City 16

A sensible man would have learned by now not to attempt any community engagement features until he had an active community to engage. I am not a sensible man.

December is creeping up on us meaning that blogs up and down the Internet will soon be publishing their end of year lists and retrospectives. Essentially its a lazy method of re-hashing old posts in an attempt to drum up new content and extra page hits. I fully support it.

I’ve not quite decided the scope of this blog’s 2009 round-up but, as with everything, I imagine it will largely depend on how much time I can be bothered to put into it.

In the meantime, partly because I’m genuinely interested and partly to remind me what games actually came out this year, I ask you this question:

What was your favourite game of 2009?

I'm not expecting anyone to pick Stalin vs. Martians

Comments, ho!

It was Staff Development Day at work today. Instead of being developed, however, I spent most of the day pondering a question posed by TV presenter Charlie Brooker through his twitter feed last night.

Okay, let’s think of a videogame to convince Mark Kermode (who I like). Something along the lines of Fatal Frame / The Path / Dead Space?

Brooker was referring to film critic Mark Kermode. For his Gameswipe show he’d used a clip of Kermode on Newsnight Review claiming that he hated videogames. Kermode responded with this video claiming that he wasn’t against videogames, he just had no interest in playing them because he didn’t understand the conventions that mark out a gaming classic:

Here’s my question to you: If you had one chance to convince a non-gamer, not Kermode specifically, that games were a worthwhile medium what game would you sit them in front of and have them play?

As I said, I’ve already spent a large portion of today thinking about this. I instantly dismissed most of the ideas that popped into my head, considered others more carefully before dismissing them before coming up with one solid idea that I think might be workable. Here’s a highlights package of my thought process:

Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)

Most adventure games and RPGs, the storytelling genres, were instantly dismissed due to their reliance on knowing the conventions of the two genres. Take adventure games: why do I have to combine the inflatable rubber ducky with the fishing line and the clamp? How would my character even know to pick up the fishing line? This isn’t normal, logical behaviour unless you know that’s how adventure games work. The same esoteric conventions hound RPGs. Why don’t people get pissed off when I break into their houses and steal all their shit? Why, when my character has been billed as the world’s saviour, am I being asked to stop and help a bartender sort out his rat infestation? Why can all NPCs be convinced to bend to my will in one sentence just because I have stats in charisma?

Fahrenheit’s set up was slightly different. The control system for questioning characters was a simple gesture based affair, their were no bizarre logic gaps to work out and the story was interesting and well told… For the first half of the game. Anything after your character discovered his superpowers was, unfortunately, pretty much bullshit. Combine that with annoying quick-time events and a terrible stealth section and non-gamers will be left floundering. Even my friend Adam, a man who owns more games than anyone else I know, never passed the mental asylum section in which you must navigate to safety in the dark (which also means he thinks the game is great, because he never had to deal with the sudden shitty downturn.) Hopefully next year’s Heavy Rain will have fixed most of these problems, but until then this game just doesn’t fit the bill.

Silent Hill 2

I was admittedly thinking of Kermode, a noted horror fan, in particular with this one. Silent Hill’s big advantage is that the character you control is also no hero, regularly missing targets that aren’t directly in front of him. The control system is also relatively simple which when coupled with the games slow pace should make it fairly easy for a non-gamer to get to grips with. These factors also combine with the brilliant story to create a real atmosphere of tension throughout the entire game…

Except the story, while admittedly great, doesn’t really present the best that gaming has to offer. It’s not the story itself that’s the problem but the delivery: cutscenes. I’m not against cutscenes per se, but if you’ve only got one shot at persuading someone to take up gaming you’re doing them a disservice by showing them one that presents its narrative through a method that could easily be done better through film or TV.

Portal

By the sounds of things this was the most popular suggestion. Certainly it combats the problem I had with Silent Hill, as the entire narrative arc is told through gameplay and interactions. Here, though, we’re taking the leap of faith that a non-gamer would actually be able to play it. I’m not suggesting they wouldn’t be able to grasp the portal mechanic, as its slowly introduced through the first few levels. My question is whether the control system itself would prove too taxing. If you’ve ever watched a parent try to get to grips with almost any game you probably marvelled at their inability to perform even the most basic of moves.

