No choices! & Sony leaks (part XXVII)

Letter 1:



Hi SuperViv!


One of this days somebody will create the definitive action-strategy hybrid (which is not Raven Squad). But even then, I can't guarantee that I'll play it! :D


I admire the Command & Conquer series because they kept having FMV sequences even after they were officially declared to be uncool. And with great actors! If your game has Michael Ironside or Tim Curry, for me it's automatically promoted to "worth playing", even if it only had a loading screen. Maybe someday I will play them all, if we get another "definitive" compilation, or when a less lazy reissue of C&C: The First Decade includes a more user-friendly instalation process (when you install it you have to enter seven CD keys!)

My brother is a die-hard strategy gamer (he loves the Civilization and Alpha Centauri games, and is now playing the heck out of Hearts of Iron III), but he usually skips RTS games altogether, unless they are in space! I guess he just wants to have (virtual) power in his hands, but he doesn't care much about explosions and stuff. Though it's always interesting to have nukes in a game, and he says the nuclear bombs from Rise of Nations are very cool.

Now here's a GTA IV tip for you: If you want to date that lawchick, just keep looking for dates on the internet after the game requests you to date some dude for a mission.

I think the good/evil "decisions" in GTA IV are a joke. You are forced to act evil all the time! There was one mission in which I didn't want to shoot some unarmed guy on behalf of a paranoid scumbag I didn't even like, and the game didn't acknowledge my attempt to walk away from the murder. Some other times, I was given the chance to spare one guy or the other. But I wanted to kill both!

That's an interesting link! The matter of "moral choices" is a hot topic right now, but it's not very well done in games. It hasn't moved forward since Jedi Knight: you got "dark" powers and a bad ending. And that's it. Not really challenging, is it? So we are now offered lots of meaningless choices (if any) which don't change anything other than adding a +1 to the evil counter. You become too evil and a bad ending is silently triggered. Morality in games hasn't gone very far, don't you think?

Later,

- Danda

Letter 2: (replying to my buddy JR, who just sent me this)



Hi JR!


The house that Sony built is certainly leaky! So now everybody knows that they do have the technology to emulate the PS2 on the PS3 (of course they do! They had it two years ago after all). To tell you the truth, I think it's great that they start selling PS2 games on the PSN store, because I don't own one single PS2 game. You know, I almost bought a re-issue of ICO in Dublin in 2005, but it was too expensive!


Of course, if they can do that, there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't play the game if you already own it. You know, like with Xbox games. If you have, say, Conker: Live & Reloaded, you can play it on your Xbox 360 because it's on their retrocompatibility list. I completely assume Sony will do the same, right? I hope their customers won't accept less than that.


Oh, but there's actually more interesting information in that document, even if it's not highlighted as "the more interesting bits":



Alpha Protocol:

You know, I already preordered this for PC on Steam... but at some point I considered playing it on PS3. It's being developed by Obsidian, the company founded by members of the original Fallout game. According to Sony, it feels "barely RPG", and it's too challenging at first (it reminds me of how I got owned time after time by the rats on the first Fallout screen! You don't want to know how I fared against the radscorpions that attacked the first town...). Sony's product evaluator produced a great quote: "Mass Effect felt more RPG". Of course, many people feel Mass Effect can't be considered an RPG at all.

Planet 51:

For me this is specially interesting. Pyro Studios, from the Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines series, is behind this. Sony is worried because movie tie-ins traditionally underperform. Well, they underperform because they are crap. But I think this case is different: Pyro Studios hasn't been hired to create "the game from the movie". Actually, the game developers from Pyro Studios are directing the movie. Yeah, you read that right.

Yakuza:

Japanese imports? Yes! (And I don't even understand Japanese!)

Game + movie bundles:

Of course! Why didn't they even thought of it before? I even bought the Collector's Edition of Stranglehold just to get Hard Boiled in HD. And in Germany, you can buy Ghostbusters with the movie.

Of course, "the movie" means "the movie in HD". Some UK stores offered Wanted: The Videogame for the PS3... with the DVD! Why?! I already have a PS3 and I want the Blu-ray!

It's funny how the big secret from the document (the potential PS3 price cut) was already leaked weeks ago!

I know you're very busy, but I hope you have time to reply!

Hope to hear from you soon!

- Danda

Real-time strategy vs. turn-based strategy

Hey Danda!

