E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Ubisoft

Let me start of by saying this: Aisha Tyler is the worst person on Earth. That’s quite a thing to say, yes, but I’m being honest. I swear she takes joy in ruining fun, even more so than clowns do. She presented the Ubisoft press conference and she ruined every second of it. Not to say that the content was good, but my God was she terrible. She over-sexualised everything and told awful jokes. When she says “Let’s play a game: how many times does Aisha get girl wood?” my heart sinks and I go for the knife. This is probably the worst conference so far. There was also some Toby guy who was trying to be funny but I don’t know who he is nor do I think he was funny. (UPDATE: Ah, Tobuscus. I have seen him before, actually. Yeah, I've never thought he was funny.)

In other words, this conference was terribly presented. But what about the content?

Dancing

What?

Singing

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

Just Dance 4

Oh, the conference started with a song and dance (literally) about Just Dance 4. I don’t think I could tell you what the game has done to improve upon the previous games, but, like Usher, they decided to concentrate more so on the celebrity. So, yeah, can’t talk to much about this one.

Aisha Tyler

Aisha (talking about the dancing girls): “We’re all a bit gay.”

Fuck off, Aisha!

Far Cry 3

So, this all started off with sexualisation. Well, Far Cry 3 should continue with this. In an attempt to show how mature games have got we see gratuitous tits and swearing. EDGY! The game did look quite pretty and I can imagine it’s pretty similar to Far Cry 2 (it looked like it). Oh, apart from these hallucination sequences that were just a confusing mess. Not much was really shown about this game, but it does seem to have stealth elements and highly scripted sequences.

Oh, and you can shoot tigers. Cool, I guess.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Nothing was shown here apart from a trailer. Microsoft showed more. The trailer did seem to show that the game loses its stealth element for action, which is a shame, really.

Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth

A trailer was shown, but bugger me if I can tell you what the game’s about.

Rayman Legends

Well, this was finally something interesting. Rayman is going to be on the Wii U. It was nice to finally see a game on the Wii U, and it appeared to make some very good use of the touch screen. It even used motion control, but it was almost exactly like the controls used for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, so is nothing particularly new.

One thing that did annoy me is that Rayman Origins had a very interesting 2D design to it, but Rayman Legends used a somewhat 3D look for some of the characters. This just didn’t mesh with the overall design, in my eyes, and ruined the style that made Origins so pleasing to the eyes. There was some amazing sound design though in a musically themed level.

ZombiU

Shit name, but it’s somewhat refreshing to see a game set in the UK. They only showed a trailer with annoying music, but it might be something to keep your eyes on if you’re into killing zombies (you are).

Wii U

Nothing was really shown here other than titles. Rabbids Land, Your Shape Evolved, Sports Connection, Just Dance 4 and Assassin’s Creed III are all available on the Wii U. No gameplay shown, so nothing to talk about. But wait, what was that last one?

Assassin’s Creed III

Holy crap, gameplay! RUN!

Well, from what I can tell from the gameplay we are still slaughtering only British people because the Americans totally weren’t outsiders. Nope. Apparently not. Hunting seems to be an interesting dynamic, but there did seem to be a thinly veiled QTE in there somewhere.

Movement seems pretty competent, with tree based movement looking wonderful, dynamic movement in the snow and environment seeming a big part of the movement. However, this was never part of stealth, because the gameplay showed no stealth. This is a shame, as that seems to be something that would work well if going through the woods to slaughter all the British.

Okay, okay, the Ubisoft people have said Americans will also be targets, but everything so far seems so anti-British. I know this is always harped on by us Brits, but all I want is some neutrality, really. That’s was the series has always incorporated, but this seems so... agenda based.

Shootmania

What the fuck was this? I cannot tell you anything about this game other than it looks like Quake. The gameplay was shown in a tournament style setting, like what you might get at Blizzcon. But they introduced so much comedy!

“HURR DURR GURLZ VS BOIZ!!!” Aisha proclaims. Because that’s funny.

I think video gaming is dead.

Watch Dogs

Wait, an interesting IP? A new IP? Bloody hell, I might just die.

It’s set in a somewhat generic cyberpunk world where everyone is connected to the network. The gameplay shows and open world like GTA but with on-the-fly hacking a la the new Syndicate or even Mindjack (but done well). The game seems gritty, dark (in a good way) and seems to have a living and thriving world.

