Top 10 Old Games of the Year

Old games played this year? What madness is this?

This year has been a pretty busy one, I have played over 45 games and most of them didn’t come out this year. I have had a lot of catching up to do, making this one of the most grueling and difficult lists to compile. As always, one per franchise and must not have been released in 2o13.

10. FTL

An incredibly addictive strategy game, that had me spending too many hours not to include on the list.

9. The Secret of Monkey Island

Hilarious and unsurpassed, this little gem still looks good and plays great today.

8. Dragon Quest VII

Perhaps if it were a better entry in the series it might have appeared higher, but even this still manages to pack a punch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Half Life

It’s Half Life, do I really need to spell it out?

 

 

 

 

 

6. Ico

Perhaps some of the puzzles are a little easy and the platforming a little unresponsive, but this is still a hugely inspirational game, and a great complementing piece to the greater Shadow of the Colossus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Metal Gear Solid

Although a little top heavy in narrative to gameplay at times, Metal Gear Solid is not only a precursor to a brilliant run of games hence, but also is one of the best of the franchise itself.

4. Super Metroid

A great improvement, solidifying the series as a keeper and frequent go-to whenever Nintendo begins to feel the heat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Silent Hill 2

A difficult choice on where to go in the list, although a strong narrative, the horror experience is a little less focused in comparison to the first game, and so doesn’t manage to bowl over the competition.

2. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

One of the most fun Zelda games and most games, The Wind Waker proves that sometimes, a million fans can be wrong.

1. Earthbound

It comes as no surprise that this might top the list, as one of the most respected games in existence, Earthbound is one of few games that have managed to entice non-RPG gamers over due to transcending the conventional RPG design and game traditions, and somehow has still not been copied and unlike most games oversaturating the market.

If there’s one game that ought to be on your Xmas list this year, this is it.

Top 10 Old Games of the Year

Fathers and Sons

I’ve finally decided to plunge into my recommendations list, starting with the Russian novel, Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev.

At only 235 pages this is the shortest Russian novel I have read yet, the character roster is still rather large and the novel is able to cover a huge amount of ground, while still being consistent and involved.

The history of Russia at the time is important to understanding some of the key background themes that inform the characters particularly the dynamic between generations. The emancipation of the serfs was in 1861, allowing freedom to the Russian peasants, meaning that landowners were no longer necessary and authoritative figures. The novel was written a year after the emancipation however, is set a few years before in 1859.

The story follows a group of people, whose relationships are fractured, most notably, as the title suggests, of fathers and sons. A young man whose new friend is a nihilist, decide to visit the former’s father, whereupon it becomes  apparent that the father and son have become distanced in his absence.

Unlike the steady prose of other Russian writers, the novel is more like a play, in that it is divided into scenes,  with character dialogue leading the narrative, as well as there being no definable main character. The descriptions are loose, with heavy attention placed on emotive responses to such, the style reminds me of Gogol, and could easily be classed as a Realism piece.

The characters are most unusual, unlike in Dostoevsky’s work, the main characters  are not peasants or exceedingly poor, nor by any means are they aristocracy, but more like landowners. The change in perspective is evident  in that it is less damning, but also less patriotic than other work.

The novel focuses heavily on the nature of intimacy between people, whether it is morals, actions or philosophy, each character undergoes their own arc, signalling change much like the era that it is written and the shift in views and the reconciliation between characters is not wholly uplifting, and some of the messages were too politically driven, ending up with a contempt for change, despite the compromises.

Although  not as thematic and narrative-driven as Dostoevsky, Fathers and Sons is probably the most quintessential Russian novel, offering a great insight into Russian culture, while also maintaining a beauty that is immediate and fulfilling, if not as memorable. Nonetheless it is shocking that he is not popularly known alongside Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as one of Russia’s greatest writers.

Fathers and Sons

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

As a huge fan of turn-based Japanese RPGs, when Ni No Kuni was announced in the west I was the most excited I have ever been for a game, I mean, it’s made by Level 5, who helped create one of my favourite ever games on the PS2, and the story and characters are of Studio Ghibli design, the very same who brought us Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke.

Ni No Kuni is a turn-based action RPG on the PS3 and DS, however only the Playstation version has been released so far, and is published by Namco Bandai. Turn-based action games are fairly rare, Kingdom Hearts and Tales of games, being the most famous ones that spring to mind, the combat in this leans more towards the RPG side, with limited necessity for advanced movement and action mostly revolving around basic attacks and magic instead of various moves.

The game features a spell book which is used frequently throughout the game for reference, in the UK a special edition was released which features a hardback version of this book, however due to many issues involving its release, I shelved it for a while.

After release there were some rather mediocre reviews, many people who haven’t played RPGs since the 90′s were hyped for the game and most were left unsatisfied, so lets unravel some of this, in the opinion of a cynical RPG fan.

It begins with a young boy named Oliver who lives in a town called Motorville, that looks a lot like Pleasantville and undoubtedly is set in our world. However, Oliver’s life is turned upside down when his mother tragically dies leaving him all alone. Until he cries on a stuffed toy which morphs into a small creature and tells him that there is a way to save his mother, by saving another version of her in another world, namely, his world. However, the soulmate of his mother has become trapped by an evil entity known as Shadar who plagues the other world, so he must learn magic and become a great wizard if he hopes to defeat him.

The game is astoundingly beautiful, it is no doubt the greatest asset, there were minimal graphical errors and throughout it was a picture of perfection, it’s cel-shaded so it will probably look fantastic in about 10 years too. The world map is detailed however the camera is zoomed out, so the immersion is unfortunately lost on it, however, towns and dungeons are up close and personal, and creatures are featured in game instead of being random encounters which feels more believable.

Everyone knows it looks great so lets no linger on the painfully obvious.

The battle sequences are somewhat cluttered, there are lots of characters running around and lots of niggledy piggledy things to keep your eye on and to be thinking about at the same time. This can be rather difficult in boss battles when characters get in the way or you can’t focus on enemy attacks due to cast spells and maintaining your team, which you spend a lot of time doing because your allies’ AI has a death wish.

At first it is very hard to get used to but is rather fun when you have, however the lack of action does mean that it isn’t as intrinsically fun during battles as perhaps other action RPG games. The difficulty is higher than your Final Fantasy but is overall about average in other Japanese RPGs. Bosses seem to dip in difficulty while enemies wear down the MP and HP of you and your characters unnaturally fast, making the replenishment upon levelling much needed.

Tutorials in the game aren’t… well, in the game. They usually consist of text boxes which are very tempting to disappear when they pop up, which leads to you being a little clueless about how something works. At the same time, the game also gives you too much information, with all the next objectives being clearly marked on the map and a piece of text at the top telling you what you have to do, one of the game’s features, restoring people’s lost hearts is made further obvious by them telling you which emotion they are lacking, instead of letting you figure it out for yourself. There is an option to get rid of the map markers, but it’s hard to feel the desire to turn them off, knowing they are there and are default. The random characters in towns have a flashing circle identifying that they have a quest for you, this means that you end up associating villagers with either being useful or useless, so I didn’t speak to many NPCs.

The world feels rather small and the game lacks a lot of scope both in the world building and in the story, there seems to be something entirely unepic about it, and with some of the characters coming across as one dimensional the whole atmosphere is a bit stoic and rigid. The story has no real flow to it, with many characters existence being entirely pointless outside of game related things like quests or boss fights, eventually it picks up towards the end, but the ball gets dropped again leaving the ending note a little bit unfulfilling.

Ni No Kuni is a good game, the numerical values ascribed to it aren’t low, but there are many problems, mostly small which all add up to a bigger picture which is a little disappointing, where Dragon Quest dominates the video game market, so does Studio Ghibli with animé, both have the same feel to them in their respective mediums.
But this is a video game, and Studio Ghibli have made it clear that this isn’t an area they have experience in.
It doesn’t feel like an epic adventure, it just feels too… gamey.

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

A Shadow's Tale

A Shadow’s Tale, or “Lost in Shadow” if you’re from ‘Murica, is a platform game released on the Wii in 2010, by some freak occurrence this game was localised by Konami here in the UK but was originally developed by Hudson Soft, the folks behind Bomberman.

