As I wrote last year, I have big love for Super Mario Kart on the SNES, what with it being one of the greatest games ever made. If you missed out on the game or, understandably, haven't got room in your house for a near 20-year old console (I still have mine but then I'm a hoarder at heart), 2nd April 2010 is big day for you.
If you have a Wii, that is.
Nintendo are bringing SMK to the Wii Virtual Console for only 800 Wii points. I say 'only' - I have no idea what that is in real money. I have over a 1000 points on my account, all from trading in the Star Points (or whatever they were called) from DS, GBA and Gamecube games, so I've never had to buy any. Anyway, 800 of them have now been earmarked for SMK.
As I mentioned in my SMK review, I have no problem with Mario Kart Wii - in fact, I was playing it earlier today - but there are a few aspects of it and other, later, versions of the game that can grate. Chief among those is the Blue Shell, which batters whoever is leading, destroying your lead (particularly if directly followed by another one). I found it amusing that the promo video had "before the Blue Shell was invented" as a subtitle, as if Nintendo (or, rather, its European marketing department) were tacitly admitting that, actually, the Blue Shell sucks. It also shows the Ghost Valley 1 feather-aided shortcut, the best shortcut of the entire series.
I'm not looking at this through rose-tinted retro spectacles. SMK is still a great game that holds up today - if you have 800 Wii points going spare, you could do a whole lot worse than downloading SMK.
Wednesday 31 March 2010
Monday 29 March 2010
What I did on my day off
Last week I took a day off work just to play videogames, as I'd been working on a big project that was coming to an end and felt I deserved it. I'd taken days off to play certain games on the day of their release recently but I hadn't had an indulgent day just to play random games for ages. It was great!
The night before, I'd gathered together a smorgasbord of games to choose from. I wanted to concentrate on games that I'd picked up cheaply and then not played, or not played much, rather than triple A titles that I knew to be good - basically, I was looking for hidden gems. There was also a pile of PS1 games I'd recently picked up cheaply from Gamestation. Frankly, I'd need a month off.
Some of them were half completed, some fully completed but with unplayed DLC, some were unstarted, some were even in their shrinkwrap! Obviously I couldn't play them all but between taking my daughter to school and picking her up, I had a fair bash at it.
I started off with Flatout: Ultimate Carnage on 360. A fairly interesting racing game that I've gone back to a couple of times since. Its USP is the destructible scenery that surrounds the track and that 'works' quite well - debris is strewn across the track, explosions explode attractively. I, however, royally sucked at it - good fun but not successful fun.
I then moved on to The Simpsons Game, on 360. This game got slated when it was released 18 months or so ago (genuinely funny but lacking in gameplay, is what I remember from the reviews) but I quite enjoyed it. It made me laugh out loud (and I can't say that about many games) at times and the gameplay, although essentially a formulaic collect-a-thon, was engaging in a low impact type of way. I've also played this one a few times since but my most recent save, about 5 hours in, was corrupted (my 360 has been misbehaving of late). I don't think I can face starting again any time soon, so that might be that for videogame Springfield.
The next game from the Pile of Shame was Half Life 2, Episode 2, from the Orange Box on 360. I didn't really give this a chance. I've never played any Half Life game before and I felt out of touch with the story, jumping in when I did. I also accepted that it wasn't a 'random game day' game - the reviews suggest it is too good for that and, as I was on a schedule, I couldn't devote sufficient time to it. Out of the disc tray it went and in came...
Fable 2. I love Fable 2, it is one of my favourite games of this generation. I've played it through to completion once and have bought and played through all of the DLC but only with a 'good' character. I've often wondered how Albion would different if I was evil, so I decided to give that a bash. The answer was....a bit different, certainly in Bowerstone Old Town after I didn't give the arrest warrants to the guard when a child. And I finally got the shoot-a-sweet-innocent-bunny achievement, 'The Hunter' (5 blood-stained GP for that). The story seems to be progressing as it did in my 'good' play through but I haven't played it enough yet to know how different it will be after 10 or 20 hours of play.
I then moved on to Brutal Legend, that I'd picked up the week before. As with The Simpsons, it was genuinely funny and engaging enough to be interesting even though I have little interest in the heavy metal music that the game is based around. And Jack Black proves once again (as with Kung Fu Panda), that he is far more bearable (Be Kind, Rewind excepted) in animated form that in real time.
