Review: STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl

Deciding whether or not to try out STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl was - as I imagine - much like one of the game's eponymous scavengers debating whether or not to travel into the confines of the Zone. I had heard... stories... about that game. Bad things can happen when you play it, but is that enough to deter you? The rewards may be ripe and plentiful. With reports of high rates of crashes, numerous bugs and glitches around every corner, I would have to get quicksave-friendly or pay the price. In the end I took the plunge and entered the Zone...



As you have probably guessed already STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl is set in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster in a region of 30km square that has been ravaged by bizarre environmental phenomena. This area (now known as "the Zone") is populated by mutated abominations and groups of stalkers; the men who risk their lives to retrieve priceless artifacts which defy known science. The player begins the game as one of these stalkers who has lost his memory, his only hint at a past life is a PDA message which instructs him to "kill Strelok". It is with this fascinating backdrop in mind that I set out into the Zone to see what it held in store for me. I'm still deciding whether or not I liked what I found.

The game boasts an atmosphere like no other, and this is clearly due to a number of contributing factors. Firstly the game loosely borrows its setting from the movie Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1979) and the novel Roadside Picnic (Strugatsky brothers, 1972) which has a direct impact on the thick, foreboding ambience of the irradiated fields and woods. Secondly, the development team have clearly done a lot of research into the real-life Chernobyl and have brought it to the game very realistically. Certain buildings and vistas are recognisable from famous photos such as the ferris wheel and the nuclear power plant itself. The sounds especially contribute to the mood of STALKER as you hear tides of wind rippling through the trees, dogs barking in the distance and unexplained knocking and banging in the dank corridors of the underground research facilities. It all sent shivers up my spine and left me hungry to explore more of this tragic, beautiful landscape.



Unfortunately for me, I found that STALKER fell at some of the first hurdles as far as gameplay is concerned. A cluttered, awkward interface kept my engagement teetering on the edge of immersion, never quite moving aside so I could concern myself with the actions I was trying to perform rather than what buttons to press. My main gripe is with the inventory menu which requires so many clicks and drags of the mouse that I often died during combat because I was merely trying to pull out a different weapon. I also found that mouse buttons were downright unresponsive at times, forcing me to click them several times before they registered I had done anything at all.

Another problem I found was that, although STALKER has a wonderfully intriguing backstory, it does very little to further that story while you're playing it. I'm actually just about to start the final section of the game and I still feel that I haven't learned much about the Zone and I haven't really had any effect on it either. The characters I meet are very obviously not real, which is exacerbated (yeah, I just said exacerbated) by the fact that they repeat each others' dialogue, all look remarkably similar and do very little to acknowledge the fact that I am a person and that they too are people. As I mentioned dialogue I will elaborate on that too. It is poorly-written at best and did very little to further my interest in the Zone. There was next to no evidence of characterisation with all people speaking in a bland, factual manor. Maybe these people have been changed by the Zone and that's why they're all dullards, but then again maybe the game should have made this fact more obvious.



As I mentioned, I'm really in two minds about STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. On one hand it draws me in with the feeling of a real environment, something that many games can learn from, but on the other it slaps me back with poor mechanics and frustrating challenges. Well, I have persevered with it so it must have done something right but the whole time I was playing I couldn't help but think that it could have been so much better.

First Year Coursework: Luminesca

I got my results back for my first year of university today (I passed comfortably) so I thought I'd share my coursework with you. I mentioned it here a few months back with the intention of making a fully-fledged game. That goal may see more work in the future but until then it exists as a simple 2D platform/collectables quest.

You can play it here.



Luminesca was created using Macromedia Director.

Review: Alone In The Dark

The early tech demo trailers of Alone In The Dark had me waiting with high anticipation. It boasted a strong focus on 'real world rules' whereby answers to puzzles were grounded in reality. Locked door blocking your way from a burning room? Bash it down with a heavy object. I enjoy this sort of logical thinking as opposed to perhaps more abstract solutions seen in the older Resident Evil games, which involved conveniently shaped gem stones scattered around old police stations fitting into conveniently shaped eye sockets on ancient statues, a mechanism which eventually opens the door. Did no one use keys 100 years ago?



Anyway, the opening moments of Alone In The Dark are promising. It has a professional cinematic style which is enhanced by the gorgeous lighting engine and physics effects. The set pieces and environments all look fantastic and they really help to add to the atmosphere. The first stage sees you (the unintroduced hero Edward Carnby) escape from a New York skyscraper which is literally being torn apart by a strange creature that seems to permeate the very walls of the building. It's an absolute joy to observe (I was watching friends play at this point) but the problems finally arose when the controller was handed to me.



