I was planning to post this last week – while I was in New York – to coincide with the lifting of the New Zealand embargo on reviews for Batman Arkham City – but for some reason this blog and my Samsung tablet didn’t want to play nicely so I was forced to waiting until I got home (today) and post it.

Batman Arkham Asylum was so close to becoming my Game of the Year when it came out  – it was by far the best superhero game ever, with the best superhero ever,  and the way the combat flowed just made for a superb game. It was atmospheric to the max and if there was any fault, the Dark Knight’s detective vision made the game too easy.

I didn’t think developer Rocksteady could make a better Batman game. Well, they have, and that game is Batman Arkham City. I got my copy mid-last week and have been playing it solidly and I love it. In fact, I’ve been neglecting other games because I’ve been playing Batman Arkham City.

Before I left for New York I’d played about 15% 49% of the game, including a handful of Cat woman missions (retail copies of the game come with a one-time use code for Cat woman DLC) so these are my impressions so far. Short version: I’m loving it a lot.

This time much of Gotham City is a prison for the depraved and dastardly, a quarantined portion of the city fenced by high barbed wire-topped fences and searing search lights. Areas have their own feel, too, depending on who they are ruled by (ie either Joker or the Riddler). Batman’s foes are roaming the streets of the giant prison set up in a rundown quarter of Gotham, prowling every corner in this “facility” run by Professor Hugo Strange, who has a personal vendetta against Bruce Wayne. The Joker makes a return, too, this time a little worse for wear after injecting the titan formula in the first game and the Riddler’s influence is never too far away. You’ll also be reunited with Harvey “Two Face” Dent, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy and others.

Where do I start with Arkham City? Perhaps one of the most notable improvements is the batclaw, which in the first game was a tool used to scale buildings and towers. Now, it’s a super tool that can not only be used to scale heights but can be used to slingshot the Caped Crusader upwards, used in tandem with his glide ability. Batman can now also dive-bomb enemies, knocking them down the blast such a high-speed landing makes, as well as use the dive-bomb to game momentum for upward gliding.

Arkham City is a sprawling, atmospheric place highly detailed with the chaos of a society in turmoil, with thugs on every corner and plenty of gargoyles for the Dark Knight to do inverted take downs and hide from foes – many of which are much smarter this time. The combat flows perfectly, with Batman able to move from foe to foe with such fluidity that you almost feel  l part of the action. The cryptographic sequencer, the device that Batman uses to crack door codes, is now much, much improved on the original, too: instead of having to move the analogue sticks until you’ve got the right frequency often all you have to do is rotate the sticks until letters spell out the correct word.

The scale of Arkham City is much broader than Arkham Asylum, too, with a huge number of side quests that can be completed either while you’re completing the single player missions or once you’ve done with the campaign.

Look, there’s much more I could say about Batman Arkham City but I’m just going to leave it here for now. I want to play more of it, explore a little more and see how it ends. I’ll let you know my final thoughts when I’ve finished it.

Yes, you read that right: I’m heading to New York on Sunday (New Zealand time) to attend a Microsoft Kinect event in the Big Apple on Tuesday.

I’m really looking forward to it and have a couple of interviews lined up already, one with Kudo Tsunoda, one of the creative’s behind Kinect, and hands-on time with new Kinect games. It seems that Microsoft are really pushing what children can really do with Kinect and this is the focus of the event.

I’ve never been to New York before either so am really hyped about what the future holds for Kinect (and checking out all the touristy things in the few days that I’m there).

So, over the past few days I’ve been thrashing the hell out of Batman Arkham City – and it’s bloody brilliant – but despite worldwide reviews running left right and centre, it seems New Zealand games writers are still lumbered with an embargo which lifts on Oct 19 – which is Wednesday and I’m away!

I’ve also played a little bit of Rage but I’m not sure what I think of it so far: it looks beautiful – perhaps one of the best looking console games around – but the gameplay is less than stellar – at least from what I’ve played. There are a tad too many fetch quests for my liking (head to this settlement and pick up these parts, head up to a radio tower and realign the dish, etc, etc)

OK, I’ve got to finish getting packed (note pads, dictaphone, Samsung tablet, mobile phone, pens). Have a good week, play games, and I’ll update the blog (hopefully) while I’m in New York.

 

It’s Tuesday – the day I chat with Glenn “Wammo” Williams on our weekly gaming segment on Kiwi FM’s Radio Wammo breakfast.

Today, we talked a little about the Battlefield 3 beta – which I’ve had no luck joining any games, whatsoever – as well as the  plan for Comcast and Verizon in the United States to provide their services through the Xbox 360, and plans for a role playing game based on George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones series.

Have a listen. You might like it.

Short and sweet for today.