The game is simple enough in concept, you play as a shadow with seemingly no name who was stripped from his body and must climb a tower to get it back, the issue of being a soul mightn’t have been too bad but there is also a monster knocking around that can devour him, so there’s a pretty immediate incentive.

Adventure with a Spangle – A Spangle? What the shit is that? How is the average person meant to know your quirky fairy’s name?!
Complete your quest. – Well, no shit.
Why on Earth does this have these two things as part of the features?![/caption]

The gameplay involves using the shadow realm in the background of the screen to negotiate a path through the level, collecting 3 orbs in order to pass the gate at the end, it works like a puzzle platformer with tasks revolving around the unique aspect of being a shadow such as light and shadow play. There are shadow enemies which attack the boy as he makes his way through levels, which are dealt with the basic attack with the sword that he finds early in the game. The health system is rather innovative but the implementation is not too unique, the boy must collect various “memories” throughout the level in order to gain “grams” for his soul, the more weight he has the more health, these were inspired by Duncan MacGougall’s soul theory.

The extra puzzle features are some of the game’s highlights for the Shadow theme, following “Boy 1″ is a small butterfly-thing called something vaguely unmemorable, that can change the light source and skewing the shadows in order to reach different platforms, or just activating different objects to move into the correct path. Each level has a door located that takes the protagonist to an enclosed puzzle area which must be completed to pass beyond, upon completion your health is fully restored. Further into the game you can find gates which can allow you to temporarily gain a body and manipulate the physical objects instead of shadows.

The presentation is the most striking thing about the game, similar to Ico it has similar green/yellow filters and detailed realistic environments that are set in a sandstone architecture with mechanical devices. The music atmospheric and complements the art style, by being rather quiet most of the time. The boy doesn’t really have a voice and his entire character development is made through text and finding the memories he lost upon becoming a shadow. Unfortunately it is hard to get invested in a character which attempts to pull of the contemplative depth of Ico, when he speaks so much all of which revolves around “I miss my body” and “I want my body back”.

The visuals are in places well-designed and the disguising of game objects is masterfully done, however the game appears content on being a poor man’s Ico and it is obvious this was a big inspiration. The graphics are too sharp and bearing in mind the game is based upon and named after shadows, one would expect them to be the better looking part of the game, unfortunately the shadows suffer from what most games of the past generation have where the resolution is horrendous and choppy.

The puzzles are fun but rather overwhelming in a less than linear platform game, with the required three orbs to get it can become more tiresome to backtrack than it is fun. The gameplay as a shadow is controlled through the analogue stick on the remote and the activation using the fairy thing through the Wii-mote by aiming, it’s not as smooth as could be, sometimes the jumping sticks and it takes a while to move after getting up from ladders, these can cause enemies to get more hits on you and can be infuriating.

The difficulty bounces around, mostly stemmed from enemies being clumped together in too short intervals, whereas the puzzles are simple, easy and tedious, merely being a test of patience rather than skill. Over the course of the game the difficulty becomes harder and the game includes an annoying segment where you have to backtrack around the tower, however overall the experience becomes more enjoyable whether it be entertainment through attrition or becoming better in general. It takes quite a lot of enemies to kill to refill the health gauge and when the boy dies, you can either turn the game off and go back to the start of the level with nothing collected or you can continue and go back to the start of the level with what you have collected and the file now being called Boy #2. Every time you die, this number increases and you have little choice but to allow it.

Overall the game is held back by its numerous flaws of level design and gameplay management, it also goes on for too long with segments becoming tedious and all of the wonderful and interesting quirks becoming tired before being put to rest. There are many times that I wanted to just give up due to the effort being too much, or the levels becoming too boring. It takes ages before there is a change of scenery and even then it wasn’t terribly different. The game flow is mostly monotonous but is lifted by moments when you can explore something interesting or new, like the cart section. The boss fights consist of running away and was fairly fun and the end boss fight was a little long but brought some interesting concepts to the already established game design. The 3D segments handle like hell, it feels like the game was probably initially designed in 3 dimensions but was dropped for the shadow idea, unfortunately you can feel it with the strangely floaty and clunky way it controls when the boy is in the real world.

The Wii hasn’t got many good new IPs and with a distinct lack of console platfomers it is worth having a try if only for the novelty of the first few levels. It looks fairly nice and is the closest we’re going to get to another game like Ico, even if it isn’t as rewarding. A Shadow’s Tale is a game with its ups and downs but doesn’t fail to deliver an entirely new experience, making for a fairly average title that’s good to fill your time.

A Shadow's Tale

Stranger In A Strange Land

Yet again, I’m pipping at Heinlein’s novels, I’ve got a whole box of his stuff and I’m not going to let a little thing like disliking his books stop me from reading them. When I first started up this site I read Starship Troopers, which I couldn’t even finish and since then I read Methuselah’s Children and Orphans of the Sky. This time round, I decided to read his magnum opus, Stranger in a Strange Land, which won tonnes of awards and, according to the book cover is “the most famous Science-Fiction novel ever”, which I asked a number of people whether they had heard of it, all of whom replied in the negative. I’m giving him a good chance here, let it be known that I tried.

Set on Earth, the first human-occupied trip to Mars was fairly unsuccessful, all of the colonists died except a child, yielding a human orphan who is raised by Martians and taken back to Earth when a second trip lands many years later. The arrival of the martian human, Michael Valentine Smith or Valentine Michael Smith, which I wasn’t able to discern whether the text or the back cover was correct, has raised some legal problems for the government as to who now “owns” Mars, his property that is now his on Earth, as well as the issue of handling him and extracting information in order for good relations with the Martians to ensue.

The novel was initially conceived as a futuristic Jungle Book, but upon looking at the final product, it differs greatly, especially towards the end. Unlike Jungle Book’s themes of acceptance, the recurring motif is transcendental thought, keyying in themes of Culture, Philosophy and Religion.

The book mostly features a woman called Gillian as the protagonist, and was picked up a part of the feminist reading list of the time as well as widely read by hippies due to the “Free Love” element of the novel. Unfortunately by today’s standards it’s not exactly feministic - ”9 times out of 10, if a girl gets raped, it’s partly her fault”. This wonderful gem was uttered by our lady hero, it’s hard to take an idea like free love and promiscuity seriously when the author thinks that rape is nearly always the victim’s fault, more like Forced Love, mate.

The characters are fairly typical 50/60′s, in that the men joke about women’s social power, while wryly smiling aside’s of ‘knowing better’ and the women prance around the way ‘a person who has no idea what non-prissy women are like’ (AKA a regressive idiot) would conceivably write them. The one character I thought was the best was actually like this a lot, but he also echoed the similar feelings of despair and fatigue that I experienced while and because of reading this book.

The theology that is expressed throughout the book is undoubtedly well thought out and feels sincere, unlike many religions and philosophies of Sci-Fi TV shows, such as Stargate, where nothing seems feasible or remotely believable. Unfortunately sincerity doesn’t lead to compatibility and Heinlein’s beloved theology remains flawed and sour, with free love permeating the very core of the religion, when characters appear to remain homophobic and believing what can only be assumed that rape is okay because women lead it on, where does this leave the already promiscuous free people of this circle? Doesn’t every woman of the religion deserve rape then? How can one treat one sex one way and the other differently when the idea of equality and love is rule?

It fucking doesn’t that’s what. This book is another symptom of the morally fevered mind of Heinlein, it’s ideas are idealistically insecure and the undertones of racism, homophobia and sexism are repugnant. Where Starship Troopers deigned to preach how to rule, this book preaches how to love. Is there any aspect of modern living that Heinlein hasn’t barbarically attacked with his awful literature?

Unfortunately plot and holes together could be elevated by terrific writing, somewhat of a rarity in 50′s/60′s Sci0Fi world, and Stranger serves to remind us of that, by being incomprehensibly simple and lacks any kind of written interest whatsoever. No imagery, no complex plot or character arcs, repitition of themes is boring and doesn’t equal exploration and finally the dialogue and characters are flat and dull.

