Could it be? A Warhammer 40,000 equivalent of Vermintide?
Original video located here. Accessed 29th July 2020
Apparently so.
of course this is a trailer so it's too soon to have any concrete details but it would seem that the players would be controlling a group of Guardsmen - a far cry from what I thought would work in doing a Vermintide-esque setting (that being an Inquisitor and their retinue).
Original video located here. Accessed 13th September 2019
Not much i can say really: Lot's of fast based action, quips being sprouted and explosions. But I guess it's expected from SqueeEnix at this point.
But what I will say is Aerith looks astonishing. She is clearly the highlight of the video and firm reminder that the City of the Ancients is going to be a kick to the balls.
Yeah we all know this: The moment when the PlayStation suddenly became a big deal and Sony affirmed their presence in the console race.
Who would've guessed that such a short speech would've become such a pivotal moment in gaming history?
Original video located here. Accessed 10th July 2019
What i want to know however, whatever happened to Steve Race? For a guy beyond such a pivotal moment in gaming - that is still talked about even now - he seems to vanished off the face of the earth.
Well according to my research, he appears to have left Sony following the successful launch (perhaps unsurprisingly) and gone and done his own thing. I will not begrudge him for it but it's fascinating to me that a guy makes such an effective pitch - one that has astonishing repercussions - and then disappears quietly into the night.
From a distance of twenty-plus years, it would be fascinating to hear his story - especially considering that this was the moment that effectively crushed Sega like a fly - but it is unlikely he would divulge such business-minded matters. But, of course, that only adds to the mystique.
But I for one would like to hear his story before it is lost in the ravages of time.
One can imagine it would be fascinating one....
Well it seems like a new iteration of the Soul Calibur series is headed this way. I know this because a trailer was recently unleashed on an unsuspecting world:
Original video located here. Accessed 9th December 2017
This is interesting to me as it features two of my favorites: Sophitia and Mitsurugi. Also of particular note is that Sophitia is sporting her original outfit.Which is interesting to me because I remember being turned off by Soul Calibur's post-3 that I was put off by her increasing sexualisation (of course, that reason was one of numerous but still....).
So is like a reboot or something? In any case, it's great to see Sophitia in her original outfit and looking great in the Unreal4 Engine.
But the trailer sure puts a lot of emphasis on her cleavage....
Original video located here. Accessed 2nd October 2017
It's the first real taster we've been given of this game. And, unsurprisingly, the rumor mill is in full flight. Is that guy towards the end Dutch? Is that guy in front of the burning building Bill? Who is this Arthur Morgan? Is he the PC? And where is John in all of this?
I, however, am having my reservations: Aside from the fact that this is too early to call and speculation can only last until the game is, y'know, actually released,the thing is that this game looks to be well and truly a prequel. And the only problem with prequels, is you know how it's going to end. It doesn't matter how big a role Jon, Dutch, Bill and Javier will play in this new game because, as we all know, they will appear in the RDR1. And if Arthur Morgan is indeed a previously unnamed member of this outlaw gang, then somehow his fate is already sealed.
Here's a blast from the past: Dragonstone. It was an Amiga game that came out in 1994.
Original video located here. Accessed 7th June 2017
I didn't have the full game but I did play a demo of the first level (Woodlands) a lot back in the day - hey, when your system is being phased out and you find yourself short on actual games what else are you going to do?
Looking at the gameplay of this game, it's quite clear the makers of Dragonstone were going for something along the lines of a Zelda clone. of course, this was meaningless to me as a teenager as Zelda would come much later on. But, I want to call attention to two things in the playthrough.
Firstly, the pixel art is simply stunning. I will forever maintain that the 16-bit area produced some beautiful graphics that have aged surprisingly well and this game certainly makes a case for it.
Secondly, this game always struck me as being set on a remarkably small scale. You see, prior to this the RPGs I played usually required me, the player, to defeat some huge Big Bad and involved traveling through to a wide variety of diverse locales with a whole bunch of NPCs to encounter along the way. Not so with this one: based on the Woodlands level alone one gets the feeling the this game is a very isolated experience. You start in a forest as opposed to some village, there are are only two NPCs in the entire area (with the first being both in the middle of nowhere and not immediately apparent) and there is no music, only basic sound effects. All of these make for a very atmospheric experience and proof of the adage that Less is More.
Watching the play through itself, the idea that this is a smaller scale RPG is enforced with the locales themselves: They seem rather limited. We see Woodlands, a Village, a Mountain, a Port Town and finally the Dragon Isle. The small number of locales is fascinating to me: If this is representation of the game's world it's a small one. Does that mean that something bigger is happening out of the view of the player?
It may sound odd but I like this formula of 'small scale adventure with isolationist mood and something bigger may be happening elsewhere'. Wish more people would use it in this modern age.
Well it's here upon us. After a crowd-funding campaign and an advertising campaign we finally have it. And what do you know? It's getting a lot of bad press, what with glitches, stupid AI, restricting environments and presenting something different from the original promise. The latter in particular: It seems that when the trailer offered something along the lines of Doom or Quake, the finished product was more akin to a roguelike.
Not a good selling point eh?
Personally, looking back at the (in)famous advertising campaign, it seems more laughable than provocative. And therein lies the point where my interest dies down: Considering how much trouble the makers of this game, Bleeding Edge, went to with the adverting campaign, one can't help but feel that they put more effort into it than the actual game.
Personally, as someone who spent much of their teen years in the nineties, I am questioning whether Bleeding Edge really speak from experience. Did they really play the right games? Or are they selling a fantasy? You see, I can safely say that, back in 1996, whilst there was some strong interest in Doom and Quake, they weren't THE game. You know what I'm talking about: THE game that everyone had, and everyone was falling over themselves to get a hold of and play to death.
