Games I Need to Get Off My Arse And Finish

In no particular order:

• Twilight Princess
• Stalker
• The Witcher
• Rainbow Six: Vegas
• Hitman: BloodMoney
• Overlord
• Half a dozen other half-finished 360 offerings.

I'm a real sucker for not finishing games. I wish I was a little bit more protestant in my gaming work ethic (oxymoron?) but basically in recent years like most people heading into their late twenties I've become time-bound, not money-bound. Hence I end up buying a hell of a lot of games I don't ever finish. I can even predict with a fair degree of accuracy which genres of game I will complete, and which get neglected after something else pops up on the radar. I usually end up finishing RPGs or good story-driven FPS games like The Darkness, HL2 or Bioshock purely because I want to see what happens at the end, and I find the immersion that a great story brings very compelling.

On the other hand, although I do love RTS and strategy games, my attention tends to waver once the novelty wears off and the challenge begins. I love the thought of a good strategy game like Medieval: Total War 2, but I invariably lack the patience to really get the most out of games like these.

I'm trying to be a bit more careful these days about what I pick up - I've deliberately avoided buying great looking RTS games like World in Conflict or (criminally) Mario Galaxy purely because I tend to find the lack of coherent narrative off-putting.

Mass Effect

Having finished Mass Effect, I don't know whether I loved it unreservedly, or was slightly disappointed. I suppose if I have to ask then it must be the latter.

Bioware are one of my favourite developers on the planet, mostly because I am an RPG nut. If it's got a kobold in it, I'm there. Bioware have such pedigree, but either Bioware have lost their way a bit or the market is changing and I'm not.

Since KOTOR (so I suppose we're only really talking about 2 games here, Mass Effect and Jade Empire), it does appear as though Bioware have increasingly attempted to make their RPGs more cinematic and real time. While I don't really have a problem with this per se, the effect is that there seems to be less time for the sort of meat and veg content that I really loved about their games. Obviously BGII was, for a kobold-lover like me, the pinnacle of the genre. KOTOR was a little short and a little shallow for my tastes, but the fact that it looked great and was a Star Wars RPG more than made up for it.

Jade Empire, however, was far too linear for my tastes, the combat lacked obvious depth and the universe, while interesting, lacked the psychological meat hooks that franchises like Star Wars and D&D have in geek men of my generation. Mass Effect is a bit of a return to form, but it really just doesn't stand up to the glory days.

I'm worried (and I suspect) that Bioware's deviation from the classic formula is more a reflection of where they think the most sales lie. While I really love the interactice cutscenes of Mass Effect, and quite enjoyed the comabt, when I think of the dev time that went into making these systems my fondest wish is that they immediately halt new engine features for Mass Effect 2 and 3, and concentrate 100% on story, content and interesting locations (of which there were far too few in ME).

I suppose I just fear that the glory days of RPGs (Fallout 1/2, BG 1/2 and Planescape: Torment) are behind us. Hopefully Bethesda can pull things out of the bag.

Assassin's Creed

My disappointment with Assassin's Creed is, if nothing else, a testament to the power of expectation. I wanted the freeform fun of Crackdown with the intricate planning and execution (pun intended) of Hitman: Blood Money.

I think AC delivers absolutely the environment I was expecting - it's an incredible looking game, and the free running is ace (I'm still scratching my head as to how this was accomplished, they must have some clever procedural geometry tagging to identify foot/handholds, you'd need a legion of artists/designers otherwise). Ubisoft have this sort of context sensitive movement/animation stuff honed to a fine art, it began in Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell, and the dividends are really arriving now. It will be interesting to see where it ends up.

It's clear though, that as clever and talented as the devs at Ubisoft are, they're still mortal like the rest of us when it comes to identifying that elusive 'fun' factor. My problems with the game are the same as those that have been widely noted - namely the shockingly poor side missions, and the lack of depth to the main assassinations.

Other disappointing points:

• Cutscenes. Lots of them, most of them dull.
• Voice acting is ok, but the lead is very poor.
• The story line is Deus Ex with none of the bite, depth or immersion.
• Scholars mechanic is absolutely lame, really incredibly poor.
  

The game suffers as well from having designed itself into a corner - game AI is not really advanced enough to have convincing 'hide in plain sight' mechanics, guards are either ridiculously suspicious (death penalty for bumping into someone), or completely blind. That's not really the fault of Ubisoft, more that designers should really be wary of what is realistic and design their way around such limitations.

It's a bold game in many ways, but I do think this case the tech is really let down by poor design.

A long time coming...

Decided to try to update this thing a bit more often, I've really got into the habit of keeping a blog at work and I find it fairly satisfying, so I'll make a point of updating here, purely for my own amusement.

Things that have occurred since I last blogged:

• I have moved house, and found that the rumours are true - it IS just about the most stressful thing you can do.
• I have moved jobs, which has been pretty fantastic.
  
