Dude check out how sweet this N fanart is. Click for the deviant art.

N and Super Meat Boy are, basically, the same game. They’re both a single concept dragged out as far as it will go and styled with simple graphics and a retro feel that appeals to the inner gamer. They’re easy to learn and impossible to master, eagerly gobbling up hours and hours of your time as you fight desperately to clear one more level, grab another collectible or climb one tantalising step on the online leaderboard.

N and Super Meat Boy are entirely different games. The very basics are undeniably different and effect them in significant ways. N’s grounding in flash technology, allowing it to be played on anything from a web browser to a Nintendo DS, prevents any more complicated visuals or levels than single screen gray-scales with flashes of colour for significant elements. Super Meat Boy, meanwhile, relies on it’s visual style to deliver it’s experience – there’s much less variance in SMB’s early levels, but their size and beauty make up for it. Where N has pure game, Super Meat Boy adds (dare I say it) art.

However, they’re /essentially/ the same. They both hate you and want you to suffer. They both laugh mercilessly as you bang your head against the brick wall of their difficulty curves and respond to every triumph with some new endlessly repeated horror. They’re adversaries few men can claim victory over and even once they’re conquered spit out further challenges – time trials and community content flowing out into infinity. They’ll fill a void whether it’s visual accompaniment to your latest audiobook or the latest fix for your inner completionist.

They aren’t the same.

At all.

In fact, N and Super Meat Boy epitomise the changes in gaming over the last twenty years so perfectly one wouldn’t be blamed for suspecting this microcosm was deliberately constructed by some gaming deity to get the point across. N is the stumbling, unsure child. It represents the lucky accomplishments of the bedroom coder. It lacks flair, passion or style, relying on it’s simplistic charm and jump-in jump-out gameplay to keep the player entertained. It isn’t worried about guiding you by the hand, or tutorial levels, or starting out easy. It’s not worried about review scores or sales or boxart.

Super Meat Boy is more refined. It’s polised. It’s got a plot and an art team. It’s got cinematics and unlockable characters, a hero with a face and a point to all the jumping and collecting. When starting a level of Super Meat Boy, you can imagine it as a real place in the crazy, fucked up universe that’s been created. N is just another room full of robots and mines. Super Meat Boy has modernised the retro-platformer genre.

How crazy does that sound? It’s the same story as has been told across any number of genres since gaming’s origin though. Compare Crysis to Doom or StarCraft II to Dune – in-game storytelling, prettier graphics and more and more extravagant ways to play evolving out of pure gameplay.

This isn’t a preach-post designed to get you to renounce your Call of Duty and Halo ways and join me in the glory of the days of Hard Reset-alikes and twelve-unit selection groups. I really enjoy new games and think, on the whole, video games are better now than they’ve ever been before. However, this was a starker contrast between two sides of gaming (and two sides of a war raging on message boards and in comment threads to this very day) than I have seen elsewhere.

Perhaps the best way to end is to say that I prefer N to play but SMB to experience.

—————————————————————

Except for that fucking “use a controller” bullshit at the beginning, that can fuck off, maybe if your default controls weren’t such a massive pile of ass you wouldn’t think they were bad, hmm?  Also, editing an ini file to change my controls, that’s a taste of the retro I didn’t need, thanks.

BEHOLD. POSTS.

As well as the super 100% serious post from earlier today I’ve thrown up some other work from the past little while.  First there’s the Just Playing Archive, which is me waffling on about a variety of games.  Want to read my shit?  Go there!  Want to hire me?  Go there, read it, and if you don’t like it let me know and I’ll do something better for you!  Take a look.

Then there’s the Job Application Repository which is mostly there for me to be able to laugh at myself a bit and maybe to help me improve my job apps, as well as being at least one quality piece of writing (the RPS one is pretty good).  Go ahead.

Maybe more activity will follow.  Maybe it won’t.

A few months back gaming news blog Joystiq were hiring for a few online staff positions. Naturally I (along with what is known in the business as a “shittonne” of others) applied, a web-based writing job being exactly what I’m after right now. I wasn’t successful, but that isn’t what I really took away from the whole process. During it conversations spread among various journalists on twitter about the sameyness of a lot of the applications that had been received and how, according to hiring-man Justin McElroy, this was due to too many wannabes spending too much time focusing on gaming news rather than reading books, listening to music, watching films and so forth. This proved a popular point. Many popped up to say how they wanted to see more non-gaming witticisms, references and cultural knowledge in the upcoming generation of writers and that capturing this was a surefire way to impress.

These weren’t statements isolated to this incident and, frankly, the standpoint they come from is not wrong. A person who’s only cultural reference point is video games has a limited outlook on life and will be missing out on some of the more important works of the last year, decade, century or whatever time frame you wish to mention. Obviously the more knowledge one has, the better one’s writing becomes as ideas, influence and inspiration come from more directions. Moreover, absorbing more mediums of entertainment simply makes you a more varied and interesting person.

However, something grated with me about the idea of saying to people “stop talking about games so much in your games writing.” It isn’t necessarily an awful thing, but 100% reduction isn’t a good idea either. Obviously, the call isn’t for a total removal, but the enthusiasm and totality with which it was delivered worried me. Surely it is the logical thing to do to talk about games when writing about games? Surely the more knowledge I have on games (and am expressing through my writing) the better that writing is? Surely the sameyness comes not from unoriginality but simply because it is the most logical route to take for the many, many aspiring writers out there? I hope to show a few of the reasons why I, and presumedly others, use gaming knowledge first and foremost in our writing and why this still has some value.

First let’s talk about the most important part of writing: the reader. An obscenely large percentage of the people reading any gaming-related article, be it the front page of your favourite website or some no-namer’s blog, are going to be gamers themselves. This only increases if you ignore the mainstream press (newspapers, the BBC), whom most gaming journalists do not write for in any regular capacity. What do these reader-gamers know about? Games. What appeals to them? Games. If I know what they like, I want to have as much of that in my writing as possible so they keep reading. This gives an enormity of depth. As I progress with a piece I can use my assumption that the people reading my work are gamers and further conclude that they are interested in the genre, series or even developer I am discussing if they have kept reading past the opening paragraph or so, thus allowing me to talk about related items with ease and little fear of misunderstanding.

This isn’t rocket science. However, it simply isn’t true of any other cultural reference you might make. What kind of music does a Call of Duty player like? Which of Shakespeare’s works are StarCraft gamers particularly familiar with? Is there a certain kind of TV show that really just clicks with fans of Paradox Interactive? Nothing is more infuriating in a piece of writing than some joke or point that goes over your head because it’s out of your sphere of interest. Moreover, finding out that part of your audience simply didn’t understand what you thought to be a particularly funny or brilliant line is disheartening.

