Mega Derived

I woke up today infused with the same burning question as the rest of the globe; what crap has trendy self-proclaimed post-genre gamer Keiron Gillen spouted today?

Kieron: Darwinia’s been the cause celebre among the chattering classes for most of the year. In fact, it’s reached the point of hype-overload, where the number of people who’ve pulled open their ribcage to display the “Darwinia” tattoo on their hearts are started to turn people off. But - y’know - screw people who respond to hype like that. It’s an understandable human reaction to societal input, but it’s a dumb-one based around root, groundless contrariness and the desire to kick against what they think they’re meant to think. And in the case of Darwinia, particularly depressing - it’s not a game that’s had a runaway commercial success, and its developers are probably still sitting and sharing a Christmas Pot-Noodle as we write. Try the new Demo. Hell, if you’ve got HL2, boot up Steam and it’s there.

It’s a little different. You’ll like a little different. Trust me.

Oh, Kieron. You’re like my favourite egomaniac reviewer of all time!  

Addendum: Keiron is right; Darwinia is a fairly good game. If only he didn’t act like a twat when he was trying to tell us about it! Still, trusty old Keiron doesn’t fail to deliver the goods in his rebuttal, defending his working class background instead of his writing style.  

A very enthusiastic PC gamer over on the Gamespot forums compiled this massive list of upcoming games to prove that PC gaming is still very much alive. Sure, he’s put 2007 exclusives when he means 2006 and it’s littered with spelling and grammar mistakes but for something off the Gamespot forums this is as close to A grade writing as you’re going to get!

Notice how if you scroll through the screenshots, each less distinguishable than the last, they kind of blur into one homogeneous blob.

This little nugget appeared on my screen this morning: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2005/12/the_horde_is_ev.html.

I like Terra Nova because they analyse stuff way too much. I knew I was in for some heavy reading when I stumbled across this: “what made me feel most isolated from this community of scholars was the general indifference to the entire issue”.

Oh, fuck! Academics!

If we’re being serious, his article raises some fairly interesting points. But, really, what kind of worth can analysis have on World of Warcraft? People don’t choose their avatar based on deep rooted ethical and religious choices. No, WoW plays pick a Night Elf female so they can get dance around in Goldshire wearing skimpy little outfits, masturbating in one hand and typing “/w Sasuke2040X I feel you deep inside me!” with the other.  Or they choose an Orc so they can run around shouting “arrgh!” and whacking stuff with axes and the like.

Besides, you just have to log on to a Roleplaying server, pick an alliance paladin and look at how many of them try and tart themselves up as ‘fallen’ paladins. There’s also plenty of Undead characters who want to be heroes. The community will twat about and do whatever it wants, regardless of the race of their avatar. Picking a character is all about aesthetics, which is why there’s such a horrible bias towards Alliance characters on the servers. This, hilarious, leads Blizzard to putting a ‘sexy’ race in the horde for the expansion because all that the average WoW player wants to play is a bit of skirt. Ethics and moral responsibility plays very little part in the game.

It must suck being someone who overanalyses stuff in WoW. When you were playing you’d have to create a little group of likeminded intellectuals, but you’d be segregating yourself off from the WoW community as a whole. You’d also get annoyed at all the stupid people for being so stupid! It would be just like being back at school again, only you’d be more grown up and paying money for something that wasn’t fun.

These are my New Years Resolutions for 2006:

• Prove my superiority over the average human denizen by completing Devil May Cry 3 on DMD mode.
• In order to find out which of my friends are my true friends and not just pretenders, I must look like a complete and utter homosexual and use DDR to lose two stone. We’ll soon see how many of them actually like me for who I am!
• Make sure that I get everybody I like who plays WoW to cancel their accounts by any means necessary. They’ll thank me when they’re playing games that are fun.
• Not buy an Xbox 360 until something actually worth £300 comes out for it.
• Have sex with a member of the Frag Dolls.

You can read what the rest of the internet is up to: (2006resolutions).

Top 5 ‘Best Of’ Articles of 2005

There are a lot of ‘Game of the Year’ articles popping up over the big, important gaming sites lately. But how will we, the average joe, know which ones to spend our important time reading? Luckily, I have created a top five list of the best game of the year sites! Thank me later, friends, as now we will all know the definitive #1 online award ceremony!

As for me, I have thoroughly enjoyed about 95% of the games I’ve played this year. There’s no need to create some shitty list because they all have their own individual merits and trying to do something absolutely fucking insane like choosing between God of War and Devil May Cry 3 just sounds pathetic to me.

But what do I know? On with the awards!

#5: Gamespot

Gamespot only gets into the list because I couldn’t be bothered to find any other articles to take fifth spot. The awards are stupid and crappy! Most of them are completely unnecessarily bloated, like the Oscars, to the extent where they crown shit like “Best Original Music” to God of War instead of either Sonic Rush or We Love Katamari. Sorry to shit on your award God of War, but both of these games had way better music than yours! Those Gamespot hacks are just afraid of the truth!

