In the wait for Diablo III, Torchlight has been cause for celebration among those that wish for an effortless and predictable excursion into well-worn territory. But like Darkstone was to the deadspace between Diablo and Diablo II, Torchlight is being overvalued because of timing. I’ll certainly give Runic Games credit for creating a slick action role playing game that pays adequate homage to Blizzard’s seminal genre template, but Torchlight is in a genre holding pattern that is waiting for something else to take its place.

Indeed, Diablo is a name is guaranteed to be referenced when talking about any gear collecting, gold hoarding, point-click-kill marathon. And perhaps some developers think that this is something to aspire to, hoping to capture the players that don’t want to pay for an MMORPG by capitalizing on the success of a proven formula. But does the already diluted genre of role playing games need another Diablo clone?¹ What is this really offering the platform of PC gaming, in a time when the industry is rightfully criticized for creating sequels and clones and sequels of clones?

That’s a pretty heavy topic for such an innocent genre retread to lead to – after all, Torchlight is instant and fleeting gratification at its most elemental. One would also be remiss in failing to point out that Torchlight is a front to fund Runic’s upcoming Free-to-Play/micropayment MMORPG². There’s not much more you can say about Torchlight‘s intentions, even if like Neverwinter Nights the game and its toolset are being released to provide a product for the community with virtually endless replayability. Yet I was still compelled to spend many hours with Torchlight, because it closed the loop on something that was started almost five years ago.

I found the enthusiast press reaction to Torchlight a little disturbing. The critical reception seems to agree that there’s nothing to it; beyond the item hoarding and watching numbers go up, Torchlight offers no more than you would expect from an acolyte of Diablo, complete with a soundtrack that is essentially Matt Uelmen riffing on the themes from Diablo II. And for simply meeting these expectations, it has managed to receive generally positive reviews³, and has been included on many best of 2009 lists. Does Torchlight represent the triumph of the “indie” or “underdog” spirit? Are fans of the genre so desperate for a true successor to its figurehead that they are satisfied with design by association? This is another symptom indicative of the game industry’s ability to succeed by creating graphical updates of very old, overused game concepts. I don’t even buy refinement as an excuse, because it adds only a few minor flourishes to the design of Fate⁴, a game by WildTangent released in 2005. Travis Baldree, was the lead designer for Fate. He is also the lead designer for Torchlight.

The praise for Torchlight becomes highly suspect when there are no heavy references to Fate, because the similarities are obvious throughout the game’s proceedings. Runic’s development roster consists of a mixture of WildTangent, Blizzard North and Flagship Studios expatriates. Aside from some offhanded references to the pedigree of Torchlight‘s team in some reviews, it’s apparent no one bothered to make the connection. In 2005, Fate was named on many year-end lists, too⁵. It wasn’t a good year for role playing games.

The result is that Torchlight is presented by the enthusiast press as a minor revelation, and one can only conclude that these are the opinions of people who never played Fate. Indeed, the pet that brought unwanted gear back to town for gold was a fantastic idea, and seems to be one that many advocates of the game latch on to. The same goes for the shared Item Stash that can be accessed by all of the characters saved on the same computer. However, like many other concepts in Torchlight, these features were directly transplanted from Fate. And it’s a good thing; in many ways, Torchlight is the game I wished Fate had been. It unquestionably exhibits a more cohesive presentation, so I didn’t feel like my character was some paper doll wandering around in randomly drawn levels fighting randomly spawned creatures dropping randomly generated items. Torchlight has a common thread, and as tenuous as it may be, there is at least some goal to achieve in this game beyond nursing a sore index finger.

What arises from this scenario is a question of the acceptable level of ignorance for reviewing a game of a particular genre. The same could be said of a publication that gives a fighting game to someone who dislikes them, and expects a fair review to be produced. But if a reviewer knew or cared to point out it was simply a visual upgrade to something that had been done previously – by some of the same people, no less – would it have elicited the same response? I can’t help but get the sense that Torchlight is receiving the treatment of the typical independent or low-key release that does something noteworthy, so that critics can give it the requisite pat on the head and move on to the next high-profile release. Like my feelings towards Borderlands, I refuse to accept that Torchlight‘s greatness is supported by its ability to be a faithful recreation of the mechanics of Diablo.

The three character classes offered by Torchlight are a welcome change to Fate‘s non-template, where there were no classes and the system was so open you could create whatever you wanted⁶. But what initially appeared as flexible is actually a poorly implemented system that makes you wonder what is in front of you after experimenting with all the skill point options and delving through fifty levels of random dungeon. Torchlight only allows the increase of the same basic attributes of any action RPG: Strength, Dexterity, Magic and Defense, and they all start off at the more or less the same value and provide the same benefits to each class (More strength means better armour and melee damage, more Magic means more Magic Damage, etc.). Playing an Alchemist felt very close to a fighter-mage, provided I was equipped with suitable armor and a staff with large damage output. In fact, there are very little trade-offs for system optimizers that want to create melee hybrid classes, making the starting class choice meaningless except for the Skills that accompany them.

The Skill selection for each class is uninteresting, but serviceable. The skills are entirely dependent on character level; there is no “tree” of prerequisites. Thus, there is no commitment from the player to a particular branch of special abilities; most can simply be ignored until more powerful ones become available and cherry-picked out of the set. In fact, the mid-level skills (such as Ember Lance and Ember Lighting, the case of the Alchemist) feel so overpowered that there isn’t much use in spending points on anything else. Saving up Skill points becomes a common strategy. It is also odd that spell scrolls were included as an alternate source of magic. This is more of a carryover from Diablo, where a Warrior class could actually learn a Fireball spell if the scroll was picked up as an item drop. There are only four slots to store these spells, and un-learning them destroys the scroll. This isn’t as much of a sacrifice as it seems – the amount of spell scrolls that are dropped by monsters or purchased through vendors provides an ample supply to draw from. This seems like an element of design that was kept in by mistake; once again, the line for a character’s class is blurred when a Destroyer is able to wield a Level III fireball spell if they are willing to spend the Magic attribute points or have equipment that grants them. A more complicated skill tree with dependencies to make character builds more of an investment for the player would have synchronized Torchlight with its contemporaries.

In Fate, everything was randomly generated. Quests, items, the floors of the endless dungeon – even the “boss” monster to be faced at the end of the game was generated when a new character was started. By having a thread of quests based on an over-arching storyline, Torchlight avoids the same pitfalls of being inconsequential by providing a reason to keep going down into the dungeons. It’s the typical fledgling hero versus evil mage story, and the main characters in it don’t change every time you play the game. There is consistency in that, at least.

The dungeon levels in Torchlight are still randomly generated, but their layouts appear deliberate. And every seven levels, the surroundings change. It’s strange to see such a variation in environments going down through one set of catacombs, but Diablo did this too. There are new monsters to fight and they all seem to fit together with each level’s theme. It’s a welcome change from the obvious tileset and monster randomization of Fate. But once again Torchlight did not adopt what has become a genre convention: a surface world with more than one town, instead of stacking the differently themed levels.

Nevertheless, the structure and appearance of each dungeon level map are well-crafted and evoke an individual personality for Torchlight. There is a feeling of depth to each dungeon level, whether it’s through the layering of stairs or putting some inaccessible areas as background filler. This is one of the things I liked about the Barbarian Highlands in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, and was further illustrated by the outdoor regions in Titan Quest. It gives the impression of scale and that there is some substance to these areas.

Indeed, Torchlight‘s strongest attribute is its appearance. It looks light-hearted and fun, which is yet another element borrowed from Fate. But in Fate, the game suffered from overly cute character and monster design; there was nothing threatening about its adoption of a casual game’s aesthetic. Torchlight corrects this, so that the game bears enough of a resemblance to what’s expected of a fantasy setting in action role-playing games without drifting into the bland side of the spectrum like Darkstone or Dungeon Siege II. Clearly someone at Runic was paying attention to Blizzard’s philosophy behind the art direction of World of Warcraft.

Because Torchlight‘s scope is limited to one town, it is considerably scaled down from its contemporaries. There are only four people in the town that give out quests, and they all have a type of quest repeated for the whole game with the exception of quests related to the main story thread. The monsters that must be slain are random, the items that must be retrieved are random, and the rewards are random and usually junk when they should have been level and class-based. You will always find better equipment through item drops or even at the vendors, as the game does a terrific job of randomizing their supply. The various non-player characters offer up these quests as if you want to do them, but it hardly seems worth it aside from the experience grind. Runic obviously spent more time on the game’s appearance. Because like Fate, if you play Torchlight for more than five hours you come to realize there is no end to the randomization of the entire affair. There is no incentive to do any of the quests other than there is nothing else to do.

What becomes immediately obvious to veterans of this genre is the lack of difficulty. The most lively parts of the game are the boss or special monster encounters, which often result in drawn out battles of health potion attrition. While the experience and looting grind may be enough incentive to spend hours in the catacombs below the town, even on Hard Torchlight quickly becomes an exercise in tedium when it poses minimal resistance. Money is easy to obtain through selling most of the items that get dropped. There is no money sink through something like equipment degradation, so there is nothing preventing players from stocking up on potions to guarantee survival though most of the tougher mob and level boss encounters. When you die, you “choose your Fate”: respawn at the exact point of death for a loss of experience and renown, at the beginning of the level for a loss of money, or in town for no penalty. And since town portals are persistent between sessions, getting sent back to town is always the best option.

There are also waypoints located at each of the transition areas between the main sections of dungeon, but using these just results in a longer walk. There are no monster respawns on the cleared dungeon levels – even between sessions – so there is no way to earn experience simply by travelling through previously cleared areas, or added risk in retrieving your corpse. If the levelling treadmill provides no opposition, is the purpose of this game to just get to the end? You can’t even show off your character’s gear to anyone. Is it the infinite randomness? Last time I checked, you could go down 2,000,000-plus levels in Fate. While I’m reluctant to label Torchlight as more genre pollution⁷, Torchlight commits a similar mistake to Borderlands in assuming that providing a new skin for the same well-worn formula is enough. Though at least Torchlight isn’t coy about it.

Everyone likes to compliment Runic on their work in creating Torchlight‘s OGRE engine, and how the game had such a quick development cycle. I have no problems acknowledging this feat when presented with such a polished product. It’s evident that Runic wanted to create something familiar for fans of the genre, and for some people this is good enough. But I see Torchlight as a necessary step to something better. I think Runic did too.

Torchlight doesn’t have any multiplayer. That seems to be the biggest complaint I’ve seen in reviews of this game. And it’s a valid one, when multiplayer is typical among this game’s peers in the year 2009. I took the same exception to Fate, and now that the dungeon design resembles something with purpose, Torchlight would be the perfect pick-up game for a few friends. Given the pedigree of the design team, one would think that multiplayer would be a foregone conclusion. But I suspect it was omitted on purpose.

