Category Archive: 360

Feb
01
2011

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare

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February 1, 2011

I’m not a massive fan of Tom Clancy. I have no interest in the books, but I’ll watch a film if it’s on. I do own a rather large number of games that bare his name though, some of which I actually enjoyed.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warrior (or GRAW to people who want to finish saying the name this week) is a first person shooter that I got in the second month of owning my 360. It was the first proper console FPS I owned as well and needless to say that I didn’t get very far into it before giving up because it was too hard. I remember exactly what it was that actually made me give up: you can’t heal mid-mission.

The game is a 3rd person over the shoulder style squad based shooter that apparently can be played 1st person too but I didn’t even realise that before I checked a few facts for this. It’s very slow in design, with cover being very important and you not being able to take that many hits in a stand-up firelight. This feels quite nice and tactical and so the game actually ends up playing quite well. Your three squad mates are available for most of the missions, but they do seem a bit dumb in places so I tended to end up using them as a quite capable diversion while I maneuverer around the enemy to finish them off. The shooting isn’t very twitch based either, with a more deliberate line up and fire from a distance style being the order of the day. Occasionally I would get bored and charge in with a pistol to just clear some enemies out fast, but more often than not this will just get you killed unless you’re very aware of your situation.

This time I’m playing it on hard and it’s still a bit easy most of the time, unless it’s one of the bastard hard bits in which case it’s really annoying. More proof that I can learn new skills over time I guess, but the fact that you can’t heal during a mission is all that gives the game the difficulty. In a more modern FPS you can peek up from cover, take a shot and duck down again while taking a few bullets. You then shrug that damage off with a bit of good old Positive Thinking or maybe forgetting you took damage because you’re absent minded, but you can do it again and again without any serious repercussion. Even in a game with health packs you don’t worry too much about damage because you know the designers will be looking out for you after a hard bit with a well placed pack. With this game you have to avoid being hit as much as possible otherwise you just don’t have enough health to make it to the end of the level. I tried playing with cheats enabled to see how it would work if I could shrug off damage as there’s a helpful indicator during the tutorial that teaches you when you would die with the cheat enabled, but the game becomes almost boringly easy if you can behave like you can in Call of Duty. Luckily the levels are all very short so there are only a few places where the damage system is actually a real problem.

The premise is that you are a super soldier in the near future and a presidential visit to Mexico has all gone tits-up. It is up to you to get the presidents of America and Mexico to safety while a coup makes your job difficult. You have all sorts of near future technology available to you, like a HUD that tracks enemies and waypoints, and you can also command UAVs, Apache’s and tanks on the field to tell them where to go, what to shoot and the like. The controls are nice and easy and it feels pretty good to be calling down the airstrikes. There’s really something reassuring about having an Apache hovering overhead looking out for you, which I imagine is pretty true in real life as well.

The biggest problem I have is that the game is very short and I can complete it in a lazy Sunday of playing (my new standard unit of measurement for game length). The story is, in accordance with my view of Tom Clancy, unrealistically bollocks in the most part but makes sense at least with each mission following on from the last with a "couple of hellish days on the ground" vibe to it. This instantly makes it feel more connected and well written than the last few call of duty games in my mind. Even with my disliking the writing and situations I still had fun so if you like Tom Clancy then you’ll be in an even better situation with this game. Towards the end some of the dialogue does become painfully bad as well, especially the reactions of your fellow soldiers to you, but you soon get back to killing things.

Something the game never quite gets right is the atmosphere. It never feels like it is anything other than an anonymous sterile grey city that could be in any country and the city lacks any real character of it’s own. As I write this a little while after completing the game I’m at a loss to describe anything about the city that really stood out and the only real colour seemed to be in adverts and the odd bit of plant life.

When I first played this game back in 2006 I really didn’t like it. I died lots, it was unforgiving of mistakes and was just too slow to control. Now I actually quite enjoyed it. Not enough to care about the multiplayer to be fair, but I enjoyed the single player campaign and all the skulking about being a spec-ops badass. When played right there are only a few (deliberate) places where you don’t feel like you are in total control of the situation and outclassing your opponents to the point where they need tanks before you even start to break a sweat.

