchandise' badge.They might as well put a little BBFC grid on the back that says, 'Contains commercial cynicism. Suitable for clueless parents, naive fans and dribbling three-year-olds screaming 'Maa! Maa! Spoo-da-mang!' in the supermarket'.
There, that's my token dig at film tie-ins out of the way. Now I can admit that I've pretty much enjoyed a couple of the Spider-Man games so far, and this fits snugly into that Spideygame mould. Swing around the city solving crimes as you find them. Have your disbelief-suspension molested by 'mission activation' tokens, which progress the various storylines with cut-scenes. Unlock more and more moves, and annoy more and more gangs. At worst, it's an average string of scraps made bearable by the fact that you're swinging around like a good 'un. And to give Spider-Man 3 its due, the web-slinging feels good.
The missions are divided into fights, chases, defusing bombs, photography and swinging around with Mary Jane. It's not really worth describing all the mission types separately, because they all involve the same thing. You follow waypoints (so many waypoints) and then either have a fight or defuse a bomb. Defusing a bomb is a strange metaphorical process - it's a combination of Dancing Stage-style button-bashing, Paradroid and 'rotating the thumb stick'. Sound fun? It is, a bit.For a while. Not quite so much after the umpteenth bomb tour.
BAD MOVES
Fighting is a process of building on your four basics - fast, strong, dodge and web - and your ever-growing bank of unlocked special moves. On mouse and keyboard, it's the predictable, unmanageable, third-person whirligig that'll have you puking out a forgotten sandwich, and this is also true of navigating the city. Once you set up your gamepad - and even that proved to be a shockingly difficult feat here - you'll only be lurching forwards occasionally to enter camera mode.
When you consider that the game is far too ugly to be shown on an unforgiving monitor - cel-shaded Ultimate Spider-Man looked infinitely better - and that it asks for an unjustifiable 6GB of HD space, and that we couldn't get more than 30 frames-a-second out of a fairly hot PC... Well, it doesn't seem like the best way to spend £30. Our advice would be to avoid the PC version of Spider-Man 3 like a spunk-filled bowler hat.
Diambil dari http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=164530
Wednesday, 27 June 2007
Resident Evil 4 for PC
The Good
- Exciting action sequences pit you against awesome enemies and fearsome bosses
- character models and environments look sharp and realistic
- superb sound design keeps you on the edge of your seat.
The Bad
- Controller required, thanks to complete lack of mouse support and mediocre keyboard controls
- blurry cutscenes and other visual issues detract from the spooky ambiance.
In 2005, Resident Evil 4 on the Nintendo GameCube was rightfully lauded as one of the best action adventure games ever released, thanks to stunning visuals and white-knuckle action sequences that ranked amongst the best in gaming. Later that year, PlayStation 2 owners were blessed with their own version of the game, featuring more missions and some other unlockable goodies. And now you can play Resident Evil 4 on your PC for a mere $20. It's too bad that PC gamers have been inflicted with a lazy port that does as little as possible to cater to the platform. Forget mouse support, forget tailoring the visuals to your own preferences, and don't even think about any PC-only goodies: this is a direct transfer of the PlayStation 2 version. If you can get past all these problems, RE4 is still an intense, thrilling ride that will keep your heart pounding. But if you still haven't played Resident Evil 4, this version should be your last resort.
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In case you haven't gotten wind of what the game is all about, you play as Leon S. Kennedy, a secret agent in charge of recovering the president's kidnapped daughter. His search leads to a creepy Spanish village where the residents are, well, not quite lucid. The story drops the occasional cliché, but for the most part, it avoids the usual horror pratfalls to deliver an interesting and intense narrative with a number of fascinating characters. It's also genuinely creepy, leading you through abandoned farmhouses, dank churches, and dripping caves, all the while throwing progressively weirder and stronger enemies at you. Like the PS2 version, it also includes a side story called Separate Ways, where you take control of spy Ada Wong and explore some of the same storyline from her perspective.
The success of a survival horror game has a lot to do with its atmosphere, and this version of Resident Evil 4 features plenty of it. But that isn't to say that it looks superior to the GameCube and PS2 versions. Character models and environments are beautifully designed. They were also obviously created with deliberate care and detail. Of particular note are the boss characters, which get more vulgar and imposing as you progress. But a lot of ambiance has been lost in the translation. Because the grainy fog is gone, everything looks clearer but less sinister than before. It also means that you notice a lot of low-resolution textures that greatly contrast with the more remarkable aspects of the visuals. However, the cutscenes are the biggest graphical drawback. While the GameCube version of the game rendered the cinematics in real time, this one borrows the prerendered scenes from the PS2. They are blurry and badly compressed on the PC, as well as a little unsightly. Additionally, you cannot tailor any visual settings, aside from the display resolution.
