Tag Archive: PC


Song of the Deep’s story will pull you in, its gameplay will keep you coming back

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
March 15, 2016

SOTD_BoneVault640

Usually when people think of Insomniac Games, over-the-top action and insane weapons are the first thoughts that come to mind. In a creative field like video games, though, patterns are meant to be broken and comfort zones are meant to be stepped outside of—and that’s what’s being done by a fifteen-person team within Insomniac. This small group of staffers is hard at work on Song of the Deep, a side-scrolling metroidvania-style passion project that definitely moves away from what some may consider the studio’s bread and butter. I was recently able to play about 30 minutes of the game, and you’d think Insomniac had always been working within that genre.

Song of the Deep follows 12-year-old Merryn, a young girl whose fisherman father has been lost at sea. When Merryn has a vision seeing her father trapped on the sea floor, she decides the only way to save her dad is to find him herself. So, she puts together a makeshift submarine and sets off to explore the murky depths. What she soon realizes, however, is that all the old bedtime stories her father used to tell her about the sea might actually be true, and only by navigating various hazards will she ever be able to bring him home.

Dropped into the middle of Merryn’s adventure, I began by trying out the variety of tools and weapons that her sub has to help it navigate its surroundings. A grappling hook can be used to tether the sub to craggy surfaces in strong currents, pull and carry objects around a level when solving puzzles, or even to try to punch enemies. The sub also featured sonar with pulses that can stun certain enemies, a turbo booster which can really crank up the engines on the sub, and lasers and torpedoes to either defend yourself with or destroy crumbling walls for entry into submerged ruins.

Speaking of ruins, as I explored the world around me, I began to realize that some of the story was being told via the vibrant environments I was navigating. Large tendrils of seaweed acted as window dressing on larger set pieces, but also at times visually obscured hidden pathways. Intricately-carved stone, long lost to time, had eerily been preserved in the deepest recesses of the ocean. Unknown clockwork technology still operated when Merryn interacted with it, opening up new wonders to explore. Song of the Deep is nothing short of beautiful when it came to providing a visually captivating experience.

SOTD_Ruins_Statues640

As I began to make headway during my hands-on time, I soon came across my first upgrade. It was a special suit that Merryn can wear in order to freely exit the sub. Being much smaller than the sub, the suit allows her to explore tiny crevasses and pathways that lead to special items or solutions to different puzzles. It basically serves the purpose of Samus’ morph ball from Metroid, but Merryn is far more vulnerable in this mode than Samus ever was, leaving Song of the Deep’s heroine open to far more danger.

And danger is something Song of the Deep is fraught with. Being underwater, Merryn and her sub provide a unique twist to other games in the same genre in that there is no platforming. Being submerged, you can always move in every direction as long as there isn’t a wall or other obstacle in your path barring progress. This means bottomless pits or spike traps aren’t on Merryn’s list of concerns, but in their place, Insomniac needed other ways to provide challenge along the adventure.

One way of doing this is to fill each level with hostile wildlife, with jellyfish, urchins, and other sea creatures trying to turn you into dinner if you’re not careful. Another way of upping the difficulty is with puzzles. Navigating labyrinthine corridors with jet stream currents trying to toss you to and fro, using your grappling hook to throw items through narrow openings in order to open up ancient, rusted gates, or working steampunk-like machinery to reflect light at different sensors were just some of the head-scratchers I came across in my time with the game. Although not impossible to overcome, they definitely added a welcome challenge to the adventure.

Although my time with Song of the Deep was short, its appeal is evident. Whether a longtime fan of metroidvanias, or just looking for another endearing digital story to experience, the team at Insomniac is showing their pedigree reaches far past extraordinary weaponry and mind-blowing action. Song of the Deep should be a game to keep an eye out for when it releases sometime before the end of the first half of 2016 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

SOTD_SeaGarden640

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Developer Chat: Hitman

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment

HitmanDevChatHeader

The hit is on

The Hitman series has been a beloved staple in the action-stealth genre for a decade and a half now, and continues to force players to think outside the box when carrying out their objectives. Now, on the verge of the sixth mainline release for the series, we sat down with Io Interactive Studio Head Hannes Seifert to talk about how this latest adventure looks to reinvent Agent 47 and turn the series on its head by going episodic while still trying to stay true to the franchise’s gameplay roots.

EGM: Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Why make Hitman episodic?

Hannes Seifert: We had the vision of doing this very soon after finishing Hitman: Absolution. We didn’t call it episodic then, but we had this vision of our games having longer lives, and of being able to update and change the game post-launch. We had two epiphanies that led to that.

The first came when we had released Absolution in 2012, and we had done a few things new in that. One was we actually thought about what it meant for Hitman to have multiplayer, and multiplayer was something that, when we talked about it to fans and players, they didn’t want us to do it, usually talking about Hitman’s single-player nature. And if we were to do something PvP, that’d have been a fair assessment.

But that was also the time when YouTube was becoming big for gaming, and when we looked at what people did with older Hitman games, especially Blood Money. They had created these YouTube channels where they would make their own hits. They’d go through a level and say this is my target and I must kill him with a knife while disguised as a plumber, or something like that. They’d post the video, and then challenge their friends and viewers to do it better, faster, smarter—and post a competing video that led to them escalating the challenge.

And that inspired Contracts. It was basically those YouTube videos, but properly gamified. And we thought it was a nice gimmick, but it ended up being a runaway success. When it launched, we had server issues because so many people picked it up. Forty-percent of people who ever played Absolution played Contracts, and put at least one contract online. We now have 30 million contracts from Absolution, and that was a game where we didn’t have any DLC, we didn’t update with new features, yet 400,000 people are still playing it every month. That was when we saw the long life capabilities of the game, and wanted to do something that better catered to the fans.

So, when looking at Contracts, we asked ourselves if there was an opportunity to do some DLC that focused on that mode. We realized it really wouldn’t fit with the narrative nature of Absolution, though, to just do new maps. Looking back, we realized it made the most sense when compared to Blood Money, and that’s when the idea for a non-linear  episodic unfolding of our vision really came to be—which led to our World of Assassination. That was the ultimate vision for it. We wanted to have something we could ship, but then react to and grow the game while our players are playing, and learn what they like and don’t like more easily.

