NeoGAF Steam GOTY 2014 Results – Analysis

Thanks to Mr Orange and JShackles, SteamGaf have finally voted for their GOTY2014…in mid March. Still we go there and here are my opinions on the results:

I haven’t played Alien Isolation yet, but did recently pick it up on sale. I’m expecting an “ok” experience, so a 10 spot is probably about right.

Fair enough.

Shadow of Mordor is your token “mediocre AAish” release that needs to be in the top 10. If there has to be one, and there does, it is a solid enough game to be #9. After all, it could have been some Assassins Creed or Batman garbage. At least it is Tolkien garbage.

Fair enough

Transistor deserves this spot mainly in relation to Bastion, which I found to be a really bad game. Full marks for improvement but it is a stretch to call it a top 10 game beyond a bit of style.

Just fair enough

The first game in the list that I “don’t get”. I just don’t find it fun or interesting to play and I don’t see how the improvements in this re-release really made much difference. There are just so many indie actiony/rogue like games which are so much better to play.

I know it is popular…but I don’t understand why.

I can understand South Park being here, it just isn’t a game I remotely want to play so I haven’t.

Fair enough for fans I suppose

This was my #1 overrated game of the year. 1001 Spikes was just so much better, but this is the game that gets loved. It wasn’t terrible, but I don’t think it belongs on a top 10 list.

Vastly overrated

It is really hard to think of this as a 2014 game…but given it is a valid choice you can’t really argue against it.

Solid choice

If Shadow of Mordor was your token mediocre action game, this is your token mediocre FPS. Lots of people still love FPS of course, but to me this is just a throw back to before FPS got interesting (System Shock) and there is little appealing about it.

Token boring shooter for FPS fans

People seem to be confused about Dark Souls 2. “Didn’t people hate it?” No, not at all. People whine about it, but people whine about everything and should generally be ignored…like me. Even with the downgrades, it was still a brilliant game, it just suffered in terms of quantity over quality. The DLC fixed this to a certain extent (2 out of 3 were great!) so it is a worth #2.

Great game

Divinity is both a worth winner… and a real disappointment. All I wanted from a game like this was NPCs with job schedules and a few other things that go back to the glory Ultima days. We didn’t get that… again… but we did get an extremely well put together RPG that was certainly on my list of top 5 games.

A strong winner

Summary:

Mediocre mass market
Shadow of Morder
Alien Isolation
Wolfenstein

Style over substance
Transistor

One for Fans
South Park

Overrated
Binding of Issac
Shovel Knight

Good
Dark Souls 2
Divinity
MGR

Overall? A fair enough list. It does kind of highlight how poor gaming was in 2014, with few stand out releases. However there is great diversity represented, which is even more important. Hopefully a few more amazing games get released on the platform in 2015.

PS4 Playstation Plus – The story so far #PS4 #PS+

PS4 PS+ so far in my opinion:

Now that the PS4 is well into its life I thought it was time to look at the PS+ service and see exactly how things are tracking. People seem relatively happy with what they are getting, but there has been criticism that it is “Indies only” and that people want more AAA games.

Do the figures back this up? Are the games of a high enough quality or is it a dumping ground for indie crap? Lets have a look.

NB: Please note this is based on the US PS+ service only, considering that other PSN services such as the Australian one are a complete and utter joke considering pricing

Summary:

Overall Games: 30
Great: (13%)
Love/Hate: (23.3%)
Ok: (30%)
Throw Away: (30%)

We can see that at roughly 2/3rds of games put up on PS+ are at least “Ok” and worth a play.

Breaking it down further:

Indie Games: 27 (90%)
Great: 4
Love/Hate: 7
Ok: 9
Throw Away: 7

AAA Games: 2 (6.6%)
Great:0
Love/Hate:0
Ok:0
Throw Away: 2

AA Games: 1 (3.3%)
Great:0
Love/Hate:0
Ok:1
Throw Away:0

Indeed the vast majority of games are Indie, with only two AAA offerings, both of which are kind of terrible (but more on that later).