Shooting looks competent, the world looks pretty and the voice acting good. The conference wasn’t worth this, but my God am I looking forward to this game. Keep your eyes on this one, it might be a new hit.

Ending Thoughts

Ugh.

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – EA

Well, I’m surprised. EA, I expected very little from you, but you delivered a fairly convincing conference. Not that it was perfect and there was a lot I did not care about, but you got the presentation down perfectly. Maybe it’s just after the Microsoft one you seemed so much more... game oriented. Anyways, my thoughts on the individual elements.

DLC

Oh, fuck off. 

I’m not sure they necessarily said it (I was in another room looking for something at the time but I could hear bits). DLC should not be a focus! Bastards.

Dead Space 3

Well, it definitely looked different. Dead Space was never a game that I got. It wasn’t really the sort of horror game I wanted as jump scares do not make horror for me. So, luckily for them they decided to get rid of all pretence that it was a horror game.

Yeah, it’s now a cover based co-op shooter. You know, what we want from horror. So yeah, it looked like Resident Evil 5 in space. I really can’t say it looked good at all, but maybe it will go more so along the Resident Evil 4 route of going so batshit insane it’s fun. Or maybe it’ll be weird and have drills that are bosses. Yeah, that was weird.

Madden 13

So, this was a very interesting thing to focus on as the other sports games had a lesser focus later. They took it very seriously. But it did have some interesting things, such as a new physics engine. Then a guy came on and gave advice about how to do well in the NFL. Why? Just because.

One thing that did intrigue me though was the story mode, which had a story engine to flesh out the world, as well as having a fake Twitter feed to comment on the season. Seems all very immersive. You can also manage the league online and on a smart phone, which I do think works quite well.

SimCity Social

So yeah, SimCity on Facebook for all you Farmville fans with a hard on for SimCity.

SimCity

Holy shit this looked pretty. I love SimCity and now we have a new one. The art style is very pleasing and the world seems a bit more dynamic. On top of this we also have multiplayer to connect you and your friends. With multiplayer when things happen in your city it effects nearby cities, allowing a thriving SimCity world thing. I like.

Battlefield 3 Premium

It’s that paid for membership thing that Call of Duty has. EA wants your money. That’s all I have to say.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

This game has always intrigued me and if I played MMOs I’d probably play it. Updates to it do sound interesting. These updates include more PvP areas, a harder difficulty, more playable species, higher level caps and a new planet. Apparently Bioware love the people who play its game because it sounds like some of these are free, if not all. Kudos.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

Shut up, I liked the first game in the reboot. It had its flaws and was just a Modern Warfare game, but I liked it. Now, this on the other hand this game looks... meh.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot I liked about it, such as the HUD and it had some good character animations, but to me it looked so much like Modern Warfare 3. It didn’t seem to try and make its mark. 

Sure, it is interesting that real life events are explored in the game, such as going to Somalia to fight pirates (I was expecting a giant enemy crab, knowing E3 real life events) but it didn’t seem to do anything new or spectacular. It just fits in nicely with other FPS games.

Multiplayer does look interesting though, with lots of different factions over the world and many different weapon types. Ooh, and destructible environments. Otherwise, it was more of the same.

EA Sports

Oh, hello EA Sports games. I thought we were done with Madden. Well, a creepy guy says otherwise.

A lot of games were announced, such as a new Free-to-Play Madden game, NHL, NBA and UFC, but nothing to get excited about, really.

Except FIFA 13 has some cool elements about it. Players carry their level over from your FIFA 12 saves, which is nice, and there’s a whole football club element that carries over. Also, it’s going to be available on iPhone, iPad and Android phones. But nothing too great.

 

Need For Speed: Most Wanted

 

This looked pretty good. The graphics were good, the driving seemed to work well and I think it got away from the hyper-realism that is in a lot of driving games nowadays. It’s open world, which I don’t like in my driving games, but it seemed to carry it off okay. There’s a lot of comparisons with friends as well, which will be good for some but infuriate others wanting to beat their friends but not being good enough to do so.

Oh, and it’s better than the Forza Horizon trailer because the trailer for this one didn’t have dupstep. Instead it had Prodigy. Sweet!

