Short Rant - Halo Wars

So I just picked up my new Xbox 360 and everything works the way it should (touches wood). It was $11 cheaper to buy it with Halo Wars, which trades in for about $85 if I bring it back before Wednesday. I haven’t been into Real Time Strategy games since Warcraft III and I'm not a fan of Halo, but I was intrigued enough by an RTS designed specifically for console controls to not trade it in straight away.

After trying out the first few levels last night, I plan to trade Halo Wars in today. It has the same main problem that I've had with most RTSs in that I spent most of the game just watching numbers get bigger. The action system isn't worth much, most battles can be won just by selecting all your troops and clicking on the opposite side of the map. The cutscenes are beautifully rendered, but a little perplexing in that they mostly involve watching ground level gunfights. Basically serving to show the player what they'd probably rather be doing.

The building system is inventive enough and disproved my theory that RTS games haven't changed at all since their conception. Resources are handled automatically by structures, so you don't have peons or SCVs or Tiberium Harvesters to shake your impatient power of god fist at but it's still fucking boring.

I suppose if you're into RTSs this is an imaginative take on the genre and not just copy pasted from a much more functional PC version. Me, I'm going to see if any of the city EB stores have Left 4 Dead.

Rant - Resident Evil 5 Demo

I'd like to start this entry by shedding a tear for my fallen Xbox 360. It was only a matter of time and overheating I suppose, but it served me better than most electrical equipment unfortunate enough to be owned by me. It now faces an uncertain future that I'm somehow tempted to blame on the Resident Evil 5 demo I downloaded last week.

For starters this isn't a survival horror game, it's just a shooter in which you run out of bullets more often and your enemies rarely shoot back yet they're still carrying bullets for whatever reason. That's fine. What drew me into this series has always been the puzzles. The horror was capable and the storyline was woeful.

If I judge this as a shooter there are a few kinks in the controls I'd like to see ironed out before the game goes gold. In terms of gun play you can’t move while reloading, aiming, shooting, healing, looking at your inventory or basically while doing anything. Apparently Chris is really bad at multitasking. This would all be fine if I could fire from the hip (shooting without holding the aim button; less accurate but quicker). In the more claustrophobic moments I got a brief glimpse of the horror game this was trying to be. Being able to fire from the hip or move while aiming could vastly improve these areas without giving the player too much tension breaking power. As these moments stand, they're simply frustrating. Aside from that, the controls aren't exactly intuitive but effective once I got used to them and the aiming was impressively smooth.

The new zombie virus thing is a horrifying parasite that, upon the death of the host, melts their entire body into just the bullets they were carrying. Hitler couldn't come up with that shit. It's hard to be afraid of these guys though, because you're far from vulnerable. Within the first few minutes of play I'd taken giant axe in the face no less than six times without healing myself at all. My teammate just patted me on the back and I was right as rain. The only sense of the survival element is aforementioned rapid bullet depletion cracking action. But even then, the knife actually kicks arse against your garden variety zombies.

As far as story goes my best guess is that the bad guys are trying to enslave an impoverished African nation while the good guys are performing incidental genocide on it. Which is pretty much as ambivalent as it gets.

All bugs and glitches aside though, I think I will buy the full version of this game. Basically I really liked Resident Evil and Resident Evil Zero on the Gamecube. And this game basically looks like it is to RE4 what RE was to RE0. The same basic formula applied to two characters with different strengths and weaknesses, and playing co-op this time around is actually a lot of fun. It's no giant leap, but it's a small step in the right direction.

Recent Release Ruckus

So I picked up my mindless action fix on Friday in the form of Gears of War 2. A night of playing indicated that it should tide of cravings for at least the next few months, even if there’s more story in the first 10 minutes that than in the entire first game.

I only bring this up because the back of the case sported this sticker:



Ignoring the missing full stop after 2008, release dates have been an interesting issue in games over the last few weeks. Before I go any further let me just clarify that this is definitely where this becomes a blog, not legitimate journalism. The only sources I have on any of this are direct conversations with retailers that were on a casual chat basis and in no way recorded. K? K.

