Remember Me

When previews about this game started to appear, I put it on my "looking forward to" list. The Last of Us took priority though and I forgot about this game - mostly because everyone else seemed to do so. I also had my month long summer vacation which I spent chasing geocaches all around. The game popped up again as a PS+ freebie later last year - around the time I was getting a bit tired of FFXIV - and this time I chose not to ignore it. After pressing buttons at a slow pace for three months, I was thirsty for some hand-to-hand action.

1. Tying it all together with a theme

As far as merits go, Remember Me has most of  them in visual design and theme. The setting makes for pretty delicious sci-fi - a corporation has found a way to manipulate memories, allowing people to get rid of bad ones and replace them with custom-made good memories. Naturally this has led to a dystopian society, as things developed by corporations are wont to do. The game being about memory and all, it's no big surprise the protagonist Nilin has lost hers. Fortunately this game here is one of the few cases where this actually doesn't feel cheap. The fact that there's a female protagonist in a dystopian future immediately draws comparisons to Mirror's Edge. The game is also reminiscent of Mirror's Edge because of its distinctive visual style. The aesthetic is very different from ME's exceedingly white visual style but the overall atmosphere is very similar.

Remember Me uses a lot of visual effects and filters to achieve its visual style. Generally overuse of filters and glitchy effects might be frowned upon, but it works in RM. Why? It's thematically appropriate. Overall, the game makes full use of the Sensen technology (that would be the memory manipulation tech). Through Sensen, information can be conveniently projected into the game world - and because everything is perceived through it, all sorts of distortions and visual glitches fit in just perfectly. It also extends its reach into gameplay in few segments of the game. By copying the memories of another, the protagonist is able to follow in their footsteps through memory projection. One example use for this mechanic is navigating through a minefield. Finally some of the protagonist's superpowers work by manipulating enemies' Sensen nodes - enemies without one are therefore immune.

Story also works well with the theme. It's not a nobel worth masterpiece by a long shot but better than most any way. It works better as an overall documentary of consequences of technology than it does as a story about people - much like the Joss Whedon's Dollhouse actually. So the plot in itself is not all that great, but the way it portrays how Sensen technology has affected everyone's lives is pretty solid. The moments when the game explores the darkest sides of Sensen are definitely the strongest. I recommend playing it through just for the atmosphere. It's not a long game either.

2. Finishing off with gameplay

While I'd mostly recommend this game for its atmosphere, gameplay in Remember Me ain't half bad either. It's not very original though. The game can roughly be divided into three types of segments: the aforementioned memory projection segments, climbing segments and of course combat. Climbing is heavily railroaded: usually there's exactly one option for moving forward - pretty much what is typical in heavily scripted games already. There's nothing difficult about it either because controls are accurate enough so mostly it's just mindless execution of a predetermined obstacle course. The saving grace is scenery. Although immersion is way weaker than in Mirror's Edge, at least the views are great. There's not really much else to say about climbing in this game.

Nilin cannot use weapons so she has to rely on her fists and feet to do the dirty work for her. The game uses a combo system that sounds interesting on paper: The player is granted two chains to start off with, and can assign Pressens to each attack in a combo. These affect what the attack does. Unfortunately the options are rather limited. The choice is basically between damage, healing and cooldown reduction. The fourth Pressen type is a more powerful version of whatever Pressen preceded it. Regardless of Pressens, attack animations for combos don't change. With more varied Pressens this system might have been much cooler, but as it stands it's very simplistic. As soon as I opened a third combo, I simply had one combo for each purpose: dishing out the hurt, healing and reducing cooldowns. Normal attacks aside, Nilin gains access to a total of five superpowers.

Although the mechanic is simple, it does grant some tactical depth. Much of this is due to clever encounter and enemy design. Nilin's superpowers are not just to make fights go faster - each and every one of  them is truly required. Especially towards the endgame battles become dances around tougher enemies while the player tries to build up meter for Nilin's superpowers and at the same time use cooldown reduction combos to make them available in decent time (default cooldowns are *long*). Finally, because healing is also only possible through attacking, the player really needs to stay on the offensive. Delightfully the game heavily punishes mashing - each attack in a combo needs to be timed correctly. It is also worth learning which combos include area of effect damage. Controls are not perfect, but overall encounters are fun to play precisely because they feel different from each other.

The game also has a few memory remixing scenes, which are kind of interesting. They involve manipulating a memory like a recording, skimming back and forward and changing small things like the position of a table in hopes of altering the outcome. It's mostly a more elaborate version of "try everything" puzzles in some adventure games, but thematically they're cool.  There's not that many things to try in each memory either. Fine additions to the game, but not much else really.

Conclusion

Remember Me is a solid action adventure game that is strong in atmosphere but otherwise not all that special. Although combat and climbing mechanics are not very original or interesting on their own, both are enhanced by auxiliary means: battle encounters are designed surprisingly well, and scenery in the game is amazing. Nilin's story is not that great either, but the way the game handles its sci-fi makes it worth playing. If you choose to pick it up, do yourself a favor and play on the highest difficulty.

Android: Netrunner

Back from the dead...

As has been said, I am currently playing one really long game (Agarest) which means no video game analyses for a while. Especially since on top of that I started another - very likely even longer - game, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Agarest is actually on a break now, so... Not to worry, there's more to gaming than digital games. Analog games have not received any mention in this blog since ancient times; now it is time for them to make a comeback. The game I want to talk about is Android: Netrunner, a game I have been getting into lately.

1. A quick introduction

This game right here would be a perfect topic for an entire article or two of its own. It's basically a rerun of an old collectible card game by Richard Garfield, resurrected by Fantasy Flight Games as a living card game. We already know that LCG is one clever concept, and Netrunner is perhaps the most clever of them all. Being strictly a two player game, it pits one lonely hacker against a massive mega corporation. The setting may sound a bit asymmetrical and this is no coincidence, because that is exactly what the game is. The corporation is building servers to advance its agendas while the hacker is constantly trying to breach through security and grab those agendas for themselves. The first player to score seven points from agendas is the winner. The corporation can also win by killing the hacker either through net damage or by more direct means of physical damage while the hacker wins if the corporation runs out of cards to draw.

The asymmetrical setting alone makes Netrunner stand out, but it's just icing on the cake. The cake is a lie - or rather a massive web of deceit. The corporation plays all its cards face-down and only has to pay for them when they are revealed (or rezzed as the game's hacker lingo likes to call it). Cards installed on servers can be rezzed at any time if their conditions are met but protective cards (ICE) can only be rezzed when they are encountered by the hacker. Most of the time the only way for the hacker to find out what's what is to run head first into it. What is the corporation hiding behind three pieces of ICE - and what kind of ICE are those anyway? In short, the corporation's job is to deceive the hacker into wasting resources on wild goose chases while tha hacker tries to figure out what risks are worth taking. Running into really aggravating ICE can literally end the hacker's life and even if all ICE is breached, there might be a trap waiting on the server. It really doesn't help that traps look a lot like agendas. 