No time to get too settled though. Out with Jack Black and in with videogame artiste extraordinary, Nolan North, this time in Prince of Persia. This was a present for Christmas 2008 and I'd played it through at the time (and enjoyed it). A DLC epilogue was released, which I downloaded but I never got around to playing it. Unfortunately, the year away from the game had made me forget the key configuration - control was a big problem for me, jumping in, as the DLC does, at the end of the game (i.e. the game anticipates a fair degree of competence on the part of the player, a competence that I no longer had). I'll probably go back to PoP another day, though.
Next on the list was an old PS2 game, ObsCure. It is a survival horror game set in a US high school - archetypal slasher movie fare. Although last gen, graphically the game stood up quite well, I thought and I enjoyed the 'feel' of the game, which was like early (seasons 1-3) Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies were still at high school. I didn't want to get too far into the story mode of the game (and I'd inadvertently let a major character get killed too) but I will definitely be returning to it, particularly as I understand (http://24hourgamer.blogspot.com/2010/02/oh-my-god-they-killed-kenny.html) that it doesn't take too long to finish.
After going last gen, I then decided to go last-last gen and started playing Incredible Crisis, a PS1 game of indeterminate genre. The game is a difficult one to describe. Ostensibly, it is about a Japanese family's day, after discovering that it was Grandma's (forgotten) birthday over breakfast. But that doesn't do the game justice. In the small portion I played (not from time constraints, just because it was bloody hard), I played as the Sararīman father doing a dance routine at his office that was then broken up by a rogue wrecking ball crashing through the wall of his office building and chasing him down the corridor. All the time to a soundtrack of Japanese ska music (which was just as fantastic as the idea sounds). One other point to note, I played it both on my PS3 (connected to my HDTV via HDMI) and my PS2 (connected to the same via a s-video cable) and it looked better on the PS2.
The afternoon school run was fast approaching and I only had a time left for a quick blast of Pinball FX on 360 (a great pinball sim, which I recommend to anyone with an interest them).
What a fantastic day!
I then moved on to Brutal Legend, that I'd picked up the week before. As with The Simpsons, it was genuinely funny and engaging enough to be interesting even though I have little interest in the heavy metal music that the game is based around. And Jack Black proves once again (as with Kung Fu Panda), that he is far more bearable (Be Kind, Rewind excepted) in animated form that in real time.
No time to get too settled though. Out with Jack Black and in with videogame artiste extraordinary, Nolan North, this time in Prince of Persia. This was a present for Christmas 2008 and I'd played it through at the time (and enjoyed it). A DLC epilogue was released, which I downloaded but I never got around to playing it. Unfortunately, the year away from the game had made me forget the key configuration - control was a big problem for me, jumping in, as the DLC does, at the end of the game (i.e. the game anticipates a fair degree of competence on the part of the player, a competence that I no longer had). I'll probably go back to PoP another day, though.
Next on the list was an old PS2 game, ObsCure. It is a survival horror game set in a US high school - archetypal slasher movie fare. Although last gen, graphically the game stood up quite well, I thought and I enjoyed the 'feel' of the game, which was like early (seasons 1-3) Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies were still at high school. I didn't want to get too far into the story mode of the game (and I'd inadvertently let a major character get killed too) but I will definitely be returning to it, particularly as I understand (http://24hourgamer.blogspot.com/2010/02/oh-my-god-they-killed-kenny.html) that it doesn't take too long to finish.
After going last gen, I then decided to go last-last gen and started playing Incredible Crisis, a PS1 game of indeterminate genre. The game is a difficult one to describe. Ostensibly, it is about a Japanese family's day, after discovering that it was Grandma's (forgotten) birthday over breakfast. But that doesn't do the game justice. In the small portion I played (not from time constraints, just because it was bloody hard), I played as the Sararīman father doing a dance routine at his office that was then broken up by a rogue wrecking ball crashing through the wall of his office building and chasing him down the corridor. All the time to a soundtrack of Japanese ska music (which was just as fantastic as the idea sounds). One other point to note, I played it both on my PS3 (connected to my HDTV via HDMI) and my PS2 (connected to the same via a s-video cable) and it looked better on the PS2.
