Author Archives: Gamejunkienz

About Gamejunkienz

Up until August this year I was the editor of The Press newspaper's The Box tech and TV tabloid. Now, I'm a freelance gaming and technology writer, writing here and for the Media Design School's blog, Pick and Shovel. This is where you'll find my ramblings and mumblings.

Tearaway preview: where paper replaces sack cloth

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2013-11-08-135040Tearaway, the new game from Little Big Planet creator Media Molecule, is a game that made me smile.

My biggest smile came as Iota, the cutesy lead character in PS Vita game Tearaway that has a head that looks like an envelope (you can also play as a female character called Aoti, if you want), was riding on the back of a pig – that I was controlling – as it ran riot through the game’s brightly coloured world, a world made entirely out of paper and cardboard.

At the end of the piggy rampage, the pig spotted a female pig and the pair trotted off to a barn, a giant question mark hanging over Iota’s head. Tearaway is a game that will make you smile till your face hurts. Earlier, I’d had to make the pig cuter for its owner, attaching a false moustache to his piggy lips (do pigs have lips?)  I took all the photos in this write-up using my Vita’s image capture function but in hindsight, I wish I’d taken a screenshot of the pig.

Tearaway is a game where your face – yes, the face of the player – plays a starring role, captured by the Vita’s front-facing camera and pasted on the game world’s sun (there’s a photo here where you can see my ugly mug staring out), elevating you to the lofty heights of a god that the world’s inhabitants revere. You’re referred through out the game as “You”.

It’s a game where you use your fingers (and the rear touch pad) to punch through things to move obstacles, pull open ribbons on presents and beat drum skin-laden bounce pads that propel the game’s star, Iota to higher levels. It’s a game where you’ll use your fingertips to open presents and trap doors.

2013-11-08-135000Tearaway is a delight of a game that takes the magic developer Media Molecule crafted into Little Big Planet and plasters it liberally in a world with dancing apple cores made out of paper open and close when you approach, squirrels throw acorns at each other and paper plants unfurl their leaves when you walk through them.  It’s magical.

Iota is a messenger sent to safe the world from an unknown evil and as Iota explores, the world comes to live.  When he stands on a bounce pad (it looks like a drum skill), tapping on the Vita’s rear touch pad, propels him into the air, landing on platforms above. Bridges made out of green paper unfurl as he approaches them, carnival music blaring in the background. Paper plants pop up as he walks by, and concentric circles radiate from his feet as he walks through a stream, made out of paper.

It’s a platformer at heart, with Iota/Aoti jumping and rolling about the game world but the fact that you have to use your fingers to manipulate the game world for your character to progress is just genius. There’s combat, but it’s basic, basic stuff where you roll into enemies (Iota/Aoti can turn into an orb) called scraps, knocking them senseless, then pick them up and toss them.

I could wax lyrical about Tearaway for much, much longer but I won’t. I’ll stop here but it’s been one of the most enjoyable handheld gaming experiences I’ve had in a long, long time.

It’s games like Tearaway that make it worth owning a PS Vita, a fantastic handheld console – with an amazing screen – that has been neglected for too long by Sony, but it seems that with this year’s Killzone Mercenary and now Tearaway,  Sony are actually giving the love back to its handheld. Tearaway creates the same kind of magic that LittleBigPlanet did and for my money, Media Molecule have another hit on its hand.

Right, enough waffling: I’m off to guide Iota on his next quest. I wonder what wonders will unfold before my eyes?

Tearaway is out on PS Vita on November 22.

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Sorry about this: Oh, look it's my ugly mug staring back at me (and now, staring back at you).

Sorry about this: Oh, look it’s my ugly mug staring back at me (and now, staring back at you).

Creep, creep, creep, stab, stab, stab: Assassin’s Creed IV impressions

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1362401647-1-noscaleUpdate: I’m about 28 per cent through ACIV Black Flag and just gave up on perhaps one of the most frustrating chase missions I’ve ever endured in a game. After about 12 attempts, and a few swear words, I gave up and turned off the console.

Without spoiling anything, Kenway has to track a ship through a swampy marshland then follow a rowboat – he’s on foot – until he’s spotted eavesdropping on a conversation then has to chase a British captain. It seems as soon as the chase starts, Kenway was reluctant to actually run and it took a few metres for him to wake up and start running: what follows is a chase that seems destined to fail as Kenway is hampered by  all matter of objects (paths blocked by collapsed rubble, guards, explosions) in his quest to chase down a captain. I just about reached captain, but he apparently got to his destination, desyncronising the mission. 

