City 16

As I’m now home with my family, and have assorted brothers and sisters ranging in age from 6 to 18, I was woken up hours ago by an excitable dog that had been let into all the rooms of people so heartless as to not be up at 6am on Christmas day. At least I assume that is what’s happened going on past experience. I actually wrote this days ago, but Tuesday is a much less Christmassy time to talk about.

On to business. My choice of the best game of 2009 might raise a few eyebrows. I was surprised… I double checked with myself twice but, as I reconfirmed both times, I have enjoyed my time in that game more than any other of 2009.

So, without any more stalling for tension, my favourite game of the year was… Drum roll please…

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Was:

Borderlands

Well, how about that?

So, having idly browsed a few top 10s over the last couple of days I’ve noticed that Boderlands tends to come mid-table. Most state that the RPG elements are underdeveloped, that the lack of a central place to stash your weapons is a crime, that the enemy AI isn’t paticularly advanced and that the story is rubbish. These things are all true.

I don’t care.

Borderlands took hold of me the same way that Torchlight took hold of other people (that’s not to say Torchlight won’t get me, I’ve just not played it enough to give it a chance yet). Here’s the extent to which I enjoyed Borderlands: As soon as I’d completed it I went to the menu screen and started the Playthrough 2 campaign because, as far as I was concerned, I hadn’t completed it. There was still levelling to be done.

Let’s break it down into components. Firstly a note on graphics. Borderlands approaches from the opposite school of Uncharted 2. It’s not a technically impressive looking game but, thanks to its cell-shaded-but-not visual style it is a good looking game. It realises that looking interesting is just as valid as looking amazing. It’s hard to underline just how vital that is; the world of Pandora is an exceedingly brown place and without that visual flair it could have easily been dismissed as another characterless shooter.

Borderlands is certainly not short of character. While the story may be lacking it’s the character of Pandora, and the characters within it, that make the world. They’re not believable but they are consistent which does, at least, make you believe in them. An example (slightly spoilerish): When Tannis betrays you towards the end of the game by sending you on a pointless errand to kill Krom she justifies it by saying that, while she had been forced to, it seemed like the sort of thing your character would enjoy doing anyway. It fit perfectly with the unhinged logic Tannis demonstrated throughout the game. There are other touches of humour sprinkled throughout that add to the game’s style; the manic depressive Claptraps (Gir rip-offs though they may be), the boss intros, anything related to TK Baha. Even outside of the world, the game is pleasingly keen to not take itself seriously, as evidenced with the large bold LEVEL UP! message that covers the screen whenever you level up.

The game sold itself as an RPS (a rocket propelled… no, wait, role playing shooter). Nothing particularly unusual about that these days, but where Borderlands really stands out is that, unlike games such as Fallout 3, it’s the shooter element that is made the key focus. Given the abstract nature of some of the gun power-ups (electricity, acid and so forth) the feedback you get from the gun is surprising. It’s tactile enough that I was usually able to tell if a certain gun was better than my current set without having to compare the stats. Enemies have enough variation to their critical hit areas to keep the combat interesting: Skags take critical damage when you shoot them in the mouth, forcing you to wait for them to attack and trying to finish them off while they leap towards you, whereas Spiderants critical zone is the abdomen, requiring you to stun them head on then circle round to attack them from behind. Sure, the AI doesn’t really show much intelligence, even the humans don’t make use of cover to any extent, but the game doesn’t want you to engage in a war of attrition; it wants you to run into a pack of respawning enemies and, if you’ll forgive the expression, fuck shit up.

The guns are probably the games best feature. During your first playthrough you’ll probably find just one orange-class rare weapon drop. These generally do something crazy, like shoot electric cannons, fire rockets or give infinite ammo. It also makes you want more, drawing you back in to try that second playthrough and see what other mysterious combinations exist. The game basically functions like the best dungeon crawling action RPGs, with weapon drops falling fast enough that you’re constantly looking out for something even better for your character to use. You’ll probably develop a favourite class of weapon, mine was shotguns, but at any point you could come across an assault rifle so powerful that you’re again asked to significantly shift the way you play as you adopt that as a primary weapon. It is a shame that you can’t store weapons that you don’t have room for. Being forced to sell the gun that, while is no longer useful to you, got you through the first few levels of the game kind of goes against the point of being an RPG (although it looks like the next DLC pack does rectify this).

