Within the first fifteen minutes of playing a video game, I can tell if it will be good. I have yet to decide whether this is a useful skill in the context of adult life.

Services like Steam and the XBox Live Marketplace have effectively streamlined the process of consuming game demos, often before a game is available for purchase. This strategy is part of any publisher’s winning marketing plan. Let the masses jump on the game to provide free word-of-mouth advertising, and then watch them argue ad infinitum in every corner of the internet, since no one can be proven wrong. This is the ideal way to arrive at launch day. The review scores hit the usual aggregate sites based on the media’s preview copies, and people rush to the stores not just to get their hands on the game, but to prove everyone else wrong.

I am not usually such a person.

I have played and reviewed many demos since the inception of this website. In fact, I find myself relying on them more for the 360 than when I was solely a PC gamer. New PC games don’t stay expensive due to the high shelfspace turnover at electronics and even specialty retailers, whereas console games seem to retain their price a lot better¹. When I’m thinking about a new game purchase, reading exaggerated reviews and watching video samples of the game in action aren’t enough.

This makes the demo extremely important to someone like me. And once I start making notes on my first impressions of a game, it’s hard to stop. Most demos I’ve bothered to play provided me enough information to settle on an opinion. I knew the games weren’t going to get any better. And in the case of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, I was ensnared by nostalgia in the hopes that I would be playing Ghostbusters III. I wish I could say that was true.

Then there was Batman, a license that wields even more brand power, arriving in the form of Arkham Asylum last month to an unsuspecting audience. There was suprisingly no hype to speak of; no previews out of the usual. The demo was made available two weeks prior to the full version’s release. It caught a lot of people off guard, myself included. Everyone was excited over the possibility that a video game starring Batman was actually good. Naturally, the initial impressions were positive – and they spread.

I played the demo the week it was available for download and was prepared to post a negative review based on my impressions. There is no way the game should be receiving overwhelming praise. Except something held me back. My experiences with the game felt unfinished.

Surrounding myself with the opinions of people I know and who had played the full version, my suspicions were confirmed: the Arkham Asylum demo was terrible.

In the anticipation of a game that is sometimes years away, arguments will erupt about its quality, often hinging on such damning empirical evidence like screenshots and whether they were faked or not. Massive armies of the overstimulated who have nothing better to do will swarm websites like Gamestop² and NeoGAF and Amazon leaving comments about a game that they haven’t played, and likely isn’t even finished yet. Meanwhile, our favorite video game news outlets will be given their monthly ration of screenshots to post, and the whole process begins again. This is how the machine works. And video game culture at large not only accepts it, they love it.

Back in the early days of PC Gaming, demos were essential for getting the word out about a game. This is how the Shareware scene started. Publishers would release the first mission or chapter of a game for free, and you would have to pay to play the rest of it. These chapters were often made up of sub-missions, and provided enough content to be classified as a game in itself. For a while, this was enough to support a fledgling game development community and allowed it to compete with the big studios and their boxed games available on store shelves.

Shareware was a sign of good faith on the Publisher or development house. They’ll give you a full-featured part of their game, with the intent that you will become a paying customer. Sometimes it worked.

The best part? By the end of that first mission you knew exactly what the game was about, because no features were left to be unlocked – there were just more missions ahead and you could easily extrapolate what the rest of them would be like. Does anyone remember that Quake was distributed as a demo? The full version was available on the $5 CD-ROM, waiting to be unlocked. Of course, that worked out really well for id when software pirates had cracked the key generator and people were playing the full game a day later. I saw this as the the start of the demo’s decline as an actual slice of the game. Sure, PC Gamer and other magazines included demos on disc, and as consoles started distributing games on CD and DVD their enthusiast magazines did the same. But a publisher’s approach to the demo was forever changed. It was more of a preview – not a sample of a game in its finished form. In fact, some demos go so far as to say that it isn’t even representative of the final game. So why release it at all, if things are bound to change?

Of course, the opposing argument is that games are just too big and complicated now, and there’s no way that you could convey its essence in something that is designed to be played in twenty or thirty minutes. Some publishers feel that a demo isn’t even necessary for their game, as it’s just not conducive to the typical mission-based shortening that occurs. Instead, they’d rather let their audience pick up the full version and try it for themselves. And then the game becomes another statistic in the “unfinished” pile.

A good demo should be long enough to allow you to gather some intelligence about the story (if any), get comfortable with the control scheme and mechanics, and show every feature of the game (within some reasonable constraints of the story revealed) to get a feel for what the full version has to offer. Usually that happens in the first mission of a game, because the beginning of any game should be the incentive to continue. I should not be spending the next eight hours trying to find some hidden brilliance to appreciate a video game. I do not have that kind of time. I don’t think anyone does. Unless they are masochists.

The demo for Arkham Asylum is horrible. It is poorly assembled and a woefully inadequate representation of the final game. If I had let the demo make my decision, I would not have been playing it the last two weeks. The demo is two gigabytes of nothing. It goes through the motions of an opening movie, some combat, and a stealth section that is actually a small part of a “stalking” concept used to great effect throughout the full game. It ends with the setup to a boss fight that never happens³. The demo is made up of sections that were actually much farther apart in the full version. Worst of all it was too short, which left me doubting whether the game was even worth my time. If a demo ever does that, it is doing something wrong.

If the creation of Rocksteady’s demo was so arbitrary, they could have picked better locations and scenarios to present the game’s features. There was combat, sure, but it was so rudimentary that it made their system seem so generic. There was no wall-breaking or climbing. There was no hunting for secrets or alternative paths of entry. The way the demo was constructed fails to incorporate Arkham Asylum‘s greatest asset: its focus on exploration. Instead, it feels like it was created to make the game seem safe – predictable, even. My biggest complaint was the inability to use shadows for hiding, but the game makes up for it once you learn to use Batman’s tools to surprise instead of stalk. You’d never know it from the demo, though.

Is the new driver behind creating a demo to keep as much as possible from the player, to ensure that curiosity wins out? Batman could have started with all of the gadgets so that they could be experimented with. There aren’t that many. Allow the player to set up explosive charges to stun enemies, instead of being limited to the Batarang or Inverse Takedown⁴. The demo for Ninja Gaiden II gave the player all the weapons⁵ and provided the first half of the first chapter in the game. By the end of it I knew I had to buy it. Not to learn more about the game, but to play more.

I finished Arkham Asylum last week. My experience with it was positive; I’m glad I bought it. But I almost didn’t. If it weren’t for recommendations from friends and seeing some impressions in the raw on Twitter, I would have stubbornly passed it by and missed out on a solid video game while the machine kept going.

Demos have evolved into barely interactive commericals. They are the music videos to a video game’s LP. They give you all the flash with no context, leaving you hanging to the point where you often have no choice but to rent or buy the game to make an informed decision. But the average game purchaser doesn’t always have that kind of money lying around, or time to spend making this determination on their own. So they turn to reviews and the often completely unrelated scores that accompany them in the misguided hopes they’ll provide that missing insight. The Hype Machine claims another victim, and keeps on going.

In the view of the massive, lumbering machine that is The Video Game Industry, demos are no longer a necessity to make a sale. In fact, they don’t have to exist at all. Some publishers don’t release demos until a game has been out for a month. But this is just a bonus. Those early adopters that have to play right now? The publishers already have their money, and these games are now stitting on a shelf in the “Used” section of your local video game shop. And that salesperson behind the counter? He’s telling the guy that just got $15 for a pile of recent titles about some screenshots for this new video game. Better put that money down now to reserve a copy. It’s this year’s must-buy.