Crysis 3

WHY?! Why take us away from the open world jungle aspect and give us an “urban rainforest” that seems linear as fuck. This did not impress me and I honestly think they need to shut down the Crysis series as they have ruined one of the most interesting IPs out there with its two following releases. 

It looked pretty, though.

 Ending Thoughts 

Okay, I think it was to do with the shitty Microsoft conference that I liked this. Overall there is nothing particularly new. Some interesting developments, but it’s sequel-mania out there. Everything did look quite pretty, but for the most part there is no real innovation out there.

If I could describe this conference in one word it would be “Connectivity”. There was a real focus on connecting you and your friends to create an ongoing experience. It’s something I appreciate from the company. Not that I would utilise it (*sob* no friends *sob*) but I can see people really taking to it.

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Microsoft

So, E3 2012 kicks off with Microsoft taking the helm. There are many games I’m excited for and I was hoping that maybe they would get shown here. Well, we didn’t really get that, at all, but let’s go through the press conference from the beginning.

Halo 4

At the start we had a trailer/demo for Halo 4. Personally, I’m shocked they didn’t end the Halo franchise at the end of the storyline, which I presume is Halo: Reach (I don’t play Halo), but after the secret ending of Halo 3 (secret only to those who didn’t complete it on Legendary) we now see Master Chief is still shooting aliens on some other planet. Or maybe they are AIs. I don’t know, really, I’m just kinda confused how you can shoot AI with bullets. The weapons looked interesting, but for me it was more of the same. Just more Halo. Oh, and they got rid of the health system again, relying purely on shields. Don’t like it, but I don’t play those games.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Then we had Splinter Cell: Blacklist. I don’t really play these games either, but at first I was intrigued.  Then I slowly realised that what they were showing was not the stealth games they used to be but rather HEART PUMPING ACTION! So, yeah, Splinter Cell has become a generic third person shooter apparently with no real stealth element by the looks of things. Shame, really, as the opening of the gameplay intrigued me, seeming almost Hitman-like in the fact you use a disguise.

EA Sports

Well, Ubisoft and EA have shown games real quick. Now we have EA Sports games. WITH KINECT! Yay? Now we can be silly and tell people in FIFA what to do. Because that’s what we wanted in FIFA, right? To not play the game? Of course.

We also got a nice little Madden tutorial. This actually interested me, to be honest, and was the first thing I could see being somewhat good. It was shown that you can call out all of the different plays when doing the hike thing (I know bugger all about American Football). It seemed to work well and looks like it helps the player immerse themselves in the NFL setting.  Thumbs up to that, I guess.

Trailers

Fable: The Journey. Still looks like it’s on rails; still looks pretty crappy. Might be good, but I don’t think it will be. 

Gears of War: Judgement has Baird being the main character. This was another game series I was surprised is still having games made of it, but People Can Fly might make it good. I’m not really that excited for it, and they haven’t shown much of it, but I suppose we’ll have to wait. Not much excitement from the crowd with this one.

Forza Horizon I was out of the room for as the dubstep was irritating me. I hear it’s open world, but it’s nothing to be excited about. Just another Forza game, really.

Technology

And here’s the main ruination of the Microsoft conference. The technology stuff. My God was it irritating. Most of the conference seemed to be taken up with Microsoft trying to tell us that the Xbox 360 should be used for pretty much anything but gaming. No, instead we should use the Kinect to do what a controller can do and make the Xbox 360 a TV because if we have an Xbox 360 we definitely don’t have a TV, so need to use the console to watch TV on. Wait...

Oh, and sports. Lots of sports stuff.

Also, we have the Wii Fit on Xbox 360. They didn’t really tell us how that would work, but someone from fucking Nike will let us know they are working with Microsoft and that athletes love the measure stuff. Cool, I guess.

But of course, we also have more random shit. This time it’s linking smart phones, tablets and the Xbox 360. Now we can search online on our Xbox, but apparently we all have tablets and smart phones, so why is this? Who cares, Microsoft really want us to use Internet Explorer and Bing. Yay?

