Intelligent Artifice

Fairway Solitaire July 14, 2008

So after all the griping about big AAA games lately, you may wonder whether I actually like any games. And the answer is yes, yes I do.

The game I am currently playing day and night is Fairway Solitaire. It’s a variant of Solitaire dressed up as golf. It is very easy to get into, but very hard to stop playing. And it’s nearly perfect. The golf vibe, the graphics, the sound, the interface: it all just works. Really tiny things, like how they handle player selection, are very nicely solved. The only minor quibbles I have are:

• It helps to know a little bit how professional golf works. I had some trouble understanding how the ‘Gain X dollars to advance’ works, what with the fee and the purse and what not. But I figured it out eventually.
• The money-making is not tuned well. Whenever an item is unlocked, I always have more than enough money to buy it. Maybe I am just a good player, but it takes away any interesting decisions between the rounds of golf.

I’ve been playing over 10 hours so far, and I am about halfway through the courses. Pretty good value for 20 dollars if you ask me. Check it out if you are looking for something addictive.

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Skate / Burnout Paradise July 10, 2008

I played the demo of Skate, the game I didn’t like the first time I glanced at it. My experience went something like this:

• Start game. Do I want to do a tutorial? Sure, sounds good.
• Learn controls. Hey! This actually seems kinda logical.
• Randomly fumble my way through the tutorial stages. The tutorial dude, who from the audio quality appears to be calling me on his cell phone from somewhere on a small island in the Pacific, bids me to perform ‘ollies’ and other bizarrely-named moves I cannot remember. I flail around like a madman. I have no clue why tutorial dude accepts certain moves and not others. His comments are repetitive and make no sense to me. (”Keep that pressed just a bit longer” - dude I hit the ground.)
• I somehow get through this Kafkaesque ordeal to get to the final stage of the tutorial. I have to do 3 precise moves in fifteen seconds. Reading the list of moves takes me about 5 seconds. Remembering what they are, let alone planning how to execute them in the given space and time, then practicing until I get it right, might take, I dunno, more like fifteen minutes.
• After failing twice, I decide I just want to play the demo and free-form around a bit and bring up the main menu.
• “Retry” / “Quit Skate”. What?
• Quit Skate.
• At least a minute of non-skippable video sequence and marketing barf. Are you kidding me? I want my Xbox back!
• I now hate everyone even vaguely associated with this godawful piece of crap (sorry Mark).

The Burnout Paradise demo didn’t go much better. After driving around for 5 to 10 minutes, looking for fun, I realized I had better things to do with my life. Honestly, I don’t get it. Was there a bug in my demo or why were the races and stunts missing? Woo-hoo, drive around and go to gas stations and repair shops. I can do that in real life.

(Editors of game magazines: Contact me for game reviews. I am way more efficient than other reviewers. You won’t regret it.)

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Square announces Song Summoner for the iPod July 8, 2008

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) just reported a new game by Square for the iPod. That’s right, not the iPhone. It sounds intriguing:

For a mere $4.99, you apparently get a full-scale Square strategy RPG, and that’s not all — the characters in the game are created from your iPod’s songs. And every time you listen to a song, the game levels up.

More here.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

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Chrono Trigger is coming to the Nintendo DS July 7, 2008

Chrono Trigger is coming to the Nintendo DS! Winter 2008. Chrono Trigger is in my top 5 of favorite games of all time. I can’t wait to buy it again!

That reminds me that I better play Final Fantasy III (VI in Japan), which I went to great lengths to get for the PS1 in 2005, before it comes out on the DS as well…

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Diablo III June 28, 2008

Diablo III. Enough said. It looks awesome. And there will be a Mac version!

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Beyond Good and Evil 2: The Horror May 29, 2008

Behold the teaser trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2:

On the one hand, I loved BGE and I am glad to hear there will be a sequel. On the other hand, Uncle Pey’j looks disturbing, like on of those creepy pictures where Mario looks like a real human being. And the way he lasciviously rolls his eyes while snorting a living fly up his nose… I feel dirty.

How much goodwill did Ubisoft create back in 2003 by making BGE and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time? Both games contained so many little things that please developers.