Torchlight was released mainly to test the OGRE engine and to gauge player response to the game and its setting. In general, the critical reception seems satisfied without multiplayer, so there’s no need to include it even as an add-on. Runic has already confirmed as much on the official forums. Instead, Runic continues to work towards their MMORPG based in the Torchlight universe. Torchlight was an experiment, and the players of the game are all willing test subjects. I’m willing to concede that Runic has my money because they are creating something bigger and better. And they might actually do it this time.

Torchlight is praised as a noteworthy re-imagining of Diablo‘s well-worn formula. And in the wait for Diablo III, I suppose anything will do for obsessive fans of the genre. One only needs to remember the reaction to Darkstone – a painfully mediocre action RPG released during the wait for Diablo II that even I fell victim to. But this adoration is untempered by greater expectations. Torchlight is a competent entry into the action RPG genre, but fails to compete with the games that have already succeeded its greatest influence. Instead, Torchlight limits itself to improving Fate‘s groundwork to make a game based on randomly generated content feel like a game, instead of the transient experience it actually is. Torchlight is not a revelation, but a game that provides enough genre touchstones under a slick appearance to disguise its reservation. Torchlight is the game Fate should have been: an endearing impersonator, but an impersonator nonetheless.

With Borderlands, a game described as a “role-playing shooter”, developers Gearbox hope to capture the audience that spends many sleepless nights wandering through forgotten strongholds while pillaging corpses and undefended treasure chests. They want to make the grind of the modern Fantasy role-playing game appealing to those repulsed by the thought of more swords and sorcery and Siberian tiger mounts. Gearbox is going post-apocalyptic wasteland on this formula. They’re going to make this grind cool.

Borderlands is influenced by games that are second jobs thinly veiled as “entertainment.” There are enough trappings in most that the player does not immediately recognize it until they are separated from the system. Maybe the rewards are frequent enough; the increase in character abilities more steady and immediately gratifying. But Gearbox fails to dress up Borderlands to hide from the player the laborious byproduct of the genre. As a result, Borderlands merely resembles a mechanical facsimile of its influences.

If you watch the introduction of Borderlands, you can’t help but be absorbed into this new universe. Just like your favorite Guy Ritchie movie, the characters are introduced with so much flair, you can’t decide who you like more. The Hunter brandishes a sword with deadly confidence, his sniper rifle casually draped over his shoulder. The Soldier sits brooding and alone, ashamed of his past as a mercenary. The Siren seductively walks towards the camera, showing off her Phasewalk ability. Brick makes his presence known as the freight train that plows through entire mobs. All this to the tune of Cage the Elephant’s “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”, where I imagine Gearbox screaming “WE ARE DOING THIS FOR YOU, PLEASE LOVE US” in the background. And you want to! You want to start playing immediately after the big white block letters of “Borderlands” stretch across the screen, your transport driving underneath them and kicking up clouds of dust behind it.

So begins Borderlands, a game that proceeds to eliminate any sort of intelligence that’s left in a horribly fractured genre and give players what they presumably want: the ability to shoot stuff with impunity, travel through “open” maps and gather a shitload of randomized equipment.

At first, Borderlands delivers on its promise of unbridled gunplay. There’s a lot of shooting, gun collecting, and medkit using. It even resembles a decent first person shooter most of the time. However, Borderlands takes more of its cues from another genre: the action role-playing game. A bastardization of a once-proud genre, where the soulless pursuit of more gear, more experience points and some arbitrary final confrontation are good enough to sustain the experience. Like the games in the genre before it, Borderlands tries so hard to capture the essence of Blizzard’s flagship titles that it succeeds at duplicating the mechanics without infusing it with any purpose or consequence.

Blizzard learned a lot from Diablo II, and revised their formula until it stood tall and shining like a golden money-making obelisk. With World of Warcraft, they managed to capture everything we loved about the current definition of role-playing game. The environments may have consisted of stretched-out textures over low-polygonal objects, and the characters no more than cartoons – but the overall appearance of the game was so cohesive, so varied and captivating to look at, none of these technical issues mattered. World of Warcraft was a place we didn’t mind looting and grinding in. The simplest of tasks were kept entertaining. The entire experience had been calculated with precision, because Blizzard knows what they are doing.

Borderlands clearly understands the formula – it copies the basic tenets of it all too well. Kill, loot, equip. Repeat. Repeat until your bags are bulging with junk that has to be sold at vending machines, until you don’t need money any more because it is overflowing out of your backpack and lying around everywhere. Watch in horror as you feel compelled to search abandoned fire pits and the guts of wild animals for more.

Where Borderlands lost me is in its unflinching repetition. This isn’t pleasant repetition as in World of Warcraft. The game expects you to grind through these bland, desolate environments without question, but it is never made exciting or interesting. This is grueling work, in the hopes that a character can be built to survive the wilderness just to advance into a new area for more gear and more quests.

A first-person shooter is conducive to fast paced combat, and Borderlands ensures this pacing is established early on. Even in the first few missions I was doing more backpedalling than I had ever done in all the shooters I’ve ever played. And I’ll admit that the feeling of running away from overwhelming hordes of monsters in Diablo II was revisited during my first hours with Borderlands. But this defensive strategy creates a rather large problem in a first-person game: you can’t see where you’re going. So backpedaling with reckless abandon will occasionally put you off the edge of a cliff, or worse: back you into a corner that can’t be jumped out of as you are mauled to death.

The most notable aspect of the combat in Borderlands is the “Second Wind” ability, which is a nice way of the game giving you one last chance to escape. This becomes apparent when you find yourself drifting into areas that are clearly above your level and you start dying more often just to add some variety to the process. If your health is reduced to zero, instead of dying (respawning) you get a chance to keep fighting. It easily compares to being incapacitated in Left 4 Dead. You can keep shooting and switch weapons, but you can’t move and your health is depleted a lot faster. Instead of getting rescued by a teammate, you simply have to kill something – anything – to put you back on your feet. It’s actually the most fun I had with the game, because if there was a boss character or particularly tough monster I had to kill that I dropped to 10% health before being dropped myself, I could finish the job in a completely fitting act of revenge. As a break from the rest of the game’s monotony, these tense moments probably seemed more exciting than they should have been. But even they grow tiresome, as you have no choice but to plow on through areas more appropriate to your level to get better weapons, upgrade skills and then face more difficult encounters.

The environments only show brief flashes of colour and accents in its washed out, sun faded locales. Fallout 3 was rightfully depressing, but Borderlands feels like a parody in the way it mocks the first-person shooter genre with some entertaining one-liners from each of the Player avatars. Yet at every turn I had to search for some kind of personality to draw from the game. It was like Borderlands was telling me I should be happy with just firing my gun. I was not.

Borderlands prides itself on the variety of weapons in the game. And to its credit, I don’t think I ever picked up the same gun twice. There are thousands of variations of pistols, automatic rifles, sniper rifles and shotguns to be obtained, each with their own unique attributes and elemental enhancements. And anything worth carrying can only be picked up from item drops. Mass Effect had a similar variety in weapons, but the game also provided modifications that could be added to the weapons, so that players could create their own builds. And this was on top of everything else! Borderlands needs this kind of complexity; for a game that’s entire focus is on collecting new and more powerful guns, not including some kind of modding system for the weapons in Borderlands feels like an obvious oversight. Furthermore, there is no money sink apart from the cost of respawning – providing weapon durability ratings would at least encourage players to balance the use of their weapons with the cost of repairs.

One of the selling features for Borderlands – like many contemporary video games – is co-operative play. There are four characters and associated class types to choose from. However, there are no limits on what classes can be selected for each party. What Gearbox has created is a slightly more complex Left 4 Dead. Borderlands is a game meant to be played in co-op, with minimal character development and customization. The available classes clearly complement each other, so when attempting the campaign solo it’s harder than it should be. Challenge is good, but when you’re playing a first person shooter that should only require skill at aiming, the game experience begins to break down.

This lack of depth is clearly at odds with the marketing of Borderlands, as it was heavily advertised as a “role-playing shooter.” Taking the game at face value, its definition of “role-playing” is the stat-bumping, item collecting and quest gathering from non-player characters who amount to nothing more than vending machines. As a shooter, it depends on a number of elements from the stat-bumping part: accuracy ratings, critical hit ratings, and proficiency with weapons. But as long as you can click a mouse button or pull the trigger on a gamepad, only the critical hit rating seems to make a difference. And yet aim-assist is available in the game’s options. It’s a feature that isn’t new to consoles, but for a game that’s reason for being is shooting a gun, this feels like direct sabotage of the game’s purpose. And without NPCs that serve to contribute to the game’s atmosphere, the Player is left with very little actual “role playing”, and the descriptor only serves to further dilute its meaning in yet another video game.

Borderlands has borrowed the fast paced first-person combat from a genre that’s made a comfortable home on the console, and the statistics and obsessive-compulsive need to collect loot from superficial role-playing games like World of Warcraft. With these influences Gearbox has created a morass of design elements that only serve to pollute both genres it borrows from. It ultimately offers nothing of value, because all it has done is combine these elements to create some vile video game Frankenstein that surely only appeals to those that like watching numbers fly around on the screen.¹

What becomes readily apparent after playing Borderlands only for a short while is its lack of a driving force behind the proceedings. A typical feature of both modern role playing games and the first-person shooter is some narrative to keep the player moving forward, and Borderlands has nothing worth mentioning. I was simply going where the job board in each zone told me. I was playing because the entirety of what the game offered was dropped in front of me at the start. There was nothing in the back of my mind that made me want to press on. And after eight hours of play, I should have a firm grasp of an overarching objective to make me keep playing.

There is also too much space in Borderlands: traveling between quest objectives, I was constantly staring at wide open areas with nothing to shoot but skag and midgets in masks. Even though the enemies may change from area to area, Gearbox didn’t bother to develop the small things: the reason people enjoy spending so much time doing basically nothing in places like Azeroth. Players will find things to do – and the simplest of tasks are made interesting by the game’s environment. Borderlands may riff on the post-apocalyptic theme, but with so much wasted opportunity for characterization between the players and the environment it amounts to nothing but an insipid interpretation of a setting that was ripe for exploitation. Borderlands‘ capacity for style is limited to the opening video.

Borderlands was a game I looked forward to this year, and I find it insulting that Gearbox was cynical enough to design a game that people would play to collect more junk and experience points to max out a meager skill tree. Its moderate success² in the game review circuit all but guarantees that there will be imitators and sequels trying to improve on the formula only half-realized by Borderlands.

In this manner, the video game industry creates new genres instead of refining existing ones. Instead of perfecting existing control schemes, the industry insists on developing and promoting motion control to access previously untapped demographics. Video games as a medium barely have a chance to keep up, let alone the language to describe them. Instead of preserving history through genre refinements, the industry’s drive for revolution constantly overwrites the past, to the detriment of video games and support for their serious consideration.

