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.

Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994, FPS) - 20 Sep 11

In a word, awesome.

First Impression. I fondly remember days of playing this game to death until 2am on school nights, it’s basically my favorite game for nostalgia and innovation for it’s time. They really did the game justice in the new XBLA version. Slightly tweaked sound effects, tweaked music (pretty much the same as the original) and a brand new menu. The gamepad is an excellent controller for this game; it just works so well (analog sticks have variable run/look speed). I remember that the game always loaded very fast, but what seems to happen is that when the level is loading, the screen melts away, so you never see a “loading” screen (this helps to keep the player immersed).

Story. The story doesn’t start being told until you’re hooked on the game (stories only add depth to the game if the player is actually interested), even still it’s short, simple, and not at all wordy. The story screens also add a sort of check point to the game, which gives the player to aim for something, and an opportunity to go to bed, or continue for another few hours.

Enemies. What I didn’t realise when I was younger is that the level design is what makes this game; you have to really think to kill the enemies stopping you from getting from the keys. This added depth of problem solving (on top of finding keys) is what makes the game so fun (there are more skills to learn). For example, when you get too close to an enemy, he will deal more damage, but so will you, so there is always added risk and reward of getting up close. With the gun-firing enemies, there is a slight delay, and they always fire at where you were when they were “thinking” about shooting you; by ducking behind walls you can avoid getting hit. Ducking behind other enemies for cover is also possible, and as an added bonus they some times turn on each other, but some enemies are invulnerable to fire of the same enemy, so they don’t destroy each other. It’s often very fun to just run into a room, let the enemies blow each other apart, then come in a little later and clean up the rest. It is also possible to suppress enemies; firing at them causes them to stop firing.

Another element to keep gameplay fresh is that doors (some times hidden) open revealing enemies when you get near to the door, and, better still doors can open behind you which really builds a atmosphere of terror. The levels are always much easier to play retrospectively, which is an added bonus when showing off to your mates.

The fire pattern of the Mancubus will force you to dodge in a specific pattern (left, left, right -- but on the 3rd round you must go between the two fireballs) to avoid getting hit, since he fires 3 rounds of 2 fireballs each immediately after the last, at slightly different angles. The Mancubus fireballs also spread out, so running backward away from them will make them much easier to dodge; but the level designers some times put pools of acid, so there is always risk in doing this. The Revenant will fire heat seeking fireballs, but what’s interesting is that if you run toward them and slightly to one side, you can dodge them quite easily (where as ducking behind walls is harder to pull off).

The pain elemental shoots flying skills which float around and attack you; this means that to stop new skulls from spawning you must kill the pain elemental. This is similar to the Fallen Shaman in Diablo II, who will continue resurrecting Fallen enemies until you kill him.

Items. You’re often rewarded for going back through the level (before entering a key door) and searching for items (health, armour, ammo); and often you’ll find super items like supercharge or invisibility; this encourages you to go back and investigate every inch of the map -- sort of a treasure hunt, but made fun because your incentive is to not die when you go through the next door. The keyed doors make you want to save before entering, because usually they contain either many enemies or are a point of no return. The game also plays tricks on your mind to make you more scared, for example, when picking up some items (e.g. rocket) bad things can happen (e.g. hidden door reveals many enemies), which effectively makes the player scared of picking stuff up.

Graphics. You’d think that with graphics that are by today’s standards, primitive, the game would be less immersive, but this could not be less true. The UI blends in well and never takes your attention away from the action. Low frame rate animations can be noticeable (e.g. shotgun reload), but after a while you get used to it and tend not to notice.

Critique. It seems like blasphemy to critique Doom II (or anything made by id software), but there are two very minor personal issues I have with the game. Loading and saving is tedious, the XBLA version made the game slightly less so by naming the saves automatically, but this does mean that you can’t have a naming scheme (e.g. level number, and save number, etc). Loading and saving is hard to get right; pretty much any way you handle it reminds the player that they’re playing a game. The other issue I have is that some times the level puzzles (while clever) can be tedious to solve (e.g. jumping off buildings, running back and forth to reveal secret doors, etc), but thankfully this is fairly rare; pressing buttons and switches seems to keep me happy (but the occasional secret is fun to find) -- it’s very hard to balance. As for the “realism” thing that bothers most people, I actually think that a game doesn’t have to be “realistic” in order to be fun (you’re in another world after all). One last thing, I often give up out of frustration because I forgot to save, and being forced to repeat something is annoying; auto-save would solve this (though the PC version may have had quick save -- the XBLA version does not).