There’s a good reason for this: they treat the controller as a third party to be negotiated with as opposed to a direct conduit to the on-screen action. It’s the same reason I become entirely shit at a game when an on-screen command pops up telling me to press the R1 button. Usually I’m completely unaware of the existence of the controller or the keyboard. Muscle memory has kicked in and I know that the run button makes running happen, so when I need to run I can run because my fingers have learned what that run button is. When I’m given a command to press a specific button for no good Goddamned reason I’m instantly brought out of the game and my brain has to re-remember that a controller exists at all and that I need to locate someplace on it, usually without any context. Fucking quick-time events.

People who’ve never played a game don’t have that automatic response to commands. It makes even relatively simple tasks feats of complex endurance. Portal not only has a brain-bending puzzle mechanic, but asks you to implement it in increasingly dexterous ways. Not only that, it has danger; you can die… You can die frequently from water, falls and those bastard turrets. It doesn’t seem too unlikely that for many non-gamers such a set-up would ultimately lead to frustration and displeasure at the whole thing.

Today I Die

Let’s recap: The game needs to be free of the conventions that would only make sense to those familiar with the genre, must present its story in a way unique to gaming, be simple to control and free from such frustrations as failure. May I suggest Today I Die, the flash webgame from Daniel Benmergui. The game is played by manipulating, through simple mose clicks and drags, the environment to discover new words through which the opening sentence is subtly changed from its original, dark mantra towards a rather touching conclusion. This 5 minute webgame is my choice for the perfect non-gamer’s introduction to the medium.

What’s yours?

! – SPOILER WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and, specifically, for That Level, entitled No Russian. I’m not talking mild ‘tiptoe around the content’ spoilers either; I’m going to be spoiling the shit out of this thing. If you have any plans at all to play MW2′s single player campaign then, seriously, don’t read this. – !

The first time I hadn’t even meant to play it. A friend was round and I was just dipping into the campaign. Being further ahead of me in the story he would sometimes interject with a “this bit’s awesome” or a “this level is a bastard”. You probably know the type.

My plan was always to play No Russian properly: no people, sound up, lights off. We’re experiencing a medium in its adolescence and I’m always interested when a game looks like it might be genuinely unsettling, especially if that game is billed as the biggest release of the year. Before I even know it’s coming, though, the screen has gone black for just a little too long. The only sound is that of guns being checked and ammo being loaded. Finally the visuals fade in and I… my character is stood in an airport.

“This is…” my friend begins. “I know,” I reply, cutting him short. I can’t remember at what point the contents of Modern Warfare 2′s most controversial level were spoiled for me. I don’t even think anyone had to set it all out in front of me, instead the puzzle was pieced together by a snippet here and a mention there; a hundred reviews and previews and discussions and whispers, each one doing their best not to reveal the content but going about it in slightly different ways.

“Remember – No Russian,” says Makarov, the terrorist leader who I… my character has been sent undercover to befriend. “This level isn’t that bad,” says my friend, the terrorist sympathiser who seems intent on cajoling me to unleash hell. We… my character and the cell he’s infiltrated walk into the airport itself and open fire on the unsuspecting, and unarmed, civilians. Here’s the thing: I do find it unsettling. I don’t want to kill these pixels but, at this point, I’m unaware of how the mechanics of the level work; whether non-participation would lead to suspicion and failure. Worse still I’d be showing myself up in front of my friend, who’d just admitted to having no problem gunning down the legions of cowering men and women. In the end I… my character walked the terminal picking off the mortally injured as they dragged themselves across the floor. I deliberately aimed just to the side of a crowd of people, winding up killing another crowd I hadn’t noticed in the background. I’d linger just a beat to long on visual cues like the departures board ticking over into a wall of ‘Delay’ signs. Still, I… my character was complicit. I felt numb.

