360

Review – Left 4 Dead

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In an industry where cooperative gameplay is tacked onto nearly every game just for the hell of it, it’s refreshing to see a game where it is the primary focus. All too often, coop is given the short end of the stick – added merely to grab a few more sales from suckers like me. In Left 4 Dead, Valve has created a cooperative FPS with their traditional polish and balance. The versus mode, whether originally intended to be “tacked on” or not, is surprisingly fun, making it a good game for small versus games as well.

Left 4 Dead is what I’d call a running-survival game. In a location filled with zombies, a team of four survivors must make their way from point A to point B. In between the points, there are a few safe houses, which break up the action. The four human players need to stick together and make good use of the environment to survive the trek, as the zombies will quickly trap or surround any individuals who stray too far from the rest. →  They’re reading her… and then they’re going to read me!

Review – Fallout 3

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Writer’s note: At the time of this writing, Fallout 3 is a bit buggy on all platforms, and extra buggy on the PS3. I do not wish to neglect these issues, but for the time being they are not featured in the review. If the first patch for the game does not fix many of these issues, I will bring them up in a future piece, but I wish to avoid talking about bugs at the moment as it takes away some of the timelessness of a review. Fallout 2 was broken in many ways upon release, and no one talks about that these days.

We here at videolamer strive to provide timely reviews for major releases. The bad news is that juggling real life responsibilities and funding our own gaming budgets makes this a challenge. The good news is that each year the industry makes meeting this challenge less and less critical, since every year it becomes plagued with an even stronger case of Hype Fever. →  Now with fewer vowels.

Review – Braid

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We can spend a lot of time talking about Braid, trying to interpret it and stamp out a definitive idea on what it is and what it says. There isn’t much of a point in it though. Braid, for all its flaws, is literature, something that has meaning. Anything I say about its message or its power may be quite different from what you would see on a playthrough. What we can do is look at it as a game.

Braid is a puzzle platformer. Some have called it “just a puzzle game with platforming elements.” We saw it with Portal, where people called it a puzzle game and forgot is was also in the first person. I’m not sure why that happened; Portal’s puzzles often thrive on how the player moves and positions himself, so the perspective (and the controls inherited from it) cannot be ignored.

The same is the case with Braid. Like any platformer it has laws of physics that govern the protagonist’s movement. →  Sounds mildly entertaining, I guess.

Review – Alone in the Dark

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Apparently, it is becoming the rule rather than the exception for games to be rushed to release, rather than given the time to properly simmer. There are a slew of factors causing this, such as soaring costs, tricky console hardware, and the fickle, tiny window of attention that the hype machine grants.

Of course, a rushed game can come in different flavors. In my last review, we saw how Army of Two lost most of its grand cooperative aspirations, but still managed to ship as a stable and competent action game. From a business perspective, this is acceptable as gamers will buy something derivative if it is polished well enough.

Another result is something like Alone in the Dark, where the grandiose ideas remain, but are held together by duct tape and the hope that bugs and glitches are not severe enough to cause the game to crash out from under the player’s feet. We here at videolamer appreciate new ideas enough that we try to give these games a fair chance, but Alone in the Dark reminds me of just how hard it is to assess a game that treads on the slippery slope between genius and basic playability. →  Katamari Damaread

Review – Guitar Hero: Aerosmith

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Say what you will of Activision and Neversoft’s handling of Guitar Hero, but the idea of themed games revolving around a particular band is a good one. Celebrating the history and catalog (as well as the conflicts) of a world famous band is a great honor. It allows young players to learn some rock history, and for their moms and dads to relive their younger years.

Say what you will about Aerosmith, but the band fits the above description, and have been a huge influence on the rock world for better or worse. Finally, I get to say that while I like Neversoft more than a lot of gamers, there are a few kinks they need to address if they wish to continue making these themed games. GH Aerosmith is better than I expected, featuring more care and new content than I anticipated. The game is in a strange middle ground, more substantial than the miserable GH 80’s, but priced like a full fledged sequel. →  While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not gaming.

Dyack takes on the world

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Recently, Denis Dyack of Silicon Knights appeared on the 1up Yours podcast to discuss the current state of forum accountability, specifically citing the popular forum NeoGAF as a place that requires change before “something bad happens.”

The crux of his argument (though I recommend anyone interested listen to the entire podcast, because there are several layers of smoke and mirrors before he really gets to his point), is that the anonymity of online discussion leads to a lack of accountability, and that, coupled with the attention that such boards get from journalists and marketing organizations, is bad for the industry in general and society as a whole. It should be noted that Mr. Dyack also seems to think that message boards are “not for profit organizations,” when in reality they are simply giant internet water coolers where word of mouth propagates.

Denis made some good points about the subject, citing journalists who gave nigh-review level previews of his company’s Too Human based on unfinished code, a practice that is, to put it very mildly, irresponsible. →  Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing memory cards.

Review – Dark Sector

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Ontario’s own Digital Extremes began development of the long delayed and often re-imagined Dark Sector in 2004, and it was released earlier this year by D3 Publisher for the X-Box 360 and the PS3. I remember the early period because the teaser trailer was one of the first to come out for this generation’s hardware. Dark Sector started out in space but by 2006 it was made over into a bleak secret agent story.

Four years is way, way too long a development cycle for a video game. A game takes that long only when there are serious problems afoot, and it’s been my experience that when the game is finally released those problems are still there. Sadly, Dark Sector is no exception.

I am still very keen on the premise of Dark Sector. Imagine, if you will, the fictional Eastern bloc nation of Lasria. This country is cut off from the rest of the world and left to develop advanced weapons technology and experiment with strange biological compounds. →  We have the best words.

The next gen consoles then and now

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Folks, it has been some time since the “next gen” was actually the next. I think it is about time to call it the current gen, and on that note, I think it is time to re-evaluate the three major players in the race. Much has changed, and my opinion of each console has changed wildly. Note that this is not an attempt to analyze who is going to “win” the console war. I think that it is quite clear that so long as there are games like Wii Fit and Wii Sports released at the right times, Nintendo is going to be unchallenged in total sales numbers. Meanwhile Sony and Microsoft will claim the Wii is not a true competitor, and then spin the numbers to make it look like they were the true winners. This already happens every month these days, and I do not expect it to change.

Right then, let us get started.

Microsoft
Then: While the Wii showed early signs that it would be a runaway hit, Microsoft’s efforts with the 360 seemed smart and honorable. →  READ3R

Finished with the Next Gen — A jumble of an article

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I have had an Xbox 360 for about three months. Under normal circumstances such a short period of time would never be enough to wear down the novelty of this fantastic new toy. However, about three weeks ago tragedy struck. (No red circles were involved, the box works fine). I accidentally deleted about 25 hours worth of progress in one of my all time favorite games: Culdcept. The second I realized what I had done, I almost vomited from grief. I had gotten more than halfway through the game collecting about 300 of the 500 available cards, and all of it went up in smoke with a simple misclick. For the following week I could not bring myself to play another game. I could not even look at my Xbox without feeling a pang of regret. I almost picked up reading again, like some sort of a caveman. But, after some minimal contemplation I decided that instead of sulking, buying a Wii would cure all my ills. →  Tony Hawk’s Pro Reader 3