The mission was just frustrating, to be honest, and there’s no need for frustrations like this. On a more positive note, earlier in the game I found a diving bell, which meant I could now dive the various shipwrecks I’d come across previously and not been able to do anything. You can also hide from sharks in seaweed. I don’t think you can punch them, though.

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There are lots of things to climb in Assassin’s Creed IV: bell towers, windmills, British troop fortifications, Mayan outcrops, big trees.

I like climbing things in Assassin’s Creed games. It’s probably one of my most favourite things to do.

Whenever I arrived at a new location in the game – it’s a pretty big game world so there are lots of locations to explore –  I pull up the map, set the marker to the nearest syncronisation point and head for it. I’ll then climb to the top of the building/bell tower/mayan temple and look out, often taking in the breathtaking view that stretches out below me, before free-falling into a conveniently placed pile of hay.

For me, Assassin’s Creed IV is an infinitely better game than its predecessor, and much of that is due to the game’s main character, pirate Edward Kenway, who is a billion times more interesting than Connor from AC3. I also wasn’t that taken with the American setting of AC3. It just seemed a tad uninspiring. I felt Connor had little personality and I think part of the charm and appeal of Kenway for me is that he’s a pirate: That’s always good for fun times but he’s also a bit of a scoundrel, a man who is prepared to step outside the bounds of the law to the get the job. He’s an interesting character.

As I write this, I’ve completed about 21 per cent of the ACIV so far, but I’m not sure whether that’s 21% of the entire game or just of the game world. Most of the game is set in the Carribean and most of it seems open from the start. I’ve only come across a couple of points where the game has told me that a particular area wasn’t available yet.

I have to say, though, I found the opening couple of hours pretty uninspiring but I’m glad I’ve stuck it out. Once you leave the rather restrictive location of Havana there’s a huge and varied game world to explore, with much of it taking part on the open seas with you captaining the Jackdaw, Kenway’s ship, which you can upgrade by attacking merchant ships and looting warehouses stationed at British bases.

There are a lot of things to do in ACIV, outside the main story missions. I mean, we’ve got the return of the rather routine “catch the courier” stuff and collect things like sea shanties and animus fragments but there are also treasure maps to collect and mayan puzzles to solve. There’s also things like harpooning whales and sharks, which fits in with the time period, but I hunted one bull shark for curiosity’s sake then didn’t bother doing it again. Besides, you can become a pretty good pirate without wiping out the whales (Interestingly, a several points the game told me that I was the most profitable pirate out of all my Xbox Live friends, but that could be because not many of them are playing ACIV.)

The free-running seems more fluid this time around, although every now and then Kenway will come across a wall that for some reason isn’t climbable (although a similar one nearby is) or get stuck in a corner because I guided him the wrong way, but it happens a lot less than it did in other AC games but I’m surprised at the inclusion of one what I like to call insta-fail mission where guide Kenway through a jungle avoiding what seemed like the 2 million assassins patrolling the place. Well, it seemed like 2 million assassins were there. It was one of those mission that whenever you were spotted that was it and you had to restart at the last checkpoint. I made it through, eventually, but I did yell at my TV a few times during that mission.

AssassinsCreedBF_THUMBThings I like doing in ACIV: Whistling at a guard (not in a sexual way) to catch his attention then stabbing him when he gets too close and pulling him into the undergrowth, hiding the body. It’s funny, though, when you knock a guard out and they writhe around and moan, and a nearby guard doesn’t hear a thing! (Video games, eh?); Taking on a ship more heavily armed and stronger than the Jackdaw – and coming out victorious!; Firing a berserk dart at a soldier and watching him fight other guards near him. Things I don’t like in ACIV:  Those eavesdrop missions; trying to attract one guard’s attention but inadvertently attracting the attention of two, meaning they spot you; insta-fail missions with 2 million patrolling assassins.

The time spent on the high seas is great fun and the sea battles are a blast but it pays to spend money early on upgrading the Jackdaw’s cannons and hull strength. As the game progresses many of the missions take place in British gunship and frigate-infested waters, and against  mortar-fortified bases, and a strong and powerful ship will get you through with less damage.