“If you loved the films then this is the game that you have been waiting for.” – Extreme Gamer

“If you’re a fan of the movies this alone is largely enough to look past the game’s failings.” – Total Video Games

“If you dug the movies, there’s no reason that you should be disappointed with Ghostbusters: The Video Game.” – IGN

Reading the recommendations¹ for Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) is infuriating; the reviews that avoid hauling out these useless tropes are in short supply. Though I can’t blame the reviewers entirely – it’s a function of the industry, and we’ve been programmed to tolerate it. The video game industry has an entire sector dedicated to parading our childhood out in front of us whether repackaged (just look any major XBox Live release), or bundled on some compliation disc. And it always seems to garner a wistful response from the video game media.

Yeah, I remember those times, too. They were great, weren’t they?

And we all know what happened with The Phantom Menace and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. After the initial euphoria wore off from years of waiting, we saw these endeavors for what they really were: cash-ins by creators who had lost touch with their creations a long, long time ago.

So why Ghostbusters? When you think about it, it’s been close to 20 years since a proper Ghostbusters game has even been made². Ghostbusters is the next logical target, waiting like some vein of precious metal to be exploited. Is Ghostbusters: The Video Game intended for the demographic of gamers who are slowly losing interest in the hobby because it no longer speaks to them? Digging up a beloved franchise is the easiest way to draw this audience back in; it’s clearly working for Hollywood lately³. There was also plenty of turmoil surrounding who would actually publish Terminal Reality’s tribute. Originally to be published by Sierra, the merge of Vivendi with Activision in 2008 ejected Ghostbusters: The Video Game into publishing no man’s land. The internet erupted with righteous fury. It was obvious why people wanted this game: it represented their youth, a comeback of sorts for a franchise that never seemed to get the treatment it deserved.

The game was eventually picked up by Atari, and released last month. Which also happens to be the 25th anniversary of the 1984 theatrical release of Ghostbusters. I think the whole thing was staged.

From the outset, Ghostbusters: The Video Game has nostalgia working to its advantage. Like video games themselves, Ghostbusters was created during an era of consumable culture, of iconic characters, action figures and Saturday morning cartoons. That’s why Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Transformers and G.I. Joe still resonate with us. It provided characters and worlds that were so distinctive, entire product empires were built upon them. We were being exploited then; we just didn’t realize it. And now they’re back for more.

Ghostbusters II (1989) for DOS was my first (and last) video game experience with the franchise. I remember the game being frustratingly difficult, but it still managed to give the impression that Activision had created a kind of simluator. You would go on ghost busting missions, collect slime for experiments, earn money for new equipment – but limitations in technology resulted in a game that felt patched together with action sequences and needless puttering around in the laboratory screen. The game structured the missions around the main plot points of the movie, but the effort to design something different than the usual action game was there. Or maybe that’s just me being nostalgic.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game starts with you as the nameless “Rookie”, following around the veteran Ghostbusters Ray, Egon and Winston. The developers spared no expense in recruiting the film’s original actors to reprise their role in the game. The animated sequences and one-liners will elicit a laugh or two. At first, I couldn’t stop staring at the flashing lights and details on the proton pack. It was hypnosis. I couldn’t believe they had created the proton pack exactly as I had imagined it. But before critical blindness induced by nostalgia is allowed to set in, the game introduces its brand of action.

The structure of the mission included in the demo feels uncomfortable at first. You are hunting a ghost; the game doesn’t present you with a steady stream of opposition. Instead, you walk around staring at your PKE meter and wait for the arms to go horizontal. This was clearly the more faithful approach, but the presentation doesn’t make for an exciting video game. The controls are typical of third person shooters, but stripped of all recent conventions like leaning, taking cover, and crouching. Because you aren’t using a conventional gun, the game uses an “overheating” mechanic similar to Mass Effect, where fire must be controlled with bursts from the particle thrower. The manual venting option allows you to cool down your proton pack instantly, and follows a rhythm reminiscent of the active reload in Gears of War. There are other types of beams that can slow down or stun enemies, but these are just ornaments dumped into the game along with paid upgrades to make it appear deeper.

As a game, Ghostbusters doesn’t really have a lot to teach you. You are expected to go through the motions, listening to Egon’s instructions or Ray’s reactions to what’s happening. You fire the particle thrower and you destabalize ectoplasm. Yes, this is a Ghostbusters game.

I’ll admit, Ghostbusters still managed to hit me where it counted: it tapped in to that feeling of being 10 years old and wanting to be a Ghostbuster, to strap on a proton pack with the quack scientists that somehow managed to save New York City. Once again, nostalgia is wielded by the video game industry to great effect, making the game seem better than it actually is.

The initial impressions of the design clearly showed it was dictacted by a philosophy that only required it to be passable. Fans would be placated as their favorite characters and memories of the films suddenly materialized on screen to interact with. This tempted me to reject the game as so much patronizing bullshit. This skeleton of a design that wanted to push all the right buttons left me feeling that maybe this was the start of another trend, where nostalgia itself is a feature of a video game.

And then they got one thing so undeniably right.

What does it feel like to trap a ghost? Ghostbusters: The Video Game makes sure you know. I surprised myself with how positively I reacted to the action; it was the most fun I’ve had with a video game in years. (And this includes blowing up large buildings with perfectly placed charges in Red Faction: Guerrilla). The game lets you feel like you are wrangling a ghost at the end of your proton beam. Moving the ghost into position over the trap, the failed attempts, working together with the computer-controlled AI – Terminal Reality has constructed the essence of trapping a ghost. This was the film’s signature moment. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man will be what is remembered, but capturing ghosts was what we wanted to do when we were younger.

Ghostbusters then becomes an interesting specimen in the video game industry’s assault on our nostalgia, because it captures the moment that matters while making it feel so legitimate.

This is a Ghostbusting simulation. And it is the only one of its kind. For that I have to give the team at Terminal Reality some credit: they may not have laid the groundwork for an exceptional game, but I take their homage to the fabled franchise of our youth as an act of sincerity. If only Hollywood could be as respectful of our memories.

I can only speculate whether this sentiment is built to last for an entire game, or will fade after the tedium of the rudimentary combat and repetitive missions set in. Even though I already know the answer, I feel I owe it to my 10 year-old self to give Ghostbusters: The Video Game a fair chance. And that’s probably what Atari was banking on.

On the surface, X-Men Origins: Wolverine seems like a single player verison of Raven Software’s own X-Men Legends/Marvel Ultimate Alliance, that focuses more on the immediate thrill of the action instead of stat boosting and party management. Most importantly, they have learned from past transgressions X2: Wolverine’s Revenge and X-Men: The Official Game ¹, which were pathetic responses to fans who have been waiting for a proper X-Men action game since the 16-bit era.

In Raven’s previous action RPGs, Wolverine was just another character that had a few powerful melee attacks and a regenerating health bar. As a member of a party, the personality and feel of the character were lost among the others in the game through the party’s inherent interchangeability. Not to say that his witty remarks and added durability weren’t welcome in any party; rather, it was the overall game’s design that limited the character depth to present the mechanical essentials of each character so they would do exactly what you would expect of them.

With Origins, I get the feeling that Raven wanted to show Wolverine fans they haven’t forgotten about their favorite character. They have attempted to create an unflinching portrayal of Wolverine that is all at once bestial, ruthless and completely without fear. They wanted to give him moves that were previously only seen on two page spreads in the comics. That’s probably why they included the sequence where you leap into the air and stab a helicopter.