So October 23 was to be the start of the pre-Christmas releases in gaming, marking the first major console releases since Grand Theft Auto 4 (April 29) and Metal Gear Solid 4 (June 17), neither of which I had much interest in anyway. Three major releases were to dawn that day: Fable 2, Dead Space, and Far Cry 2. However, on Friday 17, Kmart Western Australia broke street date on Fable 2, arguably Xbox’s biggest release since Halo 3. On the Monday, Microsoft contacted Kmart and fined them $1000 per copy sold before release date and informed them that their next big release (Gears of War 2) would be given to them a full month after other retailers. The next day other retailers were allowed to break street date and begin selling the game. It could well be argued that this is overly malicious business. Holding the next release would have been sufficient penalty – I have heard of Valve doing something similar regarding the release of Half Life 2 – but the added $1000 fine seems like a fairly low blow, considering how little mark up there is on games to begin with. However as much as an industry member may have stepped in, to me it seems unlikely that someone would lock legal horns with Microsoft.

Then an interesting thing happened, Far Cry 2 broke street date and was released a day early, leaving only Dead Space chilling in the green room. Also, if you remember my last post that was predominantly a censorship fight the power rant, I briefly mentioned that Fallout 3 was my most anticipated game release for the year. It also broke street date. Not that I could buy it being neck deep in uni work, but apparently in this instance vendors simply told retailers to put it on the shelves early.

In some cases, video game release dates seem like pointless withholding of a product. They’re not exactly like movies or albums that are all released on Thursdays and Saturdays respectively. In the case of games based in an online community, I could understand needing to manage which regions receive a product first. Blizzard would probably want some idea of which servers would be busiest when during addon releases of World of Warcraft, plus having a world wide release for such games would mean that countries like Australia would get the game before it was the same day in the States. This chain of broken street dates has piqued my interest though. Maybe Australian retailers have just gotten the shits with doing midnight sales for games they receive up to three months after the rest of the world, but I can’t help but think this is a big fuck you to Microsoft.

Fallout 3 Pre-Release Thoughts

I'm still alive. I just fell under a sizable pile of uni work for a while there. This Friday I'll hand in my final assignment after four years of study, but in true geek form, that day I’ll be more excited about picking up a copy of Fallout 3.



Fallout 3 has all the elements to potentially be my new favourite game. It employs elements of RPGs and shooters, follows an open world storyline in a post apocalyptic electro-punk setting, and includes the voice talents of Liam Neeson, Ron Perlman and Heroes' Malcolm McDowell. It's definitely my most anticipated game release of the year, and a distant second to The Dark Knight for my most anticipated release of 2008. Unlike The Dark Knight however, Fallout 3 was at risk of not reaching Australian shores at all.

On July 4, Fallout 3 was refused classification by the Australians Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC), effectively banning it in the land down under. Admittedly when these screenshots were released I had my doubts that it would make it past the censors, however it wasn't the violence that caused the ban. While our classification system is in need of an R18+ rating, that’s a debate for another time. An adults only rating would not have saved Fallout. The OFLC's gripe was that the game contained real life drugs (referred to as chems) that basically performed the function of say, health or strength potions. These were depicted a realistic manner, which in their view pushed the boundary of science fiction drug references to real life drug references. Because a game may not offer incentives for using narcotics, not only was the game not to be advertised or sold within Australia, it was illegal to own a copy that had been obtained overseas.

By August 7, a toned down version of the game was given an MA15+ rating by the OFLC. This version had substances such as morphine given fictional names and removed the short animations of them being injected or ingested. For Australian gamers this basically meant that it was no longer illegal to own Fallout and so it was safer to import it. However, on September 10, Bethesda Softworks announced that the changes made to the Aussie version were to be applied to all versions of the game. If I hop off my games-are-art and censorship-is-the-devil soapboxes for a second, I think this is actually a better game mechanic. In any given game if I want a health hit, I want it then and there. Waiting for an animation to play out can be the agonising seconds delay that usually ends in death. The kicker is, that our broken classification system has now bled over to the rest of the world's gamers.

