I was digging on Crimson Alliance, a simple and spirited action RPG that pulls back from the usual finicky loot chase in favor of a scoring model. You try to avoid taking damage to rack up a multiplier. At the end of the level, you earn points based on your combat effectiveness, the secret areas you’ve found, and the time you took to reach the end. If you finesse the multiplier, you can hit the score thresholds for silver and gold medals. That’s the overall metagame around the lively hacking-and-slashing.
But then I get to the business model for this Xbox Live Arcade game. I don’t really mind the overall pricing model. The three heroes are sold separately for $10 each, or for $15 for all three. That’s an interesting enough alternative to the usual price.
But then I get to the stores between each level, where you spend the gold you’ve accumulated to buy gear. Gear is a bit more meaningful than the usual action RPG, because there’s no leveling. Each character always has three attacks, but the attacks get more powerful based on which items you equip in each of a character’s three slots. Some equipment even gives you extra health, or a bonus tweak. This wizard’s orb might improve your direct flame attack and add a few points of health, but that wizard’s orb will boost your electricity crowd control attack as well as add a slight chance of critical hits. Simple meaningful choices without too much fuss. Now let’s go eff up some more goblins!
But what rubs me the wrong way is that each store includes a nag for you to buy 40,000 gold from the Xbox Live store. In the overall calculus of the game, 40,000 gold is an unbalancing metric butt-ton of money. It will basically unlock all the best items for each of your three slots. I’m guessing it will let you effortlessly plow through the levels, pretty much guaranteeing silver medals all the way.
Is Crimson Alliance supposed to work this way? Shouldn’t the developers tune their game* so the amount of gold you earn is commensurate with either the amount of time you’ve played, or how well you’ve played? When is gameplay just a grind that you should be able to buy your way past? Should indie developers shirk their duty like Electronic Arts routinely does, giving players the option to subvert whatever challenge level their game should provide? And should an indie developer include a nag for this every time I’m counting out my hard-earned gold for whatever minor item I can afford?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. But I do know that I lost interest in Crimson Alliance after being repeatedly nagged to pay extra money as an alternative to actually playing the game.
2 stars
* otherwise known as “doing their jobs”
Hey, look, it’s a found footage movie that goes, pow, straight to the moon! If you don’t want Apollo 18 spoiled, then fast forward to this week’s 3×3 at the 57-minute mark, where we discuss our favorite battles of the sexes.
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Gamespy has printed my field guide to Banoi fauna. Which is also a sort of advisory FAQ for anyone considering whether to travel to Banoi, the New Guinea island where Dead Island takes place. For instance:
Are my children in danger?
Despite what you may believe based on the 2010 promotional video for Dead Island, children on the island of Banoi are absolutely safe. You will not encounter any child zombies, even though they’re a fundamental part of zombie traditions ranging from 1968’s Night of the Living Dead to 2010’s The Walking Dead. Thanks to the diligent efforts of the ESRB, the zombie apocalypse will not affect anyone under the age of 18 in anything that isn’t called Dead Rising 2. And even then, it occurs tastefully off-screen.
You learn to listen for zombies. The walkers are the more lugubrious zombie noises, although you never know when they’re going to show up. Sometimes they stir awake at your feet. The infected are the more shrill zombie noises. They’re just yelling, really. Just someone yelling and running directly at you. You can always hear them coming. They’re the opposite of a surprise. They’re all, like, “Hey, I’m way over here and I’m on way so I’m going to give you plenty of advance notice to prepare the weapon of your choice and even to throw it at me if you’re so inclined!” If you want to illustrate the Doppler effect for someone, just drive past one of the infected.
So I’m scrounging around the streets of Moresby — this game is so very Fallout 3 — when I hear a walker. He’s close. Really close. I check the bodies at my feet. No movement. I look around the corner. Nothing. I check for nearby non-fake doors. Nope, all fake. It seems to be coming from behind a truck. I look all around the truck. No. I check in the cab. Nothing. It seems to be coming from inside the truck…
Ah, I finally notice what kind of truck it is. Audio bug? Joke? Vignette? Whatever the case, I certainly enjoyed it.
Welcome to the holidays. Your wallet is now officially under siege.
Dead Island is the only release this week that I’ve actually played for any meaningful length of time. The review is under embargo, but I think you know where I stand: in a puddle of blood, amid hacked-off zombie limbs, clutching one of those knives you use to cut down cane sugar, with a few of my friends at my side*.
