Category Archives: Games

october games

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I have half a long post about Brütal Legend kicking around on my laptop hard drive, and I may finish that one day, but it’s getting less topical with each passing day so I’ve decided to sum it up quickly instead. I think it’s a great game despite a few flaws, and I think it’s well worth checking out, but opinions on it are definitely mixed. I loved the world, and the story and characters, and I enjoyed cruising around in my hot rod listening to rockin’ tunes while soaking in the environment and looking for hidden treasures. I even enjoyed the vaguely RTS-style battles that make up much of the campaign’s latter half, even if many others didn’t.

One thing I’ll definitely say, though, is the Brütal Legend does a terrible job of teaching you how to play. It spends a lot of time teaching you traditional RTS moves, such as issuing orders to individual squads of troops, when what you should really be doing is building an army and head-long in to the jaws of hell right along with it, using your weaponry, your killer guitar solos, and even your kick-ass hot rod to gain the advantage. Meanwhile, it completely neglects to teach you some very basic abilities, like how to find Motor Forges, the game’s shops.

Despite those problems, I absolutely loved the game, and no trip to work in the car is now complete without cranking up a few tracks from the game’s phenomenal soundtrack, which have conveniently found their way on to my MP3 player.

Speaking of driving, Forza 3 is out, and it’s exactly what I wanted (and expected): Forza 2 with more content. A number of the cars and tracks are carried over from Forza 2, but they all look better here, and the new tracks and cars are great, particularly the point-to-point rally tracks that run through Italian sea-side villas and winding Japanese mountainsides. The new career mode is also a nice addition, giving the game’s sheer bulk of content a nice, easy-to-navigate structure.

Gameplay-wise, it’s actually improved more than I expected. The physics model is very impressive, and the developers have done a great job of tweaking the controls on the standard 360 controller; so much so that I’m playing without the ABS and traction control assists that I always seemed to need in Forza 2. The other big feature is rewind, which lets you stop the game and rewind it at any point in the race, ostensibly to undo the kind of horrible mistake that would otherwise have you restarting the race. Maybe it dulls the game’s tension a touch, but so far, rewind has been a godsend for me.

two things

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First thing: my 360 returned today just under two weeks after I sent it in. It has the same serial number, but it seems like a new console — it has a different DVD drive, and runs cooler and quieter. It even has that new electronics plastic smell! There was also a three month Xbox Live membership card in the box, which was a nice way to make up for having to send back my console. Having to send it in still sucked, but MS handled it very well.

Second thing: Brütal Legend, the new Tim Schafer game. The gameplay is a strange blend of brawler/racer/RTS, and so far it’s been a lot of fun, but what really makes this game ate the characters, the story, and the game world, a free-roaming fantasy realm inspired by classic heavy metal album covers and motifs. Jack Black is pitch-perfect as Eddie Riggs, the game’s roadie protagonist, and the metal star cameos, including Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy, come thick and fast. The landscape is littered with monstrous bone piles, massive V8 engine blocks, and crumbling stone monuments, and it’s a hell of a place to explore, especially when you’re gunning your hot rod’s engine and cranking metal tunes from the game’s massive library.

bye bye 360

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I thought I had a good chance of not running in to any trouble with my 360 — after all, my model was a second-revision system, produced after MS admitted the system’s issues, and for two years it had soldiered on without a problem. That came to an end last night, though, when after a week or so of random crashes it finally become unusable, displaying the classic Red Ring of Death.

Thankfully, sorting it out hasn’t been much of a drama yet. Requesting a repair (it’s still under warranty, thanks to the three-year warranty for red-ring issues) was an entirely automated process on the Xbox website, and that gave me a printable prepaid packing label. I packed it in an old box at the office today and dropped it down at the post office, and all reports suggest that I should have it back within two weeks. At least it’ll be back before Forza 3 hits!

gaming silly season 2009

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With September nearly past us, we’re once again moving toward the silly season, and that means another Mega Holiday Gamesplosion — in fact, you could probably argue that Tuesday’s release of Halo 3: ODST marked the season’s official start. A tonne of games that were due before Xmas have since been pushed back to early 2010, but there’s still a solid line-up of stuff that I’m interested in (though I may have forgotten something):