All in all, this stuff (called Xbox SmartGlass) is meant to immerse us all in our TV shows, movies and games more by giving us information on our smart phones and tablets whilst we are watching or playing these things. But this all seems rather pointless and nothing that should have this much focus. There was a demo with Game of Thrones which showed a map of things happening as the show bounced from place to place which was kind of cool but it doesn’t seem to have that much purpose.

Tomb Raider

Thank you! GAMES! I forgot about games. So yeah, the new Tomb Raider. This game interests me a hell of a lot and the demo they gave showed off a lot of features. The shooting and stealth looks cool and the destructible environments look great. It’s a very pretty game, but it does seem fairly Uncharted, which for me is a bad thing. I do think it looks more interesting than Uncharted and is a lot more of a human tale, with some good survival elements.

So there we go, another thumbs up for me. The only major complaint I have is they showed a bit too much of the game, but it is looking good and for that I am happy.

Oh, except that they have announced the DLC already, saying it will be Xbox 360 first. Ugh.

More Trailers

So now we finally get some new exclusives. Three games in fact. Nothing much was shown of these, they were mostly teaser trailers. All looked a bit interesting, but I can’t really say what they will be like. The games were Ascend: New Gods, LocoCycle and Matter, a game made for Kinect and from the guy who made Pirates of the Caribbean and Rango which looked like it had the Space Core from Portal 2. Might be an idea to keep an eye on these.

Resident Evil 6

Well, this looks like it sucks. I don’t have much to say about it, other than the guy playing it was awful and it didn’t look like you played the game, it just seemed to have set pieces that you go through.

Wreckateer

It’s Angry Birds for the Kinect. But with goblins. INNOVATION!

South Park: The Stick of Truth

A game I’ve been looking forward to. It’s got good voice work and looks just like South Park, keeping all of its humour and everything. Definitely a game to keep your eye on. Not much was shown of this, but Trey Parker and Matt Stone came on stage to talk about it.

Trey started off by taking the piss out of the tech stuff, saying how this game allows you to connect your Xbox, TV, smart phone, tablet, oven, all whilst in the refrigerator. Good show! There seemed to be many challenges coming with making the game, such as actually having to finally map out South Park (they said it occurred to them they have no idea how to get from Stan to Kyle’s house). All in all, they talked it up quite well.

I think this might be the gameplay, but not too sure...

Dance Central 3

That’s coming and-

Usher

Okay, maybe Usher is going to perform instead. Don’t really know what is new about Dance Central 3 or what they are doing with it, but Usher performed a song for us for no reason. Thanks, I guess. 

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

So, I’m actually intrigued by this game. The future tech and the branching pathways definitely look competent and interesting, but the story seems to be lifted directly from the Modern Warfare games. The gameplay looks pretty standard for this series and hopefully people will be better at playing the game than the guy who played it.

However, I do have a couple of little niggles. It looks less like an FPS and more of a sight-seeing tour where you tell drones to move around and shoot people. I honestly think other things killed more bad guys than the actual character did with his gun. It looks like an interesting direction for the series to take, but I have to say I’ve lost a lot of my excitement for this game.

Ending Thoughts

Microsoft’s conference was horrible. It was one of the worst I’ve seen. It concentrated more so on the technology than the actual games, which is what people want from a console. Now they want a whole new entertainment system, but the focus on gaming seems to have been lost. There was nothing new on the table and everything just felt kinda bland. Hopefully the other conferences will be better, but this was a bad start to E3.

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.

Warp

Reviewed Platform: PSN

Other Platforms: XBLA, PC

Well, it sure has been a while on here. What with all the coursework and general University-ness going on I haven’t really had time to concentrate on something to review it. Luckily, I managed to get Warp a week or two ago and have been slowly playing through it. As soon as I started playing it I knew this was review material. Something about it just said “easily reviewable” to me.

But before we get into that we must ask: What is Warp? Well, Warp is a game I was very much looking forward to. A downloadable title developed by Trapdoor Inc., Warp is about a cute little alien called Zero going through a facility, trying to escape from the scientists and soldiers that have help him captive and tested on him. That’s all. A nice, neat little story and, to be fair, it’s not too bad. Nothing in depth but gives the player enough motivation to get to the end of the game.