There are two factors that drive the game forward: the corporation must draw one card every turn, and in addition to servers, agendas can be stolen from the corporate player's hand, top of their deck and from their discard pile. It is impossible to protect everything, and once agendas start piling up on the corporate player's hand, they have to do something with them - but the means to get those agendas scored are up to the player and their deck's design. Some players may favor stacking ICE after ICE to create the ultimate server to guard their agendas while others may choose to play agendas on unprotected servers - only these "agendas" are as often traps as they are the real thing. What looks like an agenda? Cards that can be advanced while face-down. Advancing costs time and money, both of which are limited, and it is mostly impossible to fully advance an agenda on the same turn it is played. Once advancement tokens start to pile up on it, the hacker knows something is up. 

2. Tricks and deceit

All in all, the game is far more dependent on player skill and turn-to-turn decision making than other popular deck construction games. This is especially true when playing against a deck you have never played against - for instance in a tournament. Although there are some hard counters in the game, most solid decks should be okay against the majority of decks and games are often pretty close. The corp-plays-hidden nature of the game makes it so that cards can have surprising uses and the winner is more often the player who makes the best use of their cards rather than the player who has the better deck. Some cards still feel like garbage but that just happens with every game. Sometimes it matters more what the card looks like than what it actually is. Let's take a quick example.

Most of the traps in game do nothing if they have not been advanced. This means that it is usually more safe for the runner to go for cards that have not been advanced if they feel like they could be facing traps. I do this a lot, especially if it is not too costly to check out a card before it has been advanced. One game I was having some issues and could not afford to play and advance a card on the same turn. I had traps that would win me the game if the runner hit them while they were advanced, but I simply did not have the resources to do that. Instead, I just put one out on a somewhat protected server with no advancement. Against my deck, it is 100% safe to check cards that have not been advanced, so the runner went for it, burning some resources (time and money) on my ICE. Effectively I just bought a lot of time with a useless card. The runner had to check it because if it had been an agenda, I could have very probably scored it on my next turn.

I actually repeated the trick a few turns later and bought more time, and I eventually won the game - on a play with a card I was unable to use properly. All kinds of plays can be made, and the game affords huge swings and comebacks. This basically happens because of the resource system: there are very few resource cards that provide constant benefit (like lands in MtG). Most economy cards are good for limited time, or require the player to spend precious time to get credits. Time can always be exchanged for credits (it's an action) but the economy cards make the ratio more efficient. This makes it much harder to snowball because a few misplays can quickly even the economic scales. If a player is able to buy enough time, they can recover from pretty dire situations.  

3. Factions

The game has factions on each side: three runner types and four corporations, each with their own characteristics. Criminal runners are basically massive dicks who have pretty straightforward gameplay. They can go with early aggression and lay a lot of waste on the corporation's resources. Shapers on the other hand rely more on finesse and table development, eventually coming up with cards to cover every situation and then just go from there. Anarchists are my current favorite - they go for less orthodox tactics, trying to disrupt the game with viruses and other cards that really mess things up. Playing with and against each of these runner factions is a pretty different experience. It sets the premise for the matchup and gives away a bit about what can be expected.

On the corporation side there are two that rely more on having a heavy economy and two that rely more on being crafty. Haas-Bioroid is ideal for players who just want to build an impregnable fortress and eventually win from within its walls. Wayland has brutally efficient economy, but it often comes at the cost of bad publicity which makes it generally easier to run against them - they also have a lot of means to outright kill the runner with meat damage. Jinteki decks often go poor, but they specialize in traps and other sorts of mind games - and often win games through massive net damage from their traps, ICE and other cards. NBN is another corporation that doesn't swim in money, but they have means to score agendas rapidly and control the game by tagging the runner (if the runner is tagged, the corporation can obliterate their resources pretty easily and do other nasty things).

The factions alone give twelve different matchups but on top of that each faction has multiple identities to choose from. Each identity has a special power, and the identity also defines the minimum deck size for the player. It also defines how many influence points the player gets to spend - these points are used in deck-building to include cards from other factions. The influence system means that although you know the identity and faction of your opponent, there will always be cards that are atypical to their faction in the mix. This can cause a ton of nasty surprises which can turn the game around. Of course the effect is gone after playing against the same deck a couple of times but even then you still have to deal with everything.

All in all, there's plenty to choose from, and factions don't have just one playstyle. It is entirely possible to play a more conservative Jinteki deck for instance, protecting cards with ICE like normal people - or you can just go loose and play with a deck that's based on gambit after gambit. It just really depends on what's your cup of tea. I like NBN and Jinteki because they give more room to crafty plays - perhaps with higher risk, but also higher reward. Both factions can easily win in a single turn if the runner makes a mistake - and naturally they have the means to bait out that mistake. Most of the time it leads to wildly unpredictable games which I think is always fun. Sure games of Netrunner are by average pretty unpredictable already, but with these two corporations it just gets way more so.

4. Dynamics and stuff

When all the pieces come together, the design is simply brilliant. The fact that one side plays with hidden information is what truly defines the game for what it is, and it is supplemented by the nature of economy. The basic resource everything comes down to is time, because time can be converted into anything but players can influence the ratio. Cards and credits are pretty straightforward derivatives, but one resource in the game is much harder to evaluate: information. This sits very well with the game's theme: ultimately it's about information being taken from the corporation by the runner. Sometimes risks must be taken simply in order to reveal a few cards. The more knowledge the runner has, the better they can plan the use of their resources.

On the corporation side, the player has to worry about different vectors of attack. It is usually important to protect your R&D (draw deck) because that's the most unpredictable element in the game for the corporation. A lucky runner can win in one turn if they get free access to R&D. Then there's HQ (hand of cards) to worry about, especially if it contains agendas. The corporation should also be able to protect at least one remote server to have at least one place to play agendas. It doesn't help that some runner decks are insanely harrowing to play against because they seem to have ways to deal with everything - these ways will exhaust eventually, but surviving that long can be quite a challenge. In a way the corporation has somewhat more control over the game. It is much easier for corporations to only take risks they can afford while at the same time being able to force the runner to take huge risks.

A lot of times optimal plays also depend on the opponent. Corporations can play pretty balls-y moves against risk-averse runners, like dropping agendas on servers with little or no protection. A card with no protection and no advancement tokens pretty much reeks of waste of time or even a trap. However if it is just left there and it's an agenda that requires three advancement, the corporation can outright score it on their next turn. On the other hand if you are playing against a less timid or downright aggressive runner (that would be me), there's just no way you're getting away with plays like this. As the runner you have to evaluate how huge balls the corp player really has. Misjudgements to either direction can be pretty damn costly.

With all this going on, the game is just really dynamic. Although decks are typically built around one strategy, players should always be prepared to adapt their play style on a game-to-game basis. Both sides can make it impossible for their opponent to play their strategy, but this usually opens up other opportunities. Recognizing and capitalizing these opportunities is an important skill.

Conclusion

Android: Netrunner is not your typical deck construction game. Its asymmetrical nature, reliance on hidden information and resource system keep the game interesting to play - as opposed to some other games where the real game is deck-building and actually playing the game is just a formality (a bit polarized view admittedly, but the difference between e.g. MtG and Netrunner is just huge honestly). As a game it simply allows way more opportunities for the player to shine. All the mind games and unpredictability mean that games are almost never over before the end conditions have been met. It can literally take just one mistake to make or break a game - and not taking risks can be a mistake in itself.  

