Parameters: an RPG in microcosm

Maybe you played NEKOGAMES‘ Parameters today, the Flash game that boils down the RPG genre into a single screen of level-grinding, boss-dueling spreadsheet “action”. Maybe you did it real fast and posted your top time to Twitter. Me? I hit 99:99:99 on the counter before I managed to get halfway through but I stubbornly stuck with it to 100% completion. Above (and if you click through) you can see my final stats and all blocks uncovered. I guess that’s technically a spoiler but I’ll let it slide since you can practically see all of the game as soon as you start and the surprises aren’t really visible here.

XBLA Kinect games on sale this week!

But really all that means is Rhythm Party is at a financially acceptable asking price so go get it and use the savings on DLC song packs! Or buy one of these other games, most of them are actually pretty good… except Hole in the Wall, it’s pretty bad. Prices good through May 21st, oh, and you have to be a Gold member too.

Our first year on Xbox Live

Here in this day where downloadable games get as big a push as retail releases and their price tags (and content) continue to swell, I sometimes forget what it was like in the early days. I’ve been digging through my Xbox download history, looking for games that have been delisted from the service, and managed to scroll all the way back to 2006.

We were a little late getting an Xbox 360 and didn’t get online until September of ‘06 when we promptly purchased the requisite Geometry Wars and Bejeweled (in which I still have zero achievements). Katy was into the time-management of Outpost Kaloki X and I was excited (however briefly) for a console version of Lumines. Even by today’s standards Lumines Live’s DLC packs are egregiously excessive. Upward of $20 in add-ons that bring such amazing features like ‘computer opponents’ and ‘puzzle mode’. I admit, I bought a few of them before growing tired of the game. The rest of our first year? Movie trailers and a Dynasty Warriors 5 picture pack. Groundbreaking strides in online ecosystems, eh?

Achieving: Skill!

I’m not bragging, honestly. For as quickly as I cleared Gigatrack I know I’m in the upper tens of thousands on the leaderboards. For every gold medal I unlock Maxx trumps my best time. But there is something profoundly rewarding about unlocking Achievements in Trials Evolution. While other games have come to dole out the points for basically continuing to play them, Trials asks to see some painstakingly specific feats of skill.

‘Hard the Hard Way’ not only requires a flawless run on one of the game’s Hard tracks, it also asks that you do it on the slowest, entry level bike. The first time I tried it I couldn’t clear the second jump; the physics of how to get the bike over a vertical gap completely stumped me. Having played through almost all of the game now, though, I came back to it while Katy was getting ready to go Sunday morning and nailed it. A handful of restarts and I’d done it!

The ‘Unyielding II’ Achievement, on the other hand, took much, much longer. It also asks for a flawless run on a specific track but adds the stipulation that you never change your rider’s position. This may not seem like a big deal in most racing games but in Trials it’s like taking away half of your control, maybe more. I had to learn a whole new route through the course which, hilariously enough, wound up being faster than my best attempt when I had full control of the bike. It was an accomplishment worthy of recording in all the glory that pointing my phone at the screen could capture.

I normally give up on games this hard but Trials and others like Super Meat Boy and Ninja Gaiden aren’t just difficult, they’re like teachers. Instead of feeling cheap or that the A.I. is getting the advantage, these games make me feel like an apprentice. Through repetition and tasks that seem pointless (like never leaning the bike) they are teaching me new skills, not just what order to shoot things in or what speed to take a jump at. I actually feel skilled in Trials Evolution. Never perfect, never (ever) boastful but much improved. And that actually is a real achievement.

Achieving: Tales of Pointless Self Reward in Games retold in brief posts whenever we feel like it.

Could Smell and Feel be the Next Gen’s fancy effects?

Ghost Recon Future Soldier is definitely not the first time I’ve seen “cold breath” in a game but it’s been such a long time that the effect really caught me by surprise. Watching Giant Bomb’s Quick Look of the multiplayer beta I kept focusing on the effect after thinking to myself “wow, I’ll bet that guy’s cold”.

‘Smell’ and ‘Feel’ are two of the hardest senses to convey in any form of media but games have it hardest. Showing that an actor is sweating from heat takes almost no work at all. Doing the same to a player character requires immense feats of visual programming. Given a third-person perspective it’s work we might not even notice outside of a deliberate cutscene. What can help is the spoken word — a simple comment by a character about a smell or a change in temperature — but that relies heavily on the voice actor’s performance and a good bit of planning from designers and writers.

Approaching a lab that has recently been “decontaminated” with the staff still inside, one of your squadmates in Mass Effect 3 exclaims “what’s that smell?” and the otherwise sterile room takes on a whole different feel. It’s the only scene like that in the game and all it took was a tiny voice file and a note in the script to make a simple puzzle room memorable.  As the voice acting talent pool deepens and we move on to new hardware with power to spare these are the kinds of “sensory effects” I hope to see much more of in the future.