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The Rock Band pricing fiasco May 3, 2008

Add 170 to 70, then google “240 euros in dollars” - first hit: ZOMG is EA / Harmonix nuts asking for 370 frickin’ dollars for Rockband? For comparison: the same bundle costs $150 in the U.S. - 97 Euros. So that’s over twice as expensive.

You know? With most games, I wait a year or so till the price drops. Rock Band I was actually kind of excited about, to the point I asked Amazon to email me when I could order it. But maybe I will wait.

Note all the single star reviews on Amazon.

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Info about Valve’s new project April 13, 2008

John Scalzi, prize-winning SF author, visited Valve Software recently and reports:

What did I see there? I can’t tell you (I signed an NDA).

What did I do there? I can’t tell you (see above).

Did I have a good time? Oh, yeah.

Should you, as a video game fan, be immensely, immensely jealous? See above.

I can say this: If you’re a gamer, I think you’re going to like what’s coming down the pike from Valve. Even the stuff I saw in rough form was very cool. I can also say that the folks at Valve were all very smart, very talented and building really interesting stuff. As I said, when you see it (eventually), you’ll probably agree.

Gee, thanks Mr. Scalzi. Could it be a sci-fi title? Involving headcrabs?

Remember, you read it here first.

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Insanely Twisted Patapon February 18, 2008

Here is the trailer for Patapon, a Japanese game that strongly reminds me of Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. The gameplay seems different though.

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My progress in Assassin’s Creed January 29, 2008

So last night I played some more Assassin’s Creed. First I remembered I could climb stuff so I ran around and practised fleeing from guards. Then I did the pickpocketing mission again and it was, in fact, ridiculously easy. I guess I forgot to press LT the first time.

I then immediately failed the next mission: interrogation. I vaguely knew I had do something with some dude talking near a tree somewhere (NEAR A TREE - thanks Ubisoft). I could hear a dude talking quite clearly, but when I came near him and I was told to press LT to start the interrogation mission, the game targeted a guard standing right next to the talking guy. I tried multiple times. Little triangle over his head, funky cyberspace sparkles over his body: This was clearly my target. So I followed him and since I couldn’t find an ‘Interrogate’ button, I punched him. This annoyed him and his two dozen pals, so I ran off. I tried again in a quiet alley and hey presto! I killed him. Wait. Um. Press LT again. Another guard targeted. I figured this was not what the game wanted me to do.

So, you need to get close to a dude. Then when the game says: ‘Press LT to start the interrogation mission’, press LT. The game may tell you you are too far away. Or too close (too close to interrogate someone?). But once you’ve started the mission you can target the right dude instead of random guards. It’s a bit like GTA’s side missions, only awkward.

So it turns out that Assassin’s Creed is a brittle, tangled mess of interface modes. It also has a metric ton of different gameplay elements. Saveable Citizens. Scholars. Vigilantes. Viewpoints. I am not quite sure how to recognize all of these things. I do know that the legend of the map has something like 3 columns of symbols. Seriously. I can barely tell where what is due to the cool styling, but it sure has a lot of different symbols.

I am also having some trouble understanding the setting. I work for some organization in some country. It appears they have a creed. They also have a big honking castle, and get attacked early on, but they protect the citizens of the town outside the castle and repel the invaders. So I am guessing they are good guys and they sure aren’t secretive. So which organization do the guards in town belong to, and why do they try to kill me when I look at them funny? Either they are on my side in which I am totally not finding it funny that they’re messing with me, or they are not on my side, in which case: Dude! I am with the people that protect this town! Where were you when the Templars attacked? Cut me some slack! I am picking this guy’s pockets for a good cause! (Don’t ask me what it is, I have no clue why picking one guy’s pockets leads me to interrogating some random other guy.)

And why do some guards find me suspicious on sight (unless I walk slow) while others assume I am just a regular guy? I have absolutely no clue. And Ubisoft’s choice of frame story, while being cute in general, makes it hard for them to just have a narrator tell me what’s up.

Overall I have to say that so far in Assassin’s Creed I am having trouble figuring out exactly what situation I am in and which tools I can use to achieve my goals.

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