Stranger in a Strange Land is undoubtedly Heinlein’s best work, but that really isn’t saying much when it’s qualifying criteria was the fact that it strung together loosely as a set of events and thus was less confusing and paceless than other novels and the effort into the hypocritical religion actually felt genuine. Overall it has nothing to say about transcendental thought that other, better and more fun books like Left Hand of Darkness have done. Well you didn’t expect a positive review from me, did you?

Stranger In A Strange Land

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

This year we’ve seen a lot of remakes and reboots, as a new generation of gamers become acquainted with old series, companies are attempting to revisit and revive old franchises like Double Dragon Neon, spice them up like Devil May Cry’s DMC, or simply just remake them like the download title Duck Tales. Some of these have been alright or even good, but most, like Turtles in Time are just flat out terrible. It’s so easy to get it wrong, and we’ve been let down often, so when Nintendo announced a new Zelda game on the 3DS that would be an homage to Link to the Past on the SNES, despite the clout of Zelda, this didn’t come without a small amount of despair. Well, even if it’s merely a clone, it won’t be bad just rather samey is all. I’ve never been more glad to be wrong.

Following the same approach as Link to The Past, the camera is top down and at a slight slant which presumably gives a better 3D effect when turned on, the Link from this game appears to be based on the previous, with longer, darker hair (no pink hair unfortunately) and the same styled clothes, the art style is more chibi and the character looks younger and more happy-go-lucky. The colour scheme and style for the assets are all very similar, it’s a real nostalgia trip.

The dark world of A Link Between Worlds is called Lorule. Yageddit?[/caption]

The gameplay also replicates its predecessor, the analogue stick works surprisingly well with the 8-directional manoeuvring, however moments involving dashes can become rather frustrating when under time limits, which isn’t often. The addition of merging into walls gives more fun puzzles and doesn’t become stale in the game. Like previous titles there are a few easier, shorter dungeons before throwing you at the main ones, however, unlike any previous instalment, this is the first game to implement a rental system with the aim of sequence breaking in mind. Instead of the equipment that is gained at the end of each dungeon, they are all available early on in the game for you to rent from your acquired squatter, Ravio.

At first the game feels like Link to the Past with some more story injected into it, the music like the overworld them is just a basic updated version and some of the sound effects are the same, however after the first dungeon the overall design shows there is a little bit of spice to it, but it’s not until you have acquired the Master Sword that it truly begins to shine. The dungeons become much more satisfyingly complex without being too long, and each have their own elemental themes which make use of a piece of equipment, as well as make the dungeons look more colourful and beautiful than ever. The whole world has new and interesting puzzles in and sidequests so that everywhere you go you are not bored, as you could be finding the usual heart-pieces, collecting rupees to rent or buy the equipment or doing the Maiamai sidequest, in which you explore and collect chirping creatures dotted around the world map and for every ten there is an upgrade to a piece of equipment you own.

Link can merge into walls adding more “depth” to the gameplay.[/caption]

There is an emphasis on customisation prevalent, so that the game can be played in the order you want with the equipment you want for the most part. Every playthrough could be something fairly different depending what order you play through the dungeons acquiring different helpful items, however the game is so addictive and fun to explore that you will probably be too engrossed not to do pretty much everything.

The music incorporates the main pieces from Link to the Past but every dungeon and new character has new music, all of which are just as catchy and charming as the earlier pieces and no singular piece doesn’t fit in well with the tone of the game. There are some particularly catchy pieces like the Maiamai cave song, and like with the other features of the game, some of the music has slight changes and adaptations depending on different scenarios in the game, making it more epic or in the Maiamai music’s case, more hilarious.

The difficulty of the game is about the level of Wind Waker, it’s rather easy, I suppose that because the dungeons can be done in any order, they all had to be the same difficulty level, this isn’t as big a deal, as there is a Hero Mode that you can unlock after completing the game, where enemies are much more difficult and no longer drop hearts, meaning you would have to rely on potions.

There are very few problems with the game, a sidequest tournament doesn’t heal you before you go in and that was pretty annoying I suppose… the camera made it difficult to see some things on the wall if north-facing, but these are very minor personal problems with new additions to the game.

No pink hair…[/caption]

 

This is a game that ticks all the boxes, it has fun combat with enough new things to learn and different enemies that need to be defeated with different tactics that the fighting never becomes dull. The exploration is richly rewarded and the dungeons are good brain candy and only suffer from being slightly too short. The visuals are astounding, maintaining cuteness while staying true to an older Zelda look. The story stands on its own, and has nothing to do with Link to the Past, nor can I find any tangible link to its place in the Zelda universe. Overall the game feels like Link’s Awakening meets Link to the Past.

If you’re new to the series this a great place to start, without holding your hand it is simple to get into and not too taxing or slow-paced, but older fans will love the reminiscent style and gameplay throughout while also being able to explore a completely new experience and in ways, a much improved game from it’s ancestor, evoking similar excitement while also offering a much deeper and complex story and characters. A Link Between Worlds is a valid and essential addition to a stellar series and has as much heart as it ever has.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Madoka Magica

How do I even begin with this animé? It’s a magical girl series, that dead genre popularised in the 90′s by Sailor Moon, the show that has recently become socially acceptable for young men to admit they watched and liked it in the vie for more animé in the west. Well, “Puella Magi Madoka Magica” is an attempt to revive the genre now that moé is a thing, because we really need more of that, don’t we?

Right, so it might not have been made abundantly clear before, but I am into psychological animé and Seinen stuff, particularly from the late 80′s and am not a huge fan of either modern animé or romance or anything aimed at women really. I started watching this as it was made by the same guy who did Fate Zero, which was one of the best animé to come out in years, great things have been said about Madoka Magica, so thought I would sit in for the first episode.

Wishing for cake.[/caption]

Madoka is a young teenage girl who has a chance encounter with an injured magic creature that gives her the choice of having her greatest wish come true and then become a secret magical girl that must battle evil witches that plague humankind.

Well it all sounds a little too cutesy, I think I’ll give it a miss, I thought after watching the first episode, which was rather generic and girly.  Well I might as well watch the next episode to see her turn into the magical girl then stop watching. I think the greatest thing about the show is how misleading it all is, from the opening right until the credits, the show at first looks like a fairly standard animé aimed at young girls and possibly the same young men that watch moé, but it’s a giant misdirection, selling seinen drama and shonen action to the crowd least likely to be interested, and really killing it.

This is a show that shies away from the usual heart-wrenchingly awful exposition that cakes itself over the first few episodes of most animé and bearing in mind that this one is only 12 episodes long, you’re left either figuring that there isn’t much to tell, or that you’re going to be left confused throughout most of it. But that’s not how it is at all, think Deathnote’s ability to carefully leak out information mixed with the blasé careless attitudes of Sailor Moon.

This becomes really important in a world where Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones exist on one side of the globe and Fate Zero and Attack on Titan on the other, I have no room for terrible writing and embarrassing animé clichés, not when I am so spoilt with great stuff. Fortunately Madoka doesn’t make the mistake of sacrificing immersion for the sake of getting the show started, the entire pacing right from the go was steady and controlled, you know, apart from the bits where it drops you into utter despair and darkness that is, but you will revel in the tragedy as the colourful characters are stretched to the extreme.

The art style is very pink and soft, if someone walks in and you are watching this, bad looks from them are inevitable, somehow it feels as if the characters look less moé and chibi as it goes on, but that might be my denial manifesting onscreen. Clothing and fashion design is pretty, coordinated and suits the characters with them all having schemes and styles and none being too pervy, the focus throughout the show isn’t too sexual without looking into it too much, despite the male demographic that watch it. There are some interesting artistic designs when crafting the witches’ worlds, where everything looks like crafts and collages, some of the themes and symbolism during these segments are intriguing. Like the show, the music at first isn’t much to sniff at, but emotional themes and clever tinkering give the show it’s most finest moments aided by the powerful soundtrack, except the opening, that’s awful.

 It’s not hard to recommend this animé, like Fate Zero it represents animé as a whole well, in that one has to take the good with the bad and must remain open-minded if they want to get anything out of the experience, this show tests that, it makes an example out of your own prejudices by making a seemingly horrendous genre into a watchable and enjoyable show while remaining artistically relevant. Give it a go, you’ll be surprised.