The thing about No Russian: no matter what issues I have surrounding its execution as a level, or even its inclusion in Modern Warfare 2, in me it succeeded in its goal. Whatever its failings, that was and always will be my honest initial reaction. The game does a great job of hightening the atmosphere within the level itself. The long build up and fade in; the enforced slow walk of your character; the clean mundanity of the setting in contrast to the dusty war torn locales of the rest of the game; the underlying, unsettling, pulsating background ‘music’. Even the civilians themselves have animation models not present in the rest of the game. They’ll drag themselves across the ground and, in some cases, those too injured to even do that will be dragged to safety by others. Everything in the level is designed to provoke a reaction from the player. Mission accomplishes right? Not entirely…

I played the level again earlier today in order to see if it would provoke a similar reaction. It didn’t. After an initial, cathartic, round of gunfire in the opening section’s main bulk of passengers I had no problem moving from room to room killing everything in sight. There was no particular pleasure to be found in it but neither was any of the unease of my initial visit. In the time between my two playthroughs I’d become aware the level plays out exactly the same way whether you participate or abstain from firing completely which, ironically, destroys most of the atmosphere. Even on my first go I realised that the level dissolves completely once the tactical assault teams arrive, bringing the game back to its usual, familiar territory as you become more concerned with staying alive than with what the level is trying to achieve.

This man has clipped through his suitcase. Way to take me out of the moment, computer game.

It’s unfair to expect the level to evoke the same emotions on revisiting, but anecdotal evidence suggests that most of the people I’ve talked to felt no real issues when playing it. Most raise the point that you can do far worse to civilians in many other games. Certainly I have no problem with mowing down pedestrians in GTA, my favourite pastime in Prototype was punching citizens into meat chunks and in Fallout 3 I smiled with evil delight as the town of Megaton erupted into a mushroom cloud of my own making. I can’t entirely explain why this level was different for me but I have a couple of theories. Perhaps perspective plays a role: I’m less aware of an identifiable character in a first-person shooter and the genre itself has a standing tradition of casting you as the hero, saving mankind from aliens or terrorists or Nazis, often single handedly. More likely I think it’s due to the amount of RPGs and adventure games I have played. I’m used to assuming a role and to connecting with a story because they are the elements that those genres tend to emphasise. Are gamers who primarily play shooters prepared to allow themselves to be drawn in to such an attachment? It seems slightly at odds with what they look for in a game.

I feel it’s important to make something clear: I’m glad No Russian caused the response it did in me. Even if the level had provoked the same reaction had I played it alone, and I’m not entirely convinced it would have, I wouldn’t have skipped it. Games shouldn’t shy away from including mature content when the definition of ‘mature’ extends beyond tits and swearing. That said my biggest issue with No Russian is that, tonally, it doesn’t fit in with MW2 at all. Frankly it’s a ridiculous game. the preceding level culminates in a snowmobile chase and, just two levels after, you’re protecting America from an all out Russian invasion. If Jack Bauer went postal in a public place, gunning down civilians left and right? That’s the kind of out of place juxtaposition we’re looking at here. Even the narrative set-up to No Russian itself is handled poorly, with little background given to the terrorists or their ideology. Even a cutscene to give some contextual information about their beliefs would have increased the purpose of the levels inclusion tenfold. Instead we’re left with some cookie-cutter speil about them being Evil. At best the whole thing seems somewhat of a gimmick and is rendered slightly tacky for the fact; at worst it’s a poorly realised exploitation piece designed to court controversy.

And yet… It worked. My initial response was my initial response. For better or worse Modern Warfare 2, by its mere profile alone, has managed to set the bar for emotional set-pieces in an FPS. If a developer can come along and wrap that same sense of unease into a properly defined narrative then a true classic could be born.

With Friday afternoon off work I sat down for a bit of light gaming and ended up flitting between most of the games I’m currently actively playing. Here’s what occupied my time:

16:00 – Torchlight

Goddamn, I really need to remember to turn off the framerate overlay in screenshots.

I finally relented and bought Torchlight after the overwhelmingly positive reviews and feedback about the game. I was initially hesitant because, having not played action RPGs like Diablo before, Torchlight appeared to be a seriously grindy click-fest. It turns out that Torchlight is a seriously grindy click-fest. I’m a little worried for the future condition of my mouse to be honest. Still, having my fears justified showed me that my fears weren’t really justified; Torchlight has a lot going on to keep you invested. Primarily this is done with loot, of which you come across a ridiculous amount: my inventory was filled before the completion of the first level of the dungeon.

