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2011 GYiR: Alice: Madness Returns

It’s no secret that I love platformers, as could be witnessed by last year’s feature. So, when I saw an Alice in Wnderland game that looked to be a very interesting platformer, I was sold. But, after a friend played it and said it probably wasn’t worth $50 new, I patiently waited until it went cheap to pick it up. After playing it, I will say I loved it, But will admit it isn’t worth more than $30 or so.

To start off with, this game is another shining example of the Unreal 3 engine at work. I know some people hate it for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, but it simply is so versatile and stunning that it can do beautiful looking game like this, ranging to things like the cell-shaded Borderlands. This game is incredibly beautiful, and the range of environments in this game are part of what make you want to keep on playing.  You go from a land in the sky where cards fall to create a path for you, all the way to a very Asian-inspired world filled with Oriental folklore.  The graphics designers in this game really need to be applauded, and if you want an idea of it you can simply check out some screenshots for yourself (Taken from a friend playing this game before me)

The story is dark and twisted, the combat is actually well done (aside from minor complaints with the camera), but repetitiveness of the game is where it’s fault lies.  Most of the fault becomes apparent by the last chapter, where you are stuck in a very long chapter that is quite possibly the least imaginative of them all, making the end start to feel like a bit of a chore to finish.  It’s a fairly long game in length, which five main chapters being about three hours long each.  So really, you’re in each world for about an hour and a half as there are two environments per chapter.

The storyline will cause you to push on to the end, but fairly begrudgingly by the end.  It’s a shame, because otherwise it would be a great game to replay.  Otherwise, it will most likely be a one-time playthrough, but one that is worth your time.

2011 GYiR: Hydrophobia Prophecy

While originally an indie title that for most people would end up in the “List of decent games that deserve a paragraph at most”, the history behind this game is worth an article, and it serves as a good example of what developers need to do as opposed to what people have done to reviews this year.

This year, more than I can remember anyways, reviews have started to become meaningless.  Why?  Short story: reviewers have given games scores that reflect that the game is perfect when it isn’t, and thus making scores like 10/10 seem more like a decent game than a perfect game.  Long story?  Well summed up in this seven minute long, NSFW video:

Well, even though the story of Hydrophobia happened before this, it’s tale is still redeeming.  However, the start of the story isn’t very happy.  Late in 2010, the game released to incredibly mediocre reviews.  People complained the game was confusing, poorly designed, and the reviews reflected it.  In most cases, this would have just been water under everyone’s bridge (Pun intended), since this was a first time developer trying something new that happened to fail.  However, in this case, the developers decided to go around saying that certain reviewers “played the game wrong”, resulting in the bad reviews.  Yikes!  Now, I’m no expert, but typically if you’ve made a game yourself and haven’t made it clear enough how people need to play it, then your game deserves a bad review and as little attention as possible.

So, all that said, you’d think that this would have been a sad tale with a terrible ending to a bad game, but instead, a miracle happened: the developers read the reviews, looked at the positive and negative points of each, and set out to make a patch to improve the game.  In the span of a couple of months, they were able to create a patch to make gameplay clearer, more enjoyable, and fix a lot of the problems the first version had.  And it worked!  A couple of sites did review the patch, and gave it much more favourable reviews.  After all that, they looked into  creating another version for PC and PS3 with some new content, and all the fixes from the earlier version, and Prophecy was born.  And, having played it all, it’s a very fun game.

It’s not perfect by any means: if anything, my biggest complaint is the same as Mirror’s Edge in which it needs to make up its mind between platforming and shooting.  But, the innovative feature in the game is fascinating enough to play through this short game.  Put simply, the water physics in this game are both beautiful and functional.  Most games strive for one or the other, but none come close to this one.  Fighting your way through strong currents of water have never been as interesting as they’re made to be in this game.  Sure, the boss is a little on the uncreative side, and you need to suspend disbelief on how you get the last ability in the game since it’s not explained well, but they manage to find enough to do with this water engine that you never get bored.

It’s short, it’s cheap, but it’s such a fascinating story and a very competent game that it’s worth a look if you haven’t already.

2011 GYiR: Portal 2

The original Portal was a classic.  While a short game at only a couple of hours long at most, it did everything right.  Gameplay never got repetitive, storyline was short but very well written with nothing overused, and it left you satisfied, while maybe wanting a little more.  So, when a full-fledged sequel to the game was announced, everyone seemed happy. After all, more of something people loved is generally always a great idea.

