Stupid idea: Set up a Steam community with me as the admin responsible for setting up community events. The reason for this is I’m lazy and rubbish at organising things, as has been the case. My solution is sheer elegance in its lunacy.

From now on the ‘Schedule an event’ option is open to all members, new and old. If you’re looking for some extra people for a multiplayer game (TF2, Battlefield, The Ship) or one of the increasing number of co-op games (Left 4 Dead, Alien Swarm) then just schedule an event from the group page and the call will go out to everyone in the group to act on or ignore as they wish.

Obviously the system works better the more people the group has, which brings me to change two: I’m going to start downplaying the link between this site and the group. Essentially it strikes me as easier to get more people if they aren’t wondering why the hell they’re being invited to join a group for a small gaming blog somewhere out in the darker recesses of the Internet.

So, feel free to try out the system. I’ve no idea what games other members actually have, but between us we’re bound to have the main releases covered.

Clearly the free game route is the way to go for now, but after the month long Neptune’s Pride betrayal-a-thon it’s probably a good idea for the next community event to be a little (a lot) shorter. We’re in luck.

Alien Swarm is the newly released 4 player top-down shooter from Valve. It’s also completely free, just go to the Steam page to install it. Games are scheduled for tomorrow evening, just find me in game. If you stick something in this posts comments thread then I’ll invite you in when the game’s set up to make the process a little easier.

If you’re wondering how the game plays, imagine a co-op version of Shadowgrounds or one of around 600 million freeware games and you’d be in the right ballpark. Here’s a trailer to give you a taste. Short version: their are aliens, they come in swarms.

If you want to join our Steam community (now up to a dizzying 6 members!) here’s the page.

UPDATE: As an added incentive, if you complete two campaigns in Alien Swarm, you get a hat for Team Fortress 2. Any excuse to add new hats…

That’s right, I’ve been doing this shit for a year now! Hurrah! Actually it’s been 1 year and 18 days, but I always forget birthdays. So while I warm up the Celebratron-3000 for some super-fun-party-times, here’s a rundown of the highlights of the past year… and by highlights I mean “things I can still read without wanting to punch myself in the face.” Self-congratulation, go!

• The second ever post on the site, probably what tipped me over the edge into setting up a dedicated games blog in the first place, was about Braid’s hidden message on obsession.
• Shortly after that I ran out of topics for intelligent analysis, so instead wrote some shit about the first hour of a bunch of games. Here’s Jade Empire, which I hated, and Dawn of War 2, which I quite liked.
• A picture diary of my favourite Fallout 3 sidequest.
• A couple of weeks with Battlefield: Heroes got me thinking about snipers in online games. Conclusion: They’re bastards, but probably necessary bastards.
• Generally I manage to avoid flying into a rant about something I’ve seen on the Internet. Generally, but not always.
• Probably the weirdest game I’ve chosen to do an hour with post about. Pathologic.
• Some thoughts on character creation led to some interesting discussion in the comments thread. God bless you people, you do make the time spent writing this stuff seem worthwhile.
• The Bad Company 2 beta led to some of the tensest moments I’d felt in an online shooter for a long time. Here’s me attempting to capture that feeling.
• Highlight of the last year: Reckless Disregard for Gravity’s developers showing up in this post to say thanks!
• I’m not normally bothered about things like DRM. Ubisoft’s turned out to be an exception.
• Finally, my recent attempt at spending an hour with Red Faction Guerrilla turned out to be a worst-of of things that can wrong with PC gaming. It all turned out good in the end though.

So, it just remains for me to say thanks for reading the site. Here’s to another year!

A story: Once upon a time Runic Games released an action RPG called Torchlight. I bought this game through their website, feeling good about supporting the poor indie developers. I then noticed the kingdom of Steam had a version which included the magical Steam Cloud feature, perfect for a small game that can be played on notebooks and my parents’ PC. “Fuck,” thought I. One day the people at Steam had a sale and started selling Torchlight at a low, low price. I bought the game again.

Skip forward a few months and while exploring the wilderness of the Internet, ever watchful for trolls, I saw a message planted for all passers by. It read, “Torchlight keys now work with Steam.” “Fuck,” thought I. The End.

Yes, it turns out I’m an idiot. Luckily though, this idiocy can directly benefit you because I have a spare copy of Torchlight that can be activated through Steam. If you would like it just comment with something along the lines of, “Yes, I would like to gain rewards from your complete lack of patience and financial restraint you silly bastard.” Closing date is midnight on the 8th June, I’ll randomly pick a winner from any comments left.

If you want to know more about Torchlight then Rock, Paper, Shotgun has you covered.

A couple of months ago I recklessly started a Steam Community for the site. It’s probably about time I tried to set up a few games.

Problem: Of the current members there don’t seem to be many games in common that wouldn’t require many more people than we have.

Solution: Pick a free browser based game that everyone can access.

So I’m planning to set up a game of Neptune’s Pride, a free browser based multiplayer strategy game. The benefit of this particular game, besides the cost, is that it seems to have had most of the complexity of 4X strategy games stripped away in favour of diplomacy (and backstabbing) between players. And if you’re thinking “I don’t really play many strategy games so I’ll probably just be shit,” yeah, me too.

