A tweet by the game's creator Dean Dodrill announced the release date as May 24th. He's also confirmed that a patch for the 360 version is still on the way and will include all the updates from the pc version
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There's not a lot else to say about it. Hopefully it somehow finds its way over here, not that I have a WiiU or a burning desire to play through the first 2 Yakuza games again (although Yakuza 2 is probably the series highlight)
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You know how many gamers with families complain that having kids takes time away from games playing? Well, oddly I've found it to be the opposite case. Thats not to say I've got more time than normal and I'm not helping out, just that since my second child arrived my games playing has becoming seemingly more focused. The past couple of weeks then, sinces its arrival on PS+, I've took to playing Catherine.
I own it on disc, and indeed have been playing it via that medium, but restarted as part of the group thing I've mentioned in the past (when playing Alpha Protocol) and have now made it further than my previous playthrough.
Unsurprisingly, considering its developer, I'm really enjoying it, although the subject material does become rather uncomfortable at times but thats a discussion for another time (i.e. another article to add to the pile of unfinished ones currently littering my desktop).
I own it on disc, and indeed have been playing it via that medium, but restarted as part of the group thing I've mentioned in the past (when playing Alpha Protocol) and have now made it further than my previous playthrough.
Unsurprisingly, considering its developer, I'm really enjoying it, although the subject material does become rather uncomfortable at times but thats a discussion for another time (i.e. another article to add to the pile of unfinished ones currently littering my desktop).
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Apr 03
Posted by Ben at 19:05
To call Bioshock Infinite a missed opportunity would be harsh, it’s a game that has improved on its predecessor(s) in just about every way, and in many areas has few peers. However, there’s things wrong with Bioshock Infinite, things both serious and numerous enough to make this quite an easy review to write, in fact it throws up so many talking points that the review could easily end up twice as long.
Lets start with the background though, you play as Booker Dewitt, a former Pinkerton detective, hired to recover a young girl from the floating city of Columbia (“bring us the girl and wipe away the debt”). You get to Columbia to find that it’s less wholesome than you imagined, rife with segregation and discrepancy with the threat of an uprising beginning to rear its head. And that’s where I’ll leave the story for now, as I don’t want to spoil anything.
Other than to say (sorry) you do eventually rescue Elizabeth, the girl locked in the tower, but getting off Columbia isn’t going to be easy, especially as the entire city is after your blood (which we’ll get to in a bit). Elizabeth is far from helpless though, while the plot has you rescuing her in gameplay terms you don’t need to worry about her. She won’t get directly involved in combat, but will throw you ammo, health, money and salts for your vigors (plasmids). She can also bring items in to aid you in combat, these range from turrets to ammo and health stocks, freight hooks to grapple on to, even cover to hide behind.
Unusually for a Bioshock game the combat is arguably the star of the show. When it comes though, and it takes a while to, it’s relentless for the next few hours. It’s odd going from pure narrative exploration to relentless shooting, but it also seems slightly at odds with the tone of the franchise, either way it seems to correct itself, I’m not sure whether I adjusted or the game did, but there seems to be more downtime as you progress.
The combat itself starts very basic, you’re armed with a pistol to shoot people and a vigor to control turrets for a limited amount of time. Once Elizabeth joins you though things begin to open up; as mentioned she can bring things in to the fight to help you, meaning you can make the environment suit your style or your needs. At points the sky-rails you occasionally use to traverse the city make their way in to combat, making you mobile, hard to hit, using them to avoid danger then leap and attack from on high. These moments are few and far between though, especially considering how prevalent they are in the trailers and demo footage.
My main problem with Bioshock Infinite is one that it shares with the original game, the design of the levels. You walk from A to B then back to A again, you do that in every area, and every time you take a backwards step new enemies have somehow appeared. Remember the bit in Bioshock where you have to go and see a scientist, to get to her office you have to go through her empty quarters, populated by dormant turrets, remember how you knew exactly what was going to happen? That’s what Infinite suffers from too often, there’s a section that literally leads you in a big circle, and the ‘Hall of Heroes’ really could have been lifted from the first game. There’s doors arbitrarily closed to you until you do that thing that takes all of 20 seconds, then all of a sudden they’re welcoming you in, the worst offender for this is probably if you go and explore in Fink’s district.
