Wii are not amused

So, I bought myself a Wii.

It was all a bit of a mistake really. You see, I pretty much bought myself a Gamecube in order to play Metroid Prime. Back then I was a Metroid fan and concerned with how this traditionally two dimensonal game would handle in 3D. I was very pleased with the results and enjoyed the game all the way up to the bastard that was Meta Ridley. The cheeky blighter got the better of me and torments me to this day. Anyway, by that time I’d watched a speedrun of the entire game, realised just how poor I was at it but decided that I’d seen the good ending and played 95% of the core game and got my money’s worth. For christmas one year, I got Prime 2 but wouldn’t allow myself to start it until I’d beaten it’s prequel.

Things change. The Wii is out and Prime 3 has launched in the US with a PAL version due in late October. I could feel my resolve buckling as I considered investing in the hardware in order to play the third 3D installment of the only Nintendo franchise I didn’t regard as being horribly overrated.

I decided the best way to combat this would be to get my fill of Metroid by finally plonking Prime 2 into my Gamecube and work my way through it. I was certain that once I’d got through the game (if you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been trying to stick to a one-game-at-a-time-until-I-beat-it rule this year) I would have had my fill of Metroid and wouldn’t be hungry for any more for quite some time.

Well, with the combined enjoyment of getting the better of Dark Samus and solid reviews (all of which mentioning a greatly worrying aspect of Prime 3 in that it had been made noticeably easier than it’s predecessors) I realised that my plan had backfired and I was just as keen, if not keener, to play Prime 3 than ever.

Knowing that the game comes out next month I thought I’d bite the bullet and buy the hardware this month. Despite Nintendo’s inanely smug apologies and promises of the hardware being out of stock I had no problem picking up the oversize iPod wannabe in the first vendor I went to. After a smattering of online research it appears that any of my usual digital haunts would have been able to sell me a Gamecube 1.5 too. Out of stock, my ass.

So last week I got the hardware and opened the packaging. Yeah, cables, connections, usual gubbins. Get the thing set up. Answer some questions, get the box onto my router so far so good.

I’ve now had enough time with the darling of this digital age and, frankly, I’m finding that all my perceptions of it are true and that the notion of motion control is one of the worst, most unnecessarily gimmicky conceits that ever hit our industry and, by God, I certainly don’t want a single game developed around such a broken idea let alone an entire console.

I don’t believe I’ve ever used a less accurate way of controlling a game than with the wonder that is the Wii controller – with the possible exception of those VR headsets that were around in some larger arcades in the 90’s.
Now, first things first – as a pointing device, it’s superb. Especially when combined with nice big fat on-screen buttons that are a quarter of the screen in size. Games that involve pointing at stuff such as a shooting gallery are instinctive and feel pretty accurate. Although, as Wii Play’s shooting game demonstrates – not accurate enough to have the confidence to remove an on-screen cursor to indicate where you’re firing – but still pretty accurate. When moving in the X or Y direction it’s nearly as good as a five dollar mouse. Outstanding!

Playing through the Wii Sports collection of games it’s abundantly apparent that the Wii is incapable of understanding where it is in realspace with any accuracy or, more importantly, incapable of quickly tracking itself in realspace.

Take baseball. It’s all very nice as your bat wobbles about on your shoulder. You swing and, about a third of your way into the swing, your whimsical Wii character goes into a pre-canned baseball-bat-swinging animation. At which point precise control is lost. Try it for yourself. Start a swing and stop it about halfway through. Your onscreen character will continue to swing.

Inaccuracies of the same nature are present in Tennis, Bowling and Golf. I’ve not bothered with Boxing a great deal but I’ll say that I have my suspicions.

Now, this all flies in the face of what I want from a videogame controller and what many would have me believe a Wii offers.

What I want from a controller is control. I don’t want to suggest an action and have some vague facsimile of that movement played out on screen. I don’t want to be told that a game will pay attention to every motion I make and then learn that it ignores most of that information because it’s going through a predetermined animation.

Furthermore, I play games to do things digitally that I can’t do in real life. I can’t throw fireballs. I can’t drive competently at 250kmh. I doubt I’m any good with an AK47. Obviously I’m must be so insecure that I don’t get entertainment in being shown my real life inadequacies replicated by a small box that looks like it wishes Steve Jobs was it’s daddy.

I was ready to give a degree of credit to the controller when playing the Wii Sports bowling. It felt pretty accurate. When bowling in real life I bowl with my right arm and the ball tends to travel with left spin. I get much the same performance in the game. Eyebrows got raised. Cynicism was challenged. Then, when I noticed that the game doesn’t care about your large bowling arm arc, just the orientation of the controller (try holding it in place, pointing it to the ceiling and then swivelling it so it points down. Your on screen character will move their entire arm) I got suspicious. I decided the cheat the controller. I told the game I was using my left arm (the on screen character’s stance changed to reflect this) but kept playing with my right. My cynicism was rewarded – the ball now had a tendency to spin to the right. In other words, these nuances were nothing to do with my bowling characteristics but were built into the game to suggest the controller was doing far more than it actually was. In fact, just like mind-readers and those that claim they can talk to the dead, the Wii succeeds based more on the power of suggestion that is programmed into the software than on any genuine cleverness in the control.