No, back in 1996, THE game was this:
Original video located here. Accessed 19th May 2017
And now, further proof that obtaining any license doesn't mean jack:
Original video located here. Accessed 15th March 2017
Well that was missing the point of the movie by a loooooooooooooong shot.
Personally, I can see Reservoir Dogs working as a choice-based RPG but it would seem the devs of this thought otherwise.
A wasted opportunity if ever there was one.
This year sees thirty years of my favorite frenemy franchise, Final Fantasy (alliteration FTW!):
Original video located here. Accessed 13th March 2017
With regards to this video, it's interesting to note that Five is the one that shows some actual gameplay footage....
Still, for me the Final Fantasy series represents a strained relationship. Sometimes it strikes gold, other times it delivers crap. Sometimes it provides an engaging RPG experience, other times it seems more interested in the spectacle. Sometimes it has timeless classics that still hold up years later, other times it seems to be making the lightening strike again to the point of painful.
But in the end, for all the times Final Fantasy DID work, I can't hold those moments against it.
So here's to three decades, you magnificent bastard.
Here's something i came across on YouTube: A classic game from the Amiga, called Atoms!
Original video located here. Accessed 29th August 2016
History will decree that the Amiga folded with the collapse of Commodore circa 1994. But what people may have forgotten is that the Amiga actually had a lifespan beyond Commodore: For a few years afterwards, it proved to be very accommodating that amateur developers, giving them a platform to come up with games of their own - much like how Steam does for amateur developers today. It was an interesting time and one that sadly gets overlooked by gaming historians.
And Atoms was one such game. It was a relatively simple game but damn, if it wasn't a lot of fun. It required players to place atoms in the grid and build up groups of them. Get enough atoms in a box (two in a corner box, three in a side box and four in the rest) and an explosion would trigger sending the atoms in corresponding boxes. The object of the game was to turn all the atoms on the board into the player's respective color. Again, this was a simple game and admittedly it took a while to get going, but once the players had enough atoms, it was possible to send off tremendous chain reactions in attempt to achieve victory. There was fun to be had, especially with multiple people, and it was hilarious to see a colossal chain reaction play out. It may have been brief but it never ceased to function as an entertaining party game.
Looking at this game through the perspective of modernity, there is no reason why a game this simplistic would ever work. It might work as part of collection of mini-games (ie Mario Party) but not as a standalone game. So why does this game so simple work?
Earlier this week, I posted some musings about a vague game called Sorcery. This in turn triggered memories of another vague game I played during the C64 era.
Behold: Quo Vadis!
Original video located here. Accessed 24th August 2016
This game is interesting on a technical stand point. As is my understanding, it was the first game in history to boast over 1000 screens! It was so enormous it took some sizable effort to squeeze it into the C64's memory! And it even was doing the Metroid shtick before Metroid was a thing!
And I will admit, from someone with an interest in traditional dark fantasy, there's something appealing in seeing a Crusader knight (as evidenced by the Christian cross on his shield) descending into an underground cavern to fight a horde of monsters.
But I didn't make much progress in the game itself - mostly because I had no idea what i was supposed to do. This may have been my first exposure to free-roaming gameplay but my young mind didn't realize it at the time. As such I was baffled as to where I supposed to be going and what I was supposed to be doing. And even now I admit this game was vague: Why, that ending message that appeared at the end of the game is indeed unclear whether the player had successfully completed the game or not.
But what was particularly frustrating with this game was the stiff controls: If the PC slipped and fell, he would plunge straight down with the player being unable to do a thing about it. The worst part of it was when the player slipped up on the rope and fell a long way down to the lava pit below. It was a long fall and the player was helpless to prevent seeing the PC plummeting to his doom. It was agonizing to watch and very punishing to the player's mindset (like the computer was saying: "Look what you've done you jackass!")/ Needless to say, I eventually gave up on this game and never looked back - until now of course.
Some good ideas but in the end, vague and frustrating.
Here's something i came across during my travels on Youtube: A complete playthrough of the Commodore 64 game Sorcery:
Original video located here. Accessed 22nd August 2016
You hear people of today describe the 8-bit era (or the 3rd console generation if you prefer) of gaming as being populated by games that are of brutal difficulty. People talk of the Mega Man games and the original Castlevania as being really tough, much like how Dark Souls is described today. Mind you, that kinda does make sense from a designer's perspective because whatever the game may lack from a technical standpoint, it makes up for in offering a challenge. Make the game too easy and people won't have any reason to play it beyond the first successful completion.
Which now brings me to Sorcery. I played a lot of games on my C64 as a kid and this was indeed among the hardest I've played. This down to two factors: Firstly, this game was nothing short of vague in exactly what is trying to convey. Looking at the video over two decades later however and it seems clear: The player is required to pick up certain objects and use them in a particular combination. And, naturally, there are numerous red herrings abound which makes success in the game more a case of trial and error. Secondly, there is a time limit that is nothing less than punishing: As established above, the player would need to apply trial and error to find the successful path to victory but the time limit does not allow for such experimentation. Thus it would seem multiple attempts would be required to find the successful path. Make no mistake: there is little room for error. As indicated by the video ab0ve, the player would need to rush through the game and have their health drained with the dangers lurking at every turn. There are potions that can restore the player's health but they are more a hindrance when the greatest enemy is the clock. If anything I'm surprised someone actually managed to beat this game.
Mind you, when I originally played this, I figured that the vial of poison would be the item that would secure victory. I tried to persuade my brother but he was unconvinced. Now, years later, it seem that I was right :)