There are other touches that keep things interesting. Your character’s pet is especially useful. Not only can you load up his inventory with unwanted goods and send him back to the town to sell them but you can actually get him to learn spells which he’ll automatically cast in battle (mine currently summons skeletons). Also, if you feed him fish, he turns into different monsters for a limited time: both useful and batshit crazy.

I would have probably played this for a few hours but a Steam notification of a PC Gamer event (I don’t even own Killing Floor Steam, damn you) caused the thing to crash out, so it was probably time to move on.

17:00 – MAG

This is why I don't usually take my own screenshots for console games.

It’s always a pain to figure out exactly what you can talk about when it comes to beta testing. From what I understand we’re now free to talk about MAG, Sony’s upcoming 256 player online FPS, since the public beta opened but are still under NDA for anything from the private beta. I hadn’t actually played this since the first phase of the private beta but with the newest public phase arriving with a host of changes and, most importantly, 24 hour servers I thought I’d give it another try.

The concept is well executed. 256 people is clearly a ridiculous number for one online match but the game does a good job of assigning squads to different missions. This means that, while you often aren’t directly aware of the sheer scale of the battle as you focus on your specific task, your job can often be made easier or much harder based on the performance of the rest of the team. This is all good stuff but the game is let down, for me, by its pace. Dying is particularly painful because of the long wait to respawn and the trek from the spawn point to the objective. Thanks to the people who seem to have been testing it continuously for months this happened to me a lot. Part of the problem also seems to be the controls, which are slightly less responsive then I’d have liked. They fall just the wrong side of that almost imperceptible line in which you go from blaming yourself for dying to blaming the game.

Eventually I tired of being killed by someone named X_K1lla_X and moved onto a multiplayer game that gets it right.

18:10 – Modern Warfare 2

The AC-130 is much less creepy here than in the first game due to the fact you're helping out a friend.

I was avoiding the single player campaign because I was approaching That Level and listening to Ivor Cutler, as I was at the time, wasn’t really conducive to fully appreciating it. Instead I switched between the multiplayer and the special-ops missions.

Multiplayer remains pretty much unchanged from the first Modern Warfare. This isn’t a criticism, as its one of the most playable online shooters around. Rounds are fast paced and frantic and the control system is not only tight and responsive but also well tuned. This is most notable with the console auto aim: its good enough to compensate for the weaknesses of using a controller in an FPS without being so accurate that all battles turn into a simple quick-draw event won by whoever started shooting first.

The special-ops missions would turn out to be the revelation of the night. Essentially they’re a series of mini-games and set pieces that reward you with stars for completing certain challenges. More importantly they’re playable in split-screen. As people filtered into the house throughout the night we’d spend much of it passing the controller round and playing through different missions. A particular favourite became the missions requiring one person to get to a particular point on the map while the other player provided air support from an AC-130 gunship. Co-operation is the key; as is shouting at your gunman for bombing you on the ground, or at your ground soldier for getting themselves killed in a house where you’re powerless to help.

19:50 – Borderlands

I’ve not posted about Borderlands before, which is surprising given just how much I’ve played it over the last few weeks. At this point I’ve completed the campaign once and am now on my second playthrough, essentially a New Game + option that starts all the enemies at a much higher level to mirror your character’s progression. Normally I wouldn’t replay a game for months after the first completion, but Borderlands follows the model of the action-RPG grind fest (see Torchlight) so closely (and the story is so ludicrously pointless) that as far as I’m concerned I’ve still not completed it as my character’s not hit the level cap and there’s still loot to be found. Borderlands’ gimmick to cover up the grind and repetition is to be a really good, tactile shooter. Not a bad gimmick all said and done.

This time I decided to re-spec my character’s special moves. A complete skill reset can be purchased which lets you try out different customisation paths. I put most of my points in elemental effects which cause damage-over-time to enemies. Between that and a couple of ridiculously overpowered weapons the game has pretty much ceased to be challenging but remains great fun.

I picked off a couple of missions throughout the hour or so I played it, mostly the ones involving boss versions of regular monsters, killing Skagzilla and Mothrakk with relative ease. I was particularly pleased to note that, with my new multiple types of elemental damage, enemies would bleed multi-coloured numbers before they eventually died. It’s like they were repeatedly being beaten over the head with a tricky tax-return.