Now, this hasn’t put me off Metroid. Why? Because Metroid aiming is with the Wii remote and if the remote is good at one thing it’s at point on the screen. Samus’s movement, fortunately, is controlled using, of all things, a control stick. Well bugger me! Traditionalism for the win and all that gamer slang.I’ve got the Wii’s number and I’ll be able to tell what games control well and what games give, at best, a vague facsimilie of interpreting motion into game control. Here’s the deal:

Games where the remote is used as a pointing or aiming device will feel pretty good.

Games that expect the user to survive by precise control performed with the remote will crash and burn.

Some of these other games will consist of making a gesture and if that gesture approximates what the game is expecting you will trigger the predetermined outcome. Big whoop (that’s sarcasm, kids). That’s not all though. Did you know that a simple bit of misdirection is all that it takes to fool most gamers? Here’s something you can try at home with your Wii. Find a game that asks you to point the Wii at the TV and move it in a circular direction – not just the pointer end, but the entire remote. Perhaps this is a Wario minigame or some part of a game that sees you rotating a wheel to secure a lock (I dunno, work with me on this ok?). Now, because an on-screen prompt is directing you, you’re compelled to follow it to the letter. Why not try just waggling the controller in a steady motion from side to side. You’ll find it just as effective.

The Wii, from what I’ve now experienced of it, is a charlatan. The controller isn’t doing half as many things as it is claimed but with smoke, mirrors, suggestion and misdirection and a marketing campaign full of safe colours and pictures of old people enjoying themselves Nintendo have succeeded in fooling a lot of people that they really do have that miracle cure to save ‘all that is wrong with gaming’. Nothing is wrong with gaming – nothing apart from companies abusing their position in the industry and smiling their way through some pretty blatant lies that a load of gullible folk want to believe without questioning.

It’s all really quite hilariously, tragically ironic when you think about it.

Still, Metroid should be fun.

Giraffes in spaaaace!

First things first, I love this game and put it up on the same pedestal as Tetris and DRoD. If I could only ever play 3 games, those would be the three.

For some reason, I’ve always been fond of Jeff Minter games. Before I could appreciate why I was shooting cigarettes at rizlas in a stage in Ancipital I was liking the game. I was rubbish at Mutant Camels but I delighted in the oddness of it. That was over two decades ago.

Like many, I really liked Tempest 2000 but found it hamstrung by the awful Jaguar. Fortunately, a superb PC version can be found and plays very very well indeed. More recently Gridrunner++ was my favourite Minter shooter. Wonderfully hectic but filled with strategy and depth and, like the very best twitch games, able to take you to that place where you and the game match wavelengths and you end up playing in some zen-like state.

I’ve learned that you can’t really judge a Minter game until you’ve played it. The totally indecipherable videos of Space Giraffe (SG) that appeared some months back on YouTube gave a flicker of concern but didn’t really put me off as I felt confident the underlying game would become apparent when I was at the controls.

As I’ve mentioned before, when you’ve played games for over two decades, there’s little you’ve not seen in one form or another already. As such, any game that can surprise you or second guess your expectations makes quite an impact. Conversely, any game that ends up being precisely what you expected it to be feels disappointing (unless, it’s God of War 2, naturally).

It should be apparent by now that I had a positive approach to Space Giraffe and was willing to give it more than just the benefit of the doubt. I grabbed the game and played through the tutorial and read through the text instructions which go as far as to tell you how to unlock your first achievement. I started playing the game properly and instantly didn’t get what made it any different to Tempest.

I went back and re-read the instructions and re-played the tutorial. A couple of things clicked into place and I did better. About an hour later I was bulling, jumping and cranking up my score multiplier like billy-o.

People are going to find there’s three goals in Space Giraffe. One is to earn the highest score you can. One is to beat the final level (level 100) the other is to unlock the achievements. But, at it’s core, Space Giraffe is simply about score and how to maximise it. Remember games with that goal? Playing for points? Takes you back, doesn’t it?

Some have criticised the game as being too random. Not true. The game is very structured and the attack waves follow a recogniseable sequence. If in doubt, replay level one a few times and you’ll see what I mean. There’s deliberate design in the action on the screen.

Of course, another criticism is that you can’t actually see the action on the screen due to the psychedelic noise. Whilst this is true to some extent, this is more than compensated by the information delivered by the audio. Trust me, you’ll do so much better in Space Giraffe once you learn to digest the wealth of information it gives your eyes and ears.

Now, admittedly, just what this information represents isn’t immediately apparent. The strange bleats, telephone bleeps, chimes, bovine whining, flashes, psychedelia, cries of “muu muu” and dozens of other cues seem like disorganised abstract overkill. Except they’re not.

If you’re used to games that present you with a blue door and a blue key and leave you to work out what to do next then Space Giraffe is going to make you question a lot of how it goes about doing things. Once again, it’s not that the way this stuff has been put together doesn’t make sense or is too abstract – once you make the connections in your head it all makes perfect sense – in the context of a game that calls itself “Space Giraffe”. I mean, look at the title of the game. That’s a clue as to the sort of logic you’re going to find in it’s mechanics right there. At no point does it ever promise to leave the gamer in their cosy little comfort zone of standard conventions.

So, once you loosen up and are prepared to go with the game’s flow you’ll realise that it has a hell of a lot of sctructure and good sense. For example, if I were to be blindfolded and listen to the game being played I could tell what score multiplier had been reached, how many enemy bullets were shot down, how many enemy bullets were left on the playfield at the end of the stage, if the player had earned the stage-transition bonus and if they had any jump-pods left over. By contrast, if I did the same with, say, Street Fighter 2 I wouldn’t be able to tell you whether player 1 or player 2 won the round!

