Fez (2012, Platformer)

Before I played the game, I watched a video of it on YouTube, so the reason I wanted to play it was to see this awesome 2D/3D rotating game mechanic.

At first, I couldn't see why the developers didn't just use this mechanic straight away. But then I saw something brilliant, the game "broke", and the game mechanic was unleashed (as if by accident). As the game started to glitch and go crazy, I was half like, nice I like those effects where the text characters appear in weird colours... but then after a while, because the effects looked so realistic, I was sort of half-worried, in the back of my mind. Is it really freaking out, what's going on? Then the BIOS screen, oh, ha-ha, nice. They even included a sound effect of the hard drive spinning up... that took me right back. Then the game restarted... oh crap. Nah, it can't be broken. Ah, there's a Fez on his head so at least that much is saved! Oh, what's this, different perspectives? Awesome.

I read on Wikipedia that the 2D/3D game mechanic is to Super Paper Mario and Crush, to quote:

Fez features 2D/3D perspective shifts in a manner similar to Super Paper Mario and Crush. The use of Escher-like optical illusions also predominates gameplay in a manner similar to Echochrome.

Not being able to die in the game allows the player to focus on puzzles, and worry less about technique (at least in the beginning). Later, in level 3, instead of falling to your death you fall into the water, so now you start to focus on your technique a little more. Actually this was my first "noooo!" moment, and the timing felt right; I've invested enough time in the game so far that I'm happy to try a few more times to overcome this damn tower level! Eventually I cracked it before my patience ran out, so now I'm even more invested in the game. Technique gradually becomes more important in later levels, where you use the classic mechanics like: Taking a run-up will make you jump further.

The game gives players hints to the locations of cubes, and the world map shows which levels are yet to discover and whether or not you've got all the secrets. This gives you plenty of value for money, in that you can really get the full experience from the game. I can imagine that some players might not like the secrets being advertised like this, but I think it makes the game more accessible.


Interesting, that in the 2nd level, it's much easier to find cubes than in the 1st level. This could be to get the player used to the slightly higher degree of skill needed for jumping between platforms. It's still hard, but in more of a technique way, than a treasure hunt way.

The "dot" is quite a funny character, going from comments like "it's like some important... door... place..." when describing a place with lots of doors. Just my kind of humour.

The developers have really used the perspective mechanic to the game's advantage. You have to rotate the view to a specific angle on some levels, to find the right path. Often you need to switch back and forth between views to progress -- these puzzles must have been quite tricky to design.

Features like the inventory are introduced gradually, which is a nice way of building the tutorial into the game. Also, the "dot" character is aware that players don't particularly like long, wordy dialog; at one point it even says "OK, now I'm done, I swear!" in reference to the amount of dialog used.

There are a lot of game elements that look to be inspired by Zelda; the style, sound effects, assistant character, the atmosphere, for example.

Puzzles get even more bizarre and mind boggling as the game progresses. Such as the ability to climb directly up 2 totally separate ladders as if they were one. From the side-on perspective, climbing seamlessly up the ladder is not possible...

...but rotate the view 90 degrees, and you're able to climb up as if it was one ladder...

This is actually one of the more subtle uses of this mechanic. In fact, as the game progresses, usage of this strange mechanic increases. Soon you're able to jump between platforms that in a 3D world would be totally inaccessible to one another. The game's idea seems to be that each perspective is actually a slightly different world, yet they all join up seamlessly (much like  Echochrome). At one point before you are introduced to the 3D mechanic, one character says "Reality is a perspective, and perspective is subjective." which I believe is a brilliantly subtle reference to this mechanic. Solving puzzles using these different perspectives can make the player feel quite smart. I felt pretty smart when I had rotated two platforms to match each other form a particular perspective, so that I could cross them (even though in hindsight this seems very simple now). I thought to myself "yeah, I actually get this now."

Dungeon Keeper (1997, RTS/God-game)

Considering it's age, I always find it awesome how you can rotate and zoom in and out (Pg up/Home/End for those who don't know). Honestly, this doesn't do a great deal for enhancing the gameplay, but it really makes the game stand out technologically compared to other games released at the time.