ACIV is also a game within a game, if you will, as the Kenway storyline is part of a TV series produced by Abstergo Entertainment (remember the Abstergo agents in the other AC games that were hunting Desmond Miles), which you, the player, work for. It’s a little confusing at times.

All and all, I’m enjoying my time with Assassin’s Creed IV. I shares a lot of DNA with the previous games but it seems Ubisoft have listened to many of the complaints with previous installments and done its best to remedy those. That said, whether I have the fortitude and stamina to visit every single location and collect every single collectible is another thing (for example, I can’t be bothered chasing the flying shanty fragments). Some missions require a little grinding, too, like one which needed a much tougher Jackdaw than I had so I had to plunder a few more ships and warehouses to get enough stuff to upgrade her hull and armaments.

ACIV is a much better game than AC3, which had a boring lead character and I just didn’t find fun, but I wonder how much life is left in the series? This is about the sixth full console AC game and there’s only so much assassinating, collecting and free-running you can do until the formula starts getting real tired. The AC series might be nearing that point now.

Time to be afraid of the dark: Batman Arkham Origins impressions

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batman-arkham-origins-4Watching my teenage son play Batman Arkham Origins is an interesting study in how emotion comes to the fore while playing a video game..

One moment he’s smiling with glee as floats across a snowy Gotham city before glide kicking an unaware thug into a snow drift and acrobatically taking out the handful of thugs that have surrounded him, the next he’s cursing because his rapid pressing of the “b” button to stun a boss hasn’t worked and his Batman is slammed to the ground, knocking his health for a six.

The swing of emotion is quite fascinating to see: the highs of happiness when something has gone according to plan, the lows of frustration when a button press doesn’t do what it’s supposed to when it’s supposed to.

For me, Batman Arkham Origins is like that much of the way through.  I hit moments when I’m genuinely enthralled and captured by the story telling then completely frustrated. Generally the frustrated part is during the boss fights with the assassin’s that descend upon Gotham City, lured by the $50 million bounty on Batman’s head. DC characters that make an appearance include Copperhead, Shiva, Bane, Deathstroke, Firefly, Black Mask and The Joker. It’s Christmas Eve, too, so the city is in lockdown and quiet.

I’m confused as to why it’s called Origins, though, as the game stars a Batman who has been on the prowl for a couple of years so it’s not really an origin story where he’s a Bruce Wayne just coming to grips with the responsibility of being a masked vigilante. He’s already confident with his skills and knows what he’s capable of.

Batman Arkham Origins owes a gratitude of debt to Rocksteady’s Batman games. A gratitude of debt that should be accompanied by a large chocolate cake, a few sacks of nice wine and a signed “Thank you” note. Batman Arkham Origins sits firmly on the foundations established by Rocksteady and doesn’t stray far from the formula.

Perhaps that was to be expected, though: I guess new studio WB Montreal wasn’t going to reinvent the wheel when it came to the lucrative Batman franchise, but by deviating little from the tried and true means that Origins is a good game without being a spectacular one.

Visually, it looks little different from the other two Batman games, and Troy Baker does a great job channeling Mark Hamill’s Joker. It’s a pity that Kevin Conroy wasn’t bought back to voice the dark knight, although it must be said that the new voice of Batman does a sterling job in presenting a younger Batman (he even seems to imitate distinctive growl at times).

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The smooth combat from Rocksteady’s Batman games returns, and it’s just as good here. I’ve always loved the free-flowing melee combat of Rocksteady’s Batman, granting the Dark Knight almost ballet-like poise and grace as he jumps from foe to foe, handing out vengeance and justice.

Although, at first, it seemed as if my Batman beat-’em up skills had left me since as I initially had trouble defeating even the first boss Killer Croc. I soon got my groove back, but for me, the boss battles had no consistency:  The fight against Slade WIlson, aka Deathstroke in the bowels of a derelict ship was a lesson in frustration punctuated by swear words and numerous restarts, while the fight against Copperhead was ridiculously easy.

There’s a strong sense of deja vu with Arkham Origins but it does try to tweak somethings a little (scanning for evidence is handled differently now, although it holds your hand a little) and some of the gadgets, like a pair of gloves that can electocute enemies, are genuinely great fun.

Overall, Batman Arkham Origins is a solid game that plays it a little safe. Perhaps that was the idea, though: that it was designed as a tester to see whether WB Montreal, which made the Wii U version of Batman Arkham City, could take the reins of a new game itself and make something of it.

