Full disclosure before we get started: I didn’t play the first Kane & Lynch game. From what I understand, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men was a pretty average game. Playing the demo of the sequel, released last week, it’s difficult to say if they’ve improved on it because I didn’t think much of this demo at all. It wasn’t that I hated it, I felt completely indifferent about it, which might actually be worse.

Strangely, I played through it three times. I don’t know if that was just because I knew I was going to write about it or just because the demo was so short, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t have any connection to my enjoyment levels.

The story wasn’t really explained (perhaps someone who’s played the first game can tell me if they understood what was going on) but you’re in a restaurant (in Shanghai?), some shit goes down and you start blasting away at some SWAT types. You also fight cops in the streets, back alleys and in some shops. The environments are rendered nicely enough, but they’re so boring to play through; tight, linear shooting galleries full of cookie-cutter enemies that for some reason look incredibly weedy.

Shooting is the bread and butter of the game, so it’s a shame that it feels so weak and unsatisfying. Bullets just don’t feel like they do enough damage and enemies can take some time to eliminate (which is weird since they’re so weedy-looking). One thing I did like was the hit indicators. As in Modern Warfare, when you hit someone you get a little hit indicator that shows up in addition to your standard crosshair. IO Interactive have taken this further by overlaying a mini crosshair where your bullets actually land on their target. This effect is most notable when using shotguns, with multiple markers peppering your enemies. It’s a tiny detail and it doesn’t make amends for the rest of the shooting mechanics, but I liked it a lot.

The game is rendered with a whole load of screen effects designed to emulate a digital handheld camera. The film grain is intense and lights flare and streak across the screen, invoking comparisons with Miami Vice (it was a pretty bad movie but the digital handheld cameras at least made it visually interesting, especially at night). This “YouTube-ification” of the game camera works quite nicely when you’re standing still, but does become a little distracting when moving. The bigger problem is how this sits with the framerate. At this point I’m sure you’re expecting me to slag off the jerky, laggy graphics and perhaps some unsightly screen-tearing issues. In fact, it’s quite the opposite; I think they might have made the framerate too smooth. Before you declare me mental and hurry to close your browsers, hear me out! I found the juxtaposition of camcorder-style visuals and the very smooth framerate (is it running at 60 frames-per-second? It feels like it might be) to be completely at odds with each other. If you’re going to have a handheld camera feel, you need to actually do that; you can’t pick and choose which aspects of the medium you think will be sufficient to be convincing. It feels totally wrong and even if I couldn’t put my finger on what the problem was straight away, it was obvious there was a problem as soon as I started playing.

This awkward mix of styles is compounded greatly when sprinting. Lynch, the somewhat overweight, middle-aged psychotic you play in the demo, can apparently move around at lightning pace, completely destroying any semblance of weight or heft that you would expect of someone his size. Given how cramped the levels are, it seems like there’s rarely any need for that kind of speed especially when it breaks what is meant to be a gritty, realistic atmosphere, so why do it? That isn’t even the end of matters though… there’s also the camera shake to consider. When you’re not sprinting, the camera shake is handled pretty nicely; just about the right amount of “warzone journalist” movement. When you’re sprinting, it feels like you’re running around drunk on a sinking ship.

I already mentioned that the shooting isn’t terribly fun and unfortunately there are a few more gameplay issues that I picked up on. For starters, the AI is pretty bonkers. When firing my gun into the air on a crowded city street, the civilians would often run towards me which doesn’t strike me as a particularly good idea unless you too are carrying a firearm and perhaps a kevlar vest. Some of the civilians sit in their cars, animating away, doing nothing in particular. Again, if you shoot at them they just sit there, trapped in their vehicles doing absolutely fuck all. I can appreciate that allowing them to drive off would cause countless gameplay and level design issues but why not give them an animation to hide down in the footwell out of sight or better yet, unweld the doors and let them escape!

The game is constantly bringing up tooltips to help you familiarise yourself with your abilities. One such tooltip talks about talking hostages and using them as human shields. Brilliant! But wait! It gets better! One of the face buttons is dedicated entirely to that function. Amazing! It does nothing else, it just takes people hostage and holds a gun to their head! Fantastic! So I run out into the street with reckless abandon, madly hammering the B button at every civilian I can see. It’s not working! What’s going on? Come on, I want to take this guy hostage! Why isn’t it working?! Apparently you can’t take civilians hostage, only police and SWAT. Why the heck not, after all they’re normally running towards me anyway! They’re asking for it! It’s stupid, nonsensical game design with arbitrary rules that lead to confusion and frustration. Aren’t I supposed to be an unhinged madman? Would he really be considering the feelings of some dopey civilian when taking them hostage? I don’t think so. Turns out that when you grab an acceptable candidate, the police are happy to shoot through their brother-in-arms to get to you anyway, rendering the entire thing pointless. What a waste of the B button.