The game does have other good parts, but sadly these parts are hampered by the game’s design. Firstly we have to look at the art design. Zero is, as you can probably tell, fucking cute (LOOK AT HIM!). He is adorable. That’s great. But what isn’t great is the fact that his art design is not conducive with the design of the rest of the game. There’s something that seems wrong when looking at Zero near the human characters. Zero’s overly cartoonish style just doesn’t mesh with the slightly realistic looking people and this means that scenes with humans in don’t feel right, almost in an uncanny valley sense. Otherwise, the art design is alright.

The dialogue is actually also somewhat entertaining. I would love to hear more and more of the scientists babbling on about what stereotypical nerds they are. Sadly, I can’t. This is because dialogue doesn’t happen enough and when you get close enough to the characters to hear what they are saying they have usually reached the end of their sentence. Once I just heard “mumble mumble masturbation.” I have no idea what that line is about in context because I couldn’t hear it. A simple fix for this would be to utilise subtitles, but the game sadly doesn’t have this option.

Talking of sound, the game does actually have some pretty good sound design. When you warp into enemies in order to make them exploding there’s a rather satisfying squelch as blood sprays everywhere. But, of course, there’s something to combat this area of sound being good: the lack of music. The game is extremely dull to play through without music. Not enough is going on to keep my full attention and some music would have been enough to keep me going. The design on the game warrants some wacky Splosion Man style music, but it’s just not there.

There are some other minor problems. The game doesn't really have a progression in difficulty, so it all seems like a massive grind to get to the end. Field of view from enemies isn't very easy to gauge and sometimes they seem to come out from nowhere. The game also glitched out a few times, not allowing me to go forwards until I ending up killing myself attempting to solve some imaginary puzzle. Also, the load times are horrendous for this title and get especially irritating when getting to sections where you'll die a lot.

There are some interesting powers in the game, but none of them really alter gameplay enough.

But none of these currently listed problems are the biggest. These are simple nitpicks. You might be wondering what playing this game involves. You know, like what you need to do and what the controls are. It is at this point the entire game falls apart, and disastrously so.

The controls to this game are HORRIBLE. At first the game seems to be quite good with controls. It you notice how when you are going to warp in a barrel or a person the pointer usually locks on. It’s handy. As the game goes on, however, you’ll find this to be almost irritating. A simple warp from one location to another can be hampered by a stray barrel getting in the way. Or even then the pointer won’t lock on to the barrel, getting you stuck behind it and then getting shot.

For a game that requires such precise controls the game is amazingly imprecise. You’ll find yourself dying over and over and over not because of ineptitude but because of the shite, stiff controls. And there is no place that these controls are more atrocious than at the end of the game.

The final level has a ship rocking from side to side. It is here you desperately need tight controls, but this game doesn’t have any. Instead you’ll find the physics going wild and your ability to accurately move between lasers waning. The gap you need to get into would be fine with precise controls, but nope, this game doesn’t have any. Once you power through all of the shit thrown at you come against the ending boss. If, when playing through the previous section, you thought the controls were being crap then THIS is where they fall apart.

Fuck physics and fuck the controls and fuck this game. The boss just doesn’t work and feels broken. I didn’t complete it. Once I have defeated the boss I have to sit around and not get hit. I don’t have any way of stopping myself getting hit, but I usually get hit almost straight away, giving no time to try and do anything. I just have to pray like it’s fucking Earthbound. Sure, there seems to be a way of doing it, but from looking online there are people who spent 30 minutes on this final boss. I can only suppose this is due to the controls.

If this game was more mechanically sound I’m sure I would love it. People seem somewhat polarised about this game and I can understand why. At first I thought it was OK, but as the game went on I found myself hating it. I was interested in this game for a while and I am disappointed with how it came out. The idea is one that it incredibly interesting and with a bit more polish and playtesting I’m sure it could have been great. Sadly, for me Warp is just... well, shit.

Storm in a Teacup

ARGH!

AARGH!!

AAARRRGH!!!

Just looking at this game angers me. Okay, so that last picture wasn’t from the game on Steam, but instead iOS, where the game began its humble life. Ported straight out of the Apple App Store we have Storm in a Teacup, a cheap as hell (£2.99) downloadable title on Steam that is as cold and lifeless as Steve Jobs (NB: The views expressed within this review are not necessarily the views of the management). That’s right, this game may look cutesy as fuck, but that’s just a clever ruse. Storm in a Teacup may be one of the worst 2D platformers I have ever played.

