The biggest news this week has been the trouble between Activision and Infinity Ward. People have been fired, lawsuits have been brought and it’s generally just an ugly mess. But one of the commonest things I’ve heard is that this is some nefarious scheme on Activision’s part, orchestrated by the Grand High Wizard Bobby Kotick.

I have just one thing to say to that: Nonsense.

Gaming is a business, and Activision is pretty much the biggest fish in the pond.  One does not get that big by being stupid, so for Activision to risk so much negative publicity – and there’s no way it didn’t foresee the outcry from gamers – there must be a pretty good reason for its actions.  Given how much money Modern Warfare 2 must have just made for Activision, firing the studios heads so you don’t have to pay them does not sound like a smart business move, and moreover, doesn’t really make a lot of sense in the long term, but gamers are so quick to assume that Activision is the bad guy, that it doesn’t enter their heads for a second that it might be in the right this time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not especially keen on Activision’s business model, and I wish it approached game-making with a little more care for the art of it, but the fact that the company wants to make money does not automatically mean that everything it does is an act of moustache twirling villainy. It may transpire that Activision is indeed the bad guy in this picture and that Zampella and West are – as they assert – owed millions of dollars, but personally, I’d like to know all the facts before I jump to conclusions.

EDIT: It occurs to me that I don’t really care all that much who screwed over who; I don’t buy many Activision games and I buy even fewer Infinity Ward games, I’m just very bored of gamers who refuse to see the gaming industry for what it is, an industry. This whole fight is about a multi-million dollar company, and the multi-billion dollar company that technically owns them.  We’re not talking about some guys in their bedroom and the Evil Corp, and I wish gamers would stop treating it we are.

I gave the Just Cause 2 demo a whirl earlier on, and I must admit that I’m a little torn on whether I liked it or not.

It seems like most of my major concerns with the game have been fixed – the driving is way better than it was and the weird wanted system seems to have been straightened out – and it’s certainly bright and colourful.  But it seems to have done a ‘Warrior Within’ and made Rico a much darker character than the first game.  Admittedly that’s based on a very short intro movie – with some of the least convincing accents I’ve heard since, well since Heavy Rain, but I was under the impression that Rico was supposed to be ‘James-Bond-played-by-Antonio-Banderas”, a likeable rogue, not some grim mercenary calling himself ‘Scorpio’.

More importantly, the gameplay is based around ‘rampaging’, where you go out of your way to cause as much property damage, it’s even called ‘Chaos’ in game.  This kind of play has never really appealed to me as I’m much more of a story orientated kind of guy.  It’s going to be a rental I think, definitely not a buy.

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.

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 excited as I am about Super Street Fighter IV, Capcom seems to be stretching the definition of ’street’ here.

BioWare is one of those companies whose games I buy sight unseen.  I don’t need to know what it’s about, just the fact that it’s a BioWare game is enough for me.  It’s a bit sad then, that Dragon Age has made me question that policy, just a little bit.  Don’t get me wrong, Dragon Age is a good game and I’m enjoying myself a great deal, but I’ve come to expect more from BioWare.

Dragon Age is a strange game to play, because it represents BioWare trying something new, but also BioWare adhering rigidly to the formula they’ve worked from for the last ten years.  The world that Bioware has created for the game is significantly darker than anything it’s done before; it’s a world of betrayal, prejudice, war and copious arterial spray.  Sadly, it all comes off as a little drab, with none of the splendour that characterises the fantasy genre and while it’s new ground for BioWare, it’s not new ground for games, as the Witcher beat them to it by a couple of years, and did it with more conviction too.

Oh yeah, Orzimmar is Ironforge.  Don’t think I didn’t notice, BioWare.

But while the world that BioWare has created is a departure for the company, the story that it created is not.  You are a fighter/mage/rogue, more capable than your youth would suggest, recruited to join the Grey Wardens and stand against the evil Darkspawn hordes.  Replace Grey Wardens with Jedi or Spectres, and Darkspawn – itself a singularly unimaginative name – with Sith or Geth, and the formula becomes obvious:  unusually capable hero + elite organisation + objectively evil army = BioWare game.  It’s the same story with the characters you meet; they’re all well written and well acted, but I’m sure I’ve met them somewhere before.

By the way BioWare, I liked Farscape too, but casting Claudia Black to play Aeryn Sun again is maybe taking it a bit far.

I can forgive the slightly formulaic nature of the story however, because while It’s not new story, it is one that I like.  What really lets Dragon Age down and actually makes it frustrating to play is the lacklustre combat.  There are many things I expect from a BioWare game, and tedious micro-management in combat is not of them.  As much as I like Alistair, in combat he is a moron, and forcing me to spend skill points, that I would much rather spend on herbalism or trap making or anything else, so that I can enact anything beyond the most rudimentary tactics is not compelling game design.

Also, regularly throwing up fights where we are outnumbered three to one, and then telling us to not let ourselves get surrounded is a little galling.

What’s really confusing is why BioWare has stuck this unimpressive tactics game on an otherwise decent RPG.  The only thing I can think of is that it is trying to replicate the gameplay of Baldur’s Gate, in which case, it’s memories of the game differ significantly from my own.  The Baldur’s Gate that I remember – which is actually BGII if I’m honest – was a game where the AI was smart enough to take care of itself for the most part, and only very occasionally, usually in a ‘boss fight’, did I have to control each character individually.  In Dragon Age I seem to be constantly pausing and directing, which is a first for me in a BioWare game, and not something I especially care for.

As I said, I’m enjoying Dragon Age a great deal, but I’m enjoying it despite of BioWare’s best efforts, not because of it.