When you consider the demographics of gamers, ensuring understanding becomes only more vital. Many will be teenagers or lower, and won’t get your obscure early 00s pop band humour, but will have played Deus Ex. In addition, at least in my experience, younger people are much more likely to close your tab or put your magazine down than they are to find out what the hell “Red Dwarf” or “Scrapheap Challenge” are. Even the 20-25 age bracket is now filled with folk such as myself who’ve never had a lot of interest in late 80s television but have played The Secret of Monkey Island and Doom, games as old and older than them. Even beyond age, consider the massive reach of the internet. How many American readers are likely to know of the two shows I just mentioned? How many of your British viewers are guaranteed to know what a corn dog is? Are any eastern europeans going to be aware of the current state of English Parliament?

This can be expanded in a slightly different direction: using gaming examples in my work shows that I have a knowledge on games to a certain degree. This is vastly important for two key groups. Firstly, readers are going to have a lot more respect for someone who clearly knows what he’s talking about when it comes to games. I like to know what Richard Cobbett or John Walker think of an adventure game because they’ve shown time and again to be ridiculously knowledgable on the subject. Equally I’m aware Tom Francis will know a good Deus Ex mod (or game, natch) when he sees one because he’s spent a lot of time writing about and playing the original. I want my readers to look at my stuff and go “this bloke knows what he’s talking about, he’s clearly played these other titles, I can trust him when he says the lacklustre gameplay of Duke Nukem Forever is a downside and I would be better off playing Bulletstorm for similar thrills and humour”

The second and arguably more important group is potential employers. It’s not as simple as me wanting them to understand I’m knowledgable about games, I need them to. They’re not going to mind if I’ve never gotten around to seeing The Godfather or reading Hamlet, but they might have an objection if I can’t think of an FPS to compare my example review of Bulletstorm to, or if I’ve never played a Blizzard title. Certainly, that is what I would most want to know from an application: can I trust this guy to speak fairly on a wide variety of gaming topics thanks to multiple reference points in his experiences? Has he played enough different genres that whatever I give him to review he’ll understand the concept of and not spend half his time complaining about the over-complexity and user-unfriendliness of a flight sim?

On that note, even moreso than with a generic reader, the idea of something I’d written being too obscure for a commissioning editor reading my pitch to understand is a horrifying thought. Great piece, unfortunately they gave up a few lines in because it was a long day, they were on a deadline and they didn’t have time to decipher my joke comparing Bethesda voice-acting to the plot of Flash Forward (inconsistent: half-woeful, half-highly-paid-brilliance). I want that job you’re offering, I’m not going to scupper my own chances by hoping we’re both interested in mediocre sci-fi.

My next point might leave a few shaking their heads in tab-closing disgust, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Referencing games is simply easier. There, I said it. No, come back, I’m going to explain! It’s easier because (as you might have guessed, what with wanting to be a games journalist and all) I’ve played more games than I’ve done anything else. I can therefore much more quickly come up with video game based comparisons or arguments that express my point succintly. This is as important when writing a hot off the newsreel post for the front page of your website as it is trying to make that deadline in an hour when I only finished the game twenty minutes ago.

The variance in those comparisons and references will be vast – one week will see a piece of news about the latest DLC on Steam in which I need to make note of the various successes or failures of DLC in the past, while the next week I’ll be able to name entirely different examples in the follow-up post. The speed, accuracy and ease of explanation will not be matched elsewhere.

There’s also one very, very important thing to note about why so many journos-in-training make the ‘mistake’ of too much game-focus: we’re new at this. Hell, compared to you Mr. Editor Man, I’m awful at this. But, I want you to know that I’ve got potential, that I’m skilled in my writing. I’m so eager to impress you that I’m going to cram every single god damn piece of gaming knowledge I have into that woefully small (and rightfully so) word count you gave me for the application. It stands repeating: do you really need me to have seen classic movies if I can’t name some of the most influential gaming masterpieces of all time? When sending my application, am I going to emulate game writing I’ve seen in the past, knowing that it was good enough to get published, or take the risk of something more unorthodox?

It may have sounded like I am making a push to eliminate all culture from games writing, to put it into a stale, safe environment where everyone understands everything that everyone else says because they’ve all seen, heard and read it a hundred times before. Clearly, that isn’t what I’m after. I just want to express my belief that there is value in writing about what you know and what your readers know. That in the end it’s better to write passionately about a subject, even to the point of over-emphasising it, than trying to relate to mediums that simply don’t express a point as well. I agree that being able to reference outside of gaming is the sign of a good writer, but a better writer plays both extremes.

——

I’ve already received some private feedback on this and have debated a number of ways to respond.  Some parts of the piece were editted, but I also wanted to give some footnotes/afterword to make sure I’m being clear without diluting the piece itself.

• I am not calling anyone out.  While Justin McElroy started the discussion this time, I’ve seen a number of other people talk about it over the last few years.  It was simply his that lead to me finally actually writing down what I thought.
• I am arguing one side of “games or everything else” because there’s an incredible amount of “everything else” support.  As I said in the last paragraph, both is much, much better than either.  I didn’t want to spend the whole article going “again, I’m not saying 100% in the opposite direction” because its already got enough scene setting at the start before getting into the meat.
• It was pointed out that the number of responses to Justin’s statement show that gamers are very interested in a “wide-ranging cultural brief” (so very well put by the individual that a quote seems appropriate).  This is true and I agree.  However, see above for why I do not mention this in the original text.

The LAN party is an aging breed. I wouldn’t go as far as dying, but it certainly started in another era and is having troubles adjusting to this one. The always-online lifestyle created by Steam, Origin, OnLive and the like, coupled with AAA titles no longer having LAN play as standard has brought the once staple of the home platform to obscurity and rarity. However, it is easier and more satisfying than ever to collect together a few friends, some food, a large number of varied beverages and a whole stack of hardware for a weekend of semi-friendly gibbing, tower building and radiator throwing. And that’s before you add the games. Within you’ll find eight of the best, both era-defining classics and lesser known gems from more recent times.

Vroooooooom.

Game: Split/Second
Developer: Black Rock Studios
Get it: Gamesplanet
Memorable Quote: “No, no, No, NO, NO, NO, NO!”

There’s something, definitely something, about collapsing a nuclear chimney stack onto three of your friends and hearing them scream with laughter as you do so. This is equally true of blowing up the entire bridge they happen to be transversing, or ramming a helicopter supported dump-truck through the fragile ceiling of the tunnel they’re in. If you haven’t heard of Split/Second before, you should at least now be interested. It’s an arcade racer in the strictest sense with the insanity and “weapons” turned up to eleven. You don’t fire a blue shell or drop an oil-slick, you blow up the taxi rank in front of whoever you’re chasing; spraying their path with molten metal and deadly husks through a ludicrously simple system that anyone can learn in less than five minutes. Drifting and driving behind opponents builds charge, which can be used in thirds for small impacts or burnt from full to zero for something much more devastating. It won’t entertain for full days, but Split/Second will provide some of the late night laughs and ridiculous close shaves/epic victories that LAN memories are made of.

See all that? Blow that up.

Game: Unreal Tournament 2004
Developer: Epic Games
Get it: Steam
Memorable Quote: “Holy shit!”

