Category Archives: Video games

This Old Guy reviews: Frostpunk

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This Old Guy’s first video game console was a Magnavox Odyssey and his first computer an Apple IIe. Last five games purchased: Frostpunk (PC), Mortal Kombat 11 (PS4), Anthem (PC), Civ VI DLC Rising Storm (PC), Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4).

Do you like a challenge?

Frostpunk asks players to manage a city in bitterly cold conditions that only seem to get worse. You’ll need to gather scarce resources, research tech advances and make interesting decisions about how your new city will operate. How many hunters do you send into the cold? Will children be part of your workforce? Will your medics be quick to amputate limbs to save lives? Will you start a cult of personality to guarantee your continued rule?

The city building experience is aided and improved (after you’ve researched the proper tech and built a dedicated facility) by scouts who roam the frozen wasteland. Scouts will return rare resources but pose moral and practical dilemmas of their own. Do you escort refugees back to the city, costing the scouts chances to explore, or let the strangers fend for themselves?

Interesting choices, all with consequences, make for solid gameplay. But I’ve always been fond of lush graphics, too, and Frostpunk delivers on that front. In a game that demands constant monitoring of resource inputs and consumption, I found myself upgrading all instances of a particular building because the new look was too adorable to resist. The visuals when temperatures rise and fall are also fun without being obtrusive. 

No quibbles with the user interface design, with the caveat that I’ve played vaguely similar games in the past, including Sim City, Age of Empires and Caesar III, all of which rely upon roughly similar mental models for city building.

Old guy topline takeaway? Frostpunk delivers a challenging experience, framed by an apocalyptic storyline rich in detail and full of surprises. I’ve finished the main scenario (after three tries) and the Refugees scenario (on my second try.) I can’t wait to see what the Fall of Winterhome scenario has waiting for me.

This Old Guy reviews: Mortal Kombat 11

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This Old Guy’s first video game console was a Magnavox Odyssey and his first computer an Apple IIe. Last five games purchased: Mortal Kombat 11 (PS4), Anthem (PC), Civ VI DLC Rising Storm (PC), Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4), Dragon Quest XI (PS4).

Do you like fighting games?

I’m not the first person to express admiration for the tutorial system for Mortal Kombat 11, or to believe that this infamously messy franchise is left in a fun place by the close of the story mode.

Before buying, the game’s gore gave me pause, just for a second. I shouldn’t have worried. Despite amazingly realistic modeling, the designers are not trying to scare or seriously creep anyone out. The goal is the squick, the oh no they didn’t! moments. Those are in abundance. Yay?

I’m not sure if anyone called out the beautiful way the game managed the download and installation process. The file was big, but on my PS4, as chunks of code downloaded, pieces of functionality became available. The game also gave me a guess as to when other stuff would became available. Download and installation practically by definition is a miserable process, but instead of feeling impatient, I felt engaged. Magical UX design, only possible when your management, testing, creative and technology teams collaborate.

More good stuff when it comes to the game structure and the art of labeling. Of the four main menu options, the labels Kustomize and Learn are distinct and transparent; I guessed right away what kinds of content and functionality I would find. Konquer and Fight were a little less intuitive, but all the labels are supplemented by help text. Once you’ve explored the game a little, everything at this level makes plenty of sense.

I’m reserving judgement on the Krypt and the weapon/augment/upgrade dynamic until I’ve invested more hours into the game, but right now the augment drops are very rare and the overall game impact minimal. Crafting is a mortal pain in the ass, mostly because you can’t look up recipes while standing at the forge. I like all these systems in theory, but hoo boy are they grinding-intensive! The UI in this area could use help, but if you’re the kind of person interested in refining your character, you’re hooked. You’ll figure it out.

Old guy topline takeaway? Beneath the buckets of blood, the flensed torsos, extruded intestines and BRUTALITY! is a game that cares about the people playing. Once again: do you like fighting games? If you do, this old guy says the game is worth the purchase price.

Bad decisions from Bioware?

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I’m not optimistic about the future of Bioware games. I’ve been playing their titles since Baldur’s Gate, and I’ve written about my love for Anthem. But a new article from Jason Schreier over at kotaku.com suggests that there may be a conflict between EA’s demand for games as a live streaming service and players’ hopes for games that are unique and fun. Listen to the details of a game design/prototype:

The goal was to focus as much as possible on choice and consequence, with smaller areas and fewer fetch quests than Dragon Age: Inquisition. … There was an emphasis on “repeat play,” one developer said, noting that they wanted to make areas that changed over time and missions that branched in interesting ways based on your decisions, to the point where you could even get “non-standard game overs” if you followed certain paths.