Some people ask “why can’t he just do things this way or that way”. Well, perhaps he could. But it’s not Minter’s style (if there’s one thing you can say about Minter, it’s that his work has a pretty distinctive style to it) and, more importantly, the game doesn’t suffer as a result. In fact, Minter’s shooters consistently concentrate on expanding core shooting mechanics at the expense niceties like pretty graphics or the multi-limbed bosses and other established gaming conventions. And if you’re going to dismiss a game purely because it’s not got the set-dressing you need then Minter games aren’t for you and probably never will be.

A way Minter has been particularly smart in Space Giraffe is to second guess pretty much all the gamers that believe they’ve got him sussed.

See, gamers are such assholes. They spend their time destroying things IN games or using destructive criticism on fucking messageboards to sound off about game development. Except, hang about, what do they know about game development? Where’s the game they’ve made? What actual well of experience are they drawing from? Or are they assuming playing a game is the same as making a game? That reading a book is the same as writing a book? Sure, you can have an opinion, but it’s not the same as having an informed opinion. Do you sit on a plane and slag off the pilot even though you can’t fly a plane yourself? I believe many gamers use fractured logic along the lines of “Well, I’m better than people who make games because I’ve NEVER made a game. That means I’ve never made a bad game and never made a bad game design decision. I have an umblemished record and therefore am in a better position to criticise game development than anyone that ever developed a game”. Or, just possibly, your ego is running your mouth again.

I always challenge people with such attitudes to make a game of battleships or Tetris or something relatively straightforward using some free tools – like Flash. The moment they stop talking and start walking their view would alter dramatically. Of course, that takes more effort and time than bitching on the internet so there’s no chance they’re going to do that when they can sit on their ironic asses and brand developers as being lazy.

“If I don’t try, I can’t fail.” Better not try then eh? Sure. That’s an attitude we can all respect.

I digress.

Anyway, these folk that never make games but only criticise about how poor someone else’s craftsmanship is have gleefully decided the game is “Just another version of Tempest” or that “Minter can barely string two lines of code together”. The latter is funny because, assuming it’s accurate that would still be two lines of code more than his accusers are capable of – and, even if they could, the second line would probably read GOTO 10.

See, a lot of the game’s charm, for me, is that it doesn’t spoonfed mongrel gamers and pat them on the back for having the ability to read or press a button marked “A” with a showering of praise or a cut-scene. In fact, Space Giraffe is brilliantly stubborn. It insists you play it like Space Giraffe. If you’re too lazy or too blinkered and keep playing it like Tempest, it’ll laugh at you for it. Sure, you’ll make your way through a bunch of levels, then it’ll show you your score on a graph against the potential performance you could have acheived to show you just how bad you are at playing the game. The game, quite deliberately doesn’t give the gamer what they expect or play into their hands. It wants them to unlearn some of their traditions and to do things a little differently. It’s not a particularly harsh master but it will reward the gamer with a higher score and a good deal of gameplay satisfaction and enjoyment.

Now, I hear a lot about how graphics don’t matter and how gameplay is king. I hear a lot about thank God some people are shaking things up a bit and doing something different and confronting people’s perceptions about game traditions. Yeah. I hear a lot of that.

Talk is cheap.

Space Giraffe is brilliant at demonstrating those ideals and just how much gamers who constantly preach them happen to be full of shit. Because, unlike slapping the very pretty Resident Evil 4 on a Wii and calling it a new innovation in gaming, we have a game that eschews much of what is expected by gamers who claim to be bored with the colour brown or with ‘yet another’ this or that. It concentrates on the core gameplay and sticks two fingers up at today’s expectations of digital bling and the two-faced gamers that claim they can live without it but won’t go near a game that doesn’t have graphics by Gucci. Let’s be honest folks, if Gears of War had the same aesthetic as Space Giraffe then few would have touched it.

So, Space Giraffe not only represents great gameplay and incredible bravura but represents a lesson that gamers should pay attention to. For what it is and for what it represents, Space Giraffe is, quite simply, the best commercial game I’ve seen in years.

Thanks Jeff. Don’t ever change!

Catching up

Aw heck. You know how it is. Feast or famine.

Yes, it’s been quiet on the koffdrop.com front recently. The main reason is because I’ve been enjoying playing videogames. See, shortly after getting a 360 (it’s still working folks!) I purposefully switched it off and attacked some older, previous gen games, that had been on my to-do list for a while. Having been through most console generations I know how older, unplayed games get totally forgotten. Heck, I’ve still got SNES games I want to complete.

So, having my interest piqued by media buzz, I’ve recently sliced and diced my way through Manhunt and Killzone. Before that I worked through Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. More recently, Kameo and Marvel Ultimate Alliance have fallen at my gamesplaying might. Somewhere amongst that lot I beat Kirby Squeak Squad (all treasures found) on DS too. So that’s six games since the last BEATEN post. Not too shabby.

I’ve managed to get through the games by simply refusing to play anything else other than the current game of the moment. Cutting down on internet activities such as updating koffdrop.com is another ingredient of my games-beating recipe. I’ve been enjoying the games and pleased as punch to get the extra mileage out of systems that could have been left switched off forever.