Well, it was, but it wasn’t perfect, nor did I find it as good as the original.  Is that bad?  Not necessarily.  The game had more of the humor people loved, and the storyline was incredibly amusing and well written again.  The gameplay added more elements in a very natural way to make everything feel new, but not confusing you.  Where the fault is held is in a lot of the stop-gap gameplay betweenthe major chapters, and the to-a-fault dumbing down of a lot of the challenges.  A good fifth of the game was spent in very large environments, you played the fun game of “Find the small white patch in a sea of non-portal walls”, which became very tedious very fast.  Those segments lacked in story, and they lacked in fun.  As for the real challenges, you can tell they did a lot more playtesting on this one, because the puzzles are linear to the point of any thinking outside of the intended solution won’t work.  I may be a bit of a puzzle game snob, having spent a good few years involved in a puzzle game community, but linear puzzles suck.  It’s great to find unintended solutions to puzzle and laugh in the face of its creator!

But, after all, I did leave the game with a positive feeling.  I feel like they’ve ended the series up with the last installment, which is a good thing since doing a “three-quel” tends to be much harder than doing a sequel.  This, of course, explains why Valve has never made a game with a three in it, of course.

2011 GYiR: Sanctum

I’m not much of a strategy gamer. In my entire time gaming, the only real strategy games I ever played were the Age of Empires series, as well as the original Starcraft. As a general rule, they just don’t seem to click with me. Games that need a large time commitment per match usually end up with me bored by the end of it. At heart, I am a ‘twitch’ gamer, enjoying first person shooters, platformers, etc. So, when I heard about a game coming out that was a combination of tower defense and FPS, I was intrigued, but skeptical.

I this game, the mixtures of elements are done very well. You are responsible for creating a maze and setting up defenses like a traditional TD game, but during each wave you can kill the enemies yourself, creating an interesting form of strategy. Do you spend a lot of money on upgrading your weapons because you think you can be Rambo and kill them all, or do you rely on your towers to do most of the killing? A lot of the choices depend on what enemies you get each wave too, since there are some that barely get affected by your weapons, and others in which your weapons are the only reliable way to kill them efficiently.

According to the previous logic, I probably shouldn’t like this game. Matches do tend to be on the longer side, especially if you go pure survival which makes you fight waves until you die. But, the package and wrapping on it just makes it such a pleasure to play. The score of the game is done with hauntingly beautiful and intense music, and the visuals in this game are possibly the best I’ve seen from an indie studio (Another great example of the Unreal engine!). In a game that can run as long as it does, having an appealing experience in what makes the game fun and not a chore.

If that wasn’t enough, since the game’s release they have been very good on DLC, initially releasing plenty of free maps, weapons and towers to tide people over and fill in the gaps now. They have recently started releasing paid DLC as well, but in a very manageable and respectable way.  A couple of different style of towers for different situations, and a couple of niche maps.

For a first game from a new company, the amount of polish on it is fantastic, and if you enjoy either of the two genres this game is made of, you will enjoy this game.

2011 GYiR: Monday Night Combat

This game gets the very sad “Old Yeller Award for premature killing of a product”.

Where do I begin with this game: despite looking like a blatant TF2 clone, this game had considerably more strategy in it, and humor that was much more advanced than silly headwear.  While there were some debatable balance issues, it was still great fun to play.  Whether you were up for shenanigans or a heated battle, this game had it all.  And, for a good solid six months, this was my go-to multiplayer shooter game, which all worked well.

But slowly, like a crumbling relationship, things started to change.  It didn’t behave the way it used to, crucial things started changing, and even new things like maps just didn’t seem as fun as the originals.  Sure, you kept going through the motions and playing, still kind of having fun but thinking to yourself that it wasn’t as good as it was when you first met.  And then, finally, there’s the sad day when you learn that the developers are moving on to a newer game.  You’re sad, but just step away and move on to the three hundred or so other people out there waiting to play with you.  Well, that’s where the analogy breaks down, but you get my drift.

I’ve played over a hundred games in the new game they’re creating, Super Monday Night Combat, and the biggest problem with it is that the game lacks the consistent fun factor.  Every five matches you play, only one will be truly fun.  Sure, you may win all five, but it’s more than likely due to the other team either being terrible and you rolling them, or someone quitting and having to fight a team 5 v 4.  I don’t know about you, but I play games to have fun, not to try to be a champion or stroke my ego or anything, so the sequel isn’t overly for me.

In the end though, the original was the one game I put the most hours into this year, and that says something right there.  It’s a good game, just don’t expect anything new from it.