For the individual titles:

Indie 2D Action Platformers

Great:
Spelunky – Massive amount of replay value and perfectly pitched challenge.
The Swapper – Very atmospheric, slow paced puzzle game of a high quality.

Love/Hate
Rogue Legacy – A potential time sync, but some people will not appreciate the grind/skill ratio
Apotheon – It seemed awful, but lots of people praise it so I don’t know.
Dust – Gets repetitive and the art-style is questionable. But a quality game.
Fez – Not sure if it is great or bad, but incredibly interesting to play through.

Ok
Steamworld Dig – Pretty boring and repetitive, but ok for a few hours.
Towerfall Ascension – Really needs somebody else to play with and kind of limited. But at least it is a multiplayer option.
Trine 2 – Incredibly pretty but incredibly boring game. The multiplayer option gives it a rough pass.
Mercenary Kings – Should be a lot more fun than it is, but at least there is lots of content, even if it is mediocre.

Throw away
Escape Plan – Just too slow and ponderous to be fun.
Stick it to the man – Might be a decent game in here somewhere, I found everything about it off-putting.
Contrast – Seems kind of broken and the bits that work are not fun anyway.

Indie Misc

Great
Don’t Starve – Really high class crafting game with a heap of replay value.

Love/Hate
Transistor – I love that it isn’t Bastion, and it has a lot going for it in terms of style and interesting mechanics.
Binding of Issac – People rave about it, so I’ll put it in love/hate even though I think it is a pretty bad game. At least it can last you a long time.

Ok
Outlast – I think the DLC is much better all around, but it is still a very solid horror game.
Pix the Cat – Really needs to explain itself better, but if you can wrap your head around it the game is well put together.

Throw away
Sportsfriends – People rave about things like Bari Bari ball. But does anybody actually play it? Nope.
Road not taken – Might be a little unfair on this one, but it doesn’t get a free pass just for being puzzle based. You have to want to play it too.
Doki Doki – I don’t even know what this is supposed to be.

Indie Shooter

Great
Resogun – Speaks for itself really. A bit limited, but does what it does to a high quality.

Love/Hate
Velocity 2x – Either an amazing skill based game that you will spend the time to master, or a dull, mediocre game where you do the same couple of boring tasks over and over. Worth finding out for yourself.

Ok
Pixeljunk Shooter – I always thought this was the worst of the pixeljunk games, the very definition of just “ok”.
Titan Attacks – It is only space invaders really, but it can be surprisingly fun.
Dead Nation – Just gets a pass for multiplayer options, otherwise only ok.

Throw Away
Secret Ponchos – Looked great until people realised what it was and found nobody else playing it.

AAA

Throw Away
Infamous: First light – On the plus side, it stops people buying more Infamous out of curiosity. A soulless open world game with few redeeming features.
Injustice – Know how people always say “I don’t play MK just for the violence?” Well this shows you exactly how much fun that would be… and nobody plays it.

AA

Ok
Strider – Doesn’t reach any great heights but it gets the job done and is worth playing at least for a few hours. I also wouldn’t all it Indie, it is sort of awkwardly in the middle somewhere.

Conclusion

PS+ is currently dominated by indie games on the PS4 which should come as no real surprise for people who have kept up with the service. What is more interesting is that in just over a year around a third of those games are potential ones you will love, which is a reasonable success rate coming close to one game every month.

The sample size for AAA games is really too small to draw any conclusions other than Injustice sucks and First Light is incredibly overrated. Of course this is just my opinion (On First Light, Injustice really does suck), but it does highlight the gulf between people who enjoy the Infamous open world style and those who can get 100 hours out of Spelunky. Should better graphics give them a free pass to “ok” or better. In my opinion no, a game is good not be the hundreds of artists who churned content out, but by the quality of often a single designer.

You can’t please both crowds, but ultimately I would conclude Sony are on the right path. Even if it does inevitably lead to AAA lovers abandoning the service for another platform, the chance that some of those games will try one of the deeper games and realise that Indie is not a genre and they have been missing out on straight up good games? Well that is more than worth it.

The Order 1886 – Review

There is one major concern when examining 1886. Is it long enough? Well lets break it down:

• It lasted for 365 days.
• Most if not all those days were 24 hours.
• ALL of the days were in order.