I actually played DK2 before I played the first version, so going back in time in terms of graphics and interactivity is a little different, but actually not too significant. Seems like they pretty much got it right in the first version. I'm especially impressed that it's not just DK2 in which you can possess creatures and go into first person dungeon mode. Again, doesn't do an amazing amount for the gameplay, but is a great feature technologically speaking.

One thing I definitely remember is constantly being badgered by the hints. I always thought they were a little too wordy -- I like things to be to the point. I hardly ever read them though as I just wanted to play the game.

However, clever Bullfrog realised that there are lazy players like me, so after this message is displayed, a flashing icon for the hatchery appears in the toolbar to the right. This is the sort of tutorial I like, one which is integrated with the UI, and gradually opens up options for the player. I suppose, the wordy stuff is handy for players who get confused and have the patience to go back through the messages and read them for hints -- so even though some gamers (like me) are lazy and can't be bothered reading them, they are definitely a vital part of the game's tutorial mechanic.

If you dig around in the options, you'll see options to change the view time from isometric to 2D, draw distance, and raise/lower walls. Interestingly, walls are stubby by default (much shorter than columns in the rooms) but this doesn't seems strange at all until you start screwing around with the wall height.

Enemies (the heros) can freely tunnel through the world to reach your base. It seems like they only dig through walls that you haven't claimed, which is an interesting solution to "how to we stop the enemy from screwing up our nice base?" Imps are slow to claim walls, and I remember something about building doors to try and block off enemies. No doubt though this could have presented developers with an interesting challenge: How can we get the AI to attack the player if they are sealed in? I suppose the answer is that the player needs to defeat the land of the lord in order to win the level, so the player has no choice but to create unprotected tunnels -- so perhaps the problem elegantly solves it's self.

If we could compare the game to Minecraft for a moment: Levels aren't generated, and gold is visible on the map and on screen (everything else is in shroud). This allows the game developers to control the game experience, and gives the player something to aim for.

The first 2 levels of the game are very easy, but still satisfying. Interestingly, the 2nd level doesn't seem much harder than the first, but you're definitely doing more to keep up with the demands of your creatures.

Also, I just noticed at level 3 how cool the sound track is -- the nu-metal/electronic style really helps bring out the "evil" feel of the game. Awesome. Reminds me slightly of the Red Alert sound track.

The tutorial does stall at level 4 (unless I missed something with my lazy attitude towards reading) -- when you finally get a workshop, the game doesn't guide you with the UI on how to use the workshop. I finally remembered after about 20 mins of wondering when something good was going to happen... Ah, you need to pick up the Demon Spawn and drop them in the Workshop -- at this point, they start making doors, etc. Had I been on the development team I would have done/suggested 1 of 2 things: a) improve the tutorial UI so that it nags the player to drop a worker in, or b) make at least 1 worker automatically go to the workshop the first time you create it. That said, adding these workers only causes doors and traps to be created, which isn't much use when I need a bridge! Time to pay a visit to YouTube. To quote that guy "they're annoying because you can't choose which traps are built."I read that you get the ability to build a bridge "after a while" -- but after waiting for a long time, this never came, and there were no hints how to unlock it. Is it a bug, or something I need to do?

That seems to be a good place to wrap this up. I could restart level 4 to try and get a bridge, but maybe another day.

Psychonauts (2005, Platform)

Not sure I got the deal with the "inverted" controls (which according to the game are not inverted). I immediately "inverted" the controls in the options.

On the first level your buddy gets killed -- but when people die, they don't really die, apparently -- their "astral" projection (or whatever) gets kicked out of the psychic world. Maybe this is meant to make the player less afraid of dying? The developer was clearly trying to suggest something to the player here.

The checkpoints feel nicely balanced. Just before a hard obstacle, the checkpoint is saved. And after a difficult obstacle, a few easier challenges are presented -- followed by another checkpoint. This seems to be a repeating pattern which works.

Some parts of the level are very dark, which can make the game extra hard if you're not playing in total darkness (I had the blinds open on the window). This sort of thing would make the game quite unbalanced on devices where you can't predict lighting (e.g. phones).

