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On the Horizon: Jul 19th 2010
Matt
19-07-2010
"Go go quest team!"
"Lovely."
Batten down the hatches; we’re properly back and rolling! The last few weeks have involved all sorts of general buffoonery behind the scenes in technical terms, but Jay has worked his technical Ninja Skillz and the site is once again sneaking stealthily through the games industry, picking off games left, right and centre for review. We’re also back to jauntily looking at the upcoming release schedules, so let’s kick off with a peek at what the third week of July brings us.
As a fan of RPG’s, it’s with some excitement that we Euro folk finally get our hands on our proper, localised Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, a fact you may have become aware of via a frankly excruciating television advert over the past couple of weeks. Whilst Nintendo seem intent on making gamers vomit with their happy-clappy family fun television slots, it should be noted that this, the ninth in the Dragon Quest series, sold over two-million copies inside two days upon its release in Japan, and has garnered strong critical acclaim for its strong storytelling and enjoyable adventuring. Certainly one for those wanting something to fill many a quiet summer evening.
A big heads-up to Xbox Live Arcade title Limbo this week too, developed by indie Danish team PlayDead Studios. To be honest I could just point you toward the trailer video and leave it to speak for itself, but seeing as it’s my job to describe things then I’ll let you know that it’s a beautiful 2D platform puzzler with physics-based posers as you guide your little silhouette chap around numerous settings to find his sister. This year’s Braid? Quite possible.
That actually pretty much sums it up in terms of releases, so let me chat a while about something that occurred to me during the week. For lack of anything better to do, I downloaded the Max Payne 1 and 2 double pack on Steam and proceeded to run and gun (or, when slowmo was activated, ruuuuuun aaaaand guuuuuuun) through the first over this past weekend.
In doing so, I discovered that the old adage of games being a lot harder ‘back in the day’ to be completely and utterly true. This is a game that wouldn’t even usually fit into the bracket of a classic hardcore game, yet at pretty much every opportunity even on the easiest difficulty it proceeded to kick my arse. Strong words were muttered and many a mouse-throwing moment littered my ten-or-so hours of play between the opening scene and the rather dramatic finale.
Not only did it hark back to a time when your overall health bar had little segments that, once lost, reduced the level you could automatically heal to without a bottle of pills (a far, far better system than the standard ‘crouch behind a rock for 30 seconds and carry on regardless mechanic everyone uses these days), but also to the days when games wouldn’t automatically top up your health, ammo and supplies between each level. Managed to crawl desperately to the end of a level on your last legs? You’re going to have to deal with that when the next one loads.
The really curious thing about the whole game is that, upon release in 2001, I purchased and played through the game on the same ‘easy’ difficulty setting without half the issues that I had some nine years later. Likewise, at the time I am sure I considered the game to be a little on the short side; this time around it felt like it dragged on for a good hour or two too long. The times have changed indeed.
Still, much fun was had as you will see in my retro review a little later in the week, even if it was punctuated by some truly awful script writing (‘he was looking to buy some sand for his hourglass, sadly I wasn’t selling any’ being a particular example). In other news, look out for thoughts on Alpha Protocol and a couple of other titles as we meander our way toward Friday. Over and out!
As a fan of RPG’s, it’s with some excitement that we Euro folk finally get our hands on our proper, localised Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, a fact you may have become aware of via a frankly excruciating television advert over the past couple of weeks. Whilst Nintendo seem intent on making gamers vomit with their happy-clappy family fun television slots, it should be noted that this, the ninth in the Dragon Quest series, sold over two-million copies inside two days upon its release in Japan, and has garnered strong critical acclaim for its strong storytelling and enjoyable adventuring. Certainly one for those wanting something to fill many a quiet summer evening.
A big heads-up to Xbox Live Arcade title Limbo this week too, developed by indie Danish team PlayDead Studios. To be honest I could just point you toward the trailer video and leave it to speak for itself, but seeing as it’s my job to describe things then I’ll let you know that it’s a beautiful 2D platform puzzler with physics-based posers as you guide your little silhouette chap around numerous settings to find his sister. This year’s Braid? Quite possible.
That actually pretty much sums it up in terms of releases, so let me chat a while about something that occurred to me during the week. For lack of anything better to do, I downloaded the Max Payne 1 and 2 double pack on Steam and proceeded to run and gun (or, when slowmo was activated, ruuuuuun aaaaand guuuuuuun) through the first over this past weekend.
In doing so, I discovered that the old adage of games being a lot harder ‘back in the day’ to be completely and utterly true. This is a game that wouldn’t even usually fit into the bracket of a classic hardcore game, yet at pretty much every opportunity even on the easiest difficulty it proceeded to kick my arse. Strong words were muttered and many a mouse-throwing moment littered my ten-or-so hours of play between the opening scene and the rather dramatic finale.
Not only did it hark back to a time when your overall health bar had little segments that, once lost, reduced the level you could automatically heal to without a bottle of pills (a far, far better system than the standard ‘crouch behind a rock for 30 seconds and carry on regardless mechanic everyone uses these days), but also to the days when games wouldn’t automatically top up your health, ammo and supplies between each level. Managed to crawl desperately to the end of a level on your last legs? You’re going to have to deal with that when the next one loads.
The really curious thing about the whole game is that, upon release in 2001, I purchased and played through the game on the same ‘easy’ difficulty setting without half the issues that I had some nine years later. Likewise, at the time I am sure I considered the game to be a little on the short side; this time around it felt like it dragged on for a good hour or two too long. The times have changed indeed.
Still, much fun was had as you will see in my retro review a little later in the week, even if it was punctuated by some truly awful script writing (‘he was looking to buy some sand for his hourglass, sadly I wasn’t selling any’ being a particular example). In other news, look out for thoughts on Alpha Protocol and a couple of other titles as we meander our way toward Friday. Over and out!