When you talk about deathmatch, this series is either the first or second that comes to mind, depending on who you ask. It has classic fast paced action, over the top visuals and weapons to match. It knows what it is and does it very well, with a variety of modes to entertain a group of any (reasonable) size. From one on one duels for bragging rights to a 30 man war over a massive stretch of land utilising some of the most original vehicles ever coded, there’s always something going. Throw in the thousands of megabytes of community content, from maps to full conversions, and this could power a LAN party all on its own.

The prettiest of all the symbols.

Game: Quake 3/Live
Developer: id Software
Get it: http://www.quakelive.com/
Memorable Quote: “Sickening rail, old bean.”

And here’s the other title that comes to mind when discussing the gaming nation’s multiplayer passtime. If UT2k4 is classic, this is classiest. It’ll run at acceptable speeds on any computer made in the last 12 years with any number of background processes or hardware irregularities. You won’t even have to install it if you don’t want to, with the miracle of Quake Live allowing it to run straight out of a browser. There will be someone in your playgroup who’s done it all before, and he’ll enjoy destroying the rest of you with muscle memory that never dies. Everyone else will have to make do with fragging at extreme speed (that’s possible even for the complete rookies) with the finest in balanced weaponry.

WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON

Game: Magicka
Developer: Arrowhead Game Studios
Get it: Steam
Memorable Quote: “… I think I crashed the game”

Magicka’s true triumph is in its bugs. More wild laughter has come from unexpected breaks in the action than the intended chaos. The brilliance of the gameplay itself, however, cannot be understated. Relying on player memory to construct spells of massive destructive force leads to one of two possible outcomes: displays of light devastating enemies as a proud gamer sits accepting praise or, more commonly, on-screen actions become a dance of headless chickens desperately trying not to kill each other in any one of a hundred ways. It’s pure comedy from start to finish. Even the additional coordination gifted by the proximity of players submits before the madness that is your average Magicka play session.

You might want to du- nevermind.

Game: HL2 Deathmatch
Developer: Valve
Get it: Steam
Memorable Quote: “You killed me with a toilet/radiator/car/paint can!”

Sometimes, you just have to throw a large metal object at your dearest friends, crumpling their body in acceptably realistic ways. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is the game for that. While Unreal and Quake may boast a purer experience, HL2DM promises the unique pleasure of the gravity gun. Along with the obvious high-speed impact environmental interaction, it changes combat in other ways: objects can be held up as bullet shields; explosive barrels turn you into a walking bomb; grenades can be thrown back while reloads and health packs can be pulled towards – it’s real innovation. You begin to filter items in the world in a new way – what’s heavy enough to do some serious damage (preferably a one hit KO) but small enough to not block vision significantly? Will this go far enough with enough force to still hurt? Just how long has the pin been out of that grenade?

Doing it right.

Game: Defcon
Developer: Introversion Software
Get it: Steam
Memorable Quote: “In about four hours, you’re so dead.”

Most of the other titles on this list are short term affairs lasting little more than an hour or two that are thus perfect for the hyperactive, ever-changing environment of a LAN. Defcon is something different. Start a real-time game of the World War III simulator when you turn up and just leave it running throughout the day, making changes and micromanaging your bombers and subs between bouts of whatever else is taking your fancy. While a Team Fortress 2 nemesis is a rivalry that lasts as long as it takes to get – a few minutes – enemies made during a game of Defcon will have you seething for much, much longer. Nuclear detonations reducing the population of your nation by factors of ten breeds a lot more competitive spirit than a quick respawn causing headshot.

Gentlemen...

Game: Pirates, Vikings and Knights 2
Developer: The PVKII Team
Get it: http://www.pvkii.com/
Memorable Quote: “Wait for it… Wait for it… KABOOM”

If you hadn’t heard of it before, the very name of this Source mod should have got your attention. The concept is exactly the kind of faction based FPS nonsense that breeds fun and in the environment of 10+ gamers at three in the morning, this only leads to hilarity. There’s a degree of originality in its mechanics and visuals, from holy grail modes that power up one player and force the opposing two teams to gang up on him to the absurdly entertaining keg of gun powder weapon. The first time your screen fills with kill notifications as a keg goes off in a crowded passage, the room /will/ explode in laughter. The inaccuracy and poor damage of ranged combat makes melee-fests commonplace and the chaos is a welcome change from your average FPS long-range point and click.

This is approximately 1/1000th of the gunfire in one match.

Game: Battlefield 2
Developer: DICE Interactive
Get it: Steam
Memorable Quote: “What we’re gonna do, right, is put C4 on this jeep and just drive ’till we ‘stop’.”

This is a bit limited to larger gatherings and was nearly relegated to Honourable Mentions on those grounds, but with the right numbers it’s such a joy that I kept it in. It’s tactical combat at its finest, with all variety of vehicles and weapons to keep a group entertained. Epic tales are produced naturally by the gameplay: going up with a new pilot in a helicopter is an exercise in stress management as it frighteningly drifts from side to side while some poor fellow wrestles with the controls. Going one on one with a tank is either a triumphant David vs. Goliath hero’s tale or a merciless slaughter. Importantly, BF2′s unique Commander mechanic, allowing a player to take control of the battle for their side and play a mini-RTS, ordering troop movements and calling artillery strikes and vehicle drops, benefits immensely from real time communication.

Honourable Mentions:
Blizzard’s entire back catalog – From WarCraft II all the way through to StarCraft II, almost everything ever put out by the California developer makes for a good LAN experience – especially WarCraft III’s vast number of custom maps and modes. Even World of WarCraft, assuming an already in place play group, will benefit from the closeness of friends.

Defense of the Ancients/Heroes of Newerth/League of Legends – The nerd rage produced by this genre is unrivaled and will give hours of entertainment to the right group. However, be wary of the learning curve associated and try not to scare anyone off.

Minecraft – I wasn’t 100% positive you’d have heard of this seldom talked of indie title, but am giving you the benefit of the doubt. Rest assured, this is just as enthralling at a LAN as everywhere else. A weekend project can produce real triumphs.

Team Fortress 2/Counter Strike – Some people will base their entire LANs around just Valve’s shooters, others just a few hours. Whoever you play with, wherever you do it, chances are they’ll pop up. They’re brilliant. Not much more to be said.

———–

So this is a piece that I started with a lot more enthusiasm than I finished with.  It’s not as good as I wanted it to be, I didn’t have as much knowledge on the subject as I thought I did and it doesn’t flow as well as I’d like.  I don’t hate it, but I’d like it if it was better.  The “Memorable Quote” thing turned out about as well as I thought it would, which is nice.

In the end, however, lists just aren’t very good.  One of the editors I sent this to pointed this out, along with the fact that they were (and he made sure to say he wasn’t trying to be rude, just stating a simple fact) very easy to do.  A very, very good one (such as particularly large Top X lists or incredibly well researched ones) is still excellent, in my opinion, but one such as this just isn’t worth money to a magazine or website.  This will probably be the last I do unless something really catches my eye.