Well, the studio has shown that it can, but now it’s time for WB Montreal to show that it can deliver a fresh, innovative Batman experience (I’m sure more Batman games are planned) that will come out from behind the shadows of  Rocksteady and stand on its own two bat boot-clad feet.

Footnote: There’s an interesting scene in the game’s closing credits featuring Deathstroke, that could hint as to what direction WB  – or perhaps Rocksteady – are taking the series. No doubt we’ll know soon enough.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut trailer

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Deus Ex Human Revolution was a game that I loved, apart from the boss fights, that is.

The boss fights were completely out of character compared with the rest of the game, and we all know why: The boss battles were outsourced to another developer.

Now, SquareEnix, DXHR’s publisher, is making amends with the Director’s Cut edition, which promises to offer better graphics, includes the enjoyable Missing Link DLC (which makes more sense being incorporated into the main game rather than making you play it once you’d finished the story) and improved boss battles which let you complete them the way you want, rather than be forced to face off against other augmented characters front on. If you want to hack your way through it, you can. If you want to take them out all-guns blazing, you can, it seems.

You can find more information about The DIrector’s Cut here but nicely, SquiareEnix has a number of ways you can buy the new game: if you don’t own Human Revolution at all, it’ll cost you  £12.99/€19.99/$US19.99; if you own the game but no DLC it’ll set you back £6.99/€7.99/$9.99; if you own the game and the Missing Link DLC it’ll cost you £3.49/€3.99/$4.99. Seems pretty good value, actually, although I’m not sure how much that is in New Zealand dollars (less than $10 perhaps if you own the game and Missing Link DLC?)

I’ve already got the game on Steam (PC) and Xbox 360 so think I’ll “augment” my Steam version and have another crack.

Battlefield 4 vs Call of Duty Ghosts

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The launch trailers are out: both have explosions, one has naughty sweary words, one has a sound track of Eminem. Which one is going to win the war? Personally, I’m putting my money on Battlefield 4: I just think it looks better.

What do I know, though?

Batman Arkham Origins: 17 minutes of footage

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Warner Brothers have sent across a developer video showing 17 minutes of footage from the upcoming Batman Arkham Origins, which comes out, I think, this Friday.

Here’s what WB has to say about this, the third game in its Batman franchise. “Taking place before the rise of Gotham City’s most dangerous criminals, the game showcases a young and unrefined Batman as he faces a defining moment in his early career as a crime fighter that sets his path to becoming the Dark Knight. As the story unfolds, players will meet many important characters for the first time and forge key relationships.”

To be honest, Arkham Origins has a lot to live up to. Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were two of my most favoured games  and I know that while the core mechanics won’t be changed by developer WB Montreal (I’m a little disappointed that Rocksteady hasn’t done this game), I’m hoping there’s actually new mechanics that will make this game stand out from the previous two.

Batman Arkham Origins is going to go one of two ways: It’ll either deliver a compelling experience that builds on what the other two games have established or it’ll be lost in mediocrity,  despertae to move from the shadow Rocksteady’s previous Batman games created.

Watch the footage and decide for yourself.

Watch Dogs delayed: I have some theories

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Wait a little longer: You'll have to wait until next year to play Ubisoft's Watch Dogs.

Wait a little longer: You’ll have to wait until next year to play Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs.

Watch Dogs, from Ubisoft, was a game I was looking forward to, so I was disappointed when Ubi announced the other day that it had been delayed until 2014.

Here’s the official line from the company: “Our ambition from the start with Watch_Dogs has been to deliver something that embodies what we wanted to see in the next-generation of gaming. It is with this in mind that we’ve made the tough decision to delay the release until Autumn 2014.

“We know a lot of you are probably wondering ‘why now?’ We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune every detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you. We thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the way you respond on the web, at events, press conferences and during other opportunities we have to interact. Your passion is what drives us.

“We can’t wait to see you in Chicago next Spring. We are confident you’ll love this game as much as we love working on it.”

I’m all for games being delayed if it’s going to give a better game – I think we all are – but is the delay of Watch Dogs really because Ubisoft wants “extra time to polish and fine tune every detail” or is it because Ubisoft was fearful that Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, which is releasing on October 29,  almost a month before Watch Dogs, would have taken sales away from Watch Dogs, a new and untested IP.  It’s a theory, anyway.

