So Dante's Inferno (the game) has finally hit the streets and I've had a chance to give the demo a spin on Xbox Live.
I want to make it clear that I haven't played the full game, so it is possible that some of my opinions based on the demo may be wrong.
I also want to make it clear that I don't really need to play the full game to form my opinions on it, as it is a shameless derivative of God of War, and thus it is most likely that my thoughts are correct. As always.
The game is comfortably mediocre, but the sheer averageness is not what I want to make a focus of in my writing. I want to draw attention to just how hard they have tried, nay struggled, to make a game that is offensive to Christians (Catholics, in particular). I find it interesting because, from a game design perspective, this is the most extreme example that I can recall of taking a AAA budget game and spending every penny on marketing instead of making a good game.
You may recall the mock protests over the game that EA put on (tastelessly, even for them) at last year's E3. The initial idea was to make fun of christian groups that the media likes to popularly portray as always being loud and angry about something or another. In an odd twist of fate, the people most fooled by the mock protest were many in the mainstream media who, in a stunning display of ignorant prejudice, couldn't help but jump at the chance of making fun of those ignorant, prejudiced religious folks.
I should point out that, to their credit, many gaming media websites, like Gamespot, actually got it right. Maybe they hate EA more than they hate religion.
I also can't help but find it amusing that they should try so very hard to craft a Christian bashing game, knowing that of all major religions the Christians are the least likely to try and kill you over your insults. What they were counting on was some angry blogging to generate buzz, and none of the more unpleasant things that can happen when a certain other religion gets insulted (I'm looking at you, Zarathustrians). Fortunately, no religious groups took the bait and the only insulting thing about the game is its own shallow gameplay (and, if you are well read enough, the butchering of a classic work of literary art).
The game itself has you in the shiny metal boots of a Christian crusader who dies and, obviously, goes to hell for his part in the war. Then you kill Death, and something something something, your constantly naked wife is murdered and for some reason she goes to hell too (possibly for never wearing any clothing) and, yadda yadda yadda, the poet Dante Alighieri teaches you magic spells and helps you traipse your way through hell and a series of images and landscapes straight out of the Subversion for Idiots guidebook.
As a final note: The gamer in me can't help but add this bit: The game of Dante's Inferno is, after all, worth a rental. I look somewhat forward to button mashing and quick time event-ing my way through this thing on some boring weekend. Also, they clearly hired the same people who did the Heavy Metal cartoons to do the cutscenes for the game. That, for me anyway, is a small plus.
Still, I'll probably have to roll my eyes a bunch along the way to the end.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Back with vengeance so fiery!
Expect updates once a week on both this blog and my Stingy Hat game dev blog(http://stingyhat.blogspot.com/). Speaking of which, check out my up and coming game over at Stingy Hat. It should release within a week, as soon as I add a HUD and figure out how to get SDL to build in release mode.
Anywho.... Game Politics!
Anywho.... Game Politics!
This week's topic of discussion: Venezuela? More like VenezGAYla! Am I right?
Basically what happened is that Hugo Chavez took to his popular weekly radio show this week to uncover games for the evil, capitalist brainwashing tools that they are. During his show, which I believe is called "Listen or Die with Hugo in the Morning!", Chavez made the sinister connection between games, violence, and drug use.
As it turns out, "Some games teach you to kill." Furthermore, these games are all made by (evil) capitalists for (evil) capitalist reasons. What else is made by capitalists? Drugs.
Ah, now you see. Clearly, video games are full of evil subtext that tries to lure our youth into violence and the fair market system. Drugs can lead to violence and are also bad, erego drugs = videogames.
Confused? Well I've drawn up this handy diagram for you using MSPaint technology. Enjoy.
Also, check out my new review of Army of Two: The 40th Day at 360Fahrenheit.com, kindly posted by fearless leader and all around foxy lady Tara Jayne.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Thinking about ending it all...
The blog, that is. I think I may have gone too general, with both the political game stuff AND my personal game design silliness. I know, all 0 of you, my loyal readers, will be heartbroken.
I want to start talking about the game I'm making right now, and I don't think this is the place to do it anymore. The game is a 2D, non-tile based platformer. Luckily, I don't have anything blogworthy to report yet. Not that I haven't made significant progress on it, I have. I have a working animated sprite system in place and I'm almost done with the level editor. So there. But I don't have anything screenshot worthy yet. All my art is placeholder stick figure crap. I want to wait until I really have something that I can point to and say "doesn't that look neat?". Which should be sooner rather than later.