Bastion (2011, RPG) - 20 Sep 11

Neat little platform-like game.

First impressions. Nice graphics. The tiles appearing from below and above is quite visually exciting at first, but starts to get a bit hard on the eyes after a while. The narration is an excellent way of hiding the tutorial; e.g. when you see a fountain, the narrator hints that you might want to drink from it (and you’ve just learnt something without realising it, which you can use alter) -- very well done. Falling looses a little of your health and brings you back immediately (flat on your face, ha); very nice feature.

Levels. It appeared that the user is given multiple levels to complete in case one area is too hard, which can stop the user from getting bored with the game -- however, it seems that the alternative levels were just practice areas, which was a bit of an anti-climax. When you fail an area, it gives you the option of going back to the main level, or retrying that area -- on the first failure, the user is likely to attempt the area again, and further fails would cause them to try alternative routes.

Controls. So intuitive; the bow and arrow (as explained by the narrator) is used by holding X and aiming. That said, I keep pressing Y (heal) in a key mashing frenzy, so it’s easy to accidentally use up your heath when you don’t need to.

Stuff to kill. This game has mob spawners! Great feature, as it requires a little intelligence to solve the problem, which is always great -- it’s what you want; not just a mindless hack and slash. All objects lying around are destructible, and you’re rewarded for smashing stuff up (you randomly get items, etc). Some of the levels are very cleverly designed; e.g. a mob guy with a hammer to crush you if you stay still; some big blue ooze shooting mobs that make you stand still; and some annoying little mobs to distract you, and when the big mob hits the floor, bits of it drop away making it more difficult as time progresses. You can trick enemies into killing other enemies. You can befriend enemies, a bit like casting helper spells in Diablo.

Tutorial. The tutorial is so well done in this game; instead of forcing information down your throat with paragraph on paragraph of padded waffle, it gently whispers small fragments of very useful info into your ear (figuratively and literally!). When presented with text, somehow you always want to read it, as it seems valuable (since there’s so little of it) -- and when text is introduced, you’re far enough into the game to give a crap. Bravo!

Save. It’s not really clear whether you can quit safely as there is no save (only auto save) -- actually this has kept me playing as I’m too scared to loose my progress. When you do continue, it just brings you back to the start of the level, and actually reminds you what you need to do; very nice touch.

Conclusion. Smooth and intuitive gameplay; really fun to play. The graphics are very very busy, but I don’t mind. It’s hard to go to bed, I need just a little more. Great game. Re-visiting after a few days is ok, as the objective was not too unclear, but I got a little bored after not being able to complete a level twice, and having no real alternative route. I think had I not had a break the level would have been possible, but I get out of practice quickly. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to provide an easy alternative route (like Fallout 3 for example) for players who get bored more easily.

From Dust (2011, God game) - 19 Sep 11

It’s fun to play with dirt.

First impressions. Intro is pretty crazy looking. The game in general reminds me of Black and White. Tutorial started to get annoying. Totally awesome gameplay mechanic though, picking land up and dropping is pretty neat, and somehow addictive. Not sure what the point in the foreign language is, just adds more effort to learning a story that I don’t really care about at this point. Spectacular graphics. Destroying villages with water is fun, the annoying villagers scream and everything.

Tutorial. The tutorial could use some indicators on the land. When it said “pick up mass”, it didn’t make it clear that it meant “pick up land” (though this is obvious after you’ve learnt how to play the game). I had high hopes for the start of the game, as there was almost no tutorial. But the game tricks you into thinking you’re tutorial free, but then it creeps up on you; the initial tutorial starts with just a few words (which was ok), then progressively gets so wordy that you even have to pay attention to the cut scenes (which are subtitled) to know what’s going on. Pretty annoying, as I don’t really like reading stuff; I just want to play the damn game. I eventually stopped playing the game because I couldn’t escape tutorials (every level seems to be a tutorial); if you have to repeat a level, you have to repeat the tutorial (which you essentially can’t skip, as it disable features until half way through a level).

Physics. The game’s physics are just incredible. If you divert the water from a waterfall, it will carry sediment to the end of the river, and at the end of the river as it flattens out, it will from an estuary. The land even flattens out a bit after you drop it. Someone really knows their geography here. Pretty cool tsunami, this also washes away dirt. Depositing lava can create walls which are not affected by water, and lava actually moves away from erupting volcanoes. Water can also solidify lava.