I have not yet played enough to really tell how balanced the game is. There are some runner cards that do feel pretty overpowered and playing against them is really frustrating. They are still manageable but do put quite a strain on corporation deck-building. A definite con is the price. Although I guess it is possible to not buy every single expansion, I'd still say it's not the cheapest game to play. I think at the moment it's my second or third most expensive game, but I do have all or most of the expansions (the leader is by far Lord of the Rings living card game).

So, play it if you get the chance. 

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Primarily Revenvengeance is just another swordplay action game. Granted, it combines the familiar gameplay mechanic to a series mostly known for stealth and crazy plots. The latter is of course intact in Revengeance as the plot makes very little sense at any point. As a game it follows most of the tropes in its genre, including the bad ones.

1. The camera problem

Indeed the biggest issue I had with this game was its camera and honestly I cannot recall a fast-paced action game where camera would not have been an issue. In slower games like the Souls series camera works just fine most of the time (some bosses in at least Dark Souls made the camera go batshit though). I do find it curious that developers insist on making games with very fast-moving enemies while keeping the camera very close to the protagonist's back. If the enemies move slow enough, there is no issue because they cannot suddenly strike from far beyond vision range. Fast-moving enemies also make all kinds of locking systems a pain, because once you lock onto one, it's going to get rather nauseating.

The camera issue is quite simple: in real life, when fighting with melee weapons, people are perfectly able to glance quickly at their sides/behind to see what is going on there. So far there has been no viable way to do this in games. The thumbstick, your friendly neighborhood camera controller, cannot do both accurate and fast. If the sensitivity is fast enough to allow quick glances, you can bet it won't be accurate enough for anything else. It is also far more disorienting to do quick perspective changes in games because the player lacks body sense in the situation. The situation is worst in first person action games, which I think I discussed in my analysis of Dishonored. Moving the camera behind the player's avatar does, in a way, simulate peripheral vision and also the ability for quick glances by showing what is going on the sides.

The situation is somewhat remedied by game mechanics in some games. Devil May Cry has fixed camera angles but experts find it quite playable because of two features: one, all enemies make a sound before attacking; two, jumps and dodges have invincibility frames at the beginning. This means that even attacks from out-of-view enemies can be dodged at all times if the player is careful enough. The system in Revengeance is a bit problematic in this regard because its primary defensive system is parrying and the player is required to press the left thumbstick in the direction of the attack and time the parry correctly. The game assists in this by highlighting when enemies are about to strike, but this is of little help if they are out of view. For this reason Revengeance is somewhat more infuriating with its camera problems than most games in the genre.

One way to deal with camera issues I believe Revengeance should have taken would be to move the camera further. The downside of this of course is that as enemies become smaller, they attacks are harder to discern. However, the game already uses rather blatant highligths and discerning those should not be a problem. Unless it is a technical limitation, I don't think there is any acceptable reason for the camera being so close - especially if they are unwilling to make enemies jump around a lot less. In summary: close camera + fast enemies is a bad combination, but especially so when the primary defense mechanism relies on the player being able to discern each attack's direction. It gets even worse near walls, because the camera does sudden resets (instead of, say, making the walls invisible when they would obstruct the view).

Although the camera problem is rather ubiquitous in this genre, that doesn't mean it should be accepted. Here's why: bad usability is a shitty way to make a game challenging. I highly doubt that Platinum Games wanted to make camera control into a central mechanic in Revengeance - and since it's not part of the core gameplay, it should not get in the way. Some people have excused things like bad controls in Silent Hill because they somehow add to the game's feeling of helplessness. I say we should stop excusing things like this - there are other ways that don't rely on frustrating the player.  

2. Feedback matters

If you have not read it yet, this article does a lot to explain Revengeance's appeal. In short, the violence itself is not the source of the appeal. The violence is just a graphical metaphor for the truly appealing force: feedback. The messy headshot is a very clear indicator that you did well. Revengeance pretty much takes this to the extreme. It is indeed hyper-violent, but not for the sake of violence. The most violent stuff happens in cutting mode, where the player is allowed to literally cut stuff to pieces with rapid slashes. This mode can be used to instantly kill any normal enemies. Furthermore, if you make a cut in the right angle and hit the enemy's power core, Raiden will grab it from the splitting body and instantly refill his health and the energy meter you need to do these cuts. That right there is a very powerful indicator of success - a positive feedback loop even.

So the game reinforces your behavior of scoring instant kills not just with a cool visual effect which in itself is rather satisfactory - it also gives you the power to do more instant kills quicker. Perfect parries are similarly rewarded: you get a cool effect, your meter refills and you get an instant kill option right there. Overall, anything that the player does "right" gives satisfying visual effects in the least, and often gameplay rewards that enable the player to do even more cool stuff. Other important things like stagger have been well implemented. All this makes the game a very satisfying experience. The over-the-top attitude shows not just in cheesy cutscenes, but all over the gameplay. Lesser action games could learn a lot from Revengeance. Platinum Games definitely have a knack for making the player feel empowered when they succeed.

Dante's Inferno is one example of a game that could learn a lot. I'd also throw God of War to the lot, although I'm risking a lot of flak doing so. The games share a lot of genes. Most importantly, battles in both of these games feel very stagnant compared to Revengeance. It just feels a lot more like attrition where the player slowly chips life away from enemies. The weird thing is, these games share most of the mechanics with Revengeance. They just do so in a manner that is several magnitudes less satisfying. They have instakills, and they reward instakills too, but the oomph factor is severely lacking. One key difference is pace. Revengeance is wicked fast. The player hits hard, as do the enemies. Enemies fall left and right, often in mere seconds. It feels like the game is constantly moving forward whereas Dante's Inferno in particular feels like you are forever stuck in every single fight.

Conclusion

Revengeance - even with its flaws - is definitely one of the better games in its genre. It's up there in the company of Devil May Cry (original series) and Ninja Gaiden. It doesn't have any revolutionary mechanics. Rather it just does the basic gameplay in a manner that totally reinforces good play. Although I did compare it to God of War, the games are actually in slightly different categories in my opinion. God of War is more oriented towards casual audiences who might not be as interested in mastering every technique in a game. The difference is quite subtle because on the surface these games feel very similar. Revengeance is purely devoted to one thing: fighting enemies with style, whereas games like God of War throw in a fair bit of exploration and trivial puzzles for a more varied experience. Revengeance is much more suitable for the DMC/NG crowd.

Vanquish

Another game that I played while waiting for Borderlands 2. Vanquish is on speed or something. The amount of stuff that's happening on the battlefield combined with the speed at which it is happening is pretty breahttaking. At its core it's just another third person shooter, but oh boy have they done things right. Some things that should be forgotten from the start include things like plot and characters both of which are ridiculous. That aside, it is really easy to see where the game gets its praise.

A typical sitatuation in Vanquish involves a lot of soldiers on both sides of the battle. The player is usually not alone so friendlies can draw some enemy fire. This is good, because it doesn't take a whole lot of damage to get killed in Vanquish (I played on hard, my new default for any game). It's this deadliness combined with the vast amount of projectiles flying all around the battlefield that separates the game from most third person shooters. One too bold move is all that is needed to get killed. Although staying in cover and carefully shooting from there is basically a sound strategy, your allies will start quickly falling if you take your sweet time. Quick elimination of enemies is the name of the game, and Sam has just the right tools for that. He is armed with an unfortunately named combat suit (ARS) and a weapon system that is mostly a lame explanation for how he can carry exactly three guns at once.

