Sean Cleaver

The Real BAFTA Winners

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

Last week, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts bestowed some its bronze-faced trophies to the gaming industry and the people behind some of the best selling games of the past year. Namely Grand Theft Auto 5 and The Last of Us.

But in my purely observational opinion, whilst they won the trophies, they weren’t the only winners or at least the best winners. I’m talking about the people who were nominated and, more importantly I suppose from the selfish point of view, the gamers… Us.

the last of us review 2 This year was the tenth BAFTA Video Game Awards and you could say that the winners and nominees have been pretty focused towards the AAA producers of the gaming industries. The franchise players like Halo, God of War, EA, Microsoft, Activision, et al. But this year I think is the first year where I’ve felt that games were not just stuck in the best sellers wins category but also that there was those more independent and smaller game producers that we’ve all been glued to for the past eighteen months.

This is why I think the gamers are the real winners here. Over the past couple of years the market for creating your own video game and being as creative and enjoyable as any other games that you have ever played in your life has boomed.

Journey won some well-deserved awards for the 2012 ceremony, before that Notch of Minecraft fame won an award. This year, Papers, Please took away an award and was nominated for many more. Gone Home also took away an award and was nominated for more. The Stanley Parable was placed in the same categories as The Last of Us and Grand Theft Auto 5.

Now I’m not saying that they all should have won more. Let’s face it, the competition this year were shoe-ins for awards as the pinnacles of the video game as an art form, which they truly are. But the fact that these games have co-existed with them goes to show how much our beloved video game has come along.

If you’ve not played any of the three recent indie titles I’ve mentioned then you should. Put down that controller, step on to your laptop (it can play them all pretty well) and just enjoy what you have at your fingertips.

Papers-Please-Entry-Denied feat When you’re a small independent producer, you’ve probably done this as a labour of love and when things are so well received as they have been, it’s because your creativity and imagination with what you have to hand is beyond the measure of expectations. If Papers, Please, Gone Home and The Stanley Parable aren’t amazing examples of that, I don’t know what is.

I’m sure we’ll see Titanfall up for the Multiplayer award next year and Watch Dogs, Dying Light and Destiny duke it out for top dog. But as the industry slowly moves to its new generation of consoles, the amount of independent gaming being released is increasing vastly.

I’m excited to play the games that will win awards for sure in the 11th British Academy Video Games Awards. But I’m more excited to play the imaginative, out-of-the-box creations that will give them a run for their money. So really… I’ve won, right? Just send that Bronze-faced bad boy to my PO Box and I’ll see you in smug-land.

[author]

Missing the Obvious: Silence SCUMM

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

The day I write this (currently a Monday with all the trimmings of Spring) is a glorious day. I’m putting aside Mass Effect, which I’m doing an article on. I’m ending my quest to get 100% on Lego Lord of the Rings. I’ve even stopped my foolish crusade at restarting Skyrim from scratch including deleting all of my old save games.

Why?

The BBC has released the 30th Anniversary edition of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy game. It’s a text adventure game originally released in 1984 based on one of the most seminal pieces of British comedy radio/TV/play/books/film to have ever graced the mushy neuron sponge that is the human brain. It’s an important game for me. Along with the original Hobbit, it was the game that infuriated my five-year-old self, amused my parents and had no graphics. Yet its sense of adventure, and surprising capacity to teach you how to spell was apparent.

This is being mentioned because it is without a doubt, one of the major forbearers for the greatest series of adventure games ever produced. LucasArts were the masters of all with their terrific Monkey Island series and the following one off games that accompanied them like Full Throttle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones, The Dig, et al.

Their success in triumphing over the text based and even simple graphics based games was the point and click mechanic. They created games that were as funny, as intuitive, as puzzling and as enjoyable as their predecessors but, with the simplicity of pointing and clicking along with great graphical content to accompany your controls. This was the game engine of gaming. Not just graphics, or physics or destruction modelling but actual gaming. This was SCUMM.

It stands for ‘Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion,’ which was the first game to use this invented language. The idea took the concept that you use your adventure by selecting the appropriate verb for the action you want or need to do, or want a humorous comment on behalf of your protagonist on. It replaced the typing of words with a clickable sequence of easy commands to advance through the game.

Of course there were others in the gaming world that used similar mechanics based on the success of this. Broken Sword, Beneath a Steel Sky, several Star Trek tie-ins and Discworld 1 and 2 (still my personal favourites). But as the PC market began to lose touch to a console era in the late 90s these games slipped away, unable to be played by a generation with snazzy 3D graphics and no mouse controller.

Recently a comeback of sorts has happened although in a very low-key way. The ScummVM PC software project has enabled the old games to be played on any operating system practically (that includes console and mobile). The recent indie release Broken Age is a great homage to this era, even being written by one of the masters of the game genre Tim Scahfer, the architect of so many LucasArts titles.

