Release Date: Playstation 3/Xbox 360: November 2009, PC: March 2010, Mac: EU: September 2010, NA: January 2011
Developed By: Ubisoft Montreal
Genre: Third-person Action-adventure
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Mac
Platform Reviewed: Playstation 3
Assassin's Creed 2 is the follow up to the original game of 2007. While the first game was generally well received for its unique assassin-em-up gameplay, many players cited repetition and blandness as its biggest shortcomings. The sequel aims to address this by cramming in as much flavour as possible to create a rich and exhilarating experience
It's advisable that you begin Assassin's Creed 2 with knowledge of the first game's plot. Either by playing through the original or reading a plot summary online, understanding certain elements that were introduced in Assassin's Creed is vital, as the sequel jumps straight into the story with very little explanation of what has transpired so far. Especially important is to know what the 'Animus' is, as newcomers to the series may be confused when they find themselves beginning the game as a character from present day rather than the assassin on the front of the game's case.
"How many of these things are there? ...Animuses? Animi?"
Assassins's Creed 2 continues to follow Desmond, a descendent of at least two assassins of the past. By entering the Matrix-esque Animus, Desmond is able to relive the memories of his ancestors to learn the locations of dangerous artifacts that his modern day enemies are seeking, as well as training him to become a skilled assassin himself. Upon entering the Animus, the story switches focus to 15th century Italy and a young man named Ezio Auditore, who finds himself wrapped up in a story of conspiracies and trains as an assassin in order to 'remove' those who seek power through murder and malice.
Engaging in Ezio's story is very enjoyable. It's the classic tale of a power struggle between corrupt political and religious figures and underdog freedom fighters. The game is structured into chapters in which you work with other characters to set up the assassination of one or more of the evil protagonists, concluding with the actual assassination itself. It introduces you to some characters you truly come to despise and lets you take their power away from them, along with their life. One might expect an assassin to be cold and soulless but Ezio is positively charming, cheeky and heroic. At no point does he show joy in his executions and he only kills those who have killed others. There's a fine line between a heroic assassin and a murderer and Ubisoft Montreal have pulled it off well. You're well aware that you're killing another human being but it always feels like every kill is justified and for the greater good.
Desmond, on the other hand, has next to no personality to speak of. It's clear that Ubisoft Montreal were trying to create a spin on a traditional assassin story by having someone from the present day relive memories of the past, but it feels entirely unnecessary. The story of Ezio is enjoyable enough that whenever the plot shifts back to present day, it's nothing more than an interruption. Occasionally, characters will also interject with hints while you're playing as Ezio, completely breaking the immersion. A game with a strong plot is supposed to make you forget that you're playing a game but here it almost feels like Desmond is playing a game himself. Thankfully, trips back to the present are infrequent so you do get to enjoy Ezio's story for the majority of the game. Still, it makes you wonder if the overall plot would have lost anything, or even been improved by, the absence of this odd story concept.
"I have plenty of outlets."
While there is the main story to follow, the game takes on a free roam style and offers you plenty of side quests to take part in. These are optional but they serve to break up the series of large scale assassinations with some variety. On offer are races over rooftops, courier missions, smaller assassination contracts and a plethora of treasure hunting with many collectables to find. Money can be earned by upgrading the Auditore family villa to bring in revenue which can then be spent on armour and weapon upgrades. Also of note are the assassin tombs that contain some of the more challenging climbing sections which eventually add the obstacle of timed doors and switches. The most interesting side quest involves locating glyphs left by another mysterious Animus user which unravels a completely separate side story and has you solving some fairly tricky Da Vinci Code style puzzles.
Controlling Ezio is mostly intuitive but can run into occasional issues. 15th century Italy has a conveniently traversable system of rooftops and simple free running controls allow you to glide along them with ease. This allows for some exciting chase scenes, intense stalking of targets in the streets below and is even just generally a more fun way to move around the city. All of the free running is bound to one context-sensitive button which keeps it from becoming too complex, but this is also where the problems come in. Holding the button to sprint also starts Ezio off on any climbable surface, so it can be frustrating when you're trying to give chase and you accidentally get too close to a wall, which Ezio then wastes time trying to climb up. It's also sometimes unclear which way you're aiming before performing a jump, which can result in Ezio leaping to his death for no apparent reason. These issues don't come up often enough to be a major problem but there's definite room for improvement.
The combat is also kept simple, using the standard lock-on, block and counter system that many third-person action games have employed in the past. Countering is a case of watching your enemies' movements and correctly timing your button presses. Attacks can also be dodged leaving your enemies open to your own attacks and there a few other neat tricks such as disarming foes and using their own weapons against them. The combat works well and allows you to slaughter hordes of guards like a pro but the simplicity is, unfortunately, its downfall. The problem is that the fights never increase in difficulty as the game progresses. You'll always be fighting the same types of guards and the same methods can always be applied to defeat them. It gets to a point where, instead of sneaking around groups of guards, you just rush straight into them because you can expect it to be an easy encounter.
Not limited to just the combat, there are also a number of mechanics that are introduced in the early stages of the game that are never really put to full use. In one of the earlier chapters you learn how to blend in with crowds to avoid the attention of guards when they're on high alert. Any less-than-legal actions you perform raise your notoriety in the city. Become notorious enough and the guards will start to look out for you which is when the blending comes in handy. It's odd, then, that you can play through the majority of the game without ever getting to this point. When your notoriety even slightly increases you get the option of tearing down wanted posters and bribing heralds to lower it. It's easy to keep your notoriety low enough that the blending mechanic is never really used outside of a few of the more sneaky plot assassinations. It's a shame as it had the potential to be a refreshing take on stealthy gameplay.
"To test it you would have to leap off a tower. Who would be mad enough to do a thing like that?"
What the game lacks in challenge, it makes up in style. This is an extremely well presented game that creates a great atmosphere of a bustling 15th century Italian city. Crowds of people go about their daily business and react suitably to your actions. Start climbing walls and they'll comment on how crazy they think you are. They'll gather round and watch any scraps you get into, but take an apprehensive step back if you try to approach them afterwards. Bards will run up to you and sing of your fame. All of these nice little touches work together to give the feeling of a living, breathing city. This is complimented by rich background noise, with the sound of people chattering which has a great effect of echoing off the walls when you're up on the rooftops.
The cities themselves are beautiful, boasting some intricate architecture. Climb to the top of one of the taller buildings and you get a really good sense of the sheer scale of the city. The highest points of the city can be used to survey the surrounding area and fill in a section of your map. Activate one of these viewpoints and the camera pans out and almost seems like it's showing off just how far you can see.
The script is well written, often witty and is accompanied by some exceptional voice acting. It makes a nice change that the accents reflect the setting of the game, unlike in past games where it's believed that everyone in the world (Persia, for instance...) had a 'British' accent in the middle ages. The game can be played with either an English or full Italian voice track. Even in the English voice track the accents are Italian and the characters switch between both languages frequently. Generally, the main exposition is in English and can sometimes be followed by personal speech expressing emotion in Italian. It never feels forced and only adds to the authenticity of the character.
"Nothing is true; everything is permitted."
Assassin's Creed 2 favours style over challenge. While players aren't going to have a hard time getting through the game, it's still a joy to play throughout. This a game well suited to completionists due to the large amount of things to do, even after the main game is completed. It's clear a lot of work has gone into making you feel like a skilled assassin of Renaissance Italy and it's definitely paid off.
Rating: 8/10
Saturday 30 April 2011
Wednesday 27 April 2011
That PSN Thing
Today I went to the bank to cancel my debit card and have a new one sent to me. Last night I spent some time changing passwords and security questions in accounts that I intend to keep secure. The reason I took these precautions is not because I've replied to phishing emails or clicked any malicious links (as far as I know); I did this because I'm signed up to, and have made regular use of, Sony's Playstation Network.
This is a service that, until now, hadn't even crossed my mind as having potential security issues. I felt safe entering my debit card details to purchase downloadable games and content. I felt safe entering my Facebook username and password to use some of its integration with PSN. Had I got round to trying it out, I would've felt safe logging into Lovefilm or any other services that required a username and password. I picked a strong, unique password when I signed up to PSN and I set up security questions which I could be certain were unanswerable to any unsavoury types attempting to break into my account. I did everything I could to keep my account safe and yet, all of my personal details stored on it have now been compromised.
In case you haven't been following the news, PSN was shut down on Wednesday last week and is, as of now, still suspended. Until yesterday, Sony had very little communication with the gaming public, only muttering the words "external intrusion" and stating that they were working on getting PSN back up and running as soon as possible. After almost a week, Sony finally made a statement on the situation, revealing that PSN users' personal information had been stolen by an "unauthorized person". This includes name, date of birth, address, password, answers to security questions and, potentially, credit/debit card details.
This brings up two questions:
1. Why did it take almost a week for Sony to warn users of the theft of their personal details?
2. Why was this possible in the first place?
Sony has answered the first question by explaining that they've been investigating the extent of the intrusion and had only come to the conclusion that personal information had been compromised shortly before announcing it. They wanted to be sure that this was the case before informing users as to the situation.