Achieving: New Torment Unlocked!

I completed the career mode in Trials Evolution over the weekend even though I was only partway through the first tier of Hard level tracks. I guess it’s based on the number of medals earned and probably accelerated by my determination to get a Gold medal on all the previous tracks. My reward for such dedication? Even harder to earn medals! Platinum times are now unlocked requiring, for example, that you finish the gargantuan Gigatrack with zero faults in seven minutes or less. In my shot for Gold times I had apparently already unlocked two Platinums but since then I’ve only managed to get two or three more.

One tip to cull the madness of Trials’ demanding track times and precision bike control? Go play some of the RedLynx top pick user tracks. There are some that are so punishingly rough that the official tracks almost (aallmmoosstt) feel like a breeze in comparison. Beyond that, lay off the gas. I still find it hard to think there’s any other way to win than to never lay off the throttle but it’s very true.

Achieving: Tales of Pointless Self Reward in Games retold in brief posts whenever we feel like it.

My Three Moms: A Dragon’s Dogma Hands-On

“This demo is dumb Shawn lol” read the message in KakaoTalk from my wife. A real understanding of what Dragon’s Dogma is has been hard for me to come by and this foreboding message was as close to a cut and dry explanation as I’d come. A “Japanese Skyrim” or “another Monster Hunter knockoff” seem to be the most frequent comments but now I’ve played it myself and I can definitively tell you that it’s… well, it’s like… uhm…

Dark Souls meets Monster Hunter. Having barely played either of those titles I still feel totally comfortable in telling you that’s how Dragon’s Dogma boils down… probably. Obtuse systems and peculiar terminology mixed with epic fights against giant beasts in an open world. There, now you’ve got it.

The demo throws you straight into things with its “Prologue Quest” and offers only a couple screens that break down what the buttons do. And wow, there’s a lot of button combos. Blocking with your shield enables 2 attacks and an Aggro call while you have a default Regular and Strong attack as well as 3 more combos that use your stamina. An inventory of found ingredients and a screen full of numbers and status symbols await you if you press the Back button. There’s nowhere you can go in this game that doesn’t initially look overwhelming.

Your companions — flippantly referred to as “pawns” who can be warped to you at special stones — try to help but they’ve clearly played this game before. Mimicking the live chat of an MMO, their comments and hints are constantly scrolling up the left hand side of the screen as they run directly into combat with or without you. You’ve got a few commands on the D-pad but no matter how frequently I called them to my side they would always run off chasing the story while I was trying to get my bearings. You can’t live without them, though, as they are the A.I. embodiments of your MMO hotbar. A mage will cast healing spells or buff your weapons while another brute will yell out that he’s going to draw the beast’s attention. Still other characters will be shouting out hints and offering to launch you onto whatever monster is around.

At one point I referred to them as my three moms, constantly telling me to do this or watch out for that. “Let him do it himself, it’s the only way he’s going to learn,” I hear an imaginary dad say, one I wish was in the game to assuage the fears of my pawns. Maybe there’s a way to tailor the behavior of at least one pawn — your dedicated follower — but I sure didn’t see it in my five runs through the demo.

I also wasn’t aware that there are character classes in this game! The Prologue Quest forces you to use the default fighter dude but the second demo mission lets you use anyone you’ve made in the world’s worst character creator to try out the ranger-like class. Sure enough my Legolas-like lady wields dual blades, ditches the shield for a bow and has amazingly different moves than the default guy.  Then it’s off to fiddle with their physical appearance which can be tweaked to create some truly horrific (but also recognizable) figures. Sliders define how “ladylike” or “confident” a character is while wrinkles can be added but only to the head. It is perfectly bizarre and totally Japanese and you can expect it to be a short-lived meme or a Joystiq header image.

I never did get to really sink into Dark Souls so I’m hopeful that Dragon’s Dogma will be my perplexingly difficult fantasy adventure game to comprehend and conquer. It seems like there’s a ton to learn and even more to customize about your character and those nannying pawns. I don’t think the demo does a good job of explaining exactly what the game is but at least I know how it plays and can say for certain that I really want to dig into it. Check out the demo yourself (it’s out on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) because if you’ve read this far you’re clearly as intrigued by the game as I am.

Done Playing: World Gone Sour (Xbox Live Arcade)

World Gone Sour is another one of those increasingly common games that I buy not for its apparent quality but because of how it revolves around real people I know online. When certified real person Adam Boyes (from co-developer Beefy Media) plays the game alongside equally real Giant Bomb co-founder Jeff Gerstmann, their banter is more than just a PR dude trying to sell a press guy on the game. They’re friends and though they may not call me the same, I feel a friendly connection to the two from years of Giant Bomb podcasts and tweets. It was during this quick look that Boyes mentioned a Giant Bomb logo hidden in the game which further blurs the line between things I like. If that wasn’t weird enough context to come into this review I also just earned enough free Microsoft Points from Bing to cover the cost of the game. Let’s just qualify it as “individual results will vary”.