Thankfully, the audio doesn't suffer much, if at all. Resident Evil 4 is a sonic spookfest, from the creepy minimalist soundtrack to the outstanding weapon effects. In fact, the most memorable aspects of the game are accompanied by equally thrilling audio, such as the roar of the gigantic bosses or the disturbing murmurs of villagers as they infiltrate your personal space. For what it's worth, Pro-Logic II technology is supported while true Dolby 5.1 is not, yet it's not likely to impact your experience much, particularly if you use a decent set of speakers.
The biggest oversight amongst all these porting issues is that of controls. Resident Evil 4 doesn't support mouse controls, though it does offer a mildly clumsy keyboard-only scheme. Plenty of console-centric games play better with a gamepad, but there wasn't even an attempt to implement decent PC controls here. To experience the game the way it's meant to be played, you need to plug in a gamepad. Whichever method you choose, the controls present an issue during the famous context-sensitive moments that require a few split-second button presses. If you end up using the keyboard controls, make sure to memorize which key is button 1, which key is button 2, and so on. The same issue exists with a controller, though it's a bit easier to get the button presses right because the in-game diagrams are tailored toward gamepad users.
Once you get past all these issues and plug in your controller, you'll find this is the same Resident Evil 4 that multitudes of players have grown to appreciate. It's a carefully paced, often breathtaking action game that keeps you on the edge of your seat with lumbering almost-zombies, chanting cultists, and challenging fights against gargantuan bosses. You view the action from a third-person view, and when you ready a weapon, the camera zooms in close. Once you've drawn your weapon, you can't move, but you can aim. It all feels very deliberate, but it's perfectly countered by the measured speed at which your enemies approach you. However, you shouldn't take this to mean that the action is any less exciting than in a traditional shooter. These are dangerous foes, and you've got to pump them full of lead before they fall.
The fundamental combat is where the game shines most. Your arsenal consists of pistols, shotguns, rifles and more, with every weapon producing credible results. Popping pitchfork-wielding villagers will cause them to drop their weapons. Or you can shoot them in the knees to make them momentarily fall to the ground. Because ammunition is not terribly plentiful, being able to handle a crowd of shambling psychopaths with as few shots as possible is a main priority. You've always got a knife as a last resort, but unless you want to take a chunk of damage, it's better to keep your distance.
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Contextual actions also contribute to the general sense of urgency. Don't expect to sit back and snooze during the cutscenes because many of them require interaction in the form of a couple of button presses. If you're sleeping at the wheel, Leon will be crushed by a boulder or strangled by a hulking foe, and you'll be treated to a game-over screen. Other context-sensitive actions allow you to jump from a window, catch a companion from above, use a grappling hook, and more, depending on the onscreen action.
There's a lot of gameplay to be had here, with close to 30 hours of high-quality action and a few good reasons to head back once you're done. It's a shame that the PC got shafted with such a lazy port. It's also hard not to wonder why Capcom and Ubisoft even bothered with it. The PS2 version is unchanged in the sloppy transition to PC, so if you have no other way of experiencing Resident Evil 4 and own a gamepad, the core gameplay and budget price are enough reason to pick it up. Otherwise, pick up a different version and hope that the developers show a little more respect for the platform next time around.
Monday, 25 June 2007
Age of Empires III
Last month we had a chance to take a spin through AoE III at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and this week we're finally allowed to spill the beans on what we saw. The game's progressed a good deal since this preview, but it was a luscious first glimpse of the engine in action.
Empires Come to Life
Picture, if you will, a crisp autumn morning off of the shores of the Great Lakes. In future centuries, this fertile stretch of ground may someday be a Chicago or Milwaukee, but right now it's home to scattered patches of settlers, and winding, rutted wagon trails. In Age of Empires III, this whole tableau is brought to life with a million little details. For instance, white smoke drifts lazily up from the chimneys of the log cabins, and a small English flag waves from a pole in the center of town. After a few moments it becomes clear that the flags and smoke are not static animations, but shift regularly and change direction with the invisible wind.
As we scroll the screen toward the lakes and away from the settlement, we start to see more animal life milling around the swaying woods. In one corner, a bear shakes a tree in order to down a squirrel who clutches for dear life. It turns out that the bear (and the critter he's chasing) are just a couple of the nearly 50 types of animals that players will find on either North American continent. Further up the woods we see a herd of deer ambling peacefully along. Here, we pause to admire the game's dynamic lighting: as a doe walks under the swaying branches of a tree, we can see the dappled sunlight on her back. Elsewhere, individual leaves fall from the handful of trees that have started to change their colors.