When sensitive information that can lead to fraud and identity theft is at stake, one should always assume the worst. It's clear that Sony were aware that there had been a potential intrusion right from the moment they shut PSN down. Any kind of unauthorised access into a system puts all of its data immediately at potential risk of theft. While Sony claims that they didn't know that personal information had been stolen, they also couldn't have been certain that it hadn't.
The warning to PSN users along with the advice on how to avoid the consequences of a compromised account should have been made clear from the moment Sony became aware of the intrusion. Yes, this would still have angered many as it still leaves question 2 unanswered, but by leaving it a week, users now have even more reason to be frustrated. A week is a dangerously long time to have a compromised credit or debit card available for use or any other personal information open to an unauthorised person for attempted identity theft.
The second question is not asking how this happened as that can only be answered with speculation at the present time. What is extremely worrying about this whole situation is that it happened at all. We rely on systems such as PSN all the time, making purchases with credit and debit cards and giving away personal data in order to prove our identity. We do the same when using Steam, Xbox Live, Amazon, Paypal and so on. As these services are handling such sensitive data, we assume that security is the number one priority of the companies that run them. The theft of this data can be catastrophic.
PSN should be an impenetrable fortress. Even when hackers do find their way in, sensitive data should not be so readily available as it appears to have been here. It shouldn't have been possible for this to go as far as it has.
Sony has a lot of damage control ahead. Their consumers are shaken; it's difficult to feel anything but concerned about the security of PSN or any of Sony's online services. Even with Sony working to rebuild PSN and tighten its security, the feeling that this could happen again in future isn't going to be easily shaken off. Until this incident I've had nothing but praise for the Playstation 3 and I'll still continue to enjoy the console and its online integration long after this has been resolved, albeit with a little more of a cautious attitude. However, like many others I'm very disappointed in the way this has been handled.
This is a service that, until now, hadn't even crossed my mind as having potential security issues. I felt safe entering my debit card details to purchase downloadable games and content. I felt safe entering my Facebook username and password to use some of its integration with PSN. Had I got round to trying it out, I would've felt safe logging into Lovefilm or any other services that required a username and password. I picked a strong, unique password when I signed up to PSN and I set up security questions which I could be certain were unanswerable to any unsavoury types attempting to break into my account. I did everything I could to keep my account safe and yet, all of my personal details stored on it have now been compromised.
In case you haven't been following the news, PSN was shut down on Wednesday last week and is, as of now, still suspended. Until yesterday, Sony had very little communication with the gaming public, only muttering the words "external intrusion" and stating that they were working on getting PSN back up and running as soon as possible. After almost a week, Sony finally made a statement on the situation, revealing that PSN users' personal information had been stolen by an "unauthorized person". This includes name, date of birth, address, password, answers to security questions and, potentially, credit/debit card details.
This brings up two questions:
1. Why did it take almost a week for Sony to warn users of the theft of their personal details?
2. Why was this possible in the first place?
Sony has answered the first question by explaining that they've been investigating the extent of the intrusion and had only come to the conclusion that personal information had been compromised shortly before announcing it. They wanted to be sure that this was the case before informing users as to the situation.
When sensitive information that can lead to fraud and identity theft is at stake, one should always assume the worst. It's clear that Sony were aware that there had been a potential intrusion right from the moment they shut PSN down. Any kind of unauthorised access into a system puts all of its data immediately at potential risk of theft. While Sony claims that they didn't know that personal information had been stolen, they also couldn't have been certain that it hadn't.
The warning to PSN users along with the advice on how to avoid the consequences of a compromised account should have been made clear from the moment Sony became aware of the intrusion. Yes, this would still have angered many as it still leaves question 2 unanswered, but by leaving it a week, users now have even more reason to be frustrated. A week is a dangerously long time to have a compromised credit or debit card available for use or any other personal information open to an unauthorised person for attempted identity theft.
The second question is not asking how this happened as that can only be answered with speculation at the present time. What is extremely worrying about this whole situation is that it happened at all. We rely on systems such as PSN all the time, making purchases with credit and debit cards and giving away personal data in order to prove our identity. We do the same when using Steam, Xbox Live, Amazon, Paypal and so on. As these services are handling such sensitive data, we assume that security is the number one priority of the companies that run them. The theft of this data can be catastrophic.
PSN should be an impenetrable fortress. Even when hackers do find their way in, sensitive data should not be so readily available as it appears to have been here. It shouldn't have been possible for this to go as far as it has.
Sony has a lot of damage control ahead. Their consumers are shaken; it's difficult to feel anything but concerned about the security of PSN or any of Sony's online services. Even with Sony working to rebuild PSN and tighten its security, the feeling that this could happen again in future isn't going to be easily shaken off. Until this incident I've had nothing but praise for the Playstation 3 and I'll still continue to enjoy the console and its online integration long after this has been resolved, albeit with a little more of a cautious attitude. However, like many others I'm very disappointed in the way this has been handled.
Sunday 24 April 2011
This Week, I 'Ave Been Mostly Playing... (24/04/2011)
In an effort to add an extra nugget of content per week, I thought I'd start posting an update of what I've been playing during the last 7 days, hopefully every Sunday. Since I don't really have the time to finish games quickly enough to post reviews every week, it'll give me a chance to talk a little more about the games I'm playing, whether I've finished them or not.
Assassin's Creed 2
I've been playing this for a few weeks now and just finished it off this afternoon. I'll be posting a full review this week so I'll have plenty to say about it then but for now, I'll say that I've enjoyed it.
I have the complete edition which includes codes to get both sets of DLC, so I downloaded and installed them shortly after I began playing the game. It turns out that, because they take place chronologically before the end of the game, by having them installed it becomes mandatory to complete them both before you can progress to the final chapter of the main game. I understand that this allows players of the complete edition to experience the full story in the correct order but since I've never come across DLC that wasn't optional before, I found myself with a few unexpected extra hours of gameplay to get through when I was at the point of feeling ready to finish the game.
Nevertheless, I'm glad I got to enjoy the story in chronological order. After the credits rolled I jumped straight back in to grab some more trophies. They all look to be fairly easy to accomplish; I only have a couple of optional sections to get through and a few collection quests to complete and I'll have my platinum trophy. It doesn't seem to be the most challenging platinum to get.
I'm sure there'll be more than a few raised eyebrows when a Facebook update of me getting the trophy "Spend 5000 florins on Courtesans" pops up in the news feed.
Portal 2
It was such a lucky coincidence that Portal 2 was released during my week off. I can't imagine how I'd have felt, having to sit at work, wondering what was coming next in the story and not being able to find out. Obviously I can't say much about it without spoiling anything but I will say that this game has had me grinning all week.
I finished the single player on Thursday and jumped into the co-op last night. The potential for trolling is immense, which I unfortunately found out the hard way as I was plunged into the murky pool of instant death time and time again. I'm looking forward to carrying on with that and I'll write a full review when the co-op is complete.
Final Fantasy XIII
I finally loaded up my save to get stuck into all the missions I left unfinished, which was most of them. I seem to have been a little overpowered for the missions I've done so far but with 40 or so to go, I'm sure I'll be filling my pockets with phoenix down before too long.
There's an awful lot of running from place to place while you're tackling the missions, though that's become less of an issue now that I've unlocked chocobos and the majority of waystones. I feel the map could be a little more helpful though. For starters, it's annoying that the main map rotates with you as it makes it difficult to tell which way North is. There's also no real indication of where each exit from the current area will take you. I'm sure this'll improve as I get used to the layout but for now, I'm getting a little lost every now and then.
The Sims 3
Yes, it has me once again. I recently got the Ambitions expansion, so I've been working my way up through the ghost hunting career path. By night, Harold Spengler is a ghost hunter extraordinaire, ridding the town of evil poltergeists that terrorise citizens with their diabolical floating of furniture. By day, Harold likes to pass the time by upgrading his toilet, perfecting his Ratatouille recipe, playing chess with his hydrophobic girlfriend and crafting small toy cows out of scrap. Yes, The Sims truly allows you to play out that alternate life you never had.
Assassin's Creed 2
I've been playing this for a few weeks now and just finished it off this afternoon. I'll be posting a full review this week so I'll have plenty to say about it then but for now, I'll say that I've enjoyed it.
I have the complete edition which includes codes to get both sets of DLC, so I downloaded and installed them shortly after I began playing the game. It turns out that, because they take place chronologically before the end of the game, by having them installed it becomes mandatory to complete them both before you can progress to the final chapter of the main game. I understand that this allows players of the complete edition to experience the full story in the correct order but since I've never come across DLC that wasn't optional before, I found myself with a few unexpected extra hours of gameplay to get through when I was at the point of feeling ready to finish the game.
Nevertheless, I'm glad I got to enjoy the story in chronological order. After the credits rolled I jumped straight back in to grab some more trophies. They all look to be fairly easy to accomplish; I only have a couple of optional sections to get through and a few collection quests to complete and I'll have my platinum trophy. It doesn't seem to be the most challenging platinum to get.