Borderlands is genre blending for the sake of box copy. It is a classic example of cynical game design that hopes the players won’t notice, while they kill things over and over for more loot and more money that gets put towards outfitting a character that ultimately doesn’t matter. In fact, the same could be said of the game itself, as over the course of a few hours it becomes increasingly difficult to determine what this game will be remembered for. Falling apart on even a cursory examination, it prompts the debilitating question: why am I playing this? It will make you hate video games for being so unambitious. The offense of Borderlands is one far greater than simply being a bad game: it is genre pollution.

This is the second part of a two-part series. Read “Part 1: Discovery”

I started thinking about writing full length reviews of video games in late 2001. I was still at University. I was going to make a website and came up with some generic name I thought was edgy and reflective of what I wanted to accomplish. It was going to cover more than video games. I had some things to say about popular culture.

After talking to some friends at school about my vision, there was some interest in this collaborative effort. There was already a zine floating around our faculty, but it was horrible. It was a soapbox for people frustrated with school and mostly contained their annoyingly priveleged views on an “oppressive” society. Instead of being provocative or insightful it was lampooning popular culture with pedestrian observations and half-baked philosophy. I could do better.

Of course, when you rely on friends to produce something for free, it doesn’t happen unless you get on their case about it. And I wanted to keep my friends. Plus, the whole “trying to graduate from University with a degree” thing. The project died on the vine, and I gave up the dream. For the time being, anyway.

I graduated from school the next spring, and started playing video games while I looked for work. My comptuer was getting old, and at this point the most it could muster was Unreal Tournament and Civilization III. I read the issues of PC Gamer that were mailed to me to keep up with the industry and the hobby I loved. I hung out on the internet a lot, and read too many terrible reviews that people actually got paid to write. My head started filling with ideas again. I could do better.

I started thinking about another website. Something that would capture my love of video games and provide an outlet for my brand of scathing commentary. I would call it “Tales of a Scorched Earth”, because I am an insufferable Smashing Pumpkins fan. I would adopt the handle of “Gatmog”, because it sounded cool and it provided the mystery any good internet handle should have¹.

During this time, I started playing and thinking about video games as if it were research. I built a new desktop PC after I got a job and some money. I had a new purpose: I would record my thoughts on video games, write some reviews and share them with others. The availability and ease of use of self-publishing tools made this easier than I expected. I thought I would be doing something different than the typical weblog, and I used that as inspiration.

I wrote a lot of reviews and embarrassing posts during that time². I published most of them. It was a start.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002)

When Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was released, it recieved endless praise from the entire video game industry. The word that reviewers liked to throw around was “cinematic.” The movie reviewers liked to reference was Saving Private Ryan. Which was completely natural, seeing as how Spielberg himself had something to do with the game. But this was the start of a recurring problem with video games.

With the success of the Medal of Honor franchise, everyone wanted to tap into this new sub-genre. We started to see a lot more games use World War II as a setting. And the people that loved every single one of them would soon turn on them as fickle audiences often do. And not because the setting had nothing new to offer (Brothers in Arms proved that³), but because it was simply a skin designers would stretch over the same tired FPS formula. Will World War II games ever be fashionable again? Will they ever explore anything deeper than gun-toting heroics? Maybe we’ll see a bunch of games about Iraq in 40 years that leave out all the bad parts, too.

I didn’t actually get to play Allied Assault until later in the year, when I upgraded my desktop. In hindsight, this was fortunate, as everyone was over the initial hype and playing Battlefield 1942. I played the Omaha Beach landing and took part in what everyone called “the most intense experience you will ever encounter in video games.” At the time, I agreed with these hyperbolic reviews. And I still do, mostly. It is intense. It is absorbing.

But is it accurate? And, even though we already know the answer to that, is it right to give these games praise for offering a sterilized simulation rather than realism?

The World War II genre is simply a manifestation of the gaming industry’s obsession with “cinematic presentation.” Big budgets and bigger expectations encourage developers to create the equivalent of Hollywood’s summer blockbusters, in the hopes that this will somehow contribute to the validation of the medium.

However, by doing this you have now have reviewers who base their opinions on how games reference the “source material”, which are movies, and are themselves not entirely genuine. No one who reviews one of these games understands what happened out there on the battlefield. You can’t expect a veteran to play this and give their solemn nod of approval⁴. They fought so we wouldn’t have to. Why do we insist on reliving these horrible events? Why do we call it a game?

Allied Assault got me interested in the history behind the events of these games. I started reading about World War II, and the famous battles and operations summarized and retold by its various missions. I wanted to know what it was really like. I read the first hand accounts of Allied soldiers who were just kids thrust into the front lines and expected to carry the weight of the free world on their shoulders.

In Allied Assault I had autosaves and quick reloads when I died. After reading some of these books, I found the whole concept disturbing. At this point, I wanted to study these games. I wanted to record and categorize the effect of this genre on people’s impressions of World War II, and war in general. I wanted to prove how out of touch our generation was, and how these events are being perverted by an industry.

And yet with all that introspection, I was ensnared just like everyone else the following year by Call of Duty⁵, designed by key members of the 2015 team who left EA to create Infinity Ward. This was a game I could get behind. You weren’t Rambo, you had buddies standing around with you joining the fight for freedom. See how much personality they had? See how everyone reacted when they died?

I wouldn’t articulate these feelings for another few years, in an article I wrote for The Cultural Gutter⁶. I detached myself from the spectacle of it all. I thought about those 20 minutes spent in 2002 trying to beat the Omaha Beach mission in Allied Assault, and how I was annoyed at the number of attempts it took me to complete. Indirectly, these games still had a lot to teach me.

Rise of Nations (2003)

I played Civilization II along with everyone else in University. I stayed up way too late for “one more turn”. I tried out Alpha Centauri after Sid Meier left Microprose to form Firaxis in 1996. I felt that Civilization III was a richer game than its predecessor and probably the best in the series, even though the critical reception for Civilization IV has long since overshadowed it. When I heard that Brian Reynolds was leaving Firaxis to form Big Huge Games and was planning to make a real-time Civilization, I was a little shocked. Would this be a travesty or the breakthrough crossover that everyone had been waiting for?

I got Rise of Nations the week it was released. I played it for at least three months straight. I introduced it to friends and acquaintances that had never played Civilization, and whose experience with Real Time Strategy was the brute force reactive tactics of StarCraft and Command & Conquer. I watched as they succumbed to the spellbinding combination of civilization building and front-line battles. Tales of a Scorched Earth was almost ready and this would be the first review I would write.

My review for Rise of Nations became an obsession. I was struggling with the review style I would use on my website, as I wanted to avoid the type of product summaries that everyone else slavishly followed. I had to pick apart this game and figure out what made it work so well. I wanted to trace its influences back through video game history, and put words to Reynolds’ brilliance in how he selected the best aspects of these influences and combined them into a satisfying whole. As I struggled to find my voice, I also tried to develop my own rubric for reviewing video games with words and not numbers. While I was familiar with the criticisms surrounding either approach, I just wanted to write.

I never did publish that review; instead, smitten with the recent purchase of a Game Boy Advance I finished and published my review of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. A more simplified effort, and what I thought was the safer bet. I didn’t know what audience I would acquire, and I didn’t have confidence enough in my detailed analysis of Rise of Nations to think anyone would find it worth reading. Going back to read the Castlevania review is disappointing. I could have set the tone for this website a lot earlier.

Rise of Nations is stilll one of my favorite games. But it also remains one of the most important in the development of this website.

Metroid Prime (2002, played in 2003)

One of my friends got an XBox and Halo: Combat Evolved the day they were released. I was still in University. Naturally, I had to see for myself what everyone was getting excited about. Microsoft entering the console market? Preposterous!

Halo was a first person shooter, designed to be played with a gamepad. As an overzealous PC gamer⁷, I looked upon this game as an abomination. How could anyone get used to this? Nudging an analog stick provided nowhere near the same responsiveness or precision as a mouse. There had been numerous attempts prior to the XBox to bring FPS to game consoles, and this effort would be no different. I’d give it a try, just to say that I played it. I made it a third of the way through the co-op campaign in two sittings. You know, to humor him.

A few years later, Halo would be identified as not only the XBox’s “killer app”, but the game that made consoles a viable destination for FPS. With the introduction of XBox Live, people were playing Halo 2 online like I was playing Unreal Tournment a few years prior. This was it. The end was coming.

I refused to legitimize this shift in attitudes towards console gaming, even in light of what I called “PC Defectors”: developers and gamers who were growing tired of the PC as a platform, and moved over to the XBox for a more streamlined and hassle-free experience.

Back in late 2003, the Gamecube was subjected to a massive drop in price by Nintendo. It clearly couldn’t compete with the PlayStation 2′s stranglehold on the market, or the unexpected rise in popularity of the XBox. The Gamecube had a limited selection of 1st party titles, but no “killer app” that would sell consoles the way the Grand Theft Auto and Halo series did for the PS2 and XBox. At this cheaper price, Nintendo would settle for being someone’s second or third game console. This is how I got in.

I had heard about The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker, Metroid Prime and Super Mario Sunshine. I knew they were good games, and reason enough to own a Gamecube. However I found myself connecting the most to F-Zero GX at the time, because I had so many great memories surrounding the SNES version. For $150, how could I go wrong?

Well, I was wrong. About the title I bought the console for, anyway.

Metroid Prime caused an uproar among fans of the series. Like everyone else I was astonished at how such an iconic side-scrolling action game could be transformed into a first-person shooter.

Metroid Prime was the game that proved me wrong about FPS on a console⁸. Retro Studios made a PC gamer feel right at home with the Gamecube controller, creating an accessible blend of action and adventure in a vibrant new environment, while still retaining everything I enjoyed about the old Metroid games (even the backtracking!). The combat may have been made easier with the lock-on feature, but the controls were forgiving enough to allow me to get comfortable with the idea of using a gamepad to move and jump and shoot instead of the trial-by-fire approach to Halo‘s brand of action. Metroid Prime may not have been a true run-and-gun FPS, but it allowed me to get comfortable with the concept. There was nothing to fear about FPS on a console.

While those sentiments were sincere, I still remained faithful to the PC. My aversion to console gaming wouldn’t be dispelled until much later.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (2004)

Like everyone else, I bought Half Life 2 on the day of release. I can’t say my excitement was of Diablo II-proportions, but it was a day that would cement Half Life into the video game collective conciousness, after attracting a cult following since the original’s release. It would also mark the launch of Steam, which would bring Valve’s authentication servers to their knees. Half Life 2 redefined acceptable linearity in FPS by creating a compelling narrative driven by the player⁹. I fully acknowledge it as one of the greatest games ever made.