Madoka Magica

Professor Layton Trilogy

The final Professor Layton game was released recently, marking the end of a series which has lived and sent off adieu in the space of one and a half generations of gaming or 6 years for non-gamers. It’s mighty strange for a developer to announce the end of a game, especially one so successful. It has been noted that the sixth game Professor Layton & the Azran Legacy is the last one to feature Layton as the protagonist, meaning the series will continue in some way or other.

As always I am late to the party, only recently finishing the third game and last of the first trilogy, Professor Layton and the Lost Future, so am sending off Layton in style with a review of the first trilogy!

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Of which the curious signifies oddity rather than an inquisitive village. It was released a couple of years after the DS in 2007, after the boom in puzzle and adventure games following its release, however it was the first puzzle/adventure game to use the touch screen controls in an undemanding, yet innovative way. Following the Japanese style of adventure game, like the Ace Attorney series, it incorporates an animé styled visual aesthetic and dialogue-heavy narrative.

As the first instalment, there are a number of issues present that are no longer apparent in the future games, such as the pacing issues that it suffers from, with the initial set up for the story being good, then drowning the player in puzzles for about 6 hours before anything picks up again, then throwing too much story and characters at you until you’re not sure what’s going on. Overall the game needed to spread the narrative out and become more linear, instead of dumping you in the village and leaving you to stab at the few screens over and over searching for new puzzles and how to continue the story. The presentation is pleasant and the puzzles are fun, but doesn’t give a cohesive experience and is not the best way to get into the series.

Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box

The sequel takes Professor Layton out on a bigger adventure, it’s change of direction with scenery breathes life into the series, which with only one game had already felt a little stale, the pace changes with storyline throughout and an even greater and more personal mystery unleashing, ushering Professor Layton and his protégé onto a train journey and other towns. The puzzles are even more plentiful and difficult and some of the explanations are made more understandable, giving a much more fairer game and more to do. Interesting  additions such as clues found in the manual (although not necessary, in case you lost yours!) as well as even more cutscenes and higher detailed backgrounds and environments are some of the wonderful improvements over the first game.

The overall story hasn’t got the same powerful impression of the previous, which had slightly more interesting subject material, but there is more to Pandora’s Box and the plot is much better. The old characters are more fleshed out and the new are more interesting, the adventure has a more exciting atmosphere than the gloomy and strange feeling that Curious Village evoked which ended up feeling rather depressing at the end of it all.

Pandora’s Box established a more concrete template for the series, and does for the gameplay, what Curious Village did for the story of the Layton games – shows that the series has a solid and interesting future.

Professor Layton and the Lost Future

Hailed as the best in the franchise, Layton and Luke attend a technology conference when disaster strikes! This instalment has a strong opening with lots of cutscenes, delving straight into the story, showing Professor Layton and Luke on a bus in the city of London, which despite being set in England, it has never shown before. The setting remains a strong factor throughout the game, with this being the first game to occupy different areas while also having the ability to go between freely. The plot is instantly more interesting and occupies more scope right from the go, it is a lot more fast-paced with a huge leap in a linear direction concerning puzzles.

The extras are better than before, with a sidequest of planning a car route and a platforming parrot, giving a good break between puzzles and storyline, the parrot mini-game allows you to name the parrot including swear-words such as “Wanker”, I thought this was a good addition. The puzzles are easier and there is a new feature of the super hint, just in case you really don’t get a puzzle.

It becomes noticeable in this that the games have become slightly darker with each iteration, this final one being a great example of fantastic script-writing, with some segments even managing to bring an icy tear to even my eyes, this is due to a bigger emphasis on the core characters unlike in previous games, and thus manages to be the most in-depth and engrossing in the series so far. Some of the story devices and traditions of the series are smashed in the lofty aims of the developers, creating one of the most fulfilling experiences on the system.

Although not fully able to be appreciated without the former games, The Lost Future is a fantastic game that improves in all areas upon its predecessors to become the standout title of the series and one of the DS console too.

Only time will tell if you will like the series when you start the first game, however if you made it past the first game’s hump, you will certainly love the sequels. Now, if only I could get on with the next trilogy and my hands on the Professor Layton VS Ace Attorney game then I will surely be a true gentleman… lady.

 

Professor Layton Trilogy

Moby Dick

There’s many a young person who has heard of Moby Dick, but very few know of the author, Herman Melville, and fewer still have gone on to read the classic published in 1851, now considered one of the Great American Novels.

“Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had thrown over me upon waking”

The novel is an account of a sailor’s first trip on board a whaling ship, along with his newly found friend Queequeg, a polynesian who is an experienced Harpooneer, as one can expect, racial epithets are frequently used to describe characters and in reference, however, the novel is intriguing in that the friendship between the two is shown to be very close and respectful, verging on the homo-erotic. Honestly, there really is a lot of insinuative language throughout the first segment when establishing their relationship, and some suspect situations in which the author, Ishmael allows himself.

As the novel chiefly concerns a whaling ship’s attempt to slay a ferocious Sperm Whale, the contentious issue of the ethics of whaling are a modern dilemma that was little considered during its publication. This is rather apt as recently there has been a large controversy concerning the destruction of rare and majestic animals in the news much like the plot of Moby Dick. The author is rather condemning of whaling detractors, evidenced in his frequent and dull rambles on the importance, relevance and prestige of whaling – by speaking of the beauty and majesty of whales. Yeah.

“I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him.”

“I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world.”

Melville was inspired by several real life events,  such as the sinking/destruction of the whaling ship ‘Essex’, I mention this because of this rather interesting article and also because I reside in Essex, which I think is pretty darned interesting and a good change from horrendous ‘Essex girl’ stereotypes perpetuated by reality television.

The majority of the novel is rather sleep-inducing despite the interesting literary techniques used in attempt to spice up the tedium. Most of the content concerns overly factual information, mainly not interesting either, about whales, sailing, whaling and random diatribes consisting of ill-informed opinions and other such waffle. The facts are often either outdated by scientific discovery, such as his constant reference and outright claims of the whale being a fish, or baseless suppositions, such as St. George having actually fought a whale instead of a dragon and his steed was not a horse but in fact either a seal or a seahorse.

“He pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said henceforth we were married.”

There are some notable use of theatrical language and style, sometimes and entire chapter will be written as in a play, detailing people’s actions separately to the dialogue spoken, unfortunately this acts as a dampener to the pace while also making the novel rather confusing at times, with realtime switches to reflective dialogue, bouncing back n’ forth so much that you don’t know who’s talking anymore. The atmosphere of a theatre production is pervading throughout with characters often having asides, much like soliloquies in plays and there is a lot of paranoia and moodiness with the crew.

It takes ages before anything interesting like a whale being killed happens, and when it does, the writing slackens, making the action confusing and the setup of events hard to maintain while reading. It takes about 90% of the book before Moby Dick appears, despite him being talked about throughout, also there is no characterisation of the whale,  he is merely just described as being aggressive and that’s about it.

“Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg – a cosy, loving pair.”

I am having real trouble thinking about what there is to say, the writing style and some of the imagery is amazing, however

there is a distinct lack of symbolism despite the religious themes and the few references that are directly made with regards to Jonah and the Whale. It just feels like little thought went into the background of the novel outside of gushing about the profession.

I did enjoy the book, but it’s just rather frustrating and considering the length it’s probably just not worth it. I’ve little more to say so have some more homo-erotic quotes and an artist’s (me) impression of Melville’s version of the legend of St. George and the Dragon.

“Which dragon I maintain to be a whale”
“The animal ridden by St. George might have only been a large seal, or sea-horse”[/caption]

Moby Dick

Exercising your right to vote

You oughtn’t exercise a right, merely because you have it. Nor should you engage in something for the sake of those that don’t. It would be like never blinking, because some people are blind.

Part of our freedom to vote is also our freedom not to. Pressuring people to vote in order to justify a democracy, is there anything more absurd?

I used to think differently, I thought that not voting was worse than voting for a party I disagreed with, but as I get older, I see more time where our government exhibits its own obsolescence, regardless of the party in charge.

I don’t have an answer, I’m not about to offer a solution when seemingly more intelligent people have spent decades putting this country together, even if these are the only results.