I'm not entirely surprised that you don't like strategy games if your only real contact with them was Stalin vs Martians! Although that viral campaign looks like fun... A dancing Stalin? Why not!

Seriously, though, I realize that strategy games aren't for everybody. I played Command & Conquer mostly for the video sequences when it came out in the mid-90s. (A lot is possible with animated cut-scenes these days, of course, but videos of real people do have their own appeal.) I also vividly remember playing Command & Conquer against my brother via null modem (who does that anymore?) and also losing constantly. But I still liked the game.

Meanwhile (with age?) I prefer turn-based strategy games over real-time strategy games, though, as they're generally a lot less hectic. Games like Civilization III and, before that, Colonization, or even X-Com: UFO Defense and SimCity have captured my attention for many more hours than real-time strategy games have. Of course, it might also be that it's because Civilization, Colonization and SimCity were less about war and more about nation-building.

At any rate, as you know, I'm now quite taken with GTA IV now, even though I didn't yet get to the part where it's possible to date that "lawchick". There's still a lot to explore in the game, and the in-game Internet is one of those things. By the way, it's a shame you can't choose to play the game as a woman, although I do admit that in this particular game, the story so far wouldn't really work if you could. (I recently read an interesting article about the "issue" of having to play male characters as a female gamer: Writer Ann Aguirre talks games | GameCritics.com.)

I was surprised to find out yesterday that I could make a "good" or an "evil" decision in GTA IV, and I wonder what the effect on the story will be in the future. However, shortly after that morally sound decision I made, I had to execute someone, and I don't think there was away around it, which makes the importance of the earlier decision doubtful.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what happens next, and I'm just glad that the people I accidentally hit with my car in wild chases through Liberty City don't weigh negatively on my karma!

Speaking of moral decisions in video games, there's another interesting article (Decisions, Decisions | GameCritics.com) about that on the same site as the other article, which agrees with you in the assessment that the moral choice system in BioShock was lame. (That's what you think, too, isn't it?) In retrospect, I have to admit that I was never tempted to replay BioShock as "evil", harvesting all the Little Sisters. From what I understand, the only difference would be that I'd get to see a different ending. That's not enough payoff for a casual core gamer!

Game on,
- Viv

I don't want to join that club

Hi SuperViv,

I'm really sorry that I can't say anything about Rise of Nations. I never play any strategy games whatsoever. They are just not made with me. Maybe it has to do with the fact that my brother is the king of strategy games at home, and I just don't want to compete with him.

And I guess I'm really unlucky, because the last "strategy" game that I tried to play was the abysmal Stalin vs Martians, easily one of the worst games ever made. I think they were going for the high camp seen in some of the Command & Conquer games, but obviously they didn't even try. The final result is something like a fan-created, horrible Cannon Fodder-like arcade game. You just move your units around, trying to shoot martians with a non-existing interface (just point and click, no statistics whatsoever) and dying arbitrarily. Oh, and you are forced to listen to god-awful techno tunes.

I bought this game because the viral campaign for it was so insane I thought maybe it would be fun. But it wasn't. This game was so bad that it was pulled from Steam after a few months. Or maybe it was because some of the martians in the game were ripped off straight from Toy Story, Pikmin and Doom. Look it up, it's true! Sadly, this is not a case of "it's so bad, it's awesome". This is just soul-crushingly bad.

Now, to GTA IV... Well, I played that game on my PS3, and of course taking your friends out is a chore, but... you know, the game doesn't exactly force you to do it. You know, it's a bit like real life: you neglect your friends, you lose them, and that's it (hey, that's what I usually do in real life!). Just consider this option an "extra" advantage, in a purely pragmatic way. You know, the conversations and stuff get old quickly, but it's still good to date that "Lawchick" you meet on the internet ocasionally to get your "Lose police heat" free card.

I also have the PC version. I bought it on Steam as it was part of a "all GTA" package, but I never even installed it. The Rockstar Social Club and Windows Live membership requirement is one of the most stupid ideas ever. I've been a PC gamer all my life, but I've jumped ship and become a console gamer because I just hate those intrusive "activate the game on the internet" schemes. They are really stupid, and only punish those who buy the game (you won't find any of this crap in the pirated versions!). The same happened to me when I bought the House M.D. DVDs and I had to suffer through that annoying (and unskippable) "Piracy is a crime" video in every single disc. But I already bought the DVDs and I'm not a criminal! Hello?