The other thing that’s been competing for my time is the insane number of movies I’ve been seeing. I think we’re through the summer blockbuster season – just a Pixar flick and The Bourne Ultimatum to go. I think I’ve seen every summer movie going and a lot of them haven’t lived up to their status. For what it’s worth, the ones I enjoyed or had the most surprisingly fun time at were Die Hard 4.0, Hairspray and the superb Zodiac. I’m serious about Hairspray, by the way.

And that’s all for now. Other than to say, Games Radar has an article stating Miyamoto’s displeasure at Haze’s focus on drugs.

I have one word for you Miyamoto: mushrooms

Beaten: Metal Arms – Glitch In The System

A game I’d been told repeatedly was ‘an overlooked gem’ for years.

I played it. I beat it. It was ok. The game had it’s moments but frankly, after 42 very angular and poorly signposted levels I’m glad it’s over. Ratchet & Clank or the Jak & Daxter games trounce this easily.

If anybody insists the game has some mystical charm or cunning, overlooked depth to it then they’ve clearly not played many (if any) good modern platformers or are a complete numpty. Or both.

Still, another game down! How many games have you beaten this year?

Lies, Damn Lies and The Games Media

Sitting where I do, it’s very easy for me to see the machinations and spin that feed the fanboy bias, selective memory and downright stupidity of ‘intellgent’ gamers around the world. Or “the gaming intelligensia” as they prefer to call themselves.

Proving to these people that the world is, in fact, round and not flat is another matter. After all, their belief is so strong and their willingness to ignore any information that contradicts their viewpoint is practically unshakeable it’s always a case of my word against theirs. And, after all, they’re the mighty gaming intelligensia, I’m just a game developer. What the fuck would I know? Where do I get my news from? And what does it matter – it can’t possibly compare to such unbiased sources as NeoGAF, Kotaku or Joystiq. Right?

Well, as some of you may have read, Ubisoft have announced a slew of dates for their games due to hit the second half of this year. One of these games, Haze, is a title I particularly familiar with. Far more so than any of the gaming intelligensia even.

Sadly, Haze’s recent publicity has been more to do with the fact it was stated as ‘leading on PS3’ than anything to do with the game itself. After all, ‘true gamers’ are so hardcore the game doesn’t matter. True gamers only seem to give a shit about what machine it’s on. After all, everyone knows that if a game is on BoxA it is good and if it is on BoxB it is bad. And if a BoxB game comes to BoxA then it becomes better but if a BoxA game comes to BoxB then it’ll be worse. The game, it seems, is irrelevent. The box is all important. That’s why 99% of the talk of Haze is all about which box it comes out on and not the game itself. That ‘true gamers’ see this as the focal point of pretty much every game release shows just how fucked up their perception of the situation is. But, of course, you can’t tell them that because not only are they TRUE GAMERS they are the GAMING INTELLIGENSIA. They know all. They absolutely will not tolerate criticism of their views or sources.

Anyway, Haze was reported by the media as being exclusive to PS3. Neither Ubisoft or Free Radical stated this – the media spun it that way. The ever-so-easily led gaming intelligensia decided this was an important point and the spin was regarded as fact and that was that.

Now, Ubisoft’s dates suggest that there is a week’s difference between PS3 Haze and Haze on other formats. The media is now reporting, in mocking fashion of course, that “LOL EXCLUSIVE FOR ONE WEEK!!1” is a joke. The gaming intelligensia who focus so hard on reading between the lines excel at missing what is actually written have now decided that a PS3 exclusive has been lost. Oh the hilarity!

But what’s this? Allow me to throw some very clear, very trustworthy facts your way:

• Haze has NEVER been announced as an exclusive of any sort. The only people spinning it that way is the media and the fanboys.
• If an exclusive never existed it cannot be lost.

Those are the facts. Unfortunately it means all the immature crowing of the self-obsessed Gaming Inteligensia is for naught as, by sticking to the facts, it shows just how clueless such agenda led ‘clued up’ people are. If you go back and check the way the media reported this news about Haze you’ll see just how far the spin goes..

..and if the media spin things about one game then what about all the others games. Are they free of spin?

Who watches the watchmen?

Like I said, from where I sit it’s abundantly clear how much bullshit is spun and accepted as truth. How easily the urban myth is adopted as fact and how people who claim impartiality are anything but.

You know the funniest thing?

Those Ubisoft dates – you’ll be seeing some changes to them in the near future, they were never intended to be released.

Still, from one perspective it’s nice to know that gamers – especially the ones that take themselves so very seriously – are so easily led. I mean, when it’s so obvious how to push their buttons.. ..well, it just sets them up for manipulation and exploitation doesn’t it?

Game music for the masses

Just a quick note to let you know of a significant site update.

If you click on the FILES part of the horizontal menu bar at the top of the page you’ll now be whisked to a rather large stash of videogame music in MP3 format. These are hosted on the RadioSega.net servers – all thanks go to SegaMark for his generosity.

More music will be uploaded over time – the collection should exceed 20gb when all is done. Simply click a column head to sort by that type. So click the DATE heading to organise the files in date order – which will allow easy identification of the newest content.

Enjoy.

Beaten: Tomb Raider Anniversary

I really enjoy agile platformers. By that I mean platform games where the player is particularly skilled and agile. Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider are the the titles that immediately spring to mind in this genre. I enjoy these games enough to dash out and buy them and, at the time of writing am very much looking forward to the XBLA Prince of Persia remake due later today.

