City 16

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game?

That’s your title?

Just appending The Game after a colon screams shitty cobbled together movie cash-in to anyone who’s had to suffer through 20+ years of shitty cobbled together movie cash-ins. Way to paint your game as the next tier of a synergistic marketing campaign dickheads.

Especially when your game is actually good.

That’s because Scott Pilgrim vs. The Game (which is what it should have been called) draws as much inspiration from gaming’s past as it does from the comic series/movie it’s based on; the lazy reference point in fact being River City Ransom or, for those of us who didn’t own a NES, Streets of Rage. Scott must fight his way through seven 2.5D levels, defeating the boss (evil-ex) at the end of each. You do this with the aid of two attack buttons, a block and a jump, with a further two special moves that deplete your ‘guts’ points. Bish, bash and indeed bosh.

Importantly, despite the pixel art graphics and chiptune audio, this is no mere recreation or even parody of the side scrolling beat ‘em up, both of which being styles that tend to slavishly recreate all the flaws inherent within their chosen genre. It’s an homage (Edgar Wright would be proud) to gaming’s past, leaving it free to modernise key systems to try and remove some of the flaws and annoyances found in those early titles.

The most obvious of these is a levelling system. Those of you who may decry the needless addition of character levelling to any game as a cynical attempt to artificially create replayability will be reassured to know that it’s just as pointless here. Killing enemies grants XP which unlocks extra moves. Most of the moves feel like they should have been there from the beginning, with only a few of the latter ones feeling like they add advanced tactics to the combat.

More successful is the upgrade system. Killed enemies drop coins which can be used at the shops littered throughout the game to buy items. As well as recharging your health and guts points these items can also upgrade Scott or one of the three other initial characters in strength, speed, willpower and defence. It means that even failed attempts to complete a level are rewarded as your character’s stats are persistent meaning any money earned on that run will carry over to your next attempt, bringing you closer to another upgrade to aid progress.

This reduction of frustration is one of the triumphs of the game. Unlike its old-school forbearers, SPvTW:TG’s only punishment for losing all lives is to be kicked back to the start of that level, not the entire game. Levels also aren’t timed, leaving you free to explore and, more importantly, nip back to a shop to recoup your health, without ever feeling the need to recklessly hurray forward before you run out of time. These are essential changes because, initially at least, it’s a bloody difficult game.

The result of this is the game is an absolute joy to play, evoking for a certain segment of gamers the warm nostalgia of biffing your way through unlikely streets full of adversaries without providing the stark realisation that gaming was hard as fuck back in those days. It’s also chock full of references to gaming’s past from graffiti on the walls right through to specific character animations, all of which are nestled against the Toronto hipster-scene setting of the comic to provide a game that feels strangely modern in all its reminiscence.

Wherein lies a problem. This clash between retro gaming and the original comic series may as well have been laser targeted for me, especially as I also know enough about the chiptune scene to freak out slightly on hearing Anamanaguchi were doing the (brilliant) soundtrack. If you’re in a similar position then the game is essential and chances are you’ve already bought it. Can it be recommended to those unfamiliar with the source material though? In some respects yes, as the majority of references are passive and limited to inconsequential things like ancillary characters lining the street or the fact that the only 1-up earned in open play comes from defeating the third boss.

It’s fun either way and the majority of the plot is eschewed for visual touches, like the dialogue which is replaced with text message-esque emoticons. My flatmate, who has no knowledge of the series, has enjoyed numerous co-op sessions only occasionally stopping to ask why his special move was a 17 year old Chinese girl who grants his character health by snogging her. Presentation aside it’s a clear genre piece and it’s that which should inform how much enjoyment you’ll get from the game and not whether you understand why the high score screen is titled “The Best 24 Year Old Ever!”

• IF I enjoyed ir/rational THEN I will write a post about it.
• I am writing a post about ir/rational.
• THEREFORE I enjoyed ir/rational.

ir/rational is a short game by Tom Jubert, writer for the Penumbra series. It’s short. It’s free. You should probably play it. Not good enough? Maybe a can make a rational argument to persuade you.

• This is a gaming blog.
• IF you are reading this blog THEN you are interested in games.
• ir/rational is a game.
• THEREFORE you should play ir/rational.