Graphically the game is pretty basic, with flat textured walls more reminiscent of the previous generations than this, but since this is a game from 2006 it must be forgiven that. At the time it was considered to look amazing, which is a nice reminder of how far this console generation has moved on over the years. Of course the graphics don’t matter in reality because the gameplay is solid, but the detail can make it a little hard to pick out distant enemies when your HUD hasn’t noticed them yet. There’s also a tendency to disrupt your HUD during missions just so you don’t have it any more, and when this happens at night it gets really hard to see what is going on and deal with distant enemies, especially when you realise that you have over extended your position, have no backup and can’t viably fall back to safety.

Having completed the game now I’m happy that I went back and took another look. It just plays so differently than the current crop of shooters that it actually made a nice difference for a genre I think I’m pretty much getting burned out on. It lacks the fun of Battlefield and the spectacle of Call of Duty, but the pace gives it the feeling of power that those other games miss nowadays. It’s more of a Black Hawk Down type experience rather than the 80s action film experience of most other shooters and I think it’s something that we need more of. That isn’t to say that it’s as good as Black Hawk Down of course as the atmosphere never really manages to develop fully but I think that’s all that really stands in the way of this being a much better game than it is.

I wanted to add some things about the game that really stood out to me, but as hard as I think I can’t think of anything special about it. There isn’t a single set piece, toy or plot point that makes it stand out in today’s market. If I had to say where this game should be considered in gaming history I would have to think hard. Earlier games in the series implement most of the features such as squad control and so I’m not sure I could find anything that makes the game stand out in the grand scheme of things. With the benefit of a half decade of hindsight this is a game that refined and did not innovate, which is something I think I will return to with future games.  As with Project Gotham Racing 3 there is very little to recommend this game to people as there was a sequel a year later that refined the experience again. It does make me look forwards to the next game in the series though, Future Soldier, which is due out this year or next.

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Jan
03
2011

Retro Review: Lord of the Rings The Battle for Middle Earth 2

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January 3, 2011

The plan for this year is to go back and look at the games that triggered my descent into console madness way back in 2006 when I first got me 360. I’m looking at the games I didn’t get around to completing by going back and, well, completing them of course.

The first game on my radar was actually an RTS: The Battle for Middle-Earth 2. It turns out that back in the day I had played through most of the good campaign and fallen at the hurdle of a mission where I had to nursemaid a force through encounters before I could unlock the ability to create new units. This seems to have been a problem to me back then, and even today that mission was far too long as even when I had reached that part I still had to mount a full assault.

The plot is simple enough. There are two campaigns, good and evil, and you are generally pottering around in the north dealing with the forces of Sauron for the good campaign until the inevitable win due to Hobbits disposing of rings offscreen and you crushing the last of the enemy. The evil campaign is more interesting as it’s not constrained at all by the books and gets to cover a bunch of events that might have happened if evil had prevailed. It does  drift towards the events of the books with the scouring of the shire, but in a way so that even that is different due to there being more evil around than at the end of the books.

The game only has 16 missions, 8 for each side, but that should still be at least 20 hours gameplay for most people and quite possibly more if you’re more of a base builder so the game is certainly good value

The game is an real time strategy game of the type that is obviously better off with being on a PC. That’s not to say that they haven’t tried, but console RTS games, even today, tend towards the zerg over finesse. You can select units individually by clicking on them, selecting everything using the d-pad or you can select all of one unit type through a very quick and painless menu selection. There are no routes to program, you just tell units where to go. It’s very basic, but works.