I merely say to do what you will and think for yourselves.

http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/john-bercow-russell-brand-views-destructive

Exercising your right to vote

Link's Awakening DX

In the run up to the release of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds on 3DS, I decided to play Link’s Awakening DX, not because it came free with my preorder…

The Legend of Zelda was still a young series when their first outing on a handheld, Link’s Awakening first came out in 1993. It originally started as a port of A Link to The Past on the SNES, however it became a fully fledged project when the team wanted to make a Zelda Gameboy title. The DX version was released in 1998 and contains an additional dungeon in colour and a new sidequest involving photographs.

Following in the footsteps of A Link to The Past, the game is a top-down action adventure with an emphasis on a selection of weaponry and traversing dungeons, it has been described by developers as the “quintessential isometric Zelda game”.

The overall look of the game is similar to the SNES game, although plagued by limited hardware, the visuals maintain a similar vibrant and animé appeal, with the edges looking a little rougher and designs for assets such as trees being a little simpler. It can be excused for not looking as great as possible, the console and the fact that colour was added in post-development means that the full potential isn’t yet reached visually.

From the start of the game it is clear that is a Zelda game like no other, a cutscene shows Link on a boat in a storm which strands him on a beach, he is taken by a young girl back to the village and upon awakening, discovers that he is on Koholint Island, home to the sleeping Wind Fish lying dormant on an egg atop a mountain.

The story was a departure for the series, where little to no development appeared in the characters within the world, the character dialogue is inspired chiefly by Twin Peaks, where they wanted the NPCs to appear more ‘suspicious’.

This trend continues in future games such as Ocarina and Windwaker, in fact there are many elements from this game that has heavily informed future titles, such as the various musical instruments and songs, the sidequests and the handheld instalments lack of series defining contents such as Zelda, Hyrule and the Tri-force.

The gameplay has been changed, this is mostly due to the hardware limitations of the Gameboy only having two action buttons, however the developers have used this to innovate the mechanics by making the switching of weapons and items part of the fun. Instead of having many buttons with some that are default set and others are equippable, there are two equippable buttons and the equipped items can be used in conjunction with one another.

The dungeons are plentiful, 8 in total not including the Color Dungeon, each for one of the 8 instruments needed to awaken the Wind Fish, the dungeons seem to vary in difficulty and size throughout the game, however this seems to have little impact on the pacing, which maintains a good tempo and doesn’t frustrate like Link to the Past sometimes does.

The difficulty is much higher in this game in comparison and some of the puzzles and niggledy piggledy parts of the dungeon can be ragesome, but ultimately still very compelling.

The additional quests and features such as the linear item trade quest and the river rapids are great distractions whenever the story quest becomes too much, these also mean that you have another chance to interact with characters in the world, which is one of the game’s greatest attributes.

The music is not as memorable as other Zelda titles, however it is fitting thematically with the island setting. It is rather simplistic and there are a couple of standout tracks such as Tal Tal Heights and the songs which you can play on the Ocarina like the Awakening song or Warp song are a good addition to both the soundtrack and gameplay.

In ways I prefer this to A Link to The Past, as there is a considerably more plot and nuanced characters in Link’s Awakening, and with the interesting game mechanics and the colourful and unique world there are lots of really fun things about it that make it superior to its predecessor. But the lack of grandness and adventure means that Link to The Past just about tops it. Unlike other games, it doesn’t feel like the series has been limited by the move to handhelds, with new and interesting features setting them apart and equal to other instalments.

Link’s Awakening is a worthy sequel to Link to The Past, fun and interesting elements mixed with the traditional puzzles and difficulty make the game a brave step in the right direction for handheld games and a brilliant piece of the series.

At the end of the Color Dungeon, you can choose a raiment of defence or attack, in blue or red respectively. I chose defence.[/caption]

Link's Awakening DX

Discworld: The Colour of Magic

So what is this? The world’s latest newcomer to Terry Pratchett’s world-famous Discworld series?

I suppose it is rather mind boggling that someone who loves  to read as much as I would neglect one of my favourite genres’ key series. It’s explainable, however, I just actively avoided it.

After seeing the beautiful hand-drawn covers in my Junior School’s library I was initially intrigued, there were many books there and I picked one up at random, of which I cannot recall and read the first chapter. I wasn’t impressed.

Skip forward a few years and a number of friends would tell me how much I would like it, if only I would just finish one of them, I thought perhaps I might like it now and gave another one a read. A few chapters in, I wasn’t impressed.

There was a TV adaptation called Hogfather released a few years back, I thought I would have a watch of that as it was much easier than sitting through one of his books. Guess what I made of that?

A whole 15 years after I first saw a Terry Pratchett book, and I finally decide that once and for all, I will read one of his poxy books, if only for posterity.

The first ever Discworld novel, of which there are currently 40, is The Colour of Magic, a high-fantasy comedy set on the Discworld, a flat disc suspended in space by 4 elephants on top of a giant turtle called A’tuin, of which a point is made frequently that its sex is unknown.

The novel follows an unlikely wizard who was kicked out of the Unseen University, named Rincewind, that becomes embroiled in an escort quest with a strange and naive tourist called Twoflower from the distant Counterweight continent, a place of riches and order, with him is an unusual chest made from rare Sapient pearwood and scuttles along on lots of tiny legs. Twoflower has arrived in order to experience the excitement of Ankh-Morpork, with its heroes, thieves and barbarians, all of which are not present in his home continent, and Rincewind acts as his enforced tour-guide.

After various happenings, Rincewind and Twoflower are off on various adventures in Discworld and the like.

I’ve heard before now, that one should try getting into the Discworld series with the first book, Pratchett’s ideas and concepts of Discworld were not fully cultivated to begin with leaving the book a little dry, I heard this also about Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and found that if you enjoy a thing, it doesn’t matter where you start, likewise I applied it to this.

What do I think of The Colour of Magic? Ultimately, I suppose that my thoughts are not far removed from the initial. When I read Pratchett, I thought it was awful, even upon reading this one, I found that I was not invested at all while reading the first chapter. Then, miraculously, the book picked up, things started happening, themes and plotlines were being subversed along a backdrop of witty banter, insults and majestic English cynicism.

What happened?

It takes a while for the weird and wonderful of humours such as Monty Python and Hitchhiker’s to take off the ground, whereas with these two the story is set in the normal and turns into the sublime, Pratchett’s work starts from the ground up delved into fantasy, and until the plot starts and begins to thicken, the stories initially seemed rather flat and stupid rather than the cheeky and silly for which he is known.

Needless to say the rich and vibrant world of the disc is immersive as much as it is amusing, the tale weaves between people in order to craft a humourous and visual kind of fantasy that feels at once epic and humble. Despite a tendency to overreach in fast-paced action segments the pacing is fluid and adventures don’t feel too worn down, the knowledge that this was published in 1983 quickly dispels notions of unoriginality and the influence in modern British fantasy is evident.

The main characters took a little while to grow on me, but the antagonists (of which there are many) appealed at once, offering a rare insight into workings of minor characters and the clockwork behind some of the Discworld’s political and, how may I say it… celestial machinations. It isn’t the power of Pratchett’s the language that gives us Discworld, it is the dialogue and wealth of characters that make it, winning even the critic in me over in time.

Of complaints with the book, the beginning as mentioned, lagged, giving a false start to an otherwise solid book, the plot wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was always more about the ride. A little more attention given on the overview of Discworld, or a resolution to the political story arc at the beginning would have made for a more compelling read, but there is a direct sequel to this called The Light Fantastic, which may address some of these particulars.

There are many different ways to review a book, or judge its worth, for me, this means thinking about how invested I am in a book, how much I am enjoying it and whether I counting down the pages or not.

In The Colour of Magic I found an amusing sidenote to my bookcase, it wasn’t enough to get me reaching for the next in the series, nor would I singularly recommend it to someone, but it makes some good punctuation in my outlook on fantasy. Namely, a question mark.

Discworld: The Colour of Magic

Sticks and Stones for the Xbone

Before the announcement of the Xbox One, I was willing to bet £100 that Microsoft was going to take this generation by a landslide, with increasing reliance on multimedia use in consoles and software diverse from traditionally PC based technology being hard and expensive to develop for, I expected Microsoft to make use of their multi-form corporative knowledge to develop a cheap and high spec machine that would spell the doom of the future Sony console, which like every other product of theirs would be expensive and overly specific.

