Limbo, limbo, limbo...augh spiders!!!

OK, so your job should you chose to accept it is to finish reading this article and then, if you don't already own it, go buy 'Limbo' a black and white puzzle-platformer on XBLA, PSN and PC. While I am well aware that I am a bit late to the party (game was released in 2010) in heaping critical praise onto this game I feel the need to do so anyway as it has been a long time since I've played a game like this. In short a game that provided an interesting (understatement) experience while also managing to avoid any significant screw-ups on the gameplay end. It manages to be artistically interesting with a very unique visual style without interfering that with gameplay ('El Shaddai'* had issues with this). It also has a reasonably approachable difficulty curve in its puzzles such that you shouldn't find yourself completely lost for a solution and ready to throw your controller of choice against a wall.

In 'Limbo' you play a small boy who, according to the games tagline (and only real direct storytelling), is searching for his sister. Is he dead? Is she dead? Are they both dead? Neither? Something else? These and many others are all questions that the game leaves up to the players interpretation. It further reinforces this ambiguity as you move through the environments with a forest filled with horrible things giving way to industrial environments filled with more subtly horrible things. It does all of this with an incredible attention to detail and a complete absence of hand holding tutorials. A perfectly minimalist experience.

My only complaint about the game was that a couple of its timed puzzles where more than a tad on the obnoxious side. The problem I ran into was that while the solution was (usually) pretty obvious actually sticking the landing was more a matter of trial and error (seemingly) than of knowledge or skill. Oops, you where off by .02 of a second back to the checkpoint. Admittedly isn't much of a setback as the game saves quite often (which given how often it kills you is definitely a good thing) but it still kind of irritating. That's it. That's my only issue with the game. Also it isn't like there's a great abundance of puzzles like this (maybe 2 or 3 in the entire game).

Hopefully you made it through this review even though it's probably not one of my better ones. The issue here is describing something that I want to praise but also something that is better experienced for oneself. Which hopefully anyone reading this who hasn't already played it goes ahead and does. See you all next week.

*What I'm referring to here is that occasionally the game goes all artsy on the player and in doing so makes the actual gameplay more difficult.  This could be something as simple as color choices making it difficult to differentiate enemies from the background (beautiful though the background may be) to going for a more pleasing scenic view at the expense of proper perspective needed to gauge ones jumps.

Limbo in Limbo

So there's no real article today.  I had planned on one of two things but neither came to fruition.  Plan 'A' was to talk about 'Limbo' a creepy, black and white platforming game but I haven't finished it yet so my bad.  Plan 'B' was to, after seeing the discussion get revived in certain arenas, talk about film critic and game neophyte Rogert Ebert's assertion that video games aren't art.  This plan got scrapped because I realized that the article would be too rant-ish and that I'd (and suggest that others follow suit) place about as much value on Mr. Ebert's opinion on video games as I would the opinion of a small kitten on the state of world affairs.  That is to say none.  The man doesn't know what he's talking about and it's pretty clear when he's dismissing games that others have held up as examples of "games as/are art" that he hasn't actually bothered play the game*.  Hopefully there'll be more to talk about next week.

*Or he's played the game and is incredibly stubborn and/or incredibly thick but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here.

Houston, we've got some visibility issues

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a...you know I'm not quite sure what it is. Yes, boys and girls today we're examining the pressing and mission critical issue of visibility. Except unlike what the opening sentences may have lead you to believe we're not looking at how the speed of an object can affect peoples perception of it, rather we're going to be looking at how fighting game designers seem intent on including at least one stage in their product where it's damn near impossible to accurately see what the hell is going on. The basic reason that this is an issue is that in almost every fighting game the makers allow (to some degree) for players to chose what color outfit their character is wearing and thus some degree of camouflaging is inevitable. That said when we look at the various stages today there are limits to this sort of crap. You've got to balance style with usability. There's a reason that if you watched tournament footage for any of these games you're almost never going to see any of these stages selected* but if you happen to play these games online you'll see these stages quite frequently as players will try to compound the main issue with online play (lag) with added visibility issues.