Last Friday I flew up to Auckland – the city of sails – to get some hands on time with EA’s upcoming games for the next few months: Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3, Need for Speed: The Run, Sims Pets and Fifa 12.

Of those games, Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 3 are the ones that captured my attention the most – I really couldn’t care less about Fifa 12, Need for Speed or Sims Pets – so my time was spent guiding Commander Shepard, in Mass Effect 3, and controlling Sgt Henry Blackburn, a 1st Recon Marine, in Battlefield 3. I played one game of Fifa 12 with Austin “Wugga” Sedgwick from Buttonmasher: it was a nil all draw with penalty shootouts delivering a result (I lost one nil).

So, on Tuesday, I spoke about the EA showcase with Glenn “Wammo” Williams. You can watch it up the top of the post.

Leave a comment on what you think. Go on. It’ll give me something to read later on tonight.

Oh, I’m playing through the HD revamps of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus at the moment. I’ll write my thoughts up later this week.

The latest edition of the Well Played podcast is up with the usual crew: me (obviously), Julie Grey (@GamecultureNZ), Siobhan Keogh (@SiobhanKeoghNZ), Aylon Herbet (@Aylon133) and Chris Leggett (@Leggetron) and last week one of the games we talked about was Epic’s Gears of War 3, which is pretty good actually! (Actually, it’s bloody good and the best Gears yet).

Chris and I also talked about Xbox Kinect game The Gunslinger, which is from the makers of The Maw and ‘Splosion Man. It’s a game where you control a puppet called the Gunslinger, who is a skeletal cowboy on the hunt for the posse that left him for dead. We liked it but it seems to getting a little flack for not-so good controls, but I think it controls well.

I also talked a little about my trip to Sydney last week where I got hands on with Modern Warfare 3’s new multiplayer modes and spoke to Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling. I’ll post that interview up soon when I’ve got it finished.

Have a listen and leave a comment.

Here it is: the second part of my interview with Epic Games’ Rod Fergusson, who was the executive producer on the Gears of War games.

Run through some of the major changes with Gears of 3

Wow, there are so many. Four-player co-op is definitely one of the major changes, then we’ve got arcade mode, which is on top of the campaign mode. The campaign mode is significantly longer in Gears 3 than in Gears 2 but even so, we wanted people to go back and play that content over and over, so we created this arcade mode where you can play the different chapters in the story for score. Then we have Horde 2.0, which is basically a revamped Horde mode where you’ve got essentially a tower defence vibe to it now where you have fortifications and turrets and sentries that you can build, you have boss waves, we’ve got mini-challenges while you play, and a sort of persistent skill level where you initially can only build barbed wire but then you can build up to a laser fence. With Horde being the number one way to play online for Gears 2, we were kind of like ”OK, we need another co-op mode” and we looked at what else was uniquely Gears and a lot of shooters today are human vs human so we decided to let people play as the locust, which is Beast mode, and your goal is to destroy the humans in five player co-op.

And then we have our multiplayer, and we’ve made a lot of changes. We’ve got dedicated servers around the world so things like host advantage is no longer an issue and it avoids things like people trying to cheat by doing lag switching, that sort of thing, and we’ve actually created a casual area inside our competitive multiplayer so that when new players come and have never played Gears before, they can actually go into a special area where they can play against other people who have never played before so they can have that fun and learn without being harassed by hardcore players all the time. And then we’ve got new weapons, new abilities (see where weapons spawn, etc). We really focused on making this game the most accessible version of Gears yet. We realised that, OK, we have our fan base and have our core that love the game but what we want to do now is create a game that satisfies them but also reaches out to a new audience. If you haven’t played Gears 1 or 2, then Gears 3 really is the best way to get into this franchise.

Do you find that a lot of people play Gears just for the multiplayer and not look at the campaign?

We usually have an achievement pretty early on in the campaign so we can see roughly how many people play the campaign, and I think it’s about 20 per cent of the [Gears of War 2] players have played multiplayer but haven’t played campaign. So there are some people who come to it for that but predominantly people come to play the campaign, at least in the past. Something that we really focused on in Gears 3 is that we recognise that in this industry now, multiplayer is kind of king and so we really tried to balance it. In the past in Gears 1 and 2, we put a lot of effort into the campaign and not as much effort into the multiplayer side, whereas now in Gears 3 we’ve really put a lot more effort into that side to kind of raise them both up equally, so with the dedicated servers and the six multiplayer modes and all the features you can get in those modes, we’ve really put a lot more investment into that side.

Having worked on the franchise for so long, how do you feel personally that this is the end of the trilogy featuring Marcus, Dom and the other characters?