The game received criticism for other ways in which it toned down its RPG elements, specifically criticising the similarity of the characters. I never found this to be much of a problem, although this is mostly because I was playing as Lilith, whose action skill is probably the most unlike the others. While the second player might have circled the outside of a camp, picking off enemies bit by bit, I would be running straight for the centre. There I’d trigger the action skill, turning me invisible and dealing massive corrosive damage. I’d then run past each enemy adding electric damage as I moved past them (while healing my own damage) before, finally, meleeing the final enemy, once again triggering a huge burst of corrosive damage as I shifted back into the world. At this point the first guy would die and Lilith’s Phoenix upgrade would kick in, dealing fire damage to anyone in proximity to her. It’s rare that an invisibility skill is used for anything other than sneaking past enemies. Having the chance to use it as a powerful offensive weapon really gave the combat a level of mad tactics I’ve yet to experience in any other shooter.

All these things combine to make Borderlands great fun to play. The reason it sits at number 1, however, is that it understands the need for local co-op. Too many games seem to put their entire stake in online multiplayer, forgetting that games can be an inclusive social activity. Borderlands gives you that option and it was for that reason alone that my flatmate and I spent much of the month it was released realising that we’d just lost 4 hours in the world of Pandora.

It’s all over! Thanks for reading these assorted thoughts on my 10 favourite games. Feel free, as always, to suggest why I’m clearly wrong and to give the games you think I’ve heinously missed. I should also take some time to thank GameTrailers, as I’ve used some of the trailers on their site to get screencaps for games I didn’t own on PC.

My method for this was simple: don’t read other sites’ end of year lists… Out of sight, out of mind and all that. I’m starting to think Coren was on to something when he said he did these lists at the end of the academic year. At least you don’t then have to compete with the whole of the Internet (I am aware that I’m not actually competing with everyone, or even anyone, on the Internet mental health fans).

Anyway, I’ll stop with the mad hysteria, there’s more than enough of that in my pick for the 2nd best game of the year:

Batman: Arkham Asylum

(Oh yeah, pulled it out of the bag at the last minute. I am getting good at this!)

This was a pretty late addition as I didn’t get around to playing it until the weekend before compiling this list. It’s rare that I complete a game over the course of one weekend and Arkham Asylum isn’t even particularly short. Yeah, it’s that good.

In Arkham Asylum you play as Batman. That might seem like an obvious statement but in Arkham Asylum you play as Batman. So few superhero games capture the feeling of actually being a superhero. Infamous managed it. Batman’s one of the only licensed examples I can think of that has managed. A key point that lends to this feeling: enemies are terrified of you. On the sections that require you to move from improbably placed indoor gargoyle to gargoyle they’ll start huddling together, complaining and generally acting like they’ll jump at the sight of their own shadow. They never actually run away, they’re far more scared of the Joker than of you, but its a nice touch to help you feel like you’ve actually stepped into the shoes of a legend.

There’s an interesting mix of styles that run through the game. Rooms are generally split into either biffing or stealthing rooms. The stealthing rooms, with the aforementioned gargoyles, give you a room full of armed guards and let you plan your method of taking them down. There are a wealth of options to let you achieve this, although I inevitably ended up hanging from a gargoyle and grabbing a baddie from above. You know, because it looked cool.

So there’s a lot of emphasis on stealth but, unusually for games, Batman’s also pretty tasty in a fight because, well, you know, he’s Batman. When you come across a group of unarmed guards you’ve got a series of moves for dealing with the situation. It’s here the game really shines as the fighting isn’t reliant on ultra-precise timing. There’s a lot of computer assistance, but you’re still required to read the situation: guards about to attack need to be countered, guards with knives need to be stunned before attack, guards with stun guns need to be vaulted over so you can attack from behind. It’s pretty easy to pick up, but takes a lot of practice before you start racking up the big combos.

These two different styles are the reason Batman works. He’s silent yet powerful; patient yet immediate; graceful yet… Wait, this paragraphs getting a bit erotic… You get the point.