The afternoon school run was fast approaching and I only had a time left for a quick blast of Pinball FX on 360 (a great pinball sim, which I recommend to anyone with an interest them).
What a fantastic day!
Wednesday 24 March 2010
Tax Breaks for Games
The UK Chancellor announced today that videogame developers could look forward to receiving tax breaks, similar to those given in the film industry in the UK, in the coming years. The industry have been banging on about getting something like this for years, in the face of other countries - Canada for example - offering incentives for games companies to set up or relocate with their borders. Blame Canada.
State aid of this type is a tricky business in the UK. Very broadly speaking, European Union law prohibits the government of a Member State giving assistance to a company based in its jurisdiction that would not be enjoyed by a competitor company based in another Member State, as all companies operating in the EU should be operating on a level playing field. As with a lot of European law there are some exceptions - if your last indigenous car manufacturer goes tits up a few months before an election and its employees live in marginal constituencies, for example. Or if half of your banking industry had got heavily involved in financial instruments based on mortgages granted to the two little pigs who didn't build with bricks.
But even so there are many restrictions on what the government can do and for how long it can do it. There are platoons of State Aid (that's how big an issue it is - it gets turned into a proper noun) lawyers in government, working to make sure that the UK doesn't infringe any of those restrictions. Great guys at parties.
One of the exclusions, I believe, is where the aid is given for cultural (to the country giving the aid) reasons. Tax breaks for companies making 'culturally British' games was mentioned in the Digital Britain report published last summer and I figure that's where the £40m, then £50m, tax breaks in the next couple of years will be directed at.
I'm not sure what, in 2010, a culturally British game is - Grand Theft Crumpet? Sim Walford? Army of Tea? I think the Fable games are undeniably British but I don't think Microsoft needs any tax breaks. Maybe Rebellion could put their hand in the pot, in order to develop games based on their 2000AD properties? 2000AD is a British institution after all.
Over the last twenty years, the gaming industry has increasingly globalised and, as part of that process, the 'rough edges' of national identity have been knocked off so as to appeal to the wider market. 20-25 years ago, it would have been easy to identify games as British. The coders were often working alone, in their bedrooms and coming up with their own ideas based, subconsciously (at the very least) on their own experiences and they only had half an eye, if that, on the end market for the completed game. My big hope for the Government's initiative is that it will help fund games of the type that just aren't made anymore - idiosyncratic titles that are unconcerned if the US or European markets will 'get' them.
State aid of this type is a tricky business in the UK. Very broadly speaking, European Union law prohibits the government of a Member State giving assistance to a company based in its jurisdiction that would not be enjoyed by a competitor company based in another Member State, as all companies operating in the EU should be operating on a level playing field. As with a lot of European law there are some exceptions - if your last indigenous car manufacturer goes tits up a few months before an election and its employees live in marginal constituencies, for example. Or if half of your banking industry had got heavily involved in financial instruments based on mortgages granted to the two little pigs who didn't build with bricks.
But even so there are many restrictions on what the government can do and for how long it can do it. There are platoons of State Aid (that's how big an issue it is - it gets turned into a proper noun) lawyers in government, working to make sure that the UK doesn't infringe any of those restrictions. Great guys at parties.
One of the exclusions, I believe, is where the aid is given for cultural (to the country giving the aid) reasons. Tax breaks for companies making 'culturally British' games was mentioned in the Digital Britain report published last summer and I figure that's where the £40m, then £50m, tax breaks in the next couple of years will be directed at.
I'm not sure what, in 2010, a culturally British game is - Grand Theft Crumpet? Sim Walford? Army of Tea? I think the Fable games are undeniably British but I don't think Microsoft needs any tax breaks. Maybe Rebellion could put their hand in the pot, in order to develop games based on their 2000AD properties? 2000AD is a British institution after all.
Over the last twenty years, the gaming industry has increasingly globalised and, as part of that process, the 'rough edges' of national identity have been knocked off so as to appeal to the wider market. 20-25 years ago, it would have been easy to identify games as British. The coders were often working alone, in their bedrooms and coming up with their own ideas based, subconsciously (at the very least) on their own experiences and they only had half an eye, if that, on the end market for the completed game. My big hope for the Government's initiative is that it will help fund games of the type that just aren't made anymore - idiosyncratic titles that are unconcerned if the US or European markets will 'get' them.