Unfortunately, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines had to compete with the blockbuster release of Half Life 2. Being the first game to use the Source engine, it was rushed to coincide with Half Life 2‘s launch, and it showed. The textures were plain and uninspiring, the facial animations stiff and inhuman, and there were numerous game-crippling bugs. Players and reviewers thought this was reason enough to overlook the game. There was Counter Strike: Source to be played, after all.

This would be devastating to the sales and critical reception of the game. It was Troika’s last effort before shutting down in February 2005. It was also their greatest achievement.

As soon as I finished Bloodlines, I wanted to play it again. This was a game that captured everything I loved about the tabletop RPG, and about computer RPGs in general. It was an example of what these games should be striving for. The voice acting was superb, and the dialog felt completely natural and engaging – something I wouldn’t encounter again until I played Mass Effect. I loved Bloodlines unconditionally, and as a result it changed the way I thought about video games. If a game is deeply flawed, yet so perfectly displays an aspect that defines the genre, it should still be recognized. Maybe I had too much of a personal investment in this game, but I made a point of advocating it to whoever I talked to. I even called it the best game of 2004 when everyone else was handing those accolades to Half-Life 2¹⁰

In early 2005, I got an email from someone who read my review of Bloodlines. Up until then I had received a few emails since starting the website from random visitors with mostly disposable praise or criticism. The useful feedback usually came from the comments section after each post. I appreciated every single one.

This email, though. It was from someone who had been turned off of Bloodlines by all of the negative press surrounding it upon release. He saw no reason to pursue it.

That is, until he read my review.

At that point this person, whoever they were, completely validated my existence. I wielded the power to influence people to play good games; I wasn’t just screaming into the void with opinions no one cared about. This is the most valuable piece of feedback I have ever received in the entire life of Tales of a Scorched Earth, and I will never forget it.

After that I knew my purpose. I would not be content to simply play video games and write up a review. I wanted to critique them. I wanted to contextualize them in our culture, and provide more than just references to other games. I wanted to cut through the hype and evaluate a game on its own merits, not popular opinion. I wanted people to recognize the flawed ones that deserved better.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is the reason this website still exists.

Gears of War (2006, played in 2008)

When the ad campaign started for Gears of War, I was filled with seething rage. My allegiance to PC gaming was as strong as it had ever been, and seeing Epic use their Unreal Engine to create what appeared to be a third person shooter in some darkened and grunge-layered science fiction setting felt like a betrayal of the highest order. These were the same guys that brought us the brightly colored and meticulously balanced Unreal Tournament 2004. What started with Halo would soon completely reshape the landscape of first person shooters and multiplayer gaming on the console. It was a sobering revelation, and I despised Gears for perpetuating this trend.

Time passes, people have children, and they tend to unclench a little. Maybe that’s all I needed.

In the summer of 2008, I bought a laptop to replace my desktop. In hindsight this may have forced my hand in the decision to purchase an XBox 360. But I’ll get to that.

I got Gears of War for my PC, because I wanted to try it out for myself. I already had a XBox 360 controller from my time with Assassin’s Creed, and I used the HDMI-out to plug my laptop into the TV. It was an instant XBox 360!

I played through most of the campaign. Visually, the game was a lot more detailed than what I originally gave it credit for. The duck and cover, shoot and run mechanics flowed naturally, and I was able to get a grip on the control scheme for the most part. But something didn’t sit right. I tried with the mouse and keyboard, but it felt sluggish and unresponsive. I didn’t like the story, or the neverending stream of gender stereotypes and macho overcompensation coming from my television. I gave up on Gears of War. I moved on to something else.

In November 2008, I played Horde mode in Gears of War 2¹¹. It taught me to use the 360′s controller for shooters, and revealed an “endless mode” with an intensity of play that stripped the game down to its basic elements. I loved what I was experiencing.

I went back to Gears of War on my PC and finished it. I then started to write one of the longest, most positive reviews I have ever written at Tales of a Scorched Earth¹². Playing the game long after it was released I could ignore the press, and write what I truly felt about the game. Writing the Gears of War review was the most fun I’ve had since starting Tales of a Scorched Earth.

So I bought an XBox 360. I had to be able to play Gears of War 2, you see.

I was wrong about Gears of War. It is a prime example of the exploration of video games’ basic tenet: kill or be killed. It is Space Invaders with a Lancer, and yet it refines a mechanic for FPS and third person shooters that would be shamelessly copied by the video games that followed it.

Gears of War taught me to slough off platform evangelism. If there is a good game somewhere, I should play it. I dispensed with any rhetoric I had written in the past¹³. I would focus on the games themselves, not get caught up in the fanboy politics that accompany them. I revisited a pact I made with myself shortly after starting this website: I will write here until I have nothing more to say about video games.

And since expanding my horizons with the XBox 360, I have a lot to say about video games.

The “Gaming Made Me” series of video game retrospectives started by Rock, Paper, Shotgun came from games industry writers, journalists and the designers that make them. It’s become a kind of collective autobiography sourcing the video games that shaped who they are.

Of course, the cynical part of me expected this community-driven effort to consist of mostly name-dropping key titles from the history of video games. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response of webloggers that have taken up the mantle where Rock, Paper, Shotgun left off¹.

So now I feel the need to contribute, because I think it is absolutely necessary for anyone who loves to play or write about video games to recognize the ones that got them into the hobby. Or in the case of game designers and professional writers, what made them get into the industry itself.

I have been into computers since very early on in my life, and playing computer games was a natural extension of that interest. However, I had no idea that this hobby would result in me creating a website to talk about them. I’m no industry figure, weblogging personality or budding game designer – I’m just a guy that loves to play video games, and write about them. For the people that truly love video games, they are as important as the books they read or the movies they watched when growing up.

For any game weblog, I’d say that writing something like “Gaming Made Me” is more essential than an “About” page. It’s important to let readers know where the author is coming from, and what games influenced their lives and opinions of what makes a great video game. It provides context for the reviews and criticism they produce.

At this point in my life, video games are no longer just a hobby. They have made me a writer, and they have taught me to be critical of things beyond video games. Both video games and this website have become such immutable aspects of my life, that I can’t imagine it without them.

It was hard to come up with this list. So hard, that I had to split it into two. I wanted it be a list of games that shaped me as a player of video games, as well as my viewpoints on what makes a great video game, instead of simply rewording a “favorite games of all time” list. So I’m not going to list off the Zeldas, the Half-Lifes, the Thiefs, or the Rainbow Sixes. That would be too easy for me. No name dropping of the classics and pretending as if they meant something to me in my early development as a gamer. The following list of games got me started in the hobby, tempered my opinion of the medium, and introduced me to the genres I love. Most importantly these are the games that eventually led me to write about them². They are the ones that left an indelible mark. And for that, they must be recognized.

Alley Cat (1984)

Bill Williams’ Alley Cat was one of the first games I got for my IBM clone desktop PC when I was nine years old (it had been out for a few years). The PC had no hard disk, and I had the game in PC Booter format – it booted right into the game without the need for an OS. The computer and game arrived in my house at the same time a lot of my friends were getting NES consoles for their TVs. I thought the whole home arcade thing was stupid. I could do more with a computer.

Except that all I had for my computer was a monochrome monitor. So I could play Alley Cat in black and green, or black and orange, or black and pink, or black and white. That’s some variety! Who needed the NES and its 8-bit graphics and low-fi chiptunes. I had a PC speaker.

Obviously, these experiences established my allegiance to PC gaming at an early age.

I played the living shit out of Alley Cat, mostly fueled by a white-hot jealousy of the friends that had an NES and Super Mario Brothers. So I got good at it. And for what appeared on the surface as a game for kids, it’s actually pretty hard. Jump into a window in an apartment compex, play a mini-game: a maze in a giant piece of cheese, a fishbowl with electric eels…it was pretty surreal and often frustrating. One of the mini-games involves seducing a female cat to increase the difficulty level, after which the other mini-games could be replayed. Alley Cat helped me define “keyboard bashing.”

Alley Cat was the first computer game I remember committing myself to, even if was for the wrong reasons. I consider it the start of both a rewarding and extremely damaging relationship with video games.

SimAnt (1991)

After the success of Will Wright’s SimCity, there were a series of games developed to leverage the “Sim” brand, which included SimEarth, SimLife, SimAnt, SimTower, SimTown and SimTunes. Little did we know this was just the beginning of a publisher’s business model built on the sales of expansion packs!

SimAnt is generally considered to be a critical and commercial failure for Will Wright, as it seemed to be too eccentric a riff on the SimCity formula. Instead of focusing on large scale empire building or ecosystem shaping, SimAnt was about digging tunnels in the ground, collecting food, managing population happiness, defending the colony, and avoiding lawnmowers. Most gamers weren’t ready for that.

A friend gave this game to me to try, because he thought it was cool. I was 12. I was so past the age of thinking bugs were interesting, so why would I want to create an electronic ant farm? The whole concept seemed ridiculous. Nevertheless, the game gripped me for months. It was better than SimCity: this game taught me about sustaining life³. I was so captivated by my ant colony, striving every day to keep my Queen alive so that it may prosper, that I began to assign my own narrative to it. I would later use these ideas to write a short story for my school’s creative writing contest, where I described a lowly ant’s adventures in saving his colony. I won fisrst prize for it, too. People thought it was such a creative and original concept. If they only knew it was inspired by a video game.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992)

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is my favorite game of all time⁴. It made me love computer games, and electronic games in general. It made me appreciate good scripting, dialogue and voice acting. It made me believe that an original story based on a well-known property could actually result in a good game. It also made me wish it had been made into a movie.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was the first game that helped me break down the barrier between “toy” and “medium” for video games. It is a game I go out of my way to play once a year, like watching a favorite film or reading a favorite book. The endgame brings sadness because I know it will be over soon. I have yet to encounter a video game that instills these feelings. Fate of Atlantis made me realize video games would be part of my life forever.

Diablo II (2000)

After finishing Ultima VIII: Pagan, I needed something similar. The game had captivated me with its isometric viewpoint, simple combat, epic quests and inventory management (really! I would have to leave excess stuff in people’s desk drawers and then come back to get it later). In response came Blizzard’s Diablo. While I would have to wait a year to play it (didn’t have the horsepower in my PC), I knew it was The Answer. See, Ultima VIII still had elements of adventure in it, as the world of PC RPGs hadn’t yet made the transition to the action-ready clickfests most of them have become. And you can thank Diablo for that.

Though Diablo was just the beginning of an obsession for me. The claustrophobic setting of a church with stairs that go down, down through relentless packs of monsters, down straight into hell, would occupy most of the time I spent with my computer. With Battle.net, Blizzard gave us multiplayer and co-op and (theoretically) endless replayability with their randomly generated dungeon levels, but it started to get tiresome. And with the release of Starcraft, the teaser trailer for Diablo II included on the disc confirmed its existence. It also gave me my reason for being as a PC gamer.