Waiting on the lake itself is a small fleet of boats, bobbing with waves and reflected in the relatively placid lake water. The boats are gigantic, and rendered with loving detail. You can see each and every line of rigging, and the sails ripple in the wind. The ships are so beautiful that it's almost a shame to get them into combat. Not that that's going to stop us. While we didn't spend a lot of time watching ship-to-ship combat, some very cool effects were present. Plumes of white smoke erupted from the cannons and drifted across the water, and individual cannonballs could travel through the sails of enemy ships.
Across the lake, a small Native American village prospers. It seemed like there were dozens of little animations playing in this tiny community. Women prepared hides, people paced between tents, and near one building a little kid walked along the top of the fence, carefully balancing as he strode along. "Alive" is really the only way to describe the graphics.
Of course, this was just one environment: later during our whirlwind tour of the game we got to see the frozen ice flows and treacherous water of the Northern part of the continent, where soldiers left footprints as they trudged through the snow. Marshy swamps, dense forests, and rocky highlands are also available in the game. Dozens of environments will be featured from all over North and South America.
(For more details about the graphics and the technology behind them, check out this extended feature on the AoE III engine from GameSpy's GDC Coverage.)
Strategy is Still the Key
Ensemble's design team sees this game as their opportunity to refresh the real-time strategy genre with some tweaks and additions to classic play. The team wants to focus on strategy: players will win not just based on how fast they click on their units, but how they maneuver and use them.
One way that strategy is emphasized over reflexes comes about by using a new concept called the home city. In AoE III, players represent various European powers colonizing the new world. The game action itself will take place in the Americas, but the player's power base is represented by his "home city" in Europe. In-game the home city appears as a beautifully rendered European capital -- it looks almost photographic. Resources from the New World can be used to upgrade your home city, which in turn can support you by developing new technology or by sending special new units as reinforcements.
There's a great deal of strategy in determining how you'll advance your capital. A defensive player might select upgrades that will allow him to build towers, for example. An aggressive player might constantly request boats loaded with high-powered reinforcements. Your home city "levels up" almost like an RPG character, meaning every player will have different strategies and even single-player campaigns can take on different flavors. You can even personalize the home city with touches of your own as you play.
Meanwhile, over in the New World, the natives will play a huge role in the player's strategy. Native citizens can support your colonial goals with troops or technology, but only if you have a good relationship with them. In practice, this means that a multiplayer game plays out as a race to establish strong ties with the locals. You can swing them in your favor by destroying enemy trading posts while building your own. Your opponent will be doing the same! Various home city upgrades can help you win over the natives faster.
Combat itself is very dependent on formations, as it often was during this time period. Managing your formations is a huge part of the game. If you set a large group of musketeers into a "volley" formation, they'll line up, take a shot, then step back so that another row can shoot. This is as opposed to a "Charge" formation, where they'll fix bayonets and rush forward. A good army will have a good mix of different units. The musketeers described above are vulnerable to skirmishers (as the Brits found out during the Revolutionary War), but they're good for defending against cavalry. Calvary, meanwhile, can mow down skirmishers.
And, of course, you also have artillery, which is very important in Age of Empires III. You can bring huge field pieces into battle, which are devastating against large groups of infantry, but susceptible to a cavalry charge. It's also interesting to note that artillery is now needed whenever you wish to destroy enemy settlements. That's right: no longer will a guy with a spear bring down a town center by poking it for 10 minutes. You'll need to bring in (and protect!) the big guns.
If it sounds like a lot to keep track of, don't worry. AoE III also makes efforts to do away with a lot of the micromanagement common to other real-time games. For instance, unlike AOE II, farms will automatically replenish themselves, and raw materials don't need to be carried back to buildings -- they're simply mined or harvested on the spot. Little changes like this mean that players will be focused on acquiring strategic parts of the map, advancing their home city, developing relationships with the natives, and managing the movements of their troops.
When it All Comes Together
During this tour of the game we only got the briefest introduction to the gameplay itself. But it looks as though when the empire-building and combat elements come together, it'll be spectacular. Age of Empires III uses real-time physics, leading to some amazing imagery as cannonballs skip along the ground through lines of troops or crash into buildings. The little soldiers can really go flying; hats and muskets will whirl in the air. It's even possible to knock guys off of cliffs. And individual buildings are never destroyed in the same way twice: cannonballs will tear off chunks of the architecture, which will spin through the air and crash into other buildings, exposing flaming timbers below. It's possible for cannonballs to smash their way all the way through a building, thudding into the ground somewhere on the other side.