Past Everyone’s Bedtime – Elefunk

Seeing as you’re probably wondering: Elefunk is a PS3 physics based puzzler that requires you to build a bridge to allow an elephant to cross from one side of the level to another. Despite its cutesy appearance the game is brutally difficult.

I’ve no idea why we returned to this Friday night (more accurately Saturday morning). When we first went through the game, always three to four of us heavily drunk, we got stuck on a particular level and didn’t return to the game for over a year. Tonight, inexplicably, was the night we came back and beat that damn level and, with renewed vigour, progressed further into the game.

I like playing puzzle games communally. It’s a true reflection of team-work, with nobody jostling for position or kudos, just building upon each others ideas until you collectively reach a solution. Elefunk is perfect for this atmosphere due to its trial and error nature. After your first attempt at building a structure you can send the elephant on his way, nervously looking for all the weaknesses that appear, so when he inevitably falls into the chasm below you know where start strengthening. Its also, fortunately, a good game to play when you’ve been drinking; there are no leaps of logic to take, the game works purely off architecture and engineering.

So these are just some of the games that have been occupying my time. Feel free to share your current gaming playlist in the comments, although God knows I’ve got enough to keep me occupied for a while to come.

It was with some sense of occasion that I finally loaded up Dragon Age: Origins with the intention of playing it earlier today. This was marked by having beer and pretzels within arms reach of my desk (for that is how I mark occasion.)

What Is It?

The new RPG from genre stalwarts Bioware. This time they’re going back to their roots with an epic high-fantasy setting billed as a spiritual successor to the classic Baldur’s Gate series. Dragon Age, however, is free from the Dungeons & Dragons licence of that series. Disappointingly this means that the manual is also free of pages upon pages of tables and stat-charts.

Why Did You Buy It?

This is the first of these that isn’t for a game that I bought as an impulse during some weekend sale. In fact, short of the game turning out to be a fantasy RPG remake of the webgame Don’t Shit Your Pants, there is almost no scenario that could have led to me not buying this game.

The Playtest

0:05 – Few games impress me within the first five seconds, but the EA splash videos at the start of the game have finally removed all traces of This Is The New Shit by Marilyn Manson making me both happy and relieved.

1:30 – Ok this game’s doing some serious loading right now.

3:00 – Still loading! I’m starting to worry that it’s crashed…

3:05 – No, we start finally. Time for the intro video. “The hubris of men bought the Darkspawn into the world.” Damn our hubris.

5:10 – The intro story is all a bit Icewind Dale. Evil happens and terrorises individual races until the Grey Wardens create a force made up of them all. Victory ensues. The game apparently takes place around 4 centuries after the Darkspawn’s initial appearance… At least I think it does; my handwriting’s a little hard to read at this point in the notes but I don’t think ‘cunturies’ is a word so it’s a safe assumption.

7:00 – At this point I miss the rest of the video because my flatmate comes in to show me a job posting he thinks I might be interested in. At a guess the intro’s ending probably had something to do with the Darkspawn rising up again… or something.

7:30 – I’d already created a character with the previously released character creator. Still I can’t help going back and tweaking the cheekbones and jaw width.

A note on my character: After watching the origin stories videos I decided to go with a female city elf as their origin seemed the most interesting. Typically I’ve gone with a rogue class because my primary interest is in stealing things. Points have been spent on the cunning and strength modifiers. Her name is Mara (my naming conventions draw from a very narrow range of source material) and she is viewable here.

9:00 – I now have some skill points to spend – I spend a while deliberating between stealing and improved coercion but eventually settle on the coercion because the chances are there’ll be very little to actually steal in the starting area and I’m far more likely to need to bullshit my way out of situations.

11:30 – Okay, we’re finally getting into the game itself. A short origin intro explains that the elves were previously slaves and now, despite having been freed, they are treated as second class citizens. SUBTEXT!