Lara fell from grace over the last few years with Core and Eidos driving the licence into the ground. I optimistically purchased Core’s Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness and, by god, it was a chore. Very stiff and unhelpful controls. Undeterred, I looked forward to Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider Legend which was bags of fun but far shorter than it should have been – I was just getting into my stride with the credits rolled by!

Tomb Raider Anniversary is the Tomb Raider game I’ve been waiting for.

Firstly, the length – it’s about three times as long as Tomb Raider Legends and feels just about right. I clocked in at about 13 hours which is probably a bit on the slow side. The control of Lara is as good as it was in Legends (which means it’s a hundred times better than any of Core’s efforts). One analogue stick for character control, one for camera, buttons for functions like jumping, rolling, aiming and firing. I recall playing the original Tomb Raider and realise today that I would have gone through that game on the original PS1 controller with just a d-pad and no analogues. Doesn’t really bear thinking about these days!

The controls are detailed to the player as you make your way up a mountain to the entrance of your first tomb. By the time you’ve got the doors open you’ll have familiarised yourself with the basics. If I recall correctly, it’s at this open door that the original game began so it’s clear to see that Crystal Dynamics have taken a bit of creative licence with the original game to make things a more satisfying and sensible experience for today’s gamers. In fact, this re-imagining of Tomb Raider is present throughout the entire game and qualifies as one of the best remakes I’ve played in recent years.

Visually the game stands up very well. I played it on the PS2 but also have the PC demo (higher res, more bloom, depth-of-field effects) and I think the animation, environments and lighting effects are pretty damn good. It’s no Gears of War but Tomb Raider doesn’t need that. Whilst GOW may have set a new standard for all games to be compared against it’s worth appreciating that ultra-hi-fidelity visuals are not entirely necessary (nor appropriate) for all of today’s games. Tomb Raider Anniversary has great lighting effects (a flame-spewing puzzle room is a particular highlight) and the visuals convey a sense of age, scale, action and organic decay more than adequately. The different locales appear distinctive and the game strikes a great balance between eye-pleasing fidelity in everything but holding back enough detail for the crucial gameplay sign-posted areas to stand out. By this I mean special surfaces that Lara can grip, visual clues, floor switches and the like. See – that’s the thing with games – everything has to look high quality but you also need to separate general background visuals from the details that give the player information that’ll help them proceed in the game. Tomb Raider does this well enough to make everything look like it belongs without the sign-posting details getting lost or the typical background visuals looking like they’ve been deliberately toned down. Everything hangs together very well and there’s some superb effects including HDR-like lighting (on a PS2!), great water, waterfall and lava effects – not to mention some suitably archaic aging and dusty effects as ancient temple doors creak open for the first time in centuries.

Tomb Raider Anniversary, as it’s name suggests, is a remake of the original Tomb Raider game. We’re not talking like-for-like remake here. Certainly all the key settings and scenarios (as well as characters and plot) match the original game as do some of the puzzle concepts and ‘feel’ of the rooms and levels. However, Lara is a more capable performer than she was a decade ago with a broader and more diverse skillset which means, for this new game to exploit all Lara has to offer, the challenges that Lara faces in the game and the route she’ll travel to navigate the treacherous tombs is mostly new.

Lara can, for example, leap onto the tops of upright poles, wall-swing and perform some interesting combat moves. The combat has been fleshed out a little more than the original (and recent Legend) game. Lara has a signature combat feature whereby constantly attacking an enemeny will enrage it. You can keep plugging away at it (and possibly beat it) before it rampages towards you or you can make a special ‘adrenaline’ evasive move which triggers a bullet-time effect. As you’re evading in slow-mo two crosshairs converge over your enemy. Pull the trigger at the right moment and you fire the killer shot that will almost certainly take out that foe. Some boss battles use this (or a variation of this) the first being the legendary T-Rex battle. The T-Rex looks great and, like the previous Legends game, also features some simple quick-time-event moments to create exciting and interactive cut-scenes. These QTEs are sprinkled lightly through the game but are rarely all that challenging.

Checkpoints. Checkpoints and savepoints in the original games were an absolute bitch. This was, I’m sure, dictated by the architecture of the orginal console and I distinctly recall Tomb Raider being a pretty tense affair with countless reloads. By contrast, Tomb Raider Anniversary has plentiful checkpoints (which also serve as save markers should you wish to save your game). In fact, it seems that every room, corridor or switch is tagged as a checkpoint in TR:A and threatens the make the game a little too lenient on the player. All in all, I’d say it just about gets away with it. The payoff is that you rarely re-tread too much of the same ground if you screw up and the game has enough challenges to mean you won’t dash through it in a few hours.

All in all, the game is pretty lenient though. Although a variety of weapons become available to you through the course of the game – offering greater firepower for a swifter kill – I managed just fine plugging away using the default twin-pistols and limitless ammo. Ammo appears to be plentiful and can be found easily throughout the game. Large and small health-packs are also dotted the environments and I had no problem beating the game with a stash of unused health and ammo. The game makes it very easy for you to save health – if your health is 50% full and you’re holding 2 health packs and you fall to your death then you’ll start from the last (and, most likely, very close-by) checkpoint with full health and the same number of health packs.

To be honest, I find the contrasting difficulties of the early and later Tomb Raider games to be the most jarring thing about them and it makes me wonder if, with the new games, that this easier setting wasn’t an attempt to make the challenging Tomb Raider games more accessible to a wider audience in an effort to help re-invigorate the franchise. Everything’s a conspiracy!