But why is this? Well, for many reasons. The controls are so floaty that precise platforming is nearly impossible. A lot of the time the game requires precision, but of course it isn’t possible and so you will find yourself dying due to the controls as opposed to your own incompetence.

This is not, however, to say that the game is at all difficult or challenging. Levels would end before you even realise you started them as it mostly consists of just going to the left to the finish zone. There’s very little to do within the levels, though the game does try and throw into it as many tropes of 2D gaming as possible, such as puzzles (which are too simple to actually call puzzles) and even Space Invaders seems to make a cameo for a nice little 20 second level.

Actually, on the strand of thought regarding level length this game is stupidly short. The game’s 40 levels took me roughly an hour, probably less if I have bothered to pay attention most of the time. I found myself browsing other websites just so as not to play the game, so I would come back to it 10 minutes later and finish the level in less than a minute. Sure, the game has other challenge levels or bonus levels, but these are about as easy as the levels in the game itself, so really have no place being in another set. They are purely there to make it seem like the game has more content than it already does.

In doing so we find that the game is actually one massive copy and paste job. There are probably only about 10 levels in the game, the other 30 being the other 10 just with a spike or two dotted around. On top of that the challenge levels are just some of the normal levels with a few more spikes and enemies, which adds no real challenge. The game just exudes an aura of laziness.

And then we have the tone of the game. Remember earlier how I said it was soulless, despite looking so cutesy? Well, the cutesy look makes the game look fun, but as you play it you realise this is just a façade. The 30 second audio loop this game has sounds fun at first, but as the game continues you realise it is the only music in the entire game, which burns into your brain, removing all of your sensibilities and making you hate life and want to make the game physical, just so you can punch it. Plus it’s just annoying.

The game also makes you want to love it using subliminal messaging, with the words "I ♥ Storm" slapped onto the levels just about everywhere. And if the game wasn’t saccharine enough it has you collect blocks of sugar along the way. What do these do? Don’t know, it seems pretty inconsequential.

If you can’t tell, this game is simply awful. Everything about it is bad. At first it seems fun, but as it goes on you feel yourself slowly dying. An hour of this game (the whole game) slowly depletes your life force until you are a shallow husk of a person. The boat levels were okay, though...

Q.U.B.E.

Platform Reviewed: PC

Q.U.B.E. (or Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion) is an independent First Person puzzle game in which you must complete tasks within a testing facility. You do this by using a pair of gloves in order to move blocks to achieve your goals.

Sooner or later I’d have to mention Portal, so I may as get it done with now. The game looks and feels a lot like Portal. Now, some may call the game out on this, calling it a rip-off and the likes, but I do not. Personally, it feels more like the gaming is proudly showing its influences. I’m fine with it. I don’t really want to talk about the game in comparison with Portal. I want to look at the game on its own merits, so let’s speak no more of Portal.

The mechanics of this game work extremely well. You use your power gloves to extrude block from the walls. You do this in order to create platforms, move coloured balls into their respective pits or to make light shine on a sensor. The entire game uses these mechanics in increasingly complex ways to create a very effective, though slightly too sharp, difficulty curve. I have heard reports of some of the game’s physics being a bit screwy at times, however I never came across these and the entirety of the game worked perfectly on a physics level.

In regards to the difficulty curve I have to commend this game: no in-game tutorial. You get to grips with the controls and the world through experimentation and simply looking around you and it’s fun. It’s interesting. It’s engaging. You feel intelligent for figuring things out. If the game pummelled me with text boxes and such at the beginning of the game I feel I’d be thrown out of the experience, as I found myself to be getting quite engrossed in the game itself. It does well to introduce all of the new blocks and mechanics to you throughout. When you discover how to use each mechanic to its fullest it’s rewarding.

Sadly, some of the mechanics of this game aren’t quite up to scratch. The magnet puzzles. Oh, the magnet puzzles. It’s at this point when the difficulty curve goes from a bit steep to simply asymptotic. Q.U.B.E. touts them as the hardest in the game and they are, but this seems to be because they mostly revolve around blind luck. I spent ages attempting one puzzle, not sure how to do it when suddenly it seemed to solve itself.

