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Catching Up: Quick Impressions of Some Games I’m Playing

Over the last two days I’ve been gorging on videogames. I’m indulging now before reality hits me and the worries of money, finding work and finding my own place take over. Before then, I can numb it all down with a barrage of new and old games. Here’s some brief impressions.

Geometry Wars Evolved 2. The original Robotron-inspired twin-stick shooter, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, was the game that was played on my XBox 360 on more days than any other. I’m sure that there are many games that I’ve played longer, in cumulative time, but as a measure of times played none come close. The brief, but frantic, action was a good interlude between other activities in the dashboard. It was something that was always there, when waiting for someone or something to download, or in those moments that my internet connection (or XBox Live’s) was down. The sequel to that was high on my “catch up” list.

What I like best about Geometry Wars Evolved 2 is its streamlining. The one problem with the original game was that, if you were decent enough, the ramp up of the game, before everything became crazy, took too long. You’d spend a couple of minutes, bored, waiting for the score to rise up to 100,000, the point when it starts to get fun. With the sequel they’ve added five new game modes and all of them become spastic in no time. They’re quick and zippy with high flying scores. With the great friend list leaderboards always on show, this is the ultimate occasional game. A session, or ten, here and there between more involved games.

Unfortunately, being several months late to the party means that I’m playing catch-up on the leaderboards. They’re also far less active now than they were nearer to launch which takes away from some of the back and forth that makes the game fun. That said, if you are on my friends’ list and you have Geometry Wars Evolved 2, then I’ve already defeated one of your high scores^[1]. The gauntlet is thrown down.

Braid. A lot has been said about Braid already so it’s repetitious to say that it’s beautiful and ingenious. A simple platformer that minimizes the necessary timing and reflexes required in the genre by giving the player an unlimited undo button. With the platforming requirements greatly reduced, Braid is allowed to focus its full attention on its time manipulation puzzles. They’re often mind-bendingly difficult without ever feeling unattainable, which is a testament to their design. I’m two away from completing it^[2].

Although I do have to say that two puzzle pieces in the first world are frustratingly annoying because their solution is completely incongruous with every other part of the game. I had to “cheat” to get these even if seeing the solution was a complete duhhh moment. But other than those two, it’s all quite genius.

WipeOut HD. Brilliant. Stunning. A complete sense of deja vu. WipeOut Pure was my second favourite PSP launch title^[3] and its sequel, WipeOut Pulse, was one of only two games that got a lot of play during my four month sojourn^[4]. You could say that I’m a fan of the series.

That’s my only beef with WipeOut HD: I’ve played it all before. Every track in HD is a higher resolution duplicate of a stage from the two PSP games. Having to campaign through all the same events a second time over will likely get tiresome after a while, but before that happens I’m soaking in all the glorious 1080p hovercar action. It is quite pretty. Brilliant. Stunning. All for a reasonable $20 price tag. It’s definitely worth the cost, though it does make me yearn for a real next-generation WipeOut. Or a new F-Zero.

Little Big Planet. Wonderful and charming. I have an idea for a level I want to build, but I need to play more of the single player “campaign” to unlock the various materials and items I need to construct it. This is stupid. If LBP is supposed to be this giant creative playground then why use forced game mechanics to prevent me from playing with it out of the box? It’s like I bought a giant play-do set but it came with a chess board and I can’t make anything until I play twenty games of chess first. It feels artificially limiting.

Still, it has charm to spare and there’s already plenty of awesome stuff for it.

Super Stardust HD. meh.

Mirror’s Edge (demo). Oh man, this is totally up my alley. Or jumping over it.

And now I’m going to start Fallout 3. I can put off the job search for another week.

1. Except in “Pacifism.” I inexplicably suck at that.
2. In the “elevator action” level.
3. Lumines.
4. Civilization Revolutions on the DS.

November 4th, Playstation 3

Tuesday was an important day. It was my first full day back in Canada after four months of being down and out in Paris and London. It was my sister’s 21st birthday (not a big deal in Canada, but it does make me feel old.) There was that whole election thing south of the border. And, as I maintained that I would, I purchased a Playstation 3. I am finally 100% new console generation compatible, unlike my old Playstation 2 games.

My first experience with the Playstation 3 wasn’t a positive one: the UI for the Playstation Network registration was horrible. I can deal with the Playstation’s software keyboard, it’s not that bad, but the flaws in the system are with the general flow and error messaging. It was downright confusing. I had to input my security question three times because any error in another field (invalid user account, mismatched passwords) would reset that form field. This is bad form design.

After that initial registration screen came the choose your username form. I entered “n0wak”, hit submit and received a vague “username is invalid or taken or something” error message. Well, great. Not being able to use that dilutes my brand. It is an established and consistent username across a whole slew of sites and services and knowing that there was someone else out there using it made me feel dirty. Also, I couldn’t come up with a good alternative that wasn’t immediately rejected.