The wait for Diablo II was torture. It was the self-inflicted hell that the hero at the end of Diablo endured. My appetite for news on its development would not be appeased. I looked at screens, learned rumors of the new class types and the expansive maps that we would be treated to. The scheduled release was Spring/Summer 2000. I waited.

Closer to this time , I went to a local electronics superstore and asked for a specific street date. The woman who worked there looked at me funny and said, “You’re the 14th person to ask me about this game today. What’s so special about this Diablo II?” I had to bite my tongue at that point. Clearly society would never understand the cultural impact of video games.

I was away at University the week the game came out. I had to wait until the weekend to pick up my reserved copy, which was back home. After waiting over two years, you’d think that a few extra days wouldn’t matter. But knowing that it was there, waiting for me, just made it worse. Incidentally, I vowed to never pre-order a game after that. It hadn’t yet become as widespread a trend, but I could see that pre-ordering at a specific location tethers you to it. It provides no advantage over picking it up at any other store. Instead, you are made a prisoner with your own money and the con artists laughing at you from behind the counter.

But we are talking about Diablo II, the computer game.

The night I picked it up, I installed it on my parents’ computer. Over that weekend I must have logged close to 20 hours and stayed up way too late. I put the savegames on a diskette and packed up the CDs to go back to school. That week, I finished the game. In all it took me about four days, completing every quest and visting every random dungeon. I had beaten Diablo again. But where was Baal? The solid prospect of an expansion pack after I had finished the game helped sustain the euphoria of victory. These would be the best games ever made.

Of course, I was able to look past the hideous low resolution graphics (releasing a game in 640 x 480 game in 2000? Really, Blizzard?), the repetitive nature of the quests, and the game’s nefarious ability to make you want to collect things while in the perpetual loop of clicking a mouse button. Diablo II would provide the model for Blizzard’s own MMORPG, and an entire genre would be dominated by this game in the years after its release.

There’s no arguing Diablo II‘s impact on computer games, and video games in general. The simple “Click-Kill-Reward” concept had never been used to such devastating effect. This was a game I could install and play like some would play Solitaire, to pass the time. Everything became mindless, reflexive. I don’t think I’ve finished a game so many times as I did Diablo II. Hardcore mode provided an outlet for the experienced Diablo II player, where the character dies permanently. Losing my level 43 Sorceress stacked with a selection of rares and uniques to some pack of Fetish Shamans casting Inferno forced me to new depths of humility.

Diablo II was also responsible for something else. Back in that summer of 2000, another game was released. It was called Icewind Dale. Creating a mostly storyless dungeon crawler with the familiar rules and deep game mechanics of Baldur’s Gate had me equally gripped after I had finished Diablo II. So I decided to write an essay comparing the two. I thought Icewind Dale was the better game. I used pathetic excuses like “deeper”, “better soundtrack”⁵ and “nicer looking graphics”. I published the article on a website dedicated to games that didn’t last long. In time I realized I had betrayed a game that provided so many hours of enjoyment, and created stories I could share with the friends that also obsessively played it. Diablo II galvanized my love of PC gaming, and video games in general. Video games were more than a distraction to me at this point. I thought about them all the time, about their multiple layers of presentation, and how they were quickly establishing themselves in our cultural consciousness.

I began thinking about a proper website. I would have to write more about these things.

This is the first part of a two-part series. Read “Part 2: Critical Mass”

Now that proper BioShock 2 video previews are circulating instead of scanned magazine covers and wild fan speculation, I can’t help but feel like the gaming public is being duped and they don’t even realize it. Or maybe they don’t want to realize it, because BioShock has already been granted its lofty position as a new standard for video games, and no one dares knock it off its pedestal for fear of losing that anchor for cultural legitimacy. Even though I don’t share this opinion, I was willing to see this game through because it at least made an attempt at a philosophical statement, whether I agreed with its implementation or not [1]. BioShock may have failed as the game that showed such promise in its first 10 minutes, but at least it prompted a discussion that was not mostly Games-Are-Art wankery. And I’m not talking about how the game made you go out and buy a copy of Atlas Shrugged; I’m referring to the way it makes the “choice” in video games we love to complain about a mostly empty gesture. Maybe this statement was intentional; or maybe it was just an honest, unfiltered reflection of game design as it stands today.

I can also respect Ken Levine’s position on the finished product: he acknowledged the shortfalls of the original game [2, 3], and knew there were things that could have been better, or fully realized. He had a particular endpoint in mind – the character that results from the adventure should reflect the choices made in the game, however insignificant or arbitrary they may have been. The end of BioShock was about coming face to face with what you, as the character, had wrought upon this underwater dystopia. And you should be made to reconcile the results of these decisions.

BioShock 2 is set in Rapture again years into the future, even though in the original game we were eventually tasked with its sabotage and ultimate destruction. And while I can accept that some plot contrivance will surface explaining how some parts of the colony were able to survive during the time between games, I can’t help but wonder why. A game like BioShock – one that attempted to retain a deeper meaning throughout its duration – demands that the story come first if they are to retain interest in the microcosm they have established. Is the story beneath the sea, or up on the surface where a clash of civilizations at odds with one another could be further developed? BioShock ended on a bad note, whether ADAM hungry players want to admit it or not. The “Good” ending is basically a non-event. Why would I want to continue the life of an old man surrounded by orphans? So a bunch of splicers took over a nuclear sub. What happened after that? It’s a mutant apocalypse waiting to happen, and I was the cause! Why can’t I be responsible for fixing it?

At first glance, BioShock 2 is going back to Rapture to do all the things that should have been done in the first game. Why am I supposed to care about walking around outside of Rapture now? The threat of flooding was always at the back of our minds while wandering through those tunnels, but it never happened. Is 2K Marin trying to make up for this oversight?

The Player wakes up as a Big Daddy, and as if to silence the people that will harbor the “been there, done that” attitude, this particular Big Daddy can use plasmids. And, like the original game, he can either harvest ADAM directly from Little Sisters or taken them on as partners to do the harvesting. While it may seem exciting to fend off a bunch of splicers while your partner harvests ADAM, I don’t see how this choice holds the same initial gravity as the original game. A Big Daddy has already been shown to be all but indestructable, and could easily plow through the game killing Little Sisters and Splicers with impunity. You are (presumably) a human that was turned into a Big Daddy, but there is no history there. At least in the original you were a man that through convoluted plot turns and exposition was able to appreciate some of the human elements sprinkled throughout the storyline that would make it seem those token morality plays actually meant something. Instead, the approach used for BioShock 2 dresses it up as an action game that renders its own existence pointless.

But I know 2K Marin thought about this. “We’ve already established that Big Daddies are basically invincible. How can we make this different?” Everyone sat around the board room table looking down at their hands. And then I’m sure somone piped up: “We’ll Make a Big Sister!” in what must have seemed like veritable flash of genius.

Aside from the obvious lack of creative vision, the fast moving, always observing Big Sister will play a prominent role in this game. This new character positions itself in the game world like the SA-X in Metroid Fusion – a character that is your shadowy reflection, appearing every now and again to let you know who you’re eventually going to be fighting. This is really what the first game should have been like; by making Big Daddies recurring characters that could be defeated with a little persistence it lessened their overall impact in the game world. Of course, this all depends on whether Players are willing to convince themselves that this new technology was invented in the nine years since the original BioShock, by people who were only partially jacked up on Plasmids. Or was it there all along?

BioShock 2 also hopes to recapture the suspenseful environment that made the original game so unique in its delivery. But it’s already been done! By staying in Rapture, Players already know what to expect from Splicer subculture, unless 2K Marin are going to reveal some Ultra Mutant Splicer or other scientific mastermind that was strangely absent from the first game. This decision is basically admitting that the original game had nothing to say at all; it just provided a pretty new environment to shoot things in. That’s really what’s happening here, as I am told that I “finally get to drill people” and “shoot the rivet gun” as a Big Daddy. I find it extremely hard to accept that the peak of creativity ended at the halfway point of BioShock. But with these video previews of the game in action, that’s essentially the extent of 2K Marin’s sales pitch.

BioShock 2 ignores the groundwork that was laid, and instead focuses on a Player’s insatiable need to shoot at things. Big Daddies weren’t that interesting – they were part of BioShock‘s environment and became only obstacles at the end of the game. Apart from the fact that Rapture is already destroyed, BioShock 2 doesn’t appear to explore the mythos of Rapture as much as it wants to rewrite it. Instead of carrrying the story forward, it wants to go back and “do all those other things you wanted to do in Rapture.” But it’s too late, guys. We want to see what’s next.

According to 2K Games, the plan is to eventually have six BioShock games in a story arc to rival Star Wars[4]:

Look at Star Wars. It’s a fight between good and evil, just like BioShock [and every other game in existence, it would seem - ed]. If we spin it the right way and get the right twist of innovation, we can make six parts of it, as Star Wars did…we have to be careful not to cash in.

At least they’re being up front about their aspirations for the franchise.

Notes:
1. Refer to my review of BioShock, a year late to the party.
2. In an interview from September 2007, Ken Levine reveals that the “black and white” endings weren’t his idea; he would have rather seen a better representation of the Player’s choices in the game. But those choices had to actually have an impact in the game first, Ken.
3. At GDC 2008, Levine gave a talk about how he “screwed up BioShock’s story”, by making the climax too soon. As I said in my review, it’s basically a revenge mission after the halfway point.
4. Christoph Hartmann, Global President of 2K Games confirms more sequels of BioShock are in the works.

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.

Beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, there is a hidden metropolis established by a megalomaniac tired of dealing with the confines imposed on him by the modern world. In the wake of a civil war that tore this city apart are the hordes of Splicers – humans horribly disfigured and disturbed by excessive self-inflicted genetic mutation. Plazas and hallways scarred by war and bedecked with posters advertising the use of these mutagens wait silently for the player, who will upset the stalemate in the battle for supremacy in Rapture and restore some kind of order. But to face the Splicers and expect to stand a chance, the player must do their own share of gene alteration – upgrading the ability to absorb damage, increasing physical prowess and gaining elemental offensive abilities. BioShock does its best to blend aspects of the first-person shooter with projectile spells, stat-boosting, and the point-and-click adventure games of old, creating an environment teeming with ideas inspired by the best of dystopian science fiction literature. It also reveals an engrossing story, and yet another argument against a society governed by an individual’s opinion on what is right without the checks and balances of the status quo. But somewhere among those many blood spattered corridors and in between the creepy ramblings of the 326th splicer I had to fight, the game lost me. Not for lack of interest I had gathered following its complex plot, but in the way it leaves its promise of moral ambiguity untouched, and leaves the player nothing more than an extremely attractive and original first person shooter.

