One of steam's biannual, wallet eviscerating sales is going on right now and I'm trying desperately not to get sucked too far in. So far I've only bought Dragon Age Origins and NBA 2K13. I'm only a couple of hours into each game but I'm having a lot of trouble with both of them. It's not trouble related to game design as they're both excellent games, no the trouble i'm having is that I suck at both of them.
I used to have Dragon Age Origins for Xbox 360. Or a roommate did, or I rented it or borrowed it one time. The point is, that I once played about 60 percent of the way through the game before giving up. Funny how much I've obviously forgotten since then.
The first character I created since purchasing the game on Steam was a human noble warrior. I chose this because after staring at the character creation screen for several minutes, I decided that this was the least likely option I would've chosen last time around. Choosing him this time would ensure that my game play experience would be as different as possible.
It took me almost 20 minutes before I realized that the first time I played Dragon Age Origins I had also apparently chosen a human noble warrior. Oops.
I started over again, this time with a Dalish Elf rogue. This time I didn't recognize any of the introduction. I was happy until about an hour in when I started dieing repeatedly. An hour or so later and I'm still dying constantly, though now i'm pretty sure i've hit a wall. I couldn't open a single chest in the entire dungeon due to not having enough lock picking skills and the boss simply shrugs off all of my best efforts to kill him. I can't even get him down to a third life.
I know Dragon Age Origins is a good game, but it sure feels dated. Autosaves are a bit too few and far between, the camera doesn't quite work out the way i'd like it to and gameplay is a strange hybrid of "modern RPG/MMO" style controls and Baldurs Gate style "pause based strategy." None of this is awful or crippling, it just makes me realize how much our expectations have moved on in just a few years. I expected the graphics to be what bothered me most, but instead i'm annoyed at almost everything besides the graphics. Strange.
This brings me to NBA 2K13. I actually own NBA 2K11 and 2K12 as well. I'm a pretty big basketball fan and the NBA 2K games are always really highly rated. There's just one problem i have with them. Despite 40 plus hours of time spent trying to learn them, I am still AWFUL at both games.
I'm not exactly sure what it is, perhaps a lifetime of playing NBA Jam and NBA street as a kid, but I can't for the life of me perform even the most basic of moves in a serious basketball simulation, or any sports simulation for that matter.
The players almost never do what I want, beyond move a particular direction and shoot when I tell them to. In modern basketball games, much more is required if you ever want to make a shot. A big part of the problem is simply remembering the controls. There are a myriad of basketball moves that can all be performed with various button presses. Unfortunately most of the moves are modified by a somewhat imprecise (to my fingers at least) analog stick as well as by actual court position. The chances of me figuring out what to do and then actually remembering how to do it are extremely low. I'm often left wanting my basketball player to do something but not actually remembering how to do it for a few seconds. In a game that's based mostly on timing this is a crippling problem.
I think sports simulations need to take a page from the Gran Turismos and Forzas of the world and figure out some sort of "driver assistance" for people who didn't grow up playing them. Traction control and stability control were implemented into Gran Turismo 3 and Forza came up with the idea of a racing line that reacts to how fast the player is going. These are both incredibly good functions that make hard core simulation games accessible to people who otherwise wouldn't want to play a racing simulation, or perhaps who are just bad at video games.
The best thing about driving assists are that they can be turned on and off independently of AI intelligence. This is crucial as it provides a much better level of customization for players who understand the fundamentals but simply can't make their fingers do the right things.
Hopefully there will be some sort of assist in the future when I inevitably get NBA 2K14, because right now playing basketball games makes me feel like a child trying to learn to ride a bicycle without any training wheels.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Kerbel Space Program
A couple of months ago I picked up Kerbel Space Program on Steam. It's part of Steam's early access program, which lets gamers purchase a game still in development to help fund indie studios. In return, these studios give gamers access to the early alpha and beta builds of the game.
I bought Kerbel Space Program after being urged to do so by my friend. He had been playing it obsessively which led me to believe that it was more than just a half broken alpha build of something that didn't work yet. Indeed I was correct, as KSP was already remarkably polished by the time I started playing it a couple of months ago.