The reason why it works is that it’s a very direct game. You don’t need subtle when you have a horde of troops running between objectives, or shoring up defenses but this can lead to a slightly straightforwards and linear feeling in an RTS. In fact I was mocked by my co-host during the final mission of the game as I solved every little problem with giants throwing rocks. Merry and Pippin? Rock to the face! Elrond? Rock to the face! Gandalf? Rock to the face! Not very subtle, but it worked. Still, a level or so earlier I had done the same to Gloin, which anybody who remembers our adventures through Lord of the Rings Online will know was a very satisfying thing indeed.

This certainly isn’t a game for people who don’t like Lord of the Rings as I suspect that the subject material forgave a lot of the flaws in the game for me. The plot relies on knowledge of the books or films in order to tie together and taken on it’s own I think it would be quite disjointed. The lack of any real strategy in an RTS is probably not a problem for most casual players, but the controls are clunky enough to mean that people who want more subtly will be disappointed.

The multiplayer servers are being turned off on January 11th and I took the opportunity to grab those achievements while I could, but I resorted to boosting as actually playing this game online was very unsatisfactory. It just lacked the level of control I needed in order to enjoy myself but to be fair I really don’t like multiplayer in RTSs as my experiences always have been those of min-maxing the best strategy before the opponent does the same.

Performance wise the game doesn’t look like it should tax the 360 with its pretty basic graphics and last generation shadows.

The last strange little note about the game is that it doesn’t have a full 1000 gamerscore with its achievements. These very early games hadn’t quite figured out the whole achievement thing, and the game stopped at 750 points. What’s more some of those achievements were bugged until the end of last year when the multiplayer servers were reset and so it’s had something of a bad reputation for most of it’s existence.

So in summary this is for LOTR fans who only want a casual experience, and I suspect the loss of online play will only be mourned by those who still need the achievements. As it’s an RTS on a console, and a very early one at that, it’s not exactly the smoothest experience for either the controls or the framerate. Still, everybody was learning how to use the console at that stage and the games quickly improved.

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Jun
16
2010

Consoles in Motion

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June 16, 2010

E3 is underway and the big three have made their announcements. New hardware is coming, shockingly there are new games coming that look great too and executives really shouldn’t be allowed on stage if they can’t do public speaking.

There are two big areas for consoles in the next year: 3D and motion control. 3D is a good place to start, and there are two approaches being taken.

Sony are going all out with 3D on the PS3 with a solution that needs glasses and special TVs. It is my opinion that is the reason why it’s not going to take off any time soon. 3D TVs are expensive, the glasses are expensive and they’re also awkward and I believe 3D will remain a gimmick until such a time as they can do it without glasses and everybody has 3D TVs. At the very least there is no way that enough people will upgrade their still relatively brand new HD TVs in the next few years just to get 3D. There’s also the question of giving up on the 1080p gaming dream by going 3D. As you can see by the HDMI spec (press release here: http://www.hdmi.org/press/press_release.aspx?prid=120) game content is limited to 720p at the moment, which is a big shame. I will also admit to being slightly bugged by Sony’s insistence that 3D is something special and new, all it takes is rendering two frames with a slight offset, packaging them together in a single image and have the HDMI output in the correct format. It’s not magic, it’s a published standard. Also PCs have been failing to sell 3D for years…

Nintendo takes a different route to 3D, and it’s one that I think will work. The new 3DS takes the existing DS and adds glasses-free 3D using a special screen. This works, I believe, in the same way as those lenticular pictures that change when you move your head. Because of the way you hold a DS they can make sure a different image hits each eye and so as if by magic we have 3D. I think this will sell because it’s Nintendo, an upgraded DS and apparently the market for the DS is 6 for every person on the planet.

Moving on to motion control there were three very different experiences on offer. The Nintendo experience was one of failure and frustration, in fact if that had been the year they announced the Wii then it would be roundly mocked for just not working. Technical issues aside it was more of the same and games taking advantage of this. Why mess with what sells?