But with the announcement, well, need I spell it out? Even after the ‘changes’ the console is:

• 
  

  Too expensive

  
  


• 
  

  Lower spec/inferior performance of games

  
  


• 
  

  Lack of ‘true’ exclusives

  
  


• 
  

  No killer apps/brand identity

  
  


• 
  

  Xbox Live’s lacking competitiveness to PS+ value

  
  

It’s doing better than I thought though; fans are rabidly defending it and it doesn’t seem to have gone away yet, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough to restore the faith of thousands of gamers that no longer feel that Xbox are on top of their game. It’s hard to say if they were ever on top of their game, when they entered the race, the usp of a working and game-catered online service solidified them in the games industry, but they never did well. They are currently covering losses that have been incurred and trailing them since inception. The games industry is harrowing and disastrous in business terms, as all of the popularity in hardware is fleeting. There is no science to a successful console, look at Sega. They made a decent console and almost every game that came out on the Dreamcast was killer, but they still snuffed it.

Businesses think that because the games industry has survived the Video Game crash of ’83 and the recession which has been raging since ’08 that there must be some serious money to be made, but there isn’t. It’s all small returns in the games industry, but big businesses can’t understand the short life expectancy of consoles and to a larger extent the games software themselves, let alone that every product sees a small return from their small fanbases. Not even video game companies that have been in the business for decades seem to get that either.

Microsoft are under the mistaken impression that at any minute, their money is just going to shoot up from their little videogame venture and that it just takes time to make a profit. Hey, everyone else can’t have survived if it’s this hard and un-fruitful eh? They can’t possibly conceive how hard companies like Nintendo struggle to stay afloat, despite impressive sales and consistent good quality.

How can they, when they have no idea how to make a game? Do any of the people at Xbox have any experience whatever? There are no inhouse teams at Microsoft developing games. There are only third party companies they have coaxed into submission with their wallets, they have no idea how to handle or treat their teams or properties in any respectful manner. Halo is no more a Microsoft product than Mario is. There is no true loyalty with Microsoft because they have never given anything to anyone, even the Sony have brand identity with their games, what does Microsoft have?

The Xbox One is not on my Christmas List, but neither is the PS4. I’ve only recently bought a Wii-U.

What’s the difference if I’m not buying a PS4, why go on about buying the Xbox One then?

The difference with the Xbox One is, that I don’t intend to. And it seems, that neither do most people.

Sticks and Stones for the Xbone

Earthbound - SNES

I hope I’m not too late am I?

Earthbound, known as Mother 2 in Japan, was originally released on the Super Nintendo during 1994, but made it’s way to America in ’95, it was one of the later released games like Chrono Trigger and similarly benefited from the experienced knowledge of the system. Us folks here in the UK never got to see this game and for many years, fans have had to emulate it in order to have the chance to play it, because god knows nobody could afford to buy the NA carts. But all this changed with the re-release on the Wii-U’s virtual console earlier this year, finally I’ve found the right time to play it!

Developed by Hal Laboratory and Ape, both companies that are owned by Nintendo, Earthbound characters have appeared in numerous titles such as the Smash Bros. series but the actual game is a turn-based RPG set in the modern era, which incorporates Wizardry-style battles much like Dragon Quest.

Every instalment features a different character, Earthbound begins with a young boy, called Ness, who discovers a meteorite which has landed in his hometown, he is soon whisked on an adventure which sees him explore the entire world in search for the eight sanctuaries of the world, in order to become stronger and beat an evil entity known as Giygas.

The macguffin didn’t have to be particularly interesting, in Chrono Trigger, you have the choice to finish the game whenever you like, allowing little macguffin to be had, but in Earthbound’s case, there aren’t many of titles without the use of a persistent threat that can manage to hold much interest, but each scene played out at a sanctuary feels… mystical and strangely relaxing.

Battles are fairly standard except that instead of Magic and MP, there are Psi powers and Psi points, with Ness and a few other party members being psychic. This is an interesting concept as it is a simple yet effective deviation from the usual RPG lore, this is just one of many subversions which are both refreshing and strikingly original, as it appears that no game since has made similar attempts. The HP gauge ticks down whenever the player is hit, however it is not merely a superficial alteration as when a critical hit lands, if the player is fast enough, they can avert death or huge amounts of damage by defeating the enemy quickly, this gives a fantastically stressful dynamic to the game, making it almost feel like a board game in its game mechanic sentience.

There is no overworld map and it is better for it, the game doesn’t want to feel epic in the traditional quest sense, instead the town-to-town traverse and unique characteristics manage to make each area feel memorable. Every town has various amenities which act in lieu of traditional RPG elements, such as Hospital and Hotels instead of Inns, shops/malls have ATM machines where you can withdraw the cash from the bank,that your father sends after winning battles, there are burger joints to buy health replenishing food and you can also store your items using a delivery service. It seems like every aspect of this game is made to counter all of things you’ve learnt in RPGs up until now.

The characters are fairly interesting, however lack of dialogue between them leaves all but Ness more of a fun addition to your battle party than a good plot addition. Each have good build up stories, but that alone does not make the character; little to no relationship with one another and sparse personality makes them superficially good and not much else, but the world-building and townsfolk are more than enough to make up for it, with their colourful conversations and thought provoking scripts.

Presentation, to be honest, I forget about presentation when I talk about most games, a couple of pictures and descriptive talk of plot and game design are usually what I consider enough to get the idea across without going into boring details, but to talk of this game and neglect to mention the gorgeous and elaborate presentation would be a sin.

Earthbound sports the most identifiable visual aesthetic in the 16 bit era, bright and cheery colours distinguish this RPG from all the other brown and grainy others from this generation, and being one of few games set in the modern era, it makes a big impression. Each enemy and character are carefully detailed to ensure that they all look picture-worthy, the game looks cartoon-y and with the setting being in ‘Eagleland’ the inspiration is fairly clear.

The game’s look and the main character being young, gives an impression that it is being aimed at youngsters, but the content is very mature, dealing with dark themes such as domestic abuse, corruption and death. When rated again for the Virtual Console release, the game was rated T for Teen despite the content not having changed and being previously rated the equivalent of E for Everyone. There are also more positive concepts handled in an honest way such as religion, friendship, motherhood and childhood.

This game has possibly the largest array of music in a 16bit-era title. The soundtrack is offbeat and whacky following the psychadelic style of battle backgrounds, there are many different themes for battles and non-playable characters, each track transcends its generation turning into one of the most suitable soundtracks seen in a game. The sound design overall is distinguishable lending itself to the ocean of admirable attributes to be found.

There are too many features to detail, and for the initiated RPG fan, so much attention to detail that almost every ten minutes you will be squealing with joy about some new discovery. It’s not a game for those that want to play something standard or even not mentally taxing, there are too many oddities for this to be something to recommend to everyone, but to those that are intrigued, it is a must.

This game is truly revolutionary, it breaks all of the self-imposed rules on game development, offering a new and truly unique experience nearly 20 years after its release. Some games are good for their time, but not this, this game is good for all time.

Earthbound - SNES

Finches of Mars - Brian Aldiss

There are so few of the great Sci-Fi authors that are still with us today, but prolific writer, Brian Aldiss is very much a living legend.

Despite having written over 100 books throughout his career, his works are not well known outside of the literary world, his only piece crossing over being a short story, ‘Super-Toys Last All Summer Long’, which was loosely adapted into the film AI directed by Steven Spielberg.

His latest book, is Finches of Mars, and is supposed to be his final science fiction novel, or so he claims, as he is 88 years old, this is hardly surprising, but many believe this isn’t going to be the last we see of his work, being so productive. Having not read any previous work (it doesn’t appear in book shops around here) this is the only work of his that I have any experience of.

The novel is about human colonisation of Mars, and is set in the not-too distant future. After some unsuccessful attempts to take humans to the red planet and back, the human race has finally managed to send several groups of peoples from around the world in one large but somewhat fractured campaign. 6 towers separating the people into different ethnic and racial groups are built on Mars and the novel covers the initial trials that they face, most notably, the stillborn births that all pregnant women experience since being on the planet.