I'm sure there'll be more than a few raised eyebrows when a Facebook update of me getting the trophy "Spend 5000 florins on Courtesans" pops up in the news feed.
Portal 2
It was such a lucky coincidence that Portal 2 was released during my week off. I can't imagine how I'd have felt, having to sit at work, wondering what was coming next in the story and not being able to find out. Obviously I can't say much about it without spoiling anything but I will say that this game has had me grinning all week.
I finished the single player on Thursday and jumped into the co-op last night. The potential for trolling is immense, which I unfortunately found out the hard way as I was plunged into the murky pool of instant death time and time again. I'm looking forward to carrying on with that and I'll write a full review when the co-op is complete.
Final Fantasy XIII
I finally loaded up my save to get stuck into all the missions I left unfinished, which was most of them. I seem to have been a little overpowered for the missions I've done so far but with 40 or so to go, I'm sure I'll be filling my pockets with phoenix down before too long.
There's an awful lot of running from place to place while you're tackling the missions, though that's become less of an issue now that I've unlocked chocobos and the majority of waystones. I feel the map could be a little more helpful though. For starters, it's annoying that the main map rotates with you as it makes it difficult to tell which way North is. There's also no real indication of where each exit from the current area will take you. I'm sure this'll improve as I get used to the layout but for now, I'm getting a little lost every now and then.
The Sims 3
Yes, it has me once again. I recently got the Ambitions expansion, so I've been working my way up through the ghost hunting career path. By night, Harold Spengler is a ghost hunter extraordinaire, ridding the town of evil poltergeists that terrorise citizens with their diabolical floating of furniture. By day, Harold likes to pass the time by upgrading his toilet, perfecting his Ratatouille recipe, playing chess with his hydrophobic girlfriend and crafting small toy cows out of scrap. Yes, The Sims truly allows you to play out that alternate life you never had.
Friday 22 April 2011
Games for Downtime
Gaming is a hobby. Unless you've managed to incorporate gaming into your career, it's something you do in your free time. Depending on how the day has gone for you, you can find yourself in different moods each time you sit down to begin a gaming session. You could be ready to jump into the main game you've got on the go with some real progression in mind. At other times, however, you've had a long, stressful day at work and your mind is frazzled. You still want to play something but you just don't think you have the mental capacity to face the unknown challenges that await you in your main on-the-go game. For this type of mood you need games that truly allow you some downtime.
Games that are most suitable for this are any that have a large amount of re-playability. Repeat visits to a game allow you to develop a sense of familiarity, such that the mechanics are well known enough that playing comes naturally. There's nothing new to learn and you mostly know what to expect, so a little less brain power is required to pick up the game and start playing.
There has to be enough content to make it worth coming back to. Playing through a story-based game with a beginning and end, that you've finished previously, may entertain on the first or even second play-through but eventually it just won't be enough as everything will become too predictable. What you need is something open-ended.
Generally it's more desirable if the game is mostly simple. When you're in this state of having your mind close to melting point, it's best not to make it worse by trying to deal with complex systems or frustrating sections that require no less than perfect play. The exception, of course, is if it's a game that's complex but you're so highly skilled at it that playing is second nature.
There are plenty of games out there that meet these criteria but here are a few examples of games that are great for downtime.
The Sims 3
The guilty pleasure of many gamers and one that makes little sense on paper. Why would you want to spend your Saturday afternoon playing a game that involves life when that's the very thing you're trying to escape? The most probable answer is that it's life simplified for your enjoyment. All you need to do is give the orders and your Sim will follow them while you sit back and watch them slave away.
It's difficult to explain how The Sims gets its claws in. Whatever the reason, it doesn't take much to become completely enthralled. Since you spend most of your time queuing up actions for your Sim to carry out and then watching as they do so, it's a very easy-going game. Other than making sure your Sim is happy and healthy, what you do in The Sims 3 is entirely optional meaning you can be involved as much or as little as you like.
The addiction comes so naturally that it's easy to just give in and let it take several hours from you. Not only are you attending to your Sim's basic needs such as hunger, hygiene and calls of nature, he or she needs to be constantly improving their skills and
relationships to keep moving up the career ladder towards a higher
salary. Add to that the random opportunities that come up, offering you
the tempting reward of more cash, plus a handful of skills that
introduce further actions as your Sim becomes more proficient in them,
and what you have is a reward system that gives you a reason to engage
in as many activities as possible while your Sim is awake.
Little Big Planet 2
Sony recently announced that there are now over 4 million user-made levels available in Little Big Planet 2. While it's true that the majority of these will be of questionable quality, there are some real gems out there and even the levels that aren't particularly ground-breaking can still be highly enjoyable. Repeat visits will always bring something new, keeping the game fresh for what could be many months or even years to come. With options to filter by genre or the specific mechanics you're interested in, it's
easy to build up a list of levels to sink your teeth in to.
Little Big Planet 2 has an ideal premise for a downtime game. Each level tends to last no more than 10 minutes and the well made ones are very easy to get into from the start. Even now that the game has expanded so that it includes more than just
platforming, the top creators seem to have a knack for creating levels
that you instinctively know how to play from the get-go. In a way it's a collection of mini-games, which are great for the exhausted mind as there's absolutely no commitment required. Regardless of whether you play for 30 minutes or 2 hours, you're still going to get a lot out of this brilliant
example of a pick-up-and-play game.
Torchlight
Until Diablo 3 is released, Torchlight is the most up-to-date Diablo-esque experience you'll find. Dungeon crawlers such as this are great when it's addictive simplicity you're looking for. Gameplay involves running around dungeons, killing hordes of beasts and demons and reaping rewards of gold and gear. The combat generally boils down to right-clicking on whatever you want to die (or pressing the "kill stuff" button on consoles) along with pressing a couple of hotkeys (or buttons) to switch to different spells or abilities to assist in your dealing of death and destruction. Since you usually have a few 'signature' abilities you use repeatedly, the combat is easy to get into without causing any headaches.
The best part is, Torchlight pleases your mind with a constant flow of rewards. Your character's armour and weapons will continuously improve as you play and once you figure out that there's every chance of a truly epic sword or chest-piece dropping from the next creature you kill, you'll find it difficult to stop. Right-clicking on things has never been so lucrative.
Civilization V
This might seem out of place in a list of games that are simple and easy to pick up as the Civilization series is known for its complex tactical and management-based gameplay. However, one of the great things about turn-based games is that the player gets to set their own pace. In the Civilization games, you have as much time as you like to move your units, decide on buildings to construct and manage your worker distribution. It's true that there's a lot of strategic thinking involved but this is one of those games where the ability to play well eventually comes naturally. The lower levels of difficulty are not particularly taxing and it's here that beginners can practice different strategies to figure out what works well and what doesn't with less consequence than in higher difficulty modes. As players improve they'll find themselves comfortably moving up to higher difficulty levels.
Specifically, Civilization V is much friendlier to newcomers than any of the previous games in the series as much has been done to streamline the gameplay and remove the more demanding and unnecessary aspects of micro-management that may have deterred players in the past.
World of Warcraft
There are some parts of World of Warcraft that certainly aren't for soothing a fatigued mind. Partaking in group activities, such as dungeons, raids and battlegrounds, aren't recommended when your concentration is lacking. The best way to enjoy WoW when you're in this state of mind is to level a character. The simple routine of picking up some quests, killing so many of a certain creature, collecting so many of a certain item and returning to the quest giver for rewards can be very therapeutic.
If you prefer to stick to your main level 85 character, there's plenty of solo-activity to enjoy in the end-game too. Opening up the achievements panel can reveal a variety of goals to inspire you. Some of these, such as seeking out critters or exploring zones, aren't going to be causing you any migraines. This is also the time to take care of any of the more mundane achievements. For example, you can set your character down at the Dalaran fountain and let your mind wander into daydream as you fish up all the coins.
Any RPG With an End-Game
Just as in World of Warcraft, RPGs tend to include an end-game where certain mundane tasks might be standing in the way of further achievements or trophies. The main tasks usually involve grinding for experience or farming for items and gear that will eventually allow you to take on the game's most difficult optional bosses. Once again, you can drift off as you slog through a few hundred enemies and come out of it feeling satisfied with the rewards gained.
Feel free to comment with any games you enjoy in your gaming downtime!
Monday 18 April 2011
Review: Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
Release Date: XLA: November 17, 2010, PSN: NA: November 23, 2010, EU: November 24, 2010
Developed By: Namco Bandai
Genre: Arcade
Platforms: Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network
Platform Reviewed: Playstation Network
"Wakka wakka wakka wakka" - Pac-Man
Revivals of classic games are not an uncommon thing. There have been plenty of attempts to bring retro games, such as Space Invaders and Asteroids, to modern consoles throughout each generation. Developers have a difficult task on their hands because adding too many new features can detract from whatever made the game a classic in the first place, while not adding enough can result in a game that's too similar to the original to make it worth revisiting. The planets must have aligned when Namco Bandai were developing Pac-Man Championship Edition DX because this is one case where the revival has been a complete success.