Swinging on the bars: This obstacle was too tricky to be enjoyable I think. After a few attempts, you realise that the solution is to get to the highest bar possible, then rotate on the bar and go the other way. I felt that the controls to rotate the player were not that intuitive -- the "F" key!? The same fucking key as is used to talk? Seriously? So that spoilt the experience a little. I also saw some guy on YouTube have this same stumbling block, so I assume it's not just me being a dumb ass. An on screen hint reminding you how to rotate (after a few attempts) would have solved this problem I bet.

Got a little bored looking for that Sasha guy (though this is only level 4 of 13) -- but I might pick this review up again later.

Skyrim (2011, rpg) - 16 Nov 2011

Illusion breakers:
Very high detail in some areas can draw attention to less detailed areas.
Characters “skating” (walking out of sync with movement).
When things (feet, objects, etc) touch the ground but don’t disturb it (dust, etc).
Characters that repeat the same sound clip when nagging you to do something.

Bad stuff:
The first loot screen allows you to take all, and not equip a weapon.
It’s not obvious how to equip weapons, takes some button mashing.
Shadows on the XBox 360 suck up close.
Vital information is put in conversations you can easily skip (e.g. on the Golden Claw quest, you can skip the guy telling you he has the Golden Claw which you need to finish the quest).
Actors often don’t change their facial expressions with the voice, which looks strange.
Some sound effects happen without character animation (e.g. clapping hands).
Auto-saving too often can get the user out of the habit of saving, so they’re very frustrated when they die and realise the game hasn’t auto saved for a long time.

Good stuff:
Markers teach you initially where hidden stuff could be (like barrels).
When you attack the cabbages, they move around and dust flies off them, then a passer-by shouts “don’t do that!”
There’s no annoying tutorial, nice, this is good and bad (a simple “equip weapon (B)” would have been helpful).
You can skip conversations by pressing A.
You can save at any time, and dieing takes you back to the last save (or auto save).
The puzzles are interesting.
Auto saves seem to reliably happen at the end of missions.

Interesting:
Skeletons have gold on them.
You can carry a ridiculous amount of stuff.

Rage (2011, fps) - 07 Oct 11

Atmospheric, with real game play.

First impressions. Epic intro. No HUDto start with, heps to immerse the player. Pretty neat first view of landscape. XBox 360 version has some aliasing on hand rail, a bit unexpected. First enemy encounter is fucking starling; I literally shouted “shit!” -- interestingly, these guys are killed for you, so you don’t get to kill stuff early on, but I didn’t mind somehow. Doom guy in the buggy is an awesome touch while you’re being driven through the landscape; a nice way of setting the scene. Almost no storyline, which is exactly what you want in an FPS. The aliasing is really getting under my skin; though you buy the XBox 360 version for the frame rate, not the quality. When the HUD appears, it seems a tad cluttered at first, and the map seems huge (but it is only visible when you’re outside). Tutorial is pretty passive, which is good; you only see the very bare minimum info needed (what buttons to press). The menu (mainly for saving and loading) is very responsive and well done; a big improvement on Doom 3. There’s also a tutorial message to remind you to save early and often; so they’ve made a clear choice to take the “safe often” model from Doom, but this time, user’s are reminded “it’s OK to save often; it not cheating”, which will enhance their gameplay experience. So far, the only things I’ve seen that I don’t like is the aliasing (but I can forgive the game for that since I’m using an XBox 360) and the mini-map when you’re outside (but I suppose that this is just a navigational mode, so it’s sort of acceptable). In the save menu, you are limited to a set number of saves, and forced to do a little memory management. The sky and clouds look very realistic, but if you look for too long you realise it’s just a canvas, the the illusion is broken.

RPG. Some players might be lead to believe the game is more RPG-like than it actually is, because of it’s similarities to Fallout 3. However, players may be disappointed about enemies and items fading away, invisible walls, and the linearity of the mission (the side-quests come later in the game and have little to do with the main plot).