Objectives. So, since the tutorial is wordy and demanding, I gave up reading and started playing with the physics which was fun; felt less like learning and more like playing. After I’d diverted my first stream, I felt like I’d achieved something. The first few levels are (and maybe the whole game is) totally tutorial orientated, and so it can be hard to see what your current objective is (and players always like to know what they need to do next). If you get distracted with playing with the dirt, it’s very easy to forget what you’re doing next. This more than often leads to boredom and frustration.

Conclusion. An awesome physics game, let down by wordy tutorials that you can’t always skip.

Mass Effect (2007, RPG/FPS) - 19 Sep 11

Meh, it’s alright.

First impression. Very long intro, no game play for a while, but lots of pretty graphics. Main menu is a bit confusing and mysterious at first. View is darker at the side, makes it a bit more atmospheric. Shooting stuff requires some skill; shooting too frequently grows the targeting circle (which clearly shows that the weapon will be less accurate). Slightly annoying having the characters head in the way the whole time. Weapons selection screen is intuitive and looks neat. Shooting floating gas bags is fun, because they explode. Cut scenes draw you out of the gameplay a little, but do help to tell the story. The enemies look bad ass. Music is a bit repetitive. Auto level up is good for lazy people like me, but sort of removes the RPG element.

Objectives. The map is sweet, very easy to use and intuitive. Explained well; e.g. “dig site” has been repeated many times and is a point of interest on the map. The map however, doesn’t represent obstacles like ridges, so you can only really get a rough direction from the map; you can’t use it to figure out a course through the terrain.

Conclusion. Got bored, and From Dust was finished downloading. Bit annoyed I couldn’t open the door at the “Camp”, was sort of expecting the key to be in the next room or something. I might come back to this game later.

Diablo II (2000, RPG) - 16 Sep 11

Everything that is RPG.

First impressions. Awesome soundtrack (correction: fucking awesome), like the atmospheric rock feel, not medieval or fantasy-like which is great for me. The game in general feels solid and responsive. Not so sure about the colored balls (health and mana indicators) in the corners, they kind of pull you out of the experience a little (maybe it would have blended in a bit better if the blood was darker (more like, err, blood?). Enemies are very easy to kill to start with, which is refreshing as I was expecting a grind, though it probably would get boring after a while if the entire game was that easy. The textures seem to wobble in some places (probably because of the way pixel aliasing is used), which might give you a bit of a headache after a while -- I think that weird rendering issues can break the illusion. After a while you get used to it and it goes away (it helps if you focus on the cursor), but every time you get drawn back out of the game (e.g. when your focus changes to the UI) you notice it again which is irritating.

Enemies. I like how if there are a horde of enemies, some of them run away when you kill others in quick succession -- makes you feel powerful. It’s pretty neat how special enemies can revive other enemies, so you have to kill every last one to kill an entire horde. It’s great when they drop gold! I love gold! Frequent small rewards are a must. I haven’t quite figured out whether or not it’s important that enemies randomly do not drop stuff (if they reliably did, would it make you want to kill them more?). Very hard enemies drop a lot of healing potions, which is awesome.

Stats. I read that stats are important, as it lets the player know how they’re doing (some argue though that this could pull you out of the game illusion)... I think it often draws me back out when I see the nagging “new stats” icon that pops up, not sure how I feel about that button -- it’s good because it tells you when you can improve your character, but maybe how fallout does it is a bit nicer (only when you level up). I often don’t care so much about XP, just health and stuff to collect (maybe that’s my inner FPS-addict speaking). I didn’t notice the progress bar at first, and I think that’s because it blends in too well (you have to hover over it, which might not be so bad). I prefer how fallout does it, when you gain XP, it briefly shows you the XP progress bar.

Objectives. Gets slightly boring when you can’t find your way to the next objective or enemy, Fallout has an indicator system which solves this very nicely... does anyone actually enjoy treasure hunts, where you’re blindly going from room to room? I think treasure hunts are only fun if you have to use your intelligence to find stuff. (Correction: I just discovered the auto map, nice feature, seems to blend in quite nicely and the icons are really neat.) I don’t like tutorials, but something early in the game that would have guided me toward the mini panel would be nice... maybe if something had encouraged me to play with stuff on the UI, or maybe made the mini panel button more obvious.

NPCs. Interacting with friendlies if you could speed up conversations some how. I tend to just scan for bits of important information... I’m less concerned with the story.

Conclusion. Very addictive and solid gameplay, but can be mentally taxing as there is so much to remember (but this is typical for any RPG).