Oh, and I'm sticking to a strict 40 hour schedule to pump this game out, like Viridian Games did with his excellent 2D tile based RPG Inaria. I'm hoping that the schedule will keep me working to the end. I am six hours in so far.
I may keep this blog around to do the odd article that is strictly about any political goings on in the game development world. If Assassin's Creed 2 comes out and has another infuriatingly relativistic storyline, you can be sure to hear about it from me.
But for now, keep watching the stars.
I want to start talking about the game I'm making right now, and I don't think this is the place to do it anymore. The game is a 2D, non-tile based platformer. Luckily, I don't have anything blogworthy to report yet. Not that I haven't made significant progress on it, I have. I have a working animated sprite system in place and I'm almost done with the level editor. So there. But I don't have anything screenshot worthy yet. All my art is placeholder stick figure crap. I want to wait until I really have something that I can point to and say "doesn't that look neat?". Which should be sooner rather than later.
Oh, and I'm sticking to a strict 40 hour schedule to pump this game out, like Viridian Games did with his excellent 2D tile based RPG Inaria. I'm hoping that the schedule will keep me working to the end. I am six hours in so far.
I may keep this blog around to do the odd article that is strictly about any political goings on in the game development world. If Assassin's Creed 2 comes out and has another infuriatingly relativistic storyline, you can be sure to hear about it from me.
But for now, keep watching the stars.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Wrapping up U7, about U8 & U9
What more can I say about Ultima 7? It really was so good. After playing it I can really understand why so many hardcore Ultima fans hated Ultima 8 and 9 for ruining the franchise.
I can understand them, but I still have to disagree.
The fact is that U7 released at the last possible moment a game like that could come out and still be considered a good game. Just try putting out an RPG these days where the combat is completely hands off (and you are, to an extent, forced to partake in it to boost your stats before the final encounter), and full of abstract puzzles and gameplay. Lets look at each of these charges one by one.
First you have the hands off combat. What more is there to say about it? The extent of the depth of the combat gameplay is deciding to take Jaana off of the Firedoom Staff because she keeps killing you on accident. You can't get away with that now, and you couldn't get away with it for much longer after U7.
Another problem is that the game is chalk full of abstract puzzles. Honestly, how the heck would I know to use Rudyum's Wand on the Black Gate without a walkthrough? Because of the open nature of the game you might have bumped into Rudyum and nicked his wand 10 minutes into the game. Now you find yourself, 20 hours later, looking at the Black Gate and saying "I do what now?" Aside from that, trial and error teleportation puzzles are rarely fun.
When playing U8 and U9 you can almost literally feel the developers trying to address these issues. The combat of U8 might be a bit clumsy, but at least you can actually swing my sword! And you can kick and parry, to boot! Sadly, they never bother to actually give you a reason to do so, but you can still tell that they were really trying to add on to this end of the gameplay department to bring the Ultima series into the world of modern game design. The much maligned jumping and climbing as well is, in my opinion, in the game to add a needed dosage of interaction.
I guess what I mean to say about this whole topic is that while I agree that Ultimas 8 and 9 aren't the classic games that U4-7 are, they are still fairly decent. More importantly, if a lot of the die hards had their way and U9 was just Ultima 7 in 3D it wouldn't have helped. That game would have been slaughtered in reviews, perhaps even more so than U9 did as it was.
I can understand them, but I still have to disagree.
The fact is that U7 released at the last possible moment a game like that could come out and still be considered a good game. Just try putting out an RPG these days where the combat is completely hands off (and you are, to an extent, forced to partake in it to boost your stats before the final encounter), and full of abstract puzzles and gameplay. Lets look at each of these charges one by one.
First you have the hands off combat. What more is there to say about it? The extent of the depth of the combat gameplay is deciding to take Jaana off of the Firedoom Staff because she keeps killing you on accident. You can't get away with that now, and you couldn't get away with it for much longer after U7.
Another problem is that the game is chalk full of abstract puzzles. Honestly, how the heck would I know to use Rudyum's Wand on the Black Gate without a walkthrough? Because of the open nature of the game you might have bumped into Rudyum and nicked his wand 10 minutes into the game. Now you find yourself, 20 hours later, looking at the Black Gate and saying "I do what now?" Aside from that, trial and error teleportation puzzles are rarely fun.