Broken-Age-Act-I 3 In fact it is this release and the combination of easy to transfer developing code that is why we are missing the obvious. I don’t mean for nostalgia though. The amazing remastering of the Monkey Island games was amazing and successful, as I presume the Broken Sword remasters are too for nostalgic gamers. But we are missing new intellectual property, to coin some industry lingo.

What I mean is that there hasn’t been a new original series of games that has new characters, fun worlds or exciting things for use to point and click on. Sure there’s licensed games but practically nothing brand new. The tools are there, and it is relatively easy to develop, code and release. All it takes is a great imagination and the firing of some of those neurons around the sponge to start developing these titles.

Broken Age was developed though Kickstarter and is a large-scale project compared to my thoughts. But the fact that a small team could create an easily portable and enjoyable game means that publishers are missing a trick here, right? Well… Not all of them.

If you had any doubts that this wouldn’t be a viable option, that there isn’t an audience for this genre, that consoles won’t abide by it, that mobiles won’t let you play it properly and, most importantly, that it will gross income, then let me point you in the direction of Telltale Games and The Walking Dead series.

I rest this case and return to figuring out how Douglas Adams intends me to get out of my bedroom with only a dressing gown and a hangover. Don’t Panic.

[author]

Atychiphobia

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

I haven’t written a blog in a while. This is because of (un)employment, distractions and me being trapped in a self inflicted mental bubble. If you want the big life update, go and follow me on twitter.

I’m here to write about something else. Mostly because a few people, including myself, haven’t had the most encouraging time lately. I’ve spent the past weekend thinking about it and trying to figure out why.

If I’m honest, I’ve applied for a few jobs over the course of the past couple of months. Literally a few. This is because I’ve grown accustomed to the inventible rejection and failure that I can’t bring myself to do it. I cannot drum up enough enthusiasm to rework my CV, create a cover letter tailored to whichever area I’m trying to get in to and see it receive no reply, a stock reply after a month or just get to nowhere.

It is actually quite crippling how the rejection of jobs, not even interviews but the preliminary applications, affects you. I’m not talking one or two, I’m talking dozens. I’m nearly up to the magic century of jobs within a year. Of course most of the work I want to do involves working for free for a completely unknown amount of time (which is something I or any family sponsoring me cannot afford) or mass networking. The latter I can and have done but I don’t feel it to the shameless enough degree that I could ask anyone something. It’s a hard thankless and cutthroat world I’m trying to enter and the more you try, the harder it will resist you.

I think I sit in this room in front of my computer every day of every week. I have little physical socialisation and, apart from the times where I’m working a night shift here, I rarely accomplish anything. At least that’s how it feels. I’ve had two recent rejections for screenwriting submissions and these were encouraging. Mostly because I heard something back and it was actually proof that someone had read it. I’ll be honest, this was my first time out for a script and I was over the moon that at least I had got as far as I had. I should have been bummed out or angry and persistent to carry on. But I was happy and encouraged and this pleased me.

Then I realised I couldn’t share that enjoyment with anyone. I also realised I haven’t shared anything about my anxiety and fear with my friends. Not only do I worry that they don’t understand and that I’m a bit of a bum and a failure in their eyes (which I guess I am at the time of writing) but they can’t relate to what I’m experiencing or the work I’m attempting to do. And why should they? They don’t know anything really about what I’m attempting to achieve other than it’s quite hard. They don’t understand exactly how much my insecurity and, for lack of a better word, fear grips me and keeps me awake for hours, stops me moving when I wake up and how much I feel imprisoned.

I am lucky in my current situation but I am aware it’s stopping me from being forced to do things. With the last year, I had such a run of productivity that I genuinely yearn for now. The only post-uni blues I have is based around that sense of confidence, encouragement and excitement at the work I was yet to do, coupled with my location. I’ve always tried to move away. Not because I hate the place or anything, my friends have chosen to settle here and I respect that. But for me it’s like a weight. It’s hard to explain and maybe my words aren’t formed enough to do it justice. There’s a pressure on your body that you get when you suddenly brake your car from a high speed. It forces you into a position and makes you immobile. Not just your body but your mind as well. The adrenaline and sudden rush almost paralyses your brain of any thought and you live for a moment completely thoughtless and absent apart from your own body and what you see in front of you. That’s how I feel here.

This isn’t intended to be a whiney post to cultivate sympathy or support, although the latter is always welcome especially as I’m a needy twat sometimes. But it’s intended to speak to the people I know that also have problems, feel like dropping it all and giving in. Those of you who read this and recognise a bit of yourself in it. Whether or not a job you wanted hasn’t materialised or you just feel a bit lost and unsure where you’re heading, just read the following:

You aren’t alone. We are all in this together. It sounds silly but we are but young and naive creatures in a vicious environment. Regardless of what we’ve been prepared for, our age, our experiences, nothing could have exactly prepared us for how things have turned out. But they will get better if they believe they will. Because if we believe, then we will work at making our beliefs reality. As hypocritical as I probably sound saying this, there will be a time for us, all of us, and it will come when we least expect it because we are so busy trying to make it happen. But we all need to support each other and prop each other up. It’s hard and you need to pick and choose what you listen to and who you seek counsel in. Sometimes, people seem different and distant but that’s more because you have done the same to achieve your goals. Once you get there, they’ll understand. You need to find the people now who will completely support you and remind you that carrying on is better than giving in. Things will come together.