A Nutritious Diet of Dots and Fruit
As usual, this latest Pac-Man game has our hero navigating a maze, eating trails of dots and avoiding the evil ghosts which seek to undo him. Power pellets can be eaten to temporarily change the ghosts into a blue and edible form. That sounds like Pac-Man, right? What if I told you, then, that you'll be bolting around at blazing speeds while being chased by a train of 10, 20 or even 30 ghosts? It sounds crazy but it's exactly what you're letting yourself in for.
On beginning a game you're presented with two lines of dots. Eating the dots from one side of the maze will cause a higher scoring item, such as a fruit, to appear on the other side. Eating this bonus item will create a fresh path of dots on the other side of the maze. In some ways the game bears similarities to a rhythm game, as the way to a high score is to follow these pre-set paths of dots and fruit in as optimal a fashion as possible. With practice you begin to memorise the fastest way to complete each path and you gain the quick reactions needed to move onto the next one smoothly.
Speed is the name of the game here, as both of the main game modes have you racing against the clock. These consist of Score Attack, in which you have a set amount of time to score as many points as possible and Time Attack, where the aim is to eat a certain amount of fruit in as little time as possible. With your scores and best times then being posted to a global high score table and a ranking given based on your standing (Rank A for being in the top 20%, rank B for being in the top 40%, and so on), the addiction sets in as you try time and time again to perfect each maze and move up the scoreboard.
Hunted and Haunted
Of course, the ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde return to make things difficult for Pac-Man as they move around the maze, toying with him, breaking him down mentally by inducing deep paranoia before going in for the kill. While you may be trying to follow the optimal path of dots, Clyde can suddenly cross your path and throw you right off the trail and wasting you valuable seconds.
The most interesting and ultimately satisfying new element is the new type of ghost that sleeps in a certain part of the maze and awakens to give chase when Pac-Man rushes by. Several of these ghosts are dotted about the maze and more appear with each new path of dots revealed. Eventually you end up with a massive train of ghosts following closely behind until you grab your next power pellet and reach the pinnacle of gratification this game has to offer. Having Pac-Man chomp his way through a string of 20 or more ghosts is a sight to behold and may go down in history as one of the best examples of the phrase "revenge is sweet." Each ghost you eat is worth a large amount of points which increases as you eat more ghosts in succession. So, not only are you trying to eat dots and fruit as fast as you can, you're also passing by as many sleeping ghosts as possible in order to create a long trail of spirits to feast on when the time is right. There's plenty to be paying attention to.
Thankfully, Pac-Man has a new weapon to deter the ghosts; bombs. When used, bombs hurl every ghost to the centre of the maze allowing you to continue on your way unharmed. When a ghost is getting a little too close, the game slows down to a crawl, bullet-time style, to allow you to make the decision of fight (bomb) or flight. Don't misjudge this as a way to make the game easier, as each bomb you use reduces your speed, temporarily lowers the point value of dots and renders you unable to add more ghosts to your train until it catches up to you again.
"Blang blang blang BLANG BLANG BLANG" - Pac-Man, Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
The entire experience is enhanced by the brightness, loudness and sheer speed of the game. Whizzing around a maze of bright, neon colour with some fast paced music constantly reminding you that the clock is ticking and a gradual increase in Pac-Man's movement speed throughout make for some adrenaline fueled, sweaty-palm inducing gaming sessions. If you weren't so tightly holding on to the controller you'd be punching your fist in the air as the extremely emphatic sound of a long train of ghosts being devoured blasts out of your speakers. Everything about the presentation of this game wants you to keep your eyes wide open and darting about the screen. It wants to make you feel like the greatest Pac-Man player who ever lived every single time you play and it does so spectacularly.
More Pac-Man Than You Can Shake a Joystick At
There's little fault to be found here. Replays of high scoring players can be viewed for the 5 minute Score Attack mode and it would have been nice to see replays of the other modes too. Apart from that, the only thing that could improve the game is more of everything it already has, which says a lot about the high quality of the existing content.
The game certainly isn't lacking in content though, with 8 maze variations, several distinct graphical styles to choose from for both the mazes and character sprites and extra modes such as a challenge to eat as many ghosts as possible in the duration of one power pellet. Since the enjoyment of the game comes from perfecting your dot scoffing skill there's more than enough here to keep you jumping back in time and time again.
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is an excellent example of what makes services such as Xbox Live Arcade and PSN great as it balances complexity and simplicity with competence in a pick-up-and-play game. This is an update that remains true to classic Pac-Man while successfully creating a fresh new experience that's easy to recommend to anyone.
Rating: 10/10
Developed By: Namco Bandai
Genre: Arcade
Platforms: Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network
Platform Reviewed: Playstation Network
"Wakka wakka wakka wakka" - Pac-Man
Revivals of classic games are not an uncommon thing. There have been plenty of attempts to bring retro games, such as Space Invaders and Asteroids, to modern consoles throughout each generation. Developers have a difficult task on their hands because adding too many new features can detract from whatever made the game a classic in the first place, while not adding enough can result in a game that's too similar to the original to make it worth revisiting. The planets must have aligned when Namco Bandai were developing Pac-Man Championship Edition DX because this is one case where the revival has been a complete success.
A Nutritious Diet of Dots and Fruit
As usual, this latest Pac-Man game has our hero navigating a maze, eating trails of dots and avoiding the evil ghosts which seek to undo him. Power pellets can be eaten to temporarily change the ghosts into a blue and edible form. That sounds like Pac-Man, right? What if I told you, then, that you'll be bolting around at blazing speeds while being chased by a train of 10, 20 or even 30 ghosts? It sounds crazy but it's exactly what you're letting yourself in for.
On beginning a game you're presented with two lines of dots. Eating the dots from one side of the maze will cause a higher scoring item, such as a fruit, to appear on the other side. Eating this bonus item will create a fresh path of dots on the other side of the maze. In some ways the game bears similarities to a rhythm game, as the way to a high score is to follow these pre-set paths of dots and fruit in as optimal a fashion as possible. With practice you begin to memorise the fastest way to complete each path and you gain the quick reactions needed to move onto the next one smoothly.
Speed is the name of the game here, as both of the main game modes have you racing against the clock. These consist of Score Attack, in which you have a set amount of time to score as many points as possible and Time Attack, where the aim is to eat a certain amount of fruit in as little time as possible. With your scores and best times then being posted to a global high score table and a ranking given based on your standing (Rank A for being in the top 20%, rank B for being in the top 40%, and so on), the addiction sets in as you try time and time again to perfect each maze and move up the scoreboard.
Hunted and Haunted
Of course, the ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde return to make things difficult for Pac-Man as they move around the maze, toying with him, breaking him down mentally by inducing deep paranoia before going in for the kill. While you may be trying to follow the optimal path of dots, Clyde can suddenly cross your path and throw you right off the trail and wasting you valuable seconds.
The most interesting and ultimately satisfying new element is the new type of ghost that sleeps in a certain part of the maze and awakens to give chase when Pac-Man rushes by. Several of these ghosts are dotted about the maze and more appear with each new path of dots revealed. Eventually you end up with a massive train of ghosts following closely behind until you grab your next power pellet and reach the pinnacle of gratification this game has to offer. Having Pac-Man chomp his way through a string of 20 or more ghosts is a sight to behold and may go down in history as one of the best examples of the phrase "revenge is sweet." Each ghost you eat is worth a large amount of points which increases as you eat more ghosts in succession. So, not only are you trying to eat dots and fruit as fast as you can, you're also passing by as many sleeping ghosts as possible in order to create a long trail of spirits to feast on when the time is right. There's plenty to be paying attention to.
Thankfully, Pac-Man has a new weapon to deter the ghosts; bombs. When used, bombs hurl every ghost to the centre of the maze allowing you to continue on your way unharmed. When a ghost is getting a little too close, the game slows down to a crawl, bullet-time style, to allow you to make the decision of fight (bomb) or flight. Don't misjudge this as a way to make the game easier, as each bomb you use reduces your speed, temporarily lowers the point value of dots and renders you unable to add more ghosts to your train until it catches up to you again.
"Blang blang blang BLANG BLANG BLANG" - Pac-Man, Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
The entire experience is enhanced by the brightness, loudness and sheer speed of the game. Whizzing around a maze of bright, neon colour with some fast paced music constantly reminding you that the clock is ticking and a gradual increase in Pac-Man's movement speed throughout make for some adrenaline fueled, sweaty-palm inducing gaming sessions. If you weren't so tightly holding on to the controller you'd be punching your fist in the air as the extremely emphatic sound of a long train of ghosts being devoured blasts out of your speakers. Everything about the presentation of this game wants you to keep your eyes wide open and darting about the screen. It wants to make you feel like the greatest Pac-Man player who ever lived every single time you play and it does so spectacularly.
More Pac-Man Than You Can Shake a Joystick At
There's little fault to be found here. Replays of high scoring players can be viewed for the 5 minute Score Attack mode and it would have been nice to see replays of the other modes too. Apart from that, the only thing that could improve the game is more of everything it already has, which says a lot about the high quality of the existing content.