The second thing was when we patched Absolution post-release with a balance update to the disguise gameplay after seeing what the fanbase was saying. It was the first time Io Interactive had used a post-launch patch to not fix a bug, but change balancing according to feedback. And, to be honest, Absolution wasn’t made for that. It wasn’t easy, it was a classic AAA-release, and old technology was really more about shipping and less about modifying—so that also heavily influenced our mindset about how the next game should run. Really, just scratching the surface of what we wanted to do. So, having Contracts that come from us, and also from the community, plus some new features as well, and it’s all about catering towards the community playing it, because Hitman is not meant to be a game you play once on a weekend—it’s a game meant for you to keep coming back to.

So, those two things are what inspired us to go episodic with Hitman. It was a long journey—convincing ourselves that it could work—because we needed to plan and think differently as a development team for this, and have the technology change enough to better accommodate this. But, I’m actually very proud we’re still the first to do it with a such a big title, even if that might leave us open to being scrutinized a bit more, and looked at from more angles. When you do something new with something that people are so passionate about, you also need to be respectful with that. Now, we just have to prove this is the best possible way to make a Hitman game.

HitmanPrologue640

EGM: With the episodic release schedule of maps, though, are you worried it could hurt the life cycle of each location? What will you do to keep interest up in older content?

HS: We didn’t see that in Absolution, even though you could see some people did have their favorites. I think Absolution’s linearity really worked in its favor. I do expect when we ship Italy in April, America in May, etc., that people will focus on those for a while. But, we also are growing features overall in the game, polishing them and tweaking them, adding content to all locations over time in the ever-growing World of Assassination to give you those reasons to travel back and forth. One of these features is Elusive Targets. It’s a hardcore feature for the online community, where a target is available for only 48 hours. So, imagine Thailand just came out, and you are playing that, and then an elusive target is spotted in Paris. You don’t want to miss out on that, so you spend that weekend going back to Paris and getting that elusive target before heading back to Thailand.

We also have a large chunk of players who care about the story, and the way we structured this is like a modern thriller. So, we have an overarching storyline that weaves through the missions like a TV show, and a lot of the story is told in the actual level. There are cutscenes that carry the narrative forward, but when you are in the level and listening to conversations and seeing what people are doing, you can get a better understanding of what’s going on in the overall plot. So, once you have played a few episodes, you may realize that a character you may have interacted with earlier on plays a specific role in the story. As things unfold, I expect some people will go back and play those early levels again just to get the different perspective and context they now have.

So, yes, the new stuff is obviously going to be the exciting stuff that garner attention, but Elusive Targets will keep coming, Power Escalation targets will keep coming, Contracts will keep coming from us, and then there’s the idea of fully understanding everything that’s happening.

Of course, I’m also curious to see how it all actually plays out, because that’s what we can do with data. We can see what the majority of the people are playing, and how they are playing, and tailor content more towards what players want. And, we also know that one-percent of the people are the most vocal and 99-percent will rarely say anything, so we also need to look at both and balance that, too.

EGM: You show Agent 47 meeting Diana Burnwood for the first time in the very beginning of the game. Why go back to his early day as an assassin and what does this do for the story of the game? Are you rebooting the universe?

HS: Well, first off, it’s not a reboot. Nothing in the game is a reboot. It’s a compliment to the lore and universe of Hitman. I think why people see this as a reboot is because of the name. There was never any Hitman game called simply “Hitman”. You had Codename 47, Silent Assassin, Blood Money, etc. And we did that to emphasize the start of this World of Assassination. It’s setting up a foundation for more games to come. It’s the first time in Io’s history that we are thinking of this multi-season storyline. In the past we weren’t very good at that. It was six years between Blood Money and Absolution, right? And the most interesting characters we introduced in each game we killed off. [Laughs]

So, all we have to carry forward is Diana and Agent 47. But that’s what we want to emphasize: this is the start of a new generation. The game will take you back 20 years to when Diana and 47 first meet, because that is a pivotal moment. But, in the timeline it fits into all the previous games. The main story takes place after Absolution, except that Prologue, which focuses on this meeting between Diana and 47. Absolution was more like a road movie, and now Hitman is a modern thriller. Agent 47 is back at his peak after hitting his low in Absolution.

HitmanARDevChat640

EGM: Given we see the first meeting between Agent 47 and Diana, do you think this is a good time for new fans to get into Hitman, considering it does have such lore and history behind it?

HS: We are always trying to cater to both new players and our longtime fans, but that doesn’t always align 100-percent, because we have a reputation of being a difficult game. Absolution was the exception I would say, but a lot of longtime fans disliked that because it made it feel more like a third-person action game, and not necessarily the best Hitman game there ever was. And that’s what we’re trying to achieve now.

You could play Absolution like a Hitman game, mind you, but you couldn’t kill every target, as you might have wanted, with some characters dying in cutscenes. It was a deliberate decision, but we learned it’s not necessary to cater to everyone. We are a game for gamers, and want to make sure our fans are happy with it.

Of course, the advantage of doing this episodic model now, though, is that if you are new to the series and have heard how hard it is and are not sure if it’ll be for you, you can try it for a few dollars and see if it’s the game for you. I think many people will take that step and find out.

The other thing is that we took the controls to a new level. I admit they were perhaps a bit clunky in the past, and Absolution was the first that felt really right on the sticks. So, we built on that with this game, so it feels right. That should make it easier not only for gamers, but also newcomers to the series, to jump right in.

Lastly, we have the opportunities feature now that gives you hints on how to take our your target. We know from the beta already that our fans don’t use this.  New people use it a lot, though, and it’s great seeing the statistical distribution. Of course, some are more popular than others based on who saw the trailer or previews and wanted to replicate what they saw, but there isn’t one that dominated the statistics. No assassination opportunity even hit 30-percent according to our data. So, everyone is getting completely different experiences when playing the game, and it’s very evenly distributed. Some fans just want to find everything themselves and take pride in that, but when new to the franchise, I think it’s important you understand the buffet of opportunities you have in a true Hitman level. I think this is where we have to teach players, and we try with the tutorial to show that this is how you get the maximum enjoyment out of a Hitman game.

You can still play it how you want, though. If you want to go full action, you can; it’s not the easiest shooter, but you can try it out. If you like pure stealth, go for it. If you like adventure, it’s like solving puzzles when trying to get the most impressive kills. And that’s what we have to teach new players. I sincerely think we found the right balance now, because Absolution alienated some of our hardcore fans who felt we were taking them by the hand. It’s much more open now, and you can only be taken by the hand if you want to.