Initially it’s hard to tell what the novel is trying to do, Science-Fiction serves as a platform, to explore or to educate, but this novel doesn’t fill you with the wonder of Mars or even allow you to marvel at new technology. Obviously SF is much more complex than just defining into two simple categories, but dotted or engorged with these two themes most good SF is. The problem is that at first, it’s hard to tackle the book and story, too much description and not enough clever exposition leaves one with a feeling of confusion about the lack of direction.

There really aren’t any images I could use to further illustrate this novel. So here’s an image that Curiosity took of Mars instead. Isn’t it pretty?[/caption]

Fortunately the novel picks up, the story begins to settle and the onwards approach begins to clear into more of a vague philosophical wander through the perplexes of human evolution in combination with colonisation, the loose referential nods to Darwin (from which the book derives its title) all but serve as informative framework to the plights of the colonists, but the limp characters and poor depiction of the other races leaves much to be desired, as the regressive characterisation and approach to the diversity of the planet leaves one with a depressing if not sour outlook of the future.

The depiction of Mars felt somewhat hollow, not descriptively, but that the writing wasn’t up to the task of immersion, it’s probable that this wasn’t a key aim for Aldiss, instead focussing on the human trial that is being on the red planet. Most of the plot takes place in the Sud-Am tower, whose inhabitants rarely go out, due to the hindrance of preparation and the tight security between towers. No member appears to feel the desire to explore or learn, which comes as a surprise to me, as I feel I would still be curious and inquisitive in most barren regions of Earth if I had been stuck there.

The ongoing premise is that the people on Mars need to solve the problem of stillborns if they ever wish to consider the colonisation a success, although they have been unable to find the direct cause, many experiments and unusual ‘treatments’ are given in the attempt to keep the terms going through to birth. There are a number of questions I had about the reaction to the problem. Why weren’t people very bothered? In the modern day, death during the period of childbirth is rather uncommon and shocking, not to mention incredibly distressing for all parties. In the novel, there seems to be only one psychologist in the entire building, whose traits are relatively abrasive and she is seemingly ineffectual at her job.

Small plot holes fail to ruin the aesthetic of the book, with a few interesting ideas and concepts cropping up periodically and the rather nonchalent introduction of alien life being some of the highlights. Towards the end the novel seems to lose track of some of the themes and finishes with an interesting overview which ties up the earlier parts well.

There are a number of redeeming and fun features about the book, which, although twinned with the downsides don’t equate to a great final product, certainly render it a good book and a worthy read for any enthusiastic SF readers.

Finches of Mars - Brian Aldiss

Halloween 2013 Special: Sweet Home

Sweet Home is a Japanese horror-RPG on the NES, which unfortunately never came out in the west, it is a cult favourite amongst horror fans and is well-known for being the first Survival Horror game and the inspiration for a more famous title, Resident Evil.

I first mentioned this in my History of Horror Games feature earlier on in the year, but had not yet played it, so with Halloween being this time of year, decided it would be perfect to get into the season!

Sweet Home is a game and a film that were both released in 1989, and there is little information on the internet about which came about first. Apparently the film is rather generic, but the game began some of the horror tropes in games we still see today.

It begins with a large shot of the Mamiya manor and a text about an investigation team wanting to retrieve the original owners rare and coveted fresco, the five enter the famously haunted manor and there certainly isn’t any time wasted throwing you into the fire. After entering, the ghost of Mamiya appears and traps them in the manor, leaving everyone to basically figure out their own way out.

The game is a turn-based RPG, and is interesting as each character has a unique tool, all of which have specific uses in the manor, another irritatingly unique point is that when a character dies, it is permanent. There is no way to revive characters, and you must continue the game using surrogate items in place of their unique one in order to progress.

The game is more puzzle-based than RPG and has a low encounter rate with the fighting being pretty limited mechanically.

Clue-based puzzles are often solved by finding unimportant and less macguffiny frescos, which when taken a picture of, reveal messages that help you figure out what the hell you have to do.

That’s kinda the game in a nutshell really, being confused, wandering around and trying to figure out what you do next.

Because this is a wonderfully old NES RPG, inevitably it is bloody difficult and roundabout.

To interact with objects and people you have to open up the menu and select the right things, and more often than not, you have to use the command “Look” in order to use items on objects, and not the “Item” command.

Oh boy, is this game a delight. One time, I had no idea what I had to do, so like with a lot of parts of this game, I had to look up what I needed to do, turns out I had to “Look” at something that others seemed to regard as a fountain, which really looked more like a pile of stones, then you had to… “Look” again! Why do you have to do the same command twice in order for the thing to activate? I don’t know!

After shrugging off that madness, the fountain offered you the wonderful chance to drink from its contents, which I did, because it’s a game and you always do what options let you, no matter how bizarre, so then the water turned red and some kind of ghostie appeared from it and then ridiculed me for drinking it as it’s actually blood, then prophesised that mine would join it. I recovered from laughing moments later only to discover I was then stuck again. Now what? Well as it ends up, you have to find a bucket, fill it with the blood and then go dump it on a statue. A statue which had previously given no indication it wished to have the buckets sordid contents drenching it. This little anecdote describes the experience of Sweet Home perfectly.

This is certainly not the kind of game for new RPG fans and definitely not one for horror fans unacquainted with the archaism of the NES. The very end requires certain items in order to beat the final boss, making the final section very tedious as you spend the entire time going back and forth trying to get the items together all while managing the inventory space, your party teams and futilely trying to recall where you might have left some of the items and how to make your way back.

But you don’t play this game because it’s easy, it’s the kind of game where you enjoy the atmosphere and marvel at the impressive technical achievement it was for the time. It’s still incredibly relevant, it’s not like other games and has new features not seen in modern games, such as the fresco tips and specialist items, it’s also evidence of game mechanics happening before they ever took off. All the funny quirks like the furniture in the manor attacking you, it’s a lot like modern Quick Time Events, except more chance based, these happen seemingly randomly when entering new areas.

 

The game has a vague but intriguing story, despite being on the NES, a console plagued with happy and mostly aimed at a younger demographic, this title is surprisingly dark, even by some horror game standards. It includes themes such as infanticide and suicide, corpses are strewn around the manor and you even find the decaying corpses of babies enacting the sweet slumber of death in their cots. Although not a terribly scary game, it still manages to shock when it needs to.

It’s one of the only Horror-RPGs around, so it’s always worth sticking it on and seeing how you go. It’s not everyday you get the chance to fight a cyborg man!

Halloween 2013 Special: Sweet Home

Halloween 2013: Edgar Allan Poe

It’s my favourite time of year, where the dying Autumn meets the silence of the Winter, it is All Hallow’s Eve tomorrow and where loud children will screetch and howl at your door, refusing apples and demanding money and everybody wears ridiculous clothes that are a few shades darker than ordinary clothes. It is a night of peril and… poverty. Also it’s this site’s 1st Anniversary, so, in order to celebrate these two dreadful unisonous occurrences, I am going to introduce you to the terrible, macabre world of my favourite author, Edgar Allan Poe.

Widely known for his poems and short stories concerning horror, he is an Author’s author, known to have inspired writers from the likes of Jules Verne and H.P. Lovecraft and is even the inventor of detective-fiction and lost world genres, his most popular work is The Raven, a poem about an ominous raven, but you could find that anywhere, we are here today to look at some of his other, lesser known stories.

Stories like Metzengerstein, a delightful little tale about a newly appointed duke of a long lineaged family, the Metzengersteins, whose feud he has gleefully inherited with the local rival family Berlifitzing. Upon a recent mischievous venture, the rival’s head is killed in a stable fire, shortly afterwards a mysterious black steed appears that strikes fear into the hearts of all it encounters.

This is one of the various Germanic-influenced pieces of Poe’s, of which there are a number, the story is interesting and has a sinister vibe, with little information being divulged about the character’s and experiences. Unlike Lovecraft, Poe often affects an emotive personal and physically descriptive tone to the horrors of which he speaks, whereas Lovecraft prefers to just speak of “undescribable” or “unimaginable” horrors that the narrator has seen and proceeds to go in depth about the exact kind of fear they are now feeling. Poe still manages to describe the fearful object despite much of the tale being expressed through other characters. It’s a great little piece and would make a great ghost story for children.

