Tag Archives: Downloadable games

Games, Impressions, iOS

DoDonPachi Resurrection

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Although I’ve got a handful in my collection, I’m far from a shmup maven like some of my friends are. It’s one of those things that I just don’t ‘get’. Things like Radiant Silvergun are at least fair, but shooters of the bullet hell variety – check out this example from Mushihime-sama – are pure masochism. I can’t see where the fun comes from in something like that.

Nonetheless, I picked up DoDonPachi Resurrection at its special launch price for the iPhone version, having been impressed with the demo of Espgaluda II, and I must say it’s blown me away. This is a relatively recent arcade game that’s due for an Xbox 360 port later in the year, and the kind of thing that hardcore players would have complained that fairly recent systems couldn’t duplicate, and I’m playing a fine version with online leaderboards and assorted playing modes on my phone. I’ve made such an exclamation whenever the iPhone does something remotely impressive, but it still keeps managing to surprise me.

Even at its new price of £5.49, I have to recommend this as one of my favourite iPhone games. It’s a wonderful conversion of a really brilliant game, and even at that price, this is a game that’s good enough to justify a full-price 360 release in November. Even for people who find bullet hell shooters impenetrable, this version manages to be extremely accessible thanks to the 1:1 touch controls, making fine movements easier and your ship capable of much faster motion than will be possible with a joystick. Purists might complain that this makes it something of a Fisher-Price version, but as someone who, you know, plays games to have a good time, you’ll get no such grievances from me.

Look me up on the OpenFeint leaderboards if you’re a fan – the name is, as always, NekoFever.

Games, Impressions, Xbox

Limbo

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Limbo is one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played. You could pick any number of arty independent games to compare it to – Braid is the lazy, obvious one that I bet will turn up in countless reviews, but I think And Yet It Moves and Rorschach are closer to the mark – but take a moment to just look at it…

It’s gorgeous. Dark, bleak and atmospheric, feeding the sense of foreboding with the visuals as you’re never quite sure whether that movement at the edge of the screen is just smoke or the limb of a giant spider.

It’s a hard, almost impossible game to finish without dying, but that’s like a learning experience. It’s even more intrinsic to the gameplay than, say, Demon’s Souls; whereas that was an arse about it, it’s a joke in this game, which will gleefully trip you up and put you back a few steps with no penalty and the knowledge of how to bypass the next trap. The perfect example comes about a third of the way in, when what looks like a suspiciously obvious plunger beneath a large press – obviously that’s going to trigger it to drop and crush you, you’d think – turns out to be the safe spot as the innocuous-looking ground turns out to be what will kill you.

That’s funny to me, but what made me laugh out loud was that this mini-puzzle was immediately followed by an almost identical one, except on this one the plunger was the trigger, crushing you if you made the obvious assumption that both were set up the same. It’s emblematic of the dark humour that permeates every aspect of the game, from its visuals to its gameplay.

Limbo isn’t a long game, but it’s only a bit over a tenner, and I don’t have a problem paying that much for such a great, unique little experience. I highly recommend it because, like Braid, this sort of thing deserves support. A lot of love – and a bit of hate, quite possibly – went into this game.

Editorials, Games, PC games, PlayStation

Steam and the One-Console Future

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One of the most surprising announcements at this E3 came from Valve, with Gabe Newell, who has been somewhat outspoken about the experience of PS3 development, confirming a PS3 version of Portal 2, previously only thought to be coming to the PC, Mac and Xbox 360. That in itself isn’t all that shocking because Valve games have turned up on the system from other developers, but it’s not hyperbole to say that his aside about Steamworks coming to Sony’s console has the potential to really shake up the industry.

Some of this is still speculation because we don’t know exactly which Steamworks features will be on the way. I’d be very surprised if cross-platform multiplayer made it, and Steam Play (buy it on the PC and automatically get the Mac version and vice versa) expanding to the PS3 version would be apocalyptically big, but even if we’re looking at the simpler things like automatic updates, community features and Steam Cloud – we know that last one’s on the way for sure – Valve is going to go a big way towards removing the barriers between gaming across distinct platforms and moving gaming away from independent walled gardens.