Even though this review is a year late to the party, I can’t assume everyone has played and finished this game. I mention some significant plot points during the course of my analysis that will potentially ruin the entire experience, so please do yourself a favor and stop reading if you plan on playing BioShock eventually.

Another warning: this review is long. It is now the longest review I have ever written for Tales of a Scorched Earth. But that’s never stopped me before.

BioShock was the highest rated PC game of 2007, and one of the highest rated video games to be released in 2007. It received a seemingly endless stream of praise for creating a computer gaming masterpiece. You know, since the last one was released in 2004. Naturally, I felt compelled to experience it for myself to see whether the game would really live up to its reputation. While the high praise for Resident Evil 4 was mostly annoying to me, I actually believed the hype surrounding BioShock to the point where I felt bad for not being able to play it upon release. A number of factors prevented this, but now that I have finished the game one year later I feel that I am able to detach myself from what the popular opinion was at the time and review the game on its merits alone.

First I want to get the whole “spiritual successor” thing out of the way, because it seems to be an unnecessary talking point in every review I’ve read. I know Ken Levine’s past as a designer, and the title may have the word “shock” in it, but let’s be totally clear here: BioShock stands – and should be judged – on its own. Like any other game, it borrows heavily from the merging of different genres, game mechanics and themes that predated it, but I have yet to experience a game that has ever had such tightly controlled art direction. BioShock took the art deco aesthetics of the 1930s and injected them into the completely original setting and subculture of the failed paradise of Rapture. During the game’s introductory level, the moment the television screen in the bathysphere reveals the underwater skyline I was transfixed by the possibilities that lay ahead. Who built this place? Why is it underwater? And what was I getting myself into?

The quotable dialogue, posters and genetic experimentation interspersed through the entire game clearly pull their inspiration from dystopian science fiction and classic Hollywood. The ethereal soundtrack culled from old 1930s recordings echoes off of the walls of the first few rooms you explore that have clearly been ravaged by fighting. The first Splicers you encounter are dressed in party masks that cover their hideous faces. This sensory dissonance implants a real urgency to find out what happened.

However, in response to this initial curiosity the best that BioShock can come up with is a vending machine. That spits out a very grubby looking syringe. That you have to stab into your arm. Suddenly granted with the ability to shoot lighting bolts from your hands, you feel empowered. But that feeling doesn’t last long, because the shotgun and its various ammo types can be just as gratifying.

The use of Plasmids (spells) and Tonics (passive abilities) to enhance your character is one of the game’s focal points, but I felt they were constantly conflicting with the game’s unique selection of weapons and the way they can use different types of ammunition. Plasmids and Tonics can be found in the game, or purchased from another type of vending machine. The Plasmids and Tonics must then be equipped via a Gene Bank, where you can see the inventory of other Plasmids and Tonics you have obtained to that point. Instead of the dramatic syringe-sticking scene at the beginning of the game, once you can purchase new abilities from vending machines, it’s simply a matter of shifting some icons on-screen at the Gene Bank.

If Old Man Murray had the Start to Crate review system, I offer up The Vending Machine Dependency Test. BioShock relies too heavily on vending machines to supply players with everything they need in the game. Another example that immediately comes to mind is the recent Dead Space, which similarly uses vending machines in an environment that’s most unlikely to support them. It overtly expresses the designer’s inability to come up with an interesting or original way to hand over power-ups and weapons. No wonder there was an uprising! Weapons, Plasmids and Gene Modification were readily accessible by any member of Rapture’s community. Finding weapons that have been cast onto the floor, or unused ammo is far more believable in the wake of a civil war than buying things from vending machines that are amazingly still operable after such a violent conflict.

If BioShock wanted to add depth to the game’s mechanics via some light character customization, it does a horrible job of integrating it into the interface. BioShock treats Plasmids like other weapons, in that you can only see active ones alongside your equipped weapons. You can’t see active Tonics, nor can you ever view your other Plasmids unless you go to a Gene Bank. I can understand that this is necessary to equip them (it is do-it-yourself genetic modification), but just to see your inventory? And where do you carry all those weapons and extra ammo? The fact that there is no inventory or other stat-building reiterates how thinly this RPG-lite skin has been stretched over the typical FPS.

Eventually, the RPG elements just seemed to get in the way. They felt only half-realized, and with a full complement of weapons and modest supply of ammo under my belt I didn’t feel as much of a need to upgrade my plasmids or tonics. Certainly Plasmids make dealing with groups of Slicers easier (like Electro Bolt and Frozen Bolt), but they aren’t essential. Most seem like showcases for the designers to show how they can create clever weapons or copy existing ones, like Telekinesis. With all the terrible side-effects from splicing that you see from exploring Rapture, your character remains curiously pure – tainted only by the choice of actions towards Little Sisters in pursuit of ADAM. If Plasmids and tonics can be ignored or consumed with impunity, what purpose do they serve in developing your character?

In this regard, BioShock tries too hard to be deep. As the main character, you slowly discover how your life is central to the history and future of Rapture, and the game desperately wants you to make a connection with the character. This is emphasized by the game’s focus on the RPG-lite elements of Plasmid and Tonic upgrades, and morality play that is constantly paraded in front of you through interactions with Big Daddies and Little Sisters. But like Gordon Freeman in Half Life 2, you say nothing for the entire game – even as you end the life of Rapture’s founder (and your father). This emotional detachment may be one of many statements regarding the game’s interpretation of Objectivism, but I cynically offer the more simple explanation: if Jack didn’t kill Ryan and go running after Fontaine, the game would be over.

While BioShock allows players to save anywhere, they also introduce the feature of Vita-Chambers. These are basically respawn points in each game area that are automatically activated when you are nearby. When you are killed, you are automatically resurrected at these points without having to reload your game. Any ammo you had spent is gone, but if you were fighting a Big Daddy his health bar is exactly where you left it. Through dying and respawning it allows you to wear down tougher enemies that take away most of the challenge. A later patch to the PC version allowed people to turn off the use of Vita-Chambers, but the damage of the original design decision had already been done. Why include them at all? The technology used to create Vita-Chambers is explained in the context of the game world making it somewhat plausible – but why so many installations if it was still in the experimentation stage? I can see if it was to prevent the quick-save-and-reload mentality that often breaks immersion in FPS, but then why not include automatic save points which seem to be accepted by PC gamers? It’s a seamless way to integrate saving in-game, while not allowing players to exploit the system.

I also wasn’t really satisfied with the Hacking mini-game, a real step backwards from the simplicity of System Shock 2. As the game progressed, hacking became an annoying distraction while under fire and I mostly resorted to destroying turrets and cameras, or used Auto-Hacks. Tonics that slow the flow of liquid were good, ones that reduce alarm and shorting tiles are better, but why not a Tonic that decreases the overall number of tiles to make the entire hacking process shorter? I really just wanted to be in the game more, instead of dealing with these tack-ons to the experience.

Linearity and simplicity is not always a bad thing when you’re trying to tell a story with a First Person Shooter; Half Life 2 is a perfect example of this. Sure you were able to carry an entire arsenal of weapons in the back pocket of the Hazard Suit, but the game didn’t focus on how these weapons were arranged on your person or grant you the ability to affix a sniper scope to it. Guns were a defensive necessity for you to be presented with the rest of the story. The meticulous set-up of BioShock‘s core mechanics amounts to little more than window dressing on a game that at its core is essentially an unusually beautiful first person shooter.

Lightning proves to be very useful in this game when you’re dealing with enemies that don’t figure out standing around in water results in instant death.

BioShock often collapses under the cumbersome weight of its mechanics, to the point where the narrative flow suffers. I made up my mind early on that BioShock was just a first-person shooter with a more complicated weapons upgrade system, so I decided to focus on the story elements that were being fed to me in between trips to the many vending machines and searching for potato chips and unused EVE in garbage cans. Finding out the rest of the story was really the only reason I kept playing the game.

However, BioShock could have made a more concerted effort in getting plot elements across. Tape recordings can be interesting when used sparingly, and help fill in the gaps between interactions with the main characters of the game, but they shouldn’t be the only method of delivering the plot. There was also too much time spent on how important plasmids were to develop my powers within the context of the game, instead of giving me more information to piece together what is probably a fascinating history for Rapture. Because Gordon Freeman doesn’t speak, Half Life 2 did a great job of integrating newspaper clippings, propaganda posters and random chatter between NPCs as a way of expositing the storyline without forcing you to sit through cutscenes or tape recordings. Although BioShock has its own share of posters that can be pieced together to form what likely happened in the last weeks of Rapture’s organized society, there just wasn’t enough neutral information being provided to make me feel like the game was allowing me to figure things out for myself.

Since tape recordings are so valuable in providing more story, it makes you want to explore the game world itself – the gardens of Arcadia, the twisted artist’s sanctuary of Fort Frolic, the dilapidated apartments of the lower class in Apollo Square. BioShock does its best to make that possible by providing a number of additional sections of each level to uncover, that may only provide a few power-ups or tape recordings but aren’t necessary points that must be visited to proceed. And seeing this paradise gone bad sprawled in front of you make these side trips far from tedious. Every new environment, every blood spattered wall and scattered corpse makes you speculate on what happened. BioShock does its best to disguise your predetermined path.

But why the lack of variety in enemies? While interesting concepts, the Splicers look too much like generic zombies, and the last type of Splicer you will ever see in the game is revealed in the third chapter. Big Daddies are also awesome to behold the first few times, but once I saw them as obstacles to more ADAM they were simply a tin can I had to blow up to get the prize inside.

If only there was more depth to this dynamic than a superficial guilt trip.

BioShock certainly illustrates an original gameworld and absorbing story, but most people who have played the game seem to attribute more to the game’s morality play in the way it presents the ADAM-hoarding Little Sisters, despite it being completely misplaced. Back to the RPG-lite elements: ADAM is an important resource in the game; you need it to purchase new Plasmids, upgrade existing ones, or buff base attributes like Health and EVE. If you choose to focus on developing these abilities through the game, the resource becomes quite critical. In fact, you need it to survive. And that’s where BioShock introduces the Little Sisters.

At one point in the beginning of the game, you witness a Little Sister injecting a Slicer’s corpse with a syringe. It’s a creepy scene that resembles a carrion bird picking through the leftovers of some derelict battlefield. The Little Sister is harvesting genetic material from these corpses, where it will be converted into ADAM by a parasite living inside the Little Sister. You learn this shortly after, when you are presented with a scene where a Big Daddy has been slain and the Little Sister remains. You already know the ADAM is valuable – that’s why all the Slicers are going after Little Sisters and the Big Daddies are required to protect them. You even know at this point that ADAM will be required to get through the game, though how much is the reason for the difficult choice that follows.

