Mega Derived

Project Gotham 3 isn’t nearly as good as everyone says it is. For a start, we all act like it was, and still is, the defining moment of next-gen racing. The example that the others follow. Here’s some news: it runs in a clunky half-resolution with sloppy graphics. It wouldn’t be nearly as sucessful as it is if it wasn’t one of Microsoft’s babies, because it’s just not very good. PGR2 was excellent. I don’t know where Bizarre got lost, maybe they all went crazy trying to get this out in time for launch, but they forgot to program in the fun. The whole game plays out like this:

• Get enough money to afford F50 GT
• Win Game

Oh, wait, did I forget to talk about the wonderful tracks? Each of cordoned off by big fences, so you can’t actually see any of the cities you’re driving in? Or the hundreds of races, each more tedious than the last? “Hey”, you’ll think, “I really fancy some of that racing”, only you won’t get to do any because the game wants you to do sixty two different go-fast-past-the-speed-camera levels first. Whoop! They’re where the fun is. And that’s just not a good racing experience. Besides, the tracks aren’t even fun. Most of them are just a selection of cramped, tiny little back alleys, likely generated by random with the games in-built track creator, which you complete by slowing down to 3mph before you take corners. Where’s the love, Bizarre? Take Outrun 2006, a delightful little number that mixes up blisteringly fast corners that you blaze through with selections of careful sharp turns and hairpins and stuff. Those are the complicated ones. Okay, so I’m not really an expert on racing games, but I know that I enjoy the tracks on Ridge Racer 6 and Outrun 2006 but that I think the courses on Project Gotham 3 suck.

That, and all the time you’ll spend looking at loading screens. Jesus, this game likes to load a lot. And it’s not even bad enough at loading to win that crown, no, that went to Sonic 360.

To cap it all off, you’ve got the ridiculously broken online mode where being in pole position actually means you’re 100% likely to lose the race. The physics are so screwed up in this that if another car gets anywhere near the rear of yours, you’re going to madly spin out, lose complete control and watch whilst every other car overtakes you. People actually choose to play with invisible cars because the online mode is so buggered up. Are Microsoft being serious? I don’t know what’s more confusing, that this game made it out of beta or the fact loads of people put up with it on Xbox Live.

Is there anything this half-arsed racing game actually excels at? No. Apart from being bundled with stuff. It’s ace at that. The only reason I played it all the way through to completion is because all my friends were doing it, because we all got a copy bundled in with our shiny new Christmas 360’s. Okay, I’m being pretty rough on it here. If I’m being fair, the in-car driving view is excellent. You get hands, and a steering wheel and everything. It’s so good that sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like I’m having some fun with the game. But the rest of it needs serious work.

But overall, bad. Hey, Bizarre, here’s an idea, fix this franchise up for PGR4, would you?

I’ve finally caught up with the first five episodes of Season 6 of 24. It’s hard to write about 24 when a season is just beginning. I should know, I once wrote that Day 3 (which eventually turned out to be duller than dishwater) was shaping up to be the best season ever when I was only four episodes in. So, take all of this with a pinch of salt, and be aware that future episodes could quite easily destroy everything: Day 6 is shaping up to be the best season ever. The action operates in bursts, reaching occasional climaxes before dipping into a lull where fleshing out the story takes precedence, giving life to a plot that is stretched out beyond ludicrous; an overly sensational yarn that, quite frankly, baffles as much as it entertains.

Day 5 concerned itself too much with the moral grey. The eventual villains motivation wasn’t quite juicy and evil enough to satiate the basic hunger of an action-craved audience. It’s back to basics for Day 6, where the bad guys are so archetypal they’re close to becoming a parody of evil itself. But this is where 24 works best, thrusting you into its fictional world where there is no grey, only extreme good meeting extreme evil and both sides going to extreme measures to try and take the other out. The plot becomes a family affair of soap opera proportions where the histories and relationships are woven around the grand nuclear theme in order to squeeze out the juiciest plot threads. When Jack is kicking a terrorist - complete with C4 jacket about to detonate - out of a commuter train, the adrenaline rush is immense. This is what you came to see.

24 works best with a simple story and simple plot twists. The action takes care of the rest. This is what Day 6 is providing us with, and what Day 5 was lacking. Of course, when I look back on this post in eighteen episodes time, I’ll probably take back everything I’ve said and declare the whole show a pile of jibbering bollocks. That’s what I seem to do every other season. Especially Season Three. That one was the worst.

The DS Lite is a DS, and it is tiny. And, you know something? I still don’t think it looks as good as the PSP when it’s opened up. When it’s closed it’s like a sleek little Apple-branded gadget - so it fits in with all my other Apple-branded gadgets - but when you open it it just looks a little silly. But, hey, when it’s open my eyes are on those screens, right? I mean, that’s what counts? To be fair, the screens are all kinds of awesome. Much better than what’s on the chunky old DS, which is what I’m used to playing.