I have two main gripes with this game. Firstly, its control scheme is shockingly difficult to get to grips with and we ended up spending the first two stages finding the buttons more of a problem than the actual on-screen obstacles. AITD essentially suffers from Trespasser Syndrome, as it uses the right analogue stick to control the hands of Edward. For example, if you are holding a chair you can tilt the stick to the right and he will hold the chair towards the same direction. Quickly pushing the stick across to the left makes Edward swing it with force so you can hit enemies or objects. This high level of control reminds me of Trespasser in that the system is great in concept, but falls down in its overly-complex execution as you clumsily twist and twirl the item you're holding. The game also suffers by utilising a single button for several important actions. You use A to run, pick up items, turn your flashlight on and off (assuming you have taken it out with LB first) and operate various objects within the world like switches. Its an awkward method that sees you constantly trying to remember what order you should press buttons in to perform the most menial tasks. Oh and by the way, I hope you don't seriously think you can open a door whilst holding a broom at the same time do you? Good, because the game will take the liberty of forcing you to drop it first.



The second case in which Alone In The Dark falls short is its unforgiving difficulty and insistence on repeating sections over and over. There are a large number of quick reaction-based events that require you to pre-empt the challenges the game is about to throw at you. If you fail, you die. Instantly. Thankfully there are a lot of checkpoints so you rarely have to repeat much, but we still found it occurring with frustrating frequency. It's as if AITD hasn't evolved since the 1980s style of punishing gameplay. The game also features a strange and unique feature which allows you to skip entire sections in the same way you would with DVD chapters. Exactly why Infogrames decided to include this feature is beyond me, but it's almost as if they had finished the game and realised that no one would have the patience to sit through each segment time and time again so they built in a level skip cheat. Only it's not a cheat.



I realise at this point that I haven't said much about the plot which is usually my main focus of a game. That's because it was so obscured with awkward gameplay that I didn't really pay much attention to it. It revolves around a dark secret beneath the facade of New York City which has been kept by some sort of cult for many years. I haven't played any of the other games in this franchise so I don't know if I was supposed to understand what was going on or not, but the game didn't exactly help me out when it came to setting the scene and forming any sort of idea as to what was going on. The story is revealed by cutscenes filled with contrived dialogue, lacklustre voice acting and an unnecessary amount of expletives (presumably because it makes the game more 'adult').



All in all, Alone In The Dark is a promising game with a lot of potential and it's almost breath-taking to watch. Unfortunately, it's fundamentally flawed in a number of critical areas and in ways that games really shouldn't be flawed after so many years of learning from past mistakes. Rent it or watch someone play it.

P.S. Your female companion is extremely irritating, utterly useless and will not cease her incessant pestering and complaining. I wish the 'real world rules' applied to a fire extinguisher to the head.

P.S.2. Clicking the right analogue stick to blink for the first 10 minutes of the game gets old very quickly.

Interviewed by PlanetPhillip

I was recently interviewed by Phillip of PlanetPhillip.com about my mod Union. Head on over to read it!

http://www.planetphillip.com/posts/interview-with-matt-glanville/

Review: Audiosurf

It's been a big year or two for games recently, with huge blockbuster titles coming out left, right and centre. How surprising it is that one of my favourite new games of recent months has been a relatively unknown game -- Audiosurf -- from indie developers Invisible Handlebar.




Audiosurf is a rhythm-based game in which you control a futuristic jet vehicle thing at the bottom of the screen as it races forwards along a multi-coloured track with 3 lanes. The thing that makes this game so great is that you can import any of your own songs or sound files into it, which not only provides the soundtrack but also determines the way the track is formed. Your speed is affected by the incline of the road, which is in turn affected by the tempo and volume of the song.

Making your objective more difficult is the task of collecting coloured blocks which are littered across the track. Your vehicle will pass these squares as they appear in time to the music and, depending on your chosen playing style, you will have to collect them, avoid them or sort them into groups.



The game is beautifully simplistic and works amazingly with most songs I've tried, breathing life into music I thought I'd grown tired of in an innovative new way. This is the type of game I can see appealing to anyone providing you have at least a little bit of love for some sort of music. It's further enhanced by its online scoreboard which lets you see how well you fared against every other user in the world (based on skill level). The game is only about £5 and is available on Steam, or you can download a demo for free. Why haven't you bought it yet?!