Other awards worth laughing at Gamespot for: “Best Use of a Creative License” for The Warriors, “Most Outrageous Game” for Amped 3 and “Best Original Game Mechanic” going to NBA 2K6 and not Guitar Hero!

#4: Guardian

The Guardian deserves a higher place because it’s the only GOTY article that’s actually worth reading. They haven’t put in a ton of superfluous shit, they just list all their respective favourite games and why they like them. They also just released their list in one big batch instead of counting down over the course of a week. This approach is obviously bollocks, internet articles aren’t supposed to be quick and interesting to read! Fuck you Guardian, fuck you and your wonderful slightly left-wing articles!

#3: IGN

IGN is well-known as a quality gaming site. They let you read crappy reviews and have a whole section of their site devoted to having a wank! Fantastic! To be brutally honest I haven’t actually read any of the text accompanying these awards because the whole thing looks painfully boring and dull. Yeah, God of War won best action game. I knew that already! Does anybody actually give a shit about these award ceremonies or are the writers just trying to butter up the publishers so they can get more shit for free in 2006?

#2: Gamespy

Gamespy get extra credit for having a ‘Readers Award’ section. Although, the average Gamespy demographic will probably vote for anything Jessica Chobot has used to wank herself off with. Major bonus points for them voting Civilization IV as their overall best game. That’s a wacky choice!

#1: Eurogamer

After the annoying writing style of having each of the trendy writers give their faux two-pence (they’re overly critical of their games now and not when they’re slapping seven and eights onto it for the actual review!) on everything this list isn’t that bad. They’ve obviously thrown in a few more obscure titles in to look like excellent gamers and not big corporate sell-outs, but it doesn’t matter because those games deserve the attention.

<Count Martin wiped the pus stains off the d-pad, closed his royal DS and placed it upon his oak wood desk. Then he bandaged his battle-worn thumbs. He sat back in his lofty chair; a chair so tall it proved to all others that he was the lord of these lands>

“Aaah, Sonic Rush is quite the experience” he breathlessly ejaculated, although there was no one in the room to hear him.

<He pondered; what is happening in the distant lands of Azeroth? Is the war still raging between the Horde and the Alliance? Are giant raid parties still doing menial quests eighteen hours a day? Does Blizzard still have five million subscribers to it’s tedious online game? These questions demanded answers, and Count Martin was the kind of man who got exactly what he demanded!>

<Count Martin took a bite out of a nearby chicken leg, spitting the skin out into his nearby chicken-leg-skin bin. He then put the chicken leg back upon his chicken leg table, and reached for his writing pen. He walked over to his writing desk, and began writing a letter. On his writing desk. He wrote the letter on parchment, because letters are written on parchment in ‘ye olde times’. The letter went like thus…>

Citizens of Azeroth! Count Martin, Grand Duke of The Land Where Games Are Fun, requests YOUR knowledge! You must surrender all you know to the benevolent count!

I hereby formally request that you casually tell me where I can find the latest gossip and information on your game.

If not, I will casually slay you. And then sleep with everybody you have ever loved.

Love and kisses,

CM.

<He placed his letter in a courgette scented envelope, which he procured from his envelope drawer, and sealed it with a wax stamp that resembled the archaic internet fad Tubgirl>

<Weeks later, he received a reply in the form of a URL. The gossip had arrived! Count Martin quickly scurried over to his computer desk, and hurriedly read the information. He pondered to himself; would this information be so ripe, so juicy, that he would have to rebsubscribe to YE Olde World of Warcraft? He would soon know!”>

Ye Fabled Thread!

Alas, the game was still horrendous. Count Martin went off and played Shadow of The Colossus.

In recent weeks my gaming pile has been getting a bit thin and it would not have been very long before I had to resort to playing some 60-hour Japanese RPG’s that I’ve got stashed away just in case I run out of games. If it wasn’t for Christmas, I’d probably have to be playing FFX.

Christmas wasn’t bad this year for me, at least on a gaming front. I received, or either one of my brothers - which, by extension, means that I can play and complete – were given the following; Sonic Rush, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Mario Kart DS, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Kirby’s Canvas Curse, Shadow of the Colossus, Metal Gear Solid 3, Zone of the Enders 2, Dancing Stage Mario Mix, Donkey Konga 2, Viewtiful Joe 2 and Quake 4.

And I’m sure we can all agree that’s not a bad haul by any means. Sonic Rush and, yes, Dancing Stage Mario Mix have been the two from the crop that I have started playing first. I made a post the other day (I managed to sneak an hour or two on it before it got wrapped up as a present for one of my siblings) about Sonic Rush, and that all remains. The tiny cartridge contains an amazing, almost euphoric experience. Not only is it a damn fine platformer, it taps into my very past and makes me feel like a child eagerly sliding a copy of Sonic 2 into the Mega Drive all over again. It is an almost perfect package, I’m on zone 6 right now and I’m hoping to finish it off as Sonic before tomorrow. I can see myself going back to it for a long time; in the past three days I have done the first and third levels about twelve times each. Taking Sonic out for a run is a stress-relieving exercise similar to a long afternoon drive on a Sunday.