I have many of the Unreal Tournament games. I even played intensively the first one (offline!), but a couple of weeks ago I tried playingg UT 2004. It didn't help that I never played when it was first released, so I lasted ten minutes before I uninstalled it. I have UT III, so what's the point?

Speaking of the Unreal engine, I'm currently playing Batman: Arkham Asylum, and in my opinion it is very good, but not amazing. And it's ugly as sin. It's really sad that this game is regarded as A+ material; it indicates that video game design has been slowly declining into mediocrity. For me, this game can be accurately described as Metal Gear Solid with Batman.

Hear from you later!

- Danda

Being a bad conqueror and an illegal immigrant (Rise of Nations & GTA IV)

Hi Danda!

Sorry for the radio silence. Another week and weekend has gone by. I recently bought Rise of Nations that they gave away for 4,99 EUR or so in a German gaming magazine, and I have been playing that vigorously for a few days. It's ideal for casual core gamers! You can start a mission, and those that I have played mostly require you to win against your enemy in 90 minutes. So after 90 minutes, you either won or you lost, but the mission ends and you can decide that you've played enough and go do something more productive. Like the dishes.

Of course, the bad thing about the game is that it is somewhat difficult and so I kept losing after a while and then decided it wasn't fun anymore. It doesn't help that they hide some options as advanced options that are really important for the game, like the option to make your soldiers protect your catapults. Catapults can be destroyed very easily by an enemy, so imagine how happy I was when I found the hidden option to use all my military to protect them! That certainly rid the enemy of some of his buildings quickly.
However, I kept building a huge military and attacking my enemy's cities and still ended up with nothing but dead soldiers. I might not be using the right strategy.

At any rate, I have now switched to GTA IV. If you look at amazon.co.uk (where they are selling the game for 14.99 GBP, which currently is only around 17 EUR), you will see a lot of negative comments. In fact, as I'm writing this, the game has 5-star reviews 48 times, and 1-star reviews 120 times. Most people are complaining about the Rockstar Social Club and Windows Live, which I completely agree should be an option and not a requirement. I don't want to play online, so I wish they'd just leave me alone. Also, I have a fairly decent system and can't even play the game on highest details, let alone my screen's full resolution, 1680 x 1050.

The story so far is interesting, though, and I'm sure it will be nice to turn my fresh-off-the-boat Eastern European immigrant character into a notorious ruler of the underworld, or whatever the goal will be. I'm skeptical, though, about having to take your friends in the game out for a night on the town in order to stay friends with them. That seems like incorporating a bit of The Sims into GTA. Who wants that? But I will report back to you when I played it for a while longer.

In other news, my brother managed to fix my laptop this weekend (a Dell Inspiron 8200 with graphics troubles) by taking it apart and cleaning each part with a brush. Now, strangely enough, it works again (it was probably a loose contact) and so I spent some of my Sunday playing Unreal Tournament against him. It's also amazing to see how many people still play the game online, considering that it's been released quite a few years ago.

Game on,
- SuperViv

RPGs are too addictive! Also, DNF is the most appropriate title ever.

Hi SuperViv!

OK, I'll probably follow your advice. No Oblivion! I definitely want to play Fallout 1, but I need to be on the right mindset. I can't just drop into the game, because I'm easily turned off by the gaming conventions and design contraints old games have. We've come a long way and now games are so user-friendly that it's hard to go back to the basics. I've read that Fallout 2 was broken because it was rushed out (always a bad sign for a game), though a fan-created patch fixes that. Then, there's a third game for PC, "Tactics", and one for consoles, "Brotherhood of Stell", but they are not RPGs anymore.

Of course I know Guild Wars! Actually, my first professional translation was an expansion for this game, Guild Wars: Nightfall. The text was so interesting that I bought two copies of the game afterwards, and I started to play it with my brother. That's the best way to enjoy it! I also bought the other games and played through most of the Prophecies campaing.

The thing with GW is that it's actually a MMORPG simulacrum, and it can be described as a regular RPG designed to be played with up to three other players in coop mode or solo. Great you can play solo! Though an early gate in "Prophecies" can only be opened with the help or another player. I don't know if they have changed that now that some servers (the Spanish one, at least) are completely deserted with no other humans in sight (and I did notice that the difficulty of some enemy encounters have been drastically toned down). It's a shame, because it's just a great game.