Enemies. Enemy death sequences are nicely done. First few enemies are very easy to kill, and pose almost no threat, this is the tutorial stage that’s teaching you how to use your weapon. Interestingly, it’s the environment that ramps up the difficulty, the enemies back you into tight spaces, which makes it harder to fight. Critical hits are feel responsive and moderately easy to achieve. It’s also easy to shoot enemies neat caps out when they’re standing behind stuff; very satisfying. As a brit, I find the enemies’ cockney accents hilarious, especially when they trip over something and shout “Waah, bollocks!”; excellent voice acting. Another surprising feature of the engine is that enemies disappear almost immediately after killing them. Mutants crawling out of every hole (including the floor and ceiling) is a good way to make the player scared. The enemies seem to be inspired greatly by Left 4 Dead (spitting acid, etc). At one point you are required to use some intelligence to kill a boss (when you first get a rocket launcher), up to this point no intelligence is really needed to kill bosses, so it took me a couple of attempts to realise “Oh, this thing dispenses more rockets?!” you could argue that this could frustrate some players, but really it’s just a shock to the player that they actually need to think.

Environment. This game is so immersive, cut-scenes are from your perspective, so you stay immersed; none of this out-of-body crap. Some times, there may be a gap that you cannot go through, which is a little frustrating. Died for the first time jumping down a ladder; interesting. Retrying missions seems to reduce the number of enemies, maybe to make the level easier. I did notice one or two minor physics bugs, but nothing serious enough for me to get annoyed. In the subway underground level, you see a great number of mutants all fleeing at the sight of you, which is gives you the impression that you might be safe for a while, but after you realise just how many you’ve seen, they start emerging in greater numbers. Along with the evil music (trumpet, violins, playing minor notes) and decomposing dead bodies scattered around, this builds a very scary environment. When the game wants to shock the player, you’ll notice that the music dies down to deliver the audio and visual blow that makes the player shout “shit!”

Mini-game. You’re introduced to the first mini game (the defibrillator) early on, while this was a little unexpected, the tutorial explained how to use it quite well, and afterwards seemed natural, while I don’t quite understand the point of the mini game right now, I somehow don’t mind it too much. The engineering feature in the inventory screen is cool. There are also other gambling games.

Weapons. The wings are freaking awesome for decapitating enemies; puts a big smile on my face; love this weapon. When you are awarded the rifle, the player inspects it, shows you how weighty it is; this is designed to make the player happy with their new find. The half-binocular (humorously described as “the good half”) enhances the pistol significantly; a nice touch. Some objects (e.g. Authority power generators) require multiple shots from normal weapons to disable them, however the initial shot doesn’t give any indication that damage was done, so if a player was worried about wasting ammo they might not fire further shots. I actually thought for a while that the EMP was the only thing that could destroy them, but when I ran out of HE grenades, I found myself going back through the level looking for stuff -- as it happens I actually did find a fair number of hidden items. Weapons like mind control darts and the sentry robot are heavily inspired by Fallout 3. I’m totally blown away by the mind control and dynamite bolts for the crossbow; by far the most fun weapons I’ve used in a game so far. Interestingly, they play down the effectiveness of the crossbow by giving you crappy ammo to start with, which makes the special ammo all the more satisfying to use. Seriously, the mind control in Rage is way more fun than Fallout 3.

Quests. The game starts out mostly with fetch-quests, backed by some basic motivation; first and foremost, “I want a god damn doom buggy!”, followed by “I want guns on my doom buggy!” On day 3, after around 4 hours of playing, I’m now asking myself what is my motivation? In Fallout 3, you are constantly reminded that you’re looking for your dad, and you want to save everyone from the nasty irradiated water; but what exactly is the end goal in Rage? First the goal was to get a kick ass doom buggy, now I have this, I’m thinking there should really be some sort of impending doom that I need to fend off (e.g. the not-yet-seen-but-vastly-talked-about authority).

Conclusion. There has been an incredible amount of marketing gone into this game; the amount of hype generated has made it very highly anticipated; they have not disappointed. Overall, the game is incredibly solid and very playable. There are one or two irritating things (e.g. the save menu, it was so close to being perfect). The final product seems to be a mix of Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Half Life 2, and a number of other great games.

Doom 3 (2005, fps) - 02 Oct 11

Sure is atmospheric, what about gameplay?