With each slice and thrust, with each severed body part and spray of blood, Raven is trying to tell us something: Wolverine is a vicious animal. He is a meat grinder, an unstoppable force that will level the opposition into bloody chunks. You will see heads being lopped off. You will see enemies skewered on adamantium claws.

But is it satisfying? It is not.

Ninja Gaiden II is one of the most violent and bloody video games created by man². Even though you are using a sword, there is an affinity shared with the action on-screen. It subscribes to an ancient warrior philosophy: that the sword must be the extension of the body. The sound of a single steel blade blocking an attack, the visual feedback as sword meets flesh, the absurdity of blood spraying in every direction, the resultant thud of detached body parts – these are the expected outcomes of such activity. And they are exacted with such precision and ruthlessness that you can’t help but be drawn into the game.

And yet Wolverine, whose “swords” are in fact part of his body, yields nothing remotely similar. He could be punching the characters on screen for all I can tell. Considering how integral these weapons are to each attack, to the character’s very being, one would expect the level of emotional investment for each kill would increase exponentially beyond the use of a 30-inch piece of tempered steel. But this is not the case.

There are no mobs; instead, enemies are carefully placed around the level for you to use the environment (i.e. spikes sticking out of the ground), make Wolverine spin around in circles, or provides a launch pad for you to use the Lunge attack. One of my favorite additions to the genre, the Lunge attack is much more visually rewarding than jumping, an act that seems unnecessary in comparison. However, the Lunge simply reiterates the problem with this game: there is always distance between the Player and his objectives. There is time to think and decide about how to attack. There are combinations of claw attacks that can be used, and there are special powers that can be levelled up. Kind of like Raven’s other games.

But there was never a time where I was confronted with a horde of enemies, or felt I was in danger at any time. There was no risk or opportunity for this character who is famous for dealing with overwhelming odds, to excel. There is blocking, but there are no counter-attacks. The decapitations seem random and there is no equivalent to Ryu’s Obliteration Technique. Combat is procedural in Origins: go over here, attack, enemy takes some damage. Repeat. There is no fanfare. There is no real visual payoff.

Even in the demo, I can see how this approach to combat will fail in the long term. I know that it will be drawn out just to develop the missing chapters that the movie only refecences in passing. But despite these feelings (which are correct), I still want more. I want to be Wolverine because he is perfectly suited to such an endeavor. I want to repeat the connection I felt at Ninja Gaiden II‘s most primal moments, where blade meets flesh and bone to produce buckets of blood. Origins seems to skirt the edges of what it means to have Wolverine’s claws to mete out his fierce vengeance, but the game never fully commits to this ideal.

The introductory film at the beginning of the game shows a Wolverine in a tattered X-Men uniform: attacking everything in sight, claws dripping with blood, spittle dribbling from his bottom lip. He was an animal that took pleasure in the act of killing. This is the Wolverine I grew up reading about. However, X-Men Origins: Wolverine doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain. It disheartens the player that has envisioned the displays of savagery that were reserved for the pages of comic books.

So I find myself incredibly angry at this game. And not the same as I was with Wanted: Weapons of Fate³ – that was the result of a development team that completely mishandled a fairly new property. This is Wolverine, people. A character that has evolved over a period of years through comic books, cartoons, video games and movies. We know him and we know what to expect from him. So why did Raven feel the need to hold back?

Despite the association with the terribly received film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine could have been an excellent action game standing on its own alongside landmarks like Ninja Gaiden II. But because Raven’s restraint is clearly exhibited in the game’s core mechanics, there is no way it can ever fully emerge as a study of Wolverine’s darkest characteristic: his killer instinct.

When Red Faction: Guerrilla‘s friendly tooltip “Hit LB while near a wall or an obstacle to take cover” popped onto the screen, my eyes were rolling to the back of my head in pre-emptive disinterest. But I played through the demo anyway, and discovered there is something more to this game. Or at least, developers Volition deserve a lot of credit for making it seem that way.

For its use of the ubiquitous duck and cover dynamic in third-person shooters, Guerrilla still plays more like Lost Planet than Gears of War. The controls feel a little too loose and imprecise. The “steady aim” is simply a zoom-in on the aiming reticule’s current position, instead of the solid over-the-shoulder view you get when aiming in Gears. The weapon switching mechanic was implemented contrarty to convention, too – the obvious choice of the D-pad was passed over in favor of the right shoulder button to bring up a selectable menu mapped to the four thumb buttons. It takes some effort to get used to, and often caused accidental weapon switching due to the additional step in selection and the buttons in close proximity to each other (unlike, say, the radial menu used in F.E.A.R. 2). It’s almost as if Volition wasn’t paying attention. However.

Despite being a bit clumsy in the way it integrates taking cover and gunplay, I felt like I had more freedom to pursue the objective in the demo for Guerrilla. Gears of War always made a point of herding the player through each level, to ensure the action was strung together seamlessly so the player could get back to using those incredibly refined controls and firing that lovely Lancer. Guerrilla, on the other hand, has a broader scope in mind. It presents an “open world” for missions to be completed. Another one of those review-ready, game design marketing phrases.

I can’t really blame Volition for trying to do this with Guerrilla because of their success with the Saints Row series. It’s a design decision that could effectively ruin the franchise for fans of the original FPS Red Faction games. However, it’s clear that Volition thought about how best to implement this to maintain the existing subject matter in the way Guerrilla is presented, and I think they got it mostly right. At the beginning of the demo’s mission, I never felt that I was being forced in any particular direction except to reach an objective. I could sneak around until I was spotted and the colony’s soldiers were alerted, or run in guns blazing. There is no health pool; rather, the game uses the popular method of regenerating health when taking no damage. Aside from the flexible approach to the mission, Guerrilla still follows many of the other current conventions of the third-person shooter genre, and I had to wonder where it was going. It didn’t apply any one aspect of the game’s dynamics especially well, and in the first few minutes of play was in danger of losing my interest. So I started breaking things with my hammer.

One of the features that made Red Faction such a landmark in PC gaming was its showcase for the Geo-Mod engine, which was released shortly after “ragdoll physics” (a.k.a. Havok) entered the game reviewer’s vocabulary. With the introduction of Geo-Mod, we had to read “destructible” as well. Guerrilla provides the latest version of this engine, with results that have actual impact on the game’s core mechanics.

Volition was wise enough to include the best examples for the use of this engine’s capabilities at the start of the level. Because every single environmental object can be destroyed in this game, there is always the risk of losing cover, which is now an essential part of combat. Charges can be thrown to blow up the side of a building and expose your position, or that fenceline you were using to corral troops into a choke point could be cut down by heavy machine gun fire from an enemy support team. Since there are vehicles available in this game to cover longer distances, these can be driven into a bank of explosive containers to cause a distraction or take out larger structures. It also follows that cover can, in effect, be created from debris resulting from explosions or collapsed structures. This is in stark contrast to a game like Fracture (2008), that only permits this kind of activity in areas where the designers wanted you to do it. Combat in Guerrilla often becomes a spectacle with this ridiculous display of physics, but there are environmental implications that directly affect the way it progresses.

Guerrilla also provides a suitable challenge. On Normal difficulty, there was always a risk of instant dealth if you weren’t under some form of cover – even if it was simply peeking around a corner or aiming through the window of a building. That alone made me think about my actions, and resulted in multiple attempts because of my sloppily executed plans. I actually played through the beginning of the demo about 15 times, but most attempts were used to test the responsiveness of the AI and gauge the damage I recieved with the “run and gun” method. I was even convinced that it was reasonable that the entire colony’s garrison was out to kill me – I was the lone rebel that would upset the balance bewteen them and the subservient colonists. And this is where the game gets really fascinating.