Frustrated, I shut down the registration process and searched a web-based alternative. Thankfully, Sony was prescient enough to offer such a service. Foregoing the irritating softkeys, I signed up, confirmed everything and linked my Playstation 3 to that account. This was the way to go.

Unfortunately, the username issue could not be resolved and I had to think of something new on the spot (always a potentially regrettable situation.) So any Playstation 3 owners out there should add runbutton to your friend lists. I used this because I own the domain. It’s always good to have a username that ties back to something, unless you are trying to be completely anonymous. I’m not.

Right now I’m digging into Little Big Planet and WipeOut HD. These are the games that, for the record, I specifically purchased the system for. Previous system sellers for me:

• Wii - Wii Sports
• XBox 360 - Dead Rising
• Playstation 2 - Twisted Metal Black, Gran Turismo 3
• XBox - Panzer Dragoon Orta
• PSP - Lumines, WipeOut Pure

So yes, add me: runbutton.

The DS: Under the Radar, Above the Moon

Every time Apple makes any announcement about the iPhone, whether it’s new functionality or sales numbers, the internet goes abuzz. Rumour mongers, Apple blogs and tech sites make a lot of noise. The mainstream press follows suit and everyone everywhere hears how great the iPhone is and how successful it is and how sexy it is. Apple does a good job of marketing itself in this regard.

Now, I’m not about to rag on the iPhone — I like it but I don’t own one, though I do have a an iPod Touch and I make use of the App Store — but I do see all these numbers and press releases from a slightly different perspective. It’s not from the point of view of a PC user, I made the switch and bought a MacBook last spring, but through my hardcore in-the-trenches gamer goggles. This perspective doesn’t in any way diminish what Apple has accomplished, but it does put Nintendo’s successes in a new light altogether.

The recent news is that Apple sold almost 7 million iPhones in the quarter, outselling the Blackberry, which puts them close to the ten million sold number for the year. There’s a lot of “told you so” coming from the Apple camp — Apple fanatics are adorably annoying when they get any shred of success — and it reminds me of the Nintendo DS (Nintendo fans are equally cute.) Obviously, the products are very different, focusing on entirely different demographics and users, but they are both portable consumer electronics so certain comparisons are apt.

While a quick perusal of mainstream news and business sites will reveal a number of stories about the success of the iPhone, the same search will show little about the Nintendo DS. Maybe Apple is the more mainstream story with broader consumer appeal. Maybe the fact fact that Nintendo is a Japanese company factors in a little bit. Maybe the iPhone is just plain sexier and the DS has that whole “gamer” stigma attached to it. Maybe it’s seen as a child’s toy and not an adult product. Whatever the case, unless you are a NeoGAF member or a seriously invested follower of the gaming industry, it’s hard to know what is going on with the DS. The mainstream news doesn’t notice that little Nintendo device. It should.

The iPhone has sold around 9 million units this year. In the same time, the DS has sold around 18 million and it still has the massive holiday season ahead of it as well as a new SKU in Japan (the DSi). It has quietly (relative to the buzz around the iPhone) sold nearly 90 million units in total. Is there any doubt left about the mainstream appeal of videogames?

• It’s also worth mentioning that the PSP, (wrongly) considered a “failure”, has sold on par with the iPhone: around 9 million on the year.

Another Podcast Plug, and More

Speaking of podcasts, this week’s episode of GameSpot’s HotSpot features, as special guest, my friend JP. He does his best to not say anything about Bioshock 2. Since that was recorded the teaser video for Bioshock 2 has made it online and, well, not much else has been said. All that needs to be said is that the game is in fine hands.

This is also a good opportunity to plug JP’s in-development indie abstract shooter, purity. There are builds available for download, if you can figure out where to search for them, but look forward to it in the IGF. I’ve played it and while it’s still early and rough–the man has a dayjob after all–it is quite good with a lot of potential. And I say this as someone who’s foundation in the genre is based on slooow console FPS and not the super-quick, high-skilled precision movement that some PC shooters required, which is the direct lineage for purity. Look for potential updates at vectorpoem.

• The list of friends that have appeared on (semi-)renowned podcasts is now: two.

Idle Thumbs Podcast

Let’s face it, if you like videogames and you like listening to people talk about videogames, you might not have much of a life but you do have lots of options. The 1UP network alone publishes six podcasts every week, and that’s just one site. Multiply that by about every site that writes about games — it’s as if each one is lawfully required to start a podcast — and you have an ocean of nerdery.