This isn't the first instance like this either. Earlier this year, Australia was given a trimmed version of Grand Theft Auto 4, and to prevent mass imports from New Zealand, they received the same version. Anyone who was going to the trouble to import that game would have known that the only difference between the Kiwi and Aussie versions was the sticker on the front saying "18+" and so they ordered from the UK, who share our region code but received the full version. So the main people at a disadvantage were New Zealand gamers who, at no fault of their own classification system, received a toned down game. This was eventually was revoked and New Zealand retailers now sell the unedited version.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think being able to see the drugs being taken and having realistic names is a crucial part of the game experience. Especially if they'd renamed the drugs something like Michael-Atkinson-is-a-scare-mongering-douche-bag. What bothers me is that our broken classification system is affecting the game content in countries where adults are allowed to buy adult things. Imagine if the say no to drugs theory was applied to all forms of media. Off the top of my head you'd lose movies from Requiem for a Dream to American Beauty. Not to mention that Super Mario Brothers didn't result in a generation of shrooming plumbers.

I think we've really lost a great platform for comment here. In my opinion science fiction and fantasy are the greatest genres to get a message across in as it allows something to become so fictionalised that it becomes more relatable. Take X-Men 3 for example. Sir Ian McKellen approached his character's motivation against a mutant-cure with the same attitude that he has towards the idea that homosexuality can be 'cured.' This could be applied to many groups of people who find themselves alienated or oppressed by modern society, while if the movie had been about an actual cure for homosexuality, while problematic on many levels, would speak only to a queer, already converted audience. Science-fiction and fantasy allows a level of comment not achievable in more realistic genres. It also means that the drug use was contextualised, as the protagonist has to put their moral objections aside and take what they have to in order to stay alive. More over the nature of the game itself, particularly in first person, gives the potential for insight into the issue that I don’t feel is as accessible by other mediums.

Essentially I don't think what we’ve lost in this game will deter from the experience, but I do feel that a great platform for comment is being cut short by a conservative and outdated rating system. Maybe I never got off my soapbox at all.

Rant - Deus Ex: Invisible War

I never really cracked the original Deus Ex as I couldn’t get past the first level, and while this is just me making excuses for sucking at the game, I feel it failed on the same grounds as many action shooters. I’m asked to believe that I’m playing as some highly trained covert agent who’s also getting his badass kicked by random goons. This could be tagged ‘realism’ but it made it hard to find the game engaging, which is the point of the opening level. Fair enough I can choose what he is highly trained in but that just makes it stranger as he ends up either barely competent with one gun, clumsy with a handful, or completely useless with all firearms but pretty handy with computers. All this begs the question of what the fuck these guys were teaching him at government badass school. Apparently if I got over this hurdle the storyline is mind blowing but I find that hard to believe when the main character is the cyberpunk saviour of mankind named JC with his offsider, Paul, both of which are subtle as a bible in the face. I may get into this game one day and return to repent my sins, but in the meantime: Deus Ex 2.

The disembodied head of this first person shooter is Alex (if that’s a bible reference I didn’t pick up on it but I’m guessing it’s mostly just being versatile for the sake of the gender choice). Alex is a badass agent in training who is transplanted into a facility in a different city after his/her hometown was destroyed by an anonymous threat. This facility works well as the training grounds and has a good grasp of the player’s assumed knowledge, so it doesn’t waste too much time. As soon as I emerged from the ruins of this establishing mission I was asked to side with either a global corporation or religious extremists and clocked onto the moral of the story being ‘everyone is evil.’ However, while replaying, I discovered the game’s strongest storytelling element: the ability to kill anyone. If you blow a main character’s brains out as soon as they’re stupid enough to step out from behind bullet proof glass, the story will adjust itself to their absence. Suddenly instead of being a bitch to larger powers, Alex treated as a loose cannon with a “cavalier attitude towards human life”. While deciding which faction would ultimately save the day I even get a message from cyborg black marketers to the effect of “You hate them, Alex. You hate them. They are weak and made of flesh.”

