This weeks’ Bulletin is about making better use of a game’s setting;
“How about a tactical FPS depicting a yearlong conflict between the Blue Suns and the Blood Pack, or a Hitman-style game where you play a Drell assassin? Even a turn based strategy where you set up new human colonies is feasible – and potentially quite exciting, if you think back to Eden Prime and Feros – and all because BioWare took the time to build an interesting world.“
I just grabbed the frankly enormous Heavy Rain demo from PSN and honestly? My feelings about it are mixed. My very first impression was that it’s a very good looking game, but that wasn’t exactly a surprise, all the screen shots and trailers have been simply gorgeous, if a little uncanny valley inducing.
Having now played the demo, I have two main criticisms; firstly, for a game so forward in its thinking, it is curiously backward in it’s design. Fixed camera angles and a movement system that wouldn’t have looked out of place in 1996, gives the game an unwelcome retro feel. It game has a walk button for heaven’s sake, and I can’t really figure out why. The left stick is only used for movement, so having to press R2 every time you want to actually move seems superfluous. It’s the same kind of system as the ‘3D’ movement of PS1 games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil, a movement system we haven’t used in years. It feels clunky and awkward and it’s going to take some getting used it.
My other complaint is that the game is incredibly fiddly. I knew there would be Quick Time Events, and they’re much less intrusive than Heavy Rain’s spiritual predecessor Fahrenheit, but there sure is a hell of a lot of them. For example, in the second section of the demo, you have the chance to climb a muddy hillside. The climb is split into three sections, each with about six different button presses, which is one thing, but there’s also a bunch of a button presses you need to do to get back down. Want to open a car door? Make a quarter circle from 12 o’clock to 9 o’clock; and don’t get me started on the fight scene in the first chapter.
However, this complaints aside, Heavy Rain is still a game I’m likely to pick up. The idea of hunting down a serial killer form a variety of viewpoints really interests me, just like it did when Fahrenheit did it. Hopefully it won’t go weird like in the same way.
Another week, another Bulletin. In a complete 180 from last weeks, this is about when games don’t do enough:
“It’s a truism that there is no drama without conflict, and in a medium where the storyteller does not have total control over the experience the simplest form of conflict is to provide the player with an antagonist to fight and let them get on with it. It’s a tried and tested formula that’s been around for decades, and while it gets constant refinement, it remains fundamentally unchanged.”
If there was ever a game that summed up my attitude to narrative and gameplay, it’s Failbetter Games’ Echo Bazaar, a browser game built around Twitter. The gameplay in Echo Bazaar is virtually non-existent from a ‘hardcore gamer’ point of view, being based around grinding ’storylets’ to improve your skill, which unlocks new storylets, which you then grind into infinity. Your success is determined randomly, and the advancement system designed so that trying a task that is easy for your skill level is just as rewarding as one that is nearly impossible.
And yet, I’m hooked; so much so that I’ve designed a table top role-playing game so I can play in with my friends.
So what is it about Echo Bazaar that is so compelling? Well the answer is simple, the world that Failbetter Games has put together is so interesting, that the simplicity of the gameplay is irrelevant. Without going into too much detail – and trust me, I really could – Echo Bazaar is an alternate history where London was pulled down below the ground by enigmatic and ancient supernatural forces. In the perpetual darkness of the city, now called Fallen London, death is temporary and hell is very close indeed.
The game casts you a rogue, lying, cheating, seducing and sometimes killing as you make your fortune in the fallen city and investigating all the nooks and crannies that make up the game world is simply fascinating. I will often forgive a game for less-than-amazing gameplay if the story is good, and nothing exemplifies that like Echo Bazaar.
As well as my news and feature articles, I write a small column on Pocket Gamer on behalf of The Escapist. This week’s topic is feature lists and how bigger isn’t always better
“It’s common for sequels to try and be bigger and better than their predecessors. Take the two Knights of the Old Republic games, for example: in the first, you fought against a Sith Lord with a huge fleet at his command, but in the second you fought against a Sith Lord who could destroy planets with his mind. The desire to make a sequel bigger and better than its predecessor is understandable, but all too often this escalation can cause creators to lose sight of the essence of a project.”
It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but that’s because I’ve been rather busy. I’ve written two feature articles for The Escapist, the first entitled Getting Back in the Game, talking about how games helped me in the recent breakdown of my marriage, and the second called Journey Into Darkness, a look at the storytelling in Starbreeze’s action-shooter “The Darkness”
If there was ever a game that summed up my attitude to narrative and gameplay, it’s Failbetter Games’