Sunday 21 March 2010
New Super Mario Bros band-aids
My Mum used to tell a story about one time, when I was a small boy, she bought some 'Mr Men' sticking plasters. Apparently I would then, until said plasters were used up, demand one to be stuck on any scrape, no matter how microscopic (or, to be honest, imaginary), on the basis that I wanted 'Mr Bump' stuck to my grievous injury.
To prove that more than 30 years of so-called 'growing up' have had no noticeable impact, I recently saw (and immediately bought) New Super Mario Bros 'Know your Enemies' plasters -
To prove that more than 30 years of so-called 'growing up' have had no noticeable impact, I recently saw (and immediately bought) New Super Mario Bros 'Know your Enemies' plasters -
That's my daughter's hand on the left. I think she wants a plaster
They are packed into a handy metal tin and come in three different types, each showing one of Mario's mortal enemies - Bullet Bills, Piranha Plants and Goombas.
While typing this post, my daughter came up to me complaining of a near-invisible cut to one of her toes. A little bit sheepishly, she asked for a Mario plaster (Bullet Bills). Given my own history, I could hardly refuse.....
Monday 15 March 2010
Heavy Rain, with a chance of spoilers
Right. Here's the warning. There are spoilers in this post. If you haven't finished, or have yet to play, Heavy Rain, stop reading here. There are plenty of other spoiler-free articles on this blog - move along and try one of those.
Really - leave now.
I'm not going to say who did it - that would be pointless. Anyone for whom this would be a spoiler should have stopped reading after the first paragraph. For those of you left, you know who did it, I know who did it, I know that you know and so on - adding the killer's name here isn't news for anyone.
Rather, this is an 'narrative-theme spoiler' - there is a large twist towards the end of the game, relating to the identity of the killer. I didn't read any reviews before playing the game, as I didn't want anything to spoil the experience. I knew that a review wouldn't reveal 'X' as the killer but even knowing something about the narrative path, like that there was a big twist in the story, would have been enough of a spoiler for me. I find that when I know that there is a notable twist in a story, I find myself subconsciously looking out for it as I progress through the narrative, rather than letting the narrative play out, be that in films, books or TV.
That being said, I was clearing out some games magaziness at the weekend and had a look through the 'origami cover' issue of gamesTM, which came out in the autumn and contained a large preview of the game. As I'd already finished the game, I had a flick through the article. There was a massive spoiler contained within it, that, had I read it nearer the release would have spoilt the suspense for me (it is, unwittingly I think, a clue to the identity of the killer, rather than a blatant spoiler). It was only a throwaway line in the article and I doubt, at the stage of development the game was in, that the journalist would have played enough of the game to even know that this piece of his or her article was a clue (you would need to know more of the story to know that this line was a spoiler). It was such a throwaway line (in fact, it was a caption to a screenshot showing the killer) that I'd forgotten about reading it months before, when I played the game.
Having forgotten this article, I did not see the plot twist coming in the slightest - I had no inkling as to the identity of the killer until the big reveal, maybe 20-30 minutes (if that) before the end of the game. I think I was more surprised by this than I would have been if it were a film, as with a film you accept that 'something' (or a succession of 'somethings') is going to happen and be played out in front of you, the passive viewer. This happens far less often with games.
Films, good ones anyway, are rarely a simple journey from A to B, whereas games, even good ones, often are. Gamers are more accepting of this than a film-goer would be, as games, unlike films, are a non-passive medium. A game's narrative may go from A to B but we are given alternatives - formal side-quests or just taking up the option to wander around the game world, tinkering with what the designers have given us - to depart from that path. Without wanting to sound like an English David Cage, we often create our own story. Filmgoers don't have that luxury - they are a passive audience, there to be entertained. A simple traipse from A to B wouldn't work well within that medium.
What Heavy Rain showed me is that, admittedly with sacrifice of some of what makes a game a game, developers can create cinematic storylines that combine the ethos of a videogame with the narrative structures of a film. Whether I will get the same feeling of surprise the next time I play a Quantic Dream game, I doubt. To use a videogame metaphor, after the zombie dog has jumped through breaking glass at you once, you get wary the next time that you walk past a window.
Really - leave now.