It’s nice to own, and I’m glad I picked one up. I’ve had a chubby one lying around the house since they came out, so it’s not like I’m not familiar with the DS, but the Lite is a sweet little upgrade. If anything, it’s nice to remind myself of my massive oodles of cash that allows me afford to buy such a needless upgrade. It’s great being middle class.

You know what else is good? The R4 DS card. It’s a DS-like cartridge that you put a microSD card into and then it functions as some kind of whizzy rom loader/homebrew thing. Now, obvious piracy issues aside, there’s something to be said about the freedom of having all your games on one cartridge. It’s something I’ve got very used to with my (admittedly, hacked) PSP. These things are portable consoles, right? The last thing I need to do is fuss around over which one of my fifteen games I fancy playing at any one time. The luxury of just going into a menu and picking the game really is something nice. In the future, the developers should come up with some kind of way of doing this that isn’t such an ethical grey area.

I mean, imagine if Nintendo put 2gb of storage into the DS. Solder it onto the board or something, so people don’t have to worry about piracy issues. Then let the user copy games to it. Add in a feature where you can sync your save games between the flash memory and the carts themselves. Add in some kind of draconian DRM tool so people can’t let their friends copy their games. It would be incredible. Why aren’t Nintendo doing it right now? Because it would be impossible to implement without raising too many issues, that’s why. Still, it would really be convenient.

Anyway, I have a copy of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin arriving, and I’m very much looking forward to that. Right now I’m playing through Elite Beat Agents and New Super Mario Bros, both of which I’m enjoying. If there’s one thing that impresses me about the current crop of handheld devices, it’s the strength of their titles. In my opinion, the GBA was flooded with too many SNES ports. The DS is something much better.

Those who know me, know that I love DMC3, adore DMC3:SE and that I think DMC1 is pretty good.

DMC4 is coming out on 360, too. I can’t read Japanese, either, but I figured I’d post the official link. First thoughts?

• I can get 1000 achievement points in it, to prove just how much I love DMC.
• Rumble.
• Oh god, I’m a 360 fanboy now.

I don’t know if I should be happy or sad. Tomorrow I’m going to play DMC3:SE again.

God, I only went and did it again. I haven’t updated in, well, too long. I must look like a terrific jerk. It’s not out of choice, I can assure you, I’ve just been busy pondering the big questions. Which, coincidentally, are thus:

1) Early twentieth-century literature was witness to, and participated in, 
a realignment of ideas of gender. Discuss with reference to your chosen texts.
2) How does Heart of Darkness question or change your idea of narrative and what might the significance of this be for your reading of the novel?

This is the world I live in. And, I came down with the flu. Look, I’ve just been busy, okay?

But, here’s the good news. Four weeks of Easter break, starting today. Hooray! We can all enjoy my new-found intense boredom and inevitable blog flood. I’m also now guest (that means I can get fired at any time!) blogging over at intellectual powerhouse Curmudgeon Gamer. Which means I can just use this blog for stupid, crude posts that belittle various design studios. That reminds me, I haven’t made any libellous posts about Blizzard or Valve in months.

I’m currently playing Twilight Princess, which is great. I haven’t played enough to really write about it yet, though. Just know that it is great. I’ve also acquired a DS Lite. No doubt I will write about that later, too.

It’s a good game, and all, but it’s rather unlikely. Unless illegal immigrants think it’s a documentary - and they’re part of the Volk - I just think it’s going to do little more than sell more copies and be well-recieved as a video game.

So, I’ve owned a 360 for three months now. An absolutely riveting fact, I’m sure you’ll agree. I’m going to move away from that for a second to reveal a few sparkling titbits about my actual life outside of gaming now, in what will actually be a revolutionary first for me in over a year of blogging. Seriously, I’m quite reserved. If you’re new to my blog, why not read my archive in its entirety to see how I rarely talk about myself. If you’ve read everything, why not give me some cash or something? I could really do with it. Because I’m a student, you see. First year English Literature with Creative Writing at UEA, which is a veritable concrete jungle if I’ve ever saw one. I’m 20, but I took a year out and liked it so much I took another.

This is important, you see, because it means I sit smack bang in the middle of the sexy ‘16-25′ youth demographic. My stylish, suburban lifestyle is notorious for bringing in swathes of glorious profit to media and lifestyle corporations and it’s my penchant for associating myself with the current ‘must haves’ that means aforementioned corporations are forever devising crafty advertising campaigns, loaded with buzz words and flashy graphics in a often futile attempt to allow my waif-thin, non-existent attention span to focus on whatever junk they’re peddling long enough for it to be burnt into my over-educated brain. Coincidentally, I imagine myself to be a character out of The O.C. in my spare time.