As mentioned, considering you’re on a floating city, and the promise of an abundance of sky-rail combat, it’s surprising how closed Columbia feels. Most of your time is spent indoors, which to be fair allows them to play with some design themes, but even when you’re outside it feels narrow, closed, almost like you’re inside with a sky coloured roof. There’s other small annoyances too, like enemies and turrets attacking you from beyond the depth of field blur, but they’re largely trivial when compared to what the game does right.
For me Columbia doesn’t reach the heights (shut up) of Rapture, and while I’m loathed to compare, the game does so I kind of have to. It’s probably personal taste but I prefer the dark, unsettling, decayed structures of the underground city to the bright, almost ethereal floating city of Columbia. This is true of the story too, I just didn’t get hooked the way I did with the first Bioshock, I think this is because the core story for Infinite is presented as being about racism, there’s no great mystery to it until later on. On that note I will just add that I found the motivations for some of the characters lacking, there’s a point where things shift, I didn’t really buy that I’d be an enemy to that group, especially given how I was greeted by one of them.
When Bioshock Infinite puts the Elizabeth narrative front and centre in the back half of the game it’s much more interesting. Unlike the first game, Infinite boasts a number of characters that are likable, I like Booker, I like Elizabeth, and I like the Lutece twins. The story is wrapped up well, making you feel a little blindsided, sympathetically matching one of the characters. And it’s for that reason you should play Bioshock Infinite, it’s not perfect, in pure gameplay terms it’s got issues, more than I can fit in to this review, but equally I’ve not done the good things it does justice, and frankly, how often does a game like this come around?
Lets start with the background though, you play as Booker Dewitt, a former Pinkerton detective, hired to recover a young girl from the floating city of Columbia (“bring us the girl and wipe away the debt”). You get to Columbia to find that it’s less wholesome than you imagined, rife with segregation and discrepancy with the threat of an uprising beginning to rear its head. And that’s where I’ll leave the story for now, as I don’t want to spoil anything.
Other than to say (sorry) you do eventually rescue Elizabeth, the girl locked in the tower, but getting off Columbia isn’t going to be easy, especially as the entire city is after your blood (which we’ll get to in a bit). Elizabeth is far from helpless though, while the plot has you rescuing her in gameplay terms you don’t need to worry about her. She won’t get directly involved in combat, but will throw you ammo, health, money and salts for your vigors (plasmids). She can also bring items in to aid you in combat, these range from turrets to ammo and health stocks, freight hooks to grapple on to, even cover to hide behind.
Unusually for a Bioshock game the combat is arguably the star of the show. When it comes though, and it takes a while to, it’s relentless for the next few hours. It’s odd going from pure narrative exploration to relentless shooting, but it also seems slightly at odds with the tone of the franchise, either way it seems to correct itself, I’m not sure whether I adjusted or the game did, but there seems to be more downtime as you progress.
The combat itself starts very basic, you’re armed with a pistol to shoot people and a vigor to control turrets for a limited amount of time. Once Elizabeth joins you though things begin to open up; as mentioned she can bring things in to the fight to help you, meaning you can make the environment suit your style or your needs. At points the sky-rails you occasionally use to traverse the city make their way in to combat, making you mobile, hard to hit, using them to avoid danger then leap and attack from on high. These moments are few and far between though, especially considering how prevalent they are in the trailers and demo footage.
My main problem with Bioshock Infinite is one that it shares with the original game, the design of the levels. You walk from A to B then back to A again, you do that in every area, and every time you take a backwards step new enemies have somehow appeared. Remember the bit in Bioshock where you have to go and see a scientist, to get to her office you have to go through her empty quarters, populated by dormant turrets, remember how you knew exactly what was going to happen? That’s what Infinite suffers from too often, there’s a section that literally leads you in a big circle, and the ‘Hall of Heroes’ really could have been lifted from the first game. There’s doors arbitrarily closed to you until you do that thing that takes all of 20 seconds, then all of a sudden they’re welcoming you in, the worst offender for this is probably if you go and explore in Fink’s district.
