The Lair of the Monkey

Apparently, Midway’s Harvey Smith is all about personal accountability.  He had this to say about Blacksite: Area 51:

“This project was so f*cked up,” - oh well then.

“It took eight months to get one thing working.  With a year to go, the game was disastrously off rails.” - well, can’t it be put back on?

This is one of my major gripes with computer games.  It’s almost as if they’re in some sort of magic bubble where an alternate reality plays out.  This reality dictates that a middling-to-average product is allowed to slip through the net - a lot of the time.  Frankly, I didn’t think that Blacksite was that bad to be honest, and I rather enjoyed the demo.  This speech though has rather turned me off the experience.

I’ve got a new post over at Gadzooki regarding a new literacy report.  So, children don’t read enough so we’re falling down the leagues.  As I point out in the article though, correlation is not necessarily causality.  Go read it and let me know what you think.  Jump from here.

Hitman - The Movie

Reason for production - To take advantage of an apparently stupid audience.

Reason(s) not to see it - It’s uninspired, annoyingly cliched, has an emotionless killer as a protagonist.

Who will like it - Mindless fanboys, action (bad action) fans, possibly the average ‘I go to the cinema every week’ person.

Should I see it? - Ner. Save your money.  Put it toward a Hitman game, or better yet Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, Crysis or something else a bit newer.

There’s an absolutely cracking debate over at Surreal Game Design.  Here’s a snippet:

‘I am serious when I say that this is the worst idea that infects video games right now. It’s even worse than the plethora of half-hearted button combo cutscenes that have infected games since Resident Evil 4 and God of War. This evil, this disease, is the idea of a Silent Protagonist. Its symptoms are easy to diagnose: the protagonist never speaks and as seemingly important events fly by he/she says nothing further all the NPCs go to great lengths to talk around the player and advance the story almost inspite of him while he stands mute.’ 

Remember Gordon Freeman from Half Life - what did you make of him being silent?

Personally, I’m not exactly a fan, but as I point out in the comments section, I think maybe it does have a time and a place.  It’s a tricky one to be sure - not least because corny American voiceovers with the world’s most horrendous one-liners would make me want to turn the game off immediately, not matter how good it was.

That’s one of the things that I’ve enjoyed immensely about Crysis - there are a few moments where you crack a smile from the (somewhat hackneyed) dialogue but it tends to take itself seriously - as you would if you were part of the elite special forces group.  There’s a place for everything and I hope that place in games doesn’t become one-liner city.  Clever, well-written dialogue however should always be an option.

I’ve played a few things this week including:

• Crysis (PC)
• Assassin’s Creed (Xbox 360)
• Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Amazingly, all of these games are very very good indeed.  However, Crysis in particular has been a stand-out just because of the way in which it puts you at the centre of the game.  Review to follow soon.  I’ve reviewed Assassin’s Creed - a brilliant game.  Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 will aslo be getting reviewed soon.

Forza 2 has been a sbit special as I’ve managed to have a couple of games on Live that have been standouts.  You know who you are out there guys and I’ll take first place next time, not third!  Generally, looking at the games out there now, this November has (and is going to continue to be, what with Mass Effect etc) a truly amazing month for games.

Well, it’s here.  No, it doesn’t live up to the hype.  However, Assassin’s Creed is a very, very good game indeed.  I’m sure you have an idea what it’s about by now - you’re part of an elite clan in Crusade-era holy lands, taking out the nine folk who are apparently responsible for the war.  One of the first things you’ll notice is just how beautiful the game is - graphics are superb not least thanks for the brilliantly smooth animations.

Altair (your eponymous assassin) moves fluidly - so much so you’ll gasp and wonder at his free-running skills.  You’ll be able to master the movement quite quickly as it’s very easy to pick up.  You will find though that some skill is required to not have Altair land on his bottom after a jump.

One of the talking points for Creed is the combat - similarly to the acrobatics of the game this is easy to operate yet quite satisfying.  Most of the people you’ll come across can be interacted and damaged with the chase sequences being the most interesting.

Coming to the chase, you’ll find that the game is really 9 missions of 3 segments each.  First is the finding of your target - you can wander through the streets or leg it over rooftops to find him/her.  Second, there’s the kill.  You can choose how best to approach and this will lead to the final segment - the escape.  Just how are you going to get out without being killed by the guards?

It’s really the repetitive nature of the game that lets it down somewhat.  The mechanics of it are good, as are the graphics.  The simple fact is though that it can be a little simplistic because of the linear nature of the game.  Nonetheless, taking out your target and fleeing across rooftops will be one of your standout moments of the year - though the weird ending and lack of replay value may sway you otherwise.

Let me just say though that I can heartily recommend the game - okay, so Jade Raymond was great at her job and it’s not quite as good as you’d hope - nonetheless this is truly next gen stuff and certainly worth the price of admission.  Trust me, you’ll enjoy being Altair.

Alone in the Dark (the new one set in New York with ’something’ under the Park) is coming to just about every format - they’ve also now announced it for the PS2 and Wii - along with the previous announcements of PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.  Apart from Silent Hill (the original and second one) I don’t think I’ve played a game that gives me the creeps more than the original Alone In The Dark.  Do you remember that thing in the bath, or the wya in which the weird bubbles would follow you around to kill you?  Strange and scary game…

Here’s the Crysis box art.  Good eh?

I finally got around to downloading the demo of Crysis on the PC - given all the talk of the graphics I was ready to be impressed with those and nothing else.  As it turns out, it’s really rather good.  Why is that, I hear you wonder.  Well, here we are:

• It’s more cinematic than something like Half Life 2
• It tells a better story than most other games
• The environments are amazing - I was in a firefight and a tree was felled right in front of me
• The armoured suit your character, Nomad, wears, gives options for stealth, speed, armour or even strength based approaches to combat
• Tightly scripted sequences make your heart race
• Even the weaponry is fully customisable to a huge degree

This is one of the rare occasions where I’ve been so impressed with a game demo that I’ve went ahead and pre-ordered it.  Normally I wait to see the reviews, just in case there’s a glaring flaw just waiting to be exposed.  In this case however I’ll make an exception and eagerly await my copy of this high-profile, computer graphic ball-buster of a game.  Frankly I’m waiting to be impressed - even more so than I was of the demo.  Keep up the great action Crytek and don’t let me down.  Obviously this isn’t really a proper review so once I’ve had a chance to sit down with the game fully I’ll try to bring something to you in that regard.

No, not between the ears or anywhere else you sarky so and so and definitely not in their creative department judging by this video.  C&VG has arguably one of the best trailers of what could be one of next year’s biggest hits - Dead Space (PS3 and Xbox360).  You star as an engineer in the future going to repair a mining op communications facility - apparently this has gone wrong due to alien infestation.  Should be an interesting one.