Other elements of the game are slightly less consistent. Take the Scarecrow sections. The tone of the game is pretty dark, more Dark Knight than Adam West. At certain points through the story you’re hit with Scarecrows fear gas, at which point the game starts a creepy interactive cutscene looking at Batman’s deepest fears (his parents’ deaths, the fact he’s as crazy as the crazy guys, etc.) These are really good; both atmospheric and tense. Unfortunately they always end in a crappy platforming section in which you must navigate around a giant, rotating Scarecrow trying to avoid his gaze. It’s a shitty denouement to what could have been some of the game’s standout moments.

Actually all the boss fights are crap.

Still, they’re just the odd mark on an otherwise spotlessly polished vessel. It’s hard to think of another game that so flawlessly captures the tone of its source material.

Final point: Why does Oracle, Who’s on voice comms helping Batman throughout the game, insist on calling him Bruce? Doesn’t she know the first rule of communications in field ops? Callsigns only, dammit woman!

Tomorrow may be Christmas day but, more importantly, it’s also the day that I reveal my favourite game of 2009. Ok, so you’re more excited about this Christmas thing…

Hopefully we’re done with zombies for a while now. It’s time for a new enemy to emerge. I’m hoping for rabid monkeys myself.

Except we’re not quite finished with zombies yet, because at number 3 is:

Plants vs. Zombies

Um…

Okay, this is a little awkward. Really I should be throwing some of my most detailed and enthusiastic praise behind the games in the Top 3. Unfortunately, I’ve said most of what I would have said about Plants vs. Zombies in this post from back in July. Actually it’s a little bit concerning that this is the really the first game in this list that I’d actually had a detailed look at… What the hell have I been writing about these last few months?

In that last post I mentioned just how much there was to do in the game, and just how much content there was left for me to experience. Typically, a few days after posting it, I was done with the game. I hadn’t completed it by any means, in fact I don’t think I ever even unlocked Endless Survival, which seemed to be where many people really put the hours in. Instead I just seemed to reach a natural conclusion; the point at which I’d had my measure of the game and was ready to move on. Maybe I’ll go back to it one day. I probably won’t.

Still PvZ took up the majority of my summer, even running in the background while I was elsewhere, leaving my snail to gather gold from my virtual garden, making it the only game I’ve ever played in which I’ve gold farmed. The reason for such an obsession? If I had to choose I’d cite the wealth of options you had to complete each level.

Unlike PixelJunk Monsters (itself a stripped down version of the tower defense formula), which requires the right units to be placed in exact positions to have any hope of success, Plants vs. Zombies may have units that are better suited to a particular level but just as important are personal preference and experimentation. The game is never so difficult as to force you to use an optimum build and so lets you try things at your own pace. It provides a challenge, certainly on some of the mini games, but that challenge is never insurmountable.

When I wrote about AaaaaA! I mentioned how well the developers had been able to take their idea and run with it; producing a wealth of ideas that intrinsically fit within the concept of the game (actually I don’t think I did write that, but I’m sure I implied it… I meant to). PvZ has this in spades, every single element fitting around the framework of the initial idea. From the almanac, complete with plant and zombie descriptions, to Crazy Dave and his car boot right through to the little notes the zombie’s leave you between chapters. It remains charming throughout, possibly the only zombie game of the year that was, all in all, thoroughly nice.

It’s this sheer personality that actually lead to some of the more interesting ‘tactical’ decisions. Sure the Cat-Tails might be out and out the most powerful plant in the game but choosing it would mean dropping the potato masher, which explodes with a nice Kapow! Do you choose function or favour? Well, actually, you choose both which is what leads to you pursuing the upgrades to the number of plants you can hold and thus dipping into the games side modes.

The Zen Garden is useful, but requires daily attention so only viable for those really in the grasp of obsession. Luckily there are plenty of ways to earn money outside of that, with plenty of puzzles and mini games waiting for you. The I, Zombie mode is what seemed to garner the most praise, pitting you as the zombies against a crop of (cardboard) plants. My real favourite, however, was the Vasebreaker mode – a pleasing mix of random chance and tactical planning. The best moments came when you hit open a vase to reveal an exploding jack-in-the-box zombie, which in turn cracked open more before you were soon overrun and breaking open all the vases in the desperate hope that you’d come across some more plants. That mode perfectly captured the fine line between feeling in control and blind panic… And it was just a small mini-game aside from the main adventure.