The game will even ask you after showing you everything if you want waypoints and opportunities and notifications, or nothing at all. It’s our new take on difficulty. All the notifications being on is super easy, and going pure with no notifications is super hard, where even the producer like me can’t finish it, because it is so hardcore.

EGM: The freedom or illusion of choice in games has come up in a lot of topics of discussion lately. Hitman is one of many games where everyone has the same start and the same end, but the choice is in how you get there. How difficult is it to work in a system like that, and how do you keep every choice entertaining?

HS: There are a lot of games where you do work exactly like that. You give people subtle guidance. For example, in level design you’ll often use light. People always follow light, and follow the position that will lead them along that path. That is a very valid design approach, giving people a sense of choice where choices are really limited.

In Hitman, we approach things differently in that we don’t necessarily approach every path with the idea of making it enjoyable. When we look at our opportunities for example, we have plans to have 10, maybe 15 per level, and hope they are memorable more than enjoyable. Like in the tutorial level with the ejector seat, or crashing the light rig in Paris—we have a few of these in each level, because they are funny or impressive moments. But when you look at the statistics, the maturity of players leads them on their own path, and they find their own way to kill the target. This is because we do our levels systemically.

The game design is actually very simple. There are two characters, you kill them, and you get away with it. Go in. Kill. Get out. There are so many ways of doing that, and the game environment is made for you to try them all out. I saw this in the beta: One guy actually killed the target by burying him under the bodies he stacked on top of him. It was so crazy when I saw the video. He lured the target to a morgue, blocked the target with body bags, and then killed him by dropping bodies on top of the target. And that is not enjoyable. That takes hours and is a chore, but people find ways like that all the time. And the game allows this kind of choice. So, that’s what I mean when I say we don’t make everything enjoyable. You simply use the tools that we provide, and they are systemic.

Sure, some scripted things always take place. There’s always a fashion show in Paris. The show will start, climax, and finish. But, say you just stand around the entrance at the start of the mission and wait two hours. Eventually the show will end and it will go into an after party and you’ll never again have the stage kill opportunity because he only does his speech once. So there are certain scripted elements in how the level is directed, but the moment you step into the level, you’ve changed the outcome. It’s a butterfly effect. Say you have a favorite sniper spot. Getting to that spot unobstructed the same exact way twice is really difficult because you need the right timing and mustn’t interact with anything else. The second you distract someone, or someone sees you, it might send guards on a different patrol pattern or delays timing by just a second so your gap is now non-existent. And that could affect other characters who are set to interact with that NPC—and it just multiplies. It’s a butterfly effect. If you kill all the waiters, who can serve the poisoned food?

That is something that happens when you interact with the level and that’s why it’s so unpredictable—and I think that’s what people really like.  Everyone having different experiences excites me because it means we succeeded.

 The first episode of the new Hitman drops on March 11 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

HitmanMts640

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Kerbal Space Program’s console port is reaching for the stars

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment

kerbalspaceprogramheader

When Kerbal Space Program first rocketed onto the scene, I missed the shuttle. I openly admit to my preference of console games over those on PC, and thusly I’m usually late getting on board with every Indie darling that finds its way onto Steam. It’s not that I’m living under a rock and don’t hear of these games, to be clear. It’s just that, when not reviewing the occasional PC title for EGM, I instead often wait for them to inevitably go on sale—or, in this case, get ported to a different platform. So, it was with great zeal that I got a chance recently to finally try the fun, yet educational, game that has the likes of Elon Musk and scientists at NASA buzzing alongside the gaming community on the PlayStation 4.

For those completely unaware, Kerbal Space Program puts you in charge of a new space program on the planet Kerbin, modeled after that on our own Earth. You must construct rockets and other spacecraft in a state of the art space center, using those creations to then explore the solar system and its various planets and moons. Along the way, you’ll have to complete challenges that further the Kerbal people’s quest to better understand their universe, while also furthering your own space-faring knowledge.

As soon as the demo kicked off, I was tasked with building my own rocket ship. With far more parts unlocked for me than what you would start with at the beginning of the game, my creation could be described as nothing short of Frankenstein’s monster-like as I mixed and matched through the various ship component categories. Small thrusters connected to giant fuel tanks, with a mid-sized cockpit and a radar dish on the cone just for kicks. With his mouth agape in horror at my concoction, KSP producer Jose Luis Vives shakily told me to take it for a test drive.

KSPBuild640

Surprisingly, my rocket actually made it off the ground. With absolutely no balance, however, and my inexperience with the controls, the ship quickly came back down to the ground and began pinwheeling almost instantly. I found my abomination bouncing along the terrain before shattering into several pieces, and the thrusters flying off into the horizon before exploding.

For better or worse, though, I was hooked. I wanted to know how to make the proper spaceship. I wanted to learn and create in this universe laid out before me, and bring my newfound knowledge to the green humanoid masses of Kerbin. And if a few explosions happened along the ways of my trials and errors, well, so be it.

It was then decided I should instead see what a fully functional ship could do, so one of the team’s saved designs was loaded up—and this only made me fall more in love with what KSP was doing. This was a rocket ship, the kind you see in history books and old footage from the Apollo landings. After being walked through the controls, I took off, heading for the great unknown. My own personal mission, though, was just to make it to the moon.

As I jettisoned used fuel canisters and unnecessary sections of the ship, it wasn’t long before I had broken atmosphere. It was here, though, where my mission went awry. I found myself fighting with the controller often during my demo, the actually piloting portion of the gameplay for KSP requiring a more delicate touch than either the PS4 controller or I could provide. I wasted a lot of fuel course-correcting on my way up into orbit, and because of that, just as I kissed the blackness of deep space, I found myself being pulled down towards the ground faster than I left it due to Kerbin’s gravitational pull.

MoonMiss640

Human error was clearly a factor in my failure, but after having had a chance to familiarize myself more with the controls, I felt this was one area that the port was lacking. I’m fine with a port between systems simply repackaging the same game and just including previous add-ons and what not considering it’s the first time a new audience may be seeing it. But optimizing your controls for that new system is critical, and the more I learned about KSP, the more I saw that this was still an experience where a mouse and keyboard holds far greater appeal than a standard controller.

