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Limbo is a simple game, with simple objectives, a simple art style, and a simple soundtrack. Only one puzzle stumped me for longer than ten minutes, the ending explains nothing and the story is seemingly non-existent. The game lasted about four hours but looking at Youtube, people have done speed runs of about one hour.

So far, not a great review technically. In practice however, Limbo is a shining example of ‘less is more’.

Firstly I’d like to address the price point issue here as it seems to be a strong reason people give for not purchasing the game. 1200 MS points = £10.28 (roughly). I got about three to four hours from Limbo on my first run (not going to count replay time here). A retail game costs roughly £40 in the UK and lasts anything between eight and fifteen hours on average. It’s simple maths really, multiply the price of Limbo by four to roughly match retail price at £40, and if you do the same with the time to complete you will be left with a twelve to sixteen hour game for £40. When put into perspective, the price is actually comparable to most retail titles and I can guarantee there is more imagination and creativity in Limbo than half the games out there. People will happily drop £40 on the latest Tiger Woods game despite it having virtually no advancements compared to the last game, yet Limbo is too expensive for an XBLA title? Give me a break. I’d strongly suggest giving the demo a spin before making any rash decisions.

OK, so with that out of the way lets talk a little about the game now.

The game has such a striking art style it is hard not to be intrigued. Ever since I saw the first screenshot released I was convinced I’d buy this game based on the graphics alone. Not often do games strip back the level of graphics to this degree, but it really works for Limbo. The game tries to create a very bleak atmosphere and the art style only serves to enhance that tenfold. The same can be said of the soundtrack, what little there is of one (well that is technically wrong as you will always hear ambient/background noise no matter where you are in the game, be it an off key horn or the increasing volume of static noise during the spider sections). Every sound in Limbo is designed to put you on edge and it synchs so well with the gameplay that it’s often easy to forget there is any soundtrack at all. The only rest you get from the audible assault on the senses is after the various tense world turning/flooding/chase elements are over, when the ambient sound becomes almost soothing in comparison to the tension laden moments you just experienced. There are no traditional pieces of music, only atmospheric noise that is sometimes the equivalent of running fingernails down the chalkboard of your soul… depending how immersed you allow yourself to become anyway.

Talking of immersion, personally I like to give myself over to games like this, and I genuinely feel the only way to play Limbo is at night, in the dark, with all the curtains shut. I played Silent Hill 1 with a friend in the same way and I think it added so much more to our experience of the game that without that element, I would still have enjoyed it, just not in the same way. I know people often don’t play games in this manner so a lot of this will probably go over peoples heads or be mocked and ridiculed, but I don’t care and I’m positive anyone who plays these types of games in the same way will understand just what I’m talking about.

Puzzle-wize, Limbo has some of the freshest and imaginative takes on the age old platform/puzzle formula’s I have seen in some time. The game takes place over three distinct sections with each featuring appropriately themed puzzles to the area you are in. The forest section has you avoiding man-traps, spider webs, and in some of the tenser moments of the game (for arachnophobes anyway) you will be running for your life from a giant spider. The deserted city section contains lots of water based puzzles as much of the environment has been flooded, whereas the abandoned factory area features a lot of physics based puzzles involving saw blades and conveyor belts. The different areas enable an interesting mix of puzzles and before anything begins to feel too repetitive you are experiencing something new to wrap your head around. The pacing is superb although personally, I would have liked to see more of the forest areas as that was hands down my favourite area. Not only in terms of puzzles but in terms of questions.

The forest area for example is the only section of the game you will encounter other living things. Other children feature heavily here, firing what I can only assume are pea shooter style weapons, operating mechanical spider legs, rolling flaming tires down on you from above. Who these children are and why they are opposing the player is never made clear. Neither are the repeated instances of tree houses in the first, middle and very end sections of the game. The title screen features a tree house which leads me to believe there is some significance there, but this is half the fun of Limbo. The game asks more than it answers, and yet it asks nothing. The human mind is geared to enjoy solving puzzles and the game not only has these by the dozen but it’s very essence, themes and settings raise many questions that beg to be answered.

I’m a sucker for this kind of thing, 2001 Space Odyssey, Phantasm… I’ve always been interested in media that leaves questions to be pondered over even if there are no answers to be found. The human mind automatically attempts to fill in the blanks even when not required to and whether by design or accident, I think Limbo takes advantage of this psychological element of the human brain very well. I realise however, this is not everyone’s cup of tea, and as a result many have simply dismissed the game as an attempt to be ‘arty’ and ‘hip’ as many other indie games have attempted. To these people I would urge them to ignore this element and simply enjoy it as a puzzle/platform game. There is a lot of fun to be had here even if you are not intrigued by the same elements that I am.

