So I tried the demo to The Force Unleashed 2, and it got me thinking a fair bit, so I thought I’d share some early thoughts and readings on it with the community here, see what everyone else thinks. Actually my first time doing this, so please, be constructive or go home

Hey everyone,

So I tried the demo to The Force Unleashed 2, and it got me thinking a fair bit, so I thought I’d do what any responsible blogger would do: To the website!

First, for anyone who played the first one and was solely interested in just blowing things up with the Force and had alot of fun with that, you’ll like this. The core gameplay was instantly familiar having played the first, and even without looking at a menu I was already putting together force power/lightsaber combos and pretty much wrecking the landscape.

Not much has changed. They added a Jedi Mind Trick, which seems to be used to make Stormtroopers kill themselves rather then anything I could consciousably call constructive ( Though it is kinda funny to see this guy just hurl himself out of a window like he saw a lone twinkie adrift at sea or something ). It just seems a bit more effort when just tapping Force Push could accomplish the same thing, albeit less subtly. Hope they use that more. They’ve also added a Force Rage sort of effect where after a meter builds up, Starkiller goes nuts and all his attacks deal more damage. Eh, it works, but he was already pretty overpowered, so it wasn’t quite as dramatic a shift as I was hoping for.

Oh, and because it wasn’t enough like the God of War series, you get occasional scenes where Starkiller goes into freefall out of a building and has to dodge things on the way. I actually like this feature better here, because when I did this in God of War 3 and couldn’t get out of the way of a rock in time, Kratos couldn’t use the Force to smash it to bits, so it actually feels more tactile and fun here.

Quicktime events are back. Sigh. So I still get to do amazingly cool action bits, but almost miss the entire thing because I’m looking for button prompts. Sorry Yahtzee.

Ok so that’s the gameplay. It’s pretty much the same formula, just tweaked to be more God of War. This is not a bad thing necessarily, as we’ve seen this formula be fun as hell, but there it is. Now the bigger issue ( for me anyway ); the story.

NOTE: The following will contain some degree of spoilers to the Force Unleashed 1, and what’s in the demo of 2, slightly.

Let me say first I enjoyed the story in the first game. It had a nice evolution for the main character from Sith Assassin to eventual hero that didn’t ever feel forced, ( Well, ok the love story part of it felt kinda forced, but I can forgive that for the pacing an action game requires as opposed to an RPG ), and most importantly: Had a very definite resolution. Starkiller rises up to confront Vader, and ( Assuming you went with the good ending and I think that’s what Lucasarts is going with for ‘canon’ ) sacrifices himself to save the leaders of the Rebellion. It at once closes the story between Vader and Starkiller and also removes the most overpowered character in the history of the Force from the universe at the same time. Yeah it was a little sad, but sometimes you need sad endings to provide gravity and emotional closure to things, and it worked.

For a moment, I thought that’d be it. Then I remembered how damn well this game sold and figured yeah, they’d do a sequel. And sure enough, here we are. So the idea here is that Vader’s flash cloned Starkiller, and is trying to make this one be a better apprentice. Most of the clones went insane, getting flashbacks from Starkiller’s old life and the people in it and Vader decides the player character ( Who I will call Clone #42 ) needs to be killed. 42 gets the jump on Vader and bolts. The demo covers 42 blowing up half of Kamino before stealing Vader’s own starfighter and getting the hell out of there.

So here’s my concern/problem with all this. The first game’s emotional and even marketing focus centered around Starkiller and Vader. Forget the rebellion, forget the Emperor, everything was building up to those two finally confronting each other and having it out. And when it happened, it was epic and awesome and yes, cinematic. Or at least the good parts of cinematic that apply to gaming.

But we’ve done it. As great as it was, lightning doesn’t really strike twice. And throughout the demo, everytime Vader tried to come across as the usual dominating badass he ordinarily is, I couldn’t help but remember Starkiller Force pushing him through a wall and pretty much beating the piss out of him.

The last reveal in the demo is Starkiller just at Vader’s fighter, and they do the classic move when you run from a bad guy; Camera pans to the door at the opposite end of the landing, and the door blows apart to reveal Vader doing the Jason Voorhees “I’ll get there eventually and it’ll be very unpleasant” sort of walk. Now 42 is justly terrified because this is his creator here trying to kill him, but meanwhile I’m the ID in his head going, “Dude! Man up! You could destroy this guy”

So Vader’s lost a lot of credibility as a bad guy here, he just doesn’t have the same threatening presence as he did in the first. Which is a shame for alot of reasons, and all this just serves to make it very hard to get immersed in the story.

So yeah, not sure how to feel about this one. Though those who know me personally and know the extent of my Star Wars geekness know just as well as I do, the sad, simple truth.

I will probably still be playing this the week it’s out.

-Joey Tesauro

-Considered ruling the galaxy. Then got into video games.

Gaming Below

On Villains and Dicks

It’s no secret by now that I’m very big on storytelling in games. As an interactive medium, I think gaming is a fascinating method for conveying stories to the player, and even today with all the technology being brought to bear of the latest gen hardware, we still see too few developers really putting time and effort into the story process of their games. It’s getting better, no doubt, and to be fair writing a story for a game is incredibly difficult compared with a film or a novel, but it’s still something we can see more of, and better.

In that interest, I want to talk about a specific aspect of storytelling today, the Villain. For many, villains are the most interesting character in a story. For all the faults of the Star Wars series, is there any character more iconic then Darth Vader? While Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz herself is a fairly insubstantial character, a young girl clinging to adolescence who serves as a proxy for the audience, it is Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West who has people writing novels to explore her background. We want to know how she became who she is. She is the one who is far more interesting and compelling.