The button layout was not intuitive to what I needed to perform well, and while a deeper look showed some controller options, the defaults felt unnatural. Again, playing the game from the start might alleviate some of the difficulty I continued to have over my hour with the title, but clicking down on the controller’s sticks even brought up a mouse reticle to select different options on screen—showing that as far as the Kerbin people might travel into space, KSP had not traveled very far in its port over to consoles.

Poor controls aside, I refused to be deterred. I hopped into a new version of the previously saved ship, conveniently reconstructed for me by the Kerbal people, and again took off for the stars, this time breaking free of Kerbin’s pull. With enough fuel—and a straight enough trajectory—to steer towards a celestial body, my original goal of the moon was within sight. Once in the emptiness of space, I could finally truly plan my course. Pulling out to map view, I set a maneuver node—a device that would automatically correct my ship towards a particular path (great for deep space exploration)—to plot a course for my ship and my ragtag three-Kerbal crew. What I failed to take into consideration, though, was that the moon would continue to orbit as I made a beeline for it. And I had, again, run out of fuel. I drifted harmlessly by the moon, set off on an endless course into the abyss, having never reached my goal by the time my session finished up.

So, besides me being an awful astronaut, what did I learn during my experience with Kerbal Space Program for consoles? That it’s true in capturing the spirit of the original game, and is coming over with all the bells and whistles that had slowly been added over time on PC. Unfortunately, the controls are also a little too true to form, and had me longing for a mouse and keyboard. Still, it has me chomping at the bit to grab my space helmet and suit up alongside the Kerbin again when Kerbal Space Program drops sometime in the first half of 2016 on Wii U, Xbox One, and PS4.

kerbalhelmet640

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

EGM Review: Firewatch

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
February 25, 2016

FirewatchHeader

Ashes to ashes

Games often subject us to the same experiences over and over, usually with a one-size-fits-all ending we can’t change: rescuing a princess, killing a terrorist, saving the world. But there’s a grain of truth in the way that approach appeals to us, and why it works. Partly why games may be so effective emotionally is that, similarly, life is about the journey, not the destination. It is how we overcome the challenges laid out before us, where we find our enjoyment and potential enlightenment. Also, the ability for people to interact with games allows the medium to simulate emotions at an intensity that other methods often struggle to convey. Most often, they are emotions of empowerment or fantasy fulfillment. When games are at their most remarkable, though, is when they illustrate the emotions we’d rather not face.

Firewatch bravely chooses to buck trends and explores the grief and pain that comes with a sense of loss. It does so in a way that provides a rare, realistic jolt when you are brought to understand how deeply one person cared for another, and find yourself caring about them, too. So, when the game starts with you finding out the wife of our protagonist, Henry, has developed early onset dementia, it is a punch to the gut that feels all too real—especially if, like myself, you’ve had any sort of family member suffer from a mental health issue.

Henry’s immediate relatability has to do with how Firewatch begins. The game does not start by introducing players to the situation through a dynamic, visual bombardment of information. Instead, you are given lines of text explaining who Henry is, but like a “choose your own adventure book” you are given simple choices that allow you to insert yourself into the scenario. They are choices many of us will likely make over the course of our lives, or can at least relate to, and which prove to be completely inconsequential to the main story. These choices help paint a picture of Henry for when the game truly starts, though. Is Henry more crass than charismatic? The game gives you a chance to decide who Henry is to an extent, priming you to be more inclined towards certain dialogue decisions later in the game—even if they have no bearing on the narrative’s eventual outcome. It is not as deep as character customization in an RPG per say, but it helps with immersion once you do take full control. And it is enough so that when you are blindsided by the news of Henry’s wife, you find yourself just as shaken as he would be, the sense of loss transcending the game.

Sunset640

When Firewatch proper starts, you’ve just arrived in Wyoming’s Shoshone National Forest, nominally to work a summer job as a firewatch patrolman, but with the underlying hope that a chance to commune with nature—and the quiet time to focus on writing the Great American Novel—will serve as a distraction or otherwise help soften the grief. Then, we meet Delilah, Henry’s supervisor at another tower and his only link to the outside world. Somewhat isolated, the two of you can only communicate via a handheld two-way radio.

Delilah will walk you through the entire game, evolving from a motherly wilderness guide to a friend and confidant. You will also learn about Delilah and other people in the forest who have dealt with losses of their own as you perform humdrum tasks, before stumbling upon a mystery that has been growing in the forest for years.

Even with that small twist, the bulk of Firewatch boils down to Henry running around while he and Delilah get to know one another, swapping stories, and lending each other strength in times of need. That probably doesn’t sound exciting, especially with the choices you make in conversations with Delilah having no bearing on the end game, much like the opening text. Well, it’s not, really, but that shouldn’t (and doesn’t) mean it’s automatically bad, either. Excitement does not make or break an experience. The illusion of choice—expertly maintained thanks to Campo Santo co-founder Sean Vanaman’s Telltale pedigree, no doubt—builds up the liveliness of the world and lends a quieter sort of allure: that of building a new relationship.

Map640

From a more practical standpoint, the surface of Firewatch bares scars akin to a forest after a careless spark ignited some kindling on a dry, summer afternoon. Although its message is poignant and powerful, some might miss it when the fantasy shatters due to jarring and frequent framerate drops in the second half of the game. Yes, the visuals are gorgeous—courtesy of artist Olly Moss—highlighted by bright colors spread across the landscape in wide ribbons that dominate your first-person sightlines. But they are also simple, making the technical issues both surprising and disappointing.

Also, even if you adjust to the lower stakes of Firewatch, you may still find yourself cursing the glacial rhythm at a few points. When the mystery deepens and tensions begins to rise, Henry’s slow plodding across the Wyoming wilderness hurts pacing, turning what should’ve been a three- or four-hour experience into the five- to six-hour one we ended up with.

There are also likely some who will be left unsatisfied by the game’s resolution and ending. To this I say, that’s sort of the point. There’s a streak running through Firewatch that you might call “realistic” or “naturalistic” that would be ruined by something more conventionally crowd-pleasing. Any story, fictional or otherwise, can wrap everything up with a happily ever after and then pretend time stopped forever. Opting for something less naive serves as a reminder there’s another, more nuanced approach.