The game certainly isn't lacking in content though, with 8 maze variations, several distinct graphical styles to choose from for both the mazes and character sprites and extra modes such as a challenge to eat as many ghosts as possible in the duration of one power pellet. Since the enjoyment of the game comes from perfecting your dot scoffing skill there's more than enough here to keep you jumping back in time and time again.
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is an excellent example of what makes services such as Xbox Live Arcade and PSN great as it balances complexity and simplicity with competence in a pick-up-and-play game. This is an update that remains true to classic Pac-Man while successfully creating a fresh new experience that's easy to recommend to anyone.
Rating: 10/10
Thursday 14 April 2011
Female Characters: What's the Difference Between Lara Croft and Commander Shepard?
I recently read an article over at 1up.com about the process of designing video game heroines such as Lightning of Final Fantasy XIII. Reading that the initial concept for Lightning was 'strong woman' got me thinking about the state of female characters in present games and how much has changed over the last couple of decades. How far have we come, though, if 'strong woman' can still exist as an archetype?
Part of the answer to that question is definitely “a long way.” There have always been strong female characters in games just as there have been in literature and film but around 20 years ago, there was a notable trend of 'damsel in distress' type characters. One of the original iconic female characters was Princess Peach of the Super Mario games. She literally was a damsel in distress and served no purpose other than to be captured by Bowser and later saved by Mario. I highly doubt that there are any negative underlying reasons for this as Nintendo were most likely following traditional fairy tale stories where a princess is rescued by a noble prince but with more and more games including a narrative at the time, many game designers chose not to go beyond this concept. For example, when the time came to introduce a female character to the Sonic the Hedgehog universe, we got a pink hedgehog in a skirt who got captured almost instantly and was about as much use as an inflatable pincushion.
The reason for this and the reason that you could argue still influences this topic today is most likely the target gaming audience. In the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, gaming was still attempting to break into the mainstream and was a pastime mostly enjoyed by young boys. Young boys don't care whether female characters have depth or not. Just point them in the direction of the castle she's being held in (perhaps along with the 7 she's not) and they'll be on their merry way.
Heroines for Hormones
This continued into the era of the Playstation and N64 where it seemed teenage boys became the main demographic publishers were aiming at. Reading the words 'strong woman' in regards to video games makes many instantly think of Lara Croft since she was designed to be tough. She conquered dangerous tombs and killed enough ferocious beasts to be barred from any PETA social occasions. Yet, she still came off as a marketing tool to teenage boys as she was ultra-thin with huge breasts that were ridiculously out of proportion. Another example is the game Fear Effect 2, of which the advertisement campaign featured scantily clad lesbians. It doesn't matter how important or unimportant to the story the relationship was, the ad campaign's message was clearly just “look! Two girls... together! Hot.”
The problem is that it's patronising. For those of us who like to be immersed in a rich narrative and aren't just looking for some explosions and eye-candy, we want our characters to be realistic and the examples discussed so far don't fit that description.
Thankfully, while Lara Croft was jiggling her way through various caves and temples, elsewhere, change was happening. A wider audience of people started to become interested in gaming and this included female players. Developers had to react and start introducing more complex female characters. A great example in which change can be observed is in the Legend of Zelda series. As with many games of the time, the first few Zelda games had the princess captured early on and she could do nothing but wait until the hero, Link, showed up to save the day. In Ocarina of Time on the N64, Princess Zelda played a much bigger role in the story. As a child it is her that comes up with the plan to stop the villain, Ganondorf, and sends Link off to do the grunt work. Later, she disguises herself as a ninja-esque character and manages to evade Ganondorf's clutch until close to the end. The difference here is incredible as for once the damsel is doing something to stop the distress.
Nobody's Perfect
One trap that character designers could have fallen into is making female characters too 'strong'. Though not to be taken seriously, Tanya from the Command and Conquer: Red Alert series is a good example of this. She's fierce, she's fearless, she's all business and she's completely one-dimensional. There was a real danger of characters like this becoming a trend as designers attempted to make their female characters stronger. Thankfully, this generally doesn't seem to be the case.
I admit that I was worried when beginning Final Fantasy XII that Lightning was going to be one of those unrealistic female characters whose only trait was 'strong'. At first she appeared to be little else than a soldier with extreme focus on the task at hand. It was a real treat to see Lightning develop beyond this. As her personality starts to influence Hope, she sees herself in him and realises that it's not the way she wants to live her life. We later learn that she was only acting this way because of her deep resolve to protect her sister. Interestingly, Snow, a male character, is motivated by the same thing and starts out with a personality that's the complete opposite of Lightning's. Both appear to have hardly any weaknesses but as time goes on, they are revealed to us and it turns out that the two characters are very similar to each other. So, even though Lightning began as an archetype she developed into a complex, and as a result, interesting character.
Gender is Not a Personality Trait
So what makes a good female character? It's any character whose personality traits don't include 'female'. Gender isn't a personality trait at all and we should only be seeing very subtle differences between male and female characters. 'Strong' and 'weak' should be avoided also, as any realistic character is both. Bastila Shan of Bioware's Knights of the Old Republic was a powerful Jedi with abilities that could turn the tide of a battle. But she was still human. She still had weaknesses and negative personality traits just as anyone else does despite being an all powerful Jedi. Compared to Lara Croft who's good at everything she does and was designed to be perfect, Bastila comes off as much more realistic.
Also of note is Commander Shepard of the Mass Effect games. As the player character you get to choose whether Shepard is male or female. While this does affect the love interests of the main character (which is to be expected), none of the story, Shepard's abilities or other characters' attitudes towards him/her are any different. This is the perfect example of a character whose gender is irrelevant. Whether male or female, Shepard is Shepard.
To Conclude
It's great that we're at a stage where we can mostly expect video characters to be intricate and intriguing regardless of gender. We still have some way to go while games like Dead or Alive attempt to set us back a couple of decades, but we've definitely left behind the days of helpless princesses. If games are to become as respected a medium as literature and film, this sort of evolution of plot and character writing is very important.
Part of the answer to that question is definitely “a long way.” There have always been strong female characters in games just as there have been in literature and film but around 20 years ago, there was a notable trend of 'damsel in distress' type characters. One of the original iconic female characters was Princess Peach of the Super Mario games. She literally was a damsel in distress and served no purpose other than to be captured by Bowser and later saved by Mario. I highly doubt that there are any negative underlying reasons for this as Nintendo were most likely following traditional fairy tale stories where a princess is rescued by a noble prince but with more and more games including a narrative at the time, many game designers chose not to go beyond this concept. For example, when the time came to introduce a female character to the Sonic the Hedgehog universe, we got a pink hedgehog in a skirt who got captured almost instantly and was about as much use as an inflatable pincushion.
The reason for this and the reason that you could argue still influences this topic today is most likely the target gaming audience. In the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, gaming was still attempting to break into the mainstream and was a pastime mostly enjoyed by young boys. Young boys don't care whether female characters have depth or not. Just point them in the direction of the castle she's being held in (perhaps along with the 7 she's not) and they'll be on their merry way.
Heroines for Hormones
This continued into the era of the Playstation and N64 where it seemed teenage boys became the main demographic publishers were aiming at. Reading the words 'strong woman' in regards to video games makes many instantly think of Lara Croft since she was designed to be tough. She conquered dangerous tombs and killed enough ferocious beasts to be barred from any PETA social occasions. Yet, she still came off as a marketing tool to teenage boys as she was ultra-thin with huge breasts that were ridiculously out of proportion. Another example is the game Fear Effect 2, of which the advertisement campaign featured scantily clad lesbians. It doesn't matter how important or unimportant to the story the relationship was, the ad campaign's message was clearly just “look! Two girls... together! Hot.”
The problem is that it's patronising. For those of us who like to be immersed in a rich narrative and aren't just looking for some explosions and eye-candy, we want our characters to be realistic and the examples discussed so far don't fit that description.
Thankfully, while Lara Croft was jiggling her way through various caves and temples, elsewhere, change was happening. A wider audience of people started to become interested in gaming and this included female players. Developers had to react and start introducing more complex female characters. A great example in which change can be observed is in the Legend of Zelda series. As with many games of the time, the first few Zelda games had the princess captured early on and she could do nothing but wait until the hero, Link, showed up to save the day. In Ocarina of Time on the N64, Princess Zelda played a much bigger role in the story. As a child it is her that comes up with the plan to stop the villain, Ganondorf, and sends Link off to do the grunt work. Later, she disguises herself as a ninja-esque character and manages to evade Ganondorf's clutch until close to the end. The difference here is incredible as for once the damsel is doing something to stop the distress.
Nobody's Perfect
One trap that character designers could have fallen into is making female characters too 'strong'. Though not to be taken seriously, Tanya from the Command and Conquer: Red Alert series is a good example of this. She's fierce, she's fearless, she's all business and she's completely one-dimensional. There was a real danger of characters like this becoming a trend as designers attempted to make their female characters stronger. Thankfully, this generally doesn't seem to be the case.