As mentioned, considering you’re on a floating city, and the promise of an abundance of sky-rail combat, it’s surprising how closed Columbia feels. Most of your time is spent indoors, which to be fair allows them to play with some design themes, but even when you’re outside it feels narrow, closed, almost like you’re inside with a sky coloured roof. There’s other small annoyances too, like enemies and turrets attacking you from beyond the depth of field blur, but they’re largely trivial when compared to what the game does right.
For me Columbia doesn’t reach the heights (shut up) of Rapture, and while I’m loathed to compare, the game does so I kind of have to. It’s probably personal taste but I prefer the dark, unsettling, decayed structures of the underground city to the bright, almost ethereal floating city of Columbia. This is true of the story too, I just didn’t get hooked the way I did with the first Bioshock, I think this is because the core story for Infinite is presented as being about racism, there’s no great mystery to it until later on. On that note I will just add that I found the motivations for some of the characters lacking, there’s a point where things shift, I didn’t really buy that I’d be an enemy to that group, especially given how I was greeted by one of them.
When Bioshock Infinite puts the Elizabeth narrative front and centre in the back half of the game it’s much more interesting. Unlike the first game, Infinite boasts a number of characters that are likable, I like Booker, I like Elizabeth, and I like the Lutece twins. The story is wrapped up well, making you feel a little blindsided, sympathetically matching one of the characters. And it’s for that reason you should play Bioshock Infinite, it’s not perfect, in pure gameplay terms it’s got issues, more than I can fit in to this review, but equally I’ve not done the good things it does justice, and frankly, how often does a game like this come around?
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Recently I and a few others have started a "game a month" kind of affair where we choose a slightly older and rather cheap game that some of us may have missed out on first time round to all play and discuss as a group. Kind of like a book club.
March's title was Alpha Protocol, a rather odd, definetly incomplete "stealth RPG" that I intend to cover in a larger article later in the week. Upon completing it however, I felt the urge to return to something that does stealth right (in my opinion) and dug out Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, booting up the save file for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty that I'd started nearly a year ago.
I'd played through the game previously near its original PlayStation 2 launch and enjoyed it back then, but its odd to return to it now and still find it rather fresh and exciting. It's often labelled as the weakest installment in the series, but dismissing that for a moment (again, as I wish to discuss this in a future article) I'm amazed at some of the things that a 12 year old game does that alot of modern games don't even bother trying to do.
March's title was Alpha Protocol, a rather odd, definetly incomplete "stealth RPG" that I intend to cover in a larger article later in the week. Upon completing it however, I felt the urge to return to something that does stealth right (in my opinion) and dug out Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, booting up the save file for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty that I'd started nearly a year ago.
I'd played through the game previously near its original PlayStation 2 launch and enjoyed it back then, but its odd to return to it now and still find it rather fresh and exciting. It's often labelled as the weakest installment in the series, but dismissing that for a moment (again, as I wish to discuss this in a future article) I'm amazed at some of the things that a 12 year old game does that alot of modern games don't even bother trying to do.
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Mar 24
Posted by Ben at 18:14
There was something I wanted to talk about in my last God Mode On article, something I couldn’t for two very important reasons. The first reason is that reading a massive long piece of text on a computer screen is a pain in the arse. The second, and more important, we have a weird issue with the site where it reads text as code, and when the code (text) gets too long it can’t be uploaded. I mention this because I had to remove a segment of my article on Anita Sarkeesian’s ‘Tropes vs. Women in Gaming’, the topic of what a game is, namely a problem to be solved.
It’s not something I’ve ever really thought about before, I think I’d always assumed there wasn‘t a rule for it, but I’m starting to think that ultimately it is just the one thing. There’s you at one end, the protagonist, and somewhere off in the distance there’s your objective. The objective could be anything, it could be a high score, it could be to destroy the mothership, it could even simply be to finish the story. In between those two points are the problem and the solution. In Tetris these would be the falling blocks and clearing the screen, in 999 there’s literal puzzles and choices, in Gears of War there’s enemies, and not to sound too Death Wish, but killing is the solution.