In particular there are two special abilities that empower the player. One is a massive speedboost that allows Sam to quickly travel across the battlefield in a sliding position. He is not immune to damage, but enemies have a really hard time hitting him. This ability allows the player to hit'n'run, flank or even rear enemies effectively and also to reach enemy positions quickly. Using this ability is the key to both eliminating enemies quickly and avoiding their fire. The other skill is just a simple bullet time, which is activated by making a dodge roll. This ability is often necessary to survive encounters with multiple enemies and also to shoot down enemy missiles. Some bosses in particular like to shoot out hundreds of missiles (literally). Both abilities drain the suit's battery and overheating is a serious thing because it makes the player very vulnerable. If cover is not immediately found, death is almost certain.

As far as special abilities go, the ones in Vanquish are fairly limited. The same goes for weapons that are mostly standard stuff with a couple of more exotic exceptions. They are however all that is needed to create one of the best shooter experiences ever. This is largely because the encounter design in Vanquish is top notch. The battlefield is always a living thing and each encounter is clearly distinct. There's next to no filler in this game. In this sense it is quite a lot like Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner that featured excellent mission variation throughout the game. Both games also have their share of tough boss battles. Just when you think one boss was particulary nasty, soon enough you are facing two of the same bastard at once. The environment also has a heavy impact on how battles turn out. There's a lot of variation in every aspect that define the game's encounters.

The enjoyment of playing Vanquish doesn't quantify into single elements. It is simply a really carefully designed whole. It underlines two things: difficulty is good for your game and games should go on only as long as they can. Once Vanquish runs out of real content it just ends. No prolonging, no repetition, just a tight package of high-adrenaline missions with lots of variation. I am looking forward to finishing this game again in the future and, unlike most games, I think I actually will because it is not just that long a game. Furthermore with games like this it is often the second playthrough that is actually more fun because that is when some degree of mastery starts to show.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

I actually didn't intend to play this game at all. However I had already finished Darksiders 2 and Borderlands 2 was more or less around the corner. Not enough time to play any of the games I had particularly planned to (Dragon's Dogma for instance) but enough time for some quick playthroughs and I just happened to find this one for next to nothing in a supermarket. I used to be a Warhammer 40k player so the subject matter did have some meaning to me. In a nutshell, that is what keeps Space Marine going really. The game captures the feeling of the ultra-dark 41st millennium. The protagonist and his two pals feel are very much in canon to the grim lore; getting to massacre orks with familiar tools of destruction like bolters, chain swords and even freaking lascannons and thunder hammers has a certain oomph that generic no-name shooters would lack.

The scene towards the end of the game where reinforcements finally arrive and storm a chaos-infested bridge together with the player almost brought a tear to my eye. It also made me wonder why there wasn't more of this in the game. Most of the time the player hangs with just his two pals (who seem to be immortal) and they explore all sorts of industrial complexes like in any bread-and-butter shooter. Most of the best scenes in the game are ones where imperial guardsmen are involved because it immediately feels more like war. That's kind of what you would expect from a WH40k game: war. There's a plot in the game that kind of justifies the level design. As far as plots go, I guess it is fitting and does give the designers a solid excuse to get the player to shoot chaos marines, cultists and infantry instead of orks for the later part of the game. Oh, and also witness orks and chaos shooting at each other which is also cool.

Still I feel like less plot - more battlefield would have been a better solution for this game. Nevertheless, the bodycount reaches hilarious numbers - I really wished there would have been a kill counter in this game. In many scenes the green stream of orks is almost neverending. Most importantly, they die with satisfying amounts of violence and gore. Melee finishers especially are ridiculously brutal. The Emperor's justice is ruthless. The way theme is handled is the biggest strength of this game. It also means that people who don't give a rat's ass about Warhammer won't get much out of this game. Without the theme Space Marine is just a pretty average action shooter/slasher with huge waves of enemies.

The game's control scheme was a bit weird to my taste. Normally shooter/slashers have a separate aiming mode; outside it, the character faces the way he is moving. Space Marine does this a bit weirdly because the aiming mode is always on and the character is facing at whatever he is targeting. Until you press a melee attack, at which point he slashes at whatever direction the movement stick is pointing. This is really confusing at first. Then again, melee in this game is more or less button smashing, so the controls don't create much frustration. I still have to wonder whether they should have done the usual thing and separate melee and shooting modes from each other.

The game doesn't have any silly things like crouching. Who needs cover when you have a power armor? Health regen is Borderlands-y; armor regenerates but health is only recovered by delivering the Emperor's justice via killing blows. The coolest single gadget in this game was the jump pack. It sounds pretty boring but they've really buffed it up. It doesn't just allow quick vertical movement but also enables powerful dive attacks that are guaranteed to crush anything on the immediate landing spot and push others way back. Most importantly, targeting these dives is easy. It's a great change of pace whenever it gets used in the game (two or three times total I think), and when combined with the almighty thunder hammer the jump pack becomes even deadlier.

While Space Marine offers even less new things than Darksiders 2, it's yet another reminder that subject matter matters. The grim and dark future of the 41st millennium is for many people the ultimate setting for hilarious bodycounts and senseless violence.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin

I've been a fan of Atlus since I played Lucifer's Call (that's Nocturne for the US crowd). Since then I've played all of their RPGs I have gotten my hands on to and I've never experienced much of a disappointment. Well, the first Devil Summoner aside, but even then they corrected their mistakes in the sequel. Atlus has a tendency to do two things really well: deep game mechanics and intriguing plot. Storytelling on the other hand was a clear weakness before Persona 3. So um anyway, enough with the context. Although I knew from the start that Persona 2 would be in no way comparable to its successors I think that a lot has gone wrong with this game.

Actually, the only thing the game really has going for it is its plot which is primarily hindered by the f-ing long and numerous dungeons in the game that have random battles bursting out at approximately five second intervals. Talk about old school. These are pretty common errors and not worth a blog post really, so let's take a look at some of the more specific screw-ups in Persona 2.

1. Demon contacting gone horribly wrong


This has been a stable in the Shin Megami Tensei brand for quite some time. Especially in the main series. Normally contacting is done to obtain new demons for the player's party. The core mechanic is quite simple: the player chooses a communication skill to use and the target demon reacts to that. The reactions are predetermined and often predictable because they are based on a fixed set of personality traits. All this makes contacting less of a random selection and more of an actual decision. The mechanic is overall just fine and in the main series it actually demands decisions from the player because recruitment skills take space from battle skills.

Persona 2 turns the occasional demon negotiation into a grind. Instead of immediately gaining new allies, the player now has to collect tarot cards from demons which can then be spent to summon personas in the Velvet Room (a blue room with creepy people in case you're wondering). This system effectively means that to obtain new personas you'll be contacting the same demon over and over again to get that bucketload of cards you need. What grand fun. Before that though, you'll spend some time figuring out what the f all those contacting skills actually mean regarding demon personalities. The protagonist for example has the amazingly useful skill of imitating the sound of construction equipment and can also initiate a discussion about manliness with the demon. Based on my experimentation, if a demon is "wise" and "forceful" it will be intrigued by a  good talk about being a man. Mind = blown.

