Guardians of the Galaxy

Big news has emerged with the announcement that the Last Guardian is set for release in 2016. This has come after years of delays and confusion.
And we have a video to go with it:

Original video located here. Accessed 17th June 2015

Make no mistake, that I'm a big fan of Team Ico's (two) games and this video is interesting from that perspective: Here, we have shades of Ico with a protagonist wandering through a crumbling fortress with a companion. And, at the same time, we see the monster-climbing mechanic lifted straight from Shadow of the Colossus.
Considering that Shadow of the Colossus was a much bigger seller than Ico, I suppose it would be unsurprising for Team Ico to go back and revisit that territory. But such a prospect mirrors the comparisons I found between System Shock 2 and Bisohock: It's the same game but with a different coat of paint. Whilst the Griffon-esque creature seems a far more effective companion than Yorda, one can't help but think that perhaps Team Ico may be running short of ideas - especially considering the long gestation time this game has been in. 

But, of course, all of this is speculative: It's too early to call on this game when it has yet to be released.
If anything the real question here is: Could the Last Guardian be enough to sway me back to Sony? Only time will tell.....

System of a Down

Another game has been cast down from my Hall of Shame (and the first for 2015 too!). Goodbye System Shock 2!

Man oh man, has this game got a reputation and a half: the father of Bioshock, a complete reinvention (alongside Deus Ex) of the First Person Shooter genre, one of the scariest games ever made, one of the greatest villains ever conceived in gaming history.

And you know what? In this case the reputation is justified.

Okay so I may have been using a heavily modded version of the game, that resulted in updated graphics, reworked environments and high level textures but even such modifications can;t take away that this is a game dripping in atmosphere. There is real tension with danger lurking around every corner, there is dread invoked with the sound design and there is a real sense that this is survival horror done right (ie you're all alone and no one else can jump you & nick your gear).

However whilst System Shock 2 may be pushing sixteen years, it still stands as one of the toughest games I've played. Never mind the careful selection of skill allotment (it's been well-established that this game is unforgiving to a point that if you chose the wrong skills, you may find yourself unable to complete the game), I had to contend with weapon degradation, constant threats, never having enough ammo, and dying over and over again. Even the boss fight with the Many was a real nightmare - one that somehow made the eventual confrontation with SHODAN seem tame by comparison. That being said, I think I can now understand why Bioshock was made easier - and may have contributed to greater sales. Still, beating any tough game is certainly an achievement and that certainly was the case here.

Not much else except to say that System Shock 2 is a great game. And it is finally great to play it when it was lost in the legal limbo for so long.
Now, about No One Lives Forever....

The System is Down

Lately I've been playing a lot of System Shock 2.

This is an interesting game to approach on two fronts: Firstly it has a fearsome reputation in that is home to one of the greatest gaming villains (I am of course referring to SHODAN). And secondly, this is game I have come to to having played Bioshock, a game that has been made abundantly clear that it is the successor to System Shock 2.

It is that notion of System Shock 2 being a predecessor to Bioshock that is, to me, inescapable. I see so many similarities that it isn't funny. The weapons are the same, items are obtained via vending machines, there are turrets and security cameras everywhere, there are chambers that resurrect the player when they die, health and power-ups are provided via syringes, there's characters from both games running parallel to each other, there's hacking, weapon upgrades, cybermodules are ADAM, and Psionics fill in for plasmids.
Indeed, when comparing the two, one can't shake the feeling that Bioshock is just System Shock 2 with a new coat of paint (along with a steampunk aesthetic). And even then System Shock 2 started life as a completely different game before it was attached to the System Shock franchise for the sake of pushing sales.

Such is the similarities that I wonder if this is what gaming is going to be: a mere case of dusting off an old game and giving it a new coat of paint. I suppose that may make for an interesting solution to games that are lost to time and unable to played any more *coughPanzerDragoonSagacough* but at the same time, it does suggest that gaming progression is facing something of a standstill. I will concede that revamping an old game may be a way buck the system, generate interest in the father title and give new IP a fighting chance. But it makes me wonder how many people played Bioshock and then went to Steam to check out this System Shock 2 game....

Labouring Under Difficulties

Here's something inane I threw together and put up in Steam.

I doubt I'll be the first one to have thought of this - and whether or not anyone will get the joke but you can always try....

Dawn of a New Dragon Age

Recently I completed a play-through of Dragon Age Origins on the PC.

No doubt about it: This game is a lot different on PC than on the Xbox 360. Sure there is the obvious benefit of the user mods that improve the graphics and make welcome additions, but I found the controls better on the PC,the interface better and even some of the achievements present something of a significant challenge.

But who am I kidding? Its the mods that seal the deal for me. And they are impressive to say the least. I'm staggered by some of the effort these people have gone to and the results are astonishing. Of particular note is the Dark Ritual mod, that actually built a complete cutscene from the ground up. I also enjoyed the Skip the Fade mod and the Extra Dog Slot.

Ultimately though, playing through Dragon Age Origins again didn't feel like a crummy experience. I don't feel like I was ripped off when I bought the game for a second time purely for the modding. I knew what was going to happen in the game but I didn't feel tired. I've been and done all these things for a few times but I was never bored.

Maybe a new coat of paint could be just the thing to revisit a game....

Got Booked

Here's something that turned up in my mailbox earlier this week:

Well, if you're going to back one of these books on Kickstarter, then you might as well pick up a previous success

Dead Space

I was talking to a friend recently and learned how she was deleting some unplayed games off of her XboxOne hard drive - which, in turn, freed up some vital space.

Following her lead, I recently removed some Steam games from my hard drive which I don;t play any more. Only to find that I, ultimately, have saved a whopping 2 gig of space.

Of course that doesn't mean much when games these days are super huge in the terms of storage space but very little bit helps I guess....