Because screw the colorblind.

So this stage is red. Really, really, really red. In earlier versions of the game it used to be even redder and darker. Not sure who thought this was a good idea. It's like someone at Capcom has a vendetta against the colorblind. It should be noted that not only do the characters tend to blend into the background here but so do fireballs (mostly). By my count 'Super Street Fighter IV AE 2012' has six characters with red colored fireballs with two or three of those characters being counted among the most commonly played characters in the game. Fantastic. About the only upside to this is that at least the costume color doesn't affect the characters skin tone (in some games it does) so you can at least see the opponents hands, feet and face. Not that that helps much.

You'd think those explosions would illuminate things better and you'd be wrong.

OK, so believe it or not but the stage above used to be a lot worse as the version pictured is from 'Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3'. In “vanilla” 'MvC3' the stage was a lot darker to the point where it was like playing “Where's Waldo?” where every time you fail to find him you lose a character. It's not much better than that in 'Ultimate'. By my count twenty-one out of thirty-eight character's in “vanilla” had dark brown or black costumes that would significantly obscure them on the above stage and that thirty-nine out of fifty character's in 'Ultimate' have dark brown or black costumes that would obscure them on that same stage. Bonus points go to the X-23 and Storm character's who each have three different color variations to chose from to achieve that effect (most character's only have one dark colored color). We get it Capcom you think that your fans think that black attire is badass. That's fine but please ensure that the character's are actually visible.**

To be fair this is barely even a stage.

So this was included because I heard mention on a tournament stream that this stage posed a problem with certain character's and looking at it one can certainly see why. While it's going to be generally difficult to get one's character(s) to blend into the stage, without using color edit mode, it does seem like some character's have projectiles that would be hard to see against a bright white background.  Thankfully there aren't too many characters in 'King of Fighters XIII' with light colored projectiles.  I'm not sure I'm demoing the move that the commentators on the stream where talking about but hopefully it's enough to give you an idea of how this could be an issue.

Looking at three stages from three different games it does kind of make me wonder whether the artists and/or designers actually play the game (especially “vanilla” 'MvC3') as I can't imagine a game releasing with stages like those above it they had. I know that stage/level design or lack thereof isn't really a deal breaker with these sorts of games but it would have been nice to see a little more thought go into it or at the very least a little consideration given to those who deal with pricks online who'll take every advantage they can get (i.e. all black team on black stage). See you all next week.

*Most tournaments have rules in place where a player can object to a certain stage being selected.

**'UMvC3' actually has a second problem stage that I forgot to take a picture of in a pleasant looking snow covered stage but that stage only affects one color for one character.

Go forth my seedlings (?!?) and conquer!!!

So after the abysmal game that was 'Amy' I decided to move on to something better and more colorful. To that end I've been playing a bit of 'Eufloria' another Playstation Network (PSN) title. The premise of this game is that you're a...something...OK so I haven't finished the game yet and as far as I can tell the player is simply some sort of seedling overlord. Yup, seedlings. Your job is, starting from your home asteroid, to colonize other asteroids. Along the way you'll run into some evil/corrupted seedlings that you will need to do battle with. You can also, when you've got enough seedlings, make more trees grow on your asteroids which in turn will make the asteroid generate (rate unknown) more seedlings. That's about it. At the very least it's fairly relaxing. Like much older PSN game 'Flower' but with plant on plant violence. I guess.

Pictured: Plant on plant violence.

The main question I found myself asking...myself as I was playing was whether or not I was having fun. For the most part games like this are what I do to unwind after I get some practice or some matches in with the fighting game flavor of the month (this month: 'King of Fighters XIII'). In this context what I'm looking for is something relaxing with the aforementioned 'Flower' fitting the bill along with such games as 'Linger in Shadows', the first few levels of 'Outland', etc. In that sense 'Eufloria' would be mission accomplished. It's relaxing, features pretty colors and has nice music. That said it does have a few issues.