More to the point, I think we need to make sure we understand the difference between the sort of evil machinations that makes for an effective villain, as opposed to someone who’s just trying to be a dick.

Let me cite an example. Sometime ago I was discussing games with a friend, and I was asked if I was familiar with the Overlord series of games. It was suggested that I might really enjoy them, and honestly, I wasn’t sure how to take that. For those unaware, Overlord is a series of sandbox games which centers the player as the titular overlord, who is typically tasked with taking over the world. So you run around, wipe out villages, enslave mistresses, gather minions, and eventually return to your evil doom fortress to laugh maniacally over the world below. For anyone who ever watched Lord of the Rings and wanted Sauron to win, this would be kind of for you.

Like I said, I wasn’t sure how to take that. Being a harsh critic and general misanthrope doesn’t make me evil! I thought it was my giving money to terrorists that did that.

More seriously, I can kinda see what the developers were going for here. Sandbox games like this are characterized by an open world, and the freedom to do whatever you want in it. Typically when presented with games that offer this type of freedom, most gamers respond by being absolute dicks, as evidenced by the Grand Theft Auto and Saint’s Row series.

So the idea of Overlord seems to be, since gamers mostly tend to be dicks in these games anyway, let’s just set up a game where the point is to be a dick. Which is a smashing idea, that completely fails in execution, in my opinion. The reason why being a dick in many games is because in most of these, you’re the hero, tasked with saving the world and heralded up as the messiah. Seeing Gordon Freeman for example running over his allies even as they continue to hail his coming carries a perverse, twisted fun to it, while Overlord is just being a dick in a dick-head simulator, and it lacks the context to provide meaning for your evil actions.

Simply put, you’re being a dick for the sake of being a dick, and this does not make for an effective villain. Not to watch, and not to play as. This is the failing of Overlord.

Another example I would provide would be Lucien from Fable 2. An hour after the game started he had already shot my sister, and was preparing to shoot 12 year old me. I was waiting for him to hunt down and kill my dog next, and he did, it just took a while. There’s a paper thin veil of a prophecy about you becoming his enemy, so he needs to kill you before you’re a threat, but despite this, he just comes across as someone really just trying to be a dick, and the game fails to ever make him any more menacing then that.

So what does make for an effective villain then? Well, firstly, you need a personal connection to the hero. Sometimes this can be a fairly obvious one. The revelation of Darth Vader as actually being Luke Skywalker’s father for example. Now Luke had spent the years leading up to that confrontation with nothing but contempt, if not outright hatred for Vader, who he believed was responsible not only for the death of his mentor Obi Wan in the first film, but also his father. However, in one instant, Vader’s admission to being Anakin Skywalker changed Luke’s world completely, and dramatically changes the relationship between the two. While Vader intended to use this information to make Luke susceptible to coming over to his side, in reality, it simply just changed Luke’s quest from one of revenge, to redemption for his wayward father.

This is just one example. Sometimes, the personal connection doesn’t even have to be familial, or even that literal. In the Batman series, Bruce Wayne becomes Batman to create a symbol for Gotham City, something to strike fear into the hearts of criminals, but ultimately, Batman is used as a symbol for order. The Joker, consequently, creates himself to be the polar opposite, to represent the chaos that he believes Gotham City is. It’s a fundamental case of two contrasting forces of nature. Neither has any connection to the other, save that what each of them are dedicated to, the other is fully committed to defeating. Imagine a being who’s every goal and motivation was the opposing viewpoint to your own. More then once Joker takes pleasure in pointing out this nature to their relationship.

“You… you really are incorruptible, aren’t you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun! I think you and I are destined to do this forever.”

In this one line, you learn everything you’ll need to know about these two characters, and how they define each other by their respective actions.

Additionally, in any story, it is vitally important that the villain be properly characterized. This is what serves to focus the story around the menace of an effective villain, as opposed to occasionally running into someone who’s fond of twirling his mustache. For this example, I want to look at Darth Malak, from Knights of the Old Republic. Yeah I know I’m milking the Star Wars license here, but any regular reader should have known I wasn’t going to go a whole article talking about stories in video games without bringing up a Bioware game.

So you, as the hero player character spend the majority of the first part of the game looking for a specific Jedi, your goal being to find her, and get the heck off the planet you’re currently stranded on. At the same time, Darth Malak has his Sith forces scouring the planets looking for this same Jedi, and trying to kill her. After some time, and the search yields no results, Malak orders the Admiral of his fleet to bomb the entire planet from orbit to make sure she didn’t escape.

Let’s be clear here. Malak orders an entire fleet of galactic warships to level a planet, killing billions of its own inhabitants, as well as the hundreds of his own soldiers he still has on the planet’s surface, in order to kill one woman.

Luckily, you, the wanted Jedi and the other allies you’ve made so far manage to escape the destruction of the planet, but in one instant, Malak has been completely characterized as a ruthless warlord, dedicated to the eradication of the Republic, and anyone who is a threat to him. There is no trying to stop the destruction of Taris, no heroics, your only option is to get the hell out of there, and run as far away as possible. You, the hero, are utterly powerless in the face of an enemy hell bent on wiping out civilization as we know it.

So now with our villain clearly established, we’re ready for the next act. The hero can go on his journey to save the galaxy, with an end goal clearly in mind. There is no ambiguity here, everything about the rest of the journey is about facing Malak. And eventually when it does happen, further revelations and twists make this relationship even deeper.