It’s hard to see now that games really are that simple, I mean look at Journey, the objective is, I guess, to solve your confusion, to find out what the point of the game is. Heavy Rain and Spec Ops: The Line play about with the problem/solution. In both games the gameplay involves having to do things you wouldn’t want to do, you wouldn’t want your character to do. In Heavy Rain it’s about what would be going too far to get what you want, in Spec Ops it’s about seeing that there’s sometimes more choices than you think, and sometimes fewer.
It seems we’re getting to the point where we can do post-modernism in games regularly. Proper post-modernism of the medium, not just breaking the 4th wall and having a character speak to you (“I was in a computer game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of”), vibrating 2nd controllers, or even resetting the game (and it crashing nearly every fucking time!) a la X-men on the Megadrive. Gaming might not have had its Citizen Kane yet, but it has had a few Memento’s.
If the core concept of what is a game hasn’t changed over the years then what has? I think it’s the scope. The solution of Mass Effect is essentially the same as Space Invaders, well, ish. Space Invaders’ goal is score, Mass Effect’s isn’t, but the solution is to kill the aliens. Mass Effect though has cut scenes, a huge storyline that spanned 3 games, a level up system, conversation branches, choice. Compare classic Prince of Persia to the more recent ones, they’re fundamentally the same except one has more moves.
I’ve been trying to think of a game that doesn’t follow this rule, that there must be a start and an objective, a game that is just the problem/solution, a pointless game. I think it would have to be a toy, the modern equivalent of doodling on a page. There was Wii Music, but that was something you could play well, improve at, so the objective was to do it right and well. There’s Minecraft, although while you do have a blank canvas and free reign, you are supposed to build. Same with LittleBigPlanet’s level creation, you can pretty much do what you want but the point is to create something, ideally something that works.
I mention them though because both Minecraft and LittleBigPlanet’s level creation have been things I’ve struggled to get in to. Watching from the outside they look fun, it’s fascinating seeing what people are capable of creating, but I never get anywhere when I attempt something. I don’t know where to begin, I want to accidentally make something, to learn through experimenting and exploring, but I don’t. When I played Minecraft I built a house, a decent sized thing with glass, stairs, some fire, and then I stopped. I wasn’t satisfied or fulfilled, nor to clarify was I annoyed or dismissive of the game, but it just felt pointless (meaning absolutely no offence).
So, how did this relate to ‘Tropes vs. Women in Gaming’, well because if games need objectives to work, a motivation and context for gameplay, then whatever the rights and wrongs of having a ‘damsel’, it’s easy to see why it became such a fallback.
It’s not something I’ve ever really thought about before, I think I’d always assumed there wasn‘t a rule for it, but I’m starting to think that ultimately it is just the one thing. There’s you at one end, the protagonist, and somewhere off in the distance there’s your objective. The objective could be anything, it could be a high score, it could be to destroy the mothership, it could even simply be to finish the story. In between those two points are the problem and the solution. In Tetris these would be the falling blocks and clearing the screen, in 999 there’s literal puzzles and choices, in Gears of War there’s enemies, and not to sound too Death Wish, but killing is the solution.
It’s hard to see now that games really are that simple, I mean look at Journey, the objective is, I guess, to solve your confusion, to find out what the point of the game is. Heavy Rain and Spec Ops: The Line play about with the problem/solution. In both games the gameplay involves having to do things you wouldn’t want to do, you wouldn’t want your character to do. In Heavy Rain it’s about what would be going too far to get what you want, in Spec Ops it’s about seeing that there’s sometimes more choices than you think, and sometimes fewer.
It seems we’re getting to the point where we can do post-modernism in games regularly. Proper post-modernism of the medium, not just breaking the 4th wall and having a character speak to you (“I was in a computer game. Funny as hell, it was the most horrible thing I could think of”), vibrating 2nd controllers, or even resetting the game (and it crashing nearly every fucking time!) a la X-men on the Megadrive. Gaming might not have had its Citizen Kane yet, but it has had a few Memento’s.