Watch-Dogs-Splash-Image

And here’s a conspiracy theory that I’m going to throw into the mix: Could the real reason for Watch Dogs being delayed be because Ubisoft aren’t happy with the state of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version – and will eventually announce that the game will only come out on PC and next-generation consoles, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

I mean, it could happen, right? I saw some video comparisons of current generation Watch Dogs versus next-generation Watch Dogs and the current generation visuals looked poor when put alongside their next-generation brothers.  Will Ubisoft eventually make a surprise announcement that Watch Dogs is next-generation console and PC only?

I’m not worried about the console versions, anyway, I was going to buy it on PC anyway but one upside with the delay is that I now have a little longer before I’m forced to upgrade to Windows 8 from WIndows 7.

[Although, I may have to upgrade to Windows 8 sooner than expected as I’m expecting a review copy of Battlefield 4 and I believe that it runs better under Win 8. Oh, well.]

 

What’s been happening in my little world

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I know this is supposed to be a gaming-centred blog – and I will mention some gaming somewhere – but I thought I’d update you on how things are in my world at the moment.

Despite being unemployed for the past five weeks (did I tell you that I took voluntary redundancy from my newspaper employer after they restructured our department and “disestablished” my job?), I’ve actually been darn busy lately so sorry for the lack of blogs over the past few weeks.

I’ve been riding my bike quite a bit – two two hour rides in three days this week – and playing a bit of Grand Theft Auto V, as well as doing some freelance work for gaming blog NZ Gamer (which you can find here). And in something that’s completely out of character for me, I emailed off my CV to Snap, an internet service provider in Christchurch asking if they had any work going as a communications or social media specialist.

I wasn’t expecting a response but, luckily for me, Snap’s GM of retail got back to me and he offered me three weeks of contract to generate new content for the company’s new-look website.  So for three weeks, I was gainfully employed, arriving at Snap’s offices at 8.30am Monday to Friday, leaving about 5pm. It made me feel like I was part of the employed again.  I absolutely loved the work and the Snap crowd are a great bunch of people but it was only temporary contract work

Since Monday I’ve been re-evaluating where I want to go with my life – and after getting another job application rejection letter: I’ve applied for so many jobs both in NZ and in Australia that I’ve lost count  – I’ve decided that I might look at re-training, but as what, I’m not sure.

I’ve thought about maybe doing an adult apprenticeship as an electrician, or some form of tertiary training, but I’m actually contemplating heading back to “school” next year and doing a Diploma in either Web Design or Software Engineering and Design. As a tech journalist I’ve always enjoyed the technical aspect of gaming and app making so perhaps this is where my future lies.

Of course, I’m not sure whether we can survive on one wage so if I were to do full-time study again, I’d have to find some part-time work to supplement. It’s worth thinking about, though.

In terms of gaming, I was going to post some thoughts on David Cage’s PlayStation 3 game Beyond Two Souls – my daughter asked me while I was playing it: “Are you playing a game or watching a movie?,” she said. “There’s too much movie and not enough game” – but after spending literally hours on deciding what to write about it for this blog, I decided I’d just link to something I wrote for the Media Design School in Auckland’s gaming-centric blog, the Pick & Shovel. Have a read & let me know what you think about the game.

Would you like to fly in my beautiful, my beautiful ... blimp?

Would you like to fly in my beautiful, my beautiful … blimp?

I’ve played a fair bit of GTAV lately but I’m starting to feel a little “burned out” now and might just leave it for a few days, recharge my GTAV batteries. I actually spent most of the last couple of sessions driving cars or motorcycles up mountain tops and the driving them down again. I also ordered a blimp and drove (can you drive a blimp?) it as high as I could then parachuted out. That was pretty great.

I’ll come back to it in a couple of days. Maybe I’ll feel like playing it then.

I promise the blog will be back to normal in the next post.

 

GTAV: it’s not always about the story missions

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It was the perfect afternoon for a drive.

I turned the convertible from the wide-laned freeway onto a mountain road, headed back towards the suburbs of Los Santos, the Pacific Ocean glistening to my right. Not a cloud in the clear, blue sky. Phil Collins, I think, was playing on the radio. It was the perfect day. Serene and calm.

I spotted what looked like a cyclist up a head, dancing on the pedals of his road bike, his body gently rocking from side to side as he made his way up the incline. A lot of small touches had impressed me before in GTAV but this one felt personal, this one resonated with me:  A tanned and fit cyclist, kitted out in sponsor-emblazoned  lycra, riding a sleek racing bike was out for an afternoon bike ride.