In my opinion Limbo is one of the freshest, imaginative games to release in recent years. Even if you wait for the price to come down, or only give the demo a spin, I’d strongly recommend this to anyone in possession of an Xbox and a spare 1200 MS points. It really is that good.

I recently picked up Fable 2 used for pretty cheap and I am now probably at least 3 or 4 hours into the game so far.

One thing bugs me… a LOT

So you start the game poor, destitute, and living from the gutter. When a mysterious lady implies we should buy the music box, the sister remarks;

5 Gold? We could eat for a week on that!

Fair enough.

Next, the sister and brother decide, what the hey, its a magical music box, lets buy it anyway. OK, so with no money the game asks me to complete a few ‘odd-jobs’ for NPC’s around town. Fine I think. About 10 minutes later I’m rolling 5 gold coins around my pocket ready to buy the music box.

Go back a little, remember when the sister mentioned something about eating for a week for 5 gold? And I just earned 5 gold in about 10 minutes. To be generous I’ll use in-game time, so not even close to the time it took for night to cycle to day. I can work a minimal amount, for less than a full day, and eat for a week on the proceeds? You have to wonder, perhaps if you got off your arse and did two or three days work maybe, just maybe you wouldn’t be living in the effing gutter you idiots!

If the main character is sleeping in a no walled shed with only a blanket to his name, has no food, no money, no prospects in life.. how about making it a little harder to earn a weeks food money than putting in 5 minutes work?

Kinda ruins the effect of trying to build up sympathy for your main protagonist if it turns out the only reason he is destitute is simply because he can’t be arsed doing a days work!

I kinda like the game, but man it has some serious issues. Job’s are ridiculous. Gaming distilled into it’s most basic form. Hit that button when this bar reaches here. Again. Again. AGAIN! Going back to the main point of this post, my character came from a life in the gutter yet within 30 minutes of spamming the blacksmith job I had over 10 thousand gold. I went to the smith as the shops shut, by sunrise I had 10 thousand gold.

When in-game systems contradict the storyline, something is very wrong.

Completed Transformers: WFC late Saturday night.

Given that it only came out on the Friday, you could be forgiven for thinking perhaps the game is not that long. Well, much as I’d have loved it to be longer, the truth is, I hammered the single player a LOT on Friday night and Saturday day/night. Once I got started, it was very hard to stop to be honest. The full game weighs in at around 10+ hours depending how you get on with the bigger battles.

As I mentioned in my last TF post, the gameplay is solid doing everything you would expect from a third person controlled shooter. The transformations  add something a little new to the genre however with vehicle forms being just as useful in most situations as robot forms (In some cases vehicle forms are actually essential to avoid high levels of damage during some of the bigger fights). The system feels very balanced and I found myself constantly shifting in and out of vehicle forms enough that it felt like second nature… as it should in a Transformers game. Flip to jet mode, turbo across the room to grab some health, quickly fire a few missiles, flip back to robot form – use special abilities/gun, back to jet form for evasive actions. The system feels.. well, it just feels right.

The story was particularly interesting to me as a Transformers fan, and Hasbro obviously agrees as TF:WFC’s take on a prequel to the events of the original animated series (and the 1984 movie) is now officially declared cannon in the Transformers Universe. For good reason too.

SPOILER ALERT

The game takes place in the middle of a civil war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. Featuring two campaigns, played chronologically, the first features Megatron and his quest to obtain Dark Energon which he intends to use to control Cybertron. The second campaign deals with Optimus becoming ‘The Last Prime’ and his attempt to cleanse Cybertron of the corruption Megatron has unleashed.

It’s a basic plot, but along the way fans will find much to enjoy here. Omega Supreme’s involvement is nothing short of epic in my opinion. The fight goes on for a long time, and while not always in direct confrontation with Supreme, he affects every step of your journey through that level. Starscream’s defection to the Decepticons was of particular interest for me. I’ve long been a fan of Starscream and his treacherous ways so to finally see something of his origins was really great, plus all his trademark attempts to overthrow Megatron and assume control are all present and accounted for.

High Moon have really done a great job at accurately portraying the characters largely as you remember them from the 80′s. The opening Decepticon cutscene shows Megatron annihilating one of his own underlings after being questioned on the logic of crashing his spaceship directly into Starscreams orbital station. If that doesn’t say ‘Megatron’ then I don’t know what does.

