Game Review

Game Review

The franchise Need For Speed has declined in reputation over the years from a mental, unrealistic racing game and tried to establish itself with the big players like Forza as a realistic, physics obeying racing experience. With less than expected results, however in 2012 the company strayed from it’s habits brought us a nice surprise in the form of Most Wanted. But not like the name suggests, what was thought to be the remake of personally my favourite game in the Need For Speed series and arguably the most successful this Most Wanted 2012 is a game in it’s own right.

The setting is the car racer friendly city of Fairheaven and begins by showing a clear similarity of the game to it’s 2005 predecessor but I guess when the do call the title of the game the same that I can’t be too optimistic about the content being entirely original.

Instead of a Blacklist of drivers though it was been renamed to the top 10 most wanted. Also within this opening scene EA introduce a new game mechanic slightly reminiscent of games like GTA where the player has the ability to switch from his current vehicle to another at places named ‘jack spots’

 these spots at first glance appear very overpowered, gesting that players can find top of the line super cars ripe for the picking from the get go, thereby voiding the usual mechanic of building your car from scrap yard and losing the emotions of self satisfaction from doing this, a game mechanic that would personally keep me hooked. Instead the game starts you off in a Aston Martin V12 Vantage and you never see yourself go lower in the car social status, it’s like you’re a billionaire with amnesia finding your misplaced cars throughout the city. However, having said this the races scale and differ depending on the make and model you choose enabling the player to choose his own path.

Another and significant difference from the 2005 version is the graphics, Fairheaven is a thing of beauty whether your roaring though the urban streets and back alleys, smashing through barriers at the beach front, or simply flying over the wreckage of planes at a scrapyard most wanted 2012 delivers a brilliant visual display. As well as this the cars are no longer 3D models, but now look very much exact to their real world counterparts and providing even the most OCD petrol head with some solace. The driving has also made a significant improvement as you might expect. The cars handle much more realistically in the corners, giving steering feedback subject to the type of ground your are driving on. The cars also interact with each other much more realistically, the super and hyper cars provide only small nudges to be thrown of course as is to be expected at speeds exceeding 200mph.

Criterion have introduced a few more new game mechanics to the need for speed arsenal, one being the new ‘easy drive’ system. As oppose to removing yourself from the driving the easy drive can be accessed at anytime –apart from save points- to find/start races, customize/upgrade your vehicle, as well as changing your vehicle, accessing the most wanted list and accessing the multiplayer options. With this new feature I found the ease of access to everything I needed very helpful, although used to the fact that I have normally paused the game to do this I would regularly find myself ploughed into a wall upon turning back to driving.

Another new mechanic is the emphasise on changing cars and customisation between races. Normally the idea would be to find a car that you have a certain affinity for and upgrade that mother until it rivals an F1 pit stop, however the races per car are limited to five specific to the car class and prove to be quite a challenge further into the game. Criterion push to keep your interactions with a single car brief, initially anyway so that the player can learn the importance of this, a seemingly impossibly most wanted race could be easily won with a different make. Similarly the upgrades won through placing in a pole position from races can be switched out between events for matching results.

One of the main advertisements for this need for speed was the social aspect, being the leader boards an other various achievements throughout the game. The idea taken from previous games in the series such as hot pursuit and improved on to not only record race times to compare, but also the new ranking system ‘speed points’ accumulated through winning races, evading police pursuits and smashing through breakable elements, as well as speeds through the speed cameras and jump distances. All in all creating a very competitive experience that when you sync up with friends can be very addictive to constantly one up them and will always bring you back for more.

In conclusion Criterion set out to make need for speed 2012 very much an open world racer that the franchise and the fans could be proud of, where the emphasise is on fast paced driving and beating your friends, and I believe they’ve cracked it.
Rating: 8/10

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-Imb_hTVmw
Multilayer:
http://www.videogamer.com/videos/need_for_speed_most_wanted_2012_multiplayer_gameplay.html

Comparing two game reviews

Comparing two game reviews.

The two reviews I have chosen illustrate two very different points of view on the same game, being ‘Dead Space 2’.

The reviews themselves are quite different presenting ideas and approaching conclusions in very different manors.