The title of this post means fear of failure in the sense that is is persistent and uncontrollable. Everybody will say they are optimistic but deep down, we all have this rooted in our psyche. Sometimes things happen in our lives that bring this to the surface much more predominantly, and that’s OK. We fear that we are wasting ourselves because we believe in ourselves that we should be achieving something. We are hungry for it, desperate maybe, and certainly willing to sacrifice for it. I’ve found that my fear of failure isn’t the fear of me failing, but the fear that if I do fail, I’m not sure where I would turn to be picked up again. Once I find that which picks me up, and you find that as well, then we all shall never fear again.

Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance – 15th Anniversary

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

It’s been fifteen years since Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance. It’s one of those things that make you feel utterly old. Not as old as a child playing Sonic with fond nostalgia, but of being almost an adult, at the end of adolescence and realising how long ago it was.

For some more perspective, the third Harry Potter book came out at the same time, and both the first Potter movie and Lord of The Rings were released only two years later.

But I digress. X-Wing Alliance was not only a game released by the now defunct LucasArts and Totally Games. It was not only the third single player game in the series following from the critically lauded X-Wing and TIE Fighter, but it was also the last. It was quite possibly the last great licensed dog-fighting game on a PC.

You take the part of Ace Azzameen (or whatever you name him, although you’ll always be called Ace), a young hothead from a family of freighter pilots, who becomes a member of the Rebel Alliance, mostly because the Imperials don’t take kindly to you being sympathetic to the Rebellion.

Your constant companion throughout this is a rather feisty, battle hungry and (after a while) frankly annoying droid called Emkay. You get to fly, pick up missions until battle ensues and get caught up delivering Alliance supplies after the Battle of Hoth. So starts a journey that leads the gap between The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi.

Eventually you get to the obligatory Death Star level, stealing an Imperial Shuttle and collecting all sorts of medals and token souvenirs on the way. Oh, did I mention you spend a lot of time flying a Millennium Falcon class ship? No? That happens. Which is, if I remember rightly, one of the biggest draws of the game.

I mention that because its hard to imagine now, in a world where the Rogue Squadron series came along, how big a thing it was to have that craft as a playable entity. It fulfilled so many dreams that we had been unable to fully satisfy before, and with the newer episodes being released it seemed a bit optimistic to think any games would look back to the original universe.

And as fans, we would have been right. Other than the Rouge Squadron series, there was practically no dog-fighting in the Star Wars games from the original era until Lego Star Wars: The Original Saga. Arguably the ones that followed with the new extension to the universe were never as satisfying as those that came before it.

The game forced a few updates that previous players had to adapt to. Firstly, things became much, much larger. The ships were bigger and more cumbersome, the battles more epic, the detail a lot more intricate and system straining than the previous outings. You couldn’t just zip around and pelt things, you had to properly avoid collisions and look after your craft’s speed and manoeuvrability in flight and combat. Nowadays it does look incredibly dated. Even playing it again recently, I couldn’t find a resolution that would allow the text to display properly or a suitable graphical set up. Suffice to say that up close, it hasn’t aged too well compared to other games of the era that were less graphically dependent.

One of the key improvements though, and one of the great things about the series as a whole, was the enemy AI. It was so good it could fly your ship for you whilst you manned the gunners’ turret in the Falcon-style ship. It certainly made this game challenging and instantly reminded me of the hours I spent furiously throwing my mouse around trying to find a target or violently forcing the joystick to do the same… I realise that’s a very euphemism heavy sentence… You kids and your “joypads” don’t know you’re born.

When we look back at the legacy of the Star Wars games, it was LucasArts who revolutionised gaming using the franchise, and TIE Fighter is still probably the stand out title of the series. There have been a few space dog-fighting games since, including a few Star Trek ones, but none of them, even with their graphical superiority, ever have truly lived up to the standard set by these three games.

Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance was the technically superior of course and is still very playable, which is probably a good thing as this type of game seemingly disappeared after this time. Flight Sims went out of fashion and world events certainly saw them becoming more of a taboo genre. Even warfare itself had changed significantly enough for military based plane games to evolve and lose mainstream appeal, paving the way for the now dominant FPS market.

The final game of this trilogy, if you don’t count the multiplayer X-Wing Vs. TIE Fighter game, is certainly a great legacy to leave. It was a series that was the first to simplify space dog-fighting combat in this particular era of gaming. Not since Elite was combat so easy to pick up and in the PC market, it arguably hasn’t been since. EVE of course has it, as did Star Wars Galaxies and Star Trek Online, but the MMO’s of today really don’t capture that ‘cockpit euphoria’ of tracking down a TIE Fighter, getting her in the sights and letting rip with the lasers, draining the power in the most satisfying way possible.

