It's 1996 all over again

This looks insane... and awesome, too. A Greek Tex Murphy clone!
I hope it's better than the previous one.


Do you miss those 1990's games with actors in the middle of your 3D-generated world? Then you'll be pleased to know that GOG just released the amazing Realms of the Haunting.

But if you prefer old-school 2D, then go this way. Hey, no problem. I love both styles.

Playstation loyalty?

I own a Playstation. I purchase lots of games. I play as much as I can (which is not much lately, though). Then, the new Playstation loyalty program, "Playstation Rewards", should be perfect for me, right?

Well,

The tiers earn members access to mostly digital rewards, like exclusive PSN avatars that display member status in the program, dynamic themes and PlayStation Home content.

Avatars, dynamic themes and PlayStation Home content? The stuff you can keep if you terminate your PlayStation Plus subscription because nobody really wants it and it's kind of worthless?

You can count me the f*** out.

Alpha Protocol is a cool game

Jim Sterling from Destructoid is an idiot. He gives a 2/10 to Alpha Protocol, so you would assume the game is broken and unplayable.

You would be wrong.

I'm playing it right now. It's a compelling game, with decent stealth gameplay and a great dialogue system. For me, it feels like a decent Splinter Cell-like game (I've decided I'm not killing anybody and the game lets me do just that, just stalking everybody and knocking them out) in which I can make a lot of choices, developing further the black-and-white "kill this guy or let him live" mechanics from Splinter Cell: Double Agent. There are no other games like this right now.

The game accomplishes what it tries to do. So what if there's a texture-loading problem (Is that something you never see in a game? Have you played any game made with the Unreal engine lately?), if Mike Thornton seems to be a bit unlikeable (well, he is not, if you choose the right dialogue options.) and if the shooting is not as good as in other games? I don't remember Vampire: Bloodlines for it's great shooting or Deus Ex for its compelling, superbly voice-acted protagonist, and they are both classics. There's something else at stake.

Alpha Protocol is a good RPG, but of course it won't look good if you compare it (from a technical standpoint) with the big boys. I'm sure Sega, being as cheap as it is this days, didn't give them a huge budget for this, but the results are still decent. So don't believe what Destructoid and Joystiq say, and give this game a chance. I'll let you know what I think after I play it longer, but it's not a terrible game.

-------

But I'm not going to stop reading Destructoid yet! They are still a cool site. And thanks to them, I learn that Ubisoft has probably cancelled Beyond Good and Evil 2. If that is true, well... That's it, I'm done with Ubisoft. It was one of my favourite developers ever, but they've made huge mistakes one after another, ruining the Prince of Persia franchise with each new game, forcing the worst DRM possible on players and just being cheap for the sake of it. Where's the innovation, the support for different games? Beyond Good and Evil is a classic, and Michel Ancel is one of the best game designers around. Is he really gone from your company now, or is it just a nasty rumour?

Ubi, don't disappoint me.

How my enemies are doing

Rebellion seems to be in trouble.

Splinter Cell: Conviction is fighting hard to ensure that nobody will ever buy any PC Ubisoft title again. This is not going to end well.

This won't last. They are going to pay for what they've done. So it looks like there's justice in this world after all. Right?

My "gaming enemies" are just not those evil game companies! I also hate bad design and games that treat the players like cattle, and I totally agree with this opinion about what I enjoy (or hate) about videogames. I play games to be entertained, not to prove I'm "the best" at it. I like decent writing, nice graphics and getting from the start to the end with as little frustration as possible. I don't like competitive multiplayer, tough challenges and grinding.

Lost Planet 2 sucks?

Lost Planet 2 is a multiplayer co-op experience, disguised as a regular game. But even if you play it with other people, it's still mediocre. That's the word on the street. And a few reviewers are also aware of that. Other reviews just hop on the "big game, big scores!" chain that allows bad stuff like Rebellion's latest Aliens vs Predator to be considered a 70% or even 85% game by some people (even when those reviews still use expressions like "dated" or even "mediocre").

And I believe it! I couldn't even finish the Lost Planet 2 demo, because it was just... tough on me. Just consider this:

-No real story. It really feels like a regular multiplayer-only game.
-Brain-dead squad AI. If you aren't playing with friends, you are still supposed to do the work of four players, but the bots filling the other positions won't do anything.
-Unfair one-hit kills. Like, prepare to die. A lot.
-Awkward, slow controls.
-Infuriating design choices. You can't even pause the game, even during the single-player campaign. Wait, WHAT?! Also, just plain bad execution. Brad Shoemaker's review makes it quite clear:

At one point in the back end of the campaign, I was playing an online-enabled game, on the off chance that someone might randomly jump into the action. My Internet connection dropped out for a second and disconnected me from Xbox Live, at which point the game abruptly cut to a black screen with a "Disconnected from host" error message. In a single-player game. That set me back at least 30 minutes of progress and incidentally made me never, ever want to play Lost Planet 2's campaign again.

That is not admissible in 2010.

UPDATE: Destructoid is even more unmerciful, describing the game as "downright frustrating" and "a shell of a potentially great game, brought down by bizarre, dated and counterintuitive design decisions". Jun Takeuchi offered a good co-op experience with Resident Evil 5 (though many gamers who loved RE4 found it lacking) mostly by not changing anything, but in this case, he took what was good of the first Lost Planet and he has turned it into a pathetic mess.

No More Manuals

Ubisoft has decided to eliminate printed manual from their releases. They are selling this as an "eco-friendly" gesture, but this is just a cynical, penny-pinching maneuver.