The review by Scott Jones for A.V. Club offers many ideas on the predictability of the monsters known as Necromorphs in Dead Space 2, describing them as,

 ‘primal, savage entities whose sudden appearance generated large amounts of palm sweat. In Dead Space 2, it feels as if they’ve all read a manual titled How To Be Good Necromorphs. (1. Loiter in vents. 2. Wait until Clarke is nearby. 3. Burst from vents while hooting/screaming. 4. Run directly at Clarke while waving arms. 5. Eat him if possible.) Their shock value is largely gone, and encounters with them in Dead Space 2 are pedestrian and annoying.’

He backs up his idea by explaining in depth using adjectives to give the reader a level of relatability to the argument.

However, in contrast the user review from ‘Compgamer55’ on metacritic.com offers a much less in depth and simple depiction of the game, primarily over using the word ‘good’ to emphasise his point, and offers only one insight into the game further than ‘good’ by describing the new progression system used in multiplayer to reward higher level players.

With this he marks a step in the right direction, but ultimately falls back to single words opting for just ‘creepy’ when describing the atmosphere.

As oppose to this, Scott Jones is not quite as pleased with EA’s sequel, although manages to deliver his ideas with a larger vocabulary range.

He uses sarcasm when getting his ideas across to add an element of humour and pleasure to read the review, whereas Compgamer uses a much more short, sweet and to the point approach, which is not a bad thing, in most circumstances when I’m confronted by the option of a wall of text versus a paragraph the man with the small vocabulary would win, but this could be improved to provide a much more informative response, taking elements from Scott Jones review such as the sarcasm and points illustrated in depth to achieve something that gives accurate ideas that can be understood by someone that has no prior knowledge of the game.

But, one thing that Compgamer has where Scott jones is lacking is a feeling of emotion in his review, it’s very cold and unloving, whereas his review is much more passionate about the game, where he sates, ‘Also the multiplayer is a good bit of fun!’ you can tell he has received hours of enjoyment from the purchase.

In conclusion Compgamer55’s review offers a very flat look at the game, only using simple words to describe the bits that he liked that could only be understood front a point of view after playing the game, however manages the convey a positive emotion in his short review.

Where as Scott Jones describes in depth his ideas, using personal experience to back them up in such a way that someone of no prior knowledge of the game could understand, while hinting at his feelings of annoyance and disappointment towards the sequel.

References and reviews from:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dead-space-2

http://www.avclub.com/articles/dead-space-2,50809/

Update

Term 2.
Entering into term 2 I feel much more like I've gained a footing on the course. I feel much more capable in 3ds max both in modelling and texturing. The guru project last term I believe really helped me achieve this as the side project let me make many mistakes in front of my gurus that I could be easily shown how to fixed, which in turn helped me a lot when the hand in came round and I had left most of the texturing of the building project to the last minute.
I also am enjoying 2D a lot more now that I have gotten to know the majority of the people around me I don’t’ feel pressured to make absolutely perfect work every time and can now just enjoy working and improving at my own pace.
The Christmas project I especially enjoyed, well once I had torn myself away from a certain couple of new games. I found the structured workflow that we had to go through complimented each step in turn making the whole task not feel so daunting and after a few sittings I had completed the majority with only the storyboard left.

Critical studies was a bit of a challenge at points last term to understand some of the tasks in the handbook, but luckily after a talk with mike and or a classmate I managed to grasp the ideas and complete the tasks, although I now know for future reference that blogger does support jpegs as oppose to just pasting the hyper links haha.

Video Game Journalism

Many issues face reviewers  in games journalism from different areas, be it from the general public voicing their opinions, feedback from the media and game developers, and the time they are allowed to review said games in order to meet deadlines. Kieron Gillen said that, ‘Put it like this: Games journalists are stupid because they don’t have time to think’. A modern British video games magazine is put together in 19 days, and within that time a they must research and write enough to fill all of 150 pages. The rush from magazine to magazine leaves them with little time for any serious  delve into a game, they must work with the time allowance that they have been supplied.

New games journalism is comparable to travel journalism, the writer responds to subjective experiences presented to them by the game world as well as other players. Personal experiences and anecdotes play a vital role in NGJ creating a unique story. The story is not necessarily indicative of the experience any other player will have with the game and will be unlikely to offer any objective value-judgements regarding the game's merits or failings. Instead, attention is focused on the subjective experience of the person playing the game.