First impressions. Intro reminds me of Resident Evil; sets the scene nicely. However, after receiving your in-game PDA, you’re bombarded with a ton of text -- this is not a good thing unless the user is already invested in the game; most users will just skip past all of this (and it probably contains important information). Traveling to objectives in the non-dangerous part of the game reminds me of Half Life. Faces are very nicely detailed, but by contrast, the low-poly count on character heads can draw you back out a little. Level detail has some very nice textures, but again (only by contrast) the lack of anti-aliasing is very noticeable on thin models (like hand rails). The way of interacting with the service lift (choosing floor from a control panel) is a nice touch, and adds some nice realism. The menus are a bit clunky; saving and loading isn’t a seamless experience, which can be frustrating.

Atmosphere. The game intro stage seems to be timed quite well, just as I was starting to think “Hmm, in Doom 2 I could start shooting things straight away.” things started to attack me; so the intro is long, but maybe not too long. Comparing the game to Doom 2, the difference is that there is a small degree of fear in your first encounter; you’re actually not sure whether to attack him or not, and before you have time to think, a scientist beating you with his fists. In Doom 2 the fear comes much later. The flashlight does add another degree of fear, especially since you can’t use your gun at the same time.

Enemies. The Imps aren’t as fun to kill in this n; version as the fireballs are harder to dodge, perhaps because there is less space to move around. Enemies in general also seem to be harder to kill.

Levels. In Doom 2, levels give you mental barriers, and a sense of achievement and progression. Doom 3 seems to be a little more seamless, which is technically impressive and perhaps more immersive, but maybe not as much fun as the original.

FortressCraft (2011, sandbox) - 20 Sept 11

A shameless Minecraft clone.

First impressions. A glitchy Minecraft clone. A 5-pixel wide line top of screen keeps flashing, which is irritating (could be an XBox-only bug, but that’s no excuse). The save icon keep flashing, which is also irritating and distracting. When you get close to a block, the entire world shakes around like Michael J. Fox. Also I’m not sure what is the point in the reveal screen other than to irritate the player. Water doesn’t make a splash when you move through it, making the fancy dynamic water graphics (ironically) far less realistic than water in Minecraft. While the music is quite good quality, it doesn’t really fit in; it’s too up-tempo, which draws you out of the game (maybe if it was quieter and less rich, that might help).

Effort vs reward. The game is only a clone of Minecraft creative mode, so it’s not really a game. Minecraft is so popular because it contains an actual game, which makes your creations more meaningful because of the effort involved, as Yahtzee puts it, “That giant cock and balls wouldn’t be all so incredibly turgid, if it wasn’t for the entire continent you had to turn upside down to find all the ore. What sets it apart from other creativity toys like Garry’s Mod is that if you can just clap your hands to summon 50 explosive barrels to pile on rag dolls around, then the spectacle is about as fulfilling as eating your own snot. Minecraft is a responsible parent; it knows you’ll swiftly get bored of your golden cock and balls if it just gives you one, so it gives you $5 a week for you to wash it’s car, so you can save up and gain an appreciation for value, and when you finally have your golden cock and balls, you’ll love it all the more, until Minecraft sends the suicide shrubs because some times you also just need to learn that life will just shit on you.”

Gameplay. After digging to see how far I could go, I found it incredibly frustrating getting back to the surface. Minecraft would not have let me go that far, and would have really given me a sense of how deep I was because of the amount of effort I could put in; which would make you think before going too far ahead. The controls are not intuitive, selecting blocks from your inventory is not easy to work out without pressing all buttons (incidentally you hold the D-Pad in a direction). Because it gives you a torch for free, you might assume that right trigger is the “place torch” button (but it’s actually the place button; torch is just the default). When you fall from a great high, you don’t loose health which further detracts from the feel of realism; there are no consequences in this world, no risks; this makes life get very boring very quickly. The help screen is like torture, instead of being easily browsable, you have to sit through the entire scrolling text; the first FAQ isn’t anything to do with gameplay, it’s “how to make the game run better”.

Conclusion. This game is just irritating, not money well spent (thank god it was cheap). Its hard to see why it has 4 of 5 stars on the store -- maybe because it’s graphically more appealing than Minecraft, but the gameplay and realism just isn’t there. It just looks like a forced clone; it feels like no love went into creating this game. It’s really just Garry’s Mod made to look like Minecraft; which in my opinion makes the game doubly unintuitive; this game will not be successful.