The mistake that many action games make is dropping the player into the middle of a situation and expecting them to take care of it on their own. The “One Man Army” phenomenon has been around as long as video games – probably cemented by Wolfenstein 3D, and simply reinforced by every shooter that has come out after it. Call of Duty, one of my favorite games of all time, made a point to move away from this general design. Especially in the face of the Medal of Honor series, which always seemed to revolve around one guy turning the tides of war in favor of the Allies. While the AI in Call of Duty was occasionally suspect (and likely the reason that Brothers in Arms introduced active direction of squad AI in WW2 shooters), the game always made sure there was someone by your side, fighting the good fight with you. You could protect your squad mates, but if they died they were almost immediately replaced with someone else and no emotional response from anyone. Guerrilla tries its best to avoid these conventions.

Morale is used as an environmental influence on the NPC colonists that are distributed about the map. There are colonists everywhere who see you, a member of the Red Faction, as the one that will unshackle them from the oppressive regime of the EDF. Blowing up EDF outposts, destroying EDF propaganda posters, killing EDF soldiers and causing general havoc within the work camps will increase morale in the area, which decreases the hold of EDF over the colonists. Similarly, if you kill one of the colonists during a firefight – even if you’re in the process of protecting them – the morale of the colony decreases, and they will be more inclined to run and hide than stick around to see the outcome. The missions in Guerrilla are all to further the cause of the Red Faction, and by extension increase morale. When morale in an area is high enough and the bullets start flying, a colonist might stoop over an EDF soldier’s corpse and pick up a gun to join in the fight. You might be the catalyst for the Revolution, but it’s clear Volition wants Players to know they don’t have to see it through alone. This is a much needed dimension in a game that on first glance (including my own) could easily be labelled as another copycat.

Red Faction: Guerrilla initially appeared as a game I should be reserving the typical scorn for in the way it mechanically repeats the trends in third person shooters. But I found reasons to keep playing, and I’m glad I persisted. From start to finish, the mission had a genuine flow to it: sneaking around turns to calculated street fighting turns to lumbering around in bulky mechanical armor, which ends with jumping on the back of a truck and firing a gun in a rail sequence. While it may have been contrived by today’s standards, it didn’t feel forced. Where previous installments were typically FPS-oriented and designed for a PC audience, this is a game that seems to want to take advantage of these recent trends in game design and provide its own flourish to the formula. Sure there are missteps, but it was abundantly clear at the end of the mission I played that Volition is trying to evolve this series. And I want to see where it goes.

It has ninjas and big swords, so it must be cool. Right?

At least, that’s what From Software is hoping. Trying to come up with a list of “must have” games for the 360 in 2009, I came across the platform exclusive Ninja Blade. In concept, it sounded great: standard hack ‘n slash action starring a ninja, and it’s by the same team that brought us the Otogi series for the original Xbox. When the demo was posted on Live a couple of weeks ago, I was pretty excited to give it a try.

Until Ninja Blade revealed its first Quick Time Event (QTE) mere seconds into the game. After hearing some kind of pep talk from the leader of a group of sky-diving ninja, you jump out of plane and are immediately asked to “Press X to attack!”

What are you attacking? It’s not really obvious until after you see the animation of the winged demon-creature crumbling to molten ash under the stinging blade of your sword. At this point my hopes for the game suffered the exact same fate.

I imagine it was what I felt after being presented with the “dodge a boulder!” scene from the beginning of Resident Evil 4. Though Capcom had the audacity to mix up the buttons on each attempt, at least. And I think that’s what bothered me about Ninja Blade‘s approach to QTEs. There’s always a second chance. In fact, there are unlimited chances: Ninja Blade will reset the scene and you can try it as many times as necessary to get it right. No dropping back to the previous checkpoint and having to repeat entire sections of game to get better at it. It just lets you try again.

Quick time events should be abolished. They do not belong in video games, especially as a core mechanic for an action game. Instead of skill to complete a sequence of moves, it requires you to obey what is shown on the screen and possess a meager collection of electrical signals shooting from your brain to that thumb on the X button. All of a sudden some complicated animation is shown and the gamer is happy. Look what I did!

None of this feels natural, because the player is no longer in control of the action. There are inherently limits in video games; there have to be rules to limit the scope of any game. But with QTEs, you are directly at the mercy of the game’s pacing, and are effectively being told how to play the game.

This is particularly prounounced in the fight against the giant spider Boss. Some video games still adhere to the conventions of boss fights. There is often an attack that must be dodged by recognizing the boss’s “tell” that he going to launch it. Or learning an attack pattern to find the weak spot and exploit it. It will take many tries to get this right, and then ultimately defeat them. But not in Ninja Blade. Not only did it focus on the target areas in a brief cutscene before the fight, they were the only areas that were accessible to hit. It may as well be another scripted event; it leaves no decision making on the part of the player. Just keep whacking that hot spot, you’ll defeat him eventually.

Ninja Blade isn’t completely uninspired, however. There are sequences where you can go wild with a katana or that big stone sword. It provides a sequence where you fly down the side of a skyscraper to get from one combat area to the next. The sense of scale and speed were perfect through this part of the demo.

But the enemies are far too generic, and while they’re some kind of infected horde they might as well be the burlap sack creatures from Devil May Cry 4. They feel too random, like a pack of wandering skinbags for you to slice up. Not an unstoppable force bent on your destruction. The enemies in Ninja Gaiden II (2008) are varied, and always on the attack whenever you appeared. The game was relentless. It presents bottleneck after bottleneck where you are the only obstacle in their way. Why do I feel like I have a choice to fight the creatures in Ninja Blade?

Nevertheless, the action in Ninja Blade is well scripted and fun to watch. The fight with the giant spider contained some action events involving a wrecking ball on top of a skyscraper. I’ll readily admit it elicited a “holy shit” from me. However, reading the limited number of reviews on the Japanese import, this is pretty representative of what the rest of the game has to offer. But I don’t want to watch a video game. I want to play it¹.

I really had this game built up in my mind (reawakened ninja obsession?), but after experiencing it I couldn’t figure out what this game was selling me. There was nothing there. Like Afro Samurai, it takes a winning concept (extremely violent swordplay) and panders to an audience that doesn’t want this type of game. If anything, Ninja Blade taught me to appreciate the stubbornness of Tomonobu Itagaki and Team Ninja to stick to classic video game design. It provides challenge in its purest form, and certainly a more entertaining experience than waiting for my turn to press the button.

Ninja Blade represents a corruption at the heart of video games. It is not part of a new genre, but an actual path forward for those that think games are too difficult, too long, or do not provide an easily digestible story (and for those that are keeping track, Ninja Blade has no story worth pursuing). It’s slowly happening, so those that think this is a legitimate entry into the action genre will accept it and move on to the next one, not even realizing they have been pressing the “Next” button in a slideshow.

Why shy away from a design that demands mastery of the controls and the core mechanics? This is what we grew up with, what we lived for. This reduction of player investment is not a noble pursuit. It is regression to a new mean.

1. Once again, I refer you to my review of Resident Evil 4. To this day I still cannot get over the praise heaped upon the game that effectively broke the franchise.

Wanted (2008) was a certified entry into the category of brainless entertainment. It is gun porn with bending bullets, for those that still enjoy watching movies with physics defied at every turn. Wanted expressed every subjugated office worker’s fantasy of escaping the life they have made for themselves by settling. Yet despite its pandering to such puerile fantasy, Wanted still worked on some level as a joyride through an adolescent’s brain after they’ve been given a gun and permission to set things right in the world with it.