Originally Steam Cloud would simply copy your saves and custom settings to the ‘cloud’ so that they’d be synced between your computers, and with the release of the Steam Mac client it was expanded to doing that across operating systems, and we have to assume, given that it has no other purpose, that it’ll do the same with Steamworks PS3 games. We already have retail PC games that integrate Steamworks – big titles like Modern Warfare 2 and Just Cause 2, for example – and it’s entirely possible that future editions will sync your progress across multiple platforms. Saving your game in Call of Duty on your PC at work and picking up on your MacBook on the train home and then finding your progress reflected on your console is insane. It’s like living in the future.

I like Xbox Live a lot, but this just couldn’t happen on the Xbox 360 as it stands. It’s the kind of thing that was promised by Live Anywhere, but what little of that still exists now seems to be coming only to Windows Mobile phones. Besides the fact that I don’t and won’t own one, it’s a great system if you’re willing to lock yourself into Microsoft’s products, but Steam now works on consoles and, if the rumours of an upcoming Linux version are true, computers regardless of operating system. An open network doesn’t always work out for the best on something that should be as plug-and-play as a console – see the disaster that was the Konami ID in Metal Gear Solid 4, as well as how online functionality can still vary wildly between PS3 games – but I think Valve has demonstrated its community credentials on enough occasions to be the one to try this.

The ‘one-console future’ is inevitable if this medium ever wants to grow up, and simply facilitating interaction between platforms is the first and largest step. We’re still going to have PlayStations and Xboxes for the foreseeable future, but Steamworks and independently developed community features like Rockstar Social Club and Battlefield 1943’s Coral Sea Challenge that are showing the barest hints of cross-platform interaction are, I think, seriously showing the way things are going. The way things have to go.

I could be wrong and this could turn out to be nothing, of course. I don’t think it will, though. This has to happen so let’s get it over with.

Games, Impressions, PC games

Torchlight is awesome

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The launch of Steam for the Mac came and went with all but one of Valve’s own games notable for its absence, and so the duty of providing a game that wasn’t possible to finish in three hours fell to the third-parties. The obvious winner was Torchlight, and not merely because of its price.

This is my first foray into this particular sub-genre of dungeon-crawling loot-whoring RPGs, having passed by the likes of Diablo, and I have to say that I’m very impressed. For a game that involves clicking for hours on end in order to get stuff that isn’t worth anything, it’s remarkably addictive; likewise, for a game that doesn’t look a long way beyond Warcraft III, it manages to look rather good. And the fact that such graphics mean low system requirements makes it a great game for an ageing laptop. Like Warcraft III, then.

The developer, Runic Games, deserves immense credit for creating such a wonderful little game and some successful early attempts to become one of those companies that’s impossible to dislike. Free updates, extensive modding support, and heartwarming stories like this:

Mere hours after a forum member mentioned that one of the game’s camera effects left her unable to play sections of the games due to an uncommon eye condition, a Runic developer patched in a user toggle for the option — at 8:00 am on a Sunday morning, no less.

Seriously, is it getting a bit dusty in here?

This game’s been a big time sink for me in the last week, able to vanish hours at a time with frightening ease, and this is without multiplayer beyond the promise of the upcoming MMO in the Torchlight universe. Oh, and that MMO? Free to play. God, I love you, Runic.

Diablo III is suddenly much higher up my wishlist, it must be said. But you never forget your first taste…

Games, Impressions, iOS

G1 Transformers + Advance Wars = Win

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I’m surprised by how completely this slipped under my radar, but I’ve recently been enjoying Transformers G1: Awakening for the iPhone. With it being only the second Transformers game of reasonable quality – this is the first – and the first featuring the only arm of the franchise worth bothering with, I couldn’t say no for £1.79.

