I just bought Sega Superstars Tennis for about $4 at Half-Price Books on ‘Everything 20% Off Day‘. No kidding, it was even the double-disc package that includes an Xbox Live Arcade Compilation Disc! I haven’t tried the Arcade disc yet to see how that DRM mess works (or doesn’t) but a friend and I just played an introductory round or two of Singles competition and it’s a decent bit of fun! Sorry, Auritech, that I ever doubted you when you found it on the cheap yourself. The Sega nostalgia and fan service also doesn’t hurt. Now, let’s see what kind of mileage fanboy unlockables and Achievements gets me!
I had played through the side scrolling stuff and the top-down Zelda stuff in the demo. That kind of framing has cropped up more than a few times throughout the game so far but I was not at all expecting a text adventure as a major story mission! I had to GameFAQ it because I’m nearly late for work but they’re fairly clever puzzles… even if they read like juvenile fiction.
I’m not a huge cowboy fan but I appreciate the change of pace from the typical bro-love of space marines and Earth toned fantasy characters every now and again. Red Dead Revolver came along at just the right boiling point in 2004 and although there have been plenty of titles to marry a controller with the Wild West, none have ever done it as well as Red Dead Redemption.
Set at a boiling point of its own, John Marston heads back West at the behest of an expanding government agency that’s blackmailed him into a corner. A former bandit on the path of redemption (cue title card) he enters the fictional world of New Austin just as modern civilization catches up. Horse paths are well worn, wagons and wannabe gunslingers race back and forth while townsfolk talk of new technology and the Capital’s looming shadow. I expected to be all alone out in in the wild and seeing a lot of similar sun-baked terrain but given the setting and the talent of the environment artists there’s only a lull in the scenery when it’s well planned.
read this whole thing I wrote or just watch the beauty unfold above
The atmosphere is what continually impressed. The rippling heat, the stark shadows cast over the terrain at noontime and the glowing blue-white hue of a full moon night. But the storms! Oh, how amazing storms are in this game! It’s the kind of powerful display I wish every storm could be like in real life. Flashes light up the sky and the individual raindrops falling in front of you while the peeling thunder always sounds imposing; so much so that it sometimes spooks your horse. Little details like the shimmery puddles that last through the day or the extra-bright sunshine following a storm really show an attention to detail and mood that very few games can match.
The wildlife is another highlight that keeps the vast barren spaces alive and imposing. Dozens of creatures roam the world, some only at certain times of day, and many of them easily provoked and more powerful than you might expect. The press materials promised a realistic food chain but I never saw much animal-on-animal action. Rather, it was a random hunter whose approaching gunfire almost always had my pistol at the ready. I could go on for days about this amazing, unpredictable and gorgeous world but I’ll suffice to say that it’s the one thing that pulls this game above the ‘Grand Theft Horse’ expectations and makes it truly special.
That’s not to say the gameplay or story are a disappointment. Without all the terrible, modern pop culture to cull from, Redemption’s story is pretty basic and, given the setting, even the most despicable actions are easily justified. Many of the missions involve random strangers you’ll meet and some unfold over the course of the game without a single bullet being fired, others are wrapped up after hunting down specific plantlife or animals. ‘Random acts of Honor’ pop up regularly as you explore the world and let you decide how to deal with fleeing convicts, stagecoach hijackers, kidnappers, and assorted ruffians. For as forward-thinking as all that stuff is you’ll still be gunning your way through a large chunk of the Wild West’s population. The writing does a good job of explaining John’s motivations no matter how many times you hear it repeated but in the end the story stuff feels too much like Grand Theft Auto.
That would’ve been a selling point in 2002 but here it was almost the last thing I wanted to do. It starts out strong with story missions that see you wrangling wild horses and herding cattle but soon enough it falls back on cover-based, slow-mo enhanced gunfights against armies on obvious setpieces. Rockstar has definitely pushed way out ahead of GTA4 but this isn’t quite the new standard in open world gaming. Maybe that’s why there’s so much ambient, ancillary stuff to do. I’ve already put in over 80 hours and I’d guess less than 1/4 of that was spent on the story, even less in Multiplayer. So come for the experience of an honest-to-god Wild West wonderland and stick around for the quality storytelling. Just be sure to wander well away from the familiar mission structure as often as you can.
THIS is why I like this game! It’s so far in the future our world is the basis of this fantasy land and every now and then you spot something familiar.