After I saw the movie, my first thought was where is the video game? This is material positively ripe for exploitation with the medium. Forget The Matrix, because Wanted paints that overwrought philosophical morass with spattered brains and spent casings.

There is one scene in the Wanted film in particular that takes headshots to a new level of disturbing: Wesley, the main character, shoots a man in the eye, jams the muzzle of his pistol into the gaping eye socket and continues to shoot at the remainder of his adversaries through the back of the dead man’s head. How he is able to drag the body attached to his gun like that is a question saved for the same people who thought up the flying leap at the beginning of the film, or how someone is able to shoot bullets with another bullet – but this is beside the point. Wanted: Weapons of Fate could have capitalized on the graphic violence and physics-bending gunplay. But it didn’t. Instead, it comes across as a reheated misson-based shooter that copies the latest trend of duck and cover with bullet-time effects.

The best developers GRIN could come up with for someone’s introduction to the game is running from the cargo area of a passenger plane to the cockpit, while some guys with guns block your way. Who are they? Are they the bodyguards of the man you just killed? It’s a passenger plane, so there’s no way it would be a political figure. This obvious question is never answered. The game just wants you to shoot, and ogle the bullet curving and slow-motion as you jump from cover to cover. And settle.

The controls are clumsy. They ignore conventions set by previous games. The primary reason I even set aside time for this game is to see how they implemented the bullet-bending mechanic that was made so incredibly fascinating by the film. It’s there, but it’s fucking terrible. Bending bullets should be seamless. I should be able to fire a bullet around the corner at hidden adversaries without an early onset of carpel tunnel syndrome. Directing the curve with one of the analog sticks while holding the right shoulder button and releasing it to fire is contradictory to the regular fire, where you actively pull the right trigger. The angles of bullets are also limited. Yes, you should be governed by your current position, but I want more flexibility. Rotating the curve of the bullet feels incredibly closed in, almost as if the flight path was dictated by the environment and not your character’s viewing angle. And you should be able to have a distance gauge, to be able to move the curve closer or farther. We are working in three dimensions here, right? There was also little regard for materials used for cover. If I want to shoot at a guy behind a wooden crate, the bullet should pass through. Or at the very least, the crate should be destroyed after a few shots. This is basic game design, GRIN. I have only seen one portion of the first level and already the game is behind.

There is a crippling lack of creativity in presenting the film’s gratuitous violence in this game. Instead, Weapons of Fate plays it safe and creates a generic third person shooter. Except we don’t need any more of those. Take the licensed property seriously. You are supposed to be an assassin with preternatural skill in this game. How about planning missions out, like it was in the movie? Stalk the quarry, gather intel – fight off minions to get to him if necessary. Kind of like Assassin’s Creed. Make the final assassination satisfying by creating a varying set of moves and skills to use, that should come with being an assassin (Not like Assassin’s Creed). The scope of this game feels so limited, I can’t help but feel that it was a complete waste of the license.

Weapons of Fate should feel glossy. It should have the top notch production and attention to the details of killing people in impossible ways that were in the movie. I want to see teeth flying out of mouths when I pistol whip them. I want to see a trail of brains coiled around a bullet when I shoot adversaries point blank (thank you, Team 7). Wanted could have been the gaming world’s next Soldier of Fortune. Instead, it settles for the uninspired goal of joining the Gears of War and Killzone club. But why? It had a solid premise to build upon that gave ample opportunity to create a shooter needing no excuse for egregious violence.

There are three difficulty levels for this game: “Pussy”, “Assassin”, and “The Killer”. It’s pretty obvious which one reflects the developer’s ambitions.

The demo for F.E.A.R. 2 has two themes running through it that are clearly at odds with one another, and they do a fine job of convoluting the game’s purpose. On the one hand, the introductory mission of F.E.A.R. 2 stresses gunplay and combat, showcasing the AI that made the first installment remarkable. On the other, the player is constantly bombarded with horrible imagery, to the point where it starts to lose its effect. There is no buildup or tension; instead, there is a flash of some disturbing scene that cuts through the action, and then the game introduces clone soldiers to fight. Detractors will easily point out that there wasn’t much beyond this formula in F.E.A.R., but going back to play it after experiencing the demo for F.E.A.R. 2 reveals a more conservative balance between the two themes and a more controlled buildup of the atmosphere and story. As I came to the end of the demo’s mission where I had to jump into some Mech power armor, I did not feel like I wanted to find out what happens next. There was no “Ladder Scene”, and the initial spectacle of the bullet time effects that were so impressive in F.E.A.R. is no longer there. So what is it, Monolith? Is it a first person shooter, or is it a horror game bound together by first person shooter conventions?

The demo’s introductory level picks up almost immediately where F.E.A.R. left off: a decimated city resulting from the psychic wrath of the mysterious Alma. It was widely reported during the development of F.E.A.R. 2 (or Project Origin) that Monolith summarily disregarded the first game’s two expansion packs, making the official F.E.A.R. timeline consist of only two games. Instead of the military conspiracy aspects that Sierra’s two expansions focused on, Monolith makes Alma’s story the primary focus of Project Origin. Certainly one of the creepiest elements of F.E.A.R., I was eager to find out more about this storyline.

F.E.A.R. 2 seems to rely on the tiresome trend in FPS of “found” emails and documents scattered throughout a level to develop the story. What happened to “show, don’t tell”? Setting up and slowly releasing information through player interactions with the game world keeps them engaged. Not dropping into a menu screen to read an email. And the random flashes of gaping skull mouths and ethereal forms floating through rooms is far too heavy handed to establish any kind of atmosphere. F.E.A.R. took its time to let you know you weren’t just playing a FPS; and once you found out, it became hard to distinguish between the simple firefights with clone troopers and an encounter that would result in some horrifying scene that made you wonder if it was safe to continue playing.

Because F.E.A.R. 2 was developed simultaneously for three platforms, some changes naturally had to be made. The new checkpoint system doesn’t really bother me – it’s become a staple of FPS in the console years whether we want to accept it or not. Health packs are ejected in favor of a Halo-like system that maintains a base health meter and rechargable shield. However, in a game that stresses a light version of tactical combat through taking cover I found it a bit strange that the ability to lean was taken out. According to the developers this feature was removed to “maintain tension”:

You have no threat to lean around a corner and be able to peek into a space and now you gain complete knowledge of that space, based on your perception of what you can see. By doing that it kinda disables your fight [or] flight mentality, so by pulling it out (I mean it was a very [conscious] decision to take it out) so by taking it out you don’t have that freedom now…You have to expose yourself to get around corners and look into a space and as soon as you do that you maintain that tension a lot better.

It’s a strange (and poorly worded) explanation, and doesn’t really agree with the overall design of combat in the game. A great new feature was introduced to allow you to knock over tables or vending machines to create your own cover, much like the enemy AI was able to do in the first game and to my amazement the first time it happened. When engaged in combat, being able to view your surroundings in relative security is an important ability, especially when outnumbered. Many shooters now rely on it, so why should F.E.A.R. 2 be any different? Once again I am left wondering what Monolith is trying to achieve with this game.

The demo’s biggest failing is that it assumes the player will be impressed enough with the game’s more streamlined version of combat, and satisfied with the brief glimpses of blood, gore and ghostly figures to move on to the full version in the hopes that it will deliver. The power armor seemed so out of place in this game; it felt like it was put into the demo to show the new avenues of action that can be expected (or that they were responsible for Shogo: Mobile Armor Division). But I don’t want variety – I want focus. And with a game like F.E.A.R. 2, there’s a very thin line that must be walked if the developers are going to claim the game’s atmosphere and resulting “tension” as selling features.