Toxic Gauntlet, Patapon again

Just a quick update today. As I've now finished university for the summer I decided to mess around with Hammer some more and I've come up with this environment that I'm very pleased with. I'm still not 100% sure whether or not I'm going to continue Union, or what it would be like if I did, but this is one of the possibilities for an area in the second chapter.

As you might be able to tell, I've been experimenting with the color_correction entity and trying to give the area a unique flavour and atmosphere that I hope will make it easy recognisable amongst the hundreds of other mods out there.







P.S. I finally got to have a good go on Patapon and it's had me hooked for hours. The only problem is that when I stop playing the game I feel like I have to keep doing everything in rhythm.

Review: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII was one of my all-time favourite games. It opened up my eyes to the world of storytelling through games, showed me what a compelling cast and atmosphere can do for the experience, and highlighted the importance of scope and mood through audio and visuals. It is one of the few RPGs I have played through several times.

What a disappointment, then, when I got my hands on its little brother: Crisis Core. I wanted to enjoy Crisis Core -- I really did -- but I really should have known better. You see, Final Fantasy has always been at the pinnacle of design, technology and art but as the years go on I sense that they seem to have forgotten about design in an attempt to blow the competition out of the water in the other two areas.



Crisis Core really is a visually stunning game considering the hardware limitations of the PSP, and this is evident in cutscenes and in-game sections alike, but all that goes out the window when the game is absolute dog shit to play. I'll explain why.

The battle system is a repetitive process of hammering attack buttons (occasionally interspersed with healing if the retarded DMW system didn't happen to give you free health, see below). Each battle is started and ended with an extremely irritating voice-over which becomes mind-numbing after the first few tries.

At random intervals in the battles, your button mashing is interrupted because a constantly-spinning slot reel (the DMW) happened to match up two pictures. Cue a time-based action to try and match a third picture so that you are allowed to use your special moves. On the spot. That's right, the timing of your special moves is selected randomly, thereby eliminating ALL strategy in using them. At one point the game decided I should try and match Aerith's picture so I could have a free healing spell. 'No thanks', I thought, 'My health is actually double my maximum health at the moment' (?!) So I decided to be cunning and stop the slot reel on a different picture, therefore avoiding watching the jarringly-long spell animation. 'No', replied the game, 'I think you should have a healing spell now' and forced me on to the matching picture anyway. I wouldn't mind this kind of crap if it was occasional, but I found this to be happening with incredible frequency. Strong attack moves would kick in when I was just about to deliver my finishing blow to a long line of enemies. If there was any sort of pattern to this feature then the game wasn't explaining it to me well enough.

Occasionally you also be forced to sit through a cutscene or flashback to a previous interaction with a main character. DURING THE BATTLE.



Oh, did I mention that your character only levels up when you get 777 on the DMW? Yeah, it's not based on experience or skill in any way.

If I start to sound like Yahtzee it's probably because I'm starting to feel like him.

The battle system would probably be bearable if it weren't so prominent, but it's pretty much the meat of the game. Any outside quests are handled by either wandering round an empty-as-sin town area, reading pages of uninspiring text in your e-mails list, or participating in the hundreds of additional missions.

Don't get me started on the missions! Well, I've already started actually, so I'll finish. The optional missions (I'm so relieved they're optional) consist of running around a bland, repetitive 'dungeon' area with a high frequency of random encounters until you find your target enemy. This is one enemy that is exactly the same as the rest, except it is visible before you enter the battle instead of appearing out of nowhere. Once you kill it, you succeed the mission. That's it. I've completed 20% of the missions (that's at least 30 missions I think) and every single one has followed this exact same formula. Any story given to you in the briefing is a shallow excuse to slog through one more gruelling grind.



It's not all bad. The graphics are superb as I mentioned before, and the many references to the original Final Fantasy VII are plentiful and accurate. But as I have come to expect from Square-Enix in recent years, the good parts are not enough to outweigh the bad. I found this game incredibly infuriating and it tried my patience far too much. I would recommend it if you were a fan of its predecessor but beyond that it really isn't enjoyable enough to endure its broken mechanics.

I've managed to play a decent amount of a few other new games lately; namely Call of Duty 4, Crysis, Bioshock and Assassin's Creed. Expect some opinions on those games soon.