So you could conclude that it wasn’t a long year by any stretch of the imagination. Some people will even argue strongly that there are other years which are even longer. However it was more than long enough to get the job done at the time.

But the length of 1886 isn’t really the most important factor. What matters is the quality of the year and this is where 1886 shines:

March 3 – The Treaty of Bucharest ends the Serbo-Bulgarian War in the Balkans.
May 8 – American pharmacist Dr. John Stith Pemberton invents a carbonated beverage that will be named Coca-Cola.
July 9 – Charles Hall files a patent for his process of turning aluminium oxide into molten aluminium.
November 11 – Heinrich Hertz verifies at the University of Karlsruhe the existence of electromagnetic waves.

Those highlights are just a few of the major events that happened that year. Would you revisit 1886 given the chance? I would suggest most people would say yes, even if they didn’t want to go through the whole thing again.

Overall 1886 was a quality year in perfect order. Please keep this in mind over the next week or so.

It is a video game. This is as serious as you need to take it.

PSN Fighting Game Sale

US only…but if you are buying from any other store on PSN, what are you doing?

PSN flash sale fighting games:

https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-us/flash-sale/cid=STORE-MSF77008-9_FLASHSALE15_G

PS4
Divekick – $4.00 – 60% Off
Guilty Gear Xrd Sign – $24.00 – 60% Off

PS3
Arcana Heart 3 – $6.00 – 80% Off
Dead or Alive 5 – $4.00 – 80% Off
Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate – $10.00 – 75% Off
SoulCalibur V – $8.00 – 60% Off
Guilty Gear Xrd Sign – $20.00 – 60% Off
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle – $20.00 – 60% Off
Street Fighter X Tekken – $7.50 – 75% Off
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 – $10.50 – 70% Off
Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Complete Edition – $6.00 – 80% Off
Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition – $3.00 – 80% Off
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike: Online Edition Complete Pack – $5.00 – 80% Off
Chronophantasma is supposed to be on sale too… keep an eye out for it
Digimon All-Star Rumble – $16.00 – 60% Off
Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix – $2.00 – 80% Off

PS2
Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 – $2.50 – 75% Off

Vita
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R – $3.00 – 80% Off
Street Fighter X Tekken – $7.50 – 75% Off

PSP/1
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II – $2.00 – 80% Off
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus – $2.00 – 80% Off
Mortal Kombat: Unchained – $2.50 – 75% Off
Street Fighter Alpha 1 – $1.20
Street Fighter Alpha 2 – $1.20
Street Fighter Alpha 3 – $1.20
Tekken – $1.20
KOF99 – $1.20

Monster Boy and the Wizard of Booze

Ah memories. Simpler times, less worries and Wonder Boy. Those were the days.

Or those were the days… because those days are soon to become new days, for new people…. soon.
FDG Entertainment are teasing a new Wonder Boy release called Monster Boy that looks pretty damn fine to me. I was always a Sega kid, with a master system (original with card slot no less), so of course this caught my interest straight away.

http://www.monsterboy.com/

The music has all sorts of nostalgic effects, although it isn’t quite the same without the warning sound from low health ringing out over the top of it. Still, it does look good.

Is Wonder Boy something that would interest me today? It is hard to say. Truth be told, I’m not a huge fan of the series outside of Monsterland. WB3 was obviously a great title, but it also felt a bit simpler by the time I played it and I was kind of wanting more. Although it was a huge game, the actual gameplay was limited and I’m not sure if this effort will quite scratch that itch.

Having said that, I’m somebody who didn’t really appreciate Shovel Knight, so the devs are probably not going to lose sleep over what is going to interest me.

Oh but if they include a section like this?

I will hunt them down. Even if I don’t play it, kids of today need to be protected.

Anyway, one to keep an eye on and back appropriately.

Battle Worlds Kronos – IPad

Battle Worlds: Kronos is new to the list of “didn’t know this game was coming out on ios?” list.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/id920799795?mt=8

Unfortunately I can’t buy it, since it is ipad 3+ only. But on PC it is GLORIOUS.
If anybody remembers Battle Isle…and you probably don’t, it is kind of a more serious Advance Wars and Kronos is the spiritual successor to that.