No, I’m not going to say what it is. Seriously, if you’re reading this, and a gamer, and you have NOT played this game, you need to get off your ass and get to it. Until you do, we’ve nothing to say to each other.

Look these are just a few examples, but what it comes down to is there are still far too many examples of stories in video games where the villain, one of the most core parts of a story is thrown together haphazardly, without thought for context, motivation, or believability. When these aspects are missing, the story is permanently tarnished, and the immersion of the player is ruined. Something to keep in mind; are we asking too much of a video game to keep in mind these fundamental aspects of storytelling?

NO.

And if you ever ask that question again, I’ll be forced to smack you with a fish.

-It is Always a Trap

Joey Tesauro

World of Oh What the Hell?

Have you ever been told about how good you have it today? You know, the stories where old people had to do things like “walk to school in 2 feet of snow, uphill both ways?” When recently picking up WoW again after a yearlong break, I feel like one of those older people. The Dungeon Finder Tool, introduced some time within the past year, makes the game so incredibly easy it is shocking.

I’ve been playing MMOs since 1999. I started with Everquest, which I loved (as I’m pretty sure every MMO player loves their first one), and from there moved on to other games through the years: Dark Age of Camelot, Final Fantasy 11, World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Vanguard, Everquest 2, and Aion. I’ve always enjoyed playing a healer role in these games, because I like being needed in a group.

In all of those games, there were big challenges. Everquest is a prime example here. You didn’t have any sort of in-game map, you had to use /loc, take note of your coordinates, alt-tab to a browser, and look it up on EQAtlas. Besides epic weapon quests, there were only a very small handful of quests for the whole game. No one had any indicator over their head that they offered a quest, you had to know who to talk to. It was all about finding the best spot for experience points per hour with a group and grinding it out. I never reached max level in Everquest (50 at the time), because I got stuck in level 45, a ‘hell level’ that took 2 weeks of 5 hours playing every day to get through.

Then, comes World of Warcraft. I always compare the release of World of Warcraft for the MMO genre as Windows replacing DOS. It took a concept, and made it accessible to anyone. You didn’t need to be hardcore just to get to max level, crafting was simple and useful, anyone can solo, and questing replaced grinding.

Still, WoW had its challenges. Even though you could level easily, good luck getting the best gear. 40-man raids took hours for each run, and it would be weeks before you would even get one piece of gear from it. There was a very clear distinction between casual and hardcore. When The Burning Crusade expansion debuted, the gap between casual and hardcore became less apparent.

After being burned out with the game, I played the third expansion Wrath of the Lich King only to get my character to the max level, and then tuck it away for the next content update. When my cousin picked up WoW, I decided to jump back in, and am not happy with what I see.

The Dungeon Finder tool. When I first logged in, I didn’t even take a look at it. It has the same icon as the looking for group (LFG ) tool had, and I didn’t really like that tool much. I thought I would grab a daily quest, and take it from there. I was surprised to find, no more are the daily dungeon quests. This is when I was introduced to the new system: you just open the Dungeon Finder tool, and the first random heroic of the day you do, you get about 25 gold, and 2 top-tier badges. Every subsequent use of the tool yields about 15 gold, and 2 badges of the second-to-top tier.

My first reaction was that solved a big issue with PvE. How many times have you been on at an odd hour (or even a normal one), with a full group ready to go, minus a tank, or healer? Everyone always seemed to be waiting for one last spot to show up, and then everyone in the guild fights over who gets them when they sign on. Now, the LFG tool spans multiple servers the same way PVP scenarios do, so finding a group is easy!

The great feeling ended right away. Here I was, in my first dungeon in a year, clearly not geared to blaze through the instance, and the whole group just keeps running forward. Since returning, not one group seems to stop to check to see if everyone is ready. Using crowd control abilities is a thing of the past. The worst part is that it works just fine. We’ve made it through every dungeon with very little trouble.

Further use of the Dungeon Tool unearthed more problems. As long as you use it for random dungeons, you aren’t ever locked out. This means that you can get as many badges as you can stand, so you could replace all of your gear in a few short days. Upgrading gear, earning money and reputation is trivial. Since you can teleport to the dungeon, and are teleported back to exactly where you were before the dungeon began, I’ve had problems where if I die during a dungeon I’ve never been to before “the old fashioned way,” I have no idea how to get back to the instance to resurrect.

So, what’s the big deal? It allows you to have your cake and eat it too; and it seemingly penalizes you if you play with a full group of friends. On top of that, every other MMO is probably scrambling to come up with a way to get something like it.

Remember having to choose between gathering, questing, or running dungeons? Well, why not do both? I’ll just queue for a dungeon, gather, complete dungeon, rinse and repeat. I’ll have everything I need in no time!

When you want to get together with a group of friends in your guild, or all people on your server you recruit through methods other than random choice, you lose a lot of bonuses. You don’t get a payout at the end, nor do you get the extra 2 badges. That is, even if you can get into the dungeon – if you already did it as a random dungeon that day, it is locked out for your group you manually put together. You can only get back in there if you use the random dungeon function.

This is bad for all MMOs. It is a fact that any fantasy-themed MMO that has come out since WoW, and for the foreseeable future, will be compared to WoW, and need to live up to it. If WoW already has a huge player base, and the ability to jump into dungeons without having to walk to them, how are they going to beat that? The competition is going to try to come up with something more convenient, and quicker to use to get people to play their game. WoW is already the king here in America (number of subscriptions-wise).