I think the best thing about Guild Wars is that it's so casual-friendly. You can play a bit, do a few missions, and then pick it up several months later. So I've been playing it for almost three years now. That's the only way for me; I don't like the WoW mechanism of buying your way into the game: once you start paying the monthly fee, then you just have to play. This creates a pressure on the player, a pressure I don't want or need. I don't want to give up my life for a f***ing game.

I'm still waiting for Did Not Finish... I mean, Duke Nukem: Forever. They should just release what they have as a shareware product (back to the good old times!), and call it DNF: The Lost Levels.

I've been playing Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazzard lately, and there's a jab at Duke Nukem ("Nuke Winter: Coming Soonish!) during the last level. Which is stupid, because Matt Hazzard is supposed to be Duke Nukem, and because DNF is probably better in its unreleased form that this boring mess of a game. Maybe one day I'll tell you what's wrong with it. Too bad, because it definitely had potential for greatness!

See you tomorrow!
Danda

The Fallouts and Guild Wars (or: The beginning of an addiction?)

Hi Danda,

Wow, if you really want to play all the previous games to any new series you start, you'll have your hands full, I tell you. I played Fallout 1, it was fun, and then I tried Fallout 2, but it was way too difficult. For me, anyway. And the first Fallout 3, I thought that wasn't even released? As for playing Oblivion first... well, that's a little far-fetched, I'd say. But it's not like I'd want to discourage you from it. It's a fun game, although so far not as gripping as Morrowind. It's easier to get into it, though, because it begins with a clever tutorial in a prison dungeon at the beginning of the game. Just like Fallout 3 had a nice beginning, where the tutorial was cleverly built into the telling of the background story. Bethesda does that well. However, as you pointed out, it's also a time consuming game, and when you're not completely taken by the story or you get side-tracked and do something else, you forget what you did before and then you'd almost have to start again to enjoy it. And then you'd have to go through the tutorial again. And it won't be as much fun the second time around.

At any rate, I did go out yesterday and bought Guild Wars - the first chapter, entitled Prophecies. A friend of mine talked me into it, since he is playing it all the time, and so I bought it knowing that he'd be joining up with me and explaining the basics. I can see how such games make people addicted to them, especially when there is someone else who has an interest in you playing. The graphics are pretty good, considering the game was released in 2005. But it's still being played four years later, and the good thing about this MMORPG is that you don't have to pay for anything else but the game itself. No subscription fees. That is certainly a good selling point.

The game has a story, of course, but you can also just go out and do quests for a long time, just building your character, learning the basics, looking around. The fighting is still a bit confusing to me. You basically just click on the enemy and your character starts beating on it, and then there are special skills you can use, some of which become available when you get adrenaline from fighting. So basically I just clicked on the enemy and then was frantically clicking on my skills, and many times I ended up winning. There's still a lot I have to learn. But it will be nice to have my friend teach me.


Anyway, I imagine if "normal" games are too time-consuming for you with their 100 hours (which I entirely understand, after all you're a casual core gamer!), you're likely to stay away from MMORPGs until you retire. But if you don't, get Guild Wars and we can kill monsters together!

And last but not least, let me tell you that that Bionic dude looks a lot like Duke Nukem (see image). Which reminds me, I think Duke Nukem Forever is coming out this year. Heh.

Talk to you later!
- SuperViv

Swinging around Casual Core Land, or My day with Bionic Commando Rearmed

Hi SuperViv!

Well, you know my BASIC routine for a great game would be a lot shorter.

10 make teh best game ever!
20 the world explodes
30 goto 10


No, don't tell me after 20 there would be no 10 to come back to. I already know, but I don't care!
Oh, Fallout 3... I bought it last year, but I still haven't being able to even unwrap the game. My problem with a game like this is that it demands a lot of time, but not only because of the game itself (with all those DLC releases I'm sure I would end up playing for 100 hours). My problem with games like this is that I feel "morally compelled" to play its ancestors before I start with it. And this game comes from a big family. I won't count Wasteland (thank god!), but you still have Fallout, Fallout 2, "the third Fallout game nobody quite loves", and... Oblivion. Yes, Fallout 3 owes a huge lot to Oblivion, but if I jump onto that branch of the family... Well, I have Morrowind as an ancestor (I won't look earlier than that), and then you have all those expansions (the Shivering Islands, etc)... So because of my obsession with playing "all the games", I have locked myself out of Fallout 3!

