Blog page five

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  Every Game Should Have Big Head Mode

  By James Dewitt on Wednesday 21st November 2012

  2011 was a year in gaming known for an unusually large glut of games ending with the number three, but in my opinion it was the resurgence of big head mode that made it a particularly memorable year. One of the first games to boldly throw the feature in was Gears of War 3 and much later was Batman: Arkham City. The second I find particularly hilarious. After completely devouring the game, I became slightly depressed in the fact that I had pretty much seen all there was. Until one day it came to my attention that there was a way to play the game with goofy, bobble-headed versions of all the characters.

  Instantly, Batman’s dark adventure became a whimsical journey as he smashes the teeth of the endless thugs infesting Arkham City with his enormous fists and headbutts them with his overinflated cranium. As I sat and enjoyed the spectacle, I began to wonder why every game couldn’t include a big head mode? So many games would benefit from such an inclusion. Take L.A. Noirefor example, a game that had so much time and talent behind it. Imagine trying to keep a straight face as Cole Phelps attempts to interrogate a suspect with a balloon-sized head and the hat to match. Did its lack of success correlate with its lack of big head mode? There is a distinct possibility.

  Or the love scene in Heavy Rain with character models that have such huge noggins that they constantly clip into each other every time they attempt to kiss. The possibilities for entertaining wackiness are endless. How such a feature has yet to become standard is beyond my comprehension. In fact, there was a time when it all but was a standard feature. Rarely was there a sports game in the ’90s that didn’t have a code for big heads, most notably basketball games. I don’t know why that was the case, but at the time it seemed to make sense.

  Not that there aren’t games with big head mode included, but in terms of sheer popularity the ones in the past decades vastly outnumber the ones currently on shelves. It’s a bit sad, actually. Big head mode is excluded from most first-person shooters on account of messing with hitbox detection and being far too hilarious for common usage, plus ballooning development costs make the inclusion of big heads merely an afterthought. Developers, from now on big head mode isn’t something you can include only if you have far too much extra time on your hands—it’s now a requirement.

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  Gears of War 3: Fenix Rising

  By James Dewitt on Thursday 18th October 2012

  The Fenix Rising DLC for Gears of War 3 is in many ways a back-to-basics pack. It contains five maps—Academy, Anvil, Depths, Escalation, and The Slab—along with more weapon and character skins. Each one has a connection to the Fenix family from Marcus’ old stomping grounds to the prison he served time in for insubordination, giving all five a personal connection. Another added feature is the option to Re-Up, or in layman’s terms to rank up again for more unlockables after level 100.

  Academy is a map of the illustrious training grounds on planet Sera. It’s typical Gears of War: beautiful architecture with a backdrop of mountains contrasted with all the fun, gory brutality happening within. Anvil is a fortress with huge cannons in the background with plenty of opportunity for cover. Depths is easily the most creative in the entire pack. It takes its cues from BioShock, depicting an underwater city with announcements via intercom and glass walls where fish swim by. It’s very easy to get distracted by these nice little touches even amidst all the chaos.

  Escalation is a remake of a map from the original Gears of War. The map is a continually rising series of levels with anyone at the top having a distinct advantage over enemies below, although this is balanced by having the stronger weapons spawning on the lower levels of the map. It’s a wise choice to have turrets and sentries at the top during Horde mode and letting the Locust come to you, but as always making sure to never get completely overrun.

  The Slab is a map of the maximum security prison Marcus is busted out of in the first game. There’s a prevailing sense of hopelessness and dread from every angle of the map. Doomsday messages are scrawled on the walls and a storm is raging outside. It’s by far the most atmospheric map of the lot, bordering on horror almost with the sense of unease it creates, especially during Horde mode. As what seems to be a standard practice, Fenix Rising is either 800 Microsoft Points by itself or thrown in with the season pass. It’s an excellent series of maps that will surely resonate with fans.

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  Gears of War 3: Horde Command Pack

  By James Dewitt on Saturday 6th October 2012

  The Horde Command Pack for Gears of War 3 is a bit of departure from the previous DLC add-ons from Epic in the sense that it’s not so much about the new maps as it is about providing players a well-rounded pack of new things to play with from characters, weapon skins, and defense upgrades for Horde 2.0. Not that players aren’t going to enjoy the three included maps: Blood Drive, Azura, and Rustlung.

  Blood Drive is a remake from Gears of War 2 with its main architectural features being two parallel staircases and a series of columns (good for shooting just as well as being shot at from). Rustlung is a noticeably smaller map while Azura is a beautiful courtyard overlooking a fountain, making for a decent mix of old and new.

  Two weapon skin packs are included along with Big Rig Dizzy (an alternate, trucker-style outfit for Dizzy), Onyx Guards for use in multiplayer, and the grizzled Gear veteran Bernadette Mataki. While these are all appreciated additions, the real boon of this DLC pack are the additional upgrades made available for Horde mode.

  Sentries can now be upgraded to deal even more damage while Silverbacks can now fire off rockets at enemies. Decoys can also be upgraded to bots that are going to actively fight on the player’s behalf, and those that have upgraded the turrets sufficiently will find they now have an entire command center (hence the name) at their fingertips. The biggest advantage to the command center is the ability to call in strikes, whether it be from mortars or the almighty Hammer of Dawn.

  Keep in mind that these upgrades aren’t available immediately, however. Players still need to meet the necessary level requirements. At 800 Microsoft Points, the Horde Command Pack adds more oomph than the garden-variety map pack with nothing the average Gears of War 3 player would be disappointed about.