WoW is going to suffer from this tool as well. It was probably designed with the casual player in mind, so that someone could jump on, play a dungeon, then go on with their day. Reality check: who plays any MMO, jumps on quickly, and then goes on about their day? All this has done is made everyone absolutely need to get the best gear available to be considered a viable ally. It has created a virtual “keeping up with the Jones’.” I’ve only been re-subscribed for a week, and I’m already starting to feel the burnout. I haven’t even done all of the new dungeons, and I don’t care much.

With the release of Cataclysm on the horizon, I’ve come up with ideas that can cater even more to the casual player. First: make NPC mercenaries that players can hire to take through instances with them. They will have all of the best gear, and will tackle dungeons in the most efficient way. They also have every gathering skill and will and will give it all to you upon the dungeon’s completion, along with any badges. Just auto-follow one of them, and watch the events unfold. Second: add a quest where a curator for a museum is collecting legendary items that would be every complete set of gear from the whole game. The quest scans what gear you are wearing, and the curator will just so happen to need that gear to complete his collection. To show his appreciation, he will give you the extra set of the next tier up he has laying around in the back. That quest would be on a 3 hour cool down, as we don’t want people upgrading their stuff too fast.

I think the Dungeon Finder tool is a turn for the worse. Whole entire worlds created to be explored are now just grazed over. Gear meant to be earned over a certain period of time is gained in a few days, trivializing content almost immediately. Learning to play your class is an afterthought. Make sure you know how to stay alive, the rest will work itself out. Sit back and enjoy the riches.

-Can not be killed by conventional methods

Brian Salman

There’s a Paris Hilton joke to be made there, but I’m going to take the high road.

Review for Heavy Rain is up, this was a request and one I was happy to oblige. Seriously, we need more games like this out there. I wonder if there is a way for me to find people who visit my site, HAVE a Playstation3, and if they haven’t played Heavy Rain, instigate some form of corporal punishment on them.

What’s that? Oh right, that’s illegal. Bloody hell.

So I’m still playing Star Trek Online. It’s even starting to grow on me in ways I didn’t truly expect, which is only surprising because I was in here all the way back to Closed Beta. Now I’ve run into this problem before, but how the hell do you review an MMO? If one were to look at World of Warcraft now compared to how it was at launch, they’d likely not recognize it. Or they’d get very angry and post on a forum somewhere ( Have I made it clear I hate people who post on forums yet? Bunch of nutters.)

Yeah, don’t know how to review it yet, but I will share some thoughts.

The long and short is I really like it, and it’s surprising how it’s gone so far. Now, my first MMO was World of Warcraft, which is a bit embarassing at times, sort of like showing up to main stage at Ozzfest, and then being forced to admit that you’ve only ever done “Welcome Back” in Rock Band on Medium. Anyway since then I’ve gone to try a few more MMO’s, some newer, ( Champions Online, Aion ) some older ( Star Wars Galaxies, City of Heroes ) and I feel like I’ve got a bit of a pedigree now. Enough so that I can say this at least.

I am a tank.

Context for the new kids who may not be familiar. Tank is one of three primary roles filled in MMORPG’s. Say you’re in your five man group, and you’re looking straight at the face of a horrible monster that wants to hunt you down and kill your dad. He’s nasty, mean, and probably votes Republican. What do you do? Well, one of you is the healer, who’s job is to keep people alive. Then there’s three people who are DPS, that is damage, they get to hack away at the bastard and they’re the ones who really kill it. So what’s the other guy go to do, go order lunch? No, that’s the tank.

Remember Braveheart? That scene where William Wallace and his army is gathered for the first time in front of the English army, a fairly intimidating lot, and the Scottish Noble asks him, “What are you going to do?” And he turns around, kinda smirks a little, before saying, “I’m going to pick a fight.”

THAT is the job of the tank. The tank’s job is to walk right up to that horrible towering behemoth of the right wing, and tell him to piss off. Their job is to keep the boss occupied and their attention focused on them, so the three damage guys can attack away in relative peace. The meat shield, if you will.

I discovered I liked tanking in WoW, completely by accident. This was my first MMO and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I happened to be playing as a Paladin, a hybrid class, who could supposedly do any of the three roles. So end game was fast approaching, and in my goal to keep up with my then girlfriend, I knew I wanted to raid. Well, Paladins at the time couldn’t do much damage, so I couldn’t do DPS without being laughed off the stage so to speak. I DAMN SURE didn’t want to heal, so that option was right out. So I said, “What the hell’s tanking all about?”

Turns out, I fucking loved it. While I’ll likely never go back to WoW, I will never forget my first time tanking Magtheridon. Look it up, it’s a bit nuts as far as boss fights go, and when it came my turn to take him on…well, put it this way, if I could have mounted that bastard’s head on my wall, I would have. Note to self: I need a bigger apartment.

I have since gone on to tank in every MMO I have played since. Be it as a Light Side Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies, or a sexually ambivalent Angel Warrior thing in Aion, I’m the first one in, and the last one out of the fight. It’s what I do. There is literally no other role I have identified with in such a way in any context whatsoever.

So when Star Trek Online came around, I figured it’d be the same thing. Space or ground, sci fi or fantasy, group gameplay encounters are all structured around the same principles, you need the damage dealers, the tank and the healer, so STO would be the same. I made my ship captain an Engineer, which besides fitting with the tank/survivability criteria, was the closest I think I’ll ever see to the “Geek in space” wish fullfillment, and figured I’d use a Cruiser, which is the closest ship in STO to a tank class as opposed to Escorts ( DPS ) and Science ships ( Healy/weird ).

Now for the first tier, everyone’s in the same starter ship, a “Light Cruiser”. It’s at the end of that tier when you need to make your choice between the three ship variants. And man, did I labor over this.