The other gameplay feature that I didn’t really understand was when you get “downed” after taking too much damage; you fall to the ground and can crawl around, still able to shoot. In a multiplayer co-op situation one would assume that you defend yourself as you crawl to safety to be picked up by your partner before you bleed out and die. In singleplayer it seems like after you’re downed you can just get up again, right as rain. It wasn’t entirely clear what the seemingly arbitrary rules about death were; was it three downs and you’re out? Is it a certain number of downs in quick succession? Taking too much damage whilst being down? I have no idea. Again, what is the point of the feature if you can just stand up again into cover and act like nothing has happened? It wasn’t clear at all.

I tried the multiplayer; I was looking forward to playing some Fragile Alliance, one of the things most lauded over in the first game… It didn’t work. Reading around a bit on Eurogamer, it seems like a few other people were suffering the same problem. Again, full disclosure: my NAT settings were “Moderate” so that might have been to blame, but it was still disappointing.

For a game I felt so indifferent about, I’ve written rather a lot. I think what annoyed me the most is that they’ve got the bare bones here to make a great third-person shooter but some strange design and style choices let the whole thing down, leaving something that is simply mediocre. Here’s hoping they don’t drop the ball with Hitman 5.

I’m currently sitting (at the time of writing this first draft anyway) on a train to Köping in Sweden. We’re going to a wedding tomorrow, a Swedish-Irish wedding no less! …

And now we’re on our way back! That’s about how much time I had to do any writing. For the record, it was a great wedding (congratulations to Ulrika & Paul) but I don’t think I’ve ever had such a stressful journey as this one – I will be very glad to be home…

I also played the Kane & Lynch 2 demo last week but having it all as one post started to turn it into a bit of a monster so I’ll be posting that separately, later.

Anyway, onto the main bit of gaming I did last week:

LIMBO (XBLA, Xbox 360)

Finished off LIMBO, yay! As reviews and players alike have mentioned, it is rather on the short side, perhaps 3-4 hours in length. For my money though it’s a fantastic 3-4 hours and well worth the 1200MS (roughly £10) price tag.

The game can be broadly divided into three different environments. What’s so great about the opening section is just how bleak and scary it is. As I mentioned last week, I love how wonderfully tactile the game is. This (along with the clever use of sound and pad rumble) really helps sell the idea that you’re just a fragile little boy and that anything can (and will) kill you; there is a genuine feeling of trepidation and fear of what is to come, something I find very few games manage to achieve.

Normally I’d be quite critical of things like hidden insta-death traps, but in this instance I think it actually added something to the experience (and I quite enjoyed it when the game made me jump)! This is something that in other games would be incredibly frustrating and seemingly unfair of the developers to do but it’s handled well here; the checkpointing is forgiving and the nervous trial and error nature of the game just made sense to me within the context of the “story” – we are (presumably) in limbo after all!

Unfortunately by the time you reach the third area, the oppressive, suffocating atmosphere that is so striking in the opening section is somewhat lost and it becomes almost exclusively about the puzzle-solving. This isn’t necessarily the game’s undoing as the puzzles remain fantastically devious throughout, but it is a real shame that this feeling can’t be maintained all the way through to the credits (especially considering how short the experience is).

For the completionists among you, the game also features hidden collectables and they’re tied directly to the achievements. I loved how the achievement descriptions actually provide clues as to their location; a great little touch. I’ve still got quite a few to find!

For those of you who scoff at the idea of paying around £10 for 3-4 hours of quality entertainment, I’d probably wait for it to be Deal of the Week. For everyone else; it’s chuffing brilliant – buy it now!

Medal of Honor (Xbox 360, Multiplayer Beta) – The most ‘beta’ version of any (released) beta I’ve played, so much so that I was surprised that EA had thought to release it in this condition.

The controls and movement were pretty standard (read: a lot like COD:MW2) but shooting however felt a bit inaccurate and unresponsive. Most of my (many) deaths went as follows: 1) walk/run around the map, 2) see a momentary flash of red from the damage indicator, 3) see your player character on the floor, dead.

Every single time I got killed, there was an obvious freeze between catching the first bullet (seeing the damage indicator) and then suddenly being on the floor; it almost felt like the game lagged every time I died. And it did happen every single time. It made for a very uncomfortable, awkward experience.

On the plus side, it looked quite nice (after one respawn, my gun texture decided to not appear, leaving a bright, white gun taking up space on the screen). Hopefully the Beta version will get an update before the game releases, otherwise it could be rather damaging to sales.

Lucidity (XBLA, Demo) – A nice little puzzle game from the LucasArts team that did the Monkey Island 1 update. You steer little Sofi on her ceaseless march through a beautiful dreamscape, utilising various puzzle pieces (abilities) to navigate over, under and round danger.