Eye candy is great, but if the game truly is as strategically deep as the designers hope, it may be the most influential Age title yet. We hope to get some actual hands-on time with the game in the weeks to come, so stick around GameSpy for details.
Diambil dari http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/age-of-empires-iii/605149p1.html
Monday, 18 June 2007
The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar
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Evil looms once again in the lands of Middle-earth. Creatures and monsters of Mordor are amassing as the hunt for The One Ring rages on, and all of Middle-earth is threatened by this evil power. In order to stop this evil and bring back peace, all races — Humans, Hobbits, Dwarves, and Elves — must come together and stop this tyranny. Will that be enough? It is up to you, adventurer, to work alone or with others and stop Mordor's forces! The battle doesn't only take place in Mordor, for all the lands of Middle-earth are engulfed in evil as Sauron's forces search for the ring, including Ered Luin, Rivendell, and the Shire. Now grab your sword, bow, or even your staff, and save Middle-earth! The hottest game genre on the market these days seems to be Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, and titles like The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar are the reason why. The amazing world of Middle-earth created by J.R.R. Tolkien, and the tales set within it, are unknown to few people. Many tales have started as books, transitioned into movies, and are then made into games, but out of those many stories, only few are successful. LotRO is one of those successes.
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Upon entering LotRO, you are confronted with the basic storyline and crisis. LotRO takes place before Frodo and his joyous adventures, so the "fellowship" doesn't exist yet. Sauron has split his forces, sending Nazguls to look for the ring, and the rest of his forces have orders to attack the civilizations of the world.
After the introduction, you are prompted to create your character by selecting from four races: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits. Each of those have the option of being male or female, except for Dwarves (but who wants to be a short, hairy female dwarf anyway?).
Along with your race, you can choose from seven different classes: Burglar, the rogue-like class that specializes in stealth; Captain, which uses its leadership abilities to command and aid their allies in battle; Champion, which is heavily focused on combat skills; Guardian, which can take massive amounts of damage; Hunter, which lays traps for enemies and uses bows to deal ranged damage; Lore Master, which uses magic and pets in battle; and Minstrel, which uses instruments and songs to heal and buff their allies, as well as deal light damage to foes. I chose the path of an Elven Minstrel and was given a few options as far as avatar customization goes, but there weren't many possibilities. With my voice attuned to several ballads, I entered my homeland of Ered Luin.
However, all was not well in Ered Luin! Sauron's forces had already begun to attack the city walls, which smoothly segues into your tutorial mission, in which you are confronted by half a dozen goblins. After you've dealt with them, you are shown a cinematic regarding the destruction of the city, and you enter the actual game world, where you can interact and converse with other LotRO players.
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Much like any good MMORPG out there, there is no set path for you to follow. You can collect quests around the starting area and complete them while killing a few creatures here and there for the additional experience, or you can find other methods of having fun while completing the quests and leveling up. I personally found that the fastest way to level up was by questing, and grinding yielded very little experience. This is a lot different from most MMORPGs, where there tends to be a lack of quests but plenty of monsters for you to grind on.
This brings me to the PvE, or Player versus Environment, aspect of LotRO. Out of all the MMORPGs I've played, LotRO simply has the best PvE. Not only is it amazingly fun to explore famous sites from Tolkien's lore or doing interactive and exciting quests rather than the typical tasks of "kill X, kill Y," but the sheer number of quests is also amazing. Additionally, the fact that quests level up your character faster than typical grinding makes me feel as if I am affecting the entire game world rather than embarking on my own personal quest to hit the level cap, which is 50 at the time of this writing.
One of the most unique and exciting elements that LotRO brings to the ever-growing MMORPG community is the system of deeds. Deeds are generally split between Racial Deeds, Class Deeds, and Area Deeds. Picture a deed as a goal that is hard-coded into the game and done at your leisure. Need a little bit of experience, but do not feel like doing a quest? Head behind the local inn and slay a few wolves for that Ered Luin Wolf Slayer deed. When you kill about 30, you unlock a reward: a title to display after your name, such as "Geraldo, Guardian of Ered Luin." However, the real benefits are for completing advanced deeds, like slaying 50 or 100 of these wolves. Rewards include an increase to certain stats, a new skill or two, or maybe even a rare title to awe your friends.