It is hard to make a proper splash in this crowded landscape, but they hit the right notes: a good cast, including The Internet’s Chris Remo; occasional bouts of stupid humour, like 1UP Yours, but with better taste in games than 1UP Yours; interesting unscripted talk about games, like RockPaperShotgun, but with proper sound quality; and, no Skype awkwardness. It’s a good start and it’s only going to get better (if you don’t believe me, listen to some other podcasts’ first episodes.)

So, yeah, go get it. Subscribe in iTunes. Tell all your friends and eFriends and iFriends too. Idle Thumbs are good people. Here’s Chris Remo’s annotated history of Idle Thumbs and why you should subscribe.

• This post is not sponsored in any way by Idle Thumbs or Idle Thumbs(R) Industries Incorporated.

Paris, Tokyo Game Show

I should be writing about Paris, but there isn’t much to say: the food is good, the city is pretty and the girls more so. I’m loving the autumn colours along the many tree-lined boulevards and the equally radiant sunsets in the cool, but pleasant, evenings. Long walks, hundreds of photos, numerous atrocities committed to the French language and crowded, stuffy evening Metro rides home. I’m enjoying the city. What more can be said than that?

Instead, I’ve been writing about the Tokyo Game Show. I have also been deleting what I wrote about it. I had a long diatribe about the Japanese games on show at TGS and about how the games there show perfectly well why Japanese developers are falling behind their Western counterparts, but it wasn’t really working towards any worthwhile conclusion. I didn’t want my disappointment with the high-profile games there to overshadow the few interesting ideas on show, so I scrapped it. Being negative is too easy so here’s a few positives:

Noby Noby Boy - who the hell knows what’s going on there? The indication is that the teaser video is not at all indicative of the gameplay, which makes sense if you remember earlier tech demos, but does it even matter? It’s from the creator of Katamari Damacy and it will likely not contain any angsty demons making snarky remarks. This alone makes it more original than 80% of the games at TGS. (BONUS: the music in the teaser is a reinterpretation of the music from the classic Namco game, Metro-Cross.)

Gomibako - a dropping block puzzler in which each block is a random piece of junk with various physical properties. The trash interacts with each other in various ways (can be crushed, ignited) which makes for a unique twist on the standard formula.

Again - yeah, it’s a corny trailer but it’s a new adventure game for the DS that is definitely trying to do something fresh. It remains to be seen if the mechanics in the game are worthwhile, but the idea of having the past on one screen and the present on the other within a detective story is worthy of credit. It’s also quite unique stylistically. A little cornball too, but that’s alright.

That, apart from “Meteos Wars” and “Lumines Supernova”, is it. For such a major exhibition, that’s a weak showing. I wonder, then, is it me? Or is it you, Japan? Is that it? Are you that out-of-touch with my Western sensibilities? Or is it I that have changed?

What’s that? You have Western games on show too? “Halo 3: Recon”? “Halo Wars”? “Killzone”? Oh, you’re right then: it is me.

TIGSource Demakes for OS X

if you are a Mac user, as I am now, looking at the TIGSource Demakes competition will probably bring one thought to your head: “wow, look at all those seemingly awesome games that I totally can’t play.” Most indie games are built on PCs for PCs. That’s where the majority of the market and the majority of the dev tools and majority of operating systems are. As a new Mac user, I miss the vast wilderness of low-key and big budget games that exists on Windows machines.

Soundless mountain screenshot

Eager to play something, I went through the competition and compiled a list of games playable on OS X. I likely missed a few, but I did go through the top 10 and most of the higher rates ones (10 votes or more.) Here’s the list. Maybe it’ll be useful to somebody.

• Soundless Mountain
  The winner of the competition, a NES-style “Silent Hill” demake, is OSX friendly (though it does trap keys in an annoying way.)
• House Globe
  A 2D pixely “Homeworld” remake. With multiplayer. Awesome. I definitely need to play this more to get a better sense for it.
• Smaze
  “Haze” in the style of an Ikari Warriors game. The OSX version can be found here. INHERENT BIAS: I know the creators.
• Lady Boy Love Collection
  Which is a… ok, I don’t know what the hell is going on there.

There are two browser-based games that are playable too: Rocket Belt Rawr (a “Jetback Brontosaurus” demake) and Thieving Raccoon (a game and watch version of “Sly Cooper.”) Additionally, a few games are playable with some dependencies: Offslaught ‘81 is Python based so it should be platform independent (but it’s not the most user friendly way to distribute a game) and Super 3D Portals 6 is playable in an Atari emulator (which is impressive in its own right.) A few other games have source code so you can try your hand at porting them, but that’s contrary to the whole “download and play” instant-action philosophy.

And that’s it. A pretty short list considering there were 69 rated entries in total. As a Mac gamer, you take what you can get.