Microsoft demonstrated Kinect (the new name for Natal) to the dismay of hardcore gamers who can’t see themselves using it. This doesn’t matter as it’s not for us, it’s for families with kids. Most of the games were the expected shovel ware, with only a few titles standing out. They didn’t even mention it for Fable, which confirms to me that it’s not a core gameplay feature in that game. Which is good. Forza is getting the controls that they demonstrated with Burnout last year, which is good as well. I’ll still play with controllers thank you very much, but it makes Forza into a lot more non-game playing Dad friendly game. I predict it will sell a bunch more copies because of that. All those bemoaning the loss of the steering wheel controller market because of it are wrong as well, you’ll never beat that for experience. Lastly we have two types of games I always thought would be perfect for Kinect. Games such as EA Sports Active were always going to sell, the Tai Chi and Yoga possibilities of a skeleton tracking system rating you and telling you what you’re doing wrong are enough to sell them on their own, let alone the rest of it. The other is a game by Harmonix, Dance Central. Dancing games are popular on the Wii, Kinect gives a better experience so this will sell.

There’s also a rubbish looking star wars game. Which looks rubbish. Because it’s rubbish.

Yep, thought so. Kinect isn’t aimed at me. Time will tell if they’re releasing lots of Kinect games in 2 years time still, but I’ll not hold my breath.

Sony had Move, which is best described as an upgraded version of the Wii. Actually that’s not fair, it’s probably best to describe it as working the way that you expect the Wii to when you first see it. One to one tracking of movements will be very useful and there are some very nice games that you could make now.

I wasn’t as impressed by Sony describing Move and its games as I was by seeing how it works, but the market will rectify that if it takes off. Mostly the games were the same fluff and rubbish that Kinect has but Sony also made the worrying statement that lots of “core” games were getting support as well. We already knew that SOCOM was getting it, but you can add Killzone to that list as well.

Why am I worried about that? It’s giving those games an option of how to play that isn’t as good as what’s currently available. Sony have a bad track record with games using their latest gimmicks in inappropriate ways (the now forgotten motion controlling features of the sixaxis being the prime offender) and I don’t fully trust them not to do that. Now this sounds as if it contradicts what I said about Forza, but I don’t think the ease of access issue is the same for a shooter, you’re just removing the aiming part and leaving the moving the same. It’s telling that one of the accessories for Move announced was a holder for it shaped like a gun, so expect the option to return to lightgun gameplay in lots more PS3 games.

Grand Turismo announced Move support too, but I’m not 100% sure it’s actually Move and not just the camera. It adds something that the PC has had for a while: head tracking for looking around. On the PC it’s been through a product called TrackIR and removing the need for that extra hardware just with a camera is most welcome.

I came away from watching the Sony and Microsoft keynotes not wanting any of the games on either system. The interesting games in the Sony lineup are all games I’ll still play with the controller and the move specific games all looked more than a little rubbish. The Kinect games all looked a little rubbish as well, but they also added controls for the xbox itself through voice and gestures so they at least have that. That’s not worth whatever it’ll cost of course.

Costs are interesting. Sony are trying to sell a LOT of kit this year. New TV, glasses, Move controller ($50), camera, nunchuck ($30) and, oh yes, second move controller for the games that need two. Drop the 3D aspects and you still $150 off the bat to be able to play all games single player. Microsoft didn’t give a price for theirs, but $150 is rumoured and although it looks more expensive that’s a flat fee for every player. Microsoft are actually in a much better position, if that’s the real price, than Sony for families with more than one child as those $80s for the controller pair will soon add up. I also have this nagging feeling that comes from trying to convince my Dad to buy things when I was a kid. He never took well when buying something when I told him that we’d need lots of extras and that’s a lot of bits for kids to convince their Dad about with Move.

The big problem is lag. All three systems have what looks like massive amounts of lag between movement and action on screen which is going to be very distracting when trying to chain moves together in something. You’re not going to know a block worked in a sword fighting game before you need to start your next move for instance.