Maybe the upcoming Kickstarter funded sequel of Elite might invoke some nostalgia and requirement for games such as this, but it is a testament to these games that they still stand as the benchmark of how this genre should be made, played and enjoyed.

[author]

TheIndieJar: Toast Time Review

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

toast time feat

There’s some really neat things about playing games on the iOS/Android platforms. It’s that they have the three things that consoles and PC’s can only dream of: An easy intuitive control system, mobility/accessibility and the ability to keep things wonderfully simple.

Toast Time, from Force of Habit is a proper game. By that I don’t mean that it’s an award winning story epic, a graphical wonder or a massively multiplayer game. I mean it’s a proper game that you can take anywhere, play by yourself, have fun and enjoy.

toast time 2 Here’s the idea. You are a piece of toast named Terry and you must stop enemies from reaching your alarm clock that explodes if they touch it. Your weapons are pieces of bread related ammunition, which not only kills things but also propels you around the area over a multitude of different platform based levels. Simple and easy yet also sufficiently challenging.

One thing that sings to my heart is how it replicates the golden age of British game programming, the 1980s. In this age, Spectrums and Commodores ruled the living room. The home programming market and the rise of the independent developer out of a bedroom (something we are seeing a repeat of now arguably) was a treasure trove of brilliant ideas using not very much.

Toast time harks back to that with many different angles. Firstly: graphics. Graphically this is a very simple, mostly two tone affair. The 8-Bit reminiscing echoes throughout the game but it visually affects memories of games that it is actually better than. The quick and sometimes frantic nature of the game is complimented by how simple it is graphically. Colourful explosions are normally quite distracting and the 8-Bit nostalgia actually aids the gameplay. It’s smooth, quick and has one control, your finger. Simplicity at its best.

Secondly: music. Here is where I try to be as unbiased as possible as my love for 8-Bit music is quite well known. But the music is excellent and, again, arguably better than the games of the age. It is simple and changes with the different levels without ever feeling repetitive or over the top. It’s enjoyable, almost funfair like at times and it can’t help but allow you to enjoy the game your playing without ever patronising you if you’re having a tough time. I’m sure we’ve all had frustrating platformers where the music of a level we get stuck on slowly boils us with rage. This does not boil anything except the tea.

toast time 5 Thirdly, and most importantly: Humour. One of the great things about the age this game is heavily inspired by is humour. You will probably find many people who developed AAA games, even GTA (especially the first two), that will cite the crazy humour of the Brit indie scene. This has some great little touches, from jokey forfeits if you die to many customisable Terry additions like the “Gamesmaster” monocle and a top hat – admittedly my favourite combo. Plus what isn’t to like about a baguette that fires off into multiple pieces and kills egg like enemies? There are enough of these to keep you occupied for a short while but if, like me you become addicted to this game, you could run out of levels quite quickly.

This game costs a few pounds and has the added bonus of all DLC being completely free. It supports indie gaming, in a market that’s quite dominated by big studio cash-ins and knock offs. Money aside you are probably going to be playing the most enjoyable casual game I’ve played on a mobile since Game Dev Story by Kairosoft, and that is an accolade you cannot ignore.

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[tab title=”Summary”]

Toast Time is an enjoyable game in its own right, even if you can’t disassociate it from the 8-Bit nostalgia it evokes. But with the simplest gameplay, easy visuals and infectious music, you’ll have a hard time putting this down.[/tab]

[tab title=”Good Points”]- Glorious 8-Bit nostalgia
– Enjoyable gameplay
– The epitome of a casual game[/tab]
[tab title=”Bad Points”]- Maybe slightly too short for how addictive it is
– It’s addictive[/tab]
[tab title=”Why a 9?”]Because it is a simple fun and encouraging game in a time where mobile markets seem to be completely missing the point. This game has found it perfectly.[/tab]
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Missing the Obvious: Strategically Console

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

I can list the amount of strategy games that worked on a console this past generation on one hand. Shall I list them for you? OK, I will, and just so you know whilst this is also my opinion, it is complete irrefutable fact… Honest:

Halo Wars
Civilization Revolution
Tropico (Series)

Suffice to say that it has not been a popular genre. I am also aware that I’ve missed things that are classed as strategy games like R.U.S.E and XCOM. I’m on about the proper classic strategy games, those isometric games that rob you of several months and – if you’re lucky – several years of your life. Civilization, Black & White, Theme Park/Hospital, Dungeon Keeper, Command & Conquer, Caesar, Anno 1602, Heroes of Might and Magic… Just so it doesn’t look like a Molyneux rap sheet of course.