Although this contacting business is quite the grind there is actually a silver lining. Once you get a demon to become eager, the battle immediately ends after you get your cards. This typically takes a fraction of the time it would have taken to actually kill the demons so it's a good way to skip lots and lots of battles. I found myself doing this a lot in the longer dungeons.

2. Let's drop this demon fusion business...


Hi. What? In case you're unaware, one of the biggest hooks in the entire Shin Megami Tensei brand is the ability to raise demons (or personas) and then fuse them together to get more powerful demons while inheriting the more useful abilities from the "parents". The beauty of this mechanic is that every raised demon serves a purpose and often the lineage of end game demons is amazingly long. The fusion mechanics have all sorts of interesting rules and properties which people have written very long guides about. So what's the genius move in Persona 2? Oh they dropped demon fusion altogether (actually they might've done this in P1 already, I haven't played it).

Basically they kept everything else which makes about as much sense as keeping the stuffing and throwing away the bread from a sandwich (on a second thought, the analogy makes more sense). Because personas are leveled and higher level personas learn more powerful skills, the player needs to upgrade their persona arsenal after pretty much every dungeon. The player also cannot summon personas that are 5 levels higher than their characters. A newly summoned persona starts with a grand total of one ability and another can be added by throwing a skill card into the summoning process. Personas open new abilities by gaining ranks which involves using them in battle. At least they had the decency to show which skills a persona will learn.

Since you need experience and levels to summon new personas, and you also need to use personas to make them actually useful, you're faced with a choice in each battle: grind for cards or grind for levels/ranks. That means double the grind, yay! Not to worry, the game gives you a lot of time to do both because the number of battles is overwhelming. All in all, this system is just incredibly stupid. Every persona you raise is essentially worth nothing in the long term. Sure, you get a small gift for releasing a maxed out persona, but they are very rarely worth the trouble. Second, a new persona starts out really crappy but you are forced to use it if you ever want to make it better. Completely and constantly replacing something the player has spent a lot of effort into developing is a fucked up mechanic.

3. Fusion spells


This is the only "new" mechanic in the game that actually makes sense. Well, almost, and it comes with a cost. If certain spells are cast in succession, their effects are replaced by a fusion spell, which is typically more potent than the individual spells would have been. To make this possible, commands to characters are given in advance and then executed by hitting "run". The player then needs to decide whether to start a fusion spell or cancel it. Starting a fusion spell cancels the individual spells as characters wait for the final participant to cast the final component and then the fusion spell itself is unleashed. Figuring out the most effective persona configurations and battle order to effectively utilize fusion spells is the best part of this game. Sadly the combat UI is a bit lacking and makes this often rather tedious.

UI problems are nothing new though, they are pretty common in old RPGs. What's amazingly stupid about the fusion spell system is that the player has to discover the recipes by trying out combinations of spells. Oh my god, what were they thinking? I have never ever been a fan of "try everything" puzzles or systems. Including such a system in the game's already tedious combat mechanic is just plain wrong. Hidden information that is in no way hinted is an annoying trope in Japanese RPGs and I don't really find it excusable ever, but it gets a several magnitudes nastier when applied to the one core mechanic that makes the game's battles go in decent time. Fortunately for us modern gamers fusion spell lists are nowadays available on the web.

Conclusion


The theme in Persona 2 game design seems to be "everything is a grind". I didn't find the game particularly enjoying to play. It was playable though, partly because for an Atlus game it was ridiculously easy. I played on hard difficulty and I got a grand total of one game over. I would usually complain about this, but with all the screw-ups made in the game's design I was just happy to get through it in good pace. I'm not certain if this is just a quirk with the PSP re-release though. Despite all this thrashing, I'm still going to play Persona 2: Eternal Punishment when it comes out in Europe. It uses the same system, so at least I will be familiar with all the quirks. I'm also dying to see how the story develops. The quirky humor is also a bonus.

Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII

Crisis Core is one of the three big productions from the Final Fantasy VII 10th anniversary compilation. With the mediocre-at-best fanservice movie Advent Children and the horrible third person shooter Dirge of Cerberus, the compilation looked a lot like a big money grab. What distinguishes Crisis Core from the pack is that it's actually a roleplaying game - something where Square-Enix is still relatively strong. Action-oriented with real-time combat, sure, but roleplaying game nonetheless. It's a prequel with lots of familiar characters and appropriate amount of fan service, but it is also a pretty solid game. The main character is Zack, who was mentioned on several occasions in Final Fantasy VII.

1. How hard can hard be


Knowing that I was about to play a Square-Enix RPG, I decided to finally break my habit of playing most games on normal for the first time around and chose hard mode instead. Little did I know that the hard mode was in fact added to the North American version as an afterthought and the game failed to mention how hard the hard mode is. When I finally got pretty badly stuck in the game maybe halfway through, I got curious and checked from the source of all gaming information (GameFAQs). To my shock, the hard mode was no small adjustment - they had multiplied all monster stats by the average factor of 3.5 and up to 5. Whoa. A small mention in the difficulty selection menu might have been appropriate, huh?

Anyway, challenge is usually fun. What was not fun was that save point placement was sometimes very frustrating. But wait, it gets better! This game features unskippable cutscenes, yay. They are just unacceptable in this day and age. The game also does a really poor job of explaining its most important non-combat mechanic but I'll write about that under its own section. On hard mode players are really expected to really use that system to their advantage so a little more information would have been nice. Sure, it's kind of a JRPG standard that you'll need GameFAQs as a complementary game manual to actually understand how the game works. Just for future reference, not all standards are good.

2. Let's fight in real time!


In the Final Fantasy franchise, real-time combat has been reserved for spinoffs. Curiously they - at least the two instances I have played (Dissidia and Crisis Core) - have mechanics that are better than the main series' active time battle (prior to FFXIII). The system is not particularly special. It is more or less Final Fantasy VII transformed into real-time action. Actions are chosen from a menu using shoulder buttons and performed with X. This is system is okay and pretty much required given the number of available buttons on the PSP. It really only falls on its face with items. The item submenu should have used a unique icon for each item. Items are used relatively rarely so memorizing their positions in the menu does not happen automatically while playing.

Attacks in the system are very simple and in this sense the system was quite disappointing at first. However attacks do have appropriate hit stun, evasion is not overpowered, physical attacks do critical damage from behind and guard only covers the front sector (although rather generously). Because of these factors, movement and timing are essential to survival in Crisis Core, especially on hard mode where enemies really dish out the hurt. Because of hit stun, it is possible to pin enemies or be pinned by a chain of attacks. It's also a good idea that they gave evade a proper recovery time. In many action games, evade is generally quite powerful get-out-of-jail-free card, but in Crisis Core a poorly timed evade can lead to a nasty chain of back hits.

On hard mode the game really is surprisingly defense-oriented. A lot of the harder fights require preparation to guard against the most common element attacks and most debilitating status effects. Even poison is nasty in this game because poison damage causes stagger and interrupts Zack's actions. All in all, it is very important to not get hit. Zack can often pin down single enemies simply with his attacks but multiple enemies can get really troublesome really fast. This is often typical for games that have hit stun as a mechanic. For the delight of Devil May Cry fans, attacks are properly telegraphed, giving the player an opportunity to react before getting hit. Evades also have invulnerability frames during the animation.