Audio in itself isn’t anything particularly stunning. Lara huffs and grunts endearingly and many of her actions are accompanied by the sounds of cables and bits of metal jingle-jangling from her belt convincingly. One point worth noting is the music tha plays during enemy encounters – it’s very well implemented and, the moment an encounter is over the music doesn’t fade out or just cut it melodically concludes and, in doing so, sounds perfectly scripted to the particular scene. It’s something that you shouldn’t notice simply because it works really well – rat encounters are definitely elavated thanks to this techinque. Another point worth noting is that much of the music is directly taken from the themes of the original game.

Croft Manor appears as a side-game to the main meat of the game. Other challenges involve acquiring all the relics and artefacts secreted around a level. Spotting them is one thing, getting to where they can be collected is quite a different story. You can track your stats (time, kills, pickups) in an area by pausing and hunting relics will unlock bonus features such as new outfits for Lara, in-game design commentaries and other goodies.

A lot of care and thought has been put into this game and I believe it pays off in abundance. The game is true to it’s source whilst being updated in terms of challenge, aesthetics and accessibility. Overall, Tomb Raider: Anniversary succeeds in reminding gamers, like me, that had forgotten what a great game the original was and how chock-full of inventiveness and memorable moments it was.

Lara, it’s great to have you back.

You’ll Never Walk Alone

 By SledgeHAMMER

Welcome to the first of an irregular series of words by a long time friend of Koff’s.

..why am I here?

Well lets just say that he and I have been kicking around discussions for a long time. We like to talk, we like to pontificate and we sure like to rant.. Yup, we’ve shared plenty of meditations on life, love, whether Jeroen Tel really was a better musician than Rob Hubbard or how did Chris Butler become such a good C64 programmer after years of writing dreck. These nuggets and many more punctuate a friendship that goes back many, many, many years.

What makes it all so interesting, is that Koff and I are gamers at very different ends of the spectrum. He’s embroiled in it, lives it.. breathes it.. he’s spent years toiling away in the industry but enjoys the process and the results so deeply as to, well, take his work home with him (amongst other things!). Of course, sometimes it means he can’t see the wood for the woodchipper but that’s a tasty morsel for another time. Me? ..well I’d like to consider myself the complete consumer. Decades of experiencing and evaluating all that Koff and those like him see fit to lay before us… fried gold, diamonds in the rough and complete turds alike. I’ll admit that after all these years, its kinda cathartic to express some of this stuff by way of the humble written word, so I ask you to bear with me as I delve into a leftfield topic that many of us gamers take for granted.

“..And lo it came to pass, that gamers would learn to enjoy the pleasures of competition, co-operation and of social discourse with their fellow gamer. No longer confined to the solitary pursuit of perfection; they would go forth unto the world and share what they experienced in a joyous union of rapturous enlightenment..”

Yeah, right.. that’s not really the case at all is it? All things considered however, we’ve come a long way in a relatively short time.

Now apologies in advance to those obsessives out there who indulge in MMOGs but your particular drug of choice isn’t really going to get a look in here. Why? Because life just isn’t long enough to do it all justice – if justice is indeed the right word. 😉

So where to begin? Well, we know that in one crucial respect video gaming is no different from any other kind of recreational activity, particularly sport. It’s competitive. Extremely competitive. And why shouldn’t it be? Higher Scores, better lap times, unlockable characters? All of these things designed to enhance the entertainment, increase longevity by encouraging repeat play and competition. Of course a high score or a better lap time starts to lose its lustre if you’ve got no one to brag to right?

You see as our favourite pasttime properly entered the home, something happened. Solitary Computer gaming gained in dominance at the expense of the very arcades that helped to promote video gaming’s competitive nature to the wider world (and let’s face it, Games Master was pants!). Our interests began to turn inwards, causing us to lose interest in interacting with others on the game grid. Sure there were scores of home titles with two player modes that you and a friend could wreck your Competition Pros over; there’s no denying the important role the home computer revolution played in birthing today’s multi-billion dollar gaming industry either. But let’s be honest. Playing a rushed conversion of R-Type on your 14″ colour TV was never going to offer the same experience as traipsing to a packed amusement arcade with a pocket full of 10p coins; Waiting patiently for the chance to show a growing crowd just how good at Smash TV you really were.

Now if all of this sounds overly nostalgic that’s because it is. Unapologetically so in fact. Because only recently are we as a gaming culture begining to return to the sheer joie de vivre of that golden era. For example, ask yourselves why “retro gaming” has established itself as more than just a flash-in-the-pan fad. Yes, there’s money to be made in it but more importantly, we’re savvy enough to appreciate that its not solely about the games themselves, but that it might actually be about the game play instead. Emulators and replica JaMMA cabinets will never be able to recreate the past glory of a session down the Plashet Road Arcade, or late night jaunt to Southend’s many gaming pits. What those old games do for us however, is serve as a timely reminder that it should be about more than just sitting in a darkened room, limping through yet another chapter of [Insert nameless FPS/TPS/Sports Franchise here] hoping you’ll get to the save checkpoint in one piece. And what happens when you’re done? You get the pleasure of sitting through 20 minutes of end credits followed by the glorious reward of being given the same game to complete all over again on a harder difficulty. Oh, and a hollow empty feeling as you hunger for something else to entertain you.