The demo’s mission was too short to present any useful information on the story, and I wasn’t that impressed with the combat. If I am getting this game for the story, I need to know more. I don’t want to shoot guns and fend off faceless clonetroopers with Bullet Time effects or pilot power armor. The full version of the game has been out for a week, and while the reviews seem favorable enough, no one has committed to calling it anything other than a shooter with some horror and suspense elements.

The F.E.A.R. demo terrified me two years ago; the ladder sequence was what did it. I had gone into it expecting nothing more than a FPS with some horror conventions thrown in, but I was surprised at how well the action blended into suspense and back again. It was impressive enough to seek out the full version that supported these initial impressions, and remains one of the scariest games I’ve played since. Conversely, the demo for F.E.A.R. 2 suffers from a bit of an identity crisis, which muddles its intentions. While I want to give it the benefit of the doubt based on the feelings I had for its progenitor, I don’t feel confident pursuing the full version for something that only might be there.

Anticipating Resident Evil 5 was clearly a mistake. After playing Resident Evil 4 twice and subsequently labeling it “the most overrated game of 2005″, I should have known better than to expect anything different from a sequel banking on its progenitor’s critical and commercial success. But I can hardly be blamed in full for this misconception after all the posturing in the demo’s press release citing Halo and Gears of War as influences on its enhanced control scheme. This is only slightly true, as playing through the demo’s two available levels would painfully reveal.

The actual controls used in Resident Evil 5 share more in common with Resident Evil 4 with a few additions, but they are still clumsy and unnatural. Sure, one trigger is AIM and the other is SHOOT, but how about that awkward inventory selection screen? The D-pad can be used to quick select weapons, but there’s no on-screen menu or feedback like in Gears.

What is clouding the issue – and I explain this in my lengthy analysis of Resident Evil 4 – is that these controls are new to the Resident Evil series, and as such are only praised by fans who had to deal with even shittier controls before. But to ignore all the advances that have been made in console-based shooters in the last four years is to say that they don’t matter, and that the average gamer interested in getting into the series had better start learning some new controls. This is especially relevant now that Capcom has basically abandoned the horror aspects of the game and created a simplified shooter.

Contrary to what the designers at Capcom may think (and some fans, even) slow-turning tanks are not fun to control and only induce frustration, not fear. For the entire length of the series, Resident Evil fans have been making excuses for poor controls to the point where people actually stand up to blindly defend them when they are questioned. These controls have not adapted to genre standards, despite publicly referencing them.

The series is no longer scary. Resident Evil is not a horror game anymore, it is a third-person shooter. Why were enhancements made to the controls in Resident Evil 4? To make it easier to kill things. If killing things is more important than developing story or tension, then you have made a shooter. Except these controls were only half-realized. You can’t move and shoot; Even Dead Space, a game widely recognized as being based on Resident Evil 4, allows you to slowly move your character while aiming a gun. It is not unrealistic to expect a human to be able to do that, perhaps with reduced accuracy – and this is reflected in most games. You must be aiming your gun to be able to reload. There is also a context-sensitive melee system that makes no sense when you are surrounded by a pack of zombies. There should be a melee action button for whetever weapon you are holding and that’s the end of it. I should not have to equip my machete.

Resident Evil 5 certainly makes the most of the XBox 360 hardware: the visuals show serious improvement over Resident Evil 4, especially with the main characters. And that’s probably the only positive thing I can muster about this game. The Zombies/Infected as a collective are boring. They seem more human than ever before. Even Resident Evil 4‘s denizens were more exciting because decapitating them or shooting limbs off would reveal an enemy that could smack you around from afar with evil-looking tendrils. In Resident Evil 5 the “zombies” are eager to run in for the kill, but stop suddenly in the general vicinity allowing you to queue up that laser pointer and blast away.

Resident Evil 5 is vanilla; it is unoriginal and it is playing it safe. Co-op may be where games are gravitating towards, but even that is not preventing this demo from being some of the most unexciting gaming I’ve ever experienced. Make me scared again, Capcom. Return to the horror roots of this franchise and stop trying to compete with shooters. There are already too many of them.

I’ve been playing Dead Rising for the last few weeks, and must give credit to Capcom for capturing what it’s like to actually be threatened by a crowd of zombies. Sure, shooting a gun is about as satisfying as punching myself in the side of the head, but at least I can pick up a baseball bat and swing that for a while. In its current form, Resident Evil is offering nothing more than a bunch of slow moving targets to aim a laser pointer at. I never liked Resident Evil 4, so maybe I was a bit naïve thinking that Resident Evil 5 would win me over. This game is for Resident Evil fans, and they can have it. For a tedious exercise in survival horror, I’d rather go back to Dead Space.

I took advantage of the Boxing Day shopping frenzy over the weekend and picked up an XBox 360 Pro Holiday Bundle at a discount that was hard to ignore. This is a purchase I had been deeply considering since my life-altering experience with Gears of War 2‘s Horde mode. My familiarity with the console was mostly limited to some time with it shortly after launch, so I’ve been relatively out of touch with what has been released for the console since then. I was also a bit disappointed at the lack of hardware upgrades: the Elite is still hoarding the 120 GB hard drive, and there is still no Wi-Fi out of the box even after three years. Though I guess I should be thankful that the power supply hasn’t burst into flame yet.

Since getting back into gaming this past summer, I’ve tried to keep myself aware of the titles capturing the most buzz on all of the next generation consoles. Over the past few days I familiarized myself with the new XBox dashboard and downloaded a grab-bag of demos: the critically acclaimed and a few others that I was interested in. I’m still looking for a good RPG other than the obvious selections of Mass Effect, Fable 2, or Fallout 3. Feel free to add any other recommendations in the comments; this is my second leap into the console world since the Gamecube in 2003.

Braid (demo)

I went to this game immediately. Not only was it the most talked about title on XBox LIVE Arcade for 2008, it was the most talked about game, period. Fiery debates raged between those that thought it was overwrought twaddle and those that believed it would change your life. Skeptical as always, I went in expecting twaddle.

After being available for four months and topping many year-end lists, Braid carries with it the burden of enormous expectations. This isn’t usually how I like to approach a game, but I just couldn’t wait to try it for myself to have some snide comments for my own year-end wrap up to fuel the continuing debate. But after completing the meager demo levels, my initial reaction was a feeling of emptiness. That’s it? Super Mario Bros. meets Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time?

The loosely strung together story, which amounts to a bunch of text that can optionally be read at the beginning of each level, is a collection of the most purple prose I have ever read in a game. If this is the reason reviews like Dan Whitehead’s famous wank-session at Eurogamer are produced, I want no part of the future of games criticism.

When the Barney look-alike says “I’m sorry, but the Princess is in another castle”, the reference might have actually been funny if Braid wasn’t so busy taking itself too seriously. And I don’t want to hear another drone telling me I’m “missing the point entirely” or “don’t get it”. The point of any game is to be entertaining, and if a player must peel back the disguises of obscure cultural references behind some interchangable protagonist’s life story to “get it”, I think the game’s designers are the ones missing the point (the atomic bomb? Seriously?). The in-game art is exceptional, but the game itself is not art. It is a platformer.

Dead Rising (demo)

Dead Rising is one of the games I regretted missing in 2006. It certainly feels like a Resident Evil game in the way it over-dramatizes the laughable storyline, but it does away with things like atmosphere and contrived suspense in favour of what people really want to do in a Resident Evil game: kill lots and lots of zombies.