As for time investment: It’s a long form game taking place over weeks/months but because events occur so slowly you’re probably only going to need to drop in once a day for a few minutes to queue up moves and research. Although I am guessing here based on what I’ve read of it.

For a basic overview you can see the site’s introduction page here. For a more detailed look at what you’d be getting yourself involved in by signing up Rock, Paper, Shotgun did a game diary of a playthrough between them and PC Gamer here.

If you’re interested just put your name down in the comments thread of this post. Assuming enough people sign-up we’ll probably get started in a week or so.

City 16 has a Steam Community!

The ultimate goal of the community is to build a collection of people to chat and play some games in a relaxed, non-competitive environment. So join and start inviting some friends. They don’t even have to read the blog – that’s how non-committal I’m looking for this to be.

Join at: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/district16

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!

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?

Obviously this is a relatively personal question. I’m not saying you wont get chastised for your answers, just that the ‘IMHO’ element of the discussion should really be taken for granted. I’m also advertising this as a Top 10 but you should feel free to list as many, or as few, as you like.

To get things started here is my list, with descriptions slightly expanded from the original version I posted in the comments:

1. Baldur’s Gate 2 (PC) – I spent an entire summer playing this game almost exclusively. Unlike Baldur’s Gate 1, BG2 actually starts you in a huge city filled with sidequests and characters to interact with. In fact you can spend a huge portion of the game’s length not moving beyond the first chapter. I can’t think of anything to date that rivals it for sheer scale of content. The main story of BG1 is actually much better (BG2 had a pretty rubbish main villain with a stupid motivation) but BG2 not only had much better character interactions with your main party (as well as more varied combinations thanks to popular characters no longer being paired with rubbish ones) but was also a better polished game in almost every other respect.
2. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive) – The best of the 2D Sonic games and, therefore, the best platformer of all time. StH2 is such a tight game throughout that its hard to pick faults with. It also features this song which is a clear indication that it’s brilliant. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were both brilliant as well, but the second game was the purest distillation of the elements that made the series great and so that’s the one that gets picked.
3. Half-Life 2 (PC) – It took me ages to get round to playing this, mostly because throughout a large period of my life I assumed I didn’t like any first person shooters that weren’t Timesplitters 2. The great thing about the second Half-Life is Valve’s talent at creating set pieces and set ups that give a level an individual personality while still retaining their place in the overarching world. At this point it pretty much goes without saying that the Episodes are included in any HL2 vote as well even if Alyx’s increased personality makes Gordon’s muteness seem even more bizarre.
4. Final Fantasy VII (PS1) – I stand by my theory that FFX is technically a more accomplished game, but I love FFVII unreservedly from the train arriving at the mako reactor to Red XIII looking out over a decaying Midgar. It’s such an obvious choice, but it’s also an honest one. I’m playing through this again now so there’ll probably be a retrospective on it one day.
5. The Longest Journey/Dreamfall (PC) - One of the best realised stories in gaming, even though the first game falls foul of some puzzles that would, in any other adventure game, be unforgivable (yes, I’m talking about the duck). Despite preferring Dreamfall’s story, TLJ is clearly the better game. Also Crow sounds weird in Dreamfall.
6. Primal (PS2) – Probably the least deserving game on this list in terms of technical achievement and delivery. It nevertheless features a dark atmosphere, a balance between the forces of chaos and order and a soundtrack by 16 Volt. Basically it was laser-targeted for my tastes. I even have a friend who had the game’s logo tattooed on herself. It also has the only water level in any game yet made that isn’t terrible.
7. Metal Gear Solid (PS1) – I’ve enjoyed all the games of the series, at times despite the crazy shit Kojima feels he needs to include. The original one out because at the time it was genuinely new and exciting, as well as featuring a great nuclear proliferation inspired plot, which is at times genuinely chilling, realised before the series went completely batshit insane. That said, the ladder climbing sequence in MGS3 is easily the best moment in the series.
8. Hitman: Blood Money (PS2/PC) – I’ve loved the Hitman games since Silent Assassin, but it was Blood Money that really took the formula to its logical conclusion. The primary improvement is levels now allow you to mingle in amongst the public in certain areas allowing for a greater degree of planning before moving into restricted areas.
9. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee (PS1/PC) – Dark, charming and funny, the two Abe’s Oddworld games were a great mix of puzzling and platforming. I’ve been captivated ever since, as a child, I possessed a slig and ran him into a mincing machine.
10. World of Goo (PC) – The newest game on the list. Generally I shied away from more modern games as I’ve no idea how much they’ll resonate with me in the future. World of Goo, however, is easily my favourite puzzle game and deserves inclusion.

If we get enough people sending through their lists (unlikely, but I can dream) then I’ll collect them together and create an official City 16 Top 10 using complicated formulas! In the meantime feel free to add your lists, and comment on the lists of others. Maybe you can explain to me, in very simple words, why Primal isn’t the sixth greatest game of all time.