Now on the surface that sounds not too dissimilar from previous generations of games, except with no high score to call your own and more importantly a no real culture based around the importance of scoring achievements any more. What were we left with?

You could further argue that in many respects, the last few generations of games I’m talking about don’t differ a great deal from those of the distant past (apart from, y’know, the obvious technological advances). Yes, once you’ve completed Pac-Man that’s it. Finito. Just like there’s not a lot to do once you’ve completed Devil May Cry 3. However the real distinction between the two actually lies in how we ended up being engaged with those games and the world around us.

Back in’t day, you had to go out to play something. You actually had to leave the house. And, whilst you were there, stuff usually happened to you beyond just the game itself. Without putting too fine a point on it try this for example. Liken what I’ve just said to the difference between being sitting home alone with nothing more for company than a four-pack of warm Carling, a Pot Noodle and a poorly censored hour of soft porn on the telly; versus going down to a lively pub with your mates, sinking several pints, pulling the cute blonde with the cavernous cleavage and taking her home for a night of hide the salami…

Being at home with all the mod cons, microwave dinners and Playboy Channel “On-Demand” might *seem* more advanced (better?) on the surface, but where does the real interaction come from? Option #2 is where its at (I’ll leave the lurid details of how it actually plays out to your own imagination..) 😉

So, is Multiplayer is the key..?

We’ve all heard stories of how Wolfenstein and Doom were a jolt in the arm for multiplayer, social, gaming; the birthplace of huge CounterStrike sessions, Unreal Tournaments and middleware tools like GameSpy. The impact is much much bigger than that. Similarly, the humble LAN party is most definitely the inspiration and the catalyst for what millions of gamers now enjoy in the form of XBox LIVE and PSN – except now, we can enjoy it without the arseache of having to lug a mini tower, bulky CRT and miles of CAT5 cabling to our friends’ place. By taking advantage of facilities such as these to start gaming online, it allows us to at once get closer to those older sociable days and in many ways take us beyond it.

But it doesn’t just stop there. Its no surprise that the wireless capabilities of both the DS and the PSP are constantly touted. Or in another example, the emergence of GPS location-based “real world” games building on early efforts such as GeoCaching. Both the public and the entertainment industry have come to (re)realise the importance of socially interactive gaming (And lets not forget all the parents groups who are now struggling to to use the old “Gaming makes you socially inept” argument)

It isn’t all altruistic sweetness and light unfortunately. There’s gold in them thar hills. Both the hardware and software Vendors want to sell us more stuff. Gaming, online or otherwise is a business after all and they want to milk it. The cynical amongst us will cite new trends such as micro-payments, Episodic and ancilliary DLC as an attempt to leverage even more revenue from an already saturated marketplace.. and they’re not wrong.

Still, we have to accept that its the price we now pay for our own earlier complacency and apathy. As a group on the whole, we’ve grown more impatient and perversely, acquired shorter attention spans. The constantly evolving content path provided by an online delivery model does at least go some way to addressing this thirst. But if we’re as smart as we think we are, we should appreciate that the real benefit from all this online malarky, is through the return of interactivity – not just between us and our games, but more importantly with each other.

..And as for the importance of bragging rights; whoever wants to believe that high-scores are still passée in this day and age is very very wrong. Two words.. Achievement Points..

Waggle me don’t

Prophecy or irony?

It seems that, mere days after me ranting about the damning uselessness of a game like Resident Evil 4 being waggled onto the Wii, new of a game so astoundingly thin on playability is rumoured to be heading Wiiwards also.

The rumours come from two highly unreliable sources (1, 2) – the former having a reputation for promoting pretty much any Nintendo rumours and information and feeding their insatiable audience of trolls many times per day. The other is a gaming forum. No comment.

Killer 7 was a wonderful piece of gargantuan style over totally absent substance. The game was so focused on being special and different it totally forgot to be playable or that Nintendo fan’s buzzword of choice fun. For an example of a game that achieved all those things have a look at Sega’s REZ and then dash off to your nearest fanboy forum and tell everyone that “omg! REZ would be AMAZING ON WII! The Wii controller is PERFECT for it!”

Whilst I’m here, everyone pining for an Okami remake on the Wii because “omg! Okami would be AMAZING ON WII! The Wii controller is PERFECT for it!” are dumb. The paint-brush controls part of Okami would be good on a Wii controller. Unfortunately, they represent about 5% of the game’s playing time and, with the meat of the game being exploration, puzzling and a wide variety of combat techniques that far eclipse the depth that Zelda: TP waggled limply onto the Wii with, it’s simply not a worthwhile venture and would serve to show how remarkably inappropriate the Wii controller is for many aspects of already great games.

If you want to paint, get a paintbrush.

Do what I say, not what I do

OK, it’s been a little while since I’ve had an out and out rant over something and this one’s been stewing for a little while.

Today, I’d like to rant about the upcoming Resident Evil 4 for the Wii.

First of all, let’s cast our minds back to how the gaming community felt about the Wii this time last year. The notion that new and revolutionary gaming experiences were very strong. So strong, in fact, that many gamers simply couldn’t imagine how gaming would ever be the same. The Wii would break through the confines of ‘regular’ games and make good of Iwata’s promise of “You will say wow” (funny how gamers have stopped quoting that isn’t it?).