My own view on this is one of less than satisfaction. The idea of providing a reader with personal anecdotes based of a subjective experience of one particular person is in no way helpful to another in the simple fact of interesting them to invest in that game, rather give them an entertaining read and leave them with a strange want for the writer to make an According to Clarkson volume equivalent, if they are any good.

I feel a ranking system based off numerical values like most magazines use now is sufficient along with the traditional game journalism to hype up a game. The numbered system from individual games allows me to compare different games I have previously played to a new one, possibly enticing me to buy this new adventure if the reviews are positive or better.

Although saying that I would quite enjoy the NGJ style if I had already completed a play through of a game only then to read it. The writing would then be more of an engagement with the reader and share experiences from the game.

There are quite a few different forms of game writing that I have found in my research, text based being the most popular and most informative providing in depth reviews both web or print based through forums, websites and magazines. Another type would be positive and negative styled reviews on the game, although most reviewers I have seen, their opinion changes between games as it should, but some reviews are constantly positive or negative in their reviewing style either for comical effect in the form of Zero Punctuation : http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation

Who uses this negative and visual style through 2D animations to almost literally rip games to shreds for hilarious end results.

On the flip side to that a review by ‘boomboxdan’:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/egrr_550_62798

Is almost sickeningly  positive about Project Gotham Racing 3 only to end up with and 8/10 which just angers the reader and is clearly displayed in the comments below.

In conclusion I think I would strongly value objectivity over subjectivity as it is much more usable to a large audience as oppose to an entertaining story in to the mind of the writer.

References from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_journalism#New_Games_Journalism

http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/assorted-essays/how-to-use-and-abuse-the-games-press-and-how-the-games-press-wants-to-use-and-abuse-you/

http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/assorted-essays/the-new-games-journalism/

Brief history of video games 2000's-Present

The 2000s showed innovation on both consoles and PCs, and an increasingly competitive market for portable game systems.

In the sixth generation of video game consoles, Sega exited the hardware market, Nintendo fell behind, Sony solidified its lead in the industry, and Microsoft developed a gaming console.

The generation opened with the launch of the Dreamcast in 1998. It was the first console to have a built-in modem for Internet support and online play.

The second release of the generation was Sony's PlayStation 2. Nintendo followed a year later with the Nintendo GameCube, their first disc-based console. 
Before the end of 2001, Microsoft Corporation, best known for its Windows operating system and its professional productivity software, entered the console market with the Xbox.

Microsoft then sold the Xbox so that they could concentrate on drawing profit from game development and publishing instead. From this in in November 2001 they released Bungie Studio's Halo: Combat Evolved instantly became the driving point of the Xbox's success.

In 2001 Grand Theft Auto III was released, popularizing open world games by using a non-linear style of game play.

In 2001 Nintendo demonstrated it’s dominance in the handheld market through the sales of the Game Boy Advance.

In the early 2000s, mobile games had gained mainstream popularity in Japan's mobile phone culture, years before the United States or Europe. By 2003, a wide variety of mobile games were available on Japanese phones, ranging from puzzle games and virtual pet titles that utilize camera phone and fingerprint scanner technologies to 3D games with PlayStation-quality graphics.

From 2004 to the present this generation opened early for handheld consoles, as Nintendo introduced their Nintendo DS and Sony premiered the PlayStation Portable within a month of each other in 2004. 

In console gaming, Microsoft stepped forward first in November 2005 with the Xbox 360, and Sony followed in 2006 with the PlayStation 3, released in Europe in March 2007.

With high definition video an undeniable hit with veteran gamers seeking immersive experiences, expectations for visuals in games along with the increasing complexity of productions resulted in a spike in the development budgets of gaming companies producing many of the launch titles for the Xbox such as: Call of duty 2 and Quake 4.

Meanwhile, Nintendo took cues from PC gaming and their own success with the Nintendo Wii, and crafted games that capitalized on the intuitive nature of motion control.