Civilization Revolution 1 I mentioned on a recent review that console gamers, in the least insulting way possible, don’t particularly have an aptitude for strategy in gaming. Maybe patience should be a better word. But to be honest, this has been well known by gaming developers and publishers. Hence why we haven’t really had that many strategy games on console platforms. Even the most recent iteration of Command & Conquer, that 90s powerhouse of strategy gaming, was cancelled.

But it isn’t because the games aren’t popular anymore. Look at the success of Tropico, Civilization V, new indie game Banished and even SimCity. These games are not only successful but still raise the bar in what is considered to be good for the genre, especially in the PC market.

The problem is that developers have never found a way to engage with the console audience with strategy games. It sounds crazy that in this world when SimCity has been released and Transport Tycoon has been remade for iOS that the console market has no way to allow the strategy market to gain a foot hold in the living room/gaming den of your console owner.

That’s because publishers can be quite dumb. Yes, I said it. But they have had, at least for one console, a way to make intelligent forward thinking strategy game with a control method that will suit every Next Gen owner. One of the big problems with this of course is the control method for strategy games being rather elaborate compared to the capabilities of the control pad. Not graphics, audience, IP or anything else except that there isn’t a suitable control method that will allow a console gamer to play a game.

WRONG! There is one. There has been one for the past three and a half years and it has been improved greatly and re-released since. I am of course talking about Project Natal, or as you know it, Kinect.

xbox one kinect feat

Kinect has been utilized in the poorest way possible in the development of games. Its use as a semi-alternative controller or voice command unit in some games is a start, but the controller has basically been used for fitness/dance/sport game tracking and occasional camera use. If we’re honest, that’s it, right?

WRONG! The Kinect has been used for one thing, specifically non-gaming, and the idea and ethos behind it would be perfect for strategy games. That particular thing is the Xbox dashboard. It’s simple. Hand controls on squares to move things select things and now intuitive voice commands that can tell the Xbox what to do.

Let me immediately evoke for you the picture of Tom Cruise from Minority Report. This is exactly how a strategy game could work. If you will, imagine the future world of Command & Conquer on your screen. This time with seven translucent boxes displayed, four each side of your screen except one side which would have three with a mini-map as well, and your isometric view of the world in the middle of your screen showing you the world.

Minority Report Simple controls: everything you need building wise is in these boxes, you can use iOS style controls to zoom in and out of the world (parting your hands across or bringing them in), movement can be controlled by a hand in one direction and voice controls can tell your squads what to do. You can use your voice to “select all” or “attack” or even “special function”… Do you see where I’m coming from? It’s the most immersive thing to happen to this genre and exactly what it needs to “Kinect” with gamers… PR teams may steal that line if needed.

What I’m saying is that the platforms and tools are there for strategy games to work but they must be based around the controller rather than the controller be adapted to the game. Which is why Halo Wars and Civ Rev especially were so good at what they did. They developed a game around the controller. And with Kinect, people have the most intuitive and free-controlling system around.

Admittedly if you developed a game or pitched such a thing it would not be an easy sell. But as long as you made a good enough game and succeeded in making the controller a vitally useful part of the game, rather than the quirk that it has been marketed as since inception, then there is no holding back.

Not convinced? Imagine playing Black & White or such style of game using a Kinect controller. If you aren’t playing it out in your mind and getting excited by it, then visit your local GP.

[author]

World of Tanks – Xbox 360 Review

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

World of tanks feat

The title says it all really. World of Tanks is now on the Xbox 360. The MMO action game, which allows you to join other players around the world in rolling around in tanks and blowing each other up, is now a part of your console set up and it’s free.

Wargaming.net, the developer of this series, are beginning to branch out a lot with their franchises. The already successful World of Tanks on PC is being accompanied by sister titles involving Warplanes and Warships. But if you’re new to this, let me give you a run down of the game.

World of Tanks is a MMO that gives you multiple arenas to roll tanks around and engage in team deathmatch and/or objective games. You can choose from a multiple of different tanks from a multitude of different countries around the World War II era. You can select from British, German, Soviet, American or Japanese tanks (to name a few) and also different classes of these from light mobile scout tanks to big heavy marauding beauties.

The PC version of this has been around for four years and has had over 75 million subscribers (although that term is slightly redundant as it’s free) and Wargaming.net aim to make the Xbox 360 version just as successful by aiming for the 48 million Xbox Live users. Can they do this though, realistically in a FPS heavy online environment?

World of tanks 2 To start, World of Tanks is very, very good graphically and in its content. The historical accuracy of these tanks is wonderful and it really gives an air of confidence in the game that it can deliver. The game actually transposes to the console with relative ease. The control system is very easy and quick to master and the online play is smooth and fluid. Anyone who has played Battlefield 1943 will instantly be able to pick up and enjoy this game.

It does look absolutely wonderful on a big screen and with a decent sound system you will hear and feel every jolt that a firing tank has to offer. It is incredibly immersive and as that was one of their primary objectives in making this game, they have definitely succeeded.