13:00 – Huh, apparently I’m getting married today. Surprisingly my character needed to be told this by her friend. The conversation mechanic works in much the same way as the Baldur’s Gate games, with your character mute throughout and you selecting their dialogue options from a list. It’s a little strange at first, especially after Mass Effect put so much emphasis on the player character’s voicework. It does, however, explain why all the voice options during character creation are so terrible.

Wait, wedding?

15:00 – Small tutorial on movement. This is the gaming equivalent to slipping back into a old and comfortable pair of shoes. While the top-down view is a brilliant option to have the game works surprisingly well in the third-person view (even if the WASD controls take some getting used to.) More importantly the space bar is back to its job of pausing the game allowing for tactical planning of battles. Not really much point in pausing the game yet as I’m just wandering around on my wedding day, but its nice to know its there.

20:00 – My father has revealed that this is an arranged marriage. I’ve decided to not be happy about being forced into wedlock with a man I don’t know but, even with my improved coercion skills, dad’s not listening to my concerns.

23:00 – Outside in the city itself I’m approached by some friends of my late mother. I’m not shy about revealing my disdain for this whole marriage business and that I plan to escape. I’m not as forthcoming with what the details of this plan might be.

25:00 – I’ve met up with my cousin, who is also getting married today (not to me, I should point out.) He actually seems more interested in marrying my fiancee than his wife-to-be, which is slightly worrying. Still he drops in as a party member giving me a chance to look at the tactics menu. This essentially allows you to set up macros which will automate your party members behaviour in certain situations and, holy shit, it’s complicated. Again, there’s not much I can actually do without anyone to fight, but it appears to have some impressive depth.

28:00 – I’m speaking to the most melodramatic beggar ever. If I had any money I’d give him some for theatricality alone.

32:00 – I’ve decided to put off the wedding bells by getting involved in other people’s business. A family are moving to a garrison of human soldiers and the daughter is, unsurprisingly, fearful of being in proximity to women-starved soldiers. Today I shall stand up for all women forced into situations beyond their control!

35:00 – Okay, so that didn’t work. My attempt at lying to the father about an anonymous suitor for the daughter was, admittedly, rubbish.

36:00 – Humans have arrived! Randy humans at that. I could play this cool. Diplomacy would probably be the sensible option. Instead I start threatening people.

38:00 – The human has used the classic “do you know who I am” line. Fittingly I have no idea who the hell he is but, when my friend smashes him over the head with a bottle, I’m told that he might actually be quite important.

40:00 – Oh God, my husband looks like a complete tool. Worse still he’s a nervous tool. I’m rarely rude to people in RPGs, certainly less so than in real life for some reason. Still, here I have little problem telling my husband-to-be that the idea of getting married to him makes me nauseous.

You want me to spend the rest of my life with him!?

42:00 – The arrival of the Grey Warden provides another fitting distraction from the ceremony. Note: There are cats everywhere in this city. Hopefully this’ll mean I’ll not have to fight any rats.

45:00 – The Grey Warden is called Duncan, possibly the least heroic name known to man. My tactic in dealing with Duncan is to pretend I haven’t seen the hundreds of trailers that make note of how he’s a Grey Warden and treat him like another troublemaking human.

47:00 – Duncan’s made a fairly good point: He’s wearing armour and has a sword; I’m wearing basic clothes and have no sword. My threats are probably not going to work.

49:00 – An elf Elder has intervened in our little showdown. Apparently he’s the leader of the Grey Wardens. I’m meant to take seriously an organisation that lets their leader be called Duncan? This is going to take some serious suspension of disbelief.

53:00 – At this point the ceremony seems unavoidable. I’m delighted to see my husband is pretty pissed at me as I arrive. I take the opportunity to make mention of running away to my cousin. It’s at this point the humans return. They’re here to collect some ‘whores’ for their party. For all my big talk and threats I go down pretty easily with a fairly weak slap (although it’s a cutscene slap so it doesn’t count.) On the plus side: the wedding’s been cancelled.

58:00 – I wake up in a cell with some pretty hysterical women. My suggestion that we kill everyone in sight doesn’t quite get the reaction I’d hoped for. This is the point some guards come in and kill the most hysterical of the women, which is something of a relief to be honest. It’s at this point my cousin comes in and throws me a sword.

Okay, this looks bad... I promise I didn't kill her.