Its form should be obvious from looking at the above screenshot, because it’s pretty much Advance Wars. Most of the mechanics are identical, and it’s only that your units can transform into vehicles to further their movement allowance, the downside being that you’re defenceless in this form – makes sense for a VW Beetle, but not so much for a fighter jet – that really differentiates it at all. Fangasms will be had over the 3D models on the battle screens, there’s a bit of Transformers storyline in there, and there are ‘Showdowns’ that make use of characters traits, like a single Autobot desperately powering up before Trypticon reaches him, but there’s still not much to separate Optimus Prime and an Advance Wars tank.

Who cares, though? I wanted a good Transformers game and now I’ve got one, and it cost me less than today’s lunch did. Awesome.

Best of 2009, Games, GOTY, Nintendo, PC games, PlayStation, Xbox

2009’s Honourable Mentions

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For every one that made it, many more didn’t, but some came closer than others…

  • F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin – I deliberated whether this or Killzone was more deserving of the final spot for a while, but it was Killzone’s technical advances as well as its fantastic multiplayer that swayed it. Even so, F.E.A.R. 2 impressed me back at the beginning of the year with its intense action and clever storytelling – not so much on the story itself, mind – and it actually had a less intrusive version of that game’s weighty-feeling gameplay, so it deserves at least a little recognition.
  • Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City – This was in there right until the end, and it was only the facts that (a) I don’t actually own a copy of this exact game – I downloaded both individual episodes – and (b) I decided that a full game was more worthy than a glorified expansion pack that swayed it. Nonetheless, this is as good as GTA IV – maybe better in the case of the phenomenal Lost and Damned – and gives us more of an adventure in Rockstar’s still-stunning Liberty City. It’s still unparalleled as a gaming environment and it’s going to take something special to top it for me.
  • Left 4 Dead 2 – I have no doubt that L4D2 justifies its status as a sequel rather than DLC; I just didn’t get enough chance to play it. Its proximity to Modern Warfare 2 and the perception that a worthy sequel couldn’t be produced in such a short period of time meant that very few of my usual gaming crowd bought it, and Left 4 Dead is something that you can’t completely enjoy with random people on Live. I think that Valve has the game where it wants it, though, and should it follow the game’s release with a steady stream of good content in 2010, I’ll be sure to give it the credit it deserves.
  • inFamous – This game suffered by not being Crackdown, which remains one of my favourites of this generation so far. Although it was technically far more impressive, this didn’t have the same sense of fun and took itself far too seriously for the ultimately silly subject matter. I enjoyed it – don’t get me wrong – but bolting more stuff onto an existing simple and perfectly good framework isn’t always a recipe for success. inFamous is still great, though, and I hope that Sucker Punch can build on this foundation, whether it’s in inFamous 2 or a returning Sly Racoon.
  • Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story – Believe it or not, this was actually the first Mario & Luigi game that I’ve been there at the beginning for, which is strange considering how much I’ve loved the previous ones. It kept me going for a good ten hours solid when I was in transit from the States and it’s everything you can expect from the series: the brilliant, self-aware humour and writing; some of the best animation around; and a way of gently ribbing those well-loved characters without taking away from them. It’s still very much new Nintendo, from the same box of games that would have never happened in the NES and SNES era as Smash Bros, and it’s even more insane than its precursors. Imagine all the gags that can come from being inside Bowser – the title is only the beginning, believe me – and they’ll pretty much all be there. Except that, you dirty bugger.
  • Trials HD – I deliberated for a long time whether this or Shadow Complex deserved a spot more, and the fact that Trials HD was left out shouldn’t take away from it. I knew it was going to be good when I first stumbled across it on PartnerNet and found that anyone who saw it was instantly enthralled, and so it proved because I still see people playing it today and the developer seems blown away by the reception and the boost in profile that its once-niche PC title has received. Proof that retro gameplay – and the insane difficulty that goes with it – isn’t dead. It just got pretty.

As happens every year, there were plenty of big hitters that I just didn’t get to play – Assassin’s Creed II and Dragon Age: Origins to name two – and that’s unfortunate, because I think that at least some of them would have had a good chance. Maybe if some of them had been delayed until early 2010… Oh…