My love-hate relationship with RPGs is getting worse. Yesterday, Bioware's Knights of the Old Republic was finally released on Steam. I'm trying to play Bioware's Mass Effect (and enjoying it), so I don't know if it will be jarring for me to jump into the "previous generation" later. But I definitely want to play KOTOR, and even the ill-fated KOTOR II, developed by the creators of the original Fallout, but released before the final stretch of the game was properly finished.


But I almost forgot... Yesterday I decided to play Bionic Commando Rearmed, at last. This was one of the first games I tried when I bought my PS3 last year and started trying all the demos available, and IMO it still is the best thing on the PlayStation Store. The game has been patched recently to include trophy support, and a more casual difficulty level (infinite lives!). That was just what I was waiting for!

It's true that I finished the game in just one day. Well, it doesn't matter, because I really enjoyed almost every minute of it. And I say almost, because this game is very forgiving for casual players if you just want to finish it, but if you want to stray from the normal path and try to get one of the special items and secrets, you get a taste of the real, unadultered Bionic Commando experience. And that implies pulling your hair out and scream angry expletives at the screen.

I'm not exaggerating if I say that I died 50 to get a single item (a helmet in those *%@! secret tunnels), and I just can't imagine how it could be even possible to get it before the patch. What a nightmare!

But other than that, the game is a lesson about how to remake a game. It's excellent in every sense, starting with that classy retro-modern intro (the music is so good that I'm not surprised that the musician was promoted to creative director of the game). Other remakes should look up to this game.

I still haven't tried the full-blown Bionic Commando game, but as an appetizer, this one is great. It kind of makes me sad that its developer, Grin, went under. I kind of understand when people who make terrible games go bankrupt, but Grin was doing interesting and playable stuff, I think. Well, I still haven't played Wanted and BC, but I will, and I'll tell you more about it.

Later,
Danda :)

Fallout 3, BSG and modding in BASIC

Hey Danda,

So whatever disease it is that is being bred here in these offices, it got to me and I was sick all day Wednesday. I stayed home, drank hot tea and played Fallout 3 all day. Now I'm hooked. It's so much more gripping than Oblivion for some reason. I love it. I also played it half the day yesterday. And as I was trying to finally fall asleep later that evening, I had this beautiful idea that Bethesda should make an RPG based on... Battlestar Galactica! How awesome would that be? You could start off with missions on the Battlestar and then later in the game progress to some planet or another, and your karma could decide whether you'll end up, say, making peace with the Cylons or not. Ooor every new start of the game could have other people turn out to be Cylons. But even without that, it could still be awesome. And I'd be hoping there'd be no Uncanny Valley problems with their rendition of Starbuck. :)

Someone should make a BSG mod for Fallout 3. I should learn how to mod. Hey, I'll do it in BASIC!

10 make Wasteland look like Caprica

20 make character look like Starbuck

30 make Megaton look like the Battlestar

40 make monsters look like cylons

50 simulate awesome gameplay and dialog

60 be awesome

70 goto 10

The one negative thing about Fallout 3 is that you can't advance past level 20, unless you get the downloadable content. Monster slaying is only half as fun if you don't get experience points. But it takes a long time to advance that far, so it's not that bad.

At any rate, it's a great game, and I recommend you play it, too!

Game on,
- SuperViv

Switch - Cambio

We are switching this blog to English-only entries, and we'll be experimenting with the epistolary style. Don't be shocked if new entries look like private emails... because they are!

We are just starting, and we'll appreciate your feedback to find our way. Thank you.

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Vamos a empezar a publicar entradas escritas sólo en inglés, y experimentaremos con el formato epistolar. No os asustéis si los nuevos posts parecen emails personales... ¡porque lo son!

Este blog acaba de nacer, así que agradeceremos vuestras opiniones para saber por dónde tirar. Gracias.

God of War HD

Sony rips a page from Nintendo's book and has announced a new HD PS3 release of the original God of War titles.

It would be much better if they also offered full retrocompatibility for the PS3. You can still play the Gamecube version of Metroid on a Wii, and nobody expects it to hurt the Metroid Prime Trilogy sales at all!

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Sony copia las tácticas de Nintendo y ha anunciado una nueva edición en HD para PS3 de los dos primeros juegos de God of War.

Sería mucho mejor si también hubiera retrocompatibilidad total para la PS3. Es posible jugar al Metroid Prime de Gamecube en una Wii, y eso no va a quitar a nadie de comprarse la Metroid Prime Trilogy.