Beginning with PCs, a new trend in casual gaming began with games with limited complexity that were designed for shortened or impromptu play sessions, began to draw attention from the industry. Many were puzzle games, such as Popcap's Bejeweled and PlayFirst's Diner Dash.

In 2008, social network games began gaining mainstream popularity following the release of Happy Farm in China. This influenced the creation of many clones, one most well known being Facebook’s game Farmville. Other popular social network games include Mob Wars and Mafia Wars.

In 2009,  the industry took another leap forward with cloud gaming. These services allow the graphics rendering of the video games to be done away from the end user, and a video stream of the game to be passed to the user. OnLive allows the user to communicate with their servers where the video game rendering is taking place.

On November 4, 2010, Microsoft released Kinect in North America.  It uses a sensor and dual-camera device to track the motion of the players themselves, becoming the first motion control system capable of tracking the player in 3D space without the need for a controller.

On January 27, 2011, the PlayStation Vita was announced and then later released on December the 17th in Japan.

On March 25 2011  Nintendo released its new handheld: the successor to the Nintendo DS known as the Nintendo 3DS. The system incorporates 3D graphics using parallax barrier technology rather than glasses.

On April 25, 2011, Nintendo released a statement officially announcing a system to succeed the Wii. The new was officially introduced on June 7, 2011 with the official name Wii U.

In the past 12 years the video game industry has yet again taken massive strides in visual and technical development. With the rise and rise of console games and along with them production budgets, but also the increase in popularity of casual games, appealing to a larger audience to  the point that nearly all modern video games have difficulty settings that can be applicable to any gaming style.

References from:

http://www.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2029221,00.html

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/evolution-of-home-video-game-consoles-1967-2011/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games#Home_computer_games_.28late_1970s.E2.80.93early_1980s.29

A short visual history of video games:

http://vimeo.com/2050495

Brief video game history 1980's-1990's

The golden age of arcade video games reached its zenith in the 1980s. The age brought with it many technically innovative and genre-defining games developed and released in the first few years of the decade, including:

Action-adventure game: The Legend of Zelda (1986).

Action role-playing games: Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu (1985) is considered the first full-fledged action role-playing game.

Adventure games: Zork (1980) further popularized text adventure games in home computers.

Beat 'em up: Karateka (1984), with its pioneering rotoscoped animation, and Kung-Fu Master (1984).

Cinematic platformer: Prince of Persia (1989) was the first cinematic platformer.

Computer role-playing video games: Akalabeth (1980) was created in the same year as Rogue (1980).

Console role-playing video games: Dragon Warrior (1986), developed by Yuji Horii, was one of the earliest role-playing video games.

Fighting games: Karate Champ (1984), Data East's action game, is credited with establishing and popularizing the one-on-one fighting game genre.

Hack and slash: Golden Axe (1988).

Interactive movies: Astron Belt (1983), an early first-person shooter, was the first Laserdisc video game in development.

Platform games: Space Panic (1980). Donkey Kong (1981), an arcade game created by Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, was the first game that allowed players to jump over obstacles and across gaps, making it the first true platformer. This game also introduced Mario, an icon of the genre. Mario Bros. (1983).

Scrolling platformers: Jump Bug (1981), Alpha Denshi's platform-shooter, was the first platform game to use scrolling graphics.

Scrolling shooters: Defender (1980) established the use of side-scrolling in shoot 'em ups, offering horizontally extended levels.

Isometric platformer: Congo Bongo (1983), developed by Sega, was the first isometric platformer.

Isometric shooter: Zaxxon (1982) was the first game to use isometric projection.

Light gun shooter: The NES Zapper was the first mainstream light gun. The most successful lightgun game was Duck Hunt (1984), which came packaged with the NES.

Maze games: Pac-Man (1980) was the first game to achieve widespread popularity in mainstream culture and the first game character to be popular in his own right.

Platform-adventure games: Metroid (1986) was the earliest game to fuse platform game fundamentals.

Racing games: Turbo (1981), by Sega, was the first racing game with a third-person perspective, rear-view format.

Rail shooter: Astron Belt (1983) was an early first-person rail shooter.

Real-time strategy: Herzog Zwei (1989) is considered to be the first real-time strategy game, predating the genre-popularizing Dune II.