I have one complaint. The game's auto-targeting sucks. Zack doesn't target the closest enemy, he targets the enemy closest to his line of sight. This is a rather poor mixture of targeting the closest enemy and manual targeting (hitting where you're facing). For example, let's say there are two enemies. One is really close and the other is behind it, on the other side of the battlefield. You evade the closer one's attack, getting behind its back in the process and try to hit it, only to realize that the targeting has switched to the far away enemy instead and Zack starts running across the battlefield. Fortunately you can cancel your attack by doing an evade but really, this should not happen. It also makes targeting specific enemies a bitch sometimes.

3. How random can we make this?


(Almost) every JRPG tries to add its own tricks into the combat bag. Crisis Core introduces Digital Mind Wave (DMW) which is essentially one big slot machine that's constantly running. Sounds very random, and it is too. There's actually two modes: normal and Activating Phase. The DMW has multiple roles: it controls the flow of battle with buffs; it acts as the game's limit break system; and finally it even controls character development to some extent. The most common are the buffs. They are short time advantages such as removing casting cost from spells or invulnerability to one of the two damage types, or even complete invincibility. These buffs are mostly to add a little variance. With zero MP cost you can go crazy with spells for a while. Immunity to damage is less useful than it sounds because the attacks still cause stagger but it can be useful in a tight place.

Activating Phase is more interesting. It is basically a limit break system that activates when the same character lines up on both left and right slots. If the third slot also comes up with the same character, a limit break is activated, resulting in a damaging attack or a bigger buff. They also give Zack a varying amount of HP, MP and AP back upon triggering. This is an interesting mechanic because it lends a hand to the player by restoring Zack at random intervals. Finally, before unleashing the limit break, Zack is invulnerable against all attacks for a short while. This has been done so that all attacks that were already coming out are carried out against Zack's invulnerability before the limit break activates. Although the player cannot directly affect this, it is a neat mechanic because it often opens up opportunities for attacking or getting out of trouble.

To make it just a little more complex, there is a chance for Activating Phase to change into one of two special modes, summoning and, well, special. Especially the latter one has even wilder effects which can give the player free items are level up their materia. The DMW is in charge of leveling up materia in another way: if two of the same number line up in Activating Phase, the materia in that corresponding slot gains a level. Zack gains a level if three sevens line up but this is not in fact completely random - the game runs a hidden experience calculator which eventually forces level ups to happen. Materia development on the other is completely random.

From the description it might seem that the system is truly too random to be of much use. It would be so if it weren't for DMW materia. These handy things can be equipped to make specific effects a lot more probable. There is one DMW that actually makes Activating Phase in general a lot more probable for a while. I found making that DMW more probable be equipping its materia a solid strategy for some of the harder encounters (remember, even limit breaks that you don't really need give free restoration and a breather). This sort of indirectly controlled randomness is in fact a quite interesting mechanic. By sacrificing some flexibility (materia slots), the player can manipulate the odds of getting free goodies to his favor.

4. Fusing for win


To my experience, when a development system is named Fusion it tends to be great. Atlus has demon fusion, there was monster fusion in FFXIII-2 and there is materia fusion in Crisis Core. It's a surprisingly complex system so it is very weird that the game doesn't really reveal its true importance to the player. It's portrayed mostly as a way to create new materia. However, it has a much more important function: raising materia stat bonuses. These start at very low values which makes fusion seem rather useless. This couldn't be much further from the truth - materia stat bonuses are the most important avenue for stat development. The system has a bunch of rules that are left for the player to discover (i.e. read from GameFAQs). It actually needs one key item from a side quest before it becomes really useful. That item allows using items as a component in fusion, which strengthens stat bonuses further.

Once the player actually figures out the system, it is quite clever. Because materia can only gain levels when they are equipped, there are also some serious considerations about which ones to wield - farming levels for materia reduces the number of more useful materia that can be equipped. The reason I like this system is that like Junction in FFVIII, it gives the player a powerful parallel development lane. Leveling up is just a general indicator of progress while real leaps in power are made by crafting materia with solid stat bonuses. This imbues character development with a lot of really meaningful choices for the player. It is what truly distinguishes action RPGs from plain action games.

Although I like the system, there is one particular problem with tying stat bonuses to equipped abilities. Because transferred stat bonuses in fusion are always halved, moving stat bonuses between materia is not feasible. This makes endgame builds rather rigid. At some point the player needs to decide which materia they will ultimately equip, and stack the big bonuses on those materia - and keep them there. There is still some flexibility: in fusion only one materia loses half its stat bonus (the weaker one). So by manipulating fusion results, it is possible to transform materia into other materia, but there are limits because of the system rules. Most importantly, the most powerful materia in the game cannot be transformed from any other materia type and fusing almost anything with them transforms them into other, weaker materia.

Overall, all the systems combined, the game does allow for quite a lot of builds. However, it does suffer from the Final Fantasy Syndrome. I just named this syndrome, but it is very prevalent in the series so the name is fitting. In short, a game that suffers from the syndrome has certain skills / equipment / whatever that are so obviously more powerful than anything else in the game that not using them would be stupid. In Crisis Core there is one peculiar materia called Costly Punch that is ridiculously overpowered. Immediately upon getting it, I reached the increased damage cap with it. It also ignores pesky things like enemy defense which makes it an ultimate weapon against, uh, everything. Curiously hard mode didn't become a steamroll with this materia because even normal enemies can stand and deliver ridiculous amounts of damage.

5. Bonus: Not so random encounters, or wallhuggers unite!


There was another curiosity about Crisis Core I forgot to mention. The game doesn't exactly feature random encounters. It also doesn't show the enemies on the map. So what does it do? Well, the environments in the game have these invisible zones where battle (with random enemies) commences. Usually, not always. Confusing huh? It gets better though: the zones typically do not go from wall to wall. Zack can avoid most battles in the game by tightly hugging walls while moving. It's uh... a very interesting solution. I kind of appreciate the fact that it's possible to not have to fight every single encounter in the game but really, invisible zones?

Conclusion


Crisis Core has surprisingly lots of depth. This seems to be a common trend in Final Fantasy spinoffs - the riskier ideas are realized in them instead of the main series. I guess it's a sound strategy from SE because the spinoffs are typically played by their core fans who are prepared to tackle more complex systems. It's still not Shin Megami Tensei complex in Crisis Core, but enjoyable enough to warrant full post-game experience all the way to the ultimate boss. I haven't gotten there yet but I have a good feeling that I will. The game also goes to show that SE really should include a hard mode in every single one of their games. Only difficulty demands players to learn and use various systems in these games.

Deus Ex Human Revolution

Around the time this game was released I decided to play, for the first time, the original Deus Ex so that I could eventually play the Human Revolution and look at it from the proper perspective. Playing both of these games for the first time within half a year of each other provided an interesting viewpoint. Games, even really good ones, have come a long way in ten years. Human Revolution is yet another game that does a lot of things right. As did the original at its time no doubt.