If the core concept of what is a game hasn’t changed over the years then what has? I think it’s the scope. The solution of Mass Effect is essentially the same as Space Invaders, well, ish. Space Invaders’ goal is score, Mass Effect’s isn’t, but the solution is to kill the aliens. Mass Effect though has cut scenes, a huge storyline that spanned 3 games, a level up system, conversation branches, choice. Compare classic Prince of Persia to the more recent ones, they’re fundamentally the same except one has more moves.
I’ve been trying to think of a game that doesn’t follow this rule, that there must be a start and an objective, a game that is just the problem/solution, a pointless game. I think it would have to be a toy, the modern equivalent of doodling on a page. There was Wii Music, but that was something you could play well, improve at, so the objective was to do it right and well. There’s Minecraft, although while you do have a blank canvas and free reign, you are supposed to build. Same with LittleBigPlanet’s level creation, you can pretty much do what you want but the point is to create something, ideally something that works.
I mention them though because both Minecraft and LittleBigPlanet’s level creation have been things I’ve struggled to get in to. Watching from the outside they look fun, it’s fascinating seeing what people are capable of creating, but I never get anywhere when I attempt something. I don’t know where to begin, I want to accidentally make something, to learn through experimenting and exploring, but I don’t. When I played Minecraft I built a house, a decent sized thing with glass, stairs, some fire, and then I stopped. I wasn’t satisfied or fulfilled, nor to clarify was I annoyed or dismissive of the game, but it just felt pointless (meaning absolutely no offence).
So, how did this relate to ‘Tropes vs. Women in Gaming’, well because if games need objectives to work, a motivation and context for gameplay, then whatever the rights and wrongs of having a ‘damsel’, it’s easy to see why it became such a fallback.
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I'll gloss over some of what I've played this past week as it's been reviewed, but I have returned to Sleeping Dogs for some of the dlc I've missed. Year of the Snake is pretty good, it's got a bit of humour, a mix of styles, but more importantly, a decent amount of content. The same can't be said for the Wheels of Fury dlc, not that it's bad, but it's short. There was also Tupsu, which is ok, no better than that in my opinion
Another Android game is 10000000, a match 3 puzzle game cum rpg. It's very addictive, it's hard to say quite how good it is, but it is very hard to stop playing it. I do recommend it, hopefully there'll be a review by the end of the week
Mostly though I've been playing The Darkness 2, which is actually pretty good, although hard to play for long periods. I'm not entirely sure why, I think it's that the missions are enough of a chunk, with a defined end, I think it just encourages me to stop. It's quite an interesting game though, I just wish it'd let you go wild once in a while rather than wince from gunshots
Another Android game is 10000000, a match 3 puzzle game cum rpg. It's very addictive, it's hard to say quite how good it is, but it is very hard to stop playing it. I do recommend it, hopefully there'll be a review by the end of the week
Mostly though I've been playing The Darkness 2, which is actually pretty good, although hard to play for long periods. I'm not entirely sure why, I think it's that the missions are enough of a chunk, with a defined end, I think it just encourages me to stop. It's quite an interesting game though, I just wish it'd let you go wild once in a while rather than wince from gunshots
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Mar 17
Posted by Ben at 13:41
Tupsu is fairly easy to pigeon-hole if you’ve been keeping up with your ios and Android games recently. It’s the same kind of game as Contre Jour, a level traversal game where you must get a character in to an exit point using physics and touch controls. There are of course stars to collect to boost your score, and the play style is given a shake-up every few levels.
What Tupsu does that’s fairly unique though is not spoon-feed you, it’s not a particularly easy game, and it doesn’t give you a lot of help along the way. The reason Tupsu feels difficult is that while other games will show you a technique and then build the next few levels around that, Tupsu just expects you to work it out for yourself, then it never expects you to use it again.