If you have any thoughts on the matter, please, leave them below.  It’d be nice to approve a comment.

Last in my improvement series (for today, anyway) is this. It’s pretty long and before you go in, was written from what I considered to be a technical standpoint. End of the day it focusing a little more on the engine than just the game. So if you think I talk about graphics too much and then don’t mention it as a flaw, that’s intentional. Enjoy!

My E3 best in show was never really up for debate. Anyone who knows me could have predicted that Battlefield 3 would come out on top. There was actually reasonable competition from some directions – Mass Effect 3 and Call of Duty had good showings – but DICE’s flagship won out in a number of important respects. Let’s start at the top: their demo was the one and only on stage using a mouse, keyboard, tower and monitor.

Now, I /am/ horribly biased in the direction of my home platform and will argue from now until Geforce and ATI decide on a merger about its superiority over every generation of consoles, but lets actually look at this logically: it was, by far, the prettiest god damn thing. Despite showing little more than a desert and a few tanks, no one came away thinking “well that was alright, but the engine is awful” The technical superiority was easy to see from the detailed interiors to the wonderful sweeping landscape.

When an engine is developed specifically for a game, as Frostbite 2 has been for BF3, and also specifically the PC, this is the kind of quality we can expect. With a lack of DX9 support, and thus no Windows XP, it’s clear DICE are very serious and cutting no corners in making a beautiful game that runs at the best frame rates possible. Their presentations on the engine often point out that the techniques they avoid are too expensive in terms of GPU and CPU time for what they want to do; not that they are technically inferior from a graphical standpoint. And it’s working – while the public machines that have been available at E3 and Dreamhack are by no standards budget choices, it has been confirmed that there was only a single graphics card. It won’t take a re-mortgage just to have a GPU capable of running this game and aging machines should be able to run on medium settings or down. The requirement of DX10 or higher is a trend that has been building momentum, and graphics cards from over four years ago are capable. This also remains the only significant difference between acceptable specs for Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3.

Gameplay and, specifically in this genre, gunplay are paramount to true excellence. The sound and animation of characters and weaponry plays a big part in these factors being of the highest caliber. Mere glances at trailers show that DICE are ready and willing. The E3 single-player presentation was effectively Frostbite porn, and it got away with it too. Two and a half minutes until any action and it’s still an enthralling watch? Something has been done right. Impact effects are on a new tier: every bullet splinters surfaces while glass shatters and panels fall when exposed to fire, the animation of a one on one fist fight is sublime.

Larger scale effects such as the artillery strikes and sweeping vistas at E3 or the earth-shattering conclusion to the Fault Line footage are simply amazing. First thoughts go to, of course, Call of Duty’s similar set pieces. In this respect, Battlefield 3 is everything Modern Warfare and its peers are and then some. Blinding light and deafening sound, perfect placement of different elements to create the most incredible scene possible. This a game that uses an earthquake to collapse a building onto a helicopter next to the jeep it just rocked you out of. All powered by Destruction 3.0 which, right now, appears to be the biggest multiplayer draw.

Bad Company 2′s destruction effects were a sight to behold at the time, a revolution that changed the way the game was played and made tank driving and artillery calling a pleasing experience every time. The new version creates an experience that is utterly unrivaled. Much larger buildings collapse in a startlingly accurate way, even members of the US Army themselves commented on the attention to detail and adherence to reality and it proved a fan favourite among those attending E3. With rumours of mod tools circulating, this engine could prove a home for some of the best experiences of the next year.

Specifics on multiplayer are filtering out, including class information. Battlefield veterans will notice some differences, the Assault class now incorporating the med pack, allowing them to take as much as they can deal out. Engineer and Recon are remarkably similar to previous incarnations, taking out tanks/walls and long-rage spotting/sniping respectively. The nicest touch is that the Support class, now packing a high powered LMG, will receive points for suppressing fire – constant near misses that keep opponents ducking while others get into position. The potential for tactical play is mouth watering – engineers drop a piece of cover forcing enemies to reposition; support provide a resupply as they keep those same opponents down in their new, less secure homes; assault flank around and evict them while Recon cover approaches and spot additional targets. Throw in a healthy dose of tanks, jets, IFVs and artillery and you have a recipe for greatness.

The mixing pot are the maps. A dedication to providing differing styles of play has been a recent promise. E3 and Dreamhack example map Operation Metro showed the difference between this and previous incarnations – rather than a single wide open area or even an entire island to fight over, Battlefield 3 provides varying environments. This single rush map goes from a large outside park, to the depths of Paris underground and then up again for an explosive finish outside the stock exchange. According to DICE’s development blog, each part of this level is big enough for a reasonable team deathmatch. We’re talking /massive/ scale.

As October 25th approaches expect a constant flow of information from DICE on both Battlefield 3 and Frostbite 2. Both are set to take the gaming world by storm and, for the engine specifically, there is no reason to believe this will be their last outing. Be it 3rd party development, other DICE games or a simple expansion to BF3, we’re looking at the latest revolution. Get ready.

—-

Improvements:

• The first two paragraphs are awful set ups to the one actually relevant line about how the E3 demo was very pretty. They meander, attempt humour, have out of place faux-quotes, show me to be a PC-fascist (pointless almost everywhere, certainly in the PC-focused publication this was sent to), mention other games much too passively – they just aren’t very good.

• And I keep going. Previews are, at least from my point of view, meant to be more positive than a review would be, but this is quite ridiculous. Look how great the PC is! Isn’t the PC awesome! Get on with it Ben. What’s clear about cutting out Windows XP, at that point in your writing, is that they’re cutting out a semi-significant portion of the userbase and that some people are going to have to get an upgrade. I go on to save myself with some decent points on their dedication to prettiness, but if you’re actually still reading at this point that’s no thanks to me.

• My usual strength in pacing sort of evaporates at the end of paragraph four. It’s so poor that it seems odd that I didn’t notice it on a re-read. This is the kind of thing that I would normally edit out. The beginning of this is quite good, I think, particularly pointing out that despite nothing actually happening in one of the trailers, it’s still most excellent.

• Things pick up in Paragraph 6. I’m back in home territory – explaining what’s awesome about an FPS. There’s some wording flaws that could use proper explanation, but when I’m being enthusiastic my writing just feels better. Comments on what may or may not be wrong in this section would be useful.

• The flow from technical description into actual gameplay details is well done. Multiplayer proves a fine segway and I pulled it off pretty well. Once I’m into the multiplayer, I actually explain the gameplay and describe what I mean. The second half of this piece is massively stronger than the first. The play example is a little long winded but gets the point across and does a good job of allowing the reader’s imagination to run wild.

• Conclusion of the piece is a little rushed and needed some more summing up, but it’s okay. The piece as a whole is a combination of a sub-par half and an alright half. Attempting to write in a tech-savvy manner when I’m not tech-savvy was the obvious flaw, and it’s clear I don’t have the necessary knowledge, based on this piece.