I’m forced to admit, alot of why I wanted to tank in the first place, is because I’m one of those people who largely plays MMO’s by himself, and when I do group it’s only with people I know personally. So the classes in WoW that have a hard time soloing, that is get killed every five minutes, don’t work out very well for me. The Paladin tank was a perfect fit for me, because they were made to fight ten or twelve enemies at once and keep going.

So the idea of trying an Escort ship here brought back familiar memories of trying to level a Mage or a “Glass Cannon” if you prefer. However, it’s a design element of STO that the encounters scale to your group. For example, if you enter a zone, and your goal is “Kill the bad guys”. If you’re by yourself, maybe there’s 4 bad guys. If you’re with two friends, maybe there’s twelve! The point being, it scales.

So I picked an Escort, and it turns out, if I really wanted, I could have bought another ship of one of the other two variants myself, but I’m still sticking to my “Don’t spend money on anything until end game” rule I learned previously. The good news is, I no longer WANT to buy another ship. Six levels later, and I am having WAY too much fun with my Escort, zipping around, blowing up everything I see. Shields do go down pretty quick though, so be warned.

Anyway, just some early thoughts. If anyone’s on the fence, I really do recommend checking this one out, it’s got ALOT of potential.

Thinks the Doomsday Machine looks like a giant flying piece of poo.

Joey Tesauro

Gaming Below Presents

Heavy Rain

Before we get into this, I want to thank the people behind Heavy Rain. Because of you, I am now absolutely terrified at the idea of taking my little girl to the mall at any point in her life. Particularly if there’s a clown, though my hatred of clowns is well documented. Thank you David Cage, for saving me and my wallet from a potential lifetime of misery. I really don’t think I can step into a mall with Olivia now without being absolutely terrified she’d be go missing or be abducted by a serial killer. David Cage, you have changed my life. Which is of course, the point. While there’s alot that people just aren’t going to get about it, this is what Heavy Rain does best, it establishes a powerful emotional connection to the player.

Oh, and there’s tits too, but that’s another story.

At any rate, what you get out of Heavy Rain is going to depend greatly upon what you expect going in, and what you hope to come away with. Truth be told, everything about Heavy Rain eschews alot of what we’ve come to expect as basic gameplay conventions in the modern era of gaming. The majority of the actual gameplay is a series of elaborate quick time events, which is the sort of thing that seems to either inspire ambivalence or seething hatred. Beyond that, the pace is slow, ( I prefer the term Methodical ) the voice acting and writing is erratic, it has that badly dubbed European thriller import film feel to it entirely too much, and occasionally there are plot lines that just don’t seem to go anywhere.

Assuming we get past all that however, we’re left with one of the more memorable examples of pure interactive storytelling in gaming.

Heavy Rain is the product of French game developer Quantic Dream, written and directed by David Cage. Before this, their most recent work was a game called Fahrenheit ( Europe ) or Indigo Prophecy ( In the United States ). Released on the PS2, Xbox and later PC, Indigo Prophecy still stands on my list of top ten most memorable intros, where after watching a cutscene of a man stabbing someone to death in a bathroom, you take control of the murderer who only just woke up and realized what was happening.

The power of choice given here characterizes the games developed by Cage. How do you react? Do you hide the murder weapon? Do you wash up? Clean up the scene? Or do you just freak out and get the hell out of dodge as it were? Many games have taken us into different escapist fantasies in our lives, but few have ever placed a character into a role so effectively as this, and Heavy Rain is much the same flavor.

Note: I had thought I was clever, cleaned up, hid weapon, hid body, etc etc, until I walked out of the diner and got called out by the waitress for not paying my bill, giving her and the COP SITTING AT THE COUNTER a great view of my face. Loved that game.

That said, Indigo had its fair share of pants on head retarded things going on. The majority of the story had you as the aforementioned murderer trying to understand what happened to you to make you commit this terrible crime. You also spent your time controlling the police detectives assigned to the same case. Things tended to go off the rails the farther in you got, as we go from borderline supernatural elements to outright Matrix Esque conspiracies and zombie erotica.

….there’s a sentence I never thought I’d see myself write…

ANYWAY…Heavy Rain is largely concerned with Ethan Mars, whose child Sean has been abducted by the “Origami Killer”, a serial killer who kills children for reasons that are not readily apparent at the outset. Similar to Indigo, you play as multiple protagonists, the missing child’s father Ethan, who after losing a child already two years prior has been on something of a downward spiral; FBI Profiler Norman Jayden who’s investigating the crimes as well while trying to fend off the shakes from his lingering drug addiction, Private Detective Scott Shelby who’s hired by the victims families to investigate, and journalist Madison Paige an inexplicable insomniac who’s got that female reporter knack for being at the wrong place at exactly the right time.

The production values are somewhat all over the place. The voice acting and dialogue combine to be at times adequate to unintentionally funny at others, ( Everyone seems to pronounce Origami as “Oar-ee-Gah-MEEE” as if they were trying to do a bad Boston accent ), but thankfully the mystery itself is still compelling enough that I was rarely taken out of the experience. Much of the gameplay here is guiding one of your four protagonists, investigating areas you’re in for clues and items of interest. An early scene has Scott Shelby visit a mother of a previous Origami Killer victim. How you handle her depends on if you get any information from her, whether you’re sympathetic, or sarcastic, etc.

