LA Noire Review

My review of LA Noire has been published at Game Kudos. I found the game to be equal parts outstanding and disappointing. Overall, the technological achievements and the main game mechanics make for an excellent interactive gaming experience, however, the choice to root the game in Rockstar’s familiar formula of 3^rd person GTA style open world exploration detracts from an otherwise excellent adventure.

I think LA Noire could be a contender for game of the year but, unfortunately, I believe the game – as good as it is – promised so much more.

Move over DualShock? Killzone 3’s motion control integration

Motion control gaming’s recent rise to prominence raises questions about the future of gaming interface and the lifespan of the traditional controller. Whenever a new technology is developed advocates rush to pronounce it as the way forward for…whatever, and denounce that which came before it as obsolete, or at best, past its heyday. But should we be so quick to turn away from our trusty traditional interface with the video games’ world?

At a Eurogamer Expo developer session in October, Guerrilla Games’ Steven Ter Heide demonstrated the upcoming FPS Killzone 3’s optional Move integrated control system. “Move, for us, is an option, obviously there’ll be DualShock lovers and there will certainly be people out there who want to play this with the Move controller.” He began demonstrating the Move controlled play-through by tracing his controller across the screen, showing how weapon targeting follows the point of the controller. When pointing at the extremities of the screen the camera began to follow, slowly. Ter Heide was quick to point out that the speed of camera movement, along with a lot of Move controller related options, are entirely customisable to the players preferences.

The motion controlled play-through of the game underwent heavy play testing to find out exactly what it was that players were looking for with this interface. “The book hasn’t been written yet on Move controls and what they need to do…there’s a lot of stuff we have to figure out.” As Move has all of the buttons that DualShock has, they can still be used to complement the motion controlled experience, but Guerrilla are attempting to enhance that with the integration of gestures, “This icon on the screen now indicates that I need to reload, and I can do this by just a quick twist of the wrist. We find this has an advantage in the fluidity of the gameplay.” demonstrated Ter Hide. Other functions such as gesturing the controller toward the player serve to pick up usable weapons. Having listened to fan feedback, Guerrilla have included the ability to carry more than one primary weapon in Killzone 3, using the D-Pad switches between them.

The feel of the demonstration was such that the developers seemed to be trying to find reasons to use motion control, and running into more than just a few problems doing so. Ter Heide highlighted this with an example of how grenades are thrown in Killzone 3, “You’d expect everybody to throw a grenades like this [demonstrates throwing motion] because it’s a natural motion, but as you can see what happens on the screen is that the camera starts rotating and I don’t see where the grenade lands.” Guerrilla’s solution here is to have the grenade throwing function relegated to a button push.

The test of motion control versus regular controller systems may come in their integration; can players compete in multiplayer with the different control methods on a level footing? In a modern, fast paced FPS, one that holds the draw of multiplayer at its heart, a multiple control system, player vs. player needs vigorous play testing, so says Ter Heide, “Move is available for multiplayer too, and right now we are doing a lot of play testing to find out whether we can have Move players in the same game as DualShock players.” Although he admitted that the new system is lagging behind, “Our core QA guys have grown up with DualShock and they’re very well versed in that and run circles around the Move players.” He added that choice of control method may become a basis of rivalry: “At some point I think it’s going to turn into your snow boarders versus your skiers, whether you’re a DualShock player or a Move player.”

A balancing act may be required if multi-control method multiplayer is to become a reality. Notwithstanding the camera control issues discussed earlier, certain functions of the game mechanics are unique to Move, Ter Heide explained “Because we now have auto-lock [with Move] we need to find out if we can rebalance that and see how that works.” Guerrilla aim to test a public beta of the multiplayer game, and to decide from that whether or not to separate DualShock from Move players.

From the demo at the developer session, Guerrilla Games has shown that big name developers are actively working to integrate peripheral devices into traditional game genres and top titles. Time will tell whether the experiment will work, but based on what I saw at the session - and my own preferences for game controllers - the Move integration appears to me to be a gimmick, more of a Wii Party toy than a serious gaming tool. It looks to have created problems in the developing process rather than having solved any great flaw in the current and well proven method of controlling an FPS game. Perhaps Guerrilla will prove me wrong.

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This article was written for Game Kudos and this is the third draft. The finalised piece in its edited format can be seen here.