The game is still completely and utterly free. There are different add-ons and customisations that you can pay money for but you would get these anyway with enough level grinding. World of Tanks 360 is a “free AAA game” in the words of Wargaming.net and you can’t refute that it is AAA. But there are some reservations in my eyes.

Firstly: the maps. The maps in World of Tanks 360 are great and very well detailed. The Mediterranean war torn villages, the snowy icy areas and such typical WW2 areas are all extremely well presented. Whilst you don’t expect there to be many at a launch, you will find yourself losing the challenging terrain aspect of this game pretty quickly as you grow very accustomed to the areas. This presents a secondary problem that they are, for a console game, too big.

This becomes a problem because of the audience you are aiming for. One of the benefits of PC online play is that people will play a bit more tactically. They will learn a map, develop strategies and utilise cover in creating a big open tank battle from a distance. Console gamers don’t care as much and mostly will run headlong into melee battling, which quite obviously does not exist here. The result, especially in the games I’ve played, is that I die very quickly in the initial rush, or spend ages looking for someone to kill because everyone died very quickly in the initial rush. It unfortunately becomes repetitive a bit too soon. There is very little team or strategic nuance in the console gamer (not to be insulting but there really isn’t outside of extremely hardcore FPS clans or dedicated players) and whilst the game accommodates them, it doesn’t really suit their kind of style. This is no fault of Wargaming.net at all, that’s just an honest appraisal of the market and the niche of the genre against the FPS gaming arena.

World of Tanks, though is certainly a big step forward in console MMO terms and whilst it may seem a backward move to release a new game on an older console, the Xbox live market will be there for a long, long time before the now current-gen becomes available en masse. I don’t honestly think it will pry enough people away from their already very accessible and paid for FPS multiplayer gaming, but it is a nice diversion for gamers and should survive.

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World of Tanks 360 is a very enjoyable and encouraging MMO, completely free (bar the Xbox Live subscription cost) and accessible to all. But it does lack some longevity and might be a bit too demanding of tactics to keep a sufficiently large console fan base.

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[tab title=”Good Points”]- Free. Enough said.
– Visually well presented.
– Enough options and customisations to keep you happy.[/tab]
[tab title=”Bad Points”]- Maps a bit too big for Console gaming
– Might have a short life span for some players
– Possibly a bit too niche.[/tab]
[tab title=”Why a 7?”]It’s a free AAA game that is visually good with plenty of options and is enjoyable to play for a while, but big repetitive maps and gung-ho players might put you off too quickly.[/tab]
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World of Tanks Interview with Marvin Hall

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

World of Tanks 360 launched on Wednesday 12th February for the Xbox 360, funnily enough. The PC MMO war game comes to the console, keeping the free to play model so it doesn’t cost a thing.

We sent Sean Cleaver to check it out and speak with Marvin Hall, the EU Community Product Specialist for developers, Wargaming.

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World of Tanks for 360 game launched yesterday, how has it gone so far?

It’s gone really, really well. I can’t speak enough about our EU community right now – we hit a CCU of around 35,000 on our first day so it’s really, really good.

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Have you seen any dip in the PC because you’ve gone on to console or is it still very steady?

The PC is a completely different element. We’re not expecting people to drop their PC version of WoT and jump on Xbox. The whole point of this project is to catch people who we haven’t caught yet.

This is just on the Xbox 360 at the moment. Do you have any plans to go on to other consoles in the future?

Not for the moment.

[divider]

So what’s different between the 360 and the PC versions if anything?

The 360 version is a real console experience. It’s in your living room, you have your wireless control pad, if you have a big TV or a really good sound system it really immerses you in to the game more.

[divider]

I’ve already played a bit and its controls are really easy and intuitive, have you had to adapt the gameplay to make it more console friendly?

Yeah definitely, our development team went out of their way to really make it its own title. The game is inspired by WoT (PC) but it’s its own title. For the control scheme we use, we really went out of our way to make it console friendly. Everybody from experience console gamers to people that maybe play Call of Duty once or twice a week can get the controls and play it straight away.

[divider]

One of the biggest benefits of this is its free to play, like the PC version. How do you expect that to carry on? Obviously Xbox Live is charged and you can’t avoid that element, and there are extras inside the game too. How realistic do you think it is to keep it free on the Xbox Live Arcade?

It’s going to continue to be free, that’s our business model and we’re going to stick to it. The Xbox Live gold thing is a requirement that Microsoft has so we respect that. But for free users you can get a seven-day trial of the game. So if you want to upgrade after trying the game for seven days then you can.

[divider]

With this, you have the opportunity to expand the game as well. I know you have World of Warships and World of Warplanes planned to come out, is there plans for these to come on console as well?

There’s no plan, no. We went with World of Tanks, as is it our flagship title. Everything else is in the future.

[divider]

The biggest question is probably Next Gen. As you said there’s no other console plans at the moment, how are you looking to Next Gen with this kind of model?