But, while I exist on the same plane as many of my peers, I am also vastly different. I’m an avid reader - which means I can indulge my passion for stories for mere pennies instead of £40 a pop on a game - and a great believer in the notion that all media should be graded on its inherent worth, a notion that I feel gets lost in the infinite regurgitating hype circle that surrounds gaming: games are judged on their ability to sell and their potential for mass market appeal. I am loathe to the idea of appearing as some kind of gaming snob (although I do sometimes dabble) because I’m well aware of how annoying that is. Which is why I, personally, judge worth on a games ability to evoke feeling, and not necessarily in the sense of the grand, sweeping pathos derived from the ending of whiny, pretentious tossers’ game of choice Shadow of the Colossus, but more a sense of accomplishment: Burnout Revenge, for instance, is one of my favourite games - and one I consider of great worth - of the last-gen because it was a slick, refined experience of driving way too bloody fast down oncoming traffic. It set out to do that, it did. Mission accomplished.

It’s this kind of thinking, however, that puts me at odds with the concept of online gaming. I find it hard to feel like a game is infinite and worthy of the kind of endless repetition inherent in multiplayer games. Going around and around the same, fixed levels searching for the same weapons is, to me, quite a ghastly proposition and one I spend most of my time trying to shy away from. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its own kind of special, relaxing charm only that it’s not my primary reason for picking up a controller and playing a game. It’s changing the rules, ever so slightly; moving the concept of gaming slightly closer into the realm of sport, a craft where you’re constantly refining your ability in a game of fixed rules. That’s what I play rugby for, though, and I can’t help but think that is a much better way of getting that sensation in my life. With gaming I want to experience a story and the act of playing through said story, which is why I’ve spent much of my time hesitant about the 360 - the first console to integrate online gaming into every walk of life and perhaps the scariest threat to my hobby I’ve ever experienced.

It was important to get all of that out of the way to give the article some context, and the following words a brevity that would have otherwise been missing and therfore a bit of a crappy, loose article. The ending of the story isn’t a secret. Obviously, as part of the 16-25 demographic I cashed in my chips and got one of the white boxes over the Christmas period. Because I’m weak. Three months on and the bloody thing is growing on me, too.

What’s really sold the console to me are the games. There’s an incredible selection of games out there. I mean, really, there’s some great stuff. It took them over a year, but they’ve done it. I’m not joking. You can invest in one and feel like you’ve spent wisely. I wouldn’t have said that last year. You’re a bit starved for RPGs, moreso if you think Oblivion is a bit tedious (like I do) but there’s a plethora of decent action titles that have kept me very busy. I absolutely adore Dead Rising, and Crackdown is one of the best things I’ve played in ages. The Price:Whizzy ratio is at a good level, too. It’s expensive, sure, but compared to the Wii (£180 for Zelda, a Gamecube game) and the PS3 (£425, same stuff as the 360) and suddenly three hundred odd doesn’t sound that bad at all. The second hand market is booming, there’s plenty of availability and I haven’t paid more than £30 for a game yet.

Then you’ve got the current hot property of the moment, achievement points. I never thought I’d be so inclined to preach about their effect on me, but they can become the soul of a game. I can’t imagine Crackdown, Dead Rising or Viva Pinata without them. Challenging you to play in certain ways, accomplish certain things, takes those games and gives them something special. It’s hard to write about the specifics of why this works so well, so I’ll just say that when the little “blip-bloop” sound goes off, the euphoria washes over me like an awesome wave. They’ve become iconic with the 360 and they’ll be why people make the 360 their primary console for multi-platform games. Whoever invented them should be given a knighthood, and then shot.

It’s not all great, though. There’s always a sensation of risk associated with turning the 360 on. Something about the fact that it feels like it’s been made by a used car salesman and is going to crap out on you sooner rather than later. I’ve adjusted to the idea of my 360 breaking; it’s a case of when and not if.

I’m still not entirely sold on Xbox Live. I don’t know what the appeal is, and it’s still not sold itself to me this generation. Finding an actual game of anything is a rather lengthy process, forcing me to stare at a screen for up to a minute before dumping me in a game that never plays out quite how I’d like and usually contains one outspoken shit of a man who just refuses to shut his bloody mouth and play the bloody game. Gears of War in co-op was fantastic, but that’s because I played it with a friend. That’s the only way I can see Live working, though; with your friends. There’s not a ‘world of gaming’ out there, you’re just connecting up to the people who you would have just invited around your house four years ago and paying Microsoft forty quid a year for that privilege.