Another sample, this time without the benefit of having had a major issue pointed out to me by a professional editor. Writing this before I re-read and point out flaws, this is actually one of my favourite pieces in a while that I’m very proud of. Really shows my passion and style. Let’s see what I think after another read.

Bulletstorm is a game that made an entire room full of my friends cheer. That, by itself, has to be worth something. There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary (for Bulletstorm) happening on screen, and I’m not some StarCraft professional; a magical master of the keyboard and mouse. It’s just that this is a singleplayer game that naturally becomes a spectator friendly experience. Controlling it is all the better.

This might not seem all that incredible, every game we stick with is fun to watch and fun to play; that’s why we keep going – but Bulletstorm turns it up to 11. Further than 11: it breaks the dial off and throws it at you. In every area it’s over the top, in every way. Going for the “high score” is the oldest gaming goal in the book; here it’s measured in tens of thousands via the medium of looking cool and being a badass. A headshot has always been an impressive feat, rewarded with extra damage and a quicker kill; here there are bonuses for leg shots, throat shots, sustained fire, even the self-explanatory “rear entry”. Alternate fire modes have been hanging around gaming for over a decade; this has controllable, explodable sniper bullets (points for taking out multiple enemies with clever positioning of a tagged target, naturally) and shotgun rounds that act more like Half-Life 2′s Gravity Gun delivered saw blades… you get the idea.

All this could be garnered from advertising materials and promotional videos. What isn’t so obvious is the world: the vistas are incredible – run down cities with literal skyscrapers and bottomless canyons. Electric radiation storms, terrifically giant wheels, crashed spacecraft. If it looks good and it could theoretically kill someone, it’s in this game. But they aren’t simply backdrops to the carnage, they /are/ the carnage – the environment is such an integral part of the gameplay that where you fight is as important as who or what you do it with. Even the weapons fall in line with the rawness of each location, obviously clobbered together from spare parts and barely functioning but capable of sudden, explosive violence.

Both share one other attribute, most important of all – they’re just /fun/. Stupid and ridiculous, but fun. Every area is packed with explosives and hazards, even the ceilings have a tendency for spikes and detonations, exploitable thanks to the signature leash device. The leash works just as well with personal weaponry, roping people in for glorious blows to the chest from the four barreled (FOUR!) shotgun or making them helpless in the face of your rocket propelled drill launcher. Enemies explode into showers of gore, machine gun and grenade launcher wielding “mini-bosses” have their heads ripped off or are thrown into the air and splattered all over the floor – every single kill is a visceral display of graphics fidelity just as much as the levels themselves.

Lets get something very clear: on anything from half decent graphics settings on up to maximum over-ultra, this is a game that is amazing to behold. The Unreal Engine is doing work here and renders wonderfully both indoor and outdoor sections. If you’re able to turn every setting to full do so – for goodness sake, borrow the biggest monitor you can find and immerse yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

People Can Fly understand one very important fact – combat has to look and feel perfect for an FPS, no matter the writing or engine, for it to be a good game. They knew this and they pulled it off. Environments provide differing challenges, enemies are varied and smart, every action is rewarded with some ridiculously named achievement or, at the very least, a feast for the eyes and ears. There are few frustrations beyond trying as hard as possible to be as much “the boss” as possible. A small issue may be that the ability to only choose two of your weapons to carry at once limits your potential; or that ammo in the world is scarce and mostly bought using the mentioned badass points, but it’s hard to be negative in the face of such raw, unbridled enjoyment.

Alright, I hear you cry, what about the substance. The plot, the dialog, the voice acting, the flow of the game. Here’s the biggest shock: they’re superb. Stupidly, insanely silly and aware one hundred percent of how macho-ridiculous the game is and pulling it off better than anyone else. It’s the game Duke wishes it was, it’s who Serious Sam grew up to be. There’s more swearing than the engine room of the Titanic and so many ideal little lines that say “yes, we get how stupid we’re being.” It mirrors the rest of the game – a focus on laugh out loud entertainment over anything else.

Similarly, the characters themselves are, if cliché, brilliantly put together. Constant team mate and robo-Asian Ishi Sato is brooding and quiet, but with a hint of humour at his situation that just isn’t found elsewhere. Public enemy number one Sorrano isn’t just a bad guy, he’s insultingly bad. He taunts you, mocks you, calls you worthless and tricks you. He’s a villain in every respect. The lead female, Trishka, provides a no bullshit angle that far too few games aspire to, never mind achieve and is graced with the best line in the game.

I could go on and on, about how the boss fights (while not as outstanding as the rest of the game) are not the gigantic pitfalls that ruin so many of the genre. About the set pieces, each so visually stimulating and outrageous they deserve reviews of their own. But I’ll leave you with this: I leash a guy towards me, instantly switching back to the sniper rifle and fire, no scoping him in the head from close range causing a satisfying explosion of gore.

“Fuck” comes a voice from next to me, “Ben you are the best. This game is incredible.”

94%

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Improvements:

• The attempt to explain that I’m not a god of video gaming probably comes out poorly. I think it’s written right in terms of grammar and punctuation, but is still confusing, particularly this early in the piece. I’m write thoughts on the overall framing of the piece in a second.

• Know what would make Paragraph 2 good? At any point explaining that points mean prizes. It would improve it _so much_. It doesn’t even need to be in that paragraph, but so long as it was explained somewhere close to pointing out how awesome you can be that there is a benefit to it too. Again, it’s a description thing. The “you get the idea” at the end might be a misstep, particularly considering the start of the next paragraph, it doesn’t flow well.

• Wow, I never actually explained why the environment is important. It very definately is, but god knows why? This would clearly have been the place to explain kicking and leashing and expand on the ways to get points. Again, too busy saying how nice looking it all is and not why that actually matters.

• As opposed to what I do in the next paragraph, which is mention the leash but not what it actually does. Why does it help put enemy’s on the ceiling? Surely a leash would keep them close? Seeing as the leash segways perfectly into the purchasing system, this would have been a fine place to explain that as well.

• Paragraph 6 is an odd one. It’s very good at getting its point across, but feels like a mid-season recap to the rest of the piece. Nothing particularly new, other than “this game is pretty good at being an FPS” is presented. Eventually it was used as an utterly lame attempt at explanation of one of the games most basic mechanics and an easy way to show the score isn’t going to be 100%

• Everything except the bit where I talk about “so many little lines” is fine in Paragraph 7, but this almost ruins it. It feels much too like cock-sucking than stand-up praise to me. The conclusion to the paragraph does a good job of holding it up, but explaining the same concept differently would have been a benefit.

• The character summary makes a good point – that the character’s in this game are excellent – but misses out in some important respects. For a start, it’s basically a list. Secondly, rather than actually saying anything about the quite well characterised PC who is, wonderfully, not the silent protagonist that seems to have become the norm in video games of late, I simply talk about three of the main characters. There’s even some slight spoilers in there, in that it confirms that Sarrano remains a large part of the plot. Trishka is probably the weakest part, despite her being arguably my favourite character.