I probably sound a little down on both Microsoft and Sony here, but that’s just because the majority of the content for these new controllers just isn’t for me. I don’t know if they’ll sell in the long term, but given Microsoft and Sony’s abysmal track record for supporting things like their cameras in the past I don’t hold much hope for the long term survival of these. Both companies are looking to pull in new users with them, whether they are existing Wii owners, PS2 owners who still haven’t upgraded, or people who still haven’t got a console at all. I don’t know if this will work, but I hope we get some interesting things for them. Both Sony and Microsoft have potential here but I worry about them being able to capitalise on it. Move would actually make that killer lightsaber game that we’ve all wanted since the announcement of the Wii for instance.

When it comes down to it both systems are camera heavy, and that’s what gives them their advantages in accuracy over the Wii. The advantage the Wii has is greater though since it’s the dominant console, the one everybody knows as the motion control one, and the one that MS and Sony are being seen to want to copy. That’s a pretty good position to start this new race in.

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Jun
11
2010

A post in which Jon complains about motion controls

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June 11, 2010

A recent study has apparently shown that the percentage of people wanting to join the motion control revolution for the HD consoles is rather small, with a pathetic 8% of people saying they’ll be buying Natal and an even lower 6% saying they’ll buy Move. The massive caveat is that only 15% of people even knew that they were getting motion control in the year so these numbers are pretty useless as stands and until the publicity machines jump in and people actually know what’s available only the true motion hardcore would say yes they will buy it.

Well them and people like me. I’ll buy anything to see if it works.

I have to admit to being not that interested in Move. I own a Wii that I rarely use and coincidentally today the game that’s being released that I’m all excited about is a Wii game. Yes, Europe finally gets Super Mario Galaxy 2 today and the reason I’m interested in it isn’t that it’s a Wii game with controls I can wave around; it’s because it’s a good game. Move is, as far as I can see, a cross between the camera that Sony re-release every few years promising that this time they’ll actually release loads of games for it and a slightly improved version of the Wii controls and giving HD graphics.

Funnily enough the reason that I don’t buy most Wii games isn’t that they’re not in HD. It’s because they’re rubbish games that could be controlled as well, if not usually better using a traditional controller. The thing about the Wii is that the games don’t have a massive choice but to use it, who actually has the classic controller? On PS3 there is a perfectly serviceable traditional controller in the box that you can use.

Natal is a different beast as I’m really excited by it. I think it has amazing potential as long as they don’t ruin it by making games for it. Controlling my DVD player with gestures sounds great; flailing my arms around as they do on all the videos for it to play rubbish party games does not.

Natal is the worse of the two by far for showing it off on video because of the sight of people flailing away. Nope, doesn’t look fun to me and also looks like I can’t play for hours without my heart exploding and I’m not sure my legs, which have atrophied away to the point of being no more than things to give my trousers legs shape are going to take it either. I jest of course, but Natal will get stories of heart attacks while playing over Christmas I’m sure.

But what of the potential to innovate and do something cool?

I will admit that I don’t think that Move will see that much innovation due to the fact that we didn’t see it really happen on the Wii. People have had their chance to do something amazing with that style controller combination and we haven’t really seen it taken very far. The camera has also been available for the PS3 and 2 for years and nobody did much more with that than pets and a card game.

Natal I can see as an innovation though. I think it might really allow homebrew gamers to do some motion tracking for their games. I also see it as a quantum leap forwards for getting naked gamers banned from Xbox live over the current camera. Not sure it’ll create its own genre of good games though. Have you seen the river rafting one? Look for it in the E3 coverage.

There are some innovations that it looks like both systems will actually bring. Head tracking for driving games for instance seems like it will arrive this autumn for Grand Turismo, but that’s just using the camera normally it seems. That could have been done on either system anytime.

The reason I’m writing this now is that next week we get the big announcements from Sony and MS at E3 and hopefully I can turn around and laugh at how wrong I was. Grand Turismo will maybe revolutionise driving games through Move, and Fable 3 may not just have Natal tacked on for fart emotes.

I don’t predict massive long term success from these two products though, in fact I’ll go on the record and state that I think we’ll be hearing about the next generation of consoles at E3 in 2 years time because the motion user grab failed.

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