Since the growth/production/whatever of the seedlings is, as best as I can tell, a somewhat rate limited process the inclusion of a function to speed up time is much appreciated. It would have been even more appreciated if it did more than speed it up from painful crawl to sluggish. I'm not looking to rush though the game or even the individual levels but I also don't want to stare at the screen with nothing to do. In writing about this process I am reminded of 'Starcraft II' wherein you start off with your meager resources and a few units to harvest additional resources. Where that differs from 'Eufloria' is that once sufficient resources are gathered (if you're actually halfway competent at the game) you're never without something to do. Manage your units. Build more stuff. Attack things. Something. With 'Eufloria' it takes the same resource (seedling) to build the means with which to generate (I think) seedlings faster as it does to explore or attack/colonize. What this means is that extensive colonization or an unsuccessful attack can leave you with literally nothing to do for extended periods of time. And don't say “explore more” as that maps aren't so big as to make that task particularly fulfilling or daunting. In short there's too much downtime.

I didn't find this mechanic to be particularly useful.

The other main issue I had with the game was the tutorial or lack thereof. While I don't want my hand held through a game 'Eufloria' could stand to explain a bit better how to use new mechanics when they're introduced and why that mechanic is strategically useful to the player. As I mentioned I haven't yet finished the game but already this has become an issues wherein the last two levels in which new gameplay mechanics where introduced where beaten without ever having used the mechanic. That's not so good. A more in depth explanation of the how and the why would have been nice. While also dreaming of things that would have been nice I think that stylistically that 'Eufloria' would have benefited from a similar narrative style of tutorial as seen in 'Little Big Planet 2' which features Stephen Fry explaining the world around you and how it works. That's probably not going to happen but it would have been nice. See you all next week.

Dodging zombies with dodgy controls in Amy

Damn it 'Amy'! What the hell was that? No, don't give me that crap. You implied that you were 'Ico' but with zombies. Maybe you are. Maybe you aren't. But I can tell you right now what you aren't. What you aren't is a good game. Some good ideas maybe. A tense atmosphere, sure. But good lord did you manage to screw up pretty much everything else. OK, I think I'm good. Just felt the need to really open up on recent Playstation Network (PSN) and X-Box Live Arcade (XBLA) release 'Amy'. Which is a shame really as the early press that I saw for the game was in fact comparing it favorably to PS2 classic 'Ico' (recently re-released in HD for the PS3) in that you where tasked with escorting a companion through a treacherous environment while protecting said companion from monsters. In that sense 'Amy' is very similar to 'Ico'. In the sense of actually being a good game not so much. It has too many secondary issues that distract from the excellent atmosphere that it creates to actually be good. What it can be is a good lesson.

The first lesson that 'Amy' teaches comes almost immediately after the game starts and that it that one should know ones limits. In that if one is say a small independent developer then maybe one shouldn't shoot for the moon with regards to creating AAA level cinematic scenes and having said scenes fully voiced as the end result is anything but AAA. The opening cinematic stutters like Colin Firth in 'The King's Speech' and unlike Firth as he takes speech therapy it never really corrects its graphical issues as the game progresses. Going back to movies for a second if one where to check out IMDB.com one would see that it is becoming more and more common for high profile actors to lend their voices and/or likenesses to video games. Why? Well they tend to be high profile actors because, you know, they're actually good at what they do and that tends to translate well to voice work. It's pretty clear that 'Amy' isn't working with the kind of budget that can afford it the luxury of that kind of voice talent making the constant calling out to its titular character by her protector all the more painful to listen to.