I’ll admit, I don’t typically enjoy games like this very much. Brothers and Gone Home are among the many critically acclaimed tearjerkers that left me unaffected and unimpressed. But Firewatch—technical issues be damned—actually moved me. I slipped into Henry’s persona as easily as feet do worn loafers. Part of this I feel was due to its audacious intro, with the game being only the aftermath of a devastating life moment that would rattle any person to their core; the rebuilding of a soul after it was burnt to the ground. That said, Firewatch’s subject matter may be too much for some, and those more superficial players will likely be unable to see past the game’s surface flaws, but those who are willing to make the trek with Henry will be rewarded. With a bit of patience and perseverance, the journey through Firewatch reveals a well-written adventure with an artful dedication to exploring themes and emotions that are rarely tackled in gaming, but so often essential to how we define ourselves as humans.

ControlledBurn640

Developer: Campo Santo • Publisher: Panic Inc. • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 02.09.16
8.0
Through the grounded reality it portrays and simple jobs players are tasked with, Firewatch sneaks up and surprises you when it zeroes in on a powerful message about the human condition.
The Good A heartfelt, well-told tale that should resonate with everyone on some level.
The Bad Routine framerate drops throughout the later stages of the game.
The Ugly We’re all headed for the same destination.
Firewatch is available on PS4 and PC. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Review code was provided by Campo Santo for the benefit of this review. EGM reviews games on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 5.0 being average.
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Far Cry Primal hands-on video – Taming Animals and Fighting the Izila

Filed under: Video — Leave a comment
February 5, 2016

I had a chance to play the first couple hours of Far Cry Primal‘s campaign at a recent Ubisoft event. Here are two missions where I got to tame my first animal, and also took on one of Takkar’s rival tribes, the sun-worshipping Izila. Far Cry Primal will be available for Xbox One and PS4 on February 23, 2016, and PC on March 1, 2016.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Homefront: The Revolution wants you to take up arms with the resistance

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment

Homefront2Header

Ahead of its Closed Beta stress tests that will be held over the next several weeks, Deep Silver allowed me to sit down with some members of Dambuster Studios to go hands-on with their newly announced 4-player “Resistance” co-op mode for the upcoming Homefront: The Revolution.

Whereas Revolution’s main campaign will follow Ethan Brady—one member of the underground opposition against the occupying Korean People’s Army—Resistance mode allows players to become a wholly unique foot soldier in the guerilla fighting force that challenges the KPA in 2029’s Philadelphia. In Resistance mode, players will be tasked with taking part in special missions with various objectives across several difficulty levels in an attempt to help remove the KPA from the City of Brotherly Love.

Upon first entering the mode, players will be able to customize how their soldier looks, along with what weapons they carry. You can even choose what job your character had before the invasion started, a decision which offers varying bonuses to skills. (For example, in a nod to the team’s own lot in life, video game developer gets a boost to hacking.)

Homefront2CharCustomization640

As you play, you’ll earn in-game currency that can be used to buy packages that vary in contents and cost, and which reward random gear and weapons. If you’re impatient, there are microtransactions that allow you to purchase more currency—but nothing is guaranteed. So, if you’re looking for a sniper rifle, you could pour a ton of money into the game and never get what you’re looking for, or play a mission or two and get it on your first package.

It may sound unfair, but part of this revolves around the idea that supplies are limited when you’re fighting a larger, more powerful occupying force and are resorting to hit-and-run tactics—in that world, beggers can’t be choosers. In fact, it even carries over into your missions. You’ll always have to scrounge for bullets mid-battle, because you’ll almost never have enough ammo to get through an entire mission, especially if you fight the KPA head-on.

Of course, this is where the idea of being a guerilla fighter becomes even more important. Communication between you and the other members of your cell—whether found through matchmaking or paired up with three buddies—is critical to winning the day, especially as missions get harder to handle. Scavenging for supplies on the outskirts of town is one thing; taking on a fully-stocked KPA outpost is another. Speed and stealth are critical to helping you even the odds, and learning the lay of the land may be the only advantage you can have over the KPA, as they’ll almost always outgun and outman you.

HFTRSniperRifle640

In my first mission with the team, we had to hack satellite relay towers around town. To make matters easier, we found motorcycles at a resistance drop point that allowed us to whizz past patrols and get to our objectives before the enemy knew what hit them. The next mission was completely different, however, and had us trying to steal APCs from a KPA checkpoint. Using the shadows to our advantage, we first moved along the rooftops, knifing snipers along the way before then heading underground via sewers to come up on the other side of the gate. Admittedly, I spent most of my time following the devs because of my unfamiliarity with everything, but I was impressed by the tactics we were using. When we didn’t try to fight like genuine guerilla fighters, the odds became too much, especially for our low level characters.

As great as this occupied Philadelphia looked, and as well as the game handled as a first-person shooter—aside from some twitchiness with the motorcycles that I attribute to the sensitive keyboard and mouse controls—there are still a couple lingering questions surrounding Homefront: The Revolution and its brand new mode.

A lot of games try to do 4-player co-op, and while the two missions I played were a lot of fun (even with relative strangers), is there enough here to keep people coming back for more? We know the game is launching with 12 missions, but what might make the mode is that Dambuster and Deep Silver are releasing 20 more missions over the course of the game’s first year, for free, for everyone. That could offer a lot of replayability.

The other question, though, is whether or not Resistance mode will play into the story of the Homefront series. Will achieving a series of victories over the KPA influence the game, or future games, in any way? Will there be large-scale community events that bring all the 4-person cells around the world together to rise up and take Philadelphia back? It seems that only time will tell, since as fun as my play session was, it clearly only scratched the surface of something deeper that we’ll have to wait to explore when Homefront: The Revolution comes out for Xbox One, PS4, and PC on May 17.

HFTRCrossbow640

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

EGM Review: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate: Jack the Ripper

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment

JackTheRipperHeader640

Slice and dice

Assassin’s Creed’s story-driven DLC packs have always tried to offer something different from their main story counterparts. From spiritual animal visions to freeing slaves, these post-release expansions have pushed the boundaries of what we expect from the series—especially gameplay-wise. In many ways, the newest addition to this lineage, the Jack the Ripper DLC for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, continues this trend.

Set in the fall of 1888—20 years after Syndicate and during the height of the Jack the Ripper murders—master assassin Jacob Frye has a dark secret that he’s hiding: he knows who the Ripper is. Jacob hopes to catch the madman before the police in an effort to rehabilitate Jack, but then suddenly ends up missing. A month later, Jacob’s twin sister Evie is forced to leave her home in India and return to London, in the hopes of finding her brother and putting a stop to Jack’s rampage permanently.