Kerbel Space Program pulls of an interesting trick, it reminds me of some of the best physics based games of my childhood, while remaining completely original. In it's current form, KSP is essentially a sandbox, allowing players to design and build multistage rockets which can then be fired towards the moon, or other celestial bodies.
KSP is both accessible and rigorously a simulation. The tone is generally light and cutesy. There are no humans, the player instead taking control of little green men (Kerbels) who wish to fly to the "mun."
The rocket designer takes a cue from Spore's Creature Creator. Pieces are picked out with the mouse and simply dragged into place. Everything is laid out nicely and intuitively and there are lots and lots of pieces available with which to create rockets (and more available with mods.)
Once a rocket is completed, players are invited out to the launch pad to try and send their rocket up into space. This is where the game starts to really bear its simulation teeth. There is an immediate sense of heft and players are given an idea of just how much fuel it takes to escape into orbit. Too heavy a craft will have trouble lifting off without more rockets, but more rockets means more fuel, ballooning weight out to the point where structural integrity begins to become a problem. Players must find the sweet spot between these factors if they want to have any hope of making it into orbit.
Once airborne, players must compete with the atmosphere for a while where winglets and aerodynamic aids are essential. Once in space, the player is invited to open up their map screen where they can zoom in and out and have a better view of the solar system. The map screen is both incredibly helpful and essential to gameplay. It gives players a perfect view of their current trajectory while simultaneously allowing them to control their craft, initiate burns and speed up or slow down time. A smart player can use the map to manipulate orbits and eventually end up where they want to go.
I put twenty plus hours into KSP and never managed to land anything. It was not the main focus of my sandboxing, but I know it is possible to do so, as my friend gloated to me by sending a screenshot over of his landed space craft on Mun. The few times I did try landing reminded me of the old 2D game Lunar Lander of which there have been many variations. Of course the Kerbel version is in 3D and is thus much much more difficult.
As often happens with this game, I was reminded of my childhood glory days while playing KSP. At different times KSP has evoked everything from Microsoft Flight Simulator, to X-Plane, to even the old Glider series. At every turn, I feel like KSP is taking its cues from the classics of the genre.
The fact that I played twenty plus hours of an unfinished game should be indicative of the hard work that went into and continues to go into Kerbel Space Program. The truth is that there's even more to the game that I haven't gone into. There's an entire space plane builder separate from the rockets and orbital navigation is practically its own highly complex but ultimately intuitive mini game. I'm excited for the eventual full release of KSP, but highly encourage anyone who is interested in physics, rocketry or astronomy to pick up the early access version of the game. It's shaping up really nicely.
I bought Kerbel Space Program after being urged to do so by my friend. He had been playing it obsessively which led me to believe that it was more than just a half broken alpha build of something that didn't work yet. Indeed I was correct, as KSP was already remarkably polished by the time I started playing it a couple of months ago.
KSP is both accessible and rigorously a simulation. The tone is generally light and cutesy. There are no humans, the player instead taking control of little green men (Kerbels) who wish to fly to the "mun."
The rocket designer takes a cue from Spore's Creature Creator. Pieces are picked out with the mouse and simply dragged into place. Everything is laid out nicely and intuitively and there are lots and lots of pieces available with which to create rockets (and more available with mods.)
Once a rocket is completed, players are invited out to the launch pad to try and send their rocket up into space. This is where the game starts to really bear its simulation teeth. There is an immediate sense of heft and players are given an idea of just how much fuel it takes to escape into orbit. Too heavy a craft will have trouble lifting off without more rockets, but more rockets means more fuel, ballooning weight out to the point where structural integrity begins to become a problem. Players must find the sweet spot between these factors if they want to have any hope of making it into orbit.
Once airborne, players must compete with the atmosphere for a while where winglets and aerodynamic aids are essential. Once in space, the player is invited to open up their map screen where they can zoom in and out and have a better view of the solar system. The map screen is both incredibly helpful and essential to gameplay. It gives players a perfect view of their current trajectory while simultaneously allowing them to control their craft, initiate burns and speed up or slow down time. A smart player can use the map to manipulate orbits and eventually end up where they want to go.