But, really, what scares me the most is how Microsoft are effortlessly creating their own hype culture. Little PR touches, like Xbox Live themed nights, Major Nelson and using the Dashboard as a way of casually ‘reminding’ you that certain games have come out. Stuff like that. Last week, I was reading Major Nelson and found a little post where he made the humming orb sound from Crackdown available for download. Genius. He’s getting people to read about Crackdown, saying how it’s an addictive game and reminding people that it’s just come out without actually mentioning any of it. The pragmatic ability of the man is legendary. It’s all cumulative, and the overall effect is that if you’re not playing the latest game then you’re somehow left out. I honestly feel like Microsoft have such a grip on their online community that they can shift the focus of the gamer to little more than a loop of consumerism, obtaining the very latest titles the very minute they come out. It’s devilishly effective and, at times, unimaginably terrifying.

And, really, when I stack it all together and even in spite of all my fears about the machine, I can’t help but feel like i’ve been converted to what I spent most of 2006 calling the ‘white brick’. I’m done. Microsoft has beaten me. If you’re sitting on the fence about getting one, you might as well take the plunge. You won’t be disappointed. If you do, however, write to Microsoft and tell them that I convinced you. They might give me something for free.

Another day, another GTA inspired title. Here we go again, then. In Saints Row you play the new recruit into a gang of thugs determined to take out the other three gangs and rule your city. Or your ‘turf’. Whatever. Your character doesn’t speak and doesn’t have a name. There’s a customisation thing, here. And it’s good, too. When you’re not engaging in overtly misogynistic acts of beating up hookers, shooting other dudes in the face and snorting a line of blow off a toilet seat, you can fulfil your dreams of spending hours playing dress-up. There’s something for everyone. Only you can’t actually snort coke. Shame.

Basically, the city - named Stilwater - is a shithole. It’s no wonder it’s in such total disarray, though, the economy of the city has gone to hell: the cheapest burger at the local “Freckle Bitch’s” fast food resturant is twenty dollars. In comparison, you can buy a gun for a hundred bucks. Let’s work it out: for five burgers you can buy a handgun. In England you can barely afford a bullet for the price of five burgers (and, obviously, I’m talking from experience here). It’s no wonder I just shot everyone eating at the burger bar and stole their burgers, it just makes better financial sense. It gets even more ludicrous: for the price of five deluxe burgers, which look roughly equivalent to a Big Mac, I can afford to have a police car - that I stole by shooting a cop a few times and making off with his wheels - re-spawn in my garage. A strong economy is the backbone of a society, people, and that’s why this place is such a dump.

That, and everybody speaks with such venom. This is a rude little state, and rather unlovable. There’s not much redeeming about Stilwater at all, really. That said, I’m quite a fan of Saints Row. It’s obviously a rather neanderthal attempt at remaking Grand Theft Auto, but i’m okay with that. There’s plenty of driving, and plenty of shooting, and the combination works. I couldn’t give a damn about the storyline, however. The voice acting is almost entirely without charm, and the script just isn’t up to much.

Technically, it’s all a bit average. There’s a system of “respect” in Saints’ Row: you do enough stuff to impress your gang, you get a bar of respect. You have to spend one bar of respect to play a storyline mission. Therefore, you need to work away at various mini-games scattered around the land to complete the game. It can create a rather stunted experience, sometimes, as you reach a cliffhanger moment in the narrative and you’re forced to do some drug running for half an hour before you have enough points to continue. The menu is good, and the map is friendly, and there’s lots of nice little touches here and there. But nothing amazing.

This is probably how THQ seems gang culture, though. Think about it. We, the players, can view a world of urban crime presented to us by a load of middle-class white designers. If there was ever a game that epitomized “wigger“, this is it. Still, not bad. Not particularly great, either. If you see it going for cheap, consider it.

Whew, I’m glad that fortnight is over. Been cracking away on some essays, which is always a blast. And going out. Finishing the Rugby season. Dieting. All sorts of cool, real-lifey things that I’m spending way too much time relaying here in a futile and cheap hope that you, humble reader, will consider me a socially well-adjusted and general all-around decent bloke.

Back to gaming. I’ve been playing Lost Planet and Crackdown lately. I’d always intended to buy Lost Planet, but Crackdown came to me as a real surprise. Basically, somebody mentioned how it was good and I saw it for cheap in HMV and just went for it. The last time I did that was a million years ago with Tiberian Sun, and that game sucked. Still, I gave in to hype and it will forever grate at my conscience.

I’m quite fond of both games, but Crackdown is definitely the better of the two. There’s something vacant about Lost Planet; an element is missing somewhere. By all logic and reasoning, it should be the finest game of all time. But it’s not. Crackdown, however, kicks major ass. I’ll write more about those games in subsequent posts over the weekend.

Next on my plate is Sonic The Hedgehog. I can’t believe I’m actually going to play it. I’ve thrown away all my razor blades, just to make sure I don’t decide to just end it all after looking at one too many loading screens. No, wait, there’s a copy of Condemned that I can play through first. Phew. I actually thought I was going to have to put Sonic in my 360 drive for a second, there.