  • September: Halo 3: ODST
  • October: Forza Motorsport 3, Brutal Legend
  • November: COD: Modern Warfare 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii
  • December: Zelda: Spirit Tracks

I’m as surprised as anyone that there are two Nintendo games in that lot — for all its talk of Wii Sports and Vitality Sensors Nintendo is actually pulling out a couple of big guns this season. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (forever henceforth known as NSMBW) is aimed squarely at the 2.5D co-op platformer space that was so neatly filled by the infinitely charming LittleBigPlanet last year, and I have no doubt that it’ll inspire the same crazy four-player sessions in our house.

Beyond that, I’m trying to limit myself to one game a month, and the only other guaranteed buy there is Forza 3, which is easily my most anticipated game of the year. Brutal Legend will be an eventual must-buy as well — maybe I’ll get that in December instead of Zelda.

random updateapalooza

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  • The Beatles: Rock Band isn’t the only thing I’ve been playing lately; I also picked up Shadow Complex, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. The short review for this is: Shadow Complex = Super Metroid. The graphics are entirely 3D (and quite sophisticated at that — Unreal Engine 3 and all), but the gameplay is 2D, and a shameless ripoff of/homage to Super Metroid. For 1200 spacebucks, it’s a bargain, and an absolute must-buy (or must-download-trial at the very least) for anyone with a 360 and an interest in classic 2D action platforming.
  • I have a couple of little upgrades at my little home studio — I’ve borrowed Kat’s old keyboard to replace mine as the controller, since it has aftertouch and my old Yamaha doesn’t, and I picked up a little mixer as well. The mixer’s mainly there to give me some mic preamps, since the next thing I want to grab is a decent entry-level mic.
  • I’m writing again! It’s just a small part of a feature article, but the invitation to do that was quite a welcome sight in my inbox. It’s due on Monday, so I’ll have to get cracking on it over the weekend!
  • The work coffee machine is back! It was out of action for nearly two weeks after the guys here managed to burn out its element from sucking too much hot water out of it; the damage was damned impressive. The whole thing was especially annoying because my home machine has broken down as well, but my trusty plunger came to the rescue.
  • On the subject of coffee, it’s actually interesting to see a minor resurgence of non-espresso coffee in some of Melbourne’s best cafes. There are no plungers as such, but Seven Seeds has a Clover, which is somewhat akin to a very sophisticated plunger, St Ali serves coffee made with a vacuum brewer (usually called a vacpot or siphon), and Liar Liar has both on offer. St Ali also has a new espresso machine: it cost over $30k, it’s called the Slayer, and yes, it’s fucking metal. \m/

it took me so long to find out, and i found out

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So, The Beatles: Rock Band is here, and I can happily report that it’s just as awesome as I hoped for. I fired it up the story mode last night, and within three hours I’d finished the whole thing, mostly on guitar/bass, but with a chunk of singing in the middle as well. At it’s core, it’s what you’d expect — Rock Band with Beatles songs — but what sets it apart from the earlier Rock Band games is the incredible amount of care and attention that’s gone in to it. It’s an amazing game to look at, from the song visuals themselves through to the photo-collage videos that bridge between the game’s different venues and eras.

All of the modeled venues look great, but the really impressive stuff is in the “dreamscape” sequences, which are used for the songs performed at the Abbey Road studios. Most of these start with the band in the studio, but then transition in to idealised performances in surreal, and sometimes very trippy, settings, and each of the songs set in Abbey Road (nearly half the game) has its own dedicated sequence. There’s also a tonne of unlockable Beatles memorabilia to check out, such as photos and videos.

There’s one genuinely new feature in this game over previous Rock Band games, and that’s the vocal harmony system, which lets you have up to three vocalists singing at once. Harmonix has been very clever with this — anyone can sing to any vocal line at any time, so all three vocalists can just sing the lead if they want, but if you do choose to harmonise and you pull it off, you get bonus points. It also supports the Lips mics on the 360 (and the Singstar mics on the PS3), so I already have three mics ready to go.