1. Stealth action, finally done right


I have never been a big fan of stealth games. In some contexts I'm down with it, but extended periods of avoiding gazes is too often an experiment in frustration. While Deus Ex and also Human Revolution have gained praise for offering the player choices, the emphasis is on stealth action. Human Revolution in particular rewards being undetected with both experience points and game achievements. The firefights can get pretty brutal too.

Gameplay that emphasizes stealth has certain unique challenges related to uncertainty. For instance, it is highly important for the player to be able to see which way enemies are facing. While it might be realistic not to show any aids in this, going entirely without aids is really frustrating. Human Revolution uses a radar which shows all enemies as long triangles, making it trivial to figure out which way they are looking. Augmentations can be bought to let the player see the enemies' cones of vision in the field, which can provide extra help for moving around undetected. However, I felt the radar was sufficient enough. It's worth noting that without it I would have just shot my way though the game. Which is exactly what I did in the original Deus Ex.

Other source of uncertainty, resident in first person games, is the question "is my character hidden?". This is not always clear because the character's dimensions are not visible to the player. Human Revolution provides a graceful solution to the problem: when the character enters cover, the camera backs away and shows a third person view of the situation. Furthermore, the game only allows the player to take cover behind objects that are in fact large enough to hide the protagonist. It even has smooth mechanics for moving from cover to cover in such a way that the main character is guaranteed to stay in cover at all times and move silently. The third person view also allows the player an unrealistic but much needed ability to see what's going on on the other side of the cover.

Much like Assassin's Creed which uses automation to portray the protagonist's superior abilities and allow the player to focus on planning, the availability of information in Human Revolution does the same. They can even get away with this lack of realism. After all, the game is about human augmentation and all abilities are explained through them. Most importantly, sneaking past enemies and taking them down unseen is highly satisfying.

Admittedly Human Revolution might not be the first game to all this right, but it is in my experience. I admit that I haven't played Metal Gear Solid games much because of the abysmal controls and camera view in MGS2.



2. Inventory, ammo and what is this


The core gameplay of Human Revolution is rock solid. That doesn't mean the game would be entirely without flaws. Let's start with the antique inventory. It is true that slot-based inventory has been a staple in games since - I don't know, forever? - but I'm inclined to think that it's not a very modern solution. There has to be a better way than playing tetris with different sized rectangles on a grid. I have never liked playing around with the inventory in games, and often these limitations of carrying capacity feel really artificial. It cannot be a question of realism because these systems never are realistic. Game balance is the more likely reason to limit what the player can have with them. But why the grid? It makes no sense. A list is much nicer. You can still have a limit on how many virtual slots the character can carry, and have a number for each item to tell the player how many slots it takes. If you really want that grid then please at least give me a good automatic sorting system.

The weirdest thing in both Deus Ex and Human Revolution is the clip size of weapons. Clips in this world are ridiculously small. Semiautomatic pistol with 6 bullet clips? Combat rifle that can hold 20 at a time? You got to be kidding me. I don't even find a game balance justification for this one. The game does its best to support multiple playing styles, but constant reloading really limits options in combat. It also just feels wrong. This is supposed to be the future, so how come they cannot build decent weapons? There was also a bit of a power imbalance between lethal and non-lethal weapons. A single hit from any non-lethal weapon is guaranteed to incapacitate the target, but against some enemies a headshot from a sniper rifle is not.

Conclusion


Human Revolution is a really successful game and a clear improvement over its legendary ancestor from a modern player's point of view. The game had a solid pacing with enough dialogue between action scenes. Levels in the game were not too huge and didn't start to drag at any point. The persuasion system was good, even though I didn't mention it in detail. I did find a it a bit disappointing that just like in the original, the player simply decided the game's ending in the final moments.

There was also the issue of boss fights which were not really suitable for the game. They've gotten a lot of fan rage for a reason. Forcing the player to fight rather deadly enemies in a game where it is possible to put everything into stealth abilities is not a good idea. However I actually didn't find these fights very hard. I just applied a lot of explosives to the problem and it went away. Still, the boss fights really don't fit into the game's general feel. The original allowed players to circumvent at least some boss fights (it didn't have many anyway) and that was a much better solution.

But yeah, I liked Human Revolution. Enough to get its pricey DLC Missing Link and I have to say that it was also very enjoyable.

Dark Sector

This game is a rather forgotten piece of history already despite being just some years old. Pretty much a victim of poor marketing. It was brought to my attention through another blog, and since it's still largely available for next to nothing, I decided to give it a shot. On the one hand, yes, this game is yet another cover shooter with all the typical cliches. Yet on the other hand, it is a game with one particularly cool superpower for the protagonist.

Most shooters these days have one distinguishing feature from all the other shooters. One. The quality of the game is up to the use of this feature and combination of level, weapon and enemy design. The pony called Dark Sector has a trick called the glaive. It's a spinning throwing weapon that gains a multitude of uses during the game.

In the very beginning this thing just flies straight forward and is overall crappy. Towards the end of the game, the glaive does a lot more. It can be used to pick up items which makes it a form of telekinesis. It gains a power throw, which does quadruple damage but requires precise timing from the player. The power throw is particularly satisfying as it usually cuts enemies in half or severs heads/limbs. It can be imbued with elements from the environment for some added effects such as electrocution. Finally, the player can control its flight path. By the press of a button, the camera moves behind the glaive and the player can control it. This way the glaive can go past covers, cut down multiple enemies and do some serious precision work. Guiding a power thrown glaive is one of the more satisfying power trips I've had recently in games.

What makes the glaive a successful weapon is how it allows the player to be rather creative. It not only allows creativity, but even demands it. The game even has somewhat non-trivial puzzles where the glaive needs to be used. The game also conveniently limits the use of firearms so the player really needs to use his cool superpower. The explanation is very Metal Gear, but who cares. Firearms still can be used, and the protagonist always dual-wields a pistol with his glaive, which makes it the most usable firearm in the game. Ammunition is quite scarce. While the game is clearly a cover shooter, it also reminds me of superpower games such as InFamous and Prototype.

The game lacks somewhat in production quality and originality.  The characters and plot are crap. Still it does one thing well enough and has the sense to end before it starts to repeat itself too much. I would suggest this game solely for the purpose of seeing the glaive in action. It is simply one of the coolest weapon designs in ages.

Borderlands

This is the latest game I finished. I even got through all the DLCs since they came with the game of the year edition. Borderlands is a long shooter and something has clearly been done very right to keep players interested. Although one of the key selling points is co-op play, I actually enjoyed the entire game just fine in single player mode.

1. Power-tripping to the max


I guess there's no denying it. Finding randomized loot is disturbingly addictive. Think back to Diablo. How repetitive the mechanics in that game are? Really, really repetitive. However, the hook of character development in games like Diablo, including Borderlands, is constant empowerment. Every chest is a chance to obtain a better weapon, and every kill is a step closer to the next level. Role-playing games are built on this stuff. It works. Finding that exceptionally good weapon is followed by a gratifying power trip and for a while enemies are dropping like flies. At some point they catch up again making the game more challenging, but eventually you'll get another power trip. And so it goes...