Action scenes are handled in pure quicktime event fashion, but they’re implemented well enough that you tend to know when they’re coming, and as such, there’s little repetition involved, which is the primary reason why most QTE’s seem to make people so angry. Once you get used to the game, there’s a reasonable expectation to get through them the first run through. There are a few scenes here and there where the FBI profiler investigates scenes for evidence and goes over evidence with his ARI system, a very Minority Report sort of system, but I found these sequences too few and far between for my tastes.

I should say this now. This is the sort of game that alot of people just aren’t going to ‘get’. The prologue of the game is basically you playing Ethan in his idyllic life before it all went down the crapper, doing such exciting things as watching TV, hitting on his wife, or playing helicopter with his kids. These are things that all serve a purpose in the context of setting up the story and who these people are in it, but for that stereotypical FPS fan who goes into a seizure if he doesn’t drink the blood of a high borne virgin every five minutes, it’s ALOT to sit through for the better part of an hour.

Also, many of you will freak out about the naked man ass in the prologue. Look just fucking deal with it. It’s a European game, they’re not as squeamish as the United States. Remember, there’s tits too, just be patient.

Let’s see what the judges have to say. Joining Loque and British, european art snob.

Loque: ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..

British: I rather liked it. Though I admit I found myself replaying small episodes of the game at a time to see how much I could torture the protagonists. Ending was a bit predictable, I wouldn’t call it a twist as much as a lay down in the middle of the road and just give up.

European art snob: What’s a ‘video game’?

British: …Loque, wake up.

Loque: zzzwaahh, what’s going on, what’d I miss?

British: That bastard over there! He said you’re shit in Modern Warfare!

Loque: WHAT?

European Art Snob: What? Wait, no!!!

Oh bloody hell. I need to start checking that guy for weapons. Ah well, I’m glad I got the French snob and not the Italian one now.

So Heavy Rain’s not without its issues. The controls are a bit of getting used to if you haven’t played Fahrenheit already, some plot-lines seem to go nowhere ( This may be because I’ve only finished one play-through thus far however ), and perhaps my biggest annoyance; It’s a Playstation3 exclusive.

No really, this irritates the proverbial shit out of me. The vast majority of PS3 owners I know are really of the aforementioned drooling FPS type, and they’re just NOT the audience for this game. With a game like this, it needs to hit as many people as possible, and you’re just not going to see that on a sole console. That they couldn’t work out whatever legal bollocks was required to get this thing ported to the PC is frankly, a crime.

I call this a crime because Heavy Rain NEEDS to do well, because while there are plenty of missed steps to be found if you look hard enough, there just aren’t any experiences like it right now, and this is the kind of thing we need to see more of. That said, between Bioware’s latest offerings and now this, it’s a very good time to be a fan of interactive storytelling, as opposed to Square Enix.

Not very good with Origami it turns out

Joey Tesauro

Well it had to end sometime. I officially declare my low morale induced writer’s block at an end, as I publish another review tonight, the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.

Yes, god help us all, Joey is reviewing a Nintendo game. Blame Jake, it was his idea.

In exponentially more interesting news, I picked up Heavy Rain tonight. What have I learned so far? I absolutely SUCK at Origami. Seriously, I got to step 9 out of 12 and said bugger this. I will admit this is a clever diversion while waiting for the game to install on my Playstation3. Expect a review on this in the near future, as I’ve been looking forward to this for a while.

I’ve also learned recently that I may have played entirely too much Dragon Age: Origins, as during my last playthrough, I noticed the achievement for “Traveler” that being covering the entirety of the in game map ticked off for me. This prompted me to check my achievement process, at which point I notice that was 100 percent achievements for me. Well. Ok then.

Normally I don’t much give a toss about achievements, but with a Bioware game that I really like, I admit, I’m proud of myself. How about you guys, are they just the proverbial pat on the back from a non existant developer, at best an amusing way to explore systems in a game you might miss otherwise or at worst a half hearted attempt to provide a false sense of accomplishment? What games have you cared about these?

More reviews on the way, stay tuned!

The Man in the Box

Joey Tesauro

Gaming Below Presents…

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Well….fuck.

I really didn’t want to be in this position. I mean really, is there any point in talking about a Zelda game anymore? I wonder if we’ll get the boomerang or the hookshot first this time. Let’s face it, the Legend of Zelda series is to gameplay innovation what the Republicans are to compassion; this is just an alien concept for them. Note: Nice job surviving that heart attack Cheney.

Dickhead.

So I found myself recently tasked with doing a bit of traveling for my day job, sent to our offices in Toronto. It was my roommate’s suggestion to take his copy of Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass along for the plane ride. Which in some ways turned out to be a good thing, as weather delays and the merry band of assholes known as U.S. Customs gave me plenty of time for gaming. The negative being that I had to play a Zelda game…

Let’s just put the cards on the table here, the last Zelda game I played through from start to finish was Twilight Princess, back when I was still into that hyper advanced etch a sketch known as the Nintendo Wii. And upon finishing, while I concede that I felt something of a sense of accomplishment, I put forth the theory that to play through one Zelda game was to play through them all. Subsequent experience with Wind Waker, now Phantom Hourglass and the overrated, ( YES, I SAID IT! ) Ocarina of Time have only cemented this school of thought.

Phantom McGuffin is somewhat unique in that it’s apparently a direct sequel to the Gamecube released Wind Waker, bringing back unpleasant memories of the last time I saw something like this done, namely Final Fantasy X-2, aka the japanese Charlie’s Angels. The first thing that becomes abundantly clear, and perhaps this is because it’s released on the DS, is that this game is clearly marketed for kids. Now I’m not saying every game has to be all dark, dripping in the blood of a virgin, marketed by EA games noise. On the contrary, on a world spanning adventure game, a lightness of tone can be a great storytelling asset. I just wish game developers wouldn’t confuse ‘lightness of tone’ with ‘kiddy game’. Stuff like this really does make me hate kids.