The most intriguing aspect of the Jack the Ripper DLC is that it tackles a subject with so many questions surrounding it. Considered the world’s first serial killer, Jack the Ripper was never caught nor his true identity revealed. Therefore, one might think it would give Ubisoft a wide berth in terms of how to work their narrative into this unsolved mystery. Unfortunately, it seemed to do the exact opposite.

Evie640

Part of the fun that stems from Assassin’s Creed is how the story finds ways to seep into the nooks and crannies of history, spinning well-defined, real-life events in a way that fits their conspiracy theory driven plot. Ubisoft took a great risk crafting their own tale to explain where Jack came from, how his methods evolved, and finally why his murder spree stopped. But because so little is known about the real-life Jack, the development of the character felt stifled, as there weren’t many ways to add depth to such a primal, one note villain to begin with without knowing something concrete about the man. Maybe part of this stems from the brevity of the DLC; a side expansion simply wasn’t enough to both introduce Jack and also turn him into a nemesis we could love to hate. Of course, the DLC alludes to Jacob and Evie having met Jack during the events of the main game, and yet there is no connecting between the two, unlike previous Assassin’s Creed DLCs. No matter the case, the result was a story that left me unsatisfied, even with its definitive ending.

Gameplay, on the other hand, added some surprising new wrinkles to the series—the foremost of which was actually playing as Jack the Ripper in several instances. Symbolic of the cat and mouse game Jack played with the actual police 125 years ago, the DLC sees Jack do the same with Evie, and there are several sequences where players can act out the brutality of Jack the Ripper as he leaves a trail of clues for our heroine. While these moments could’ve been used to better show Jack’s motivations—we see what he does, but never really get a clear sense as to why—they did offer a unique sense of freedom to how you would normally play an Assassin’s Creed game, now given the chance to step into the shoes of the villain as well as the hero.

Playing as Jack also introduced two new mechanics to the game (which then become available to Evie in non-lethal adaptations). The primary addition is a fear factor that allows you to instill terror in your enemies, so much so that they’ll run away instead of facing you. Building off of this is an supplement to melee combat called the Brutal Takedown, which—when pulled off successfully—can add to your ominous presence.

EvieSneak640

The idea of using fear as a weapon is something that I didn’t realize had been lacking from Assassin’s Creed until now. Being able to double assassinate a couple of thugs, then do a Brutal Takedown on another that scares away a half-dozen other guards, is the most empowering tool in your repertoire yet. It also makes a lot of sense. If you were a lowly guard patrolling a manor, and just saw your buddy’s throat ripped out, would you stay and fight, or turn and run the other way? Of course, as you might expect, some enemies do stay and fight, but others quickly beat a hasty retreat. It also allows for more enemies per conflict, as you’re now not expecting to fight all of them. You can—and you can win—but it wouldn’t be very efficient nor Assassin-like.

The major issue with the fear system, however, is that it’s not limited to just Brutal Takedowns. Evie and Jack both carry tools such as fear grenades and spikes. While Evie uses her spikes to pin enemies to the ground, so that their screams inspire terror in fellow thugs, Jack impales them as grim examples of the carnage to come. Meanwhile, fear grenades allow you to strike terror from behind cover without being seen. While great for clearing an area, they also felt overpowered, as a fully-stocked assassin never even has to unsheathe their blade, as they simply had to chuck a couple of grenades into the crowd.

These new elements come courtesy of a foundation built on the main game of Syndicate, though. Jack the Ripper takes place entirely in the two most northern districts of the main game’s map—Whitechapel and City of London—which unfortunately gives you a much smaller piece of land to cover, expediting much of the experience. Thanksfully, there are some new side missions to complete from associates both new and old, and three new Black Box missions to partake in. All told, though, Jack the Ripper might feel a tad repetitive for anyone who immersed themselves in the main game when it comes down to helping Evie track down Jack.

Although a little light on the content side, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate: Jack the Ripper is still a fun side excursion in the Assassin’s Creed universe. New mechanics and characters meshing with familiar ones from the main game make this DLC a fun experience overall—one that won’t disappoint most fans, all while filling in more gaps along the ever more convoluted timeline of Assassin’s Creed.

JackRunning640

Developer: Ubisoft Quebec • Publisher: Ubisoft • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 12.17.15
7.5
Striking fear into Evie’s enemies may be a bit overpowered, and Jack may not be the formidable bad guy we hoped he would be, but this DLC is still a fun adventure that serves as a nice excuse to return to Assassin’s Creed’s take on Victorian-Era London.
The Good New fear mechanic provides a fresh take on familiar gameplay…
The Bad …that is also overpowered and too heavily relied on.
The Ugly Jack the Ripper would make the easiest Dickens Fair cosplay.
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate: Jack the Ripper is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One. Review code was provided by Ubisoft for the benefit of this review. EGM reviews games on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 5.0 being average.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

EGM Review: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment

SiegeReviewHeader

Break the walls down

Over the 10-year period of 1998-2008, the Rainbow Six franchise released 16 different titles or expansions, by far the most of any single brand under the Tom Clancy umbrella. Then, there was nothing. The series disappeared from Ubisoft’s lineup of huge blockbusters post-Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and fans were left wondering when they could get the squad back together. There was a glimmer of hope when the Patriots project started being shown off, but as quickly as hype started to build, the game was shelved. From its ashes, however, has risen the first Rainbow Six game in seven years, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege—and it looks to bring tactical multiplayer gameplay back to the masses like never before.

The key word there, though, is multiplayer. Something that we need to get out of the way is, yes, Siege is a multiplayer-focused game. There is a single-player mode called Situations, but it’s really nothing but a glorified tutorial. While it does a nice job of helping players become familiar with the game’s modes, maps, and operators, Situations offers little value to the product as a whole in the long run. Especially if you’re a fan of Rainbow Six as a franchise, it’s hard not to miss a more dedicated single-player mode, given how important they were to previous entries in the series.

In fact, on the surface, there’s not really a lot of multiplayer content either. The online component of Siege is comprised entirely of two modes: Terrorhunt and Versus. Terrorhunt pits a team of five people against AI opponents in varying scenarios, including saving hostages, defusing bombs, or eliminating all the enemy terrorists. Meanwhile, Versus is your classic five-vs-five match, where each person on a team has only one life to live—with the twist that objectives similar to those in Terrohunt can also be achieved as an alternate path to victory.