Also, these magnet puzzles are hampered by a fair delay on use of the gloves, making precision a key issue in the game. Whilst I do think the puzzles worked extremely well they did often take a lot longer than expected as there seemed to be a noticeable delay between clicking and the gloves working. This resulted in me clicking manically until the gloves finally worked, but all too late.

There also seems to be some attempt at narrative in the game. The game takes away from the normal test chambers and goes into the deep underbelly of the facility (like some other games that I promised not to mention later on). Whilst one might expect to find out that something has gone on down here we aren’t really left with much. I wouldn’t have minded if this game was devoid of narrative, as it’s a pretty fun puzzle game, but the way in which it attempts it slightly makes me wonder what plans they had.

The narrative also runs into a wall when the ending comes around. The ending seems to linger for a while, waiting for you to have the eureka moment and figure out what the entire game was all about. But there is no eureka moment. All I ever thought was “Wow, I’m enjoying these puzzles.” The semblance of a plot that went nowhere took away from this slightly, which is disheartening as I was really enjoying the game and its evolving mechanics.

 

Despite this criticism, I loved this game. It was extremely fun and challenging. It didn’t frustrate too often, but when it did it was usually the frustration you would attribute to any regular puzzle game (except for the magnet puzzles, of course). There’s a lot of room for improvement and the game could be a bit longer (the game was about 3 hours long), but it was still a genuinely enjoyable game. It might not be entirely original, but it still does what it sets out to do with enough competence for you to put this issue aside.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

It’s been a while since I last watched Dream Warriors but I’m not sure that matters too much. Dream Warriors seemed to end with a lot of finality, what with Freddy being defeated in both the dream world and the real world. Surely he’s dead for sure? Well, no, he is not. There’s still more films for him to be in. *sigh*

OK, to the film’s credit Dream Master is pretty enjoyable. The irritation I have with it comes from the way that Freddy comes back. Some dog just pisses on where Freddy was buried, but in the dream world, and now he is back. Not sure why, or how, but that happened.

Now that’s out of the way I need to get on with the rest of the film. The film starts off with the surviving cast from Dream Warriors and Kristine seems to be haunted in her dreams with omens of Freddy’s return. Turns out she is right, because Freddy isn’t giving up that easily and he proceeds, over the next 20 minutes or so, to kill off the final three Elm Street kids. That’s right, they all die. But that’s okay because within this time we’ve been introduced to our new protagonist, Alice, who starts off weak, but ends up kicking arse as the film goes on.

When Kristine is about to die she pulls Alice into her dream and, somehow through dying, she gives Alice her power of pulling people into her dreams. This works to Freddy’s advantage as he uses Alice, a chronic daydreamer, to pull other kids into her dreams so he can kill them too because... I don’t know, he’s psycho. The rest of the film consists of Alice dragging people into her dreams and trying to get them out, but to no avail.

The plot is great. It introduces a new element and utilises Freddy’s powers over dreams in a way you wouldn’t think them to be used. You could tell that the people making this film were looking at all avenues of sleep and dreams to try and make the story fresh and they did just that.

On top of that we have a constant element of threat. I’d be lying if I said I could tell when the characters were in a dream before it became overly clear. This created an air of suspense over the rest of the film. We’re never sure when people will die or who they will be. Sometimes it’s a side character and sometimes it’s the main cast, we are never sure. This is great because it’s shocking when people get killed, especially as Alice is often able to witness the deaths but is powerless to stop Freddy.

Lastly, I’ll have to say that Freddy in this film is probably at his best so far. He is genuinely creepy but also an absolute laugh at times. Even during a scene of great horror he would say something or do something comedic and would make me laugh, and though I’d laugh I would not be taken out of the horror element of the film. Compared to the other films he is astounding and Englund’s performance is perfect. This is the Freddy I had heard about: sinister and creepy, yet funny.

Though I did really like this film and thought it was far better than the first two films I have to say that I did prefer Dream Warriors. That film explored the dream aspect a lot more than Dream Master, but this film gets a lot of credit for trying to expand upon Freddy’s powers over dreams, unlike in the first two films. Sadly, the main issue I had with this film was how Freddy was brought back. Nonetheless, it was a seriously good film and had some good moments.