Having not played the Multiplayer much I can’t comment more than I did on the demo just yet, but the single player experience is everything and more any Transformers fan could ask for. I was happier with WFC than I was with the recent perversions to the franchise made by Michael Bay, as was a fellow Transformers fan who played the last 3 Decepticon levels with me. 3 Levels out of 10 convinced him it was better than Bay’s Transformers. Not only in terms of story, but also visually.

5/5 – I’d highly recommend this to any TF fan. Up there with Batman Arkham Asylum in terms of setting the bar for quality in licensed games.

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No thanks.

Each year control schemes on games get more complicated, and more and more combinations of buttons are being used simply because we are running out of space on the controllers as it is.

The Wii works (well, I use that term loosely) as a result of a few factors.

1. The controller still has buttons and an analogue nub
2. It has rumble
3. Nintendo has been aiming at casual motion games specifically

The inclusion of an analogue nub, and buttons help with the games not entirely suited to motion control, and add to the ones that are. The force feedback, although weak, is at least there. Fall a large distance on Monster Hunter.. Wiimote shakes. Slam a hammer into an Urugaan’s chin and you feel it.

Sony Move seems to have at least grasped the concept and adapted it to suit them. Their controller still has buttons and can attach to a nunchuck type device with… an analogue nub! I’m not sure on the details but I’d bet it has rumble too.

Then we have Natal, sorry, Kinnect (urgh! Bad name, bad name!).

Great piece of tech on paper. No buttons, no vibration, no analogue nub, not even a physical thing to hold… I see a problem here.

Firstly, at this point, anyone who actually wanted motion controls has probably gone out and bought a Wii by now. Secondly, if Natal, sorry, Kinnect (urgh! Bad name, bad name!) is going to cost the rumoured $150 as everyone suspects, you can get a Wii for that price! Just those two factors alone are a big enough problem without considering that this thing wont even apply to 90% of the games I play! How exactly will FPS games work under this? Well I’ll tell you how, on rails. Which is BS. How will platformers work with this? How will anything other than a clusterfeck of a party game that already exists on the Wii work with this thing?

So far, Wii Fit, Wii Sports, Wii Dance, Mario Kart Nintendogs have been shown… oh wait, sorry.. Kinnect Fit, Kinnect Sports, Just Dance, Joy Ride, and Kinnectimals. Looks/Sounds familiar right? Yeah…

When I get home from a long day at work, I like to relax on my couch with a game. I sometimes play for extended periods of time. The last thing I want is a BS control scheme that forces me to either be standing, or moving around to control something.

After holding Farm on the Laguna Alta map for the majority of a conquest round, the opposition sent 6 players and 1 tank and captured the base. Thanks to a lucky respawn on a still standing squad member, I managed to get two RPG shots off on the tank…

…both missed by a mile, BUT, managed to take out the remaining two walls of the farm building causing it to collapse, killing the 6 opposition players in one glorious demolition kill!

Incredible game. More to follow soon.

Clocked the Alien missions last night.

Turns out I was almost at the end when I last saved it. All I had to do was weaken the Elite Predator and harvest him to create a new species. The last cutscene for the Aliens shows the Queen dying (Part of the Marine campaign), then Number Six is captured and taken offworld. I wont spoil the full ending, but I enjoyed it and it set the game up for a sequel (please let there be a sequel!). Just the Marine campaign to finish off now.

Although the individual campaigns feel a little short, together they make up a lengthy story told from various different viewpoints. Each species has different goals and visits different areas, with the occasional crossover “Heey, I was just there as the Marine!” moments. The game is getting a lot of flak for its length but I think it works very well in this case. I can run through Portal in no time at all but it’s still one of the best games of the last decade. Likewise, Team Fortress 2 does not even have a single player mode and still has a large following.

The three AvP campaigns added up, clock in at more time than Dante’s Inferno does. People need to really think about what they say in reviews imo. Metacritic shows some low scores for the game and has reviewers claiming all sorts of guff, ranging from bad graphics (lol), to short singleplayer (see above). How 1UP can give it a D (D=Bad / F= Don’t play) I’ll never know.. They rated Dante’s Inferno higher which is 100% a God of War clone and has a shorter campaign than AvP. Go figure. Anyway, I’ll store up my bile towards “professional reviewers” for another post as I have a lot to say on this matter.

I also spent some time on the multiplayer last night. After playing the Alien campaign I had learnt a few tricks I was confident in using during the match. When I first played the demo I kept to the floor and only used right trigger to transition to walls. The way to do it is to hold left trigger, point at the surface you want to be on and hit jump. The Aliens maneuverability is unmatched by the other two species and should be taken advantage of when possible. Keeping to the ceiling gives you an edge on other aliens who will have to transition surfaces to get in range of you, whereas you can hold left trigger and range attack them from above, plus, you can catch out a lot of players who have not adjusted to checking above them yet. Ranged attacks work well to close the distance on your prey but make sure you follow with a few weak attacks. I tried ranging from roof to target and following with a heavy attack but it’s too slow to wind up and leaves you open, following with a weak attack keeps them staggered to a degree.