I don't read printed manuals anymore. I used to read them carefully on the way back from the store, or while I was waiting for the game tape to load in my Amstrad CPC (yes, I'm that old). But later the quality of the manuals started to drop. Redundant information compiled by people who hadn't created the game, black & white stills of the game that looked like bad xerox copies... and the death blow for manuals: tutorials. In the current generation the game always holds the player's hand, and if you stand still for a while, some games will even yell at you: "Go that way! Press that button!!". So manuals are not needed anymore, right?

Well, that's not true. Old-fashioned players prefer to have the reference in their hands. If I only have a digital PDF manual, do I have to exit the game to check it? And where do I make my notes about the game? Some people just need the manual. Also, what about the people who buy their games as "collector's items"? Digital downloads are the way to play games now, but some people just enjoy having the game boxes lining up in their shelves, all complete with great cover art... and manuals. All those elements are part of the ritual for this type of gamers, just like LPs with folded double covers and lyric sheets are for some music fans. What about them?

And finally, does this mean that Ubisoft is going to sell their games cheaper because of this? Of course not. They are lying. They are not making our life easier, and they certainly don't care about the environment. They are just saving a lot of money for themselves and looking good.

Pest Patrol - Shellshock 2: Blood Trails

So I had a weekend to spare and I decided to play this fine mess of a game. I had bought Shellshock 2: Blood Trails dirt-cheap, and I wanted to be sure that it was as bad as they say.

Well, it's not as bad, but almost. I get that old feeling you get from some cheap games, when you feel "oh, this would be a decent game... five years ago". So this is not exactly bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, but "it used to be fun when we didn't know better" material.

This is also one of those "in name only" sequels, like Far Cry 2. The original title was a third-person shooter made by the Killzone developers which tried hard to be disturbing by showing the toughness of the Vietnam war (even if many think they failed). Rebellion, your go-to guys for cheap shooters (ask Sega or Bethesda), said to Eidos, "OK, we'll do a sequel", they started developing a Vietnam-themed FPS, and then they filled it... with zombies.

So this is just an excuse to create a Resident Evil rip-off. Of course, they don't come even close to the great original, but still, the best part in Shellshock 2 is the part when you are in a mansion (in the middle of the Vietnamese jungle?!) and the realization sinks in... "This is just like the first Resident Evil game!". And later I saw a hooded guy with machetes, and you remember the scary chainsaw guys from the recent RE games. The game is then not a complete waste, just as the mediocre Wii reality-based FPS Red Steel, which included a truly great level in which you had to fight your way through an insane amusement park-like maze where weird stuff happened. It was worth to play that game just to experience that.

Apart from that, there's not much to recommend. Lots of scripted scares that aren't scary anymore after the third repeat. A worthless, cliched story. The old-fashioned "all the people you meet die almost immediately", which seems a left-over from the old "we don't know how to program decent squad AI" times.

Still, the mansion level is fun to play, if you don't mind suffering horrible graphics with too few character models and ugly textures. You don't have much ammo and you suddenly realize that those slow (but deadly) zombies won't go down unless you shoot them in the right place (not just the head: you can stop them blowing off one of their legs with a well-placed shotgun blast). That is a good "survival horror" feeling, but sadly it doesn't last too long because of the repetition and overall lack of quality. So I guess the game is acceptable, but not much more, if you are a horror fan and you are not sick of zombie games yet.

Don't be fooled, though. It still is a bad game.

We said it was going to suck

And we were right.


Rebellion, you suck.

UPDATE: 1Up.com, GameRevolution, Gamespy and the no-nonsense guys at GiantBomb agree: this game blows chunks. And all the fans scream "Noooo! You are lying! You are wrong! Aliens vs Predator is awesome!"

Grow up, kids. Listen to the voice of reason.

Dragon Quest VI weirdness

Yesterday, Dragon Quest VI was released on Japan for the Nintendo DS.

But even before that, they started airing these commercials:

For a Spanish guy like me, these videos are even weirder, because the acting is really awkward. (Well, that's what happens when you pull your "actors" from a gym...)

But it gets even weirder. This commercial was filmed on Málaga, which is the home town of our ever-silent third staff member, JR. So maybe he'll see these guys on the streets! How cool would that be?

The Japanese really know how to make awesomely weird video game commercials.

We must get better!

According to the reviews, Painkiller: Resurrection really sucks. And not in the "this kind of game gets old really fast" way like Dreamkiller, but in the "this game isn't even finished!" way.

Today, a major update has been released on Steam. It's good to know that the developers haven't just let the game die already, but is it even fixable? The list of changes is presented in a way that makes clear that the developers know how badly the game sucks:

-New AI System blending the direct approach used now and a sophisticated way-point system. In most areas, Monsters can not only chase you through complex architecture, you`ll also see them taking different ways in order to outrun you, and sometimes even retreat and trying to get into your back. (They basically admit that the enemies are dumb idiots that charge against you following a straight line and then get stuck in any object they find.)
-Better Char models / animations: Our 3D Artist gave another shots at the new monsters and improved some of them. (This sounds like "We are so sorry he didn't know what he was doing, but he'll do better next time, we promise!" Any other company would just fire the guy.)
-In-game MP hosting reactivated (dedicated server not needed anymore) (So they realized NOBODY would set up a dedicated server for this!)
-Competitive MP crash-fixed and tweaked (Dropped weapons look, jumping walls, etc.) (Bug fixes! Great!)
-Co-op for up to 8 (if you like madness, even 16) players (although 2-4 is the best number to try) and with up to 50 monsters at once to fight them as team (Co-op! Yay!)
-New maps and some new surprises in the levels themselves are on their way too. (The game is better now, we promise!)

So here you are. I don't know if I'm going to try the game now, but it's good to know that at least they are trying.

Dreamkiller cañí

Atchon Burike!

I finished the game in one afternoon. It's a decent Doom-inspired FPS if you'd like to play a budget game from 2004. Yes, I know it came out this year.