Run & gun shooters: Hover Attack (1984) for the Sharp X1 was an early run & gun shooter that freely scrolled in all directions and allowed the player to shoot diagonally as well as straight ahead.

Rhythm game: Dance Aerobics was released in 1987, and allowed players to create music by stepping on Nintendo'sPower Pad peripheral. It has been called the first rhythm-action game in retrospect.

Stealth games: 005 (1981), an arcade game by Sega, was the earliest example of a stealth-based game. Metal Gear (1987),

 developed by Hideo Kojima, was the first stealth game in an action-adventure framework, and became the first commercially successful stealth game.

Survival horror: Haunted House (1981) introduced elements of horror fiction into video games. Sweet Home (1989) introduced many of the modern staples of the survival horror genre. Gameplay involved battling horrifying creatures and solving puzzles. Developed by Capcom, the game would become an influence upon their later release Resident Evil (1996).

Vehicle simulation games: Battlezone (1980) used wireframe vector graphics to create the first true three-dimensional game world. Elite (1984), designed by David Braben and Ian Bell, ushered in the age of modern style 3D graphics. The game contains convincing vector worlds, full 6 degree freedom of movement, and thousands of visitable planetary systems. It is considered a pioneer of the space flight simulator game genre.

Visual novels: The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983), was the first visual novel and one of the earliest Japanese graphic adventure games.

Home Gaming Computers

Following the success of the Apple II and Commodore PET in the late 1970s, a series of cheaper and incompatible rivals emerged in the early 1980s. This batch included the Commodore VIC-20 and 64; Sinclair ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum; NEC PC-8000, PC-6001, PC-88 and PC-98; Sharp X1 and X68000; and Atari 8-bit family, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, and MSX series.

Although the industry of video games was going from  strength to strength at the end of 1983 the industry experienced losses more severe than the 1977 crash. This was the "crash" of the video game industry, as well as the bankruptcy of several companies that produced North American home computers and video game consoles from late 1983 to early 1984. It brought an end to what is considered to be the second generation of console video gaming.

In 1985, the American Video Game Console market was revived with Nintendo’s release of its 8-bit console, the Famicom, known outside Asia as Nintendo Entertainment System(NES). It was bundled with Super Mario Bros. and instantly became a success. The NES dominated the North American and the Japanese market until the rise of the next generation of consoles in the early 1990s.

The 1990s were a decade of marked innovation in video gaming. It was a decade of transition from raster graphics to 3D graphics and gave rise to several genres of video games including first-person shooter,real-time strategy, and MMO.

In 1993, Atari re-entered the home console market with the introduction of the Atari Jaguar. Also in 1993, The 3DO Company released the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer.

In 1994, three new consoles were released in Japan: the Sega Saturn, the PlayStation, and the PC-FX, the PlayStation quickly outsold all of its competitors, with the exception of the aging Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1996 Capcom released Resident Evil, the first well known survival horror game.

It was a huge success selling over 2 million copies and is considered one of the best games on the PlayStation. Another major game and console would be the Nintendo 64 (1996) and the release of Goldeneye 007 (1997)

, which is considered one of the first major first person shooter that was exclusive to a console.

Finally in 1998 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released for the Nintendo 64 and is widely considered the highest critically acclaimed game of all time.

In conclusion the ‘middle’ history of computer games was –apart from the crash of 1977-

 one of innovation and dramatic change to the industry that enabled companies to produce much more visually pleasing and complex levels within affordable home console systems that resulted in the ‘boom’ of the industry of the era and such iconic names like Playstation and Nintendo 64.

The changes in videos games in just one decade were phenomenal between the 80-90’s moving past and beyond  8 and 16bit technology to 64bit,  the first CD-ROM drives were first seen in 1988 and 3D graphics entered into mainstream hands.

Many of the features and conventions of modern game genres were also laid out within this time through games like Zelda and Goldeneye, Super Mario and Final Fantasy.

List of games consoles 1967-2011:
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/evolution-of-home-video-game-consoles-1967-2011/

References from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games#Home_computer_games_.28late_1970s.E2.80.93early_1980s.29

http://www.randomhistory.com/1-50/007game.html

Love this artist, especially the loose painterly style he uses

http://andreasrocha.deviantart.com/