Do you kill the Little Sister and harvest the ADAM-rich parasite? Or do you save her, and submit to the possibility that you will eventually be rewarded for your mercy? The game even makes a big deal out of it by presenting a giant dialog box to confirm the choice. At that point, you only have the word of Dr. Tenenbaum to go by. The problem with this setpiece is that you aren’t given specifics for a critical decision that will affect the outcome of the game. Will you still get ADAM? Or something else? It isn’t made clear, and at that early point of the game there is not enough information given to the Player to make an informed decision, especially with ADAM being the most essential resource in the game next to EVE. Or maybe bullets. Since ADAM is needed to progress, the cautious player will always lean towards harvesting the ADAM – it is needed to “level up” the main character. Had Tenenbaum alluded to the quantities of ADAM that would be received (even just outright saying you’ll get half), perhaps players would approach this pivotal scene differently.

However, this is ultimately where BioShock fails as a game that offers up morality for debate. The true effect of that moral choice is limited to this first encounter with a Little Sister, because even if you decide to save her, but still go on to kill Little Sisters for their ADAM, you will be painted as the antagonist for the rest of the game. Thus the choice is detached from a simple resource-collecting mechanic, and ADAM becomes just another item to collect from enemies like money and EVE to get through the game. And make no mistake, by default the Little Sisters are enemies in the context of the game, because at the point I am introduced to the dynamic between Tenenbaum, Ryan and Atlas, I have no idea who to trust. Plus, the Big Daddies are trying to flatten me.

Following the first few frustrating one-sided battles with Big Daddies it is a completely normal reaction to want to get the reward afterwards: lots and lots of ADAM. Any impact of a moral choice or negative reaction in the decision to kill is lost amongst the flying rivets and shattered glass. Kill Big Daddy, harvest ADAM, move on with the rest of the game.

The game is also inconsistent in the way it presents the act of collecting ADAM. The Little Sister will struggle in your grip, the screen goes dark, and the deed is done. The pangs of guilt are supposed to lie beneath the surface, as what you have just done has surely ended the life of the Little Sister, but you don’t know what happened. While I’m not expecting any ultra-violence, this separation of the player from the act that is supposed to make them feel remorse for his actions seems like a cop-out. And near the end of each level, the game itself reminds players that there are unharvested Little Sisters remaining, noting that ADAM is required to survive, or else the game will get difficult. This statement can be taken either way: kill Little Sister – get ADAM, or save Little Sister – get a little bit of ADAM, but it makes the completist in every gamer want to go back and grab the whole lot to maximize the number of Plasmids they can obtain.

After revealing that Ryan is your father, and Atlas is really the nefarious Fontaine trying to gain the final upper hand, you embark on what is little more than a revenge mission to unseat Fontaine. At this point, the game began to unravel. Dr. Tenenbaum gets involved at this point – the creator of Little Sisters and their repentant savior – who assists in your escape through a Little Sister. But why would they help me when I had spent most of the game up to that point harvesting ADAM from them with cold, calculating efficiency? Sure Tenenbaum was upset with me, but then she continues to help me escape Fontaine’s mind control – only so I can roam the streets of Rapture freely again and harvest more ADAM from the Little Sisters. It didn’t matter if I changed my ways after that encounter, as the game’s ending would prove. Between Fontaine’s big reveal and the game’s ending, there was ample opportunity for Jack’s redemption with regard to the Little Sisters, but the game didn’t capitalize on it. Instead, it forces you to dress up like a Big Daddy and pretend to be friend to the Little Sisters, a parody of the entire game’s depth.

The Little Sister escort mission that led me to Fontaine’s base of operations further cemented the game’s disregard for it’s own play on morality and consequence: I let each one of them die every time, and yet I was able to call more to help me without any penalty. It became a series of chaotic firefights where my only priority was saving myself from the waves of ADAM-thirsty Splicers, which became only annoying obstacles, their aura of creepiness long since depleted.

All this, only to be treated to an embarrassing endgame involving a battle with a purple Hulk juiced up on ADAM, where crossbow bolts are more effective than Plasmids. In this battle the Plasmid and Tonic system completely disintegrated, its superficiality thunderously confirmed. After defeating Fontaine, the offensively short ending basically took my character’s actions at face value and labeled me a cold-hearted bastard. From what I have read about the “good” ending, it isn’t much better. The prospect of Splicers on the surface world is surely terrifying, but it offers little closure to Jacks’ story, and like the disappointing ending of Half-Life 2 relies on fan speculation and sequels to answer these perfectly legitimate questions. And for a game that makes such an effort to convince players there are moral implications in the game, it does very little in offering the Player a reward for changing their outlook after Fontaine’s revelation at the middle of the adventure. If your actions prior to the encounter with Ryan predetermine the outcome of the game, the irrelevance of the morality behind harvesting ADAM from Little Sisters is all too apparent.

BioShock was fun to play for a while, and did its best to offer up a genuinely unique single-player experience. I wanted to call BioShock the most overrated game of 2007; the smug bastard inside of me thought that would be the only fitting tribute to this gaming spectacle. But I don’t think that’s very fair, because there is enough going on in this game to elicit the sorts of reactions where people actually have to explain themselves instead of allowing knee-jerk responses to its quality. BioShock approached the threshold of a memorable gaming experience for its story alone; if only it had taken a simpler approach to revealing its strongest attribute. What should have been a captivating adventure devolves into yet another shooter with only token responses to player actions, resulting in a game that is satisfied with only giving the impression that there is something more instead of actually following through on its promise.

I have been entangled in Titan Quest‘s Kraken-like tentacles for the last three weeks. I started off with the demo over a month ago, which doesn’t let you get a character past level 6. It wasn’t enough to whet my appetite for clicking repeatedly and collecting pretty new items. In fact, next to Oblivion‘s self-important “freedom” (even though it shares the same click-kill-reward gameplay model), Titan Quest felt like the more genuine action RPG experience. But I’ll save the details for my Elder Scrolls IV review.

At first I found myself trying to hate Titan Quest at every turn: I crashed to desktop (more than Oblivion!), it was too easy, the “homages” to its predecessors were glaringly obvious – there wasn’t enough changed to be of value. And what made this story so special that we had to know it was penned by the writer of Braveheart? I scoffed at these apparent inadequacies. Titan Quest was eventually going to disappoint me. It was going to be just another clone. But I was soon convinced otherwise.

I haven’t been in love with a game this bug-ridden since Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Iron Lore knew what to change, but most importantly, they knew what to leave alone. They created an action RPG that knows its roots, but isn’t hung up on the conceit that it might actually be contributing something to the genre. Because it doesn’t. Instead, it provides people like me reason to revisit their feelings for Diablo II‘s ridiculously addictive gameplay.

Titan Quest spans three continents, borrowing liberally from Greek, Egyptian and Chinese mythology – even though Titans only had a basis in Greek legend. The thread holding the entire adventure together is your hero’s journey to restore communication with the gods. Over the course of the game you are faced with the “Telkine” or “lesser Titans”, which are sorcerers intent on destroying the world. They’ve started by overrunning it with their minions, which take the shape of mythological creatures unique to each of the three regions. But this is more than just Diablo II with satyrs and minotaurs.

Titan Quest is massive. The game feels lengthy and substantial, as there is more than enough to keep you busy in the single player game. The first act alone consists of eight main quests, with four side quests in each. There are also many side dungeons and areas to explore, but they don’t drift too far off the linear path to the next objective. There is an overwhelming sense of familiarity to everything, yet the game still manages to convey itself as different. I think using mythology as the basis for what could have just as easily been a typical medieval dungeon hack has allowed for deeper consideration. The game’s world is realized through an incredible engine: vibrantly coloured and incredibly detailed, the lush surroundings make it an exciting setting to travel through. Finally a developer realizes that action RPGs don’t have to be dark all the time.

What would a Greek dungeon be without a pillared entrance?

Epic in scale, Titan Quest still revels in the details. Monsters will crumple or be hurled across the screen after being hit by a crushing blow. Walking near cliffs will actually show wandering monsters or battles taking place below, expressing a real sense of depth in the terrain. The leaves of trees sway in the wind, and tall grass moves around your character when they run through it. You can go down into a dungeon during the day and come up in the middle of the night. Part of the game’s appeal for me is how natural everything looks. There aren’t any skulls or blood drenched corridors or burning pits. This is a world steeped in mythology, that plays off of what we’ve come to expect from the setting with the help of Ray Harryhausen’s movies. You’ll be wandering through a rocky crevasse, and all of a sudden a cyclops will stomp noisily into the area, dispelling any comfort you may have had with the surroundings. Titan Quest is careful to maintain this storybook setting. I never once felt threatened by the monsters; Outnumbered maybe, but there was a constant sense of playfulness about the whole thing. Titan Quest is assuredly an adventure.

Behind Titan Quest‘s beautifully rendered exterior, there is still some depth to character customization. The basic Attributes system is present, with two points available every time you level up to be spent in Strength, Dexterity, Health, etc. This is a step backwards when compared with Dungeon Siege II or Oblivion, which upgrade skills based on their use. Though this part of levelling is overshadowed by the intricate, yet easy to appreciate “Mastery” system.

The Mastery system puts a twist on the spending of “skill” points associated with a particular class’s special abilities and spells. You start the game as a general hero character, with your only choice being a male or female avatar. At Level 2 you pick your first mastery. There are eight Masteries available: Warfare (melee), Rogue (stealth and sneak attacks), Hunter (bows and traps), Earth (fire magic), Storm (Ice and Lightning magic), Spirit (Necromancy/curses), Nature (Healing), and Defense (imagine a class based around the Paladin’s “bash” ability). Instead of a series of prerequisites, you can spend points to increase the level of your Mastery – adding to basic attributes like Mana and Strength – or you can spend points on actual Skills. The Masteries are a blend of passive and active skills that genuinely allow the creation of fighter/mages. Though the passive abilities outweigh the active, making it a melee/bow-heavy game even for mage characters. The advantage to this system is that the passive skills add bonuses to existing Skills, so it forces you to focus on a particular Skill instead of spreading your points too thin to gain the most abilities.

A few levels later you get to select a second Mastery. It’s a system that doesn’t impose any limitations if you want to experiment with the various Mastery combinations. But if you don’t want to spend any points in another mastery, it just means more points to spend in your first one so you can move faster through the tree. The great thing is that none of the skill prerequesites are level based as in Diablo II – the whole system is point based.

With that said, the game even allows more flexibility in the Mystic, an NPC accessible in some towns which can deduct spent Mastery points for increasing amounts of gold. This is invaluable for when you may have mis-spent a point or two in skills that appeared useful (see the Necromancer and “Teeth” in Diablo II).

I think it would have been more interesting if Iron Lore had used a system similar to Divine Divinity, where the starting class only determined starting attributes, and you were able to spend points in the skills of other classes if you chose to. Spreading your character too thin among the skills will only hurt your character in the end, so it forced some creative balancing. Ultimately a truly unique character would result. Though I’d consider this a superfluous request; the game’s moderate difficulty is balanced out by the two mastery constraint.

