Worst Gaming Experiences: The Shotguns of Railroading

So, imagine this situation. You’ve been shot on a train full of enemies. You blow up the train in some vague hope you’ll survive because you’ve been able to survive every explosion imaginable and you do, indeed, survive. You climb out of the wreckage, surviving explosions and your body slamming into all kinds of surface. You shoot a few people on a way to safety. You traipse through snow in just a t-shirt and jeans. 

You come across a large group of enemies and you know you can take them out silently. You do so, in the meanwhile looking for an exit. No one has found you and you are pretty sure all enemies have been dispatched of. You find a way you can climb out. Your first instinct is to climb and escape. However, as you are climbing two people appear behind you from nowhere and shoot you before you can react.

Thanks, this guy. You cause me pain and misery.

Now, imagine this in terms of a video game. You think you might not have taken everyone out, so you start trying to stealth kill everyone, making sure to leave none behind. You try to sneak past everyone, taking out no one. Neither of these tactics work: you get shot. Suddenly you think that maybe you should kill everyone. Loudly. With guns. More enemies start coming, so that can’t be the way, surely? But it is. 

In this scenario you have to kill everyone who comes your way, and there are waves and waves of enemies. When you have killed them all, your character slows down, exhausted, climbs up and you get away. The game has artificially constructed a situation to increase tension. No, not artificially, it’s straight up unfair. No game should set you on the rails like that, cheating you out of continuing the game because you are doing to logical thing and trying to get away without bringing attention to yourself and thus preserving your life.

Well, I have to say thank you, critically acclaimed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. You have possibly the worst moment in gaming I have ever experienced. I am glad I have to understand exactly what the developers wanted me to do because they think action is a better way of dealing with what should be a tense and slow paced moment. You have shown me that instead of giving players a choice you should just shoot them in the back without warning with teleporting, psychic, shotgun-wielding soldiers.

Yeah, I don't like Uncharted 2 that much...

Aliens: Colonial Marines - First Impressions

Having just got back from MCM Expo I have looked back on my time at my first convention. It was extremely fun and I would definitely love to go again. It has certainly given me a taste for the convention atmosphere. However, one thing I remember most about Expo were the several games shown there. Out of these games there was one I played a demo for that really stuck with me.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is a first person shooter, though the demo we got was the competitive multiplayer. This meant that whilst the marines were in FPS mode, the aliens were in third-person mode. When we went in we were shown what the alien side was, watching the SEGA team battle against the normal guys. Xenomorph (the aliens) gameplay looked simply fantastic, with climbing on ceilings and walls being a major part. The entirety of the gameplay looked far superior to the gameplay in Alien vs. Predator, which had the Aliens in first person, making running along walls give you motion sickness.

But the xenomorph side was not the gameplay we got to experience first person. When the game finished (41-37 for the SEGA team) we played against the SEGA team. As marines you are dropped in apart from each other, but it is easy to find each other. A key approach is to take the Left 4 Dead tactic of stick together. Many people would run off on their own and immediately get shanked by a xenomorph. In fact, many of my kills were trying to make sure a person wasn’t on their own, see a xenomorph or two drop down on them, leaving me to try and protect them.

Another tactic that needs to be used for this game has to be one many people did not employ: turn on your flashlight and keep your eyes upwards. At one point four of my team members ran through a door with an obvious prehensile tail hanging from it. A few quick shotgun blasts and I had saved their lives. Of course, I found employing this technique actually heightened my fears, as I was looking out for the xenomorphs so much I kept seeing things.

 

The weapon loadouts given to us were great. My personal favourite was to use the shotgun as it was easier to hit the moving targets, plus xenomorphs need to get up close to hurt you, so a shotgun blast to the head before it stabs you is perfect. The other two weapon loadouts consisted of a machine gun (useful) and an assault rifle that shot in bursts (not as useful). The trailer showed a flamethrower which was not in the demo but I can imagine being extremely useful in the full release.

The game was a paranoia filled bundle of fun and is definitely a game I would like to get on release date. The L4D style of gameplay was absolutely fantastic and made us all work together. On top of this the game is simply gorgeous to look at, albeit it very dark (though a flashlight will solve that). Plus, the gameplay feels very balanced (our side lost 39-38, which is pretty close), even though when playing the game you do feel very vulnerable, which is how you should feel against the xenomorphs.

Aliens: Colonial Marines is out on Microsoft Windows, PS3 and Xbox 360 in February 2013, and Wii U in 2013.