I admit that I was worried when beginning Final Fantasy XII that Lightning was going to be one of those unrealistic female characters whose only trait was 'strong'. At first she appeared to be little else than a soldier with extreme focus on the task at hand. It was a real treat to see Lightning develop beyond this. As her personality starts to influence Hope, she sees herself in him and realises that it's not the way she wants to live her life. We later learn that she was only acting this way because of her deep resolve to protect her sister. Interestingly, Snow, a male character, is motivated by the same thing and starts out with a personality that's the complete opposite of Lightning's. Both appear to have hardly any weaknesses but as time goes on, they are revealed to us and it turns out that the two characters are very similar to each other. So, even though Lightning began as an archetype she developed into a complex, and as a result, interesting character.
Gender is Not a Personality Trait
So what makes a good female character? It's any character whose personality traits don't include 'female'. Gender isn't a personality trait at all and we should only be seeing very subtle differences between male and female characters. 'Strong' and 'weak' should be avoided also, as any realistic character is both. Bastila Shan of Bioware's Knights of the Old Republic was a powerful Jedi with abilities that could turn the tide of a battle. But she was still human. She still had weaknesses and negative personality traits just as anyone else does despite being an all powerful Jedi. Compared to Lara Croft who's good at everything she does and was designed to be perfect, Bastila comes off as much more realistic.
Also of note is Commander Shepard of the Mass Effect games. As the player character you get to choose whether Shepard is male or female. While this does affect the love interests of the main character (which is to be expected), none of the story, Shepard's abilities or other characters' attitudes towards him/her are any different. This is the perfect example of a character whose gender is irrelevant. Whether male or female, Shepard is Shepard.
To Conclude
It's great that we're at a stage where we can mostly expect video characters to be intricate and intriguing regardless of gender. We still have some way to go while games like Dead or Alive attempt to set us back a couple of decades, but we've definitely left behind the days of helpless princesses. If games are to become as respected a medium as literature and film, this sort of evolution of plot and character writing is very important.
Saturday 9 April 2011
Achievements: There's Multiplayer in my Single-Player!
Achievements were one of the new additions to the current generation of gaming. They've been met with different reactions but you can't deny that warm feeling you get when that small message frame pops up in the corner of the screen to congratulate you on your efforts. It's like a pat on the back from your console or PC and depending on what's been achieved, the feeling can range from being paraded through the streets with crowds cheering at your valiant triumph to being told “Hey, good job there!” with a metaphorical hand ruffling your hair.
The introduction of achievements came out of online functionality becoming standard for consoles. This is because achievements are primarily a multiplayer device. Playing the games and working towards the goals required to unlock achievements is most certainly a single-player experience, even in multiplayer games (since in the end, it's you as an individual that gains the achievement). However, all of these achievements go towards building a profile that all your friends can view and compare to their own. That profile is a multiplayer game, more commonly known as a meta-game due to it taking place outside of the video game itself.
Whether you play games together with your friends or you each stick to single-player, most achievement systems allow you to compete with each other as rivals. It's not just friends either. Complete strangers can view your profile and find out how much better or worse you are at their favourite game.
It's this multiplayer aspect that has brought about several different achievement systems, each with unique ideas. The individual achievements themselves may remain the same across systems but the end-result can be very different.
Xbox Live - Gamerscore
The Xbox 360's achievements system is based on a concept that has been familiar with gamers of all generations; the score. Gamers playing Xbox 360 games earn points for every achievement they unlock. Depending on the difficulty of the achievement, the number of points earned can vary. The meta-game here is a high-score table that ranks you, your friends and other Xbox Live gamers against each other. Competition is then brought on as seeing your rivals hovering above you in score can be a great motivation to grab some more points.
One advantage here is that it's possible for many types of gamers to earn similar scores in their own way. It is entirely possible for gamers that play a lot of games, but only stick to the main path, to earn as high a score as someone who likes to focus on a smaller handful of games at a time, with the aim of full completion in mind. It allows for a wide range of gamers to compete with each other while still enjoying games in the way that suits them.
One of the dangers of having each developer be responsible for the achievements in their games is that they could be too generous or harsh with the amount of points offered. Thankfully, every game has the same amount of total points on offer. This means that a full completion of the game will always result in the same reward. On the other hand, this does not affect the difficulty of each individual achievement and it is still possible for a developer to make full completion a huge task compared to in other games, thanks to a few fiendishly difficult or massively time-consuming objectives.
Overall, this is a system that focuses heavily on the total score gained by each gamer with less emphasis on the individual achievements. Simplicity is the strength here as one total score is the easiest way of comparing and competing with others you're going to find.
Playstation Network - Trophies
Unlocking achievements in PS3 games awards you with trophies of bronze, silver, gold and platinum. At first this may seem like it's just another way to represent varying degrees of success just as the differing amount of points for each achievement on the Xbox 360 does. The difference here is that there is no total score. Instead, you're assigned an RPG-esque level, starting at level 1, with each trophy gained contributing experience that progresses you towards the next level. Since the amount of experience needed to reach the next level increases each time you level up and you only ever see your experience as a percentage of your current level, the emphasis is eventually placed on the quality of the trophy gained as a gold trophy will award you with much more experience than a bronze one.
This is how the PS3 drives players towards completing the more difficult achievements. Even if you're not looking at level, to see a nice collection of gold and platinum trophies is satisfying when they've been earned by you and impressive when they belong to someone else. Along with this, full game completion can still be a priority for many as this is the only way to earn the coveted platinum trophies.
As with the Xbox 360 system it's very possible for trophies to be too easy or too hard. More specifically, the issue here is that developers may have conflicting ideas about what constitutes the difficulty gap between each level of trophy. One such example is that progressing the story in the early stages of Batman: Arkham Asylum awards you with bronze trophies, whereas the rewards for this in Assassin's Creed 2 are silver trophies. Thankfully, gold trophies are rarely handed out for anything but the best achievements.
This is a system that may not appeal as much to those who are only looking to beat the main path of their games as they just won't be able to keep up with players who go after the gold trophies. For the completionists, however, the gleam of those gold and platinum trophies is difficult to resist. The race to the next level or a milestone amount of platinum trophies can create fierce competition amongst gamer friends.
PC and Steam
It is unfortunate that while consoles have across-the-board achievements systems that include every game released since they were put into place, the PC does not have something similar. Individual games may contain achievements and some developers are putting systems in place that include their own games, but without something as unified as those found on consoles, achievement competition is difficult to find amongst PC gamers.
One of the closest things we have is Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Steam includes games from a wide variety of developers and offers community tools similar to those of Xbox Live or PSN along with achievements. It's much more basic, however, as there's no form of reward for earning achievements. You do have an activity feed which shows achievements recently earned by your friends and it is possible to compare specific games with them, so it appears that the emphasis is on individual achievements here.
The main feature of note is something that isn't included in the likes of Xbox Live or PSN but still promotes mass competition. Steam allows you to view global statistics for each game, providing a percentage of players that have completed each achievement. This means that the meta-game on Steam has you competing with the world. The achievements with a lower percentage of player completion will always seem the most illustrious and serious achievement hunters won't be satisfied until they are successful in a part of a game that 95% of players were not.
The Future of Achievements
It's difficult to predict how achievement systems are going to evolve. On the one hand, it would make sense if they each borrowed ideas from others resulting in similar but feature rich systems. However, Sony and Microsoft are going to have to consider the possibility of carrying achievements and trophies over to their next generation of consoles. With our profiles we now have a visual representation of all the many hours we've put into our games. To have all our hard earned achievements and trophies be forgotten once we move on to newer consoles is not going to sit well with many. The best way to do this may be to just continue using the existing achievement systems and extending them to the next generation of consoles.
Nintendo has so far decided not to employ an achievement system and this has persisted with the recent release of the 3DS. They have their reasons (discussion of which is probably best left for another article) but it's a shame that owners of Nintendo consoles are missing out on the meta-game, especially when the Wii was so named for its promotion of playing together with friends. For now, gamers will have to be content with personal satisfaction when collecting every heart piece.
To Sum Up
Achievements have a brought a new level of community to gamers and have allowed us to play together outside of the game. In this current generation, gamers have more reason than ever to go back to completed games and seek out all the secret items, beat all of the ultra-difficult bosses and even pull off random stunts that game developers think you might be entertained by. It might sound like a situation of “dance puppets, dance”, and perhaps you'd be right to think so. Is that so wrong? Game developers spent valuable working hours hiding away each of those 100 collectables and balancing that near-impossible but ultimately beatable secret boss. It's only fair that they're given the tools required to tempt us into exploring this extra content.
Is it shameful that the motivation for achievements developers have latched onto is the drive to be better than your friends? Perhaps not. To feel this way in our day to day life is not a likeable trait as it can result in snobbishness. Video games allow us to indulge in feelings that we may unconsciously suppress otherwise. Just as it's okay to enjoy a bit of mindless violence in these imaginary worlds, it's perfectly normal to relish in the feeling of superiority every now and then.
Go grab your next platinum trophy and show everyone how awesome at games you are.
The introduction of achievements came out of online functionality becoming standard for consoles. This is because achievements are primarily a multiplayer device. Playing the games and working towards the goals required to unlock achievements is most certainly a single-player experience, even in multiplayer games (since in the end, it's you as an individual that gains the achievement). However, all of these achievements go towards building a profile that all your friends can view and compare to their own. That profile is a multiplayer game, more commonly known as a meta-game due to it taking place outside of the video game itself.