Still a lot to learn and get used to, but really enjoying the game so far. More to follow after I complete the Marine campaign.

Wow!

Kinda blown away by this! I had already come to terms with the fact the series was moving to the Wii, and after playing the Wii version I have been suitably impressed enough to not worry too much about it and just appreciate that we are getting the third game over here after all.

For years though, Monster Hunter Frontier has been a thorn in my side. Due to lack of access I largely put up with other subscription titles, all the while commenting how great this or that MMO would be with Rath’s flying around, how amazing MH would be in an MMO setting… all the while watching enviously as new monster after new monster was added to MH: Frontier, the Monster Hunter MMO of choice if you live in Japan or Korea.

Finally, FINALLY I can let go of the jealousy (that’s assuming this thing gets a western release – PLEEEASE let this get a western release!) and look forward to hunting Rathalos online over Xbox live!

According to the article the subscription fee for playing will be around $15 for 30 days access… and that includes the Gold Live subscription! Not a bad deal really and should help bring in gamers that would normally stay away from subscription games.

Expect to hear a lot about this as I do… either here or over at our Monster Hunter fan site www.wyvernhunt.info

Playing through the third campaign (Swamp Fever) on L4D2 last night with two other friends on Normal difficulty and all is going well… till the plantation house finale.

Starts off well. Ends with two tanks, at the same time, in the same crowded corridor, delivering swift merciless death to our team.

Next attempt. Get to the house OK again. Prime the area with gas cans this time and stock up on Boomer Bile to slow the inevitable Tank down. Tank comes and we down him. Before his pink behind can even hit the floor, yet another Tank spawns and this time a Jockey helps him ruin our attempt.

Third attempt. Much smoother. We actually hold out till the rescue arrives. Suddenly two Tanks show up again and proceed to do a tap number on our spines.

One party member leaves due to time issues and we slog on. Next attempt, we last till rescue then a really badly timed Tank/Special Infected spawn combo makes short work of us thanks partially to bad AI controlling the remaining two team mates. Next attempt we swallow our pride and take a vote to drop to Easy and complete it first try. This sticks in my throat like un-buttered crackers.

It’s ironic really. I had a post almost ready to publish about gaming losing some of the challenge  simply to attract a wider audience. How difficulty levels have been toned down and games for children now hold your hand a lot more than games in the 80′s when as a result of game design we had no saves, no continues, and in some cases only one life. When almost everything on the map could and would kill you (see Dizzy franchise). Based on last nights experience I’m not sure I can publish it now without some editing!

L4D2 (to paraphrase a favourite movie of mine) will “cook up a story and drop the four of you in a meatgrinder!”

How you get out is based on teamwork, luck, and largely how sadistic the AI Director is feeling at that point. Its a challenge that has been sorely missing from most modern games. I don’t see CoD’s endless spawn mechanic the same way. I can beat that mechanic simply by pushing forward past the spawn point cutting the event short. It might be hard to make it past that point, but once past it, the game will not decide to hammer you flat for doing so.

L4D2 will punish you. And the better you get, the more the AI Director will punish you. That is its raison d’être. Its single purpose is to destroy groups, and it does so with exceeding efficiency.

..and I love it!

How to avoid the pirating of the PC version of Modern Warfare in four easy steps:

1. Increase the price
2. Remove dedicated servers
3. Cap your servers at 9v9
4. Remove ability to kick people playing music down the mic/cheaters

This is a prime example of how to screw your community in the ass with as little effort as possible. When the PC sales tank, lets see how fast IW/Activision pull out the piracy card as the reason the game failed on PC.

I’d already decided long ago to vote on this with my wallet and wait for it to pop up in the pre-owned bin for the 360. Every day my decision gets validated more and more.

Had to talk about this a little..

Clarvalon is working on a plugin that:

prepares AGS game files in a way that is suitable for conversion to the Xna Adventure Game Engine(XAGE), in order to play them on the Xbox360 or via a web browser.  It is designed to be as straightforward as possible, so the instructions should hopefully be self-explanatory.  After copying AGS.Plugin.ExportToXAGE.dll to the AGS Editor executable directory, a new option should appear on the toolbar, ‘Export -> Prepare game for XAGE‘:

You can read more about this at the AGS forum thread, or at Clarvons blog.

As you can imagine with me starting my own AGS project, I’m very interested to see how this progresses.

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