It’s a very attractive prospect right now, but we’re very focused on the 360 and our current player base. One of the reasons we didn’t go over to next gen to begin with is because the 360 has a player base of over 48million Xbox live users and that’s why we went with the 360.

[divider]

It’s already been said that you’re looking to capture as many people with the target being 48 million. Do you think it’s a realistically achievable thing to get that many people involved in the game like this?

I think it’s realistic. If something is available and it is free then people will try it. With Microsoft backing us, with the correct promotions, why not!

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Playing it myself I found a lot of comparisons to Battlefield 1943. How do you feel you’re going to compare against very established online gaming with games like Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty? Do you think you’ll be able to take some of those players away from that and bring them in to your fold?

Possibly. I think players are always looking for something new and with this coming on to the Xbox I think it’s quite refreshing because it’s AAA and it’s free to play. So I think users will find that very attractive.

[divider]

What’s your favourite part of this game?

Probably just playing with medium tanks. It’s my favourite type of tank and you can get everything. You can shoot scouts you can kill enemies easily… It’s very versatile.

[divider]

Anything you want to add?

Just basically thank you to all of the community. We’re going to continue to push more in game content in the near future so eventually we’ll have all of the content that the PC version has so there’s a very long lifespan to this title.

[author]

Dungeon Keeper iOS Review

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

… I should have seen it coming.

Those of you that have read a few articles of mine already will already note a certain cynical tone. But let it be said that I am not without my optimism. One such optimism was when EA announced that Dungeon Keeper was coming to iOS.

For those who don’t know, Dungeon Keeper was one of the best of the isometric God Sim-Strategy-Comedy romps that Peter Molyneux’s Bullfrog Productions gave us towards the end of the 90s. You take over a dungeon and build up a sinister enough army to destroy the realm, alone with guidance from the silky smooth voiceover of Richard Ridings. Whilst being as objective and unbiased as possible, it was one of my favourite PC games and will regularly feature in any top 10 list I produce.

Now my alarm bells should have been ringing when I downloaded the “free” app (to purchase this game from the App Store, you impart no money) because I suddenly realised that I had heard nothing about it since that announcement. Not a screenshot, not a video, not a release date, nothing. So I should have sensed disaster.

To be fair, it is visually very nice and colourful. With some brilliantly realised character animations, remembering that these creatures looked really cool back in the original game. However within three seconds it becomes very busy on your screen. What are these meters all over my eye line? Gold of course is needed, which in this version is mined from an actual mine, as opposed to your imps taking it from the wall. But there is suddenly a “Stone Mine” and the need to harvest gems from the wall. Which also allow the speeding up of tasks… If you can see where I’m heading, skip two paragraphs.

If you haven’t skipped, you start a tutorial by having your devilish imps appear. You remember those little cute things you could slap and chuck around who’d make loads of noise? They are your workforce for this game and do your bidding. They start getting to work by clearing out some wall space for rooms. Once they start, they then get this little green icon with a timer and a gem in it. These gems will allow you to speed up the time it takes for the task to be done. All of these gems are occasionally found but are mostly available as an in-app purchase. Digging out the outer wall to expand your dungeon and acquire these gems takes approximately 4 hours per tile, real time. All of the fun and humour of these creatures and indeed the game is now apparent by its complete absence.

Now all the rooms cost Gold and/or stone, each has its own minion much like the original game to help you conquer, and gives you a little extra bonus. However the time it would take to save the resources will force the less patient/casual gamer into buying the extras. Added are the various traps you can lay to stop people raiding your dungeon. The slight multiplayer aspect is that you can raid other dungeons and yours can be raided, essentially turning the game from the hilarity it was before into a tower defence game. Everything you do slowly levels your dungeon up from its heart and of course, costs more purchase-renewable resource.

If you have skipped, I’m sorry to report that they’ve bastardised the concept of Bullfrog’s excellent achievement and turned it in to a skin of Farmville. This is basically Dungeonville to coin a probably already used phrase. It is very hard to review a free casual game that by design takes four hours to bust a certain wall down. You may think I’m being unfair and not seeing it for what it is, a casual game, designed to be played on lunch breaks, that utilises the nostalgia of players of the original to create a cash-in… Oh. That’s what it is.

I’d like to think that as a reviewer of video games, we all want something good. We don’t want to trash something that we love, no matter how easy it is to do so. But I think the luxury of writing for TheGameJar and through non-official print medium allows me to be a bit more open and honest as to what a game can be, especially when it is so blatant and shameless in conforming to a gaming stereotype that started five years ago with Plants Vs Zombies and the aforementioned Farmville. Casual mobile gaming has always swayed massively to a lot easier and simpler pick-up-and-play formats like Candy Crush, Bejeweled and Angry Birds. To me, Dungeon Keeper iOS is in gaming terms purely a backward and outdated move, completely misjudging its audience and far and away wasting a prime opportunity that the iOS platform allows. Just look at how good a job has been made of Lego Star Wars/Lord of The Rings, Sonic, Grand Theft Auto 3/Vice City/San Andreas, Minecraft, Transport Tycoon, Baldur’s Gate, Monkey Island, et al.