I'm not going to say who did it - that would be pointless. Anyone for whom this would be a spoiler should have stopped reading after the first paragraph. For those of you left, you know who did it, I know who did it, I know that you know and so on - adding the killer's name here isn't news for anyone.
Rather, this is an 'narrative-theme spoiler' - there is a large twist towards the end of the game, relating to the identity of the killer. I didn't read any reviews before playing the game, as I didn't want anything to spoil the experience. I knew that a review wouldn't reveal 'X' as the killer but even knowing something about the narrative path, like that there was a big twist in the story, would have been enough of a spoiler for me. I find that when I know that there is a notable twist in a story, I find myself subconsciously looking out for it as I progress through the narrative, rather than letting the narrative play out, be that in films, books or TV.
That being said, I was clearing out some games magaziness at the weekend and had a look through the 'origami cover' issue of gamesTM, which came out in the autumn and contained a large preview of the game. As I'd already finished the game, I had a flick through the article. There was a massive spoiler contained within it, that, had I read it nearer the release would have spoilt the suspense for me (it is, unwittingly I think, a clue to the identity of the killer, rather than a blatant spoiler). It was only a throwaway line in the article and I doubt, at the stage of development the game was in, that the journalist would have played enough of the game to even know that this piece of his or her article was a clue (you would need to know more of the story to know that this line was a spoiler). It was such a throwaway line (in fact, it was a caption to a screenshot showing the killer) that I'd forgotten about reading it months before, when I played the game.
Having forgotten this article, I did not see the plot twist coming in the slightest - I had no inkling as to the identity of the killer until the big reveal, maybe 20-30 minutes (if that) before the end of the game. I think I was more surprised by this than I would have been if it were a film, as with a film you accept that 'something' (or a succession of 'somethings') is going to happen and be played out in front of you, the passive viewer. This happens far less often with games.
Films, good ones anyway, are rarely a simple journey from A to B, whereas games, even good ones, often are. Gamers are more accepting of this than a film-goer would be, as games, unlike films, are a non-passive medium. A game's narrative may go from A to B but we are given alternatives - formal side-quests or just taking up the option to wander around the game world, tinkering with what the designers have given us - to depart from that path. Without wanting to sound like an English David Cage, we often create our own story. Filmgoers don't have that luxury - they are a passive audience, there to be entertained. A simple traipse from A to B wouldn't work well within that medium.
What Heavy Rain showed me is that, admittedly with sacrifice of some of what makes a game a game, developers can create cinematic storylines that combine the ethos of a videogame with the narrative structures of a film. Whether I will get the same feeling of surprise the next time I play a Quantic Dream game, I doubt. To use a videogame metaphor, after the zombie dog has jumped through breaking glass at you once, you get wary the next time that you walk past a window.
Wednesday 10 March 2010
NowGamer Podcast Competition Prize Unboxing
I regularly read articles on the NowGamer.com website and visit its forum daily (I post under the name sorenlorensen). It's is a videogame website, owned by Imagine Publishing (the publisher of gamesTM, Play and 360, among others). Informative previews and authoritative reviews of forthcoming games (together with an intelligent, informed forum. Ahem), it also has its own, fortnightly(ish) podcast, which is the best videogame podcast that I've listened to (imagine a videogame version of Football Ramble). The podcast includes a competition, where listeners have to recognise a electro-synth cover version of a piece of classic videogame music. Last time out, I guessed (and it was a guess) correctly - Final Fantasy VII - and was the lucky recipient of a prize that money simply could not buy.
The literal, if not the metaphorical truth...
Much like Blankety Blank, the podcast revels in the crapness of its prizes, the truth of which the host, Dan Howdle, cleverly does not reveal until announcing the winner. I think that gives the prizes an additional cachet - any entrant, based on previous experience, knows the prizes will be, mainly, a load of rubbish but still enters.
My prizes arrived today and, in best Bullseye fashion (two 80s game shows in successive paragraphs!), let's have a look at what you could have won.
Bioshock 2 flask. For plasmids. Probably
The literal, if not the metaphorical truth...
Much like Blankety Blank, the podcast revels in the crapness of its prizes, the truth of which the host, Dan Howdle, cleverly does not reveal until announcing the winner. I think that gives the prizes an additional cachet - any entrant, based on previous experience, knows the prizes will be, mainly, a load of rubbish but still enters.
My prizes arrived today and, in best Bullseye fashion (two 80s game shows in successive paragraphs!), let's have a look at what you could have won.
Mr Postman, that is no standard parcel!
And what a cornucopia of, of, of, stuff it was -
Heart of Faerie tarot cards. Coming soon to an Oxfam near me
Assassin's Creed II on PC. Not bad. I've put over 40 hours into the 360 version, so this'll be off to to my local second-hand games shop tomorrow. Ninja Blade is in there as well, another game I've completed on 360 - Game Focus, in Goodge St, if you're interested ;)
Yes, there are two copies of Africa 1943: Theatre of War. Once just wasn't enough
There were a whole load of PC games, as you can see, including UK Truck Simulator, wherein you can experience the life of a haulage contractor (according to the blurb anyway, though no mention of roadside fry-ups, unfortunately) in all (yes, all) major cities of the UK. And Grimsby.
Some of the stuff was actually quite good, if you like games-related tat (and who doesn't?). Among those was a Bioshock 2 flask (above), The Conduit portable MP3 speakers shaped like a hand grenade (one for my next trip on an aeroplane), Crash Bandicoot fridge magnets, the Dead Space animated movie, Finnish developer Top Trumps (RedLynx rock!), Fall Guy DVD and the Solomon Kane movie novel by Ramsey Campbell (I like Ramsey Campbell - Cold Moon was excellent - but I wonder if he took that gig to pay the rent).
The full haul, featuring huge gloves. If a chilly gorilla comes to stay, he'll be laughing
One of the 'nearly best' items was the Bioshock 2 Special Edition on Playstation 3. Except it didn't have a copy of the game, or the soundtrack CD!
That's an actual LP! My daughter didn't know what it was. Tsk, kids today
The Special Edition extras (that I do have) are impressive. As well as the soundtrack LP (not that I've had a record player for about 15 years), there are some art prints (in 50s-style Rapture designs) and a high-quality 'Art of Bioshock 2' book, all in a sturdy box. All I need now is the game! And the CD...
Download the latest NowGamer podcast at iTunes now and you too could be the happy owner of such treasures in future! I've already entered for the latest one - I have no shame...
Saturday 6 March 2010
Dead Space - My Sims Agents crossover!
My daughter was playing 'My Sims Agents' this afternoon and she called out to me 'Daddy, I've found the 'Strange Ski Costume'. Away from the main storyline of the game (as in the previous games in the series), players can find (or are awarded) costumes with which to clothe their onscreen character and I figured that she was referring to one of those (as, indeed, she was).
Anyway, I had a look and found this -
Sorry about the wonky photo - I was laughing
- the great Dead Space/My Sims (both published by EA) crossover! I look forward to her finding a 'necromorph' costume later on in the game......
Friday 5 March 2010
Heavy Rain - some thoughts
I've been playing, apocalyps3 excepted, Heavy Rain over the last few evenings. It's a compelling game and, such is its reliance on narrative, I'll not go into any plot details. I've avoided all reviews of the game in order not to spoil the experience and it would be churlish of me to then spoil it here. I figure that it must be a very difficult game for a journalist to review - to convey the writer's thoughts on the game, without giving anything away on the plot.
I'm not going to attempt anything so arduous as that. Instead I'm going to talk about the emotions that I felt during those parts of the game that I have played so far. I'm about 5-6 hours in and I would be lying if I said that it had been a fun experience, in the normal sense of the word. The feel of the game is very similar to the film Se7en, another intelligent, claustrophic, uncomfortable but at the same time very enjoyable experience.
Rather, playing the game has been compelling to the point of discomfort - in several places I've felt my heart beat faster as a result of the on-screen action and, like with a good horror movie, I've wanted it to end, while at the same time enjoying the experience.
I wonder if this cinematic feel is partly due to a slight disconnection between the player and the onscreen avatar. Much of the time the player is in full control of the action onscreen, but at the key, most action-filled points - an assault, for example - the play goes 'on rails' and control is maintained via a series of prompted button presses, which have to be executed within an exacting time limit. Much the same thing happened in Quantic Dream's previous game, the interesting, if flawed, Fahrenheit (aka, for reasons beyond me, Indigo Prophecy).
Although the phrase 'interactive movie' sounds a death knell for gameplay, the game is movie-like at these points. I feel, as with a movie, that I'm a viewer - with some interaction admittedly, - rather than a player during these phases.
I think this is part of the reason why I'm not as far into the game as I would expect for a recently-purchased AAA game. I tend to game at nightime, after my daughter has gone to bed (not including playing kid-friendly titles, which Heavy Rain certainly isn't) having, at the other end of the day, got up at 530am for work. While the passive activity of watching TV can make me feel drowsy (I never understood, as a kid, how my parents could fall asleep in front of the telly - I do now), gaming generally keeps me alert. I'm no scientist ('O' level biology doesn't really count, does it?) but I figure that brain activity is far higher when you are gaming, concentrating intently on the screen with your eyes, while working the controller with your hands) as opposed to zombied out in front of UK daytime TV hell 'Loose Women'.
However, Heavy Rain doesn't keep my drowsiness at bay - I've been feeling 'TV tired' while playing it. This has meant that I haven't been having long sessions on it 'til stupid o'clock in the morning, as would normally be the case with a new game.
That's not to say it is in any way boring - far from it. The shortish bursts I've been playing, I've thoroughly enjoyed. Graphically, It is as good as anything I've ever played and storywise it is as strong as Bioshock (currently - hopefully it won't go silly in the last third like Fahrenheit did). The voice acting is of variable quality - some very good, some decidedly average - but that may just be in comparison with the last game that I played, Uncharted 2 (for which the voice acting was near perfect).
Overall, it is an experience that I'd recommend to anyone that is interested in a game that tries to do something different within the gaming medium, but don't expect it to deliver on normal videogame conventions.
I'm not going to attempt anything so arduous as that. Instead I'm going to talk about the emotions that I felt during those parts of the game that I have played so far. I'm about 5-6 hours in and I would be lying if I said that it had been a fun experience, in the normal sense of the word. The feel of the game is very similar to the film Se7en, another intelligent, claustrophic, uncomfortable but at the same time very enjoyable experience.
Rather, playing the game has been compelling to the point of discomfort - in several places I've felt my heart beat faster as a result of the on-screen action and, like with a good horror movie, I've wanted it to end, while at the same time enjoying the experience.
I wonder if this cinematic feel is partly due to a slight disconnection between the player and the onscreen avatar. Much of the time the player is in full control of the action onscreen, but at the key, most action-filled points - an assault, for example - the play goes 'on rails' and control is maintained via a series of prompted button presses, which have to be executed within an exacting time limit. Much the same thing happened in Quantic Dream's previous game, the interesting, if flawed, Fahrenheit (aka, for reasons beyond me, Indigo Prophecy).
Although the phrase 'interactive movie' sounds a death knell for gameplay, the game is movie-like at these points. I feel, as with a movie, that I'm a viewer - with some interaction admittedly, - rather than a player during these phases.
I think this is part of the reason why I'm not as far into the game as I would expect for a recently-purchased AAA game. I tend to game at nightime, after my daughter has gone to bed (not including playing kid-friendly titles, which Heavy Rain certainly isn't) having, at the other end of the day, got up at 530am for work. While the passive activity of watching TV can make me feel drowsy (I never understood, as a kid, how my parents could fall asleep in front of the telly - I do now), gaming generally keeps me alert. I'm no scientist ('O' level biology doesn't really count, does it?) but I figure that brain activity is far higher when you are gaming, concentrating intently on the screen with your eyes, while working the controller with your hands) as opposed to zombied out in front of UK daytime TV hell 'Loose Women'.
However, Heavy Rain doesn't keep my drowsiness at bay - I've been feeling 'TV tired' while playing it. This has meant that I haven't been having long sessions on it 'til stupid o'clock in the morning, as would normally be the case with a new game.
That's not to say it is in any way boring - far from it. The shortish bursts I've been playing, I've thoroughly enjoyed. Graphically, It is as good as anything I've ever played and storywise it is as strong as Bioshock (currently - hopefully it won't go silly in the last third like Fahrenheit did). The voice acting is of variable quality - some very good, some decidedly average - but that may just be in comparison with the last game that I played, Uncharted 2 (for which the voice acting was near perfect).
Overall, it is an experience that I'd recommend to anyone that is interested in a game that tries to do something different within the gaming medium, but don't expect it to deliver on normal videogame conventions.
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