But this week would still be a potentially dire wallet threat even if it weren’t for Techland’s zombie masterpiece. I really like the car-hopping conceit that Driver: San Francisco brings to multiplayer. Resistance 3 is out this week. Disgaea 4 (pictured). Space Marine. The Starfox remake for the Nintendo 3DS. The cute rock-rolling tower defense game Rock of Ages. The Xbox Live Arcade action RPG Crimson Alliance. Rise of Nightmares for your Kinect.
I’m sorry, I tried. I really tried. I tried to mention that last one with a straight face, but I just couldn’t.
* i.e. wandering away to look for loot, even though they know they’re just going to get jumped again
Crappy zombies movies have an inevitable scene in which a zombie lunges at someone from just outside a tightly framed shot, presenting the audience with the undead equivalent of a cat scare. It’s a cheap tactic, unbecoming of a zombie. Zombies aren’t known for their stealth. You can see them coming from a mile away. Consider the iconic scene in the original Night of the Living Dead that introduces the modern zombie. A man and a woman at a cemetery see someone shuffling towards them. If they had just strolled away, nothing would have happened. But instead, they goof around. “They’re coming to get you, Barbara. Look, there’s one now!” It leads to the world’s first zombie attack.
One of my favorite things about Dead Island is how well it avoids cheap tactics, but it still manages plenty of surprises and a wonderful sense of danger. When a zombie grapples you (pictured), it’s your fault. You either took on too many at once, or you didn’t check for nearby doorways or bushes while you were distracted, or you estimated distance poorly, or you went someplace with lots of dark tight spaces (pro tip: don’t get too accustomed to the sunny open space of Banoi’s beach resort). When a zombie gets in your face, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Dead Island developer Techland manages this partly with whatever fancy spawning tricks they’re using to populate the world. The how, where, and when of zombie spawning is every bit as impressive as the graphics engine. Look, there’s one now! You check your weapons; you quickly look around you to make sure you’re alone; you advance and hack away with your machete; you miss the swing at its head so you give it a kick and it flies backwards towards some bushes; you look around you again to make sure there are no stragglers approaching; you advance on the fallen zombie, chopping at its legs while it tries to get up; you decapitate it with a carefully aimed swing at its head; you see it’s dropped a diving knife; hmm, the knife isn’t bad, but you can’t use it until you level up, so you check the damage against the cleaver you’ve been chucking–AH, A ZOMBIE CAME OUT OF THE BUSHES AND NOW IT’S IN YOUR FACE BECAUSE YOU WERE CHECKING HOW MUCH DAMAGE THE DIVING KNIFE DID!
Given that these zombies don’t occur in Dead Rising sized hordes, I couldn’t be more pleased with how Techland has made fewer zombies matter more, with whatever spawning tricks they’re using and this deeper combat model. Banoi feels unsafe, but not cheaply so.
And speaking of up close and personal, one of the most valuable commodities on Banoi is deodorant. But not for the reason you’d think. Let’s just say two cans of deodorant and some duct tape can work wonders.
I hesitate to think how many energy drinks I’ve sucked down so far. On one hand, too many. I can only imagine how much sugar is in those things. On the other hand, not enough. At the point where I am in Dead Island, I’ve already died far more times than I’ve died in a Dead Rising game.
So when I came across the above lovely piece of machinery, I was disappointed that the “F” key didn’t actually do anything (note my depleted health bar in the upper left corner). If this was Duke Nukem Forever, you can bet the use key would actually do something at this point. Although, if this was Duke Nukem Forever, I’d be playing Duke Nukem Forever. Sometimes a useless espresso machine is a small price to pay.
Speaking of prices to pay, given the achievement I just earned in that screenshot, you’d think I’d be rolling in money. No such thing is happening. Managing your arsenal during a zombie apocalypse ain’t cheap.
In the latest Of Phalanxes and Hydralisks*, my strategy gaming column on Gamespy, let’s look at how the best games break.
The earliest example I can recall is Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares. You’re trucking along, playing a great 4X space opera, when annoying ships start to gradually trickle out onto the map, messing up stuff and then leaving. These are the Antarans, a malicious extra-dimensional race of jerks with ships way more powerful than yours. And they don’t stop coming.
Read the column here.