Plenty of turn based combat, tough, almost unfair missions that will really test your strategic thinking. Fancy looking graphics, some laughable voice acting…Kronos has it all.

Assuming the port is in any way decent, it is at the top of my list to get if I ever upgrade.

My take on modern open world gaming

In the light of Assassin’s Creed… “whatever it is this year” about to be released, I thought it would be good to reflect on modern open world gaming. This is after all a landmark in the genre, considering that it is a “true” next generation title.

What does all that extra power get us? Well it gets us bigger crowds, of non-descript people…doing not much at all. Will we one day see real, interesting and persistent worlds? Maybe in a couple of generations when consoles can finally match PC power levels…from around 25 years ago.

Infamous First Light – Review

 

I have a love/hate relationship with the Infamous series. On the one hand, I hate the series. On the other hand… I love that they keep trying I suppose? They seem so completely doomed to failure, with no chance of producing a great videogame with the methods they are using. But still they persist and we have got three Infamous games out of them so far and the spin off, First light which I took the time to play.

Why first light and not Second Son? Well I figured if I was going to play something on the PS4, Infamous looked pretty good considering the current options. But if I was going to play Infamous? A cut down, get in and get out and don’t waste too much life on it experience would be ideal.

In this regard? First Light delivers because it is a damn short game. I’m not sure how long I spent on it, but it only felt like a couple of hours and that included some time to do the “mini games” (more on those suckers later). Think of the game as the first part of a GTA, where you meet a low life scum bag, do a couple of missions and end up leaving them for the next scumbag who is slightly higher up the food chain. In first light? You only get to the first rung and the game ends.

Which is a good thing, because there isn’t much to recommend here.

The missions range from travelling to a location to snipe enemies, to travelling to a location to shoot enemies to travelling to a location to ride a truck while you snipe and shoot enemies. There is little variety here and none of those “cool missions” that you will remember after the game is over. If you have played Saints Row 4, you might have noticed how it is 95% crap, but there are some pretty cool moments here and there. First Light unfortunately has none of this.

I think the game is best summed up by one mission which challenges you to fill up a meter based on “destruction”. Reeking havoc is fun right? But you soon realise the only way to actually do this is to shoot cars, and there are not many cars around. So this mission takes ages while you look for something to destroy and quickly realise you have very few options.

The mini-games? Almost trivial races, a painfully painful spray paint using the six-axis “approximation of control” and a frustrating shoot down the drone event which offers little fun. Besides this, there is literally nothing else to do besides some arena challenges, which I can’t see anybody playing for long.

So the game is a complete train wreck right? Well not quite. Firstly it is an amazing looking game. The image quality? First class. The city? Ok you can’t do anything, but it is at least beautifully detailed. It is, overall a complete waste of an amazing looking world (Letting somebody create a real game in this city would be amazing!).

The controls are tight, the powers (zoom around and shoot things) reasonably satisfying and the challenge non-existent, so at least you can get through the game quickly.

Of special note is the relationship between the female protagonist Fetch and her brother. I’m not sure if they were going for a creepy incestual vibe there…but if so they completely nailed it. I’m not saying there was something going on between them…but I’m just saying.

But really the voice acting is well done and the characters at least superficially interesting. So you will enjoy your time with the game and it is cheap, so if you don’t have many options it is better than nothing.

“Better than nothing” isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement, but if you must play some Infamous, in its bland and uninspired glory? This is probably the best way to do it.

Velocity 2x – Review

Hot off the PS+ September release schedule is Velocity 2x, a hybrid shooting/flying/warping/running/collecting/boring/overrated/dodging type of game that has gotten a lot of hype recently. Because it looked quite interesting and there isn’t a whole lot else to play on the platform yet, I thought I’d give it a good going over. Interesting it indeed is, but not always in a positive way.