It looks lovely, the animations are beautiful and there seems to be plenty of challenge and replay value, but I found the controls to be quite fiddly considering there are so few buttons and the way of holding and selecting new puzzle pieces left me feeling a little confused. One for a rainy day and excess MS points perhaps?

Lazy Raiders (XBLA, Demo) – A puzzle game where you rotate the world to move the eponymous lazy tomb raider, Dr. Diggabone, around the map. Rotating the map is fast and responsive, perhaps a little too responsive actually as I found myself getting a little dizzy and disoriented during some of the more frantic moments.

Axel & Pixel (XBLA, Demo) – I’ve played Samorost (which apparently is completely unrelated to A&P, I was surprised to learn) and while this idea worked fine as a little interactive curio on the web, I really couldn’t get into this offering on XBLA. It felt like a point & click adventure minus the thinking and when you consider that I’ve also been playing Monkey Island 2 this week with it’s great puzzles, unforgettable characters and hilarious dialogue… Well, there’s not a lot more to say is there?

There won’t be any spoilers here today, but I think as the weeks go on I might start going into specifics about the things I’ve been up to. Rest assured that any spoilers will be clearly marked, so don’t worry about that!

This week (especially as I’ve played quite a lot), it will be a more general post but eventually I hope to talk at length about my thoughts on the games I play, looking at various aspects from the animation and visual style, through to the controls and gameplay/level design. Hope you enjoy it!

Oh and this list is just the fully-released games I’ve played this week. There’ll be a post a bit later about the various demos and trials I’ve finally got round to testing!

Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Xbox 360) – I finally got round to picking this up just before I went for the interview in Edinburgh. I’d been meaning to get it for ages, but figured I really HAD to at least make a start before going to chat to the guys at R*.

I have found it to be a fantastic DLC package. It’s difficult to sound unbiased, but I loved GTAIV and Episodes from Liberty City is no exception. The characters are as brilliant and colourful as always, although I must admit I haven’t connected with the characters in the same way as I did in IV, in particular the two leads. I know many don’t agree, but I loved Niko as a protagonist; perhaps it’s unrealistic of me to expect to experience the same level of connection with two characters that you don’t spend nearly as much time with over the course of the episodes.

Despite this, the mission design is brilliant and far more fantastical and bombastic than most of the missions from the original game; loads more “blockbuster” action than the grittier, slightly more ground experience of IV (the base-jumping in particular is great fun). New experiences, characters, weapons and missions for an already great game? What more could you ask for from GTA DLC?

Monkey Island 2: Special Edition (XBLA) – There’s not really much to say about this one. It was a brilliant game when I played it on the family’s 386 back in the day and it’s just as good now. The updated graphics are beautiful (it looks way better than The Secret of Monkey SE released not long ago incidentally), the voice acting is great and it’s a fantastic price to boot!

It took me a little while to get used to the new control scheme (there’s the default choice of directional control, where Guybrush’s movement is linked directly to the left stick or the updated point & click controls of MI1:SE), but overall it’s a better, slicker system that also makes inventory navigation much easier.

LIMBO (XBLA) – This game is brilliant. I don’t even want to say too much about, you really should just play it. A puzzle platformer with real style and grace. It’s a grim, bleak game that plays out like Braid’s darker, twisted brother. One of the stand-out things about it is just how good the game feels; the beautifully balanced controls, subtle animations and simple gameplay all work together to create a wonderfully tactile experience. Play it now!

Alan Wake (Xbox 360) - I’ve finally got round to starting this, having been quite excited by everything I’d seen in the (long, protracted) run up to release. My early impressions are very good. I’m only just into the third chapter, but so far it’s proved to be an enjoyable romp and the story is intriguing enough to keep you playing, despite little niggles (such as having to go into menus to listen to the manuscript extracts you find dotted around the world).

The combat mechanics are excellent and provide a great deal of tension and strategy as to how best to dispose of your attackers. Said enemies do have a habit of sneaking up on you though – they seem to have mastered the art of near-silent running!

I should make a quick mention of the graphics, which are excellent and the incredible atmosphere the team at Remedy have managed to create. I am finding it quite creepy at the moment, but I am a big wuss when it comes to scary films/games, so your mileage may vary.

I’m definitely going to be talking more about Alan Wake as I play more, so stay tuned!

Blur (Xbox 360) – I finished blur’s singleplayer game quite a while ago, but  I’ve still been diving into the multiplayer now and again. The races are fast and furious and the turnaround time between events short enough to make it incredibly compulsive; it’s very easy to have “just one more go”.

As he says, “believe it or not, these guys spend a lot of time making the games you love, and they have a lot of knowledge to share.” Now, I don’t know if I could make such claims of myself, but it’s definitely a noble idea – I’ve long believed that games developers (and not just the famous, high-ups that you’ve probably already know about) should get a bit more recognition for the hard work they put in to make the games that you play!