GTAVMichaelFranklinTrevorI slowed down and just followed him: transfixed at this virtual cyclist ascending a mountain road. I sped ahead and got out, activating the camera on my smart phone, hoping to get a good photo of what I’d seen. I snapped as he rode past. I’m sure he looked at me, strangely, but he kept on climbing.

Unfortunately, as I walked back to the car, a few hundred metres up the road, another vehicle drove past, wiping out my open door. My convertible now not only had the top down, but it only had one door. Still, this was a day where nothing could bother me.

I passed the cyclist again, stopped and took some more photos. He gave me another funny look as he rode past.

On the descent I followed quietly behind, the cyclist freewheeling and gliding down the hill, pedaling every now and then to keep his momentum up.

Nearing the bottom of the hill, as the road joined a larger road, there was a service station (gas station) and the cyclist rode into the car parking area, dismounted and pulled out his smart phone.  Mysteriously, his bike just stood upright by itself but that’s OK. This is a game: Sometimes I can suspend belief.

He was a well-tanned individual, slightly European looking, but he was acting weird. I took some snaps of him and his bike, but as I focussed in on the bike frame (I am somewhat obsessed by bicycle frames) I heard him talking to someone on his phone: It was the police. He was saying some like I was being an arsehole and could they get here.

I stood amazed. Here was a non-integral person in the game having an impact on how things were shaping. My mini map suddenly turned a shade of light blue and a blue and red dot appeared on the screen: I knew what had happened here. The police were on their way to have a chat to me about harassing the cyclist.

For the record, I didn’t harass him: I was just taking photos. It’s a pity I can post the screen shots here.

A brief chase ensued but I managed to escape the police by running through a few luxury homes down the road, avoiding their cones of vision and confusing the heck of them.

Some other things I’ve observed; if you almost run over a person in a car and you’re stopped at a set of lights, bystanders will sometimes run over, pull you out of your car and start beating the crap out of you. One of my friends on XB Live told me to stand next a police man and see what happens.  I haven’t done it yet but it’s on my list of things to do.

I also want to buy a dock so I can do scuba diving.  I hijacked a speed boat one morning and just travelled around the island, seeing how far I could go, what I could see. During one mission involving a submersible in the Pacific Ocean and playing as Trevor, while I waited for Franklin and Michael to arrive, a large shark circled, giving me a bit of a shiver. It was a biggun,

GTAbikeI drove past a house to see a man imploring his wife to stop throwing his golf belongings from the balcony to the roadside. “Who plays golf at midnight?” the wife argues as she throws another bag onto the drive. I gave him and his favourite iron a ride to the golf club and he said he wouldn’t go home until he’d had a “few drinks in me and her meds had kicked in”.

GTAV isn’t just always about the missions and the story but I have to say the game has an appalling attitude towards the depiction of women: They’re either prostitutes, stripper or disgruntled wives/girlfriends/aunts – and that’s really not good in this day and age.

To be honest, I didn’t really start seriously tackling the story missions until I’d explored for a few hours, and that’s where GTAV’s strengths are: Just exploring and trying things. The stats at the Rockstar Social Club says I’ve sunk 21 hours into GTAV and completed about 40 per cent of everything there is to do.

So, I say go forth and explore. You might be surprised what you find.

Red Dead Redemption retrospective: one man and his horse

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1696977-red_dead_redemption__lake_ While I wait for GTAV to arrive (I’ll be picking it up tomorrow morning), I thought I’d do a bit of a retrospective on Red Dead Redemption, a game that I think is one of the best of this console generation and I’m currently replaying.  

If my ageing memory serves me correctly, there’s a moment in Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption that, for me, empahsises why it’s one of finest video games of this generation.

It’s the moment when the game’s hero (or is he an anti-hero?) John Marston crests a hill, crossing from the United States to Mexico. As Marston starts ascending the hill towards Mexico, Jose Gonzalez’s haunting song Far Away starts playing and continues as Marston trots through Mexico, the bright orange sun setting in the distance.  It’s a powerful, poignant moment that illustrates just how great this game is.

It’s moments like this that make Red Dead Redemption a tour de force of story telling and characterisation. It’s a game that deserves a second play through. And perhaps a third and a fourth.