Velocity 2x defies its own name by being an extremely slow game to get into. The first few levels are simple, tedious even, as you fly your ship around and learn the basic controls. Basically you can speed yourself up, warp to another destination and… shoot. This all happens in a confined auto scrolling location that is about as uninspired as it can get, unless grey tubes and walls are your thing.

This flying action is fair enough in theory and can almost become quite exhilarating as you speed yourself up, collect the bland looking blue “survivors” and warp to a safe area to avoid blowing yourself up. But just as you start having fun with the game, you hit a section that slows you down again or you get attacked by space invader reject enemies. It is here that these long sections really fall apart, as the controls get fiddly, the action stop/start and your overall goals start competing with each other. Are you collecting all the survivors? Well take it slow and steady and try not to get hit by the massive bullets in an enclosed space. Want to speed up? Well you’ll have to skip a lot of things…so sorry. It comes down to being a game that you need to play in exactly the “right way” to enjoy. If that is how you want to play it? Fine. But otherwise it’ll spurn your efforts at every turn or just continually come up short.

I could see some people mastering the whole thing and reaching a zen like state of gaming brilliance. But the question seems to be, “why exactly would you want to do that?” There just isn’t anything inspiring, from the bland cutscenes before levels, which you will learn to skip, to mediocre boss battles that feel more luck based than anything else (good luck seeing what is going on with so much shit on the screen) to the fiddly controls, it just doesn’t seem worth your time to conquer.

Perhaps sensing these limitations, the developers added on-foot sections to break up the action. The premise is simple enough, you dock your ship, look for a lock to blow up and then continue on your way. Luckily the controls are much better here, with the ships teleport ability working much better in short jumps and the twin stick style shooting allowing enough control to get the job done.

Unfortunately even though these sections play better, they are even more dull than the flying bits. Run along, jump, teleport a few times until you complete the loop and can get out again. After just a few instances, I started dreading having to fly into the dock each time, because I felt like every single on foot section was the same… and it pretty much was.

But then you realise that all the levels outside are the same and you start to wonder what all the fuss is about. Don’t get me wrong, Velocity 2x is not a bad game by any stretch. It is just a deeply average one, the type of game you’ll play for a short period, think “huh” and then never touch again for as long as your PS4/Vita lives.

To be fair, things do start to mix up a little as the hours tick by, but I still didn’t find much to keep me interested throughout the stretch of levels (People who go for trophies/high scores might have other ideas). There is a fun game here somewhere, but often a mix of styles becomes just that, an interesting mix rather than a complete performance and I think that is the case here. Maybe Velocity 3x will get the balance right.

Still, give it a go on PS+ and maybe you’ll be the target market (Speed runners? People who 100% Assassin’s Creed games? I don’t know…) that will really get into it. I just wouldn’t be investing too much of your other money into it first ($24 no less! Australian PSN prices are a serious joke), because it just isn’t that good.

10 Second Ninja – Mini Review

http://store.steampowered.com/app/271670/

I’ve had my eye on this game for a while, so I picked it up as part of the current steam weekly deals. After the disappointment of Growing Pains, I was a bit wary of “indie platformer with a twist #342” but I still had high hopes.

Luckily 10 Second Ninja is actually quite good. The hook here is you only have ten seconds to complete each level (kill all the enemies). This is generally pretty easy and you will have little trouble getting it done in that time. However to earn stars (and ultimately to complete each themed world) you will need to beat the strict time limits imposed on you.

And when I say strict, I mean strict. A perfect run might still leave you 0.2 seconds away from that next star you need. So you are left thinking, do I need to execute better or do I need a different approach completely? It is here that the game shows its class, because levels can be approached in different ways and it is often quite rewarding to try something else that shaves another second off your time.

All of this would be meaningless if the controls were not perfect, but they are very solid and feel responsive enough for the game type. Graphics? Sound? Presentation? The game loads and everything is clear. It gets the job done and that is about it.

It isn’t a game you’ll play for huge stretches, like say, a Super House of Dead Ninjas because there isn’t a huge amount of content here (and you pretty much have to do well at it to progress). But you will still get more than 10 seconds worth out of the low asking price.

I’d say it is well… I’d say it is wel… I’d say it is well worth a lo… Check it out.