The slow moving zombies practically allow themselves to be destroyed with all manner of weapons provided by the game’s environment. This is a definite change of pace from the chaotic action of Left 4 Dead as the massive, undulating crowds are rarely overwhelming. Weapons are also breakable, and this provides a bit of tension when that bat you were swinging has suddenly turned to splinters in your hands.

Based on what I was able to play in the demo, the action in Dead Rising seems pretty superficial, but I’ve read that there’s a lot more to do in the game than just kill zombies. I’m trying to track down a copy of the full version so I can make a better assessment.

Mirror’s Edge (demo)

If I could get every minute back spent reading self-appointed game criticism pundits fiddling with this game…Oh, forget it. The aesthetic of Mirror’s Edge is breathtakingly original, and I have to give DICE credit for creating something that isn’t another war-themed first-person shooter. These sterile environments are host to what is essentially an expansive jumping puzzle in a first person shooter. Except I can’t see my feet. It’s been a thorn in the side of any first person shooter player (even for Metroid Prime!) So why are these complaints absent from every review? Easy. They are too busy praising its originality.

I don’t care about the trend of “parkour” or “freerunning” or whatever the hell they are calling it now, but I will certainly give DICE their due for attempting such a game. But let’s be totally honest here: if you’re going to focus on jumping, let the player see their environment from a reasonable perspective. You know, like Brad Borne did with Mirror’s Edge 2D. Hopefully this is being created for XBox Live Arcade, because I will be getting it. As it stands, for washed out parkour fun I’d rather be playing Assassin’s Creed.

Castle Crashers (demo)

This shameless throwback to medieval beat ‘em ups like Golden Axe is a fucking revelation, brought to you by the creators of Alien Hominid. The visual comedy and overt references to its influences are hilarious to behold. After playing this game it becomes perfectly clear why XBox LIVE Arcade succeeds on the backs of these no-frills action games. I will be getting the full version.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Since its release on XBox LIVE Arcade last year, there have been a lot of people waxing poetic about its greatness in the pantheon of 2D platformers. But does anyone really know why this game is a 2D classic, and one of the best games of all time? Or do game reviewers and journalists just keep citing it because they know that’s what they’re supposed to say? (I also see this a lot with Gunstar Heroes – note to Microsoft, toss this one on XBL Arcade, too!).

The game is a curiosity for the Playstation generation, bravely released in an era that advanced 3D graphics for non-computer users. It is also difficult in an old-school platformer kind of way, from the days where it actually took patience and skill to run through a sequence instead of relying on auto-saves or save points that pop up like weeds all over a level. It was a refreshingly original take on the Castlevania universe by not giving you a whip, but arming you with other weapons, allowing the use of armour and providing a set of unique spells. It was before the series got unnecessarily complicated with 3D iterations and the convoluted magic systems of the portable series. This was the last great Castlevania, and for a while, the last great 2D platformer. I’m going to have to a write a full god damned review, aren’t I?

Though it is labelled as HD I probably could have played this on my PC with a decent emulator, as the sprites and animations feel like they were just bumped up to 1080i. Otherwise, the game plays like I remember it.

Kung Fu Panda

The first of the bundled titles that came with the console. Incredibly, this is a licensed game that doesn’t make me want to jump out of a window. Kung Fu Panda smartly focuses on straightforward action, fluid controls, and (thankfully) professional voice acting including Jack Black himself. It integrates well with the storyline of the movie, without veering too far off to make it seem that missions were thrown in to make the whole thing a game. My daughter also enjoys the cartoon violence and sound effects. This might actually be worth finishing.

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

The second of the bundled titles that came with the console. This is the first I’ve played of the Lego series of games that seem to be all the rage lately. Its cute factor is frequently nauseating, but it is fun to play. I can’t see myself spending too much time with it, though. Well, except when the little one asks for it by name (Indiana Jones bricks?)

Ninja Gaiden II (demo)

After playing the family-friendly Kung Fu Panda for close to two hours while my daughter watched in excitement, this was a welcome bloodbath. Atrocious cutscenes and polished spandex abound in the sequel to one of the original XBox’s premier titles, a game I always wanted to play for myself. The new Ninja Gaiden may be set in the same universe as Tecmo’s Dead or Alive, but do we really have to continue to watch Ryu hopping around in plastic pants through carefully constructed environments almost entirely devoid of character and substance? Is that really the best Team Ninja can do with the 360?

However, pushing graphical boundaries is not what this game is about. The combat is fast and merciless and aggressive. The mutated ninja sent to kill Ryu have no tactics, except to close in and repeatedly cut him with swords and beat with fists and throw shuriken.

With only the first level included in the demo, it’s tough to make a call on the difficulty. It’s challenging, but not impossible. It also doesn’t lend itself well to button mashing as some might have us believe. It’s no Assassin’s Creed, but the combat requires a bit of timing and proper use of blocking techniques. There is a new regenerative health system that rewards the calculated assault. There is also Ninja Magic.

There is so much blood in this game, I actually wondered if I was getting sensitive to the violence. But then I realized that the people who I was cutting up were actually coming back for more without any arms, or hopping on one leg, to finish the job. It was both ridiculous and satisfying to put the sad bastards out of their misery. I miss Shinobi, and for twenty minutes this game filled that void. I want to play more.

Devil May Cry 4 (demo)

This list is getting long, so I’ll mix it up with a Haiku to express my feelings for Devil May Cry 4.

Fancy pants wields sword
and glowing devil gauntlet
wind sighs through white hair

Wow, even writing that poem makes me want to go back and slice off bulging mutant limbs in Ninja Gaiden II.

Fracture (demo)

Maybe I’ve been too much into Gears of War lately, but Fracture seems like such a poseur in the latest deluge of third person shooters set in an embattled future.The big problem with this game is wasted potential. The ability to harness the earth itself to create cover and move through obstacles seems like a great concept gone to shit in the designers’ efforts to capitalize on the angry, futuristic shooter market. I don’t care that there’s a civil war – make a game that is fun to play!

The controls are passable, but the combat is not nearly as satisfying as Gears. And the earth shaping dynamic seems limited to certain areas of each level, which makes it completely useless as player advantage. If I can only use the ability when the game tells me to, what’s the point of introducing it in the first place? Also, game reviewers: please stop using the word “romp” when reviewing this type of game. It undermines their grittiness.

Gears of War 2

Now that I’m over how great the controls are and how enjoyable this series is to play, I can pay attention to the reasons why I’m supposed to be killing things. I had no idea it would be so disappointing. The story is a crippled mess of wartime cliché and forced emotion, and the dialogue seems less snappy and immediate this time around. Maybe it was bad in Gears of War and I just didn’t notice.

There are many notable additions to the game’s combat dynamic, and they only serve to further substantiate a solid formula. It is action all the time; it is shameless bravado; it is endlessly appealing. The Gears of War games are slowly becoming some of the greatest I have ever played. It continues to amaze me.

Updated November 14, 2008

Left 4 Dead goes out of its way to create an interactive horror movie. The movie poster introducing the upcoming mission, the four horror movie archetypes forming the group of survivors, a city overrun with Infected presenting seemingly overwhelming odds, and enough darkened corners to make anyone trigger-happy. The maps are linear, designed to move the player forward without too much thought and keep players shooting at the Infected. Swarms of the Infected will appear as if from nowhere, at any time. There are no monster closets. They are everywhere. They will jump through windows. They will rush through hallways. They will pretend not to see you, and then all of a sudden a group of them is launching an attack. And then the Boomer shambles around the corner, and your party of four is suddenly fucked.