• I have played many good games.

Red and Dead

I'm noticing something of a crescendo building in the specialist press on the issue of Xbox 360 reliability. Pieces on Eurogamer as well as other industry sites are really starting to pick up on this issue. There was the lamentable interview which was frankly embarrasing for all concerned, this guy could clearly get a job as a Labour government minister. He's clearly in a difficult position in that he can't admit any liability lest the litigious hordes descend upon his Redmond masters, but really...MS need to get on top of this issue. Sony sooner or later are going to stop tripping up on their own shoelaces, and the 360 really needs to have an unassailable lead at that point.

I've heard all sorts of (anecdotal) stories about horrendous failure rates. I'm personally on my 3rd, so I need little convincing. But stories abound of game studios experiencing 50% failure rates on their internal kit, retailers dealing with huge numbers of returns.

I'm a big MS fan. I loved my Xbox, as a developer I'm a massive fan of their developer-orientated approach to gaming, and I love XNA, but one thing is for sure - the failure rate on these things is hugely over the industry average.

The Magic of Zelda

Having lent my Wii to a friend for a while, I've recently just got it back and have begun to really get into Twilight Princess. As has been said by many, it's a fabulously designed game and a testament to the fact that Nintendo really do know how to 'play the ball' rather than the man. Their entire strategy of recent years has been a case of cutting the Gordian Knot - if you don't like the way the game is going, the best strategy is to change the rules of the game.

In a way, I'm a little disappointed that Microsoft haven't entirely dominated the market with the 360 (although it's certainly been successful), because as a lifelong gamer, the 360 ticks every one of my boxes. It's a console for gamers, with quality genre staples in abundant supply. With the success of the Wii, all the industry players have become acutely aware of the potential of the segments of the market that have before now been largely ignored, and as a red-blooded FPS-lovin', RPG-goblin-slayin' traditionalist just very occasionally wishes that the types of games I love (beardy RPGs and immersive Deus Ex/Looking Glass-style thrillers) were more prevalent. It's not unlike the arrogant film critic who laments the unwashed masses love of the latest Holywood blockbuster, but at least I know it's elitist bollocks.

But getting back to Zelda, it's amazing how a game that, on the surface, looks as though it shouldn't be played by anyone older than 12 years old can be so strongly engaging -especially when it lacks many of the things that we seem to think make a game thus. It has no orchestral soundtrack (being resolutely MIDI), there's no voice acting, the artistic style is still firmly Nintendo, and the plot is, well, exactly the same as every other Zelda game. But I still find myself drawn into this daft little world.

Part of, certainly, is how strongly TP resonates with my memories of Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. At times, it practically seems like a remake of OoT - it was clearly an intention on the developers part. It could be something of a reactionary response to some of the criticism Windwaker faced, which I'm ill-placed to comment on having never played it. But still, TP is a brilliant game, and I really do admire Nintendo's approach to the current generation.

I am not prepared.

I have succumbed, I had wrenched myself free of it, but thanks to the wiles of still-addicted friends I have been summoned back to the world of Azeroth, in all its imperfect glory. After spending about 2 days downloading gigabytes of patches and the expansion, I'm finally in.

I plan things to be different, this time. I will never, ever join a guild, unless I have personally met each and every member in the flesh and verified them to be a non-chump. My last guild almost drove me out of the game, with their sheer mediocrity. There's something about group behaviour where, in the absence of half-decent leadership, people seem to boil down to this lowest-common-denominator, wishy washy semi-communist bullshit, where everybody seems to be permanently thinking about how to avoid getting fucked by the rest of the guild, and so starts the frenzy of pre-emptive fucking. Who can be arsed?

Not me, I've decided guilds are for chumps. Except in the following circumstances:

- small guilds made of real life friends, because you know where they live if a beating needs to be administered.
- Gnome-only guilds. I've yet to meet a bad gnome player. It's as though the sort of player who wants to play a gnome is by his very nature a good human being, and this goodness shines through to their style of play. Healing could be a problem, so one or two dwarves could be admitted, but no damn elves.

I realise, somewhat wistfully, that I'll never get to see most of the super-high end content. It's not that I begrudge people who like to eat, sleep and bathe WoW their fun, rather, I wish (selfishly) that Blizzard spent a little more of their time and considerable resources on small group or solo/couple content. It still remains the case that the most enjoyable times I've had playing WoW have been spent in a pair. Why are there no dungeons designed for a duo?

Still, Outlands looks very nice and my gear is so shit that every piece of tin falling off a ragged orc is a huge upgrade, so it ain't all bad. I plan to amble my way up to 70, do very little group content and then park the character until Blizzard release the next expansion, which I calculate to have a 0.5% chance of being solo/casual focused. I'll take those odds.