This is not the isometric game of nostalgia’s past and I was wrong to even hope that it might be. But given the obvious comparisons that other publishers have created, EA are severely lacking in the mobile department. It does make me worry because when you look at the plethora of isometric strategy games they could release, it makes you shiver to ponder that they could ruin them: Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Black & White, Theme Hospital. Then I remember what they did to Theme Park a few years ago… I should have seen it coming.

Summary

Dungeon Keeper in name, voiceover and licence alone. Free to play, but in the same way that condoms are free in sexual health clinics for birth control, the latter being a concept that should have been exercised here.

Good Points

– Casual gaming at its most familiar, so an easy learning curve.
– Visually very nice, new slightly less adult animations and designs
– Runs very smoothly, as smooth as Richard Ridings voice.

Bad Points

– Surgically removed all fun and humour.
– Completely different concept to its original namesake
– Even by casual games standards, very limited appeal and quick to lose interest in.

Why a 3?

Because there are enough games like this around, and the opportunity to do something great and resurrect a brilliant game, era and style of gaming has been completely missed. But somewhere a team of people has spent time designing and making cool looking little evil minions and they should be credited for their efforts.

Missing The Obvious: The Next Decent Star Trek Game

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Sean Cleaver

The fall of Star Trek in video games is nothing new, although it isn’t really documented properly. What do I mean by that? Well, every time you see a Star Trek game released, or mentioned, budding journalists – who are all my age and have very fond memories of getting in from school and watching The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 on TV, but thankfully were too busy to pay any attention to Enterprise – lament the lack of a decent game to play.

However, journalists and fans, I test you. Do you actually recall the name of the last decent game? Do you even get to look past the fan-boy nostalgia and remember an enjoyable experience playing one? Because I don’t! Let me list for you the last Star Trek games I recall that were actually good.

Starfleet Academy (PC)
Bridge Commander (PC)
Elite Force (PC… Yes I know it was console ported but it was PC)
Judgement Rites (PC)

[divider]

You see where I’m going with this. Sorry, consoles, but you’ve sucked at producing good original Star Trek games. Does anyone remember Invasion? No. Legacy? Maybe, because it was recent-ish. But the two most recent games (a non-tie-in-movie-tie-in and a MMORPG/DOGFIGHTING game) are mostly PC based as well. You can find Anthony’s review of Star Trek here if you need a reminder. I’d certainly argue that there hasn’t been a great amount of Star Trek games that go above an “OK” rating. Probably the two Elite Force games mostly and maybe Klingon Honour Guard.

So your point is, Sean, that Star Trek games have failed because the good ones are only on PC? No. Star Trek games have failed because there is a very limited scope of people that play them, enjoy them and who are ultimately unhappy at the quality so much they tend to not impart their money for them. It’s not just Star Trek but Star Wars and most other space based games.

Arguably, Kerbal Space Program and Eve Online are the most popular and successful space-science-fiction based games at the moment. And the latter being kept that way due to a fanatical community who subscribe to play it. But you wouldn’t say that either are popular in the mainstream sense and therefore in the big AAA console game world, they are unlikely to gross large amounts.

The last Star Wars game that was incredibly successful on console was probably Lego based. Something that the original ten Star Trek Movies would actually really benefit from. Which is why we are missing the obvious. We aren’t looking for the right Star Trek game! Let’s face it, in this world of Call of Battlefield, Forza Tourismo and independent gaming, there isn’t a lot of room for the dogfighting/FPS/RPG stylings that Trek and Wars could do excellently. Purely because for the longevity of their intellectual properties, they really haven’t produced anything new in ten years. I know the new Star Trek movies have come and new Star Wars are coming and that the Clone Wars was a big hit. But they weren’t really new, were they? They were still that enjoyable science-fiction romp you enjoyed in your pre-pubescent years. Not exactly the core gaming audience nowadays.

So I do see journalists, bloggers and observers remark how they’ve lamented a decent Star Trek game, or that the closure of Lucasarts has left a void of classic space gaming like the X-Wing series (more on that next month) that no one can or has yet filled. But I ask you, given the hammy-ness and nostalgia that Trek has now especially, could you do worse than a two/three part Lego series of games? The Original six movies, the four Next Generation era movies and maybe a nod to the five television series it graced us with for nearly 40 years? No. No you couldn’t.

You want to know the obvious thing everyone is missing here?

A cinematic with a Lego Kirk shaking in anger to a point where he screams “KAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNN” and spontaneously falls apart. I’ve already pre-ordered that game in my mind.

Oh and if you think I’ve criminally missed Mass Effect, you’re right, I have. But for good reason, which you will read soon.

[author]

Sean Cleaver

Writer, Journalist, Gamer, Maker of Tom-Yum Soup

Author: Sean Cleaver

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