It’s hard. It’s bittersweet because I’m really proud with what we’ve accomplished with the trilogy, and specifically with this game. One of the things I’m always proud of is just the values in the game. As a developer, I probably buy three or four games a month and I don’t think that much about it but I know there are people out there who only buy one or two games a year and so when I look at what’s in Gears with all the features, I’m really proud of what we’re delivering to the customer.

We’ve been with these characters for so long and it gets comfortable and when we were first writing Gears of War scripts and we didn’t have the voices yet it was hard to think about what they were going to sound like and now it’s really kind of easier to write these scripts, because you can hear the actor saying it in your head as you type. So, it’s a little bit sad but I think harder, too, is the fact that I do have that relationship with the cast: it isn’t just about these digital friends. I have actual, real friends who are the voices of these characters that I’ve worked with for the last six years and have real meaningful relationships. To know that what was once ”OK, see you in a year when we’ll do this all over again” to now an uncertain future, it’s harder.

How important is getting the right voice to creating credible characters?

Oh, it’s hugely important, hugely important. I’d never worked with union talent before – like true professional voice actors – and having done that with the Gears franchise, the difference is just amazing. There’s such a quality level that speaks to you: you can actually feel it in the game. In the long run a union actor will be more expensive, but they have this work ethic to get through so much and you’re not having to go over things. Originally we did some sample tests and had people do stuff and it would take half an hour to get one line out of them whereas with union actors they work so much and it’s so easy to say ”I’m looking for this” then bam, 10 seconds later you’ve got the line. Part of it is beyond the quality of the talent because I really do think when you look at the talent that is on Gears of War as a voice cast, we really have one of the best casts in the industry. They’re just so good. But what really matters to me is their engagement level in the game, and by that I mean they just are fans of their own characters and it’s not just showing up for a pay cheque.

It’s they come and they care and so now especially on Gears 3 (and we found this on Gears 2) we’d come to them and they have a line to read and they say ”You know, I don’t feel like Anya would say it that way or Anya is feeling like this. What do you think about that?” and they could bring their own performance and bring their own ideas because they’re invested in the characters.

You see that with Carlos Ferro (who voices Dominic Santiago). He just loves getting out there, and he was with me in Mexico where he met 2000 fans and the game is part of him. Dom is part of him now and he likes to represent that as much as he can. I like that. I like working with people where this isn’t just a gig. I like working with people who have a care factor because I’m coming in as a passionate creator and as someone who loves this franchise and loves these characters and I don’t want either to be disrespected so when we hire new people and we bring them in, I literally welcome them to the Epic family. I’m like ”Welcome to the Gears family. This is a close knit group and we’re really glad to have you.”

How hard is it to create such a memorable cast and series like Gears?

It’s hard because you’re walking a fine path between character types that people can relate to instantly versus cliches and so it’s a difficult line, then trying to find those interesting personality quirks to make them human and give them a reason for people to care about them. It’s been interesting for us to have three different writers on all three games and I think each of the writers has bought their own aspect in and helped develop those characters.

Do you have one character that you really identify with, one you have an almost spiritual connection with?

Ah, a little bit. To me I have a real connection with Marcus. I laughed the other day because I realised that I say ”Nice” a lot. People will show me something and I’ll say ”Nice”, I’ll do that, and I realised that ”Oh wait a sec, I think I’ve taken that, one of my own speech patterns and I put that on Marcus.That’s one thing Marcus is known for: saying ‘Niiiice’,” (Ferguson does an impression of how Marcus would say it). “So, I actually think that came from me but when you look at all the characters there’s something about each of them that I really like and enjoy.

Like when I play Horde now, I play as Dizzy. Peter Jason, who does the voice of Dizzy, has some of the greatest ad-libs ever and so they make it into the game, and listening to some of his stuff just makes me laugh out loud. And when I think back to the Maria scene in Gears of War 2 and thinking about Carlos in the studio, I mean, Carlos literally cried in the studio when he was doing that scene and so I have this affection for Dom, too, in the way I think about Dom as a character. And Lester Speight is a living Cole: he’s about as big as Cole and just as enthusiastic so it’s kind of weird that Lester really is the kind of living and breathing Cole Train. Then amongst all these really big men and big personalities is Nan McNamara – who voices Anya – who I found while watching the movie The Avengers on DVD. It opens with this scene of them looking for Captain America on an iceberg and Betty Ross is reading off all these technical requirements and I’m like ”Oh, that’s the voice we’ve been looking for for this woman who can carry off a technical conversation but still have a sexy voice to her.” So Nan was cast from me watching cartoons.

Is this the end of Marcus and Dom? Really?

Well, this is the end of this story and we’ve already announced the Season Pass for the four pieces of DLC that we’re doing so we’re really focused on that, but we’re not really sure what the future holds for the franchise.