Whether you play games together with your friends or you each stick to single-player, most achievement systems allow you to compete with each other as rivals. It's not just friends either. Complete strangers can view your profile and find out how much better or worse you are at their favourite game.
It's this multiplayer aspect that has brought about several different achievement systems, each with unique ideas. The individual achievements themselves may remain the same across systems but the end-result can be very different.
Xbox Live - Gamerscore
The Xbox 360's achievements system is based on a concept that has been familiar with gamers of all generations; the score. Gamers playing Xbox 360 games earn points for every achievement they unlock. Depending on the difficulty of the achievement, the number of points earned can vary. The meta-game here is a high-score table that ranks you, your friends and other Xbox Live gamers against each other. Competition is then brought on as seeing your rivals hovering above you in score can be a great motivation to grab some more points.
One advantage here is that it's possible for many types of gamers to earn similar scores in their own way. It is entirely possible for gamers that play a lot of games, but only stick to the main path, to earn as high a score as someone who likes to focus on a smaller handful of games at a time, with the aim of full completion in mind. It allows for a wide range of gamers to compete with each other while still enjoying games in the way that suits them.
One of the dangers of having each developer be responsible for the achievements in their games is that they could be too generous or harsh with the amount of points offered. Thankfully, every game has the same amount of total points on offer. This means that a full completion of the game will always result in the same reward. On the other hand, this does not affect the difficulty of each individual achievement and it is still possible for a developer to make full completion a huge task compared to in other games, thanks to a few fiendishly difficult or massively time-consuming objectives.
Overall, this is a system that focuses heavily on the total score gained by each gamer with less emphasis on the individual achievements. Simplicity is the strength here as one total score is the easiest way of comparing and competing with others you're going to find.
Playstation Network - Trophies
Unlocking achievements in PS3 games awards you with trophies of bronze, silver, gold and platinum. At first this may seem like it's just another way to represent varying degrees of success just as the differing amount of points for each achievement on the Xbox 360 does. The difference here is that there is no total score. Instead, you're assigned an RPG-esque level, starting at level 1, with each trophy gained contributing experience that progresses you towards the next level. Since the amount of experience needed to reach the next level increases each time you level up and you only ever see your experience as a percentage of your current level, the emphasis is eventually placed on the quality of the trophy gained as a gold trophy will award you with much more experience than a bronze one.
This is how the PS3 drives players towards completing the more difficult achievements. Even if you're not looking at level, to see a nice collection of gold and platinum trophies is satisfying when they've been earned by you and impressive when they belong to someone else. Along with this, full game completion can still be a priority for many as this is the only way to earn the coveted platinum trophies.
As with the Xbox 360 system it's very possible for trophies to be too easy or too hard. More specifically, the issue here is that developers may have conflicting ideas about what constitutes the difficulty gap between each level of trophy. One such example is that progressing the story in the early stages of Batman: Arkham Asylum awards you with bronze trophies, whereas the rewards for this in Assassin's Creed 2 are silver trophies. Thankfully, gold trophies are rarely handed out for anything but the best achievements.
This is a system that may not appeal as much to those who are only looking to beat the main path of their games as they just won't be able to keep up with players who go after the gold trophies. For the completionists, however, the gleam of those gold and platinum trophies is difficult to resist. The race to the next level or a milestone amount of platinum trophies can create fierce competition amongst gamer friends.
PC and Steam
It is unfortunate that while consoles have across-the-board achievements systems that include every game released since they were put into place, the PC does not have something similar. Individual games may contain achievements and some developers are putting systems in place that include their own games, but without something as unified as those found on consoles, achievement competition is difficult to find amongst PC gamers.
One of the closest things we have is Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Steam includes games from a wide variety of developers and offers community tools similar to those of Xbox Live or PSN along with achievements. It's much more basic, however, as there's no form of reward for earning achievements. You do have an activity feed which shows achievements recently earned by your friends and it is possible to compare specific games with them, so it appears that the emphasis is on individual achievements here.
The main feature of note is something that isn't included in the likes of Xbox Live or PSN but still promotes mass competition. Steam allows you to view global statistics for each game, providing a percentage of players that have completed each achievement. This means that the meta-game on Steam has you competing with the world. The achievements with a lower percentage of player completion will always seem the most illustrious and serious achievement hunters won't be satisfied until they are successful in a part of a game that 95% of players were not.
The Future of Achievements
It's difficult to predict how achievement systems are going to evolve. On the one hand, it would make sense if they each borrowed ideas from others resulting in similar but feature rich systems. However, Sony and Microsoft are going to have to consider the possibility of carrying achievements and trophies over to their next generation of consoles. With our profiles we now have a visual representation of all the many hours we've put into our games. To have all our hard earned achievements and trophies be forgotten once we move on to newer consoles is not going to sit well with many. The best way to do this may be to just continue using the existing achievement systems and extending them to the next generation of consoles.
Nintendo has so far decided not to employ an achievement system and this has persisted with the recent release of the 3DS. They have their reasons (discussion of which is probably best left for another article) but it's a shame that owners of Nintendo consoles are missing out on the meta-game, especially when the Wii was so named for its promotion of playing together with friends. For now, gamers will have to be content with personal satisfaction when collecting every heart piece.
To Sum Up
Achievements have a brought a new level of community to gamers and have allowed us to play together outside of the game. In this current generation, gamers have more reason than ever to go back to completed games and seek out all the secret items, beat all of the ultra-difficult bosses and even pull off random stunts that game developers think you might be entertained by. It might sound like a situation of “dance puppets, dance”, and perhaps you'd be right to think so. Is that so wrong? Game developers spent valuable working hours hiding away each of those 100 collectables and balancing that near-impossible but ultimately beatable secret boss. It's only fair that they're given the tools required to tempt us into exploring this extra content.
Is it shameful that the motivation for achievements developers have latched onto is the drive to be better than your friends? Perhaps not. To feel this way in our day to day life is not a likeable trait as it can result in snobbishness. Video games allow us to indulge in feelings that we may unconsciously suppress otherwise. Just as it's okay to enjoy a bit of mindless violence in these imaginary worlds, it's perfectly normal to relish in the feeling of superiority every now and then.
Go grab your next platinum trophy and show everyone how awesome at games you are.
Saturday 2 April 2011
Review: Final Fantasy XIII
Release Date: JP: December 17, 2009, NA/EU: March 9, 2010
Developed By: Square Enix
Genre: RPG
Platforms: Playstation 3, XBOX 360
Platform Reviewed: Playstation 3
"It's easy to lose sight of things in a world as wide as this one, but if you keep going you're sure to find what you're looking for sooner or later." - Vanille, Final Fantasy XIII
In the 40 hours I spent playing through Final Fantasy XIII (or 13, if you prefer) I experienced what could only be described as mixed feelings. There were certain points in the game where I found myself unable to tear myself away and I was giddy at the thought of the next time I could get a good session in. At other times I had to will myself into loading up my save and pressing on to the next chapter. If I had to plot it on a graph I'd end up with a distinct trapezium, beginning with a slow ascent as I gradually learned to enjoy the game, peaking with a long line of highly entertaining gameplay and ending with a slow decline as I slogged through the final chapters.
This says one thing to me. To grow fond of this game takes effort. That first slope of the trapezium consists of tutorials and being handed each element of gameplay piece by piece. On beginning the game many players may be put off by the lack of options in combat and even the ability to level up. With leveling up being one of the main motivations for engaging in battles in RPGs, it was an odd decision by Square Enix to exclude this feature for the first couple of hours of the game, all for the sake of a learning curve.
I don't want to set the world on fire...
Thankfully, the story is able to draw you in right from the start. As in any good introduction you're dropped straight into the action and there's an immediate drive to find out just what's behind the chaos that's going on around you.
There's no question that this is a Final Fantasy game. As is tradition, a small group of heroes are thrown together by the starting events of the game and find themselves with the potential to alter the fate of the world. However, this time the protagonists are charged with the task of destroying the world rather than saving it. With the price of failure being transformation into mindless beasts and the way to success being the destruction of their home and everything they hold dear, to say our heroes are in a bit of a pickle is an understatement.
It's this plot point that kept me going through the early stages of the game. For roughly the first half of the game the characters are split into groups of two. This really allows you to get to know the characters as individuals as they each react in their own way to their new dilemma. It's genuinely interesting to see them interact with their partners and watch as their motivations are revealed. By the time the characters meet up again you'll have decided on your favourites and gained a desire to see them overcome their dire circumstances.
There's real growth to be observed in the characters too. While at first they appear to follow stereotypes such as the soldier who's all business and the hot-headed brawler with a flair for heroics, it's refreshing to watch them break away from their mould and become so much more intricate and as a result, likeable.
That's a shifty lookin' paradigm
If you continue to enjoy the story and put in the effort to get through the first portion of the game, you'll discover its next great element; the combat system. When fully unlocked it's one of the best the Final Fantasy series has ever seen. Players who might have yearned for a little more direct control over the combat in Final Fantasy XII will be happy to hear that Final Fantasy XIII has returned to its turn-based Active Time Battle roots.