I finished RDR a while ago – a long while ago, actually – but while I wait for GTAV to land this week (I pre-ordered it over the weekend) I decided to pull on the boots of grizzled cowboy John Marston again and see if the game was as great as I remember. It is.

RDR came out in 2010, a couple of years after GTAIV, and is the sequel to Red Dead Revolver. It tells the tale of John Marston, a former outlaw who is forced to turn bounty hunter after his wife and son are kidnapped by the US government and he has to bring his former outlaw colleagues to justice. It spans  two fictitious United States counties – New Austin and West Elizabeth –  and a fictitious Mexican state – Nuevo Paraiso, and it seems that to secure his family’s future, Marston must return to the life he desperately tried to escape.

The game opens with Marston in the company of two US Marshalls: It’s 1911 and the decline of the American frontier. After walking through the streets of Blackwater, he boards a train bound for the region of New Austin, where he will start his quest to track down his adversaries. As he sits on the train travelling to Armadillo, Marston listens to the conversations of other passengers. It’s the dawn of a new age, it seems.

In terms of visuals, RDR and GTAIV are a world apart, with the former a breathtakingly beautiful game. At times the sunsets resemble water-colour paintings, with burnt orange and yellow smeared across the sky.  The attention to detail is amazing as well, and if RDR shows the advances Rockstar made since GTAIV, then it just blows my mind as to think just how much more advanced the visuals are between RDR and GTAV. Remember, we’re at the end of a console generation but it seems, as happened with the previous one, developers are eking every last drop of processing power to produce graphically stunning games.

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RDR isn’t just an improvement visually on GTAIV, though, its game play is much better, especially in terms of how the combat is handled (although I still struggled at times when I had to drive a horse and buggy, maintain speed and shoot at the same time).

Marston has a Dead Eye system which means when activated he can slow down time and paint individual targets, taking out several bad guys in a single sequence. The cover system, too, is much improved,  with Marston often sliding into the protection he is heading towards if he’s hot footing it.  RDR just feels so much easier to play than GTAIV, too, despite featuring a similar mission structure. I revisited GTAIV a week or so ago: It just feels outdated and boring compared to RDR.

In terms of open-world games, RDR is insanely large, with tracts of tracts of land stretching out as far as the eye can see, but perhaps one of the best things I like about RDR is that the  world feels alive: bars are populated with boozed patrons and working girls, dogs wander around dusty towns sniffing for scraps of food, poker games take place behind closed doors, horses roam the prairies, but perhaps the most impressive element is the random events Marston comes across. These events can happen anywhere, anytime and can range from public hangings to having to chase down escaped prisoners for an ageing lawman, to Marston having to save abducted women from strange men and attacks by wild animals.

Example? At one point, as I guided Marston to a deer he had just shot, two wild coyotes suddenly attacked his horse just as I guided him over to where the animal’s body lay. In an instant, Marston was stranded in the middle of nowhere, his horse run off, with  two coyotes to take care of. These events make the world feel alive. I also stuck with that horse through most of the game. He was faithful and loyal.

The game has a morality system that affects how NPCs react to Marston: if he stops some drunken guy harassing a woman, he receives a bit more honour and some fame, which means he gets more respect from people, but if Marston shoots an old man to get the deed for a parcel of land wanted by a greedy prospector (as he does in a mission early in the game) his honour ranking will take a hit. The higher the fame ranking the more respect people will show towards Marston.

red-dead-redemption-vga2010Flashy visuals aside, I think it’s the writing and dialogue in RDR that resonates with me, and surely it’s no coincidence that Marston has a sort of Clint Eastwood feel about him. Writers Dan Houser and Michael Unsworth do a fantastic job in creating a believable character in Marston, even if the dialogue sometimes devolves into the clichéd and clunky. Marston’s interactions with key characters is crucial to the success of RDR, and I wish I’d written down the conversation Marston has with ranch owner Bonnie Macfarlane as they ride to Armadillo because it was just so engaging.

Sure, RDR is visually amazing but it’s the story telling that lifts it a notch – or ten – above other open-world games.

GTAV may well come and eclipse Red Dead Redemption in terms of grandeur and storytelling but it’ll have to try damn hard to do it. But even if it GTAV does prove to be the best Rockstar game ever, Red Dead Redemption will always hold a place in my heart as one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever encountered. And the ride into Mexico just re-enforces how great the game is.

Your move, GTAV.