Edgar Allan Poe is often known as greatly contributing to the foundation of Science-Fiction as a genre, The Unparalleled Adventure of one Hans Pfall, is an example of Poe figuratively and literally pushing the boundaries of fiction. The story follows the strange happenings in Rotterdam, where a young indebted man takes to the skies in a home-made hot air balloon to escape his creditors. His aim is to reach the moon, which he believes is possible if he keeps going higher.

Obviously balloons of this kind were on a recent invention when Poe wrote the story, so the very idea of reaching space was unhindered with any solid scientific fact, however clever use of the then-current information and seemingly logical thinking offers unique and clever tale concerning journeying to space.

A rather short, relatively unknown and rather demanding piece is “Why the little Frenchman wears his hand in a sling”. Poe frequently wrote satirical stories, with many of his horror tales aimed at poking fun at tropes, groups of people or in some cases, individuals. This story is an outright comedy, and is an unusual example of phonetic writing. The entire length is written in Irish Brogue of the 19th C. It tells the story of an Irishman’s rivalry with a Frenchman for the attentions of a lady they are both amorously attempting to pursue, with hilarious consequence.

As the inventor of “Detective Fiction”, Poe’s stories of C. Auguste Dupin predate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock, and as previously mentioned in my review of A Study in Scarlet, inspires and informs Doyle’s most famous creation. The most well-known of Poe’s detective tales is ‘The Murders in Rue Morgue’, but the lesser known ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt’ is much less dated and confusing. Based on a real life crime, the novel concerns Dupin’s investigation of the murder of a girl, whose body was found dumped in a river in Paris.

Yet another accomplishment was the first ever “lost world” story, well at least the beginnings of one. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only novel Poe ever wrote, about a young man who stows away on a whaling ship and many misadventures ensue, but further talk of this novel will be for perhaps another time.

And lastly, my favourite of his short stories, The Cask of Amontillado. This was the first ever piece of adult fiction I ever read as a child and, along with the Evil Dead films, is what got me into horror in such a big way.

The tale begins at a carnival, where a vengeful Montresor leads a drunkenly disillusioned Fortunato down into a cellar under the guise of retrieving an expensive pipe of Amontillado sherry wine.

The piece was written from the viewpoint of the perpetrator and is notable as being a literary attack on a writer at the time with whom Poe was having a public feud.

I love this story, its incredibly dark and the foreboding Montresor bounces fantastically off Fortunato and his jovial mood, making the story wonderfully twisted. As a child I had never seen anything which so straightly portrayed an obvious bad guy as the protagonist, however the complexity of some of the story meant it wasn’t for a while that I could enjoy it fully.

Whatever your terrible fantasy, there’s something here for your diabolic needs this Halloween, so stop browsing yet another cthulhu-based card game and set your sights on the macabre, and somewhat more imaginable world of Edgar Allan Poe…

Halloween 2013: Edgar Allan Poe

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies

Finally fans get to see the return of our beloved Phoenix Wright, the defence lawyer who featured in the first three games of the Ace Attorney series, who took a bit of a backseat with the DS instalment, Apollo Justice. It’s been a long wait for the latest Ace Attorney game, I have been highly anticipating this next release on the Nintendo 3DS, especially after I got to try out a 45 minute demo at Hyper Japan 2013 earlier this year.

The Ace Attorney series debuted in Japan on the Gameboy Advance back in 2001, but didn’t reach our shores until the remakes on DS were localised and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was released in 2005. It was an unexpected success for Capcom, the conservative party of bullshit, and they decided that they would release the rest, Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations, with similar positive reception. The game is a typical visual novel styled Adventure game, set in two segments, the courtroom appearances and the investigations. After a change of protagonist, Apollo Justice was released on the DS set seven years after the events of Trials & Tribulations and Phoenix Wright has retired as a lawyer.

With Ace Attorney’s focus on the new crossover game with Level 5′s Professor Layton, I thought we wouldn’t be seeing more from my favourite lawyer, but then Gyakuten Saiban 5 (Turnabout Trial 5, the Japanese name of Ace Attorney) was announced. Unfortunately, the lacklustre sales of a spinoff Ace Attorney game and the refusal to release its sequel has meant that Capcom have essentially lost faith in the series in the west, so for the first time ever, Ace Attorney is going to be a digital release only here.

For the first time in the series, there are animé cutscenes – Ace Attorney is looking better than ever.

Dual Destinies sees Nick return to practising law after the events of Apollo Justice and has a new assistant lawyer to boot. Athena Cykes has recently passed the bar and is starting at Phoenix Wright’s law firm Wright Anything Agency. Apollo also features in the game, making a return to the Trials & Tribulations style of multiple protagonists. It has a number of new features to boast, apart from being in 3D, Athena brings her ‘Mood Matrix’ to the table which allows you to judge the emotions of a witness during their testimony. This is fairly similar to the also returning ability of Apollo’s from the previous game, slowing down time to ‘perceive’ the nervous sleights of characters, and like Athena’s, allows you to hone in on specific sentences during cross examinations.

With three characters to play as in the game, you’d be surprised to find that it hasn’t cramped the game’s style and pacing, you can’t change between them at will, each is assigned his/her own case, all of which are as airtight as usual and the new characters are just as exuberant and odd as before, the new features have given a fun change to the game mechanics,  this mostly feels like a fresh update to slightly dated gameplay, but it comes with a risk of trivialising some of the important characters in the game. It’s a little ludicrous the amount of semi-supernatural occurrences with almost everyone having a gift of their own, perhaps the designers felt that the characters wouldn’t be interesting or serve the gameplay without special powers, but the game would have done nicely without the plot clutter.

Something for all the ladies…

Things have taken a darker turn in this instalment, with more sinister emotional conflicts with key characters as well as the cutscenes offering up a grimmer depiction of the murders involved. Courtroom sections feel much the same especially as there are no animated cutscenes, however the investigative sections are peppered with them as well as the enjoyable approach to the 3-Dimensional crime scenes which you can change your perspective of. You can also check notes in order to keep on track with progress. The criminals are just as guessable as ever though, but it’s still fun to see how each one manages to inevitably implicate themselves with their own testimony. It makes me wonder whether criminals in the Ace Attorney world wouldn’t just always get away with it if only they just didn’t testify! The translation has undergone a somewhat different tone than previously, with more colloquial terms and phrases being used, but ultimately works well.

Music has become less bit-inspired and more orchestral, much like the Miles Edgeworth Investigations series, it is somewhat less catchy possibly due to this, but it is interesting to hear new versions of older songs in the new format. Sound effects are much the same as in previous games, but the courtroom exclamations are now different as this game has some limited voice acting during cutscenes. The voice acting is not particularly great, but that’s not a bad thing as it fits the tone of the game. People sound different to how I expected and are pretty cheesy, the only negative is that there is now a bit of a Professor Layton-ey vibe about it.

The biggest departure is the presentation, the upgrade in the console and the 3D emphasis have allowed the series to make some relatively superficial adjustments in terms of visuals. Now there are semi-3D models in the stead of the old 2D sprites, which still retain the animé aesthetic. For those with the fortune of being able to experience 3D fully, it isn’t eye-popping as other titles on the 3DS, but as someone who is stereoscopically impaired, I thought that it was the closest I ever got to seeing 3D, so is therefore, good. The game looks good, even with nostalgic, retro goggles on, the animations are true to the original and everything feels consistent with other games in the series, the only issue being some between screen dissonance with some of the moving objects not looking quite so crisp on the upper screen.

Progressively a much more mature approach to Ace Attorney games, amusingly offset with the signature ridiculousness and endearing characters that we all love from the series, which isn’t showing any signs of slowing down; Dual Destinies does much to improve the mechanics and be more welcoming to newbies, while also giving fans the Phoenix Wright we deserve. Anyone who has followed thus far won’t be disappointed.
We can only hope Capcom does the right thing and gives us our currently untranslated Ace Attorney Investigations 2 we’ve been waiting for in the wake of this stunning and immersive adventure.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies