Not quite ready…

No update today. I need a bit more time but sadly the England football team has failed to make this as topical as I would like.

Retrospective No. 45 Quantum Conundrum

Portal without the portals doesn’t sound like very much fun or indeed a proper concept for a video game at all. Just running around rooms whilst science occurs seems like a pretty dull way to spend an afternoon. Luckily I’m being terribly unfair to Quantum Conundrum, which shares many of the first person puzzler elements that made Portal a success. So it should as it also shares members of the design team that created it. With these close ties and the fact that I just won’t stop going on about Portal can Quantum Conundrum escape the shadow of its much loved predecessor?

The set up is eerily familiar to players as you are loosed upon a laboratory to navigate strange dimensional shifts aided only by a passive aggressive voice to lead you onwards. This is where the game hits its first stumbling block. The mansion should be a significantly more interesting environment than the sterile corridors of Aperture Science but it’s not. The design scheme of each
area is very samey and really strikes as a missed opportunity to create something memorable and iconic. The entire environment feels extremely dead as well making for a very lonely game as you trudge along following the commands of a body-less voice. Any characters that do appear just seem like animated scenery and add very little to the world the adventure takes place in.

If I could just stop being so shallow for a second and focus on the important things that really matter I would realise that under this slightly rough and dull exterior the game shines. The physics engine of this game is so fun and so intuitive I found myself engrossed in playing around with the game. This was not necessarily following objectives but simply having fun switching between the parallel universes and taking advantage of the hilarious effects these have on the in-game physics. Almost instantly I popped an achievement for messing around with items without meaning to just because the game is so well designed and invites experimentation. It will constantly surprise you with how it performs and stays true to Portal’s roots of allowing multiple ways to complete tasks even if one path is more obvious than all the others.

So I’ve counted and thus far I have mentioned Portal five times (including this one) and Quantum Conundrum itself only three times and that is something that will be unavoidable for anyone playing this game. In its own right Quantum Conundrum is a lot of fun and a great physics based puzzler. However, it owes so much of its existence to Portal any comparisons are going to be obvious. Had it been an expansion pack with new puzzles and tricks I don’t think anyone would have batted an eyelid it fits in so perfectly. As it is, the game feels like a slightly weaker clone, one which is still very good, but forever hindered by the comparisons with its predecessor. It even shares a wacky meme friendly theme tune. (Which also isn’t as good.) Portal without the portals didn’t sound like much fun but I was pleasantly surprised. The only problem is Quantum Conundrum (seven and five) is not quite as fun as the development team thinks it is.

Retrospective No. 44 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

I hate The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and you should too. This is a controversial statement I know but last week was just too jolly on my part and I spent too much time strolling down the middle of the road allowing 2K games to change one of my favourite franchises. So why do I hate something that has received almost universal praise? Is it because I’m a bad person? (Possibly.)Maybe it’s because I have bad taste in games? (I do like Smackdown.) Or perhaps it’s just not quite as good as all the hype would have you believe.

So why all the hate? Well it certainly isn’t the narrative which really has stood the test of time. The tale of Link’s quest to become the ‘hero of time’ and save Hyrule is one which is so epic it spans different eras within Link’s personal timeline. It is all really well put together and makes for a gripping story. This game is a great example to all developers that classic stories do not age and decline in the same way that graphics and mechanics might. Sadly, whilst it features a gripping main cast and central story, the supporting cast is practically non-existent. Wide vistas and plains generated in 3D for the first time feel lonelier than their 2D counterparts ever did. It simultaneously pulls off the trick of feeling sparsely populated while at the same time verging slightly on the small side to be truly lost in the adventure.

Whilst it may have quite a low population density you are going to end up fighting most of the creatures you bump into. The combat elements of the game play adequately but that is the extent of my praise and no more. It functions just about well enough so that you can progress in the game but offers little more. The z-targeting, was revolutionary and has been improved upon elsewhere but proves to be disorientating as the switching between control schemes proves to be problematic. This leaves the average human player with not nearly enough fingers or patience to keep their cool throughout their entire experience. When these issues are coupled with a camera which is erratic and swings around violently when selecting a target the end result is a core mechanic which deserved considerably more criticism than it received.

Of course Zelda titles aren’t all about the combat and are known for being some of the best puzzlers around. Some of the temples and dungeons are legendary in their difficulty and sense of achievement but even these are somewhat overstated. The aforementioned camera issues haunt this section of the game in a sense that feels more unfair than challenging. Muddy textures and crowded design exacerbate these problems to the point of becoming a test of patience rather than skill. This builds to a crescendo in the notorious Water Temple which is one of the most tedious and frustrating challenges in a video game ever. It is at best a trial and error fest and at worst an entirely incomprehensible waste of time featuring hours of backtracking and wandering around in circles not being sure what it is you are doing.

The thing is that actually I don’t hate Ocarina of Time all that much. I just don’t like how it is still held up to be the pinnacle of gaming excellence all these years after its release. Maybe this is because of the special status it holds as the first 3D Zelda game and possibly I’m just a bit too young to be hit by the nostalgia this game triggers in some people. At most it’s a good game with fairly obvious flaws that were even at the time were pretty clear to me. This isn’t to say that you won’t have a lot of fun with playing this game and if I’m being entirely fair parts of the game did feel very special for its era. Fifteen years on however, its flaws are amplified, the things it did well have been surpassed time and time again and it is now completely undeserving of the reverence it receives.

Retrospective No. 43 WWE 2K14

So I’m one. Thank you everyone who has taken the time to read my posts over the past year. To celebrate my one year anniversary I have decided to go right back to where it all began and the epic title which inspired this entire blog. I got the band back together and tried to relive my youth with the latest title in the WWE game series. The death of THQ (so many acronyms) means that Smackdown vs. Raw is no more. 2K games have taken up the mantle of producing the best multiplayer series in existence and the latest version of this is WWE 2K (get it?) 14.

On first impressions very little seems to have changed since the last time we played. The number of match types, many of the top superstars, the presentation style, the camera angles and the rotating soundtrack of wrestlers themes seems to have outlived THQ. Dropping straight into a fatal four way match we were very quickly up to speed, dishing out punishment as if there had never been a break. There had been a break however and within a minute it was over. A two punch combo then the 1 2 3. This was our very abrupt introduction to the new kick-out mechanic. Abandoning the button mashing of the past, the new system utilises a timing meter requiring players to show more skill to break free. So with an embarrassing lack of intuition and an appalling lack of timing, the match was done with one player running around the room declaring themselves the greatest of all time.

After this initial difficulty the benefits of the new game play mechanisms quickly became clear. The standard singles match is now a much more tense affair as you face real on-screen feedback to your performance and a sense of pressure for pin escapes that was lost in the random button mash. In fact the most successful matches are the ones that use variations on this scheme sure as the steel cage events which crank up the tension as players crawl to freedom. Where the game falls down is when other, easier to achieve forms of victory are introduced. The Royal Rumble has been totally revamped as eliminations are now also meter based. Unfortunately this mechanic is now really easy to exploit into a never ending change of eliminations. The side effect of this was for one player to produce the most dominant performance of all time eliminating 27 of 29 potential rivals to win at a canter while the rest of us sat bored watching the carnage.

Even the main event and the greatest multiplayer extravaganza known to man is not immune to the tinkering. The Money in the Bank Ladder match, the entire reason why my blog exists has been made easier. This doesn’t mean that it has been entirely ruined and some changes such as the improved collision detection mean that ladders and characters don’t just constantly collapse like Bambi on ice. It makes the climb significantly simpler as opponents actually need to interact with the ladder. The disappointment is with what awaits you at the top. Gone is the titanic struggle to find the sweet spot and release the prize. A few minor tweaks and it was down with the match only just clearing the 10 minute barrier. If it hadn’t been for a bit of deja vu and the 400 pound Mark Henry defying physics to be the man stood on top of the ladder I would have been distraught at the neutering of one of the greatest multiplayer experiences in existence.

Much has changed in the intervening years since we were engaged in epic battles for wrestling supremacy. It is hard to argue against the changes being a resounding success. Game play is tighter and less irritating while collision detection and hit boxes actually make sense now. Appearance wise it’s not the great leap forward you might hope considering the time that passed between the releases but the overall product looks more polished. Most importantly the game now feels more like the choreographed displays you might see on TV. The action is much more understandable, you get a real sense of momentum in each match. The result is a game which is more significantly fun but at the same time, less funny and couldn’t properly recreate the epic battles of our past. For all this change however, some things stay the same, and standing tall 20 feet above the ring in both past and present was the behemoth Mark Henry. This beast of a man is truly the greatest wrestler of his age and no amount of tinkering with the format will ever change this.