Another World (1991, platform) - 6 March 11

Interesting way to beat the first obsticle, not even sure if I did it right -- but run while hammering jump seemed to work. I knew how to escape the beast because I watched it on youtube, otherwise this might have been tricky to guess. Got bored when I was in the tunnels and couldn’t see how to get past the doors. Quite a good game, but I’d probably have to use a guide to get really into it. Had I paid the full price when it was made, I probably would have stuck with it a big longer.

Fable II (2008, rpg) - 16 Sept 11

I started playing this game originally because I found out that Steven Fry voiced one of the characters (and because the game was on offer). You get immediate grinding rewards in the form of little coloured balls (ability points) that you suck up with the trigger (this always feels very rewarding for some strange reason) -- whoever invented this mechanic was a genius... I actually care about these more than XP. I like how you can adjust the camera position with the right thumb stick, it feels very natural, and is less frustrating than an automatic camera. Being able to take out many enemies at once with more powerful weapons is very satisfying. The dog can be pretty annoying, but I guess it appeals to peoples nurturing side maybe? Maybe you need to be a dog lover. For things that you might not want to do, you have to press and hold A (this is handy because of impulse pressing). You never die in the game, you only loose XP, this maybe draws you out of the gameplay experience a little, and reminds you it’s just a game.

Dungeon Seige (2002, rpg) - 16 Sept 11

Speed-run review: Lots of grinding, and enemies are quite tedious to kill at the start, but it’s quite rewarding when you get a bigger sword (you can then plough through weaker enemies). Objects are semi-transparent when the player goes behind them (nice feature). It’s quite easy to just run past enemies and ignore them (interesting mechanic), so you have the option to outrun the enemy early on, but shortly after, you encounter much faster enemies. You don’t get to see the dungeon at first, so this drives the player on at the start (seems like the initial hook). Game doesn’t pause while using the inventory (unlike some RPGs).

Dungeon Keeper (1997, rts) - 09 Sept 11

Another very intuitive UI (or maybe I just remeber how to play it really well). I especially admired the smooth lighting, which came as a great surprise to such an old game. Bullfrog were a fantastic.

Settlers II (1996, rts) - 09 Sept 11

This game is one of my all time favorites, and it’s still as fantastic as I remember. It has a very easy learning curve. The first level is disguised as a tutorial (which is nice) and limits you to what you can build -- but it lets you figure most of it out on your own, which is rewarding. Once you’ve figured out how to build houses and roads, there’s not much else to it; it’s so intuitive -- I can’t understand why they abandoned this in later versions. I’d love to write a Settlers II clone some day (maybe for Android -- I need to get an Android tablet).

Elf (1991, platform) - 09 Sept 11

Still as hard as I remember it from my childhood, and not very well known -- there’s nothing particularly special about this game to most people. Though it was quite satisfying seeing myself at the top of the leader board, I didn’t have to try very hard, so the novelty wore off quickly. The keyboard controls are fiddly and awkward, also tried with gamepad (joystick emulation) but that was also pretty fiddly (though it wasn’t designed for gamepad). Kind of hard to get a feel for what the objective was, as I didn’t have a sense of where to go for the level end, or if there even was one -- each door lead of to a different level. Hard to find a sense of achievement.

Fallout (1997, rpg) - 09 Sept 11

I found that the keyboard shortcuts (space to end turn) really made the game flow much better. The game is a lot like Fallout 3 (of coruse), it really teaches you to value what you have (health, inventory items, etc), which makes everything more meaningful and makes you genuinely afraid of losing stuff which you spent so much effort gaining, this is a great game mechanic.

Keen 6 (1991, platform) - 09 Sept 11

Hard games are good games; Keen can be very frustrating if you have sloppy timing, but once you get over that, you start to enjoy the game. I learnt that if I try to collect every single item, then I start to go insane with frustration. It would have been nice if id had made loading and saving less fiddly.

Castles II (1992, rts) - 09 Sept 11

The learning curve in the sequel is reversed; starts of very easy (there is even a tutorial) and gradually gets harder. The sequel was made better with a territory overview screen and some nice cut-scenes. Once I discovered how to speed up the game, it became much more fun (but this should have been more obvious than right clicking). The sequel is much more polished and complete. Lesson: If your first game is basic, you can always make it better the next time round.

Castles (1992, rts) - 09 Sept 11

Most good games are “easy to play, hard to master” -- this game is the opposite, however it is still addictive, but gets tiring after you figure out how to get past the first wave of enemies. Once you finish your castle without enemies destroying it, you finish the game, so it’s pretty damn short. Still one of my favorites, purely because of nostalgia.