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  Indie Games Uprising III: Pixel

  By Shane Ryan on Wednesday 26th September 2012

  Pixel is a first-person free-run that exhibits twenty-five challenges split over four chapters. Each one contains its own musical theme, electronic beats and loops that suit the visual blueprint. It’s a short game that doesn’t take long to clear through, with replay value that only challenges you to beat your best times.

  Each challenge places you at the beginning of a short course with the clock ticking. Moving from point A to B is ostructed by a number of colour coded blocks. To navigate these mazes in the sky you’re carrying a tool that can shoot projectiles which interact with the environment. This tool is upgraded with new augments as you progress, allowing different block types to be controlled.

  White blocks expand when shot, orange ones slow down, blue blocks must be made to connect together to power later sections, and green acts a jump pad. The strong, bold colours are effective and it’s easy to see what’s happening. However, failed attempts are caused by the unrefined controls.

  Upon looking around the first area it was like flying a helicopter; the axis inverted. Searching the menus there was an option to invert, which it already was. Left confused, I ticked invert to actually not invert and then continued on.

  With that resolved the race continued, and, following a brief text introduction, it’s explained you’re equipped with a jetpack. Though it’s clear this is an excuse for the unrefined mechanics. You’re unable to hover or fly with it, there’s no noise when jumping or landing, and no shadow is cast making it hard to judge exactly where you’ll land. Essentially, it’s jumping in a low gravity environment.

  

  Combined with the loose movement it causes many missed leaps and plenty of fidgeting. Upon falling you’ll continue to plummet down until the puzzle appears below again, placing you back at the beginning with the clock continuing. This keeps things moving but makes restarting a chore.

  Rather than hot-keying an instant restart, the game has to be paused, the chapter and level then selected again, with no marker provided for where you’re currently. Landing on platforms is made harder by an occasional collision glitch that’ll push you through the floor or stop you jumping from the last pixels of a ledge.

  These controls and the occasional collision error don’t, however, result in a barrage of frustration and a train wreck. Pixel understands its main goal and achieves it, providing puzzles that can be speed ran for the fastest times. When replaying chapters and recalling the previous routes you’ll identify ways of leaping entire structures, skipping whole sections and activating blocks whilst in the air.

  It suits the pass-by-pad mentality when playing socially, taking it in turns to best the previous scores and show off with daring leaps and sprints to cover as much open ground as possible. Which results in competitive laughter and verbal pats-on-the-back in equal measure as scores are beat and long jumps miss their target.

  For all its control faults, Pixel is a short, honest blast that’s an indie free-run and puzzle-gun affair. Already enjoyable, it’ll have further legs in it if Ratchet Games are able to resolve the control issues, instate online scoreboards and provide further content via additional chapters.

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  Indie Games Uprising III: Smooth Operators

  By Shane Ryan on Wednesday 26th September 2012

  A jazzy New York number kicks in, resonating like a musical introduction to a mid-90s US sitcom. But this is no time for canned laughter: we’ve got a call centre to setup and operate.

  Whereas I can’t speak on behalf of our international readers, those of us in England will be acquainted with working in a call centre – or alternatively McDonalds - as a right of way from young whippersnapper to fully-fledged miserable adult.

  Smooth Operators: Call Center Chaos has you take up the reigns of Head of Senior Management. The company goal is to create a new centre of operations, all delivered with modern faceless communication.

  Your assigned starting budget is $20,000. Via the shop menu you can build the foundations you’ll require to get those calls coming in and supported, from buildings, internal transport, office supplies, staff and more. The office begins as a reception area and from here you can build wide and high; however you see fit.

  On opening day it’s time for your staff to man the lines. Now there’s statistical data to be monitored on an active basis. Calls both inbound and outbound can be viewed, as well as abandonments. Managing workloads is vital and thankfully more enjoyable than it is in real life. And there are no awkward 1-2-1 conversations about personal hygiene or gross misconduct. If you need to fire some staff you can to it from several floors up and without regret.

  To help you make these decisions each employee can be monitored with their output and mood displayed in simple terms. If someone’s slacking it might be time to put in the boot. Workers can resign too if they become fed up; though you’re informed when this happens it doesn’t state whom.

  

  Did someone in the audience say Kairosoft?

  Well you’re not wrong; this is influenced by their strong heritage of games in a sweet and innocent way. If you’ve ever missed your bus/train/tram stop from playing Game Dev Story then you’ll soon be forgetting to eat once this begins.

  Working within a similar environment myself, it’s interesting to see how Heydeck Games have both simplified and kept faithful to running an actual centre. Account Managers can be sourced to gain new accounts and continue business development. Project Managers will run projects and advance new areas, bringing in external training programmes as well as overall internal improvements. The contracts you win setting KPIs (key performance indicators) along with costs.

  New staff and offices are slowly made available as time passes, drip feeding each individual element. The game speed can be increased when waiting. Pausing allows daily statistics and client details to be evaluated.

  My main gripe with Smooth Operators is the limited speed at which the day can be fast forwarded. There are plenty of uneventful days and nights when there was no need to monitor the office. Watching janitors clean at night on a daily basis slows the pace.

  With the speed at full this still led to lots of lingering. Of which I used to do some ironing. Real-time monitoring onscreen of daily stats without pausing would have helped elevate this.

  Even with the downtime, Smooth Operators is an instantly accessible sim with plenty to do at a minimal entry cost that’s less than the charges for inbound calls in my growing call centre.

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