Tuesday 23 March 2010

Heavy Rain

Okay, I think sufficient time has now passed that I can safely bang on about this game without incurring spoiler wrath.

Heavy Rain is pretty much exactly what I expected - beautiful, intriguing, unique and flawed. But that's not to say I love it any less. I adore the game 100% and I honestly think that at this stage, as a landmark game, it couldn't have been any better than it is. Any quibbles are minor and I'm confident will be worked out in David Cage's next game.

Eww. I did not sign up for this.
Take a look at Fahrenheit. It was beautiful, intriguing, unique and flawed to the point that the ending made me wonder if I'd somehow accidentally loaded a save from a different game. (Aliens? There are aliens now? Where the hell did the aliens come from and why the hell does that have anything to do with it being fucking freezing?!) It also had the most revoltingly clunky sex scene since Team America. But I still loved it and was glad to see that Heavy Rain had made huge leaps forward from this shaky start.

The ending makes sense (well, the three I tried did anyway) and the rain is a crucial plot point. Unlike the ever dropping temperature of Fahrenheit, which didn't really seem to have much to do with the aliens, or the cult, or the fact that Lucas Kane was some kind of alien hybrid immortal.

And that's for wearing that jacket!
I think the main reason internet critics had a problem with the game was that most of them are fifteen
and this, despite it's age rating, is not a game for fifteen year olds. Not because of the scenes of 'titillation' (an accusation I now feel was unfairly leveled at the game - it doesn't especially try to be titillating. In fact, the striptease scene in particular is only titillating if you choose to entirely miss the point and make Madison take her clothes off rather than escape Paco. And I think that says more about you as a player than Quantic Dream as developers.) Wow, that was such a long bracket, I think I'll just start the sentence again: This is not a game for fifteen year olds because of the emotional content, because the choices presented require a maturity of thought and because the game is very, very bleak.

It took a lot of effort to get a happy ending, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's true of life.

Friday 5 March 2010

1/3/10 - the day the network died

Imagine this - the game you have long anticipated is finally released. You rush out to buy it. You have a few days holiday that have happily coincided with the release date, which is excellent, as you intend to play the shit out of it. And then, when you've barely even got to grips with it, Sony lets some work experience kid press some button they shouldn't and the entire network shuts down.

This game doesn't require network play, though, so that's all fine, isn't it? WRONG! Because this particular glitch gremlin is thorough and has ensured that every old model PS3 owner, whether they're utilising network play or not, cannot have any fun. And it only took them OVER A DAY to get it fixed.

Goddammnit! So it was back to FFX2 AGAIN. Although I did find the Mi'Hen Dungeon, so y'know, silver lining.

Just one more attempt at getting a good ending on Heavy Rain and then I think enough time will have elapsed for me to share my thoughts.

Tuesday 5 January 2010

Crimbo Bovvered Ya!

A boy at my school used to run up and scream 'Shambo bovvered ya!' (Trans: 'Shamble - bothered you!' Meaning: 'Aha! Bet that irritated you!') down your ear canal and then run away. It feels like Christmas does this to me every year.


Anyway, despite the usual onslaught, Christmas was kind to me this year, particularly where gaming is concerned. My dear mother provided two excellent presents: Brutal Legend (more about that later) and 'Writing for Video Games' by Steve Ince. This is an excellent book for any aspiring games writer, and helped me develop a new-found respect for games writers and vow never to mock shonky dialogue again, as it underlined how mindbendingly hard this mode of writing is. Stories don't have to make sense if you choose to read the pages in a different order to the one they came in.

The only problem with this book was that I couldn't get over the cover. Not the big robot or the pirate cat, they're fine. Even the spookily lit eye is all right by me. No, it's the guy at the top. I'm not sure what he looked like originally, but the face they have superimposed on top belongs to Shane Lynch. Look - this is even virtually the same picture!

What's all that about hey? All through the book it kept on nagging at me, like the little man in his hair.

Anyway, rogue Shane Lynch faces and Subbuteo men are not why we are gathered here tonight. We are united together this evening to hear a little story. It's the story of a man. A man with a dream. A dream of metal. And that man's name (okay, I'm going to stop writing like this now, because I'm even annoying myself.) was Tim Schafer.

The thing that was Brutal Legend's greatest strength for me has probably proved its greatest weakness in terms of sales figures. It's a fun game that looks beautiful and is so well-crafted it's easy to take for granted the fact that there are no major glitches. (That I've found. Yet.) The missions won't win any prizes for originality and there is a sense of trying to cram every type of game in - racing, shooting, strategy, fighting, puzzler. Everything is lovingly drawn and exquisitely presented, but I wouldn't have bought it for that reason alone. (Or asked my Mum to get it for Xmas) I wanted Brutal Legend because it was a comedy metal game. And therein lies the problem folks.

Because the Venn Diagram consisting of people who like Metal, Comedy Metal and Gaming results in a very thin crosshatched centre area with me, Tim Schafer and two guys from Sweden standing in it. The game is a niche within a niche within a niche. Sadly, many metal fans, (despite the fact that metal is self-evidently very silly) are incredibly worthy about the genre and get irritated by people who also like 'novelty' bands like Tenacious D or Gwar as if it somehow demeans the musical greatness of their forebears. And then, of the few metal fans who make the cut and can accept Jack Black as the lead in a comedy metal game, how many are gamers who will actually part with their hard-earned cash? We're back to me, Tim and the Swedes again. And Tim probably got a free copy.

Ultimately though, I guess with a great game, it's far easier to nitpick. (and I'm slightly bitter from being trounced in stage battles) I really hope this game does beat the odds and do well because it deserves to. It's full of heart, love and humour and it's very rare for those things to shine through in modern games.