Tupsu has a sticky eye stalk that you use to attach him to platforms and pull him along. As you complete each set of levels he’ll grow another eye, this opens up the complexity of what’s possible in the levels. There’s items to use in levels too, there’s balloons that you can latch on to that give you some elevation, an object that lets you pass through platforms (that must be carried with you), and boxes that can be placed to aide your progress. The boxes are also given as a reward when you level up, which you do by collecting enough stars and earning points, I don’t mind admitting that there were a couple of levels I only managed to do because I could place a block to help me.
Levels get mixed up further with the introduction of gravity blocks, where you go from trying to climb up things to trying to hold yourself down. Again Tupsu doesn’t spoon-feed how best to use this, sometimes the solution is quite elaborate. Later on spikes are introduced, they don’t feature in that many levels, but they add a layer of frustration to the route finding challenge.
Which is kind of where I’m at with Tuspu, I admire that it has a challenge, it’s certainly something Contre Jour was missing, but I’m not sure I was ever enjoying it. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s hugely difficult, I beat it in a few hours, it just feels a bit like hard work. The controls are fiddly, especially when you have to tap to detach an eye-stalk before quickly tapping again to reattach it. There’s very little leeway either, you can place a stalk a millimetre too high and be unable to reach your next target. Tupsu bobs and bounces when you aren’t expecting it, meaning momentum puzzles can require you to restart the level again.
Tupsu is a well put together game, it’s also free on Android (although I think the upcoming extra levels might come with a fee), so I shouldn’t be too harsh, but I can’t say I had a particularly good time playing it. That’s not to say you shouldn’t give it a go though, it ran nice and smoothly on the Galaxy S3, looks pretty nice, and is more involved than a lot of these types of games, it’s just not all that special.
What Tupsu does that’s fairly unique though is not spoon-feed you, it’s not a particularly easy game, and it doesn’t give you a lot of help along the way. The reason Tupsu feels difficult is that while other games will show you a technique and then build the next few levels around that, Tupsu just expects you to work it out for yourself, then it never expects you to use it again.
Tupsu has a sticky eye stalk that you use to attach him to platforms and pull him along. As you complete each set of levels he’ll grow another eye, this opens up the complexity of what’s possible in the levels. There’s items to use in levels too, there’s balloons that you can latch on to that give you some elevation, an object that lets you pass through platforms (that must be carried with you), and boxes that can be placed to aide your progress. The boxes are also given as a reward when you level up, which you do by collecting enough stars and earning points, I don’t mind admitting that there were a couple of levels I only managed to do because I could place a block to help me.
Levels get mixed up further with the introduction of gravity blocks, where you go from trying to climb up things to trying to hold yourself down. Again Tupsu doesn’t spoon-feed how best to use this, sometimes the solution is quite elaborate. Later on spikes are introduced, they don’t feature in that many levels, but they add a layer of frustration to the route finding challenge.
Which is kind of where I’m at with Tuspu, I admire that it has a challenge, it’s certainly something Contre Jour was missing, but I’m not sure I was ever enjoying it. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s hugely difficult, I beat it in a few hours, it just feels a bit like hard work. The controls are fiddly, especially when you have to tap to detach an eye-stalk before quickly tapping again to reattach it. There’s very little leeway either, you can place a stalk a millimetre too high and be unable to reach your next target. Tupsu bobs and bounces when you aren’t expecting it, meaning momentum puzzles can require you to restart the level again.
Tupsu is a well put together game, it’s also free on Android (although I think the upcoming extra levels might come with a fee), so I shouldn’t be too harsh, but I can’t say I had a particularly good time playing it. That’s not to say you shouldn’t give it a go though, it ran nice and smoothly on the Galaxy S3, looks pretty nice, and is more involved than a lot of these types of games, it’s just not all that special.
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Spanning 125 different editions of the daily games magazine from the era where we lost the SNES, the MegaDrive and the Amiga in favour of PlayStation, Saturn, Nintendo 64 and Windows 95-based PCs, the Archive features lots of the Digi-o-humour we've not seen for years.
It's also interesting how little has changed- the standard coverage basically stops for E3, and the letters pages are still full of accusations of format bias and asking if developers have run out of ideas.
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