Half man, Half alligator = 100% pure awesome.

There are some great new additions to the generally accepted formula that I hope to see copied in future action RPGs, because at this point I’m convinced there will be more. Like Fate, monsters will actually drop what they’re carrying. If they’re wearing a helm or have armour equipped, that will be dropped as well. It’s a system I’m surprised has taken this long to implement. Adding to the detail is the appearance of dropped armour worn by larger creatures: it will be slightly oversized on your character. And since picking up dropped items after a messy battle can be a hassle to sort through, there are a series of filters set up to only display certain items (all, magic only, etc.) at the press of a key.

The “Relic” and “Charms” system is Titan Quest‘s attempt at customizing equipment, but it works well for those that want to get more out of their items. They start off as fragments that are randomly dropped by creatures. Alone or as a completed Charm or Relic, they can be added to equipment for bonuses. Do you collect a complete set for an added bonus or do you apply individually? Even though you can only apply one of these items to your equipment at a time, it makes for an interesting diversion. I found that as the game went on I was doing an unusual amount of thinking about what equipment to arm myself with. Balancing items that give attribute bonuses just so I could use the better armour with those that gave protection against elemental magic was a constant process. Luckily having enough gold for quick upgrades at the merchant is not a problem – I had 200,000 gold before I hit level 15.

Further additions include “Rebirth Fountains”, which are activated when you walk by them, determining the point where you resurrect or start the game after quitting. They are usually found in cities and near mission areas to make it easy to continue, though it still ends up being the same as searching for a save point, or the waypoints in Diablo II. You can also open unlimited town portals from anywhere, though they disappear when you die. It makes it easy to refill on health potions.

Nevertheless, any veteran of Diablo II that plays the game at length will immediately recognize its omissions. There’s way too much clicking. One of Diablo II‘s greatest achievements was to be able to hold down the attack mouse button to keep attacking, a welcome change from its predecessor. In Titan Quest‘s large engagements, it was enough to notice a burning sensation in my index finger, likely recurring from my late night sessions in World of Warcraft. There’s no real penalty for death, either. No loss of gold, experience or damage to equipment. There’s no harrowing corpse runs trying to make it back to your gear. Equipment doesn’t degrade with use, and bows and spears have unlimited ammunition. For a game that has a lot of running (especially when trying to escape), there’s no stamina meter to provide a challenge.

Then there’s the technical problems holding this game back. I was extremely surprised by the overall inconsistency of the game’s performance when compared to the demo. The game would slow to a crawl when there were groups of enemies on screen or when I cast multiple Frost bolts. I’m almost positive there was a memory leak that developed after long play periods (I had frequent experience with this, unfortunately), and crashes to desktop after using a town portal or going down into a dungeon were common. None resulted in a loss of character progress – like Diablo II, the game saves your character’s state and any waypoints you’ve activated. All of these arose on the game’s default settings, which I had to cut back to from the demo. Titan Quest has been getting some pretty glowing reviews from genre fans, but I cannot tolerate when such major issues like these are dismissed or not mentioned at all. No matter how great a game is, if it can only be played in fits and starts is it really worth the effort? A patch was issued recently that supposedly addresses most of these technical problems, but I can’t say whether it’s true or not. The patch installation froze up, with my computer following soon after. I didn’t proceed any further out of fear of losing my character and progress (which apparently has happened to some people).

And yet I still can’t stop playing. Iron Lore will not be remembered for making a good game, but for making the best knockoff the genre has ever seen. Despite the mechanics of the game being painfully familiar, it feels like the mythological setting alone has breathed new life into an old game. While it may take some liberties with its source material, Titan Quest amalgamates familiar myths and legends to produce an adventure that’s almost worthy of its name.

When people get excited for a game like Oblivion, it gives me hope. It’s a single-player RPG released during a period of RPG development where if it’s not massively multiplayer, it’s not important. It’d be like a step backwards, right? Last year wasn’t a great year for games overall, but it was also pretty poor for RPGs. Even I spent most of 2005 binging on World of Warcraft, dragging myself away from it long enough to play through Dungeon Siege II. Which incidentally, has been named best (only?) RPG of 2005 by many media outlets. What struck me as noteworthy was that Wild Tangent’s FATE was named runner-up to PC Gamer’s RPG of the Year. The same year where the genre was obliterated by a single MMORPG kept out of the running only because it was released in 2004. Granted it’s quite the feat to receive that much attention as an independently published title, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good game.

After playing the three dungeon level demo last year, I wrote FATE off as a clone of Darkstone rather than lazily comparing it to Diablo. The distinction being that it was a clone of a clone, boiling out everything that made its inspiration interesting. My initial impressions were correct after adventuring through seventeen more levels, though now I have more to say about it.

I played Darkstone because I was waiting for Diablo II. Having a dungeon hack in three dimensions was an added benefit, and in hindsight was the more attractive option when seen next to Diablo II’s 256 colors locked at 640×480. But the game itself was mind-numbing in its execution. Watching stats increase and getting new gear to ultimately defeat some arbitrary enemy was dreadfully uninspiring. Diablo II had a more interesting setting, and had you going after your character from the previous game with new areas to explore and an entirely redesigned set of classes. How cool was that?

Similar to Darkstone, FATE takes the familiar click-kill-loot formula made famous by Diablo and brings it into three dimensions. Though some could argue this has already been done by many more MMORPGs since, but I’m talking about single-player RPGs for now. FATE has a great engine that is used to create a very unique looking game world that doesn’t rely on drab tones or “gritty” artwork to convey the medieval setting. The detail on the character and monster models is quite amazing, and overall I think the engine itself is probably FATE’s biggest strength. However.

The game is reduced to its basic principles within the first two hours of play. In an endless loop, you are asked to kill monsters or retrieve items for gold and experience. What has devotees of FATE head over heels is seemingly limitless replayability through randomness. The quests and dungeon levels in FATE are randomly generated every time you play the game. The obvious problem with randomly generated quests and maps is that they’ve been designed by your computer. This means that the quests are disjointed, having no link between them except the acquisition of more experience and better items (the rewards for quests are also randomly generated). The ensuing dungeon layouts aren’t exactly convenient, either. Navigating the multitude of dead end corridors, giant areas joined by a single narrow passageway, and annoyingly abstract looping caverns is a significant part of the game. The theme of each dungeon level is random, too. You can go down through catacombs, lava pits, ancient ruins and then back to catacombs. Even though Diablo’s levels were randomly laid out, there was at least a visible progression towards Hell, the lowest levels of the church. The monsters are also random, with their only commonality being their character level. As a result, some of the monsters just felt out of place: on the lava pit levels, I could count on encountering a mob of Frost Beetles before I would see a fire elemental. Though at least the monsters dropped weapons that they were actually carrying – a feature that is strangely absent from most RPGs.

As a time waster, FATE easily succeeds, because by being so random it requires little thought on the part of the player. Though this also makes it less engaging, and as a result I felt detached from my character. There is no story in FATE; you are dropped into a small village and asked to slay a randomly rolled monster waiting on the lower levels of the town’s dungeon. Until then, there are items to loot and stats to watch increase. Yay? Where this whole concept could have worked is a multiplayer mode, which wasn’t included. Co-operative pickup games would be incredbly easy, because there are no story-based quests that you would have to worry about having in common with the people you played with (which was the case with everyone except power levelers in Diablo II).

While FATE shares many of the mechanical aspects of Diablo, Diablo actually worked because there was an over-arching story. The town was a believable place corrupted by what lay at the lowest level of the church. You didn’t know what was waiting, but you knew it was bad from talking to the NPCs and completing related quests. There was a goal in sight. Not simply the insipid task of slaying a dragon, but to be the saviour of a town gripped by fear. In FATE, you don’t feel like you need to get through the dungeon. It’s just kind of…there.

Which basically leaves the only thing under the player’s control: their character. FATE has a decent amount of options for choosing a character’s appearance, but there’s something about the overly cute character design that makes your adventurer look like he was a kid playing dress-up if you choose to have a beard. FATE uses a classless system for character development, meaning you can spend points wherever you want in the standards (STR, DEX, VIT, INT) and in a series of passive skills increasing proficiency with weapon types, critical strikes or the potency of combat magic. While this is being hailed as a brilliant design, I think classes were simply left out for convenience. No classes means no balancing – it’s easier to let the player plug in numbers and figure out for themselves their character sucks when it’s too late. Diablo’s classes only determined the starting stats. You could still create a fighter/mage by learning from spell books found in the dungeon, but it took a shrewd player to balance spending the points. This was changed in Diablo II, which implemented a skills system for each class and a more obvious dividing line between them.

FATE’s classless progression may give the illusion of freedom, but you basically only have two options: fighter or spellcaster. The game gets too hard to be able to maintain a Fighter-Mage and expect to get very far. Even then you’ll have to level up as a fighter at first to get the gold to buy spells (the scroll drops are infrequent at best) and the associated mage gear. The system just isn’t as deep as it seems. Depending on which route you take, you’re stuck levelling up two or three passive skills because that’s the only way they’ll prove beneficial. There’s no need to take proficiencies in multiple weapon types, because the weapons all seem to get better at the same rate. That is, there wasn’t a time when an axe was ever better than a sword. Diablo II’s Barbarian class does the same thing, and it was pretty pointless to bother levelling up more than one weapon skill when you can stick with one and be more powerful with it.

In an interesting twist to the experience grind, killing “special” monsters and completing quests also gives you Renown. This increases your reputation through levels like “Unknown” to “Local Hero”. Along with a fancy label added to your character name, it also allows access to better magic items, depending on your rating. What would have rounded out this feature is cheaper prices at the vendors depending on your fame, or access to more lucrative quests.

FATE also gives you an animal companion to join the adventure, with the choice of a domestic cat or a dog. Feeding your pet different types of fish that can be purchased or caught in the dungeon’s many er…pools…will cause them to temporarily change form and deal out (and absorb) more damage, but they will never die. Having an animal sidekick that was useful as an off-tank with some decent attacks was my favorite part of playing a Hunter in World of Warcraft. But FATE goes a step further, and allows you to outfit your pet with charms. Best of all, you can pack your pet up with items and send it back to town to sell them, leaving you free to continue slaying monsters. Okay, so maybe FATE has two strengths.

Many reviews made a point of distinguishing FATE’s audience, calling it “the greatest [only?] RPG designed for casual gamers.” Perhaps they’re correct in doing so, because in the end FATE is simply another Bejeweled or similarly noncommittal game that does its best to impersonate an RPG with impressive visuals and an open character development system. However it’s hardly roleplaying; it’s more like gaming at its most inconsequential. But at least you don’t have to pay every month to play it.