So once again, you take on the role of Link, or really whatever you name your version of Link, the hero of time, still traveling with pirate princess Zelda. And just when you’re reeling from all the staggering new ideas, it takes about five minutes for her to get herself kidnapped and set yourself up on the ‘ I’m on a never ending quest to save my girlfriend’ schtick. Though it strikes me as interesting that Link is always either ten, or a homosexual, because her and Peach must have some “NEVER PUT OUT” accord going on. It’s like they’re afraid no one will come save them if their story arcs reach some kind of emotional climax.

So that’s the story. And in case you haven’t felt your ears bleed in a long time, the next character you run into is Navi’s long lost cousin, still going, “Hey, Listen!” and just begging to get punched in the face. I feel like criticizing the story in a Zelda game would be like trying to break down a brick wall using my head as a chisel and the DS Lite as a hammer, all I’m going to get is a headache, and I’ll probably have to buy a new DS. So let’s just leave it at that.

Now, because this is a DS Lite game, the gameplay is tailored to the use of the Stylus. And here, I’ve actually found a lot to like. Many of DS games seem unable to decide whether to use the Stylus or the d-pad and buttons, and the result is a rather annoying mess of having to juggle both disparate control styles. Here Phantom Hourglass wisely makes you rely on the stylus, and there are a number of gameplay mechanics that all fit the characterization of the world. For example, you find a treasure map, and you can use the stylus to mark it on your own map so you can find it later. You’re trekking through fire based dungeon number 37, and you find a hint laying out where the traps are, and you can draw yourself a reminder on your own map.

Combat is similarly handled by the Stylus. You move the point where you want to go, and when you see an enemy, most of the time just clicking on it will make your Link charge and slash. Occasionally they call for more creative means of attack, such as the electrified enemies that charging tends to just shock you, and while it’s not especially difficult, it does keep you active enough to make time pass by.

Though it needs to be mentioned that this game continues the trend of Nintendo finding new ways for me to embarrass myself. I clear out a room of monsters and there’s a woman hiding behind the door. Navi tells me, “Call out to her!” and it dawns on me that the game wants me to physically yell into the microphone.

No. No, no, no. Misanthropic IT guy/gamer though I am, and while the gentleman sitting next to me was a fairly reasonable sort, particularly given his Philadelphia heritage, there are limits to what I’m willing to do in public. I wasn’t going to shout out “Objection”! when I played Phoenix Wright in the break room at work, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to yell at the DS Lite to get some crazy woman to open her shop door.

Note: Blowing into the Mic seemed to be enough for the twisted malevolence behind the scenes.

Much of the gameplay is, as in past entries, focused around exploring dungeons for various items and mcguffin used to help a great spirit save the land. And again maybe because of the kid focus, the riddles all feel pretty insultingly easy, but I found myself liking the way they worked the DS interface into it. When I had to blow out a candle, I had to blow into the mic, and using the stylus to draw paths for the boomerang was fun, especially when I’d use it to harass the wandering guards who couldn’t see me from where I was hiding.

If I’m running out of things to talk about, it’s only because this is all fairly insubstantial, and if you’ve played a Zelda game before, then you’ve played this. Same midi soundtracks echoing familiar themes, same gameplay structure. For all of you people who complained about how much time it took to sail in Wind Waker, you’ll be happy to know that Nintendo has heard your complaints; and done FUCK ALL about it. Alright let’s go to the judges for their thoughts. Along with Loque and British, I bribed a nintendo fanboy with some pokemon cards to get his opinion. Gentlemen?

Loque: No. No no no no no. I feel like spending any more time with this game then the time it takes to push start would make my girlfriend refuse to touch me. Hell no. This is tits and ass repellant. Send it back.

British: I’m afraid I have to agree with my associate. Assuming you don’t own a t-shirt with the Triforce emblazoned on it, or have some brats in the backseat you need to throw something at to get them to shut up, this isn’t for you.

Nintendo Fanboy: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? THIS IS EVERYTHING WE LOVED ABOUT THE LAST ZELDA GAMES ALL OVER AGAIN IN A PORTABLE FORMAT! HAVING LINK TRAVEL THE WORLD AND INTERACT WITH PEOPLE, SAILING THE SEAS, THIS GAME IS-

*Gunshot*

…Well….I lose more judges that way. Loque, did you HAVE to bring the sniper rifle?

When it comes down to it, the Legend of Zelda games are one of those things I find myself really wanting to like, but now when I pull the Master Sword out of the stone, I just find a spork. Every now and then I’ll hear the tunes and it’ll make me think back to when I was a kid and Link to the Past was out, and one of my pillars of adventure was a young boy’s journey to save a princess. The fact is, I’m not a kid anymore, and while there are games I can play that help me preserve that time lost sense of adventure, this isn’t it.

-Lost in Time

Joey Tesauro

Morale is hanging on a slope more slippery than Stewie’s heterosexuality at the moment, so let’s just get right to business.

Tried the Dante’s Inferno demo recently via Xbox Live. I know everyone’s been saying this game is alot like God of War, but from what I’ve seen, this isn’t LIKE God of War, it IS God of War. I’m not sure how to feel about that. On one hand, people like to say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. On the other hand, how many of those people have actually HAD their hard and legitimately good work ripped off so blatantly? At any rate, they’re still making a damn good game, even if it is a bastard clone of Jaffe’s baby, so I can’t get too upset. Although wait a tick, wasn’t this a comedy?