The first time you see an auto-battle option you may find yourself concerned that the coming battles may turn out to be a little on the easy side and the fact that two out of three characters are AI controlled can only add to this worry. Thankfully, the battles become so fast-paced with quick decisions being constantly made that you come to depend on that auto-battle button.
This is thanks to the paradigm system. Paradigms are combinations of the various roles that your characters can assume. All of the staple RPG roles are here, including today's standard of damage-dealing, healing and tanking, along with support roles of buffing and de-buffing. The paradigm system allows you to set up several combinations of these roles and switch between them at will in the middle of combat. The rise in challenge as you progress towards the end of the game as well as a rating after each battle really gets you experimenting with different combinations and it becomes very apparent just how deep the system goes. There's a great sense of satisfaction when, after tweaking your paradigm setup, you achieve a full 5-star rating on a battle that you had previously struggled to even live through.
There has always been the type of RPG player that enjoys going further with a game's combat system and learning advanced tricks and techniques in order to master it. There's definitely room for that here as a little research on internet forums can reveal some of these techniques. While not required to finish the game, choose to master the combat system and you will consistently see 5-star ratings at the end of each battle resulting in a higher chance of obtaining the more rare and valuable items of the game. Along with this, you get the choice of how to level up your characters. Each has three of the game's six roles available as primary roles, but for a higher cost of experience points, secondary roles can be purchased for each character too. Need some extra healing? Give Snow some medic spells. Need to get your buffs up faster? Have Lightning take a few Synergist spells. There's a lot of potential for customisation.
A feast for the eyes and ears
Visually, Final Fantasy XIII is stunning. Square Enix's art team never fail to impress and as usual they've gone all out to make the game look as strikingly beautiful as possible. The FMV sequences once again show off some of the most impressive CGI you'll find on current technology. Something of note is how much smoother the visual transition between a playable section of the game and a FMV sequence is. While it is still obvious that the FMVs are better looking, the in-game graphics engine has been used to great effect, producing some awe-inspiring background scenery and well animated characters that are capable of displaying plenty of emotion. This results in a much smaller contrast between the two that has been present in previous Final Fantasy games.
Nobuo Uematsu is still missed as the main composer of the series but Hamauzu's score is competent and pleasing to the ear. Much of the music is an arrangement of the main theme, so repetition is present, but the theme is in keeping with the game's atmosphere. Those expecting a soundtrack on the epic scale of the older games in the series may be disappointed however, as there is nothing particularly memorable about Final Fantasy XIII's.
On the other hand, the voice acting is continuing to improve for the series and has come a long way since the awkwardly delivered speech of Final Fantasy X. The main characters' voice actors fit into their roles well. The only complaint I would have is that there's something not quite right about Vanille's accent as at first I couldn't even tell what it was supposed to be.
"All this dampness is damp." - Sazh, Final Fantasy XIII
So with all the positives in mind, why the mixed feelings? I'm sorry to say that even the peak of the enjoyment trapezium wasn't perfectly straight. This game has flaws, born out of choices made by Square Enix that appear to experimental but unfortunately, not to great success.
The first of these is the decision to limit the amount of storytelling through exposition. A growing trend in RPGs is the use of a journal or datalog to store extra information about the game's world, characters and important events. Final Fantasy XIII's datalog includes information about main plot points which is otherwise unavailable unless read. The story can be followed without ever opening the datalog but not to the full effect the developers intended. In a fast-paced, action packed game like this it feels wrong to have to stop and read at various intervals.
Another negative is the slow decline in enjoyment I experienced towards the end. It often felt like there were a few too many battles to get through before reaching the next cutscene. When I reached the next advancement of the plot it frequently followed with another long stretch of battles to plough through. Disheartening isn't the word.
Just can't wait to get off the road again...
But these are just niggles which could have been outweighed by the game's positive elements. The main problem that constantly disappointed was the complete linearity of it all. Until you get to one of the very late chapters there is no straying from the main path. You're locked into a routine of battles and cutscenes and while this may be true of any story-based JRPG, they've always done well to hide the fact with the chance to diverge from the main path and explore optional areas with extra rewards on offer. The feeling of adventure brought on by exploration is one of the main motivations for many RPG players and the lack of that here sometimes makes you wonder if you're just playing a battle-simulator with a narrative.
You do eventually have the chance to get involved in some side-questing but it becomes available much too late in the game. By that point I'd been playing for 25-30 hours and I just wanted to reach the end of the story. The idea of stopping and lengthening the game by another few hours just didn't seem appealing whereas if these side missions had been spread out through the entire game, I would have been much more motivated to complete them.
It almost feels like these were meant to be played primarily after the main game is completed, considering your characters are unable to reach their full potential, level-wise, until the final boss is defeated. The side missions themselves are fun once you're no longer feeling the eagerness to progress the story and I'm finding myself still playing the game after completion. For anyone that's looking to get trophies or achievements, many are tied to what you might call the end-game so at least in terms of having things to do, you get your money's worth.
Overall
Final Fantasy XIII is a game that RPG fans will want to look into while waiting for the next big game to be released. Despite the flaws, fans of the Final Fantasy series in particular are still going to be pulled in by the familiar style of world, characters, story and turn-based battling that they've warmed to over the last decade or two. Amongst claims that JRPGs are becoming stale, the evolution of the traditional turn-based battle system and a cast of characters that break away from the stereotypes of the past are refreshing to see. It's just unfortunate that issues with linearity and pacing are the only things holding this game back from being truly outstanding.
Rating: 7/10
Introduction
Greetings.
I like games. I've started this blog because I now want to write about games. In fact, I've always wanted to write about games, I just never realised it. The real reason I started this blog is because I want to become a games journalist. This is an idea that's been buzzing around in the back of my mind for a very long time, remaining there while I wondered if it would be a good idea to turn a hobby into a profession. After looking into several career paths and soon deciding I had no interest in them, I finally decided that this is probably the only thing that makes sense.
I have a passion for games. The way book lovers, film buffs and music enthusiasts feel about their respective media is the same way I feel about games. I don't just play them as a way to pass time. I play them to appreciate them. I'm always looking forward to the next great gaming experience I'll have. Maybe it already is more than just a hobby for me. All I need to do is take that extra step (or steps) forward to turn it into a lifestyle.
So before attempting to break into the games journalism industry, I'm going to have to develop my writing skill. I've enjoyed writing on and off in the past, but never really shared it or turned it into a frequent activity, mostly because I wasn't really aiming for anything. This is where I'll begin writing reviews of games I'm playing and articles about any gaming topics that come to mind.
Currently I own a PS3 and a gaming PC. I did have a Wii and DS but I recently sold both because they'd become dust gatherers. Of course, this was before I decided I wanted to start writing about games... I realise now that they could have provided extra material to write about. I'll do what I can with what I've got though. Obviously with a 9-5 job and other monetary responsibilities, I don't have the time or money to play and review every new game that's released, so the games I review will often vary in how long ago they were released. Again, I'm mainly trying to develop my writing skill so whether the game is new or not shouldn't matter.
If anyone reads my blog and wants to offer any comments or constructive criticism, by all means do so. I'm here to learn so anything that'll help me become a better writer is greatly appreciated.
So without further ado, I'll post my first review...
I like games. I've started this blog because I now want to write about games. In fact, I've always wanted to write about games, I just never realised it. The real reason I started this blog is because I want to become a games journalist. This is an idea that's been buzzing around in the back of my mind for a very long time, remaining there while I wondered if it would be a good idea to turn a hobby into a profession. After looking into several career paths and soon deciding I had no interest in them, I finally decided that this is probably the only thing that makes sense.
I have a passion for games. The way book lovers, film buffs and music enthusiasts feel about their respective media is the same way I feel about games. I don't just play them as a way to pass time. I play them to appreciate them. I'm always looking forward to the next great gaming experience I'll have. Maybe it already is more than just a hobby for me. All I need to do is take that extra step (or steps) forward to turn it into a lifestyle.
So before attempting to break into the games journalism industry, I'm going to have to develop my writing skill. I've enjoyed writing on and off in the past, but never really shared it or turned it into a frequent activity, mostly because I wasn't really aiming for anything. This is where I'll begin writing reviews of games I'm playing and articles about any gaming topics that come to mind.
Currently I own a PS3 and a gaming PC. I did have a Wii and DS but I recently sold both because they'd become dust gatherers. Of course, this was before I decided I wanted to start writing about games... I realise now that they could have provided extra material to write about. I'll do what I can with what I've got though. Obviously with a 9-5 job and other monetary responsibilities, I don't have the time or money to play and review every new game that's released, so the games I review will often vary in how long ago they were released. Again, I'm mainly trying to develop my writing skill so whether the game is new or not shouldn't matter.
If anyone reads my blog and wants to offer any comments or constructive criticism, by all means do so. I'm here to learn so anything that'll help me become a better writer is greatly appreciated.
So without further ado, I'll post my first review...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)