* Are you accustomed to that title yet? Does it no longer sound tortured and awkward to you? Me either.
Note that it’s not Archon. Like that game up there, which is a whole other way to travel through time. It’s Achron. Like Ohio. This time travel RTS is challenging in terms of saying the name without thinking of the classic battle chess game or the Ohio city. In terms of graphics, gameplay, and its drawn-out tedious campaign. In terms of wrapping your head around its cool ideas.
…unfortunately, cool ideas don’t sell games until they’re implemented into cool games.
Read the review here.
By the way, I did some math. The Gamepro editor who stuck the editor’s note at the top of the review, which kind of spoils the joke by explaining it, thinks Blizzard is going to publish one Starcraft sequel every two years for the next decade. That’s a good one!
This week we welcome Matt (a.k.a. merryprankster), who brings us tales of Vermont, consumer-friendly game companies, and his own charming boardgaming naivete. Also, the outside scoop on the Call of Duty gathering in Los Angeles, the fate of LA Noire developer Bondi, and mankind’s ongoing efforts to tame bees and defeat ants.
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Well that was unexpected. Another TOY STORY. This week’s community level. Should be sickeningly cute and childish, with annoying music. Nothing too taxing. Just enough to remind me why I love those movies so much and should steer clear of movie levels when playing this game.
Wrong. Another TOY STORY is challenging and gorgeous with a nifty sound design. Did I mention it was challenging? I can think of at least three spots where I thought I’d have to throw in the towel. I didn’t. I figured it out, and was pleasantly surprised. A movie-themed level that is smart and difficult. Not to mention evocative. Didn’t expect that.
I also didn’t expect to learn a lesson in gaming strategy from National Public Radio.
After the jump, the ants go marching in formation, hurrah hurrah Continue reading →
I love when I’m just bopping along, doing my job, trying out some cute little indie game I’ve heard about. And then, whoa, I’m suddenly playing what’s probably going to be one of my favorite games of the year!
Space Pirates and Zombies doesn’t fast forward beyond the apocalypse. You get front row seats when it happens. What begins as a sort of Star Control clone turns into a zombie game, which I wouldn’t tell you if the word “zombie” wasn’t already in the title. Besides, you can see the shift coming as you work your way towards that seemingly innocuous waypoint in the center of the galaxy. But it’s no less dramatic for being telegraphed this way, because Space Pirates and Zombies isn’t afraid to become a different kind of game once the dead walk the earth. Or, in this case, drift the stars.
Read the review here.
Above are some of the guys in the town hub for Cladun x2, the sequel to last year’s thoroughly charming and even more thoroughly addictive Cladun: This Is an RPG! They are, from left to right, Harry Potter, the Witchmaster General, and I think some guy from Marvel vs. Capcom. I can already tell I’m going to love Cladun x2, and it’s gratifying to see the new stuff emerge. I’m enjoying a series of “Ah, so they’re going to add that!” moments.
However, I have one very important question for those guys up there: Where’s Pudding? I can’t bear to think I’m going to play dozens of hours of this intricately configurable dungeon crawl without the first game’s brash but sympathetic heroine along for the ride.
I had a great time hanging out with Rob Zacny and some dude named Soren Johnson — if that is his real name — on the latest episode of Three Moves Ahead. Neither of them took me up on my offer for coffee. Instead, we got busy talking about Age of Empires Online.
So many storylines run through the Battle of Britain that it’s hard to decide where to start. The evolution of airpower theory in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The secretive growth of the Luftwaffe after the Treaty of Versailles. The design and development of the main mechanical protagonists: the Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire, and Messerschmidt 109, as well as the German medium bombers, at least one of which started out as an airliner. British Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, who almost singlehandedly devised and directed a coherent strategy for fighting the battle. German Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring, who did not. The ballroom at Bentley Priory, which was converted into the first real “war room” over two decades before Dr. Strangelove. The female air controllers who served there and elsewhere, constituting an irreplaceable contribution to the war effort every bit as much a part of it as the fighter pilots. Those pilots themselves, including the refugees from conquered lands who ended up being among the highest scoring aces in the battle. A lone democratic island nation against an ascendant continental tribe gripped by an abhorrent ideology. It’s no wonder that it’s one of the most written-about battles in the English language. What if any of those storylines had read differently? Would you be speaking German?
After the jump, achtung, dummkopf! Continue reading →