World Gone Sour is a game about Sour Patch Kids candy but like in the days of Cool Spot and M.C. Kids it doesn’t shove candy or soda or happy meals down your throat. The licensed property is just there to set the scene, in this case a world where candy that doesn’t get eaten goes crazy and builds contraptions and obstacles out of everyday junk. You’re a saintly sour patch candy whose quest to rescue his friends has suppressed the madness. What that sets up is a Pikmin-lite system where you find other Sour Patch Kids and hurl them at switches, precariously placed pick-ups, or absorb them to grow bigger and enable new powers.

Those powers include growing and shrinking in size, doing a ground pound move and using your buddies like a bowling ball to take out enemies and explore the side-scrolling levels. It’s nothing cerebral like Fez or daunting like Super Meat Boy and paired with the mellow music and narration of Creed Bratton the whole game feels largely subdued. I’d even call it a nice change of pace from other platformers of late that feel like they’re out to prove something. World Gone Sour is also subdued (in a bad way here) in its visuals with textures that almost look out of a PlayStation 2 game. I like the Toy Story scale of things and the depth of field effects but I didn’t expect to be squinting at blurry objects to make out the gag labels in a modern game. That Giant Bomb logo looks crisp though, oh, and so do the Sour Patch Kids themselves. You can practically taste the crystals of high fructose corn syrup that cover them.

World Gone Sour is aware of what it is — a platformer based on a licensed piece of candy — and it tries to make it special. The narration is clever in spots and the Method Man video takes itself perfectly seriously but it doesn’t go far enough to be really memorable. If you don’t also have a strange meta connection to those involved with its production I can only call it a palette cleanser that isn’t as sour as you’d expect from a pun that bad. It’s cheap, lasts for a couple of days, has local co-op play and you’ll likely get all of the Achievements without much extra work. I hate to call it a throwaway diversion between bigger games but given the sugary nature of the source material that may be the most fitting way to put it.

U-WARS is now Deep Black, Episodic on Xbox?

Back in 2009 when I was writing for a site that has since deleted or hidden all my posts (not mad, really) I wrote up a game then known as Underwater Wars or U-WARS. It had already been in development at Russian studio Biart for a while and I was enticed by its cover based shooter gameplay set largely underwater. Thruster powered diving suits, harpoon guns, and hostile submersibles were all promised. Long (dev) story short, the game took a while to find a global publisher for consoles.

Ok, now for another long story. At least on Xbox Live Arcade the game is tagged as Deep Black: Episode 1 and priced at 800 Microsoft Points for release on April 25th. The full game, a German-exclusive PC release from last May included 40 missions and 8+ hours of gamplay so there’s no telling just yet what your 800 Points will get you. More confusingly, the game is also coming to PlayStation Network without the ‘Episode 1’ designation on the box art. Will it cost more? Contain the full PC experience? Is there multiplayer in any version?

It looks like I’ll have to wait until the day of release to finally put this U-WARS story to bed. Once that’s sorted out we can move on to whatever the hell Deep Black Online and Deep Black: Reloaded are.

Now Playing: Make No Wonder (Web)

Make No Wonder is an HTML5 web game by Matthew Hollett that was described as Minecraft but without the block-building or mining. That may sound boring at first but it perfectly captures the solitude, exploration, and desperation of Minecraft with a little hint of humanity’s impact on nature without being preachy about it.

As the game loads you awaken as a tiny figure in a top-down world with limited visibility of the 2D alpine landscape around you. With a dwindling energy bar you are given precious little guidance aside from a few blinking dots on an otherwise obscured map. Working your way towards these blips you’ll discover the basics of the game as you bump into trees, bushes and caves. Foraging for supplies like birchbark, wood, and boughs reveals recipes to help you survive and explore. Flint + Wood = Axe. Wood + Boughs + Stones = a campsite to refill your energy. Along with natural (and now depleting, thanks to you) resources you’ll also discover essential gear on this once-inhabited island like string, binoculars and an inventory-expanding backpack.

Given its simple form I was surprised how effectively it made me contemplate every step I took. Every action, every movement depletes your energy and it takes just as much work to replenish it as it does to keep exploring the environment. You don’t have to worry about dying once you run out of energy — it’s not a roguelike — but there sure is a lot of unconscious downtime if you do. I don’t want to say too much about what you find because a lot of the intrigue is left to your imagination. I also don’t want to get too hyperbolic and oversell it so I’ll leave at this: for something that sounded like a sparse Minecraft-alike I’ve already spent hours playing multiple games of Make No Wonder. Though it’s mostly finished there is currently no save system which is practically the only complaint I could possibly lodge against this pleasant game of survival.