At this point I’ve probably mined the depths of what I can actually say about the game. Some key points: It’s good, you should buy it. Now I’m going to take heed of one of the game’s primary lessons and finish on a song.

Tomorrow: Things get penultimate.

Considering the paranoid of the world have all of 2012 to go crazy with their delusional theories can I propose a moratorium on end of the world theories until at least the tail end of 2011? It’s just, we’ve been putting up with this shit pretty much constantly since the Y2K thing… Is it not time for a break.

Also not of world ending significance in 2009: The release of my 4th favourite game of the year:

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Yeah, so this one was inevitable. The trend seems to be for putting Uncharted 2 in the top spot among most game of the year lists. It nearly didn’t make mine. When I was shortlisting games for inclusion Uncharted 2 was nearly disqualified for the many things it does wrong: mostly for being bloody frustrating. Okay, that’s not a particularly helpful phrase, but then the line between frustrating and challenging is a pretty fine one; it usually comes down to, when you do die, are you shouting obscenities at yourself or the game?

Death in Uncharted 2 often doesn’t feel like your fault but, rather, the game not being entirely clear what it expects of you. It doesn’t help that a lot of the platforming is computer assisted. You may see a platform that experience teaches you there was no way Drake could reach, but because its the right way he seems to leap that extra distance. In other places jumps that seem perfectly reasonable cause you to plummet to your death – It was the wrong way. Also there are times when the combat feels more like a puzzle than an action game with you being forced to use trial-and-error to find the right cover location and the right combination of weapons to clear a room of the myriad of soldiers with perfect aim.

So I’ve complained about the game’s faults more than any other on my list, mostly because most sites seem to want you to believe it’s perfect when it isn’t. Really, though, I was just being petulant; when I finally decided that it did deserve inclusion and was looking at its placing it just kept creeping up the list. It helps that what it does well it does really well.

Let’s start with the technical achievement. It almost seems like a taboo to talk about how good a game looks as we keep telling ourselves that graphics aren’t important.True as this may be it doesn’t stop Uncharted 2 from looking absolutely stunning. Even aside from how nice it is to have a third-person action game not be afraid to use a little colour (and with the natural lighting that colour really washes through unlike, say, the last Tomb Raider which was colourful yet somewhat sterile) it’s the little details in the world that really bring it to life. The technical competence of its implementation is also something of a marvel. Killzone 2 may have had a level set on a moving train but that train ride took place exclusively in one long, grey tunnel. Uncharted 2′s moving train chapter is in the mountains. You’d stop and gawp if there weren’t so many people shooting at you.

The characters are almost certainly worthy of praise. Nolan North’s Drake remains a likable lead and here he gets a few extra secondary characters to trade lines with. The story’s nothing special: a few betrayals here, an evil Russian there and an artifact of immense power. That’s fine, it’s an homage to the adventure films of the past and, thankfully, the voice acting really lends pathos to the characters. After a while you actually start to care about them, a rare feat in a relatively short, linear action game.

Then there’s the pacing, probably some of the best I’ve seen outside of a Valve game. There’s a reason everyone raved about the section, about halfway through the game, in which you just wonder through a Nepalese village and just exist for a few minutes, wandering around and interacting with the locals (whose language you can’t speak). It’s a much needed breather after escaping a train wreck and then taking out waves of armed soldiers. The game’s final fight with these anonymous henchman is also probably one of the most adrenaline inducing parts of the game as near endless hordes flood into the room forcing you to make perilous runs to that gun your sure someone dropped over here… oh crap, no they didn’t… Jesus, where’s a shotgun when you need one.

That said, the final boss fight is, predictably, rubbish.

The Top 3 are nearly upon us. Tomorrow: when shit gets real.

Really enjoy it actually. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Battlefield games, despite never having played any of the main series entries. Battlefield 1943 took many of these elements (it’s essentially a remake of the PC-only 1942) and distilled them down into pure online shooter crack-cocaine. That it managed to be so compulsive without investing in the current trend of MMO style character investment, en vogue with the FPS since CoD4, is a testament to its focus and, thus, accessibility.