Got my key for the Star Trek Online closed beta. Considering it’s still in closed phase, my hands are more or less tied about what I can actually talk about. THAT SAID…there’s alot there, and I like damn near all of it. And particularly considering the mood I’ve been in lately, that’s saying ALOT. And since we enter open beta phase next week, for anyone on the fence, get the hell off of it before you hurt yourself, this is shaping up to be something the sci fi geeks ( Including me ) or the guys who are just sick to death of elves ( also me ) have been waiting for.

Over the break I got a chance to play around with New Super Mario Bros Wii, and it immediately reminded me of all the reasons why I find Nintendo so goddamn infuriating. They have enough money to buy the moon, with a fanbase so loyal and rabid that they could come out with a game about a serial child rapist and it would STILL manage to sell. And while they sit on this position that other game developers with loads of creative ideas struggle just to stay in business, or in the case of Pandemic lose the fight entirely, all they do is RELEASE THE SAME SHIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Seriously, if I and everyone else are expected to buy a digital TV by 2010, then you’re not allowed to ignore the last 15 years of game innovation.

This is one of those days I find myself strangely missing George Bush. Not that I voted for the guy or was a fan in any way of his politics, but he really was a great blame figure. I need a new one of those, and stat. I’m open to new ideas here. I considered Michael Atkinson, but he’s someone else’s problem.

Note: I have temporarily removed the option to add comments unless you register on the site. I’m genuinely sorry about this, but seriously guys, I’m spending half my time filtering spam, so until I find a reliable automatic filter, I need to take the power back. I promise I will never email you unsolicited.

Well, except you, Dave.

Joey Tesauro

Can’t judge Stewie, as he’s rapidly giving up on the female sex as well.

Like everyone else with the kinds of social skills required to hang out on the internet, I love Star Wars. With that in mind, Gaming Below is bringing to you a Star Wars themed Christmas with a couple of videos relating the George Lucas’ sci fantasy opus.

The first is the Star Wars holiday special. Broadcast in its entirety November 17th 1978, is widely considered one of the worst moments in television history. The special follows the principal cast of the Star Wars film as Chewbacca tries to go home to see his family on Kashyyyk for “Life Day” celebrations. I personally find it amusing in its unbridled, unrelenting awfulness. The majority of the Wookies’ dialogue is never translated even though there’s a perfectly capable protocol droid ( i.e. translator )on the stage, and there is no way in hell Carrie Fisher isn’t high on something while she sings the “Life Day” song, with John Williams’ iconic score as backdrop.  It’s almost savant like in its retarded genius.

Then again, while George Lucas seems to earnestly regret this abortion of television amusement, he still made the Phantom Menace, so he’s fairly guilty of fucking up his own franchise anyway, and that brings us to our second piece, a 70-minute review of the Phantom Menace by some guy named Mike from Milwaukee. In several parts, he discusses why the movie is a complete and utter pile of crap, such as having no identifiable main character for the audience to connect with ( i.e. Luke Skywalker ). While the author of the video might be trying a bit hard with some of the random fourth wall bits, it’s both an amusing and insightful look into understanding exactly why this movie is so bad it makes my eyes bleed when I watch it.

Links to follow below. That said, Merry Christmas, late Happy Chanukah and Happy Kwanzaa to you and your families.

Now bugger off, I’m going to see my daughter.

If you strike me down, I will become more powerful then you can possibly imagine.

Joey Tesauro

Star Wars Holiday Special

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97036-Celebrate-Life-Day-with-the-Star-Wars-Holiday-Special

Phantom Menace Review-

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/12/17/watch-this-70-minute-video-review-of-star-wars-the-phantom-menace/

Our Top Story today kids, Exile in Rosedale – The Musical Life of Seven 1963-2009

This one’s a long time in the making, I’ve got a friend of mine who’s been working on an autobiographical piece for a while now, and the release date is now so close we’ve even got a trailer for it. Set to release on December 15th, Exile in Rosedale is an inside look into one of the more persistant artisans of our age. Best part is, just because it’s dated to 2009, he’s not actually dead, so we can still give the guy crap if we want to!

Seriously, I’ve been looking forward to this one, and knowing the author as I do, I expect it’ll be worth checking out. Below is a url to a trailer for the book on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrE8fobAmH0

Just posted the review for Halo 3: ODST. This marks my offical caving into peer pressure as I introduce a formal rating system for my reviews featuring judges Loque and British. Expect to see more of these guys very soon. Will post a quick bio for each below that will eventually be on the “About the Site” page when I get around to making it. As always, comments/feedback are welcome.

-Fully intends to market his own psychosis

-Joey Tesauro

Gaming Below Judges

Loque
Real name: Paul Jackson
Weapon of Choice: Sniper Rifle
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Favorite games: Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Unreal Tournament

Quote: HEADSHOT!

Likes to kill things. When he’s not killing things, he gets upset and wants to kill other things. Vicious cycle. Favors a sniper rifle and first person shooters. Can be distracted by shiny things and very nice graphics. Very vulgar and to the point when not killing things. More so when he is.

British
Real name: Unknown
Weapon of choice: Run on sentences
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Favorite games: Planescape: Torment, Grim Fandango,
Quote: Bollocks.

No one knows his real name because Loque just calls him “British” and he himself hates people too much to be bothered to correct anyone. Misanthropic introverted english gamer with a preference for story based games like RPG’s. Confirmed D/D player under the alias “Fugly Shonuff”.