If typewriting monkeys can do it, so can I…

I started this blog exactly one year ago this month. My aim was to portfolio my writing in the hope of making a career of it one day. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing in my spare time and interacting with those who comment here and follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Thanks largely to the existence of this blog I have been writing for other sites (mainly Game Kudos) for over 6 months now. Next week I am to get my first taste of “real” journalism. The good people at Game Kudos have arranged a press pass for me to the Eurogamer Expo taking place in London’s Earl’s Court next weekend.

Eurogamer is one the UK’s largest video games expos and is expected to draw 20,000 visitors over the course of the 3-day event. With big name developers displaying upcoming titles such as Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Dead Space 2, Fifa 11, Fallout: New Vegas and Dragon Age 2 - to name but a few - there will doubtless be plenty for me to cut my teeth on. My Director is in the process of organising appointments and interviews and my Editor-in-Chief has spent some time imparting words of wisdom to help me prepare for my baby-steps into the world of video games journalism.

Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m far from a fully-fledged games journalist, but I see next weekend as a first major step on that road. I still have a lot to prepare and reams of research to read through prior to my first appointments, but I can honestly say that I am excited to be going. I’m aware that it won’t be fun, not in the traditional sense anyway. I’ll be there to work, not play, and despite this I’m certain I’m going to enjoy it. If nothing else, the Eurogamer Expo will serve as an invaluable experience and one I hope I'll look back on fondly.

After the event I’ll write here about my experiences and, of course, link all of the stories I’ll be writing for Game Kudos. For now, I must get back to my research. If the old saying is true and I work hard enough and type for long enough perhaps I’ll produce Shakespeare, or at least a decent game preview.

Golf and War, together at last…

As promised, I’m linking up the reviews and articles that I have had published at other sites. Today’s selection comes from Game Kudos.

I recently reviewed Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 on the Xbox 360. The full review is at the link, but the short version is:

A great golfing game; simply the best golf simulator I have ever played. The clever use of the analogue control system gives the player a level of “feel” and control usually only experienced in golf games on the Wii. Accurately rendered courses, largely great visuals (with a couple of below par aspects) and immersive gameplay. Clever XP system for character building that almost takes the game into the realms of an RPG. Ryder Cup mode gives the game an extra sense of competition and career mode will ensure game longevity. PGA Tour 11 has a superb selection of online game modes and competitions with up to 24 player multiplayer team matches. If you like golf, you’ll love this; if you don’t, you won’t.

Overall Score: 8.2/10

I also wrote a review of an older game, Call of Duty: World at War. Again, full version of the review is at the link, short version:

Good addition to the Call of Duty series. Familiar CoD game mechanics and graphically similar to Modern Warfare, World at War takes the series back to its WW2 roots. New “occlusion” sound technology creates a more immersive experience due to sound muffling (thick walls muffle sounds more than thin) and players can tell if a gunshot was fired nearby or in the distance. Good use of two-theatre story line, both of which have a feeling of retribution as the protagonists struggle to repel the invading forces of the Axis powers. It sports a great multiplayer mode that elongates the life of this game exponentially. Fans of Call of Duty will love it, as will FPS fans in general, but there isn’t much new except Nazi Zombies, an excellent sub-game that unlocks after the completion of the single player campaign.

Overall Score: 7.5/10

Both reviews were edited by Dennis Scimeca, GK’s editor-in-chief and writer of gaming blog Punching Snakes.

DLC: Elongating gaming experience or simple profiteering?

DLC may now be an institution in gaming, but it is not a universally acclaimed practice. There are complaints about cost, and the deliberate withholding of content by game developers from the release of titles to ensure extra revenue streams shortly after the bulk of initial sales are made. DLC add-ons for games like Fallout 3, GTA IV, and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are touted as a great value by developers and gamers alike, as they represent entirely new content created after the game's release.

Other "DLC," however, such as the downloadable costumes for characters in Street Fighter IV were not, in fact, downloads. They already existed on the disk. Players pay for unlocks, not downloads, and therefore many of them feel they are paying twice for content. Many gamers also feel cheated when add-ons are released shortly after the release of the game proper, for example the extra downloadable missions for Assassin’s Creed 2 and Mass Effect 2. If this content was available so close to the release of the game, why wasn't it included to begin with? Capcom faced criticism over Resident Evil 5, which had a downloadable Versus mode. When players paid and downloaded the content the file size was a mere 2 megabytes, leading players to believe that this mode was on the disk already.