• Saying that you could say more, but you’re not going to is dangerous in a review. It basically says either “I’m lazy” or “There wasn’t enough room in my word count for me to explain everything I wanted to”. Here, I was trying to stick to about 1000 words, and did so. However, if I spent a little less time waxing lyrical on the game and explained some mechanics, maybe I would have room for these things.

• The overall structure – that I sat in my room and friends of mine enjoyed the game as much as I did – may not have been a good choice. It’s unique and frames the piece nicely, but makes me sound like a bit of a tremendous twat. I don’t hate it, and would do it the same again, but with twice as much room it would have been a lot better.

• I still think this is a good example of my writing, unfortunately it’s a good example of the flaws and the talent. Let me know what you think.

Gonna throw up a few pieces I recently sent off to an opportunity to which the answer was a very nice “no thanks”. Self improvement’s the plan, so at the bottom you’ll see my criticisms of myself. Enjoy!

Beat Hazard is an incredibly violent video game. Not in the standard blood, guts and gore way but that every single aspect feels like three rounds with a boxing instructor. From the second the loading screen ends there are bright flashes, jarring sound effects and epilepsy warnings. Even the simple task of selecting game modes has more particle effects than what one might reasonably expect to find in an entire indie title. This isn’t “ride your music”, this is “be ridden”.

It’s fucking brilliant.

The idea of constantly ramping up the intensity of the action is common in video games and, when done correctly, the part I most enjoy. Beat Hazard is /all/ ramp. Between the high speed of my play list and some clever coding, Beat Hazard produces a roller coaster ride of ridiculous gunfire and infinite targets. Pushing the difficulty and feedback all the way up produces an almost impossible but beautiful canvas of destruction. The problem is, it had no depth.

Until the recent Ultra update that is. Before, Beat Hazard felt like an incredibly slick tech demo but lacked actual game. A brilliant concept without the execution it needed to be truly great or hold attention. Now, for about the price of a bottle of Coke or 3% of a AAA title, the amount of content has been doubled. The new progression system is probably the best – allowing players to buy perks when they rank up, and then improve them with money earned during levels. It allows a wide degree of customization and lets you play the way you want to. In addition, a massive scope of possible difficulties is provided, from the lowest setting with extra lives and more starting weaponry to the highest with nothing but bonuses for surviving and /not/ shooting.

The plethora of new ways to play peaks at Boss Rush, an incredible survival game type where nothing but the biggest opposing ships show up. As time continues and waves pass, it’s easy to have three or four on screen at once, each firing smaller ships, laser beams, homing missiles and all other manner of deadly projectiles. For your defense come the triple punch of super powered new weapons that can all be improved further: up to the point where you start with nine of each and they all devastate an entire screen of enemies within seconds. Very useful for getting out of a tight spot.

Some missteps remain. Certain boss turret types remain much harder to see, dodge or avoid due to the chaos occurring on screen. Dying can lead to a string of being so underpowered it is impossible to escape, as you are knocked from “Beat Hazard” status down to what is comparatively a shopping trolley – though this may be more my fault than anything for insisting on “Suicidal” difficulty. These are naught but gripes however; Beat Hazard is now a true competitor to Audiosurf for the best way to play your music, just so long as your eyes can take it.

84%

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Improvements:

• As pointed out by the editor I sent this off to, maybe, you know, actually say what Beat Hazard is at some point in the review Ben? That might be good, hmm? Honestly I was actually a little worried about this just after I sent it off and proved to be right. Very easy way to improve, thankfully.

• Paragraph 3 is pretty sloppy. The first sentence isn’t particularly interesting or informative, in my opinion. I never explain what I mean by feedback. The tense shift at the end is awkward as all hell, I thought it worked when I first wrote and re-read it but honestly, not so sure.

• I often find my own humour to be fucking awful on a re-read, but I think the attempt at describing the price could have been better just as a numerical value. This is a minor issue, Paragraph 4 is pretty slick.

• Again, 5 starts with a lack of description. What is a wave? What do I mean by survival game type? These things seem obvious to me but I’ve played the game and others. If this was your first ever video game review, you’re going to be confused all to fuck. This confusion will stop you enjoying the rest of the paragraph (assuming you don’t give up all together), which is alright from a “know exactly what I’m talking about standpoint” but is probably vague from a “do I want to buy this game I’ve never heard of” standpoint.

• Ending is a bit of a rushed mess of explaining what’s wrong and still coming out the otherside with a positive view so the score is anywhere near correct. Again, what is “Beat Hazard” status? Why is dying so bad? What’s a boss turret type? Even when I was writing that I thought it was a little vague, but assumed the strength of the rest of the piece would hold it up – not realising that there was actually quite a large amount of vague throughout.

• Overall, I tried to cram way too much “art” into a 500 word piece that needed more description. Beat Hazard isn’t part of the FPS/RTS/RPG trifecta where you can basically use one of your word count and three characters to explain exactly what’s going. The issue here is that I haven’t read enough recently. If there was a sign I need to resub to something, or at the very least actually read the long articles I see that I’m always so lazy about doing so with, this is it. Not an awful piece, but I can do better and I will do better.

So, um, let’s talk about Duke Nukem Forever. I was, honestly, looking forward to this game. I didn’t spend my entire adult life reading about the endless delays and engine changes, the development mishaps and funding cataclysms. I didn’t work on those articles or attend the E3 presentations they were based on. I grew up reading them. For as long as I can remember, Duke has been gaming’s joke. The fat, dumb, lovable companion to the mainstream’s dashing hero.

I was in attendance for the revival though. From 2007 through to now, I paid every bit of attention to the slow, horrible death of Duke Nukem Forever and its miraculous revival. I never stopped betting on Duke, I got friends excited, I was sickeningly positive. The trailers made me laugh – so blatantly over the top; a wonderful parallel line to the greatness of Bulletstorm. They were fucking bringing it, finally, after years and years and years.

It looked like everything I wanted: a game that just didn’t care. A combination of non-stop action and teenage humour. The jokes would be crass but clever, the action would be varied and explosive, a heroic return to classic 90s action. Basically, I bought into the hype. It’s not uncommon for me – I really enjoy being excited about video games, even when I know I’m being sold a story. Under the surface, despite my outward confidence, I knew there was a chance it wouldn’t be everything I hoped. More than a chance, almost a certainty.

As we approached release, the exact nature of DNF came to the fore. It was … just a little seedy. A little on the wrong side of Benny Hill, just too close to the back alley behind the theatre rather than the classy burlesque stage show itself. Things began to spiral – stripping browser games, nude wallpapers, panty shots, “girls of” videos. I should have known, really, that it was boding badly. But, it was just low-brow, misdirected marketing right? Much as it has happened before, those not making the game were selling a different thing to what was in the box. They’d taken the lowest common denominator and sold to it.

And even if it was. Even if it was a hopeless, sexist mess of a game with cheap penis jokes and toilet humour, everything the booty-smackin’ previews and blowjob intros promised; I still had confidence.