1:00:00 – The guards are dead. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this but it was only halfway into the battle that I remembered to go into the inventory and actually equip my sword. With my pilfered gear freshly equipped these humans had better watch out.

Conclusion

So I’ve not even finished the origin story yet and have only had one brief taste of battle so its far too early to judge the game’s potential. Still it seemed nicely adaptive to my chosen brand of bitchy psychosis and the way NPCs moods shift based on your previous conversations seems to be natural and fairly deep. My normal tact for these conclusions is to say whether I plan to keep playing the game. In this case the answer’s pretty obvious. In fact I’m off to do so right now.

Emails containing a code for the God of War III E3 demo were recently emailed to a random selection of European PS3 users. Obviously I was one of these people. Here’s my impression of that very demo:

There seems to be a lot of expectation surrounding the upcoming God of War; a level of scrutiny beyond that which most Sony first party titles receive. This is unsurprising really as the first two God of War games for the Ps2 stood out as the high water mark of the hack ‘n slash genre. To put the potential fears of fans of the series to rest straight away let me say that GoW3′s core combat system is as good as that of the previous games. Perhaps though, this raises a problem in itself. With two really good hack ‘n slash games in its lineage, is it enough for God of War III to be a really good hack ‘n slash?

In reality the answer is probably yes. Unfortunately there is the sense that the developers themselves weren’t quite convinced. Even in the short running time of the demo, probably no more than 10-15 minutes in length, the game bombards you with a number of different mechanics to get Kratos from one fight to another. This wouldn’t have been a problem if these gimmicks, which range from platforming segments through to riding along a series of harpies (while stabbing them), felt as fluid as the combat itself. As it stands the game is constantly breaking you out of the moment for increasingly aggravating set-pieces that only highlight how much fun you were having. In one section, for instance, you have to use the recently detached head of Helios, god of the sun, to light a pitch-black path. This is about as much fun as it is in any other game that has tried it and I can only hope it doesn’t turn out to be a regular requirement throughout the game.

Because dark corridors are always fun!

As I’ve said, the combat that is present is both solid and enjoyable. This is mostly due to the control system and move list being imported wholesale from the previous games. On the one hand this ensures that series veterans will be able to get instant gratification from the the start but, by the same token, leaves everything feeling a bit too similar to what has gone before. Where the demo really starts to stand out are in the, admittedly small, new additions to the combat, such as a section that ends with you controlling a wildly thrashing cyclops to break up a tortoise formation of shielded guards. The true mark of this game will be its ability to provide enough interesting extensions to the well-established combat to keep the game feeling fresh.

This will feel instantly familiar to series' fans.

Also returning are the controversial quick-time events. To give God of War its due these have always at least been properly contextualised, with the buttons you are asked to press at least matching up to the actions they would normally correspond to if you did have full control. The death animations that underlie these events are unflinchingly brutal with minotaurs being eviscerated, a cyclops having his eye pulled out and Helios’ head being ripped from his body. Their appearance on the overlay, however, with each button appearing at the far side of the screen does mean you are often too distracted to actually see the action (much in the same way that the visuals in Rock Band et al. can only really be appreciated by those not participating).

Much of the processing power seems to have gone towards gore.

Overall the God of War experience remains relatively unchanged, with all the joys and annoyances that that brings. While it remains to be seen whether the developers can give enough diversity to the games’ combat and tighten up the non-combat sections it will undoubtedly be received well by fans and probably even draw in some newcomers. If the gameplay on offer in this demo is any reflection of the game as a whole, however, it may not quite be the classic that people seem to be expecting.

Uninvolved, you make calls with your head and not your heart, and you never feel like you can escape the gravitational pull of the game’s design the way you can in, for example, Bethesda’s RPGs.

-Oli Welsh, Eurogamer’s Dragon Age review.

I’ll not take umbrage with the many negative things Oli Welsh has said about Dragon Age as I haven’t played it. This statement, however, cannot go unchallenged. I can’t remember a game in which I spent more time having to account for the ‘pull of the game’s design’ than Oblivion. I still remember spending around 10 minutes jumping off a roof in order to improve my athletics skill and so get full rewards upon levelling up.  That was not a call made with my heart.