When loyal fans discovered that the first batch of content for Bioshock 2 was already on the disk, they felt rightly affronted and expressed their anger on forums and with direct appeals to 2K Games, the developers. But is there a reasonable explanation for 2K’s choice to block content like this? They retorted to criticism in a calm and low-key fashion, explaining in a short post that the decision had been made due to the way that post-release DLC is made. 2K argued that if the extra multiplayer levels were developed separately at a later date then gamers would be separated from their friends in online sessions, if one set had purchased the DLC and the other had not. This is apparently due to how players are grouped in multiplayer. They seem to suggest that if you have downloaded post-release DLC then you will only be grouped with other players that have it, but if the extra content is present on the disk then players can be grouped together when playing the basic multiplayer levels, even if some had the DLC and others don’t.

So this begs the question: why not simply make the maps available for all? The customer had already paid a lot of money for the game, so why don’t they deserve to have access to all of the content? It brings us to the sad conclusion that developers do see DLC primarily as a way of generating cash. Even with 2K’s explanation, which if true could hold for the Street Fighter and Resident Evil examples too, then they are making a conscious choice to charge more for content available at the game’s release. From a business stand point this is understandable, as selling DLC can net vast sums of money. Call of Duty: World at War generated $70 million from its map pack sales alone; but there is a clear line between what people consider to be value for money and what is seen as simply profit generating extras within the realms of DLC.

It is possible that DLC is produced on a separate budget from the main game, and that it is developed in tandem. If this is the case the 2K’s explanation may hold some water, as the development costs would need to be recovered. It also leads to the conclusion that if multiplayer DLC is so difficult to integrate then the future of DLC may be on-disk. That being the case then I would suggest that the DLC tag be dropped and the term “unlockable content” may be a suitable substitute. This doesn’t make the players feel any better about shelling out cash for more game, but it doesn’t wrongly lead them to believe that what they are paying for is being downloaded separately either.

Judging from what is posted in the forums and chatrooms of the gaming world, gamers don’t mind paying for DLC if they deem it value for money. There are many examples of excellent DLC which adds so much to the gaming experience, but the large sums of money created by DLC has made the industry greedy it is now rare to find a game release that doesn’t have some form of DLC attached. Ultimately gamers are the judges in this trial and the only way for their complaints to hold weight would be to boycott the purchase of DLC considered below par, or which is obvious profiteering.

That all said, Xbox LIVE is the biggest online DLC provider and a business model that remains extremely profitable, so as long as we keep downloading it appears that they’ll keep charging. Perhaps players should take a look at what it is they’re paying for though, before they part with their hard earned Microsoft points.

I wrote this article for Game Kudos, a new web publication. It can be viewed in its edited format here.

Red Dead Review

My review of Red Dead Redemption on the Xbox 360 has been published at Game Kudos.

I thoroughly recommend it to any fans of sandbox action adventure games and to anyone who enjoyed the GTA series. For me, the most surprising thing about the game was the very clever way in which the developers used the classic style of story telling, prevalent in the great western movies, to usher the game along. Playing Red Dead Redemption feels as close as possible to being in the toughest parts of the old west without the aid of Doc Emmett Brown.

In short, the game scores 8.2/10 and the single player game far outstrips the multiplayer. Utterly engaging and entertaining, a great buy that offers a bare-bones minimum of about 20 hours of superb gameplay.

The missing link(s)

Over the last couple of months I have been writing for a new website, Game Kudos, which launched in May and which is truly one to watch. With great reviews, thoughtful articles and commentary on the gaming industry as well as a fledgling community, GK is making waves in the gaming world. We have been granted press access to E3 next week and our writers will be updating the site from the floor at the exhibition.

I have had several articles published there already and, from today, will be linking them to the blog whenever my work is published. Below are the articles and reviews available to read now:

I remember that! Rick Dangerous, 1983 - This is an article adapted from a post here at The Gaming Gentleman, discussing one of my favourite platform games on the Amiga 500.

Dragon Age: Origins - A review looking at Bioware’s RPG epic on the Xbox 360.

I remember that! The Elite series Part 1 - The first part of a two-part article covering the groundbreaking work of Elite creators David Braben and Ian Bell.

I remember that! The Elite series Part 2 - The second part.

The Settlers - A review of the RTS adaptation for iPhone.

The “I remember that!” series is a group of articles written for the Retrospective section of the site, which covers the history of gaming and looks back on some old classics. A couple of other articles are in the editing process at the moment and will be available to read shortly. There is, however, no need to wait for my updates, as the site is full of content submitted by a great team of writers. You can join our community at the website and also follow GK on twitter (@GameKudos) to get minute by minute, interview by interview updates from our team at E3. Watch this space!