Compare it to the year’s other Battlefield release, the free PC online shooter Battlefield Heroes. A similarly stripped down version of the traditional online shooter, Heroes made players look to the long haul; earning points to buy weapons, leveling up to upgrade skills, completing challenges for bonuses and spending cash pounds to make your avatar an individual. One of these two games wasn’t very compelling (Hint: It’s the one this post isn’t about).

The difference was immediacy (well, that and Heroes was genuinely a bit rubbish). To gain any headway in Heroes you had to be prepared to be a higher level player’s bitch while you started to gather the elements that would make you competitive. Not so with 1943 in which everyone had access to the same equipment right from the start.

There were plenty of criticisms at the dumbing down of the franchise, but it was clear that this was never meant to be an indication of the direction of the franchise. It was an experiment in download-only multiplayer content for the console market. Many things were trimmed down or tweaked to make the experience simpler and more streamlined. Regenerating health negated the need for a medic class and regenerating ammo meant the assault class was also out. Despite this the game never felt diminished because what was left in more than made for a tense online battle.

Take the classes, which were a masterful lesson in rock, paper, scissors design. The infantry class had an inaccurate primary weapon but carried an RPG, making it invaluable against a tank assault, and the ability to repair vehicles; the rifleman’s gun was accurate and could cut down soldiers in a couple of shots, but had a small clip and no anti-tank measures; the sniper was powerful against soldiers at a distance and tanks up close, through use of C4, but was ineffective at mid-range. Whether you played on foot as your chosen class or jumped straight into a vehicle you were constantly forced to assess your survival odds going into any situation.

It’s also a surprisingly good looking game given the modest download size, the Japanese islands providing some of the most colourful locales of the year’s FPS offerings, and the carnage as buildings collapse, planes fall out of the sky and tanks explode around you is simply joyous.

It would have been nice to have some more than the three maps available (seriously DICE, not even any DLC?) but even now, months later, I find myself dropping in for a few rounds far more often than I have been with the attention-hogging Modern Warfare 2.

Better than the 7th best game of 2009 but worse than the 5th? That’ll be #6 in our countdown then, revealed tomorrow.

Luckily Zeno Clash not only makes fighting your foes a simple and engaging process, but offers just enough depth to keep things interesting throughout the, admittedly short, campaign. On top of the move-set itself you’ll gain access to various weapons throughout the game, both melee and, yes, firearms. Instead of moving towards the traditional corridor shooting gallery feel of most FPS games though (including genre subverting Mirror’s Edge during its ‘off bits’), these weapons are just there to add an extra element to the fisticuffs, disabling most of your abilities and leaving you wondering just when to abandon them and jump into the fight. Make no mistake, punching people remains the focus throughout (well, with the exception of one on-rails rifle section). All this would count for nothing without feedback from your actions giving the combat some weight. Characters reel back from hits and the sound effects are amplified so you can really feel each thwack as it blasts out of your speakers.

So the well thought out combat makes the game enjoyable. What makes the game memorable is the world of Zenozoik itself. It’s full of wonderfully surreal design touches that add great character. Take something as simple as the pistols. They look like the bizarre organic pistols from the film eXistenZ, except made of fish. As you move through the game you’ll be constantly looking forward to the new characters you’ll meet (and punch) and the locations you’ll visit. The story is strong enough to be able to weave its tale without ever feeling the need to draw attention to its more fantastical elements.

That’s not to say that the story isn’t also mad as nuts. Ghat, the player character, starts the game on the run from his family after killing Father-Mother (his aptly named hermaphrodite parent). Through flashbacks and conversations with his ever present companion Deadra you start to learn about Father-Mother’s dark secret. Also Ghat’s rather large family of brothers and sisters are now trying to kill him. Also he’s heading towards the forests of the insane Corwid, amongst whom he used to live. It’s very likely he is still pretty insane.

This was an impressive debut release from the small indie studio Ace Team. Short and incredibly focused it rarely drops the ball in terms of pace or style. The team have talked about revisiting their original plan for the game and creating an RPG set in the world of Zenozoik. After the taster they have given us this year I can’t help but hope they really can deliver on such an ambitious idea.

What could be my 7th favourite game of the year? It could be absolutely anything. Except the three games already listed. Or the three I’ve admitted won’t make it. Or Ghostbusters: The Video Game, because it was shit. Still, aside from them it could be absolutely anything. Find out tomorrow.