I put twenty plus hours into KSP and never managed to land anything. It was not the main focus of my sandboxing, but I know it is possible to do so, as my friend gloated to me by sending a screenshot over of his landed space craft on Mun. The few times I did try landing reminded me of the old 2D game Lunar Lander of which there have been many variations. Of course the Kerbel version is in 3D and is thus much much more difficult.
As often happens with this game, I was reminded of my childhood glory days while playing KSP. At different times KSP has evoked everything from Microsoft Flight Simulator, to X-Plane, to even the old Glider series. At every turn, I feel like KSP is taking its cues from the classics of the genre.
The fact that I played twenty plus hours of an unfinished game should be indicative of the hard work that went into and continues to go into Kerbel Space Program. The truth is that there's even more to the game that I haven't gone into. There's an entire space plane builder separate from the rockets and orbital navigation is practically its own highly complex but ultimately intuitive mini game. I'm excited for the eventual full release of KSP, but highly encourage anyone who is interested in physics, rocketry or astronomy to pick up the early access version of the game. It's shaping up really nicely.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Bridgy Jones Review
Bridgy Jones makes a good argument that the iPad is not ruining gaming. While the App Store may be filled to the brim with the worst kind of free to play, pay to win "video games," there is another side to it as well. Innovative, polished, cheap and fun games are released nearly every day to a wider audience than ever before. And while many of them aren't amazingly compelling or life changing, they do represent a great value per dollar argument when it comes to fun.
Bridgy Jones is not the best game on the app store. Far from it. But it represents to me the best thing about the app store. This game is one dollar. Despite it's price, it is polished, well presented, thought provoking and above all fun. In short, it does its job better than it has any right to.
The game its self is pretty simple and honestly, not terribly original. It's a physics based bridge building game where players are tasked with...well building bridges. After designing a bridge or two, players are given control of a train which must then be driven across various bridged chasms. Simple, but effective!
The game is effective for two reasons. The first is that bridge building is and always has been fun to me. The second is that Bridgy Jones is ridiculously well polished. The sound effects, the music, the menus and the graphics are all indicative of a game that should cost far more than one dollar. Everything moves around smoothly, with beams shifting into place with a satisfying pop. Touches like a dotted line circle to show players maximum beam length help make gameplay easier, lessening sources of unintentional frustration.
It's not perfect, a couple of the puzzles required some slightly hokey gaming of the physics in order to complete, but I'm not convinced I couldn't have beaten the level a more natural way.
Bridgy Jones is a solid little title and I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in physics puzzlers. Cheap, disposable but not low quality, are attributes I can live with.
Bridgy Jones is $0.99 and can be found here on the App Store.
Bridgy Jones is not the best game on the app store. Far from it. But it represents to me the best thing about the app store. This game is one dollar. Despite it's price, it is polished, well presented, thought provoking and above all fun. In short, it does its job better than it has any right to.
The game its self is pretty simple and honestly, not terribly original. It's a physics based bridge building game where players are tasked with...well building bridges. After designing a bridge or two, players are given control of a train which must then be driven across various bridged chasms. Simple, but effective!
The game is effective for two reasons. The first is that bridge building is and always has been fun to me. The second is that Bridgy Jones is ridiculously well polished. The sound effects, the music, the menus and the graphics are all indicative of a game that should cost far more than one dollar. Everything moves around smoothly, with beams shifting into place with a satisfying pop. Touches like a dotted line circle to show players maximum beam length help make gameplay easier, lessening sources of unintentional frustration.
It's not perfect, a couple of the puzzles required some slightly hokey gaming of the physics in order to complete, but I'm not convinced I couldn't have beaten the level a more natural way.
Bridgy Jones is a solid little title and I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in physics puzzlers. Cheap, disposable but not low quality, are attributes I can live with.
Bridgy Jones is $0.99 and can be found here on the App Store.
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