When playing U8 and U9 you can almost literally feel the developers trying to address these issues. The combat of U8 might be a bit clumsy, but at least you can actually swing my sword! And you can kick and parry, to boot! Sadly, they never bother to actually give you a reason to do so, but you can still tell that they were really trying to add on to this end of the gameplay department to bring the Ultima series into the world of modern game design. The much maligned jumping and climbing as well is, in my opinion, in the game to add a needed dosage of interaction.
I guess what I mean to say about this whole topic is that while I agree that Ultimas 8 and 9 aren't the classic games that U4-7 are, they are still fairly decent. More importantly, if a lot of the die hards had their way and U9 was just Ultima 7 in 3D it wouldn't have helped. That game would have been slaughtered in reviews, perhaps even more so than U9 did as it was.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Ultima 7 Day 4-5
Well, I beat it. Yeah, I really started to just plow through it near the end. I didn't do it so much because I was getting bored, I really wasn't, but just because I don't have the time to give the playing my usual going-over. Still, the game was super fun.
One thing that struck me in my playing was that the back half of the game was a lot more puzzle heavy. Real puzzles, tough puzzles. In the first part of the game the NPCs all but tell you exactly what to do, but in the back half you have these obtuse invisible wall/appearing/disappearing bridge puzzles that are fun but tough.
The Isle of the Avatar part of the game was a little frustrating at times, though. They continually threw these liches at me that could kill my Avatar in one hit, so I had to know when they were coming and slip on a ring of invisibility for safety. My guess is that I was supposed to be of a higher level at this point in the game, but the ring trick worked and I was inclined to just say screw it and abuse the magical jewelry.
I have one more Ultima 7 (PC) blog left, where I will put some closing thoughts on the overall game design. Stay tuned.
One thing that struck me in my playing was that the back half of the game was a lot more puzzle heavy. Real puzzles, tough puzzles. In the first part of the game the NPCs all but tell you exactly what to do, but in the back half you have these obtuse invisible wall/appearing/disappearing bridge puzzles that are fun but tough.
The Isle of the Avatar part of the game was a little frustrating at times, though. They continually threw these liches at me that could kill my Avatar in one hit, so I had to know when they were coming and slip on a ring of invisibility for safety. My guess is that I was supposed to be of a higher level at this point in the game, but the ring trick worked and I was inclined to just say screw it and abuse the magical jewelry.
I have one more Ultima 7 (PC) blog left, where I will put some closing thoughts on the overall game design. Stay tuned.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Slowing things down
My new schedule keeps me a little too busy for daily Ultima 7 updates. Something about coming home at night after a 12 hour day makes me not particularly feel like playing U7 and dissecting it for the blog. Still, I'm going to shoot for two updates a week until I finish the beast.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Ultima 7 Day 3
I just finished Skara Brae, a piece of gameplay that many hold to be the best part of Ultima 7. I haven't beaten the game so I can't yet say if I agree or not, but I will say that Skara Brae definitely typifies the gameplay of Ultima 7. Skara Brae shows all of the negatives of Ultima 7 by forcing you into a lot of boring combat, having really easy quests that involve no more than following exactly what the NPCs tell you to do, and being incredibly buggy (I had to revert back to an earlier save no less than THREE times before I finished because certain scripts weren't firing). Yet at once Skara Brae also shows the positives of Ultima 7 by having such an intriguing story that you don't end up caring about all of the negatives.
Anywho, I've gone through some more gameplay without anything worth noting. The Storeroom was a kind of neat puzzle, although the crate stacking was ugly and a pain. At this moment the Guardian's plans are becoming a bit more clear thanks to some friendly Wisps and the Time Lord. Now I have to go somewhere and do more random stuff for random people before said random people will aid me in saving their own stupid world. Go figure.
Anywho, I've gone through some more gameplay without anything worth noting. The Storeroom was a kind of neat puzzle, although the crate stacking was ugly and a pain. At this moment the Guardian's plans are becoming a bit more clear thanks to some friendly Wisps and the Time Lord. Now I have to go somewhere and do more random stuff for random people before said random people will aid me in saving their own stupid world. Go figure.
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