I got six hours into Duke Nukem Forever in the end. It is, by far, one of the most mediocre games I have been unfortunately unable to avoid playing. It had one shot, one chance to still be great; at the least good. The unfunny jokes and dated engine, the sexism, stereotypes, boring mechanics, even the two weapon limit could have been saved by one, apparently unattainable thing. This is why, even when I knew it wouldn’t be everything I hoped, I thought it would get this one thing right and I would at least get to the end with a smile on my face.

But.

The guns were not fun to shoot. Duke’s bullets didn’t feel right, they didn’t seem to impact anything. His railgun doesn’t penetrate a pigcop’s head, frying the brain within until it explodes with a sickening, satisfying boom; it shines a red flashlight and then a barely related animation plays. Rockets don’t streak through the sky on an inevitable, deadly collision course; they’re sparklers thrown by an angry toddler which end their flight with a soft meow.

This is the key. This is how an FPS can be saved. This is why Call of Duty sells fifty quadrillion copies; why I have nothing but praise for Bulletstorm; why I enjoyed even Homefront more than a game I’d grown up wanting to play: the guns are fun to shoot. Spend time on your engine. Pay for better animation. Get your sounds right. Look at Battlefield 3 for an idea on how to do it the way it should be done.

Even indies do it better – Beat Hazard. It’s not an FPS but the fundamentals are the same: it has the sound and visuals of proper, exciting gunplay down. When explosions begin, they cascade. The smallest of hits have a visible effect. When the big guns are brought out, you know about it, the screen fills with visual feedback and every sense is assaulted. It’s almost too much, but too much is always, always better than too little when it comes to the basics of an enjoyable game.

I don’t think the developers of DNF, or any other game with sub-par gameplay, were stupid. They had problems with time, money, lawsuits, any other number of issues that I can’t even dream of. But, it’s important to know where games went wrong and where they went right. There is room for DNF’s humour in this world. Hell, there’s even room for some of its scummier moments, they’re inevitable. Despite whatever we may think ethically or morally of the content, focus on why it’s an awful video game: it isn’t. fun. to play.

———-

This article could have been a lot different.  It could have been a defence of Duke’s schoolyard humour, his ridiculous machismo.  It might have even offended you, shown me to be a sexist bastard who laughs at anything, the lowest of the low.   But, I never even played the multiplayer.  I didn’t get further than the strip joint level – so laughably out of place and pointless even I found it hard to enjoy.  I can’t defend its boyish charm or ironic boob jokes or whatever bullshit I may or may not have come up with to defend it, because I just don’t care.  I’m on speed dial if someone makes a fun game with objectionable morals.

Wrote this some time ago as my shot at what I think is New Games Journalism?  Whatever, I don’t fucking know, it’s a lot better in retrospect than I thought it was at the time and thought I’d share it with the wider world.

The first time I experienced it, there was something about the Dead Space universe I found enthralling. Murderous undead monstrosities were hardly a unique concept at the time, deep in gaming’s decade of fascination with zombies, but Dead Space had something different – the overall depressing theme; the dark, gritty realism of its future vision; the beautiful animation and voice work and, for me, its unrelentingly frightening nature. It would continuously exude horror, keeping you on your toes through persistent stimulation. It may not have been actually terrifying for the more veteran experts of the genre, but it did what it set out to do – provide an ever switching combination of Cradle-esque eerie horror and trademark id in your face shocks.

And that is why I have read the book, watched the movies, know the story and have ranted on and on about the quality of the game, but haven’t ever actually played more than five hours of Dead Space. Things were going to change for the sequel. I’d pull my pants up, wipe the snot off my face and man up a little. Actually play the game and experience it properly, not six months later on streaming video thanks to some friendly soul from the SomethingAwful forums. I was confident that I was prepared come installation time – I’d watched videos, seen screenshots, read interviews, I’d be fine. This would be easy.

Even the menu seemed against my plan, the constant dark whispering unnerving me quickly. I laughed into the darkness of my room, I was being silly. I felt the need to check video settings, mouse sensitivity, keybinds and volumes. As I did, I glanced at the clock: boy, it was getting late. I could continue this in the morning. I shut the game down. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

I sat down again eighteen hours later, drink on hand, will in place. New game button, a quick splash screen and I was in. Sitting in a chair. This wasn’t so bad. Isaac looked a little miffed at the situation and didn’t seem to be entirely alert or at his best, but at least nothing was trying to kill me. The good doctor across the desk even seemed to be attempting to assi- oh wait, creepy lady.

Pause. Drink. Unpause.

She walked to the desk, her face a blood-soaked mask, and climbed atop it. Her quiet whisperings to Isaac became a scream, filling the entire screen with light.

Pause. Alt-tab. Talk to friends. Unpause.

Reawakening face to face with a panicked doctor, Isaac was still helplessly strapped into a straight-jacket and held fast by the man. Well, at least he was human. The scene was familiar though, I’d seen it somewhere before… A similar scene in the original perhaps? No, that wasn’t right… Oh I remember, yes, it was in a trailer! That was it. Oh. I remember what happens next.

Pause. Drink. Unpause.

With the unique, horrific ripping sounds that are one of the many grim signatures of Dead Space, the man holding Isaac quickly turned into a necromorph, throwing him off in the process. Control was regained and one idea annihilated all others: run. As the asylum spontaneously combusted into gore and violence around him, I ran Isaac through scripted scenes of death and destruction. The idea that perhaps I should avoid the necromorphs didn’t occur to me the first time, hastily trapping me in a corner and ripping poor Isaac to pieces.

Fuck. Reload. Run.

Taking the obvious left turn this time, I got further, through doors and round corners until I reached a seeming safe zone. The game dropped into its second type of horror – creepy, low-key, action-less tension. I came to a corridor. It was the same as any other. It had been a few minutes since there was hint of a necromorph beyond the destroyed scenery and bisected corpses. I knew what was going on here though.

“Oh, game, you think me for a fool! I will hasten down that safe corridor and, lo, be ambushed by some horrible gribbly from beyond the nth veil! Thou shalt not fool my vastly experienced gaming brain!”

Pause. Alt-tab. Communicate these feelings to friends. Unpause.

Halfway down the corridor, nothing happened. Approaching the door, nothing happened. See, the genius of Dead Space, the thing that always made me eventually give up, was the teasing. Everything about the game was designed to breed fear in your brain. The low-tech sci-fi of its interiors, certainly once the villains have had their way with it, are perfectly in sync with the actual bad guys: dark corners, cavernous ceilings, ventilation ducts up the wazoo. It’s space horror’s clichés, but it’s done well, with love.

Nothing, of course, happened. The door opened. A man stood with his back to Isaac.

Pause. Drink. Alt-tab. Complain to friends. Unpause.