That sounds like the kind of game I WANT TO PLAY RIGHT NOW! Unfortunately, EA didn’t agree; the iteration of Dragon Age described above has been junked, in favor of something that features a ‘live game service.’ I’m guessing that the EA suits dream of establishing a franchise like World of Warcraft. They aren’t likely to succeed, for a bunch of reasons.

The MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) market (of which WoW might be the best example) is saturated, and player inertia is firmly on the side of WoW, Diablo and other first movers. The MMO game model itself is well established, but ‘well established’ is another way of saying ‘predictable quest types and player experience.’

I want something innovative… maybe a LMO (Limited Multiplayer Online) experience? A game I could play alone, or with a small group of friends if they happened to be around. I can’t be the only one who finds strangers with experience-shattering names, running around on my screen, to be a detriment rather than a benefit to a game. And I can’t be the only one eager to try something different.

Abigail and Lara

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I’ve got a crush on a girl. It’s happened before, but we spent too much time together or got caught in a boring routine or something. The spark sputtered and went out. But… something’s different. We are. I’m older. She’s… younger? Yup, this is Lara Croft as I’ve never seen her (or the Tomb Raider video game franchise) before. She’s young. She’s vulnerable. She’s no longer cartoonishly top-heavy. (She even hates tombs!) The game follows her as she grows, hardens, and finds the mental focus that will allow her to be become the world’s most famous female artifact hunter.

The recent video game Far Cry 3 and this iteration of Tomb Raider have a good deal in common, including the island setting, the utility of the hero’s bow, and allusions to WWII-era Japan. Both games excel at creating an immersive on-screen world. Sneaking around in the tropics surrounded by hordes of armed opponents has never been so much fun!

But I doubt I’ll ever return to the world of Far Cry 3. That narrative for that game forces the player down a deeply unpleasant path (well, unless you happen to enjoy torturing family members) and at its conclusion provides players with a single choice with no gameplay ramifications: do you embrace being a bad guy or not?

How many people out there are going to choose the ‘I’m a bad guy’ option?

Thirty hours in, Tomb Raider has not hesitated to slop on the gore, but I haven’t been asked to use any enhanced interrogation techniques on my loved ones. I’ve watched as my character has faced challenges and in the aftermath evolved (in happy ways and otherwise.) Lara weeps, groans, and moans, but she perserveres.

Abigail Moore approves.

A Different Kind of Pioneer: Writing for Video Games

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Kotaku.com talks video game writers, and they pay some attention to the differences between writing for a novel and within the context of a larger team. I’ve had a modest bit of professional success working within the interactive field, almost always as a member of a larger team. When I set down to write WITCH I genuinely missed having art and creative directors to provide inspiration and feedback, to ask questions and tease and prod. Do I enjoy having perfect freedom? Well, yeah, sure. But I’ll trade a little bit of freedom for a better book, or movie, or video game.

A Game Without a Story…

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Kotaku.com tries to figure out what happened with the poorly-reviewed video game first-person shooter that is Aliens: Colonial Marines.

The first major problem was the game’s story: even four years after Colonial Marines was announced, nobody had locked down a final script. Narrative designers at both Gearbox and TimeGate were writing and rewriting constantly, and TimeGate had to discard entire scenes and levels because of story changes during development, according to three sources.

“For a couple months, we were just kind of guessing,” said one of those sources. “It’s really weird to work on a game when you don’t have a basic idea of how things will work.”

(Also? I had no idea there were such things as ‘narrative designers.’ Neat!)

What Comes to the Four (the PS4)

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We’ll probably pick up a Playstation 4. We delayed for a couple years on the PS3, until the price had dropped. I am not excited by what I’ve heard from Sony so far. I hope I’m proven wrong, but the addition of a ‘share’ button suggests creative lethargy. As a gamer, I don’t much care about another button. I want my gaming experience improved. Help me fool all five senses. (Yes, including smell.) Innovate with controls but never forget the technology is only as good as its ability to create engaging experiences that (to borrow from Sid Meier) offer players a series of interesting choices.

Four Hundred and Fifty Million Reasons to Soldier On

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Kotaku.com reports in on the financial success of Skyrim, the fifth Elder Scrolls game:

The press release says that they expect that the game will generate more than $450 million in global retail sales at launch. They also tell us they shipped seven million copies worldwide. Also, and stay with me here, half of the game’s “launch units” were sold in the first 48 hours and the studio says it is swamped for large reorders.

Story, setting, history, factions, characters and critters… Northern Arcadia has them all. Now, if I could just convince people to start emigrating…