Let’s also remember that the wonderful Wii was a true gamer’s friend and claims 100% full backwards compatibility with Nintendo’s old generation Gamecube. Incidentally, writing ‘old generation’ sounds a bit silly. However, writing ‘previous generation’ would be inappropriate as, by Nintendo’s press releases, the Wii isn’t ‘next’ generation gaming but ‘new’ generation. Well, ‘old’ is to ‘new’ as ‘previous’ is to ‘next’. So, if Wii is new generation, Gamecube must be old generation, right? Right.

So, the Wii – the best of all possible worlds! New generation games, old generation classics. Who could ask for more?

I mean, if I wanted to play a game like Resident Evil 4 on my Wii then all I’d have to do would be to grab my disks and pop them in my Wii.

So a special Wii edition is pretty much pointless. Especially if the content is going to be the same. Hell, I’m not even sure that the content for the Wii version has been expanded to encompass the extras that were introduced in the PlayStation 2 version of Resident Evil 4. If it doesn’t then I can point a finger at Resident Evil 4 Wii and laugh at how it represents less than ‘old’ gen editions of the game and if it does have the extra content I can point a finger at the game and laugh about how the Wii is getting a port from the PlayStation 2.

Seeing as the Wii can run Resident Evil 4 perfectly, what benefit is there to be had in the new Wii edition besides waggle? It would seem that the answer is “nothing whatsoever”. I mean, that’s a simple and factual look at what this revoluationary console is bringing to gamers of this brave new generation.

Needless to say, the fervour with which Resident Evil fans embraced the news of a port and excitedly built up a froth over the idea of shooting zombies for 15 hours but now with added WAGGLE! was, I’m very sad to say, entirely predictable. The fact that, beneath the very pretty graphics Resident Evil 4 is a pretty shallow and unsatisfying gaming experience is a rant for another day.

Not wanting to suggest that certain news media sites have absolutely no backbone, objectivity, journalistic integrity or intelligence beyond desperately writing things they know their dumb readership want to hear, I read the following excerpt with complete contempt:

..the direct Wiimote-based controls offer a plus, making the game feel like something fresh and different. One reviewer said that the game offers the feeling of being closer to the action as well as upping the tension.

Multiple reviewers agreed on two points, that the new controls are simple and easy to get into, and that even those who played the original will be able to enjoy themselves.

We’ll be sure and spend some quality time with the title for ourselves when the RE4 Wii Edition hits Japan on the 31st and America on June 19th.

This quote was presented to me in quoted form. The quote is taken from an IGN piece (who else?) and, if you read more of the masturbatory drivel (which I’m deliberately not linking to) you’ll see that of a possible 40 points, the game scored 38. In a Japanese magazine. That’s known for handing out high-scores like candy. That also focuses exclusively on Nintendo games.

I learned of this article when it was reported as, of all things, a news article at another website. This so-called news was reported with a breathlessly excited headline stating “RE4 WII EARNS PERFECT SCORE!”. 38 out of a possible 40 does not represent perfection.

But what’s details like that got to do with anything when you’re busy whipping up excitement of a port (to Wii) of a port (from PS2) of a port (from GC) of a game that works perfectly (Gamecube to Wii) of a franchise that’s got THREE sequels (not including spinoffs) and therefore doesn’t need to exist at all? Oh, I forgot the revolutionary aspect of making the same stuff but slapping in a bit of waggle via the revolution of motion sensing.

But then, gamers were assured of innovation, originality and a whole new experience by Nintendo with their Uberbox weren’t we?

So what’s with this shit? Why is second hand dross (though the graphics are awfully pretty – even though ‘graphics don’t count! Wii = innovation!’) getting given the ‘mana from heaven’ treatment, being hailed as scoring perfectly when it isn’t and basically being lied about left right and center and being tarted up as being something special when, in cold, hard truth, it’s just the same old shit with waggle added on top.

This is gaming media. This is the crap that’s being pulled many times in every direction according to whichever agenda the author or site happens to have. And, let’s not forget – a chunk of that agenda is “get webhits, earn revenue”.

Once again, we’ve got a wonderfully clear example of how The Emperor’s New Clothes is being played out to the letter on a Nintendo platform and these oh-so-critical, oh-so-impartial, oh-so-knowledgeable gamers are lapping it up as though they’ve not eaten in weeks.

So what’s with the title?

Well who started this kind of behaviour? Who set the precedent for taking old gen games, slapping waggle into them and saying “Here is something totally new and amazing! Here is the realisation of the promise of the Wii!”

The answer, of course, is Nintendo, when they took Zelda and waggled it onto Wii. Perhaps if Nintendo want originality on their machine which they certainly tell developers to focus on, they shouldn’t have played such a cheap stunt with one of the most important titles they own. Sure, you get a strong initial sales quota but you also send an equally strong message to all your developers: if it’s good enough for Nintendo to waggle old generation games onto Wii then it’s good enough for us.

Iwata, I’m not saying wow. I never did. I’m still saying “What the fuck?” and still amazed that ‘true’ gamers are falling for this bullshit.

Events and spin such as the existence of Resident Evil 4 Wii and it’s reception is far more damaging to innovation and originality than anything else I can think of right now. If you already own Resident Evil 4 and buy the the Wii version instead of an original, new, game then you’re helping to stifle creativity and innovation too.

Buy Psychonauts or DRoD instead. Those guys have made more interesting games and would certainly benefit from the money more than Nintendo or Capcom right now.

Do your bit. Don’t help kill innovation and creativity. Learn to recognise it when you see it.

TIP: Resident Evil 4 isn’t it.