BankSiege640

There are Casual and Ranked versions of both modes, but in order to unlock the Ranked options, you have to grind until you’re level 20. That’s a pretty lofty barrier for entry, even if you are trying to appeal more to the hardcore audience—although the journey does go rather quickly if you and your team keep winning in either Versus or Terrorhunt. Ranked changes the game somewhat by turning off all major HUD options and giving players a more true-to-life experience, giving you a carrot to at least to pursue the unlock. However, you can purchase XP boosts through microtransactions if you don’t have the patience.

Although it may sound like there’s not a lot to Siege, it makes up for it where it counts: in its gameplay. When you look past its lack of options and single player, this might actually be the best multiplayer game to come out this year. Siege has forgone all the bells and whistles that other similar-styled releases try to beat you over the head with, instead giving you the sleekest tactical shooter we’ve seen since Rainbow Six first hit PCs nearly two decades ago. Enemy AI is smart and ruthless, and when playing against other people, the emphasis on only having one life makes every decision a potential game-changing one, amping up the stakes alongside your adrenaline.

Siege features 11 of the best-designed close-quarters combat maps you’re likely to find in modern games. Maps may look small from the outside, but each location is filled with plenty of nooks and crannies that will have you checking every corner twice, just to make sure your rear is constantly covered.

The best part of each map, though, is how much you can destroy them. As long as it’s not a load-bearing wall, chances are you can punch a hole through it with a variety of devices depending on your operator and playstyle. This means sightlines are constantly changing, and that no match will ever play the same way twice. As well, the game looks absolutely gorgeous—how it’s able to chug along at a steady framerate considering the metamorphosis each level is constantly undergoing is phenomenal.

Thermite640

There are also the operators, the unlockable special forces agents players can use. There are 20 different characters to play with that not only feel unique due to their specialty gadget, but who also are perfectly balanced so that no matter how your team is comprised, or how you customize them, no matchups are better or worse than any other. The game has a character option for almost everyone on both offense and defense to suit your needs, and each brings with them their own strengths and weaknesses.

Like on offense, I love using Sledge, the SAS point man who, as his name would imply, carries a giant sledgehammer to punch holes in as many walls and floors as I want, but it also leaves me vulnerable and directly in the line of fire if I don’t have a buddy ready to clear the hole after the smoke clears. Meanwhile, on defense, Kapkan is my man, as I can set up booby traps in entryways that serve as a deterrent or a funnel to push enemies where I want them to go—but I’m limited in how many homemade devices I have. I know others, though, that put everything on guys like Tachanka, the stationary machine gunner on defense whose rear is vulnerable after he hunkers down, or Ash, the quick on her feet FBI agent with a special bullet that can breach barricades from a distance on offense but who really can’t take a hit. And those are just four of the 20 that you can play with.

Siege is also an enjoyable multiplayer experience because it does away with the “Lone Wolf” concept frequently seen in most other FPS multiplayer games. You have to work as a team to succeed in this game. Learning how the different operators work and developing a rapport with teammates so that you can most efficiently conquer the objectives actually becomes a large part of the fun, and pleasantly much of the burgeoning Siege community has headsets of some sort. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many enjoyable conversations in an online experience—ever—and it’s because Siege encourages objective-oriented people to come together for a common cause.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege lacks content—there’s no doubt about that—but what is there is absolutely stellar. With the promise of Spectator mode, more maps, and more operators down the line, this could develop into a really special game and community. As is, its exemplary gameplay is carrying the day, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the lack of content turns a lot of people off. But if you’re dying for a new Rainbow Six game like I was, or the idea of a hardcore tactical teamwork-based shooter sounds like your thing, Siege is worth a look.

ClusterCharge640

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal • Publisher: Ubisoft • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 12.01.15
7.0
What Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege lacks in content it makes up for in intense, fast-paced, heart-pounding action and tight gameplay. If tactical multiplayer is your thing, there may be none better. If not, though, you’ll likely find the experience to be a bit bare bones.
The Good Great balance between the 20 operators; amazing destruction, map variety.
The Bad Matchmaking issues persist, lack of a single player campaign.
The Ugly We miss you Ding Chavez.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One. Review code was provided by Ubisoft for the benefit of this review. EGM reviews games on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 5.0 being average.
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Far Cry Primal Original Gameplay and Hands-On Preview

Filed under: Video — Leave a comment
December 6, 2015

I had a chance to play Far Cry Primal at a recent Ubisoft event and finally got to try my hand at being the beastmaster, Takkar. Using my owl and wolf buddies, I liberate an outpost, but then things take a turn and I go from being the hunter to the hunted. Far Cry Primal will be available for Xbox One and PS4 on February 23, 2016, and PC on March 1, 2016.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

Developer Chat: Shadow Complex Remastered

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment

ShadowComplexDevChatHeader

Out of the Shadow

Shadow Complex was sort of a game out of time when it released back on the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade in 2009. A side-scrolling action-adventure reminiscent of metroidvanias from years past, Shadow Complex put players in control of Jason Flemming, an ordinary man put in extraordinary circumstances.

When Jason’s girlfriend goes missing while they’re camping in the wilderness, he has to track her down. What he finds instead is a secret military installation run by an anarchist group called the Progressive Restoration that wants to overthrow the government en route to world domination. As he explores the facility, Jason will use a variety of super-powered armaments he finds inside to save his girl and possibly the world.

Now, with a remastered edition of the game on its way for Xbox One, PS4, and PC almost seven years after the release of the original, we sat down with ChAIR Entertainment co-founder and creative director Donald Mustard to discuss why now was the time to bring Shadow Complex back to gamers.

VersusWalker640

EGM: Why bring Shadow Complex to current gen, and why do it now specifically?

Donald Mustard: It’s always been one of our goals at ChAIR to bring Shadow Complex to as wide of an audience as possible. When we first finished Shadow Complex, we started working on and moving on to a sequel, but then the opportunity to make a game with Apple for their budding game platform presented itself to us. And we thought that would be a really great use of Unreal Engine technology and so we paused development on Shadow Complex 2 and started work on this iOS thing that ended up becoming Infinity Blade, which then became this huge thing and that we didn’t anticipate happening.