Those of you on my Xbox Live friends list may have noticed my complete absence over the last week or so. No, I haven’t been playing something on the PlayStation 3 and I haven’t even been hanging out “online” on the Wii. While I doubted my conviction in a recent post I surprised myself this past week when I really did dig out the old, old Xbox and start backing up a few games. Since I had to be sure they copied alright I wound up pits-deep in games from the early 2000′s and, ya know, it’s not as primitive as you may have remembered.
I’ll have more to say on Thursday when we record The GameLuv Show but I wanted to chime in and let you all know that my gaming thumbs hadn’t broken off or anything debilitating like that.
When I talked about Instant Jam on the podcast I had only played a few late-night rounds and only with the keyboard. Now that I’ve spent an afternoon with the beta application, that essentially brings Rock Band or Guitar Hero to Facebook, and my wireless guitar I’ve got a bit more to say.
Well, that was fast! We had another Blockbuster coupon for a free game rental and with most new stuff checked out I opted for the latest Prince of Persia, the Forgotten Sands. As you could guess from the boring Achievement icon above and its similarities to the Auditore emblem from Assassin’s Creed 2, Ubisoft didn’t put a whole lot of oomph behind this game. It’s not a bad game, in fact, had it come out in 2004 instead of Warrior Within I’d have been much more excited, it’s just really short and not overly ambitious.
While unlocking 870 Points in about 11 hours of play time is worth mentioning on its own, the one that really made me smile is the highlighted Achievement above. ‘Our Little Secret: Don’t worry. We won’t tell if you don’t‘ is unlocked by changing the difficulty at any point mid-game, a choice I struggled with before realizing that the combat wasn’t ever going to get any more fun. BA~GOINK! Five Points for making the game more bearable. thankyouverymuch!
Achieving: Tales of Pointless Self Reward in Games retold in brief posts whenever we feel like it.
From the name alone you might expect Godville to be a shameless melange of elements from ultra-successful casual games like GodFinger or FarmVille. While Godville does run from a web browser or an iPhone App, the similarities end there. To be honest, that’s about where Godville’s similarities to any game end because it’s more of an ever-changing, user-defined, hands-off fantasy storybook than anything else.
At first I thought it was going to be a text adventure like Zork or a choose-your-own-adventure style game but I quickly realized there isn’t even that much control over things. After you’ve created your account as a God and named your human hero things pretty much run on their own indefinitely. What you see is tantamount to being Dungeon Master in a tabletop game with stats and gear laid out in either a customizable web page or the tabbed iPhone App. The most addictive part of this is your Hero’s diary. Every thirty seconds or so you’ll get randomly generated updates (all in text form) on what your Hero is doing. All of these entries, from enemy and items to Quests and idle thoughts, are created by Godville players and new texts go live almost weekly.
Think of it like a text adventure version of LittleBigPlanet; the collective ideas of the world building a game for everyones’ Heroes to fumble through. An Ideabox form makes it simple to offer your own monsters, items, quests, or other inspirations and at any time you can easily highlight almost any text to offer corrections. Godville is admittedly “translated from Russian by non-native English speakers”. The more submissions you make and the more that are approved, the higher you rise in the game’s version of Learderboards, the Pantheons.
But even if you don’t feel like being creative there’s still a lot to love about Godville. Since it’s sourced by the current crop of early adopters (request a Beta invite here) the game reads like an insane world where pop culture and fantasy cliches have collided. One minute you’ll be running from the ORLY Owl and the next you’ll have defeated a Millennium Falcon and found a pair of Tinky Winky’s Mittens. It also requires almost no effort from you, just check in to the website or app every now and then to see if your Hero has leveled up, what new quests they’re on, or if they’ve met an untimely demise. Go too long without tossing your divine powers around to resurrect them and your Hero may be wiped from the servers as inactive.
I admit, even in the week I’ve spent putting off this post I’ve neglected my Hero, Karyn Slainwrath, pretty heavily but I don’t feel too bad. She’s out there on her own, living her life in crazy Pop Culture Land like a virtual Angela Chase while I, in true divine fashion, get distracted by all the other flashy, pretty things in the world. I check in from time to time to see what she’s up to, throw a little Encouragement or a simple text message her way (the only direct control, err, influence you have) and go about my Heavenly business… or I just go back to work. However much time I spend with Godville, though, it continues to entertain and I recommend you check it out too because the more of us there are, the better it gets.