Whichever extremist group you side with the ‘everyone is evil’ theory stays intact and there’s some solid dialogue in there, even if the flow of conversation makes any attempts at comedic timing clunky. The gameplay gives the player space and means to play either stealth or gung-ho and both are challenging and make good use of the biomods element. It’s a thought-provoking game that doesn’t slap me over the wrist if I decide to go clocktower on it, although I still can’t figure out why the box art went through three different episodes of Cyberpunk Makover.

Extended Rant - Mass Effect

When I first bought my 360 the salesmen’s exact sales pitch was ‘Get Mass Effect get Mass Effect get Mass Effect get Mass Effect get Mass Effect get Mass Effect get Mass Effect.’ Then it turned out that he didn’t actually have a console to sell me to play it on so I left wondering if his brain worked the way it was supposed to, but still, it was enough to pique my interest.

My only other experiences with Bioware were Balder’s Gate 2 and Neverwinter Nights both of which I really enjoyed. I overlooked Knights of the Old Republic as I never really got into Star Wars, but I was interested to see that with Mass Effect, Bioware had dropped the Star Wars universe for one of their own creation.

I rolled a female soldier and got stuck into it. Right about the time the combat was about to get started I was waiting for a tutorial to pop up and tell how to point at the enemy I wanted to kill and watch the game do the rest. Then an odd thing happened: nothing. Gears of War being the last game I’d played and game play looking fairly similar I reverted to gung-ho instincts and aimed at an enemy and tried to shoot it to bits. Oddly enough, that bloody worked. The combat isn’t turn based. Sweet mother of Betsy it’s not turn based! Maybe they figured out that all the RPG fans who love repetitive mundane tasks were now on MMORPGS, whatever the case they’re now making real time combat so I’m prepared to look over a few first time insecurities and clumsinesses. There’s a cover system you’ll never use, and if you want to take a weapon out there are four buttons to help you (if it doesn't happen automatically), while if you want to use any of a stack of powers you have to pick from a wheel or a hot key all controlled by the same shoulder button.

As far as the story goes, it’s very Charles Dickens. Not to say it’s about poverty and has vivid descriptions of ugly people, I mean that it’s full of well developed characters and the plot is just an excuse for them to be there. The storyline borrows a lot from The Matrix Reloaded with the actual matrix replaced by the Milky Way, and manages to avoid the generally overdone ‘could we/should we’ sci-fi theme. For the most part, the major characters are deep, believable and conflicted, with the exception of one roughly man-shaped piece of cardboard with a name and some character traits written on it. Kaiden McCardboard aside, the characterisation only hits one major wall. Meet Liara, proof that the departments involved with game play and characterisation never really collaborated. In the cut scenes she’s the embodiment of compassion, in the combat she goes FUCKING BERSERK, going spell crazy and trigger happy in a manner that’d make Vikings blush. Once this crack has shown others start to pop up and I realised that one of the races of aliens look a lot like space bunnies and another are just toads in armour. After that the game had this creepy, space-age Wind in the Willows feel to it which thankfully wore of in time to be saved by the game’s best characterisation element, the hero himself/herself. In each cut scene you’ll be given the choice of how you want to go through it, usually polite, bitchy or too spineless to go either way. It mostly works to the same end but what makes it impressive is that none of it breaks character, which is a props to the voice actors more than anything. Here Bioware have proven that games can make a pliable protagonist without just making them a blank fucking pallet.

So if you play this as a solder it’s the sandbox(ish), story driven shooter that so many others have promised to be that still holds its ground as an RPG. The final level is like nothing else I’ve played, working itself up to the end boss fight by making you feel like the hardest badass in all Hardarseia in a merging of game play and narrative that’s raised my expectations of interactive storytelling.