Now for the less rational (irrational?) stuff. ir/rational is a text based puzzle game. It requires you to use propositional calculus to solve an increasingly complex series of arguments. This is actually a lot less daunting than it sounds. Once I’d grasped the concept, initially struggling through the first couple of puzzles, I became a lot better at seeing the logical patterns for the subsequent, supposedly trickier, levels. This isn’t a criticism of the game however. It doesn’t become easier, later levels do require a lot more working out, it’s just trains you to think through your argument before clicking that big Continue button. It’s a tactic that can be evidenced in all great puzzle games, minimising the frustration to the player and instead letting them feel the thrill of successfully solving problems.

Around the framework of these logic puzzles hangs an almost playfully dark and humorous story. Your character wakes up with no memory of what has gone before in a room with no discernible exit. While the set up may sound familiar to anyone who has played an escape-the-room webgame, it doesn’t take long for ir/rational to announce its own unique style.

The interesting thing about the story is that the character you play would be, in most situations, entirely unlikeable. His almost faultless application of logic and and general angry sarcasm make him… Well let’s just say that, before the memory loss, I doubt he was invited to many parties. In pitting him against an entity of pure logic, however, it allows the character’s humanity to shine through, highlighting the battle of wits between the two. It’s an interesting angle that keeps the story element interesting throughout the game.

I’m now in danger of spending longer writing about it than I did playing it (it really is quite short) so, in summary, ir/rational is a fun and interesting little puzzle game. Check it out.

It turns out that when you’ve not been able to play the games you wanted to write blog posts about because you’ve spent the week playing a different game, you should write a blog post about that instead. Logic! With that startling revelation comes a new featurette, Mega Bites: shorter posts about games that, while good, don’t need huge walls of text devoted to them.

Reviews of Katamari Forever*, the next game in the series that sets you in the role of the son of the King of All Cosmos and tasks you with using a magical ball to roll up items in order to create ‘stars’, seem to have focused on a couple of issues:

You see, for all the silliness, Katamari Damacy was at heart a didactic condemnation of the developed world’s rampant consumerism. Takahashi never wanted to make another Katamari game. Not only had his point been made elegantly by the first game, but also the core idea had been fully explored.

-Simon Parkin, Eurogamer

Rolling a katamari is as charming as ever, but you may have rolled most of these katamaris before.

-Gamespot

The first point is easy enough to address: Takahashi made a sequel thus fully opening the doors to the series expansion into a franchise. The second is a little more complex, but in my opinion, still somewhat unfair. Named Katamari Tribute in Japan, Forever is essentially an HD re-make of levels from the previous games. I may be starting to sound like the traditional ‘fanboy railing against the mean journalists’ here, but it seems unfair to criticise KF for re-hashing old levels when it’s entire purpose is a greatest hits of the series to date. You don’t criticise a band’s Best Of compilation for using previously recorded material.

As with previous games the final few levels reach a ridiculous scale.

That gripe aside, Katamari Forever breaks down like this: For newcomers to the series it is, pretty much, an essential purchase. Katamari remains a brilliant concept and, unsurprisingly, it’s as fun as ever here. Series veterans, however, will have to weigh up whether the game adds enough new twists to justify the asking price**.

There’s certainly a lot of content on offer. Each level can have up to four different modes in which it can be played. The Endless mode, which allows Katamari’s to be rolled independent of time constraints, is a feature so obvious it’s staggering this is its first inclusion. The soundtrack has also had some attention, consisting of some excellent remixes of previous songs in the series (and some that make you pine for the originals to be included). While not the most visually stunning game you’ll ever see, the graphics are charming and, as with everything on offer here, in keeping with previous games. Of special note is the filter applied the first time you play through a level in the King’s memory: at first everything is black and white, with colour returning to any object in the level that matches something you have already rolled. Not only is this a nice visual representation of the story but also a helpful gameplay mechanic highlighting potential routes that would be beneficial to your growing size.

On successive level playthroughs different graphical filters can be selected.

Some will argue that there still isn’t enough new content to make the game worthwhile, and that’s fair enough. For me, especially after the deluge of ultra-violent, ultra-murky (I’m looking at you Prototype) games I’ve played recently, the passive, peaceful atmosphere of Katamari Forever has been exactly the game I’ve wanted to indulge in over the last week.

*On browsing some of the review summaries from Metacritic I noticed one that read, “Katamari Forever is the penultimate game in the series thus far”. Hey, Metacritic: How about you don’t count the opinion of people who don’t know what penultimate means?

**Actually, don’t pay the asking price which is a staggering £45 RRP. It’s available, with a little digging online, for about 20 notes, a much more reasonable price.