Dead Space’s animation is a thing of beauty. This is displayed no better than during the quick-time events that occur when a necromorph gets close enough to grab you. The death animations should you fail are absolutely disturbing. To pass, you slam a key as fast as possible. As Isaac approached the man, I was obviously tentative. With a sudden movement, he turned around shouting and grabbed Isaac, putting a knife to his throat. I was spamming E so hard it took me about 5 seconds to realise it wasn’t actually a quick-time event and I should be listening to plot.

The mysterious gentleman was actually kind enough to cut Isaac from his straight-jacket and point him towards a nearby storage locker. In approaching it, I was very much aware that my back was now to the maniac with the knife. I was, naturally, shocked to find him still standing where he was when I left the poor soul. Then he slit his own throat.

Pause. Drink. “WHAT THE FUCK?” Unpause.

I directed Isaac to tip-toe past the corpse and head down the stairs into the lunch area that could be seen through the large windows the man had been beating his head slowly against – the bits not now covered in gore, that is. The addition of a flashlight and use of Isaac’s arms didn’t actually help: now I just felt even more helpless without the excuse of “well, he’s in a straight jacket”. I came to another corridor. This time, there was light streaming from a doorway. Whether deliberately or by incredible luck, it hearkened back to the opening scene with Isaac’s deceased spouse screaming at us from a table.

My will was stronger this time and I began to move forward. The sound of Dead Space is another of its strengths – it was commented in the GameTrailers review for the game that, with the sound off, parts of it were simply comical as opposed to horrific or exciting. It knows how to use silence and how to puncture it. During combat or action scenes, it is an incredibly loud and aggravating game, disjointed noise and jarring chords mixing with the screams and grunts of whatever is actually happening. In Dead Space 2’s quieter, creepier moments stop and wait for a few seconds and you’ll hear whispers of Isaac’s name. Simply walking around brings bangs and clanging from nowhere as whatever piece of your current location falls apart. Then when something happens, some triggered event of a necromorph appearing or space ship crashing or explosion occurring, the game will jilt you.

ZEEEOUNG. A wheel chair rolls past backwards through the light.

Jump half a foot in the air. Alt-F4. Write article.

—————————–

I swear I discussed bits of this article with someone before, but the one person I shared it with I’m 90% sure didn’t reply (pretty sure that was due to a google bug or some sort as opposed to them not caring).  Either way, hope you enjoyed it.

Trackmania Nations Forever

Simplicity, repetition and an endless drive for perfection are what the world of casual gaming has built a mountain of money on. Nowhere is this more prevalent than TrackMania’s control scheme: arrow keys perform the standard tasks and an easily reachable delete key restarts the level. That key is having its text slowly eroded as I strive for the ever elusive author medal (the ultimate award for those who beat the best time of the creator of the level) on all sixty-five tracks of this addictive racer.

TrackMania sits firmly in the category of easy to learn, hard to master. Right now, after years of play, I sit at 222 medals; placing me 26,474th in the world, 403rd in the UK. The innovation Nadeo have managed within their basic tool set is extraordinary – there is a new trick to every level, something new to master while remembering everything you have already learned.

There are later tracks I cannot even challenge the gold medal time of and two that I cannot complete at all. One is a hyper-difficult twisting gauntlet of ramps, jumps and split second throttle timings. Hit the ramp at the wrong speed, restart. Touch the wall, restart. Misplay the acceleration in or out of a corner, restart. It is a seeming impossibility to maintain this for the full two minutes demanded.

The other untameable track is the big finale, a gruelling sixty lap endurance race. The target time? One hour and change. I’ve never had the patience to attempt completion, never mind the skill to maintain the correct speed throughout. TrackMania does not take any prisoners, even this marathon punishing your mistakes by denying you the other side of a jump due to your lower speed.

And you /will/ make mistakes. You will run the first level five times before getting to the finish line. Twenty more before beating the gold time. Another hundred might net you the author – not that you’ll know it until you do, the fourth tier of prizes hidden from view until a certain number of medals are received.

When you mess up particularly spectacularly – say, taking a ramp at the wrong angle or hitting an obstacle in such a way as to throw you into the air, the game does the single-player equivalent of tea bagging. Assuming you land on your wheels, a quick stunt description will flash up as your opponents race into the distance – “Flip Flap 360!”, “Spin 180!” even “Chained Master Backflip x3 720!!!”: “Congratulations, you /fucked/ up. Start again, kid.”

And you will, every time, until your fingers hurt from holding the accelerator and you’re having nightmares about little green cars speeding ahead out of corners. You’ll keep slamming that delete key and shaving off the microseconds until that medal is yours. Then the game will snort at you, arrogant. You’ll never get them all.

Unreal Tournament 2004

Quake has always been the deathmatch poster boy. Millions loved Arena and its “successor”, Quake Live, is still played the world over with regular tournaments for players at the highest levels of competition and tens of thousands of dollars on the line. But there’s a charm to my preferred Unreal Tournament 2004 that always drags me back.

After digging it out for a local LAN, I’ve been replaying it, mostly offline against the tremendously well balanced bots. I can never decide if it’s the movement or the weapons that most fill me with adoration. There’s a feel to transversing a map in UT2k4 that is unrivalled elsewhere. The obscenely fast pace of basic character movement is just the surface: double jumps add complexity, particularly on the low-grav arenas – once you make that second leap, you’re at the mercy of every sniper until you touch down and can control yourself again.

But what about the rocket launcher? Three barrels, beautiful firing animation, glorious alternate modes, love expressed the way it should be – via heavy ordinance. Nowhere will you find more deliciously colourful or satisfying frags than this game. Arms fly off and the sockets burn, bodies are flung every which way, unidentifiable heaps of red spatter off walls. Between this and its partner in crime, the Flak Cannon (what a name), who wouldn’t shed a tear of joy?

More like who’d care? Dodge-jumping, the perfect, inhuman leap created by the unholy matrimony of double jump and dodge is a glory to behold. With a professional at the reigns – or even a higher level bot – a UT2k4 character model becomes a bullet spewing ballet dancer, dealing out death and looking damn fine doing it. Even from the first person perspective, there’s /something/ wonderful about taking entire rooms in a single bound, pulling a full 180 in the air before landing perfectly on the quad damage and blowing an enemy away in a heartbeat. Slam on the Speed powerup and it’s hard not to laugh – the distances covered are simply obscene.

How about the long range weapons? The Lightning Gun is a genius idea, proving the old adage that adding elemental force to anything makes it more awesome. Or the pinnacle of skill testers, the Shock Rifle? Some might call it cheap, but the satisfaction of a perfect shock combo one-two punch disintegrating a player into red mist is unrivalled. Or throwing on the instagib mutator and revelling in the all or nothing combat, where one miss likely spells your doom.

Both sides of the argument land at one, undeniable fact. Bringing it all together creates an experience like no other. Combined with map knowledge and logical prediction, godlike beauty is created. They’ll run into your rockets, dodge straight into your shock combos, strafe right into flak. They’ll call you an aim-botting, wall-hacking cheater. You’ll know the truth: you’re just better at creating art than they are.

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