From Bree to Angmar to The Shire, Middle-earth in its online game form is simply beautiful. Turbine shaped Middle-earth to look as epic as it did in the movies, and honestly, that alone makes the gameplay very exciting. Pointing out that, "Hey, Frodo lived here," or "Gandalf has been here," makes the experience that much more memorable, and each time you trek to the top of the hill or travel through a forest, you reach the other side wanting to see how gorgeous the next awaiting hill will be. From the highest to the lowest graphical setting, LotRO looks great for an MMO, and without a doubt contains some of the best graphics that I have seen.
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The music in LotRO is no different from the movie soundtracks: epic. From the background harmonies to the grunts of me swinging my sword or the tunes of me singing ballads and performing music, everything sounds impressive. Ambience, immersion and combat bring a realistic feel to the gameplay experience.
We know that the graphics and audio of LotRO are out of this world, but what about the actual gameplay? Perhaps the most important feature of a fantasy MMO is its combat system. LotRO uses the well-developed system of targeting and using the number keys to use different skills and abilities. The cool thing is, if you don't have enough room from the "1" key through to the "=" key, you can establish numerous subsets of the numbers with the Ctrl, Shift, and Alt keys, for a total of 48 possible key combinations. As for the actual enemies and monsters you will be fighting, goblins, orcs, deadly spiders and even ogres have been seen in LotRO, and they are eager to beat the snot out of anyone they see who threatens the rule of Sauron.
LotRO certainly isn't the first MMO to have a crafting system, but again, LotRO's is the best by far. Basically, the game has 10 different professions: three gathering (Farming, Foresting, and Prospecting) and seven production (Cooking, Jewel-crafting, Metalsmithing, Scholaring, Tailoring, Weaponsmithing, and Woodworking). Iin essence, you can have three professions — but not any three. The game allows you to choose a single vocation, each allowing three of the possible professions. For example, the "Armsman" vocation can take up the Prospecting, Weaponsmithing, and Woodworking professions, while the "Historian" vocation can take up Farming, Scholaring, and Weaponsmithing.
Perhaps one of the most important features of MMORPGs these days is the Player versus Player, or PVP. Games like World of Warcraft brought such an advanced and enjoyable style of PvP to the genre that it is almost impossible to recreate without making it seem too forced. LotRO's form of Player versus Player is called "Monster Play." At all of the main cities around the world, you can use a Fel Scrying Pool, which enables you to choose from a handful of different monsters — spiders, goblins, and more — all starting at level 50, and enter the area called The Ettenmoors. This is a level 50 area, so your monsters will be on equalt footing with any level 50 players.
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You use your monster to fight NPCs and other players' main characters, all while collecting "Destiny Points." These Destiny Points can later be applied to your actual character to create brief time-based perks and bonuses, including an increase to experience gain, speed, and other cool little features. The PvP seems fun, but unfortunately, since LotRO just came out, there weren't many (or even any) level 50 players when I played this. Because of this, I cannot truly discuss the enjoyment of PvP or any balance issues I saw. It does seem to be very fun and different, though.
Another sought-after element of MMORPGs is the end-game Player versus Environment, or end-game raiding. As of now, raiding is non-existent, like it is with most new MMORPGs, but June 13th is just around the corner and marks the first content updated for LotRO. Entitled "Book 9: Shores of Evendim," the content update will feature the entire new area of Evendim, including over 100 new quests and the first raid dungeon: Battle for Helegrod, a raid demanding 24 players in order to succeed. It sounds very entertaining, and will no doubt rank up in the enjoyment of raiding in comparison to other MMORPGs. The content update will also include new armor sets and tweaks and updates to the music system.
Speaking of the music system, that is another fun and interactive element to LotRO. The game features tons of instruments from flutes to bass, allowing you to sit around the tavern all day and amuse nearby visitors; maybe even earn some gold! In the upcoming patch, players will have the ability to compose music offline, upload it to their characters online and play the music they composed! LotRO truly is for both role-players and hardcore gamers alike, and the two balance equally, giving great quality and interaction while at the same time leaving options in the players' hands.
With a great launch and exciting features planned for the near and distant futures, Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is certainly the MMORPG of the year so far. Turbine has come out on top once again and proved that if "Lord of the Rings" could be turned into a successful MMORPG, they would be the ones to do it. That they did. Probably the biggest question about LotRO is, "Does LotRO have the potential to surpass World of Warcraft?" The answer is yes. Not only does LotRO take place in the world that created the fantasy theme, but the title is far more polished and ahead of any MMORPG during its release. Only a short time afterwards, Turbine is already releasing a large content update to prove that they are taking things seriously. LotRO is worth a try for anyone who is fans of Lord of the Rings or MMORPGs in general, and it would be your loss to not give it a whirl. In my opinion, Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is certainly, one of the best games to hit the shelves this year.
Di ambil dari http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchreview.asp?reviewid=783417