It’s still early days (you can already find me on the Artists page) but the site needs more blogs and more input! The more the better! If you’re involved in games development and you’ve got a blog, you should get yourself over there and submit your site for listing. If you don’t have a blog, maybe you should consider getting one? GameDevBlogs.net also has a presence on Twitter, so get going!

If nothing else, it should ensure I keep my blog more up-to-date! ;)

People have been asking me how my first week has been. By it’s nature, the first week at a new place of work is rarely as exciting as you imagine it will be. Alas, it’s true!

You tend to get bogged down in paperwork, reading documentation and the new tools and procedures you need to learn, when all you really want to do is crack on with work. Of course, in this instance having been a Maya user almost exclusively since I started university, it will be a little while before my work performance in MotionBuilder will be able to keep up with my enthusiasm. When you throw in trying to remember everyone’s name and how to get in and out the building without getting lost, it’s a wonder new-starters get anything done in their first week!

I’d never really thought about it before (and I don’t suppose you will have either unless you’ve changed 3D software), but one of the worst things about using new software is learning the camera controls. If you feel like you can’t navigate a scene properly, it massively compounds the sensation that you have no flipping idea what you’re doing and that learning the new software is going to be a near-impossible task. If only you could remember what button combination controls pan and which activates tumble, you’d be able to concentrate on learning the important stuff… the new stuff!

People are telling me not to worry about it and that I’ve got plenty of time to settle in, which is really nice but it does highlight the sense of frustration; that the software and workflow are hindering my ability to just get on with it and if only I can get that stuff out of the way, the fun stuff can really begin.

I had a little breakthrough on Thursday when I got a good bit of pace going, turning out three or four animation cycles. On Friday a totally new thing landed at on my desk and I felt completely lost again! 8)

Despite all that and with a great deal of help from Andy and the other guys on the team, I already feel like I’m starting to get used to MotionBuilder, it’s camera controls and it’s slightly obscure “thought process”. It’s only been a week; I suppose I ought not to worry too much!

My first week at Rockstar was absolutely brilliant; the people, the project, the office are all completely awesome, but it was  intermingled with a heck of a lot of frustration! I should also say that (since I wrote most of this post last week) I feel like I’ve made tons of progress in MotionBuilder today and yesterday – things are definitely starting to click!

I think I’ll have to do a post about the bonkers way MotionBuilder works/thinks sometime soon!

Twitter is incredibly flaky in this regard; 99 times out of 100 it claims Twitter is over capacity. Apparently the maximum image size limit allowed is 800k, but I rarely get it to upload unless the image is somewhere in the region of 200k (a.k.a. hideously compressed).

Get it sorted please Twitter!

Anyway, here it is in action:

Should you wish to follow me on Twitter, you can do so here: http://www.twitter.com/asphaltOnline

I am aware that this post might come across as a shameless, shallow attempt to gain more followers, but it’s really just so I can show off my new background, honest guv!

Oh and the Rockstar website does have some awesome wallpapers and avatar images by the way. If you’re into that sort of thing, you should definitely visit the Rockstar Downloads page.

So first things first! A new city to explore! Edinburgh! 

Edinburgh is awesome, I absolutely love it already. Mind you, moving into an amazing apartment for a month whilst I find a place of my own doesn’t hurt! 

It’s lovely: 

Of course, it can’t last forever and eventually we’ll have to find somewhere else to park our stuff. We had quite a few viewings last week and I think we’ve found somewhere to stay. As long as the application goes OK, we should be able to move in quite soon. Rather inconveniently, the weekend we’re leaving this apartment is the same weekend we go to Sweden for a wedding. Very bad timing. 

Anyway, as I was saying, Edinburgh is awesome. It does have it’s fair share of weirdos too though! I’ve already had one mad old woman threaten me for accidentally bumping into her (I tried to dodge out of her way, but she ploughed into me, then gave me a death stare and swore at me!) and there are quite a lot more daytime drunks than I was anticipating. 

On the other hand, within an hour of landing in Scotland I’d already seen someone playing the bagpipes. Swings and roundabouts!

I’ll be uploading and backdating my work from the last few weeks as soon as I remember where I put the the files ;)

Of course, the other reason I want to take a break is because I’ll be starting at Rockstar North next week! It seems foolish to spend the first 3 months of a new job, in a new city, being locked away in a new apartment when I should be out socialising, learning my way around, making friends and throwing my all into the new job!

I’ll do another post about the move up to Edinburgh, but for up-to-minute news you can just follow my Twitter feed or search for the hashtag #operationEdinburgh ;)

http://messypolygons.blogspot.com/

(WARNING: May contain arty nude people!)

Marie is actually coming back from her 10 months in Florence, Italy rather soon, but doubtless it will continue to be updated as finishes new work, but it’s beautiful stuff — you should check it out!