Then led to some sequels and once we finished work on Infinity Blade III, we started work on this new original IP with J.J. Abrams that we announced a few weeks ago called Spyjinx. But while doing that, enough stuff kind of finally aligned where we had the time and resources and could take the original Shadow Complex and it get it converted over to our most recent code base and get it prepped in a way that we could bring it to PC, Xbox One, and PS4 and man, I’m so excited. I’ve been wanting this to happen forever. I know it’s taken a while, but this was literally the first opportunity that we could do it, and so we did it.

Tarantula640

EGM: Originally Shadow Complex was an Xbox 360 exclusive. Was it difficult to bring Remastered to current gen consoles and PC?

DM: Well, we have a couple of awesome things going for us. One is being part of Epic Games and we use Unreal Engine technology, which is super-versatile and is already very good at cross-platform performance. So, it’s been a relatively painless process to take the original Shadow Complex code and bring it up to date with our current version of Unreal Engine. And we’ve had a great partner in Hardsuit Labs that has helped us in doing that.

So we got everything moved over code-wise, and then luckily when we first developed Shadow Complex, we authored all of the art and textures at a higher resolution, and then turned and scaled down the textures and art to fit what the Xbox 360 could do. But modern consoles are a lot faster now, PCs are a lot faster now, and that allowed us to go back into the original source art and use it at its highest resolution settings, which is awesome because now all the art is in its original authored state. And everything looks amazing while still playing super-tight. So it hasn’t been that crazy of a process. Lots of work to make sure everything still looks and plays well, but it’s ready and we’re excited.

OTS640

EGM: The original game ran on Unreal Engine 3. Is Remastered still running on Unreal 3 or did you switch over to Unreal 4?

DM: No, Remastered is running on Unreal 3 still, but it’s interesting because the engine has evolved a lot over the years. Unreal Engine 3 from 2009 is very different from Unreal Engine 3 in 2015. In fact, a lot of current gen games still use Unreal 3, like Batman: Arkham Knight. And there’s a lot of really awesome stuff we’ve done engine-wise. What we did do was move the entire code base to our most current version of Unreal 3.

Turrets640

EGM: You mentioned earlier that you had to “pause” production on Shadow Complex 2. If Remastered does well enough, do you think you’ll start production back up on the sequel?

DM: That’s certainly a distinct possibility. One of the reasons why I’ve been so excited to bring Shadow Complex to a wider audience is for the express purpose to open the door and pave the way for more opportunities to do more in the Shadow Complex universe. We loved working with Peter David so much and writing the game with us. He’s always been one of my favorite comic book writers and we loved working with him and he wrote the first game. So one of the first things we did for pre-production on the sequel was for him to write a script for that sequel. So we’ve got this really awesome Peter David script for the sequel along with some other things. I mean, we’ve got some really awesome stuff that we’d love to do if there’s interest. So yeah, our hope is that if people are interested and they love the game and they want more of it across multiple platforms that this will open the path for us to do more. Nothing would make me happier.

Melee640

EGM: So, what new things can we expect from Shadow Complex Remastered besides the improved upon graphics?

DM: One of the things when we sat down and said we were going to do this was that it was very important to us that we keep the core gameplay experience as close to the original as possible because it is such a beloved game. People really loved Shadow Complex and we love Shadow Complex. So while we were willing to allow ourselves to turn up the resolution and put in some of the original high-res art, we very deliberately didn’t change any of the core gameplay. The game is the original game in terms of how it feels and how it plays and the layout of the world and where all the power-ups are and what they do. That said, we did allow a few little things, a few tweaks here or there and a few little things we’ve hidden for people to find.

And we allowed one other cool thing. Early on in the development of Shadow Complex, we had created this melee system where if you got up near enemies, you could take them down and do this quick, cool, little cinematic takedown like snapping someone’s neck, or punching them, or kicking a bomb guy or whatever. And that was the like the 1.0 implementation of that system. So, one of the first things we were changing for Shadow Complex 2 was a more contextual melee takedown system. Like if you had ran up to a guy and jumped in the air and then hit the melee button, you’d do this flying jump kick. Or if you were hanging on a ladder above a guy and hit melee, you’d reach out with your legs and snap his neck or pull people off ledges. And that system was so cool and was pretty much finished, so we had all that and put all that into this as well. So that’s a cool new thing we added to the game and there’s a couple things like that, but for the most part we didn’t want to alter the game beyond what it is because we think it is so great as is and didn’t want people to not experience the same thing people experienced six years ago.

ShootfromCeiling640

EGM: Back in 2009, old-school side-scrolling metroidvanias like Shadow Complex weren’t really being made at that time. Since then, particularly through the Indie scene, the genre has seen resurgence. Do you think that might help Shadow Complex Remastered hit a larger audience this go around?

DM: I agree and that is something we had hoped would happen because yeah, in 2009 not only were people not making non-linear exploration-based side-scrollers, people really weren’t making side-scrollers period. When we were talking to people about making this 3D-looking, but strictly 2D playing game, people thought we were crazy. And we said it wasn’t crazy and thought people were going to love it and decided to build it on our own. Then we said we’d make a Metroid-esque non-linear side-scroller.

To me, Super Metroid in 1994 was the pinnacle of 2D game design. Then all these 3D systems like the PlayStation and the N64 came out and we moved away from some of those design lessons. To me it was crazy. It would be like Grand Theft Auto came out and then no one made an open-world GTA style game for 15 years. So I felt we had to do this and we made the game and people loved it and we loved it.

Since then, I agree there has been this resurgence of non-linear side-scrollers, which was half the reason I even wanted to make Shadow Complex. Because I love playing those types of games and I love all those games that have come out over the last couple of years in the style I used to play. I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to be able to talk to the creators and teams behind some of those games and share our experiences making those games and it’s been really cool.

BridgeBuilding640a

EGM: There appears to be some heavy subject matter throughout the story of Shadow Complex, with topics like terrorism and the NSA, among others coming up. What was the inspiration behind that when making Shadow Complex?

DM: When we sat down to make the game, we wanted to do two things. We wanted to explore our love of Metroid-style games and we also wanted to explore our love of G.I. Joe. We all grew up in the 80s and we loved G.I. Joe. I always loved the dichotomy between G.I. Joe and Cobra and the idea that there was this hi-tech enigmatic bad guy that had all these resources versus more low-tech military people. And we thought it’d be really cool if we could make our version of that and that was really our idea behind the Progressive Restoration. To make these hi-tech bad guys versus this lone hiker who had no technology, and then stealing their tech and using it against them. That was really our aim and goal.

ShadowComplexRemasteredHeader

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comment