So, as both a love-letter to The Beatles and a super-fun party game, The Beatles: Rock Band definitely delivers. The only thing that could improve it is a greater selection of songs, but with the amount of work that’s gone in to each of the game’s 45 songs, I think it’s good value out-of-the-box. Besides, DLC is coming — all of Abbey Road will be downloadable for a fee on October 20, with Sgt Pepper’s following in November and Rubber Soul in December.

a life well wasted

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Episode 4 of Robert Ashley’s podcast, A Life Well Wasted, is up, and it takes a look at some of the people that create their own works inspired by video games: cosplayers, visual artists, and fan fiction writers, among others. As always, Ashley’s interview subjects and their comments are fascinating, but it’s the production that makes A Life Well Wasted stand out — it’s as far away from the “three guys talking shit around a voice recorder” format usually associated with the term “podcast” as you could imagine.

Ashley makes very high-quality voice recordings and then weaves them together with original music and sounds to produce something very unique, and as much a work of art as anything this episode covers. I can’t recommend it highly enough, to anyone with an interest in gaming culture.

more like “shot through the head”, amirite?

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It’s pretty well established that I’m not a fan of the current Guitar Hero games. After GH2, when original developers Harmonix left Activision to develop Rock Band, Activision has farmed its development out to studios more accustomed to Tony Hawk games and cheap movie tie-ins, and the results have been very mixed. With the way Activision has been whoring out the franchise, it’s clear that it has no shame, but the release of GH5 has made it more clear than ever before.

GH5 has ruffled a few feathers due to its inclusion of some very famous dead guys, namely Johnny Cash and Kurt Cobain. If you skip the initial outrage, it doesn’t actually seem that bad — after all, no-one seemed to mind Jimi Hendrix’s appearance in GH:WT, and The Beatles: Rock Band has two dead guys in it too. When you see what GH5 does, though, the difference between the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series becomes very clear:

Exhibit A: The Beatles: Rock Band, a very respectful and loving homage that’s clearly the result of an incredible amount of research and effort

Exhibit B: Guitar Hero 5, where Kurt Cobain sings Bon Jovi songs alongside a skeleton and a woman wearing a bikini and angel wings

Can you say “sellout”?

platformer ‘splosion

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When Super Mario 64 showed the world exactly how 3D platformers were meant to work, it was seemingly a death knell for the classic 2D platformer. It’s perhaps fitting, then, that it was New Super Mario Bros. in 2006 — ten years after Mario 64 — that seemed to kick-start a minor revival in the genre. Two of 2008′s most innovative and impressive titles, Braid and LittleBigPlanet, were also 2D platformers, and now, in 2009, 2D platformers seem to be back with a vengeance.

‘Splosion Man hit Xbox Live Arcade two weeks ago, and I’ve been playing the hell out of it over the last few days. Gameplay-wise it’s a essentially old-school 2D platforming, with levels that are really quite punishing at times, but the feeling you get when you pull off a quick succession of crazy jumps is just awesome. It’s really the presentation that puts it over the top, though — from the ridiculous and varied animations of the protagonist (running along making aircraft noises, arms outstretched, has to be my favourite), to the fact that scientists get turned in to neatly processed cuts of meat when you blow them up, the entire game is hilarious. It also has a co-op mode with up to four players, through a set of 50 levels that are entirely separate to the single-player game’s own 50 levels.

This week’s XBLA release was another 2D platformer, Shadow Complex, which is a very modern take on a Metroid/Castlevania-style game. I’ve only played the demo, but it’s very promising so far — the gameplay is solid with a few modern touches, such as being able to aim with the right stick, and it’s jaw-droppingly beautiful to look at, seamlessly moving between full 3D cutscenes and the 2D gameplay.

Perhaps the biggest news, though, is the new video of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Nintendo gets exactly zero points for naming skill, or for pushing the Wii’s graphical capabilities, but it sure looks like a hell of a lot of fun, with lots of new Mario abilities and co-op gameplay to be had. There’s no official date on it yet, but it’s due some time this year.