I also picked up a copy of Sly 3: Honour Among Thieves in the Gamestation sale for £9.99 a couple of days before Christmas. I’ve just polished that one off today. It’s a decent platformer that creates its own atmosphere and charm. It was also an absolute bargain at that price; it is one of the most enjoyable games I have played in 2005.

As for Dancing Stage Mario Mix, well, even playing it makes me a hypocrite; I’ve been very harsh on DDR in the past and I guess the ‘addiction’ of that series has finally caught up with me. I’ve been a sucker for things that give you an end-of-level ranking – how else could DMC3 retain it’s hold over me – all my life and DDR has got plenty of that. I don’t know what it is about this one, but I’m willing to presume it’s something to do with the fact that this one is instantly accessible, serving as an excellent springboard to catapult you onto a copy of Stepmania and the more challenging arcade mixes. Which, yes, I have already started doing. I’m even enjoying the overly homosexual club remixes of 80s and 90s songs.

I suppose there are dirty gaming habits (if you inferred MMO’s out of that sentence, you get a point) that are worse. At least with DDR you lose some weight.

I hope I wasn’t the only one that felt like crying when I looked at the front of Sonic Rush and the “Best Sonic Game Ever 92%” and noticed that the quote came from the Official Nintendo Magazine.

Playing the game is like opening a portal to the past. Which means I would give it a 92% and declare it the best Sonic game ever.

It’s not that bad. The Two Thrones, this is. Not that other one. You know the one i’m talking about. That is bad.

The puzzles are still fun, but the combat can get so mundane it hinders what would have otherwise been a joyous experience. I get the distinct impression that they’re going for a God of War atmosphere in the game, which would be ok, enjoyable even, if God of War hadn’t done it about fifteen times better earlier in the year. Even attempting to match the lofty standards that it set is ludicrous because the engine that these guys are working with just isn’t capable of doing it.

In fact, most of the negative points of this game come from the developers trying to do too much with too little. Sands of Time fit like a glove, but this and that other one just feels like an attempt to extend the game into places that it just can’t go. Two Thrones is not nearly as obnoxious as Warrior Within, however – if I want to unleash my warrior within I’ll just go off and play a fighting game with a decent combat mechanic, ok Ubisoft?

They’re clever developers though, at heart, and they’ve tried to offset this with the speed kills. They’re fun. Get behind someone, a quick tap of a button and the prince will lunge at whatever is in his way and stick his dagger in various places if you press another button at the right time. Some of them are challenging, but you can always rewind the clock and have another go if your timing goes a bit wobbly. They’re about all the combat in this game that I can stomach because when you’re using the ‘free-form’ fighting system or whatever the nonsense they’re advertising it as the game just isn’t as fun when you’re in combat.

What Prince of Persia does best is the explorative puzzles. And they’re still good. The narrative and overall flow of the story is handled well, too, even if getting “This would be an excellent place to continue telling the story!” warbled at you every time you try and save gets a bit annoying. I even quite like the dark prince. His levels are pretty easy stuff and not all that interesting, but they have a place in the game that doesn’t detract from the enjoyment. The back-and-forth narrative between the two princes is enough to keep you soldering through the negative parts, too.

It’s certainly a good game, an enjoyable game, but for its length and content it’s a little hard to justify the price tag when the competition in the genre is so near-perfect.

When you’ve spent all your time working on your Photography projects for the past week, hypothetically, it can be hard getting back into the swing of games again. You wouldn’t think so, I’m sure. ‘Games are fun’, you’d say, ‘they’re easy to get into and even easier to enjoy’. I know that’s what you’d think, but that’s just not how it works.

Say you were in the middle of a particularly challenging level of something and then you went away. When you returned to it, it wouldn’t be unlikely that your skill would have got a little rougher round the edges. A little slower and fatter, if you will. And, then, it would be hard to jump that hurdle and return to the process, so you decide to say bollocks to the whole notion and move onto something else.

I’m back to Devil May Cry 3 again. Because, you know, it’s addictive. Few action games compel me to return to them at a later date and develop my skills over time in a process not entirely unlike letting a fruitcake mature; the fruit is juicy and moist now, sure, but if you let it sit that process will continue and ultimately your fruitcake will yield a better texture and flavour. My particular hurdle at this stage in the game is the Dante Must Die mode, where the enemies are more plentiful and have gained an incredibly dextrous boost to their general skill and agility. When they would previously be put-off whatever they were doing by being on the receiving end of a sword in the face, such physical punishment no longer acts as a deterrent; the minions of hell will continue attacking unless you hit them with one of your more powerful attacks, which takes a few swings to build up to. What that means for us, the player, is that there is no longer safety in attacking unplanned and that each move has to be practiced and refined. To make matters worse, when you kill two of these beasts the rest of them – of which there will be many – instantaneously grow a shield, doubling their health.

It is certainly a challenge of epic proportions. I am continually and perpetually stuck on level 3 – Cerberus – and I honestly don’t know if I will ever be at a level where I can perform to the required standard. The easier thing would be to just give up and start playing something like Prince of Persia.