2. Keeping the game going 


Borderlands is by no means a challenging game. Especially if played after Dark Souls. However, they do the lack of challenge right. Besides, it's a power-tripping game. One particular trick I liked about the game was Second Wind. It allows fallen players to make a comeback by killing one enemy before bleeding to death. The player gets back up with a portion of their health and fully loaded shields, putting them back into the fight. This keeps the game going most of the time, but there is still enough risk in dying that it is usually to be avoided. It's also possible to (ab)use Second Wind as a tactic (e.g. leave one severely wounded enemy alive, then kill them quickly if you go down). This did feel a little stupid in some boss battles, while in some others it was fairly useless. Overall though, I think this mechanic is cool for a game like Borderlands.

3. Enemy design again


Most of the time the enemy design in Borderlands is sound. Especially critical hits put enemies down very quickly, and their weapons are often really powerful. Occasionally though there were enemies that simply took way too many bullets to put down. I emptied several guns against the final boss for example, and in one optional boss in the earlier half of the game I almost ran out of all ammunition. Partly this was due to the level scaling of damage which I found a bit weird. This meaning that the level difference between the shooter and their target was a factor in the damage formula. Against a higher level enemy even really powerful guns were not doing much. Most of the time the game is paced well enough so that player level is in the same ballpark with enemies. Except...

4. DLC difficulty balancing


One thing I found very weird was the intended level range for the DLC expansions. Three of the four expansions were designed exactly for the same level range. This is weird because the player is likely to gain at least three or four levels during each expansion, which means they will be overleveled at the start of the next expansion. Although one expansion was really nasty for its level range, this still feels like a really weird decision. Sure, there's no guarantee that players will be getting all the expansions. However, that's the way expansions have been made pre-DLC era: the next one will always be more difficult than the last.

5. Random tidbits


Another curious thing about the DLCs was that they were much better written than the core game. Funnier humor, tighter plots and even wackier characters. It felt like the development team hadn't let their writers loose enough when making the main game. Should they follow along the DLC guidelines in Borderlands 2, this bodes well.

Another random thing I just briefly wanted to talk about is the use of cell shading graphics. It makes the game look really characteristic and most certainly stands against the test of time much better than realistic graphics. Like sprite graphics, cell shading just might be a sound artistic decision for games that don't necessarily aim for a wow-effect but rather like to look unique.

Conclusion


I think Borderlands is deserving of all the praise. I went in expecting little since I'm not a big fan of shooters - especially not long ones - but came out highly enjoyed. There's still the biggest challenge undefeated but I'm gonna look for a co-op partner to level up enough and take that bastard down.

Dead Space

To kick off this new blog, I'll start with something recent. To me anyway. I suddenly had an urge to resume Dead Space. I stopped playing it after a couple of chapters last year and thought I'd never touch it again. Now it's done, and it was in fact quite enjoyable. Observations follow.

1. Why Dead Space is not scary

In this Gamasutra article, Dead Space and several other supposedly scary games are pitted against each other in a scientific study. I cannot say anything about the other games since I have not (yet) played them, but Dead Space is not particularly scary. It was this disappointment that made me stop playing the game last time. Based on my prior observations of horror games, I'll point out the problems.

Dead Space falls into the same pitfall that undermines a lot of suspense from the Silent Hill series: there are lots of enemies. Killable enemies at that. This is a huge problem, because it has been acknowledged time and again that once the threat can be dealt with, it becomes a lot less scary. Enemies in Dead Space do take some skill to defeat effectively but typically they are gone in seconds. Dead Space also does not do a whole lot foreshadowing. Mostly, enemies just appear from somewhere, sometimes trying to get that cheap surprise scare.

While the game is very grotesque, it rarely got me particularly disturbed. By fluff the necromorphs have been human, but when you encounter them in the game, they are so far removed from traces of humanity that the deformation effect does not kick in. They don't look like horribly mutated humans, they just look like monsters. The ghosts in Project Zero (Fatal Frame) are actually more effective in evoking this effect, and they are not even physical beings.

Finally, Dead Space by design cannot evoke the scarce resource effect. Fighting enemies is a core mechanic in the game, and therefore there was no way for the designers to limit the resources available to the player so that ammunition would be actually scarce. Okay, sure, I'm a gaming veteran and I can get a decent hit ratio, so maybe less skilled players will have to deal with scarce ammunition and occasionally take out monsters in melee. However, I remember how things were in System Shock 2 where ammunition to weapons really was scarce. The reason why I think the scarcity effect does incur fear is that although you might have the tools to deal with enemies now, what if they come in such numbers that you don't have enough.

I'm not denying the atmosphere of Dead Space. It was fairly strong. The game just was not scary.

2. Ammunition, Dead Space style

I do now know how popular this mechanic is, but this is my first time encountering it. In short, there are next to none pre-determined drops / crates / items laying on the ground in Dead Space. Instead, the player will always randomly get ammunition for one of the weapons they have equipped or some utility item. On paper this might sound pretty good: players get to use the weapons they like. On the flipside, players are never forced to fight with suboptimal weaponry. I remember how in System Shock 2, availability of ammo played a big part on which weapons to use.

This mechanic might sit better with some games, but I didn't particularly enjoy it in Dead Space. It gives little incentive to make use of all of the weapons and the randomness feels a little bit cheap. It also allows gaming the system by having less weapons equipped. Having enemies drop items consistently also has a side effect: the player can be sure that an enemy is dead when they see the drop. Since some enemies in Dead Space in fact do feign death, this kind of ruins the surprise.

3. Don't aim for the head

Dead Space challenges the headshot trope of shooters. Although cynically speaking it's just replaced with limbshot, the mechanic does in fact serve the game well. Tearing enemies down limb by limb is the name of the game. I liked to start with legs. The point of this mechanic is that damage has a big impact on how the enemies perform. Especially shooting their legs off. It definitely adds to the grotesque feel of the game. After a lengthy battle, the place is littered with severed limbs and limbless torsos.

The mechanic alone would not be as effective without weapons that fully support it. The very first two weapons in the game are best examples. The plasma cutter is a precision tool that can make horizontal or vertical cuts making it far more interesting than your usual pistol (although it is in fact pretty much just a pistol). My favorite weapon in the game, the line gun, fires a wide cutting line which can easily sever both legs off of multiple enemies at once. Oh and there's ripper, an industrial remote-controlled saw blade, which is an excellent tool for close quarters combat.

The limb shooting mechanic and brutal weapons combined make defeating each enemy a highly satisfying experience of mastery. I enjoyed shooting monsters in Dead Space a lot more than in many games I've played previously.

4. The cool UI

Dead Space is highly successful in integrating everything into the game world. The sci-fi theme affords this without suspension of disbelief, and I liked the floating menus etc. as soon as I saw them. Ditto for the guidance system. The simple but clever trick employed in the game is to display every GUI thingy as a holographic projection in the game world. That's all, and it works like a charm.

I do believe that in games that put a lot of emphasis on atmosphere, UI designers should strive to make the HUD go away entirely, and in Dead Space the designers have succeeded without taking any information away from the player. Overall, the designers of the game have done a fairly good job of minimizing the suspension of disbelief.

Conclusion

Dead Space is a good shooter. Its action is satisfying visually and mechanically. The designers have put several solid innovations into the game and made it highly enjoyable. They have done a good job with minimizing the suspension of disbelief. They only falter with the weird resource system. However, Dead Space is not very scary, suffering from the common problems of horror games where a lot of monsters are fought.