The Left 4 Dead demo went live for everyone yesterday. The pre-order crowd has been playing since Friday, myself included. Portions of the “No Mercy” mission were included in the demo, which pits the four person team against hordes of the Infected as they battle their way to a rescue location at Mercy Hospital, where other survivors are apparently gathering. The opening cinematic does a seamless lead-in to a rooftop gathering of the team where you drop into your selected avatar, grab a weapon and get ready to defend yourselves against the Infected.

First, a qualifier: I mostly played Single-player offline, as I initially had trouble getting a match going without a lot of re-connecting to games. There appeared to be an issue with the matchmaking service, and I was booted from three different lobbies after games had started before I finally gave up. I talked to a few users afterwards, and they appeared to be experiencing the same thing, and assumed it was lag and connection timeouts. An update to the demo went out on Monday to fix some of these issues, but even tonight I had problems connecting to a game. Obviously this will be fixed for the full version – or else this game just lost its entire reason for being. One thing that really irritated me is the lack of an actual server browser, something that all Valve games to this point have included as part of the Steam client. Why can’t I choose where I want to play? This handholding comes directly from the world of online console gaming, and I don’t like it. Just because Left 4 Dead is also being released for the Xbox 360 doesn’t mean you ignore what the PC gaming market has grown accustomed to. And being dumped into a lobby with random players who are more interested in plowing through the map for frag counts kind of ruins the effect of the game.

Before starting a game, you choose your character: Louis the office worker, Francis the tattoo-emblazoned biker, Bill the grizzled war veteran (or gun enthusiast?) and Zoey the…girl. Yes, a token girl wearing a red tracksuit jacket that favors the pistols. I liked the design of Alyx better; she looked like she could handle herself in a fight without being obvious about it. In Zoey’s case, there is nothing to discern her from the rest of the group. Bill has the dangling cigarette and gruff commentary, Louis is the office worker acting out every white collar slave’s fantasy, and Francis is, well, the embodiment of the biker stereotype, but we’d never want to say that to his face. In multiplayer mode, once dropped into a lobby you either have to make your claim on a character right away or else one will be assigned to you. Unless you’re really concerned about what you look like in-game, this really doesn’t make a difference.

And that’s one of the first exceptions I took with Left 4 Dead. Why a pre-made set of characters? There are no bonuses or specialties offered by any of them, and they aren’t “classes” like one might expect. Any character can take any weapon, though if you’re playing with the AI controlled characters they will pick certain types of weapons: for example Bill will always choose the Automatic weapons, and Francis will always choose the shotgun. I’m not asking for customizable characters, but adding a little depth to the avatars forced onto players would have been appreciated.

Left 4 Dead provides only the basic tools for Zombie invasion survival: a heavy weapon, a pistol, an explosive and a First Aid kit. Unfortunately, the weapons don’t feel very substantial or unique, though they do provide satisfying results. It doesn’t take much skill to launch an assault head on; simply firing the shotgun into a crowd of Infected usually gets the job done if you can manage reloading quickly. Even with a more conservative approach, the waves of Infected that constantly beset your group will use up most of your heavy weapon’s ammo. But then there’s always the pistol, which has unlimited bullets, is almost as effective as firing the submachine gun or automatic rifle, and provides similar accuracy.

For atmospherics, the darkened alleyways and closed-in rooms necessitate the use of the flashlight. Wandering around with your flashlight and gun in hand, wondering where that next Infected attack will come from was completely unnerving. Not in the way you need to install the Doom 3 duct-tape mod, but the I Am Legend, oh-my-god-don’t-look-into-those-shadows-I-don’t-want-to-know-what-is-lurking-there kind of feeling. Anyone who has disturbed the Witch doesn’t live to tell about it.

Being attacked by a mob of Infected is not the same as your typical gunfight in other FPS titles. They will jump on you, they will claw you and push you to the ground. The action does not give players pause to breathe; the urgency of each sub-mission is palpable. When outnumbered in Left 4 Dead, there is a genuine feeling of hopelessness. Well, except for the pistols.

One of the game’s best features is how it integrates teamwork into the action. This isn’t a totally generic FPS where you happen to be playing alongside other humans; you have to watch out for your party. You can’t ignore them and just keep shooting, or they will be incapacitated by a Smoker or a Hunter and there’s one less gun in the fight. Either you or another party member must kill their assailant, or if they are completely incapacitated, you have to help them up similar to Gears of War. In another movie-like touch, you can still shoot while incapacitated, to provide covering fire while someone attempts the rescue.

At this point, Left 4 Dead sounds like an exciting multiplayer game that could have easily been created as a mod. There just isn’t enough depth to the core game. However, is it fair to criticize a game that’s sole purpose is assaulting the senses with a cavalcade of unlimited micro-crises? Absolutely. And I will tell you why: feeling fear in survival horror should be knowing you can’t game the system, there is no health pack waiting for you, you really are out of ammo, and it’s time to start shoving your way through the pack of Infected in front of you and make it into that abandoned building, because your last teammate died and you’re pretty much fucked if you don’t. Instead, I always get the feeling that there is a safehouse nearby, and while my main weapon’s ammo has run out there are always the pistols.

Left 4 Dead also doesn’t handle the concept of infection very well. With the amount of times I was clawed, mauled, (probably) bitten, blood spattered in my face and on my teammates, and the clouds of gore and brain particulate filling my immediate environment, it amazes me that none of us get sick. Either the game is following the convention of Zombie movies (in which you must be bitten), or it’s following the convention of say, 28 Days Later, where you have to ingest or come into contact with the blood of the Infected; I can’t figure out which. And the Zombies can run, which presents even more uncertainty.

You can also take a lot of punishment in this game. Even though I was only granted one health pack, it was rarely needed unless I was in the middle of an Infected swarm and couldn’t blast my way to safety. And because of this, the only reason I was going to die was if I took a lot of damage. There is no fear of getting bitten or Infected, just overpowered by the enemy. It ends up feeling kind of…trivial.

Since the demo only includes the introductory mission, there isn’t enough information presented to establish a storyline or purpose for the player’s actions aside from survival, so I’ll presume that delving further into the campaign may reveal some sinister government plot. Even though this may be a multiplayer game at heart, it isn’t deathmatching – Left 4 Dead could have incorporated some additional realism to make the experience more essential; as it is, it’s merely a shooter with lots and lots of Infected to splatter all over the street. Which can be fun, to a point.

A question that also needs answering is whether I will be able to save the game’s progress, or at least continue from the beginning of each sublevel. This is important to me and the people I’m playing with. I don’t want to have to start again because we have something more important to do.

In the face of these criticisms, I can’t help but think that Left 4 Dead has a certain charm. Co-operative play in this type of scenario isn’t new (Resident Evil: Outbreak and its sequel did it first with moderate success), but I think Left 4 Dead‘s primary function is to create an accessible adventure to be enjoyed with friends. Sure, the campaign mode can be played offline with AI controlled teammates, but fighting alongside them was like fighting with the rebels in Half Life 2. There was no character; they were disposable next to my prowess with a submachine gun. By focusing on the multiplayer elements of the game Valve lets players provide the character behind the avatars, and in the reactions to this game world, a new story can be created.

Update: I’ve managed to play more online multiplayer, and still think that this is a game you have you play with people you know, or at least people who can appreciate the pacing required for this kind of shooter. Naturally the action comes hard and fast while under attack by the Infected, but this isn’t a god damned race. Someone took the time to design these levels to make them creepy, at times claustrophobic, and appear ravaged by the clash of survivor versus infected. I’m not about to strike up a conversation in between firefights, but can we at least take a bit of time to regroup?

Ultimately, I think the demo is just too short to truly grasp what the game is capable of. I’m looking forward to playing the full version next week.