Lesson numero dos of the day is to have a save system that matches your game. In a perfect world the game would allow you to save your progress at any point but we don't appear to be living in that world so we've got to deal with the hand we've been dealt. 'Amy' uses a checkpoint system for its saving in that the game goes “Yup, you've made it this far and I'll remember to start you off back here if when you die”. The problem with that here is that the checkpoints are incredibly far apart and that combined with the fact that the game is supposed to be scary makes the whole house of cards tumble down. Seeing some sort of abomination tear down a door and come barreling towards you is only scary the first five or six times you see it. However after aforementioned abomination has murderized you and reset your progress to half an hour of obnoxious puzzles ago it tends to lose its impact. The game would need to either have checkpoints that save more often so that the player isn't stuck repeating the same crap over and over again OR have some degree of randomization with regards to encounters (maybe the abomination doesn’t jump out this time or maybe it comes out of a different door). This isn't even the biggest issue. Your progress isn't truly saved until you reach the end of a chapter (first chapter ~1 hour on easy mode). If you quit in the middle of the chapter (say after dying too many times) then when you start back up (assuming you actually come back to the game) you're going to be doing so at the beginning of the chapter. Not cool.

Another issue that plagues 'Amy' like well the plague thingy in the game that appears to be turning people into zombies is its controls. The button layout/control scheme is a little weird but I suspect that had I spent longer with the game that I might have gotten used to it. Maybe. OK, not likely. Hold a button to run? OK, I guess I can work with that. Hold a button to run and then press another button to sprint? Why? Games (well most games) have for the last several years managed to make movement work with only the left analog stick. Press forward to walk. Press all the way forward to run. Now I'm sure that if I'd stuck with the game longer that I'd have found some (likely obnoxious) situation where sprinting was required for survival. This seems especially likely given as how the game mentions that endurance is limited. That said it really seems like this is making something that should be simple (movement) needlessly complex. It also doesn't help that through the magic of a crappy camera that the character steers like a shopping cart with a broken wheel.

The last and most gamebreaking issue for me with 'Amy' was the combat. You start off with a bit of lumber with which to smack the zombies around a bit and I didn't stick around long enough to find out if you ever upgrade beyond that. Assuming you actually play this game the first thing you'll notice when approached by the undead is that the collision detection is terrible. That is you swing your weapon at the enemy and it looks like it should have hit them but no hit registers. Even worse is when your weapon flat out passes through the zombie without registering a hit. This is compounded by a dodge function that doesn't appear to dodge anything. So interesting enough I actually started playing this game twice. The first (futile) attempt was on medium difficulty with that experiment lasting around ten minutes. The second try was on easy and lasted through the first chapter. It was during that first try that I seriously questioned the competence of 'Amy's' developers as while I was wailing away at a zombie with my bit of stick that it broke leaving me without a weapon. I had picked up several other bits of stick while wandering around and though I didn't live long enough to find out if they'd respawned I'd hazard a guess that they didn't. Now I have no issue with a game having a weapon system that allows for items to deteriorate and/or break. What I do have an issue with is a game having such a system but not telling me about it in addition to not letting me (as best as I could tell) carry additional weapons. Needless to say I was a tad pissed off about that.

Overall 'Amy' strikes me as a game that's bad for two reasons. Both of which are correctable to a degree. If you look back over this article you'll see complaints that could be solved with more time and/or money and complaints that are purely based on poor design decisions. For an independent title like 'Amy' it really only makes sense to criticize (as I have) the former when it's very clear that the game is being overly ambitious whereas the latter is fair game for titles of any genre or budget. Bad design is bad design and unfortunately overall it's this aspect of 'Amy' that compromises the experience more so than issues that could be corrected by throwing more money at the problem. All of that out of the way I would very much like to force Electronic Arts (Dead Space) and Capcom (Resident Evil) to play through this game. The purpose for that being to remind them that a survival horror game is supposed to be tense and scary and not a poorly implemented third person shooter with messed up looking enemies as in